June 25, 2007
I've been nervous about going to Madagascar for the last few days: butterflies in the stomach nervous. I was telling David it's because I always worry before we go to a poor country. I've wanted to work in Africa for so long that before going I'm afraid something will make me not like it and then what will I do? If something happens that I just can't deal with, if the poverty suddenly seems overwhelming and I don't know how to cope, then everything I've planned to do since I was about ten becomes meaningless.
For some reason the fear about coming to Madagascar has seemed worse than before Malawi or The Gambia. It's probably because of the guidebook, which, while the author clearly adores the country, is full of dire-sounding warnings that I've blown out of proportion. It's written for people who've never travelled to Africa, or poor countries, something I should have realized.
At one point, sitting on the plane while David tried to figure out somewhere nice to be for my birthday, to make up for being in China last year, feeling as though the butterflies where practising their most acrobatic moves, I started paying attention to what was being shown on the screen at the front of the cabin. It was clearly a documentary about Madagascar with host of the zebu, hump-backed cows; men in old, worn clothes using a hammer and chisel for some masonry work; and village scenes of children smiling nervously at the camera. And I suddenly remembered a conversation with Papa and Eleanor in Inverness during which we discussed feeling different from those around us and how that made us feel. I went off, in that way I do, about feeling different and it being something that travelling has allowed me to come to terms with. One of the things I love about travelling is even though the act of travelling makes me different, it also makes me realize how similar everyone everywhere in the world is. Even with radically different cultures, value systems, ways of earning a living, I have yet to go somewhere and think, "I don't recognize these people." At least in some way; because we're all very similar in our interactions with family and friends. And seeing the five minutes of the documentary let me see the Malagasy as people, instead of imagining them as something 'other.' Something to be nervous about.
All of which is to say: we're here, and it's lovely. Tana, the short name for Antananarivo, Madagascar's capital city, is much like other large African cities we've seen. As soon as David realized that the "bus" we were waiting for to take us from the airport was a bush taxi, all of his nervousness left him. We definitely know how to do bush taxis. The ride is was lovely, though squashed. There was playing between bus drivers about who could pick up more passangers, which was quite funny. Getting directions to the hotel we'd picked couldn't have been easier: we kept stopping people on the 2km walk to make sure we were going in the right direction, and everyone of them was very nice. Even if they hadn't the faintest clue how to identify our position on the map we held out.
We plan to do a very rough circumnavigation of the island, heading south down the east coast, going north up the west coast and then taking a break at a tiny island off the north east coast before heading back into Tana to fly out in 11 weeks. We're mostly going to the national parks, so internet access will be necessarily spotty, but we'll write when possible. And after all the nervousness, I can't wait to get going!
