East of Africa: Toliara (Tuléar)

by Stephen Greenwood on

Our driver has a big smile on his face. He points ahead at the landscape which has become increasingly flat in the past hour or so. I follow his finger up to see the road dramatically disappearing into a vast, clear, blue horizon.

After two days and 1,000km, we’ve made it to Madagascar’s southwestern coast – to the small, sleepy town of Toliara.

Within moments of driving into the town, it’s clear that Toliara has little in common with the other places that we’ve been to so far. It’s quiet; there are no taxis jamming the roads or honking their horns. Instead, an abundance of rickshaw drivers stand idly next to empty carts, sweating profusely in the harsh southern sunlight.

As we navigate between dusty paved and unpaved streets, there are signs for both Toliara and Tuléar – which can be confusing for new guests. Although both names are pronounced the same, the official title was changed to Toliara in the 1970’s to better reflect the spelling found in the Malagasy language. The two are basically interchangeable and both are found on maps and in guidebooks.

Much to the contrast of Antananarivo or Fianarantsoa, there are no two-story mud, wood and brick homes. The houses are mostly one-room wood structures with palm-thatched roofs, surrounded by tall scraggly sticks, nailed together to form a sturdy fence. There are a few western-style cafés and restaurants along the main streets, but most of the eateries are local Malagasy-rice-and-beans type of places.

Technically, Toliara and the neighboring beach community of Ifaty are considered tourist desinations – but they would be best described as places for a simple, quiet getaway rather than a luxurious, exotic adventure. I can’t imagine it every being overrun by tourist activity, but at the same time it’s apparent that the drop in tourism this year has hurt Toliara’s livelihood.

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The people milling about in the streets have darker skin than in the highlands, and faces topped with curly hair. The primary inhabitants are three of Madgascar’s eighteen ethnic groups; the Vezo, Mahafaly, and Antandroy (“People of the thorn bush”).

Of these three groups, the Vezo are the most well-known for their semi-nomadic migratory habits and practices as a fishing population. Using large dugout canoes with sails, they are the only Malagasy ethnicity to survive solely on fishing or other marine products like seaweed farms. They migrate during the long dry seasons and set up camps in family groups – often using the sails and masts from their canoes as shelter.

Surprisingly enough, the Vezo dialect suggests that their ancestry comes from Asia; probably via trade routes from Thailand and Sri Lanka. Just another prime example of Madagascar’s complicated ethnic mélange.

After settling into a modest guesthouse with a nice garden, we head out to the night markets so that the team can generate interest in the LED lamps. The streets are lined with vegetable-covered tarps lit by improvised wicks poking out of the tops of small cans of kerosene. Many of the women who operate these stalls have pulled out micro-finance loans from organizations like CECAM to fund their investment, and rely on a network of personal friends and loyal customers to keep their business afloat.

They are stunned by the lamps and thrilled that they might be able to purchase something that would easily eliminate one of their major daily costs (kerosene).

We drift towards a row of beachfront clubs as darkness settles in and make our way into a place with simple open-air dance floor. There’s a cover charge of 4,000 Ariary ($2 USD) – a trend that seems to be catching on quickly in African clubs where tourists are expected.

Inside, tracks from David Guetta and Bob Sinclar breathe life into dozens of young Malagasy girls in bright dresses and heels. They wait for the prospect of an old, lonely vazaa to dance with, and drink cosmopolitans – giggling with shy glances in our group’s direction. I pass on the dancing for now and lean back in a red plastic Coca-Cola chair to admire the sky.

The stars above are easily visible and comforting to look at from such a remote location. I muse to myself how strange it is to be sitting on the shore of one of the world’s largest islands, listening to a track that I danced to barely a month earlier at Ko Phan Ngan’s full moon party. In some ways it feels a world apart, but at the same time, it’s amazing how un-foreign it actually is. Something I’m sure the nomadic Vezo would agree with.

I soak up the scene around me and begin to look forward to the next few days in Toliara. It’s a perfect place to recoup from the lengthy trek down – before doing the whole thing again in reverse…

Catch the previous articles in the East of Africa series!

East of Africa: Sapphire of Ilakaka

by Stephen Greenwood on

After hours of driving through untouched landscape, a speck of civilization appears on the horizon. It’s a sizable town; modest in structure, but full of activity and commotion -even at a distance.

A patchwork of low-grade wooden structures stem from a single main road. Electrical wires criss cross each other in all directions, connecting small shanty homes with restaurants and makeshift offices with pre-fabricated Zain mobile phone shops.

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The main road is filled with pedestrians. A man with a turkey slung over his back fervently tries to make a sale with a local butcher. Several children pile onto a improvised sled, transporting an oil barrel that’s adorned with a hand painted message in English: “God is Good”. Next to them, three Chinese men in business suits carry large black briefcases into a shiny building that is marked as a gem brokerage.

It feels like we’ve rolled into a strange, Malagasy version of the Wild West, minus the cowboy boots and the saddled horses. This is Ilakaka, population: 30,000, and home to Madagascar’s booming sapphire trade.

As soon as we stop on the side of the road a few hawkers approach us. I try to explain in French that we’re not here to buy anything, but they insist that I come see their shop. Curiosity gets the best of me and I follow them to a small stall where a few men are clutching tiny plastic zipper bags filled with purple and blue stones.

There’s nothing elaborate about the presentation of the stones. They clear a bowl of meat for sale off of the table and empty the contents of the bags for me to inspect. An aging Indian man with a long beard sits behind a metal grille and counts out the prices for the stones. When it’s apparent that I’m really not going to buy anything, the bags get packed away as fast as they were dumped out.

I’m told that the Sri Lankans, Indians, and Thais control most of the gem market here, with a majority of the mining done by poor Malagasy father-son teams. They are lured by the dream of making over $10,000 USD in one find; truly a temping proposition in a country where two thirds of the population live on less than a dollar a day.

In the past eleven years, Ilakaka has been subject to an expansion that could be compared to California’s gold rush of the 1800’s. Sapphire deposits were discovered in 1998, when only 40 people inhabited the area. Now, 50% of the world’s sapphire comes from Madagascar, and Ilakaka is at the heart of the fever. The current official reports document 30,000 inhabitants, but locals insist that there are closer to 60,000 people in the town…a number that’s hard to track amidst high turnover in workers and unreported children belonging to working families.

Walking further down the road, I notice that the diversity for such a concentrated population is striking. Apparently, each of Madagascar’s 18 ethnic groups are represented in Ilakaka; and businessmen from all over the world come here to buy Malagasy gems. But because of the profitable nature of the business, violence has become prevalent in the rogue town.

The word on the street is that one of Osama bin Laden’s relatives was gunned down last year because of his visible success in sapphire trading. Another victim was shot in his hotel room only months ago while carrying a sapphire worth nearly $25,000. The local police claim to be attempting to control criminal activity, but low salaries and high bribes seem to be getting in the way of any tangible results.

But the violence doesn’t seem to be keeping anyone from coming to Ilakaka just yet. There are bars, brothels, and casinos…plenty of economic activity. But there are no established banks or sources of electricity from the national grid. Most of the shacks that the miners camp out in have no running water or sources of light; which on one hand, is good news for the ToughStuff sales team.

Within an hour, they’ve negotiated several deals and have even captured the interest of some of the wealthy gem brokers. They say that Ilakaka will be a good opportunity for trade and entrepreneurial expansion; undoubtedly a familiar sentiment in this dusty, lawless town.

Catch the previous articles in the East of Africa series!

East of Africa: An island divided

by Stephen Greenwood on

We’re at a small, roadside cafe – a room that consists of a few wooden planks slung together to form a humble dining area. Our server is a loud, jovial woman in her fifties and seems particularly excited to have a vazaa in her restaurant. She enthusiastically brings out six plates of over-saturated rice and sets them down on a cheap plastic tablecloth. I reach for the aluminum fork in front of me and hang it over the rice as I wait for the others to dig in.

Nobody moves. They’re all waiting for the side dishes of chicken, fish, and shredded pork to be brought – and not one person starts eating until every last plate has been set down. It seems particularly strange because the rice is presented almost as soon as we are seated, and the side plates arrive one by one over the course of fifteen minutes.

I guess I’ve lived for so long in a culture where everyone rushes to eat every meal, that it’s sort of refreshing to sit back and let the food get lukewarm for the sake of good manners.The wait creates long gaps of silence that amplify our language barrier, so we resort to watching a small television in the corner of the wooden room.

On almost every television that I’ve seen in the past few days there have been two faces juxtaposed with one another. The first is the face of a young man wearing a dark suit that seems to be a touch too large for his slender frame. The other appears to be an older, seasoned politician; smooth, polished, experienced.

I inquire about the two men, and receive an unexpected lesson in Malagasy civics.

Everyone jumps in, speaking with angst in short sentences about “the young boy” – the name given to Andry Rajoelina (rah-joh-ee-LEEN–ah), declaring that he’s too inexperienced to be running the country. A valid argument since, at 35 years old, he’s officially the youngest head of state in all of Africa.

Rajoelina was formerly the mayor of Antananarivo, and assumed the presidency after forcing out the elected president, Marc Ravalomanana (rah-vah-lo-mah-NAHN), in a coup.

Ravalomanana is the latter man on the screen. Elected in 2002 and then reelected in 2009, he fell under suspicion of corruption and using public money for personal uses. The outrageous spending included the purchase of a presidential jet billed at $60 million; a move that has ended up landing him a four year sentence in prison.

The popular story is that Ravalomanana came out of poverty by selling yogurt from the back of his bicycle, and eventually constructed the largest domestically owned business in Madagascar.

Rajoelina on the other hand, had a much different path to power. As the son of a colonel, Rajoelina dropped out of high school and worked as a DJ in and around Antananarivo. Eventually, he established his own radio station and married into significant wealth, which opened up the opportunity for him to run for office as mayor of the capital city.

Rajoelina had been serving as mayor for roughly a year when the government shut down his privately-owned TV station. An interview with previous head of state Didier Ratsiraka was set to air, and was cited by the government as “likely to disturb peace and security.” Rajoelina retaliated by organizing a series of protests in the capital. All in all, over 100 protestors died from military resistance, further outraging the citizens of Madagascar.

Before long, Rajoelina gained the support of the military, and was able to storm the presidential palace, installing himself as President and Monja Roindefo as Prime Minister.

There are murmurs around our lunch table that Rajoelina is just as corrupt as Ravalomanana. Some suggest that he’s orchestrating suspicious business transactions with his new power as President. They say that there’s never any real change; just one corrupt politician after another.

A depressing reality, since it’s the lives of the people like the kat-mis who are ultimately affected by the actions of the people in power. Money that could be used to facilitate development is being wasted on senseless, selfish expenditures. Do we see it in the West as well? Of course. But it’s a situation that’s all too familiar in post-colonial Africa. A condition that’s nearly unavoidable in an environment with weak infrastructure, strong military power and individuals possessed by greed.

To hear and see more about the unfolding of the coup, it’s worth watching this outstanding piece from Journeyman Pictures.

Read the previous articles in the East of Africa series here!

East of Africa: City of the Thousand

by Stephen Greenwood on

In Antananarivo, the French colonial influence is everywhere: spired churches sit atop the city’s prominent hills. Pretty jacaranda trees line Lake Anosy, which wraps around a war memorial statue in the center of the water.

A large defunct train station sits negelected at the end of a wide boulevard. The sign below the grand clock spells the city’s old French name: “Tananarive”. Horse-drawn carriages and 1960’s Renault and Citroën taxis jam the stone-covered roads, with crackling radios blaring out a french news broadcast.

In this sense, Antananarivo feels like a fractured, soiled apparition of Paris.

But unlike most of the capital cities in Southern Africa, Tana was already a major city before colonization. Around 1625, King Andrianjaka conquered the twelve sacred hills of the city and established it as the capital. He named the city Antananarivo, “City of the Thousand”, because of the thousand guards that were kept to watch over the new establishment.

After the French captured the city in 1895, they remodeled many parts of it to host the growing population and improve transportation for trade and manufacturing. The population of Tana expanded from 100,000 to 175,000 by 1950, which has since exploded to a staggering 1.4 million people after independence in 1960.

The surge in growth, an unstable government, and a struggling niche economy has left many on the streets.There’s undoubtedly a strange beauty and exoticism possessed by the city, but also an almost equally dark and heavy atmosphere in the streets.

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Mothers with small babies wrapped on their backs come and walk alongside me for several street blocks, holding out their hands and saying in a hushed, raspy voice: “le medecin pour le bebe, s’il vous plait”. Their requests need no translation, but I’m rarely able to justify the act of handing out money on the streets in a foreign country.

Local people refer to the beggars as the “quatre-mis” or “kat-mis” for short. In post-revolutionary France, society was broken into three estates, with the poorest being in the third estate. The Malagasy slang term evolved out of the connotation that the beggars were below even the poorest of the third class. The forgotten ones. Useless to society. The lowest of the low.

I finally find that the only way to halt their pursuit is by stopping, and looking at them eye to eye, and regretfully shaking my head. It’s easy to keep walking and pretend to ignore the quatre-mis, and just as easy for them to keep following and keep begging. In that sudden moment of acknowledgement, there’s suddenly nothing left to say – nowhere left to go. We are two antithetical souls staring at one another on a busy sidewalk.

The mother turns around and walks away. I stand in the same spot, waching as the baby on her back bobs up and down with every step. The lump in my throat lodges a little deeper.

I decide to walk up a network of small streets to see the Rova – the Queen’s palace. A young man who claims to be a college student approaches me and says that he’ll show me the way, which I know will end with me handing over a couple thousand ariary (a few dollars) for his guidance. He’s pretty knowledgeable, and I have no problem with paying in exchange for historical information, so I walk with him through the neighborhood.

He tells me about the fire in the Rova, the mixed up political situation, and the riots that took place this past February. When I press him about his studies, he admits that he’s not yet a student but is saving up, and giving impromptu tours to help fund his dreams.

On the way back to the hotel, I deliberately take as many side streets and small alleyways as possible. I pass a group of boys playing on a half broken fooseball table, and practice a few more words of French.

Ahead, a busy Sunday market is closing for the day, and vendors package up scores of textiles, shoes, and cheap Chinese electronics. A large taxi-brousse fills its rows with as many people as possible, for the last ride of the day.

Eventually, I find my way back to familiar streets just in time for another Tana sunset, and take a moment to look out over the twelve sacred hills now painted in an orange glow. It may have started as the city of the thousand, but it’s now the city of a million; with requisite scars to bear from such growth.

Madagascar: East of Africa

by Stephen Greenwood on

I have this habit of never preparing adequately for trips. The tickets get booked, the bags get packed at the last moment, and I suddenly find myself about to touch down in a foreign place.

When I found out I was going to Madagascar for work, I did some brief Wikipedia and Wikitravel skimming: fourth largest island in the world…lots of plants and animals…used to be a French colony…etc…etc…but I really had no idea what to expect.

I hadn’t seen the famous animated movie, my French was mediocre at best, and I knew very little about the history of the country.A year prior I spent five months in Tanzania and one month going overland from Mombasa to Cape Town, and figured it couldn’t be that different…right? The shortest distance between the shore of Madagascar and Eastern Coast of Africa is just 250 miles. As far as I was concerned, it was practically still East Africa.

The plane touched down, and I stepped onto the tarmac. It wasn’t long before I realized that I was wrong, again. Madagascar was not East Africa. It was East of Africa.

In the first few days on the island, a lot of things surprised me. I hadn’t realized that the population was so racially diverse and had assumed that the majority of people would be African because of proximity. But the land was first colonized by Austronesian people, (think Borneo, Malaysia, Indonesia) which has allowed Madagascar to develop an intriguing blend of language, skin tones, culture, and practices.

Another surprise was the apparent lack of tourists in the country’s capital, Antananarivo. The political unrest at the beginning of this year has put a big damper on the tourism industry; which survives because of Madagascar’s ecological attractions, animal life, and large national parks. And while a safari is a good reason to make the voyage out to Madagascar – it’s certainly not the only thing that the country has to offer.

I quickly came to appreciate the hospitality and sincerity of Malagasy people, the simplicity of the local food, the remarkably beautiful landscape, and the shreds of French charm scattered from the colonial period. On the contrary, I struggled to comprehend the strong presence of beggars in Antananarivo, the intricacies of the political disarray, and the reported corruption in business in the country.

Of course, there are things that Madagascar has in common with the African nations 250 miles to the West, but it’s clearly a place that has had a unique development, and will have a distinctive future.

For the rest of this month on Gadling, I’ll be sharing my observations from Madagascar through writing, photos, audio clips, and video. From the capital of Antananarivo to the southern coastal town of Toliara and back, I’ll be bringing you stories from the road, the beaten path, and everywhere in between. Tonga soa… welcome to Madagascar.

Starting this week, Gadling will be bringing you stories, photos, audio and video from the fourth largest island in the world: Madagascar. Check out all the posts in this series by following along here.