Coming home again: A marathon of a different kind

When I left Marofandilia, Madagascar in April 2005, some of my closest friends still lived in mud huts 10ft by 25 ft with woven grass for ceilings that were too low for me to stand erect. Over a little less than 8 years, they now live in 2 room, large wooden or mud houses with metal roof ceilings. The village is still off the electricity grid but some of my friends now own things like motorcycles and cell phones that seemed inconceivable when I arrived 10 years ago. I was astounded to see twenty plus cell phones charging at my friend's house on electricity brought through another Peace Corps Volunteer's successful application to the U.S. embassy for a solar panel. The ubiquity of cell phones was actually a bigger surprise than the solar panel.

Kids playing in front of traditional hut

The solar panel is a very useful tool in Marofandilia, and its region -- the Menabe, because the sun is so strong, especially now during Malagasy summer. Upon stepping outside, the sun can feel as if it is torching your skin, somehow immersing your body in heat and burning. Combined with the humidity, sweating is a condition of life in the Menabe. Menabe appropriately means "very red" in Malagasy.

4 days ago, Wilson and I rented some bikes in Menabe's tourist capital, Morondava, to make the hot journey to Marofandia. The journey to Marofandilia passes through one of the most iconic images of Madagascar -- the Baobab Alley.

Baobab Alley was mile 25 of the Giant Jumping Rat Marathon -- a marathon that I, a fellow Peace Corps volunteer, April Matthews, and many Malagasy folks from the Menabe community organized in 2004 (the marathon continued for 4 more years). I dreamt up the marathon because even though April and I had no illusions that a marathon in one of the poorest countries in the world constitutes sustainable development, we saw the Marathon as an opportunity to advertise and kick-off a gift shop in Marofandilia, to raise environmental awareness (the giant jumping rat is only found in this area and is endangered), and to engage the larger Menabe community in a variety of ways such as building latrines at the primary school where the Rat Marathon finished.

Carvings currently on offer at the gift shop

 

On our bikes, Wilson and I passed the latrines and Baobab Alley around mile 13 or 14 of our own different kind of marathon. Over the next 4 days, we would sleep 3 nights in 3 different places, go 105 miles by bike and 30 miles by truck, encounter one Madagascar Boa Constrictor at 3 am, experience one 4 am Patriots playoff victory, and see many friends not seen or heard from for 8 years.

Our first day ended after 40 miles on the bike -- where the Rat Marathon had begun -- Kirindy Forest. Kirindy Forest is 40 miles North East from Morondava and 10 miles North East of Marofandilia. We planned to spend the night at Kirindy Forest because no one in Marofandilia knew that we were coming and Kirindy Forest is home to the giant jumping rat, eight species of lemurs (including 2 mouse lemurs -- the world's smallest primates), and the endangered narrow-striped mongoose.

From the Baobab Alley, we passed through sweeping vistas of rice fields and Baobabs and clusters of mud huts until we reached Andranomena Special Reserve. Marofandilia is surrounded by 2 protected forests -- Kirindy to the north and Andranomena Special Reserve to the south. The last 8 miles of the road before reaching Marofandilia pass through Andranomena. This road of forest felt very quiet as we pedaled on -- trying to push through the deep spots of soft sand but sometimes being stopped nonetheless.

At mile 29.5 of our bike journey, we were so happy to see, a half-mile before Marofandilia, the pond "Rano Vory" where I collected water before clean water from a Japanese built water pumps came in 2004. This pump remains in business today, providing water to the community on a nearly continuous basis.

Wilson doing # 131 at Rano Vory

And then we arrived in Marofandilia! I saw the faces of Fanja, Tsilafy, Tinova, Jean, Limode, Marineze, Vavy, etc., faces that had been so familiar to me for two years. I embraced them and asked about their news "vao vao" in Malagasy.

"Akori'anareo. Ino vao vao?"

"Tsy misy vao vao. Ino vao vao aminareo andefi'any?"

"Tsy misy"

When I saw my best friend in the village Mihary, tears bubbled out. Mihary looked pretty much the same even though so much of his life had changed a great deal -- he'd become the local shop owner, gotten divorced and remarried, and now has 2 kids. Our first stop felt so short, but Wilson and I had to continue because the sun was setting and we still had 10 miles to go. I had been overly optimistic and had incorrectly remembered that Kirindy forest was only 5 miles (instead of 10) after Marofandilia.

After 2 miles, Wilson and I were pedaling in the dark. Whoops! We were dehydrated, it was proper dark, we were still sweating rivers, and we had eight miles of sand to go, at least. We biked with our headlamps on, most of the time focusing on the sandy road ahead. When we turned our attention off the road and into the forest, the eyes of mouse-lemurs reflected back at us. Finally, we reached the turn off of Kirindy Forest but we had a little more than 4 miles to go on the single-track sandy road with foot deep puddles interspersed. It took us 45 minutes to negotiate the road and right before we arrived, I panicked that perhaps we had turned down the wrong road and there wouldn't be any bungalows (or more importantly food and water) waiting for us. But then Wilson heard the noise of the generator and after 80 minutes of cycling in the dark, we had arrived again!

In Kirindy, we were too exhausted to take a night hike so we missed our opportunity to see the giant jumping rat but we did do a morning hike and watched brown lemur, white sifaka, and narrow-striped mongoose. The diurnal lemurs of Madagascar are very special because not only are they not found anywhere else in the world but also because they use medicinal plants. In a troop of lemurs, usually one lemur acts as a sort of doctor and will bring plants with medicinal qualities to injured lemurs or lemurs giving birth.

By 9:30 am, after our morning hike, Wilson and I were back on the road again re-tracing the first day's 40 miles of biking. We needed to return Morondava that day because the Patriots (Wilson's favorite American sports team) were playing a very important playoff game, kicking off at 12:30 am local time that night. We passed through Marofandilia again and got to see more friends, were fed some delicious rice, beans, and freshly killed fried chicken for Wilson. Locavore in action. We promised to return the next day and we continued through the forest of Andranomena.

Amid other problems with his bike, Wilson got a flat tire right before we reached the village after the Andranomena reserve. It seems that the bikes we were able to rent, while very good for the area, had not been designed for anyone 6'3''. We walked a half-mile through different parts of the village asking for a bike pump. No bike pump to be found.

We then gorged on water from the ground spring in the village and actually pretty quickly found a ride in the back of the truck to the town past the Baobab Alley. Got the flat tire fixed and we were on the final 10 miles back to Morondava when the bike tire went flat again! A half hour later, we were riding in the dark once again to reach our friend Laetitia's house -- ugh.

After reaching Laetitia's house, we made the grand search for American Football on TV -- no luck but we did talk to someone who recognized me from eight years prior who let us the wifi at a local hotel. At 1:30 am in the middle of a windy night, we got Wilson set up at the completely dark hotel so he could follow the gamecast of the Patriot's game. Getting up in the middle of the night after our physical and mental toll was a very big challenge, but he was so happy we made it work.

I returned to Laetitia's house to get some sleep. But I didn't sleep for long -- at 3 am, the guard at the house called in because a 4 foot long, 8 inch in diameter Madagascar Boa was slithering around him outside. News to me -- Laetitia has a pet boa. Her pet boa had gone into his house adjoining Laetitia's house and he was scared! A few adventures later and by 3:30 am, Laetitia had locked the snake in the kitchen. However, the next morning as me & Wilson organized our journey to return again to Marofandilia -- she asked, "Is the snake with you? Because it's not in the kitchen." Although Laetitia's house is absolutely lovely, we were glad to continue to Marofandilia and escape the missing snake.

Back we went, there we stayed the night, and it was wonderful (laughing and telling stories in Malagasy). There were sad moments too like when I learned that one friendly acquaintance from the village had passed away. I was also sad to see how much more forest around the village had been cleared and to see many trees illegally felled in Andranomena Special Reserve when Wilson and I ran my old running route through the forest. Wilson was so patient throughout -- listening to the incessant conversation in Malagasy (when I often forgot to translate), suffering on a faulty bike through the sand and heat, and finding joy in my former life there.

We left Marofandilia and I felt sad to leave but I am so much happier leaving this time around because people seemed to be doing so well and I now have cell phone numbers to stay in touch. It wasn't so fun to be back on the bikes with our sore bottoms and heat exhausted skin but we made it back to Morondava for a dip in the ocean, beating the sunset, and darkness, with hours to spare. A text back to Mihary completed the journey, and reinforced the shortening of the distance between wherever I am and my Malagasy home.

Village Office