(The Nationalist, c. November 2001)
Some years ago I spent a few months in Madagascar, a large island about three hundred km wide and one thousand two hundred km long, off the south east coast of Africa. It was a remarkable place, a mixture of ethnic groups and cultures, sharing a common language and nationality. The language is similar to the type of Indonesian spoken in Borneo, from which many of the people’s ancestors came, some six hundred years ago.
The people regard themselves not as Africans, Asians or Europeans, even though they are a blend of all three, but simply as Malagasy. They have their language and culture and they are proud of them. They are secure in their own traditions and, unlike many other indigenous peoples, do not seek to ape the ways of the Western world.
They were the poorest people I ever saw. I had seen poverty in various parts of Africa, and some of it was dire, but this was different. In the capital, Antananarivo – the name means ‘the city of a thousand villages’ – with its population of between one and two million people, only about half the adults have footwear of any kind, even the flimsiest sandals. The rest go barefoot. Everybody is thin, and understandably so, when you think of their diet. People buy bread by the slice and cabbage by the leaf. In the friary where I stayed, rice was the basis of every meal and the drink was rice-water. There was one vegetable – carrots. Four kilograms of meat lasted a community of forty for a week. It appeared as tiny flecks, like specks of dust, in the rice.
The country’s main export is vanilla, used in making ice cream. As you can imagine, it’s not a great money-spinner and the country’s poverty is all too plain to see, even on the route from the airport to the city
I never met people who could celebrate like them. On occasions like a village feast at the end of the harvest, the re-dedication of a repaired church, or an ordination, there was exuberance greater than anything I had ever seen. Singing, dancing and jubilation overflowed with enthusiasm. No one got drunk; everyone was joyful and there was a sense of festivity that left me with a sense of wonder. We poor Westerners are simply not in the picture; we don’t know how to celebrate.
One lasting memory I have is of a celebration in the friary, where the young friars danced, clapped and sang as they carried into the dining room a tray with the cake that climaxed a simple meal for the 25th anniversary of one of the community. The cake was a simply layer of sponge with a film of red jam on top – that was what all the singing and dancing was about. I felt humbled by the experience.