Arriving on a Jet Plane: Madagascar

Madagascar. One destination that has been first among equals in anticipation, for both its 'out thereness' as well as it personal connection - Madagascar. Even the name is exotic and unique. We have been to many, many amazing and beautiful places along this journey, more than i had predicted actually. Now we are arriving at this eagerly awaited island/continent and i do not know what to expect.

On taxi-brousse out of Tana

A little background might help; Mu spent over 2 years doing the peace corps in a village, Marofandalia, near the central west coast of the large island. There she worked with local villagers to increase the sustainability of their agriculture practices, as well as established a tourist gift shop that has been extremely successful in bringing cash into the community, still running over 7 years later. We will be visiting the village in a few days, which brings excitement, and apprehension, for both my lovely wife and me.

Muriel has just returned from these two years when we met, so there is a strong sense of continuity from that time to our relationship, and marriage. Many of our first times hanging out, the conversation would drift to her time there, what an adventure it was and how different Durham, NC and the States in general was from her time in the village. A dominant thread throughout these talks was the burning desire she has to help those less fortunate than herself, and she had most certainly operationalized that in her time in the Peace Corps. It is abundantly clear that this time in Madagascar had a profound affect on Mu, helping her crystalize her world view. When someplace is that important to your life partner, and someone you greatly love and admire, that palce necessarily becomes deeply personal and important to you. Call it the Transitory Love Property. And now, we will be back in this place, and i could not be more excited.

A little background on Madagascar might be helpful, as it is far removed from the American conscience. I imagine most people only know of it through the Disney movies, or perhaps the Discovery Channel. The island is sometimes called the 8th continent due to its size and geographic isolation. It is over 1,000 kms long and 500 kms wide, and the poor state of its roads make it feel much larger. I have taken to using travel times, and not distance, as the primary metric for measuring the size of places. We took roughly 12 hours to drive 1,200 kilometers from the southern coast up to Jo-burg in South Africa, yet it took 20.5 hours to travel 640 kms in the taxi-brousse (think a combi van) from Antananarivo, the sprawling capital, to Mu's banking town, Morandava. Which journey felt grander, hotter and harder? Those taxi-brousse kilometers sure felt longer, even if it is half as far. In a a way the actual physical distance is irrelevant, all that matters is how long, and how comfortable, the journey, as that is what is of material impact on my being.

Morondava Beac

Back to Madagascar, the island is a bit of a lost soul tectonically, as the island separated from mainland Africa about 180 million years ago. After roughly another 80 million years, India broke off from the northern shelf of Madagascar and made its way north, while Madagascar remained more or less in its present location, about 400 kms of the shores of mainland Africa, primarily Mozambique. The isolation did wonders for the biological diversity, as the island is home to tons of species that are not found anywhere else on earth. For example, it is the only place in the world with lemurs, which are a cousin of monkeys (and hence people). It will be a thrill to see so many endemic species of flora and fauna over these next 3 weeks.

Anthropologically, people only arrived on the island about 2,000 years ago, as traders making their way around the Indian ocean waters came across the shores. It has been a melting pot of African, Asian and European influences for roughly 500 years, and was controlled during the colonial period by the French. These 3 major cultures mix quite fluently and deeply on the island, with parts of the Malagasy culture feeling deeply embedded and indebted to each. Beyond those three larger threads, there are 18 individual tribes on the island, which share the basic Malagasy language yet can have different diets, words, and cultures. But they all love rice, 3 meals a day of rice if they can.

Rice paddies in the central highlands

The political present is quite a bit murkier, as the country continues to feel the effects of a coup in 2009 that installed the current president to power. This came several years after Mu left the country, and it will be an ongoing inquiry for her to try and discern the real impact of this coup on the lives of people here. At the macro level, the coup created political uncertainty, as well as increased risk premium associated with any foreign investment. As a result, the economic of the country is stagnant, even in the face of increased extractive activity. GDP/per capita is basically at the same level here in 2012 as it was in 2002, a lost decade of sorts.

We will be in Madagascar for 3 and a half weeks, traveling to points in the West, North and South of the country. It will be an emotional time, of that i have no doubt. Also, I will have to come up with a new answer to the query, 'where do you want to travel to the most in the world' and i could not be happier.

Sunset over the Mozambique Channel