Paris with rice paddies

It’s only eight miles from Madagascar’s international airport to the center of  the capital, Antananarivo, but the journey can take an hour, often longer. The two-lane highway passes through a densely-populated area. After a few tatty hotels and the Chinese casino, it’s the typical African or Asian street scene—honking cars, slow-moving trucks, hole-in-the wall shops, children playing on the narrow sidewalk, porters lounging on hand carts.

It’s a mesmerizing car window sideshow of small retail establishments—a tire repair shop next to a beauty salon, then a halal butcher, a one-room health clinic, a furniture workshop, a SIM card recharge outlet, a shop selling friperie (second-hand clothes), a small hotel, a lumber yard, a used car parts store, another beauty salon, all crammed into narrow storefronts. Then a wall plastered with posters for music concerts and religious revivals, almost obscuring the Défense d’Afficher (forbidden to post) sign. A jumble of colorful hand-painted signs, mostly in French or Malagasy with a sprinkling of English—Good Auto, Rehoboth Shack, Smile Pizza, Quick Fix Oil Change, Flash Video.

For the last four miles, the road runs along the levee of the River Ikopa. The low-lying areas around Antananarivo are crisscrossed by canals supplying water to the rice paddies. Among the paddies are islands of shacks, with chickens, geese and ducks (some destined to be pâté) running free. Zébu, the humped cattle that are the mark of wealth in rural Madagascar, graze freely on patches of grassland. Then past the 15,000-seater national rugby stadium—home of the Makis (the lemurs)—to a retail district centered, without any sense of ideological irony, on a square dedicated to a communist hero, the Place de Ho Chi Minh.  

Situated just over 4,000 feet above sea level, Antananarivo—usually abbreviated by both locals and foreigners as Tana—with its hills and narrow, winding streets, feels like a tropical, slightly rundown version of Paris, surrounded by rice paddies.

From the 8th century AD, the central highlands of Madagascar were settled by the Merina, whose ancestors can be traced to the Malay Archipelago. They brought with them their traditional clan organization and agricultural practices, particularly rice cultivation. Until the French colonized the island at the end of the 19th century, the highlands were a bit like medieval Europe, albeit with nicer weather. Local lords, supported by armed retainers, ruled the villages and rice fields from fortified hilltop positions. Antananarivo was founded in the early 17th century by the chieftain Andrianjaka who built his rova (fortress) high on a hill; in Malagasy, Antananarivo means “city of the thousand,” a reference to the ruler’s army. From the rova, the royal real estate expanded, with new palaces and royal tombs built on the highest points of the ridge.

The residential topography of Antananarivo reflected class distinctions. Down the hill from the palaces were the houses of the andriana, the noble class; the commoners, the hova, lived further down the slope, and the slave caste (andevo) and rural migrants on the plains to the west. Members of castes were required to live in designated districts and return to them after working in other places. Non-nobles were not allowed to build wooden houses or keep pigs within the city limits. As the population grew, the Merina rulers used forced labor to construct a massive system of dikes and paddy fields around the city to provide an adequate supply of rice.

Until the mid-19th century, all houses in Madagascar were built from wood, grasses, reeds and other plant-based materials deemed appropriate for structures used by the living; stone, as an inert material, was reserved for the dead and used only for family tombs. In 1867, after a series of fires destroyed wooden homes in Antananarivo, Queen Ranavalona II lifted the royal edict on the use of stone and brick for construction. The royal palace was encased in stone. The first brick house built by the London Missionary Society in 1869 blended English, Creole and Malagasy designs and served as a model for a new style built in the capital and across the highlands. Termed the trano gasy (Malagasy house), it is a two-story, brick building with four columns at the front that support a wooden veranda. In the late 19th century, these houses quickly replaced most of the traditional wooden houses of the andriana. As Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic church gained adherents, stone and brick churches were constructed.

In the early 20th century, under French administration, Tana spread out along the lower hilltops and slopes in la ville moyenne (the middle town). In the basse ville (lower town), northwest of the Analakely market area, French urban planners laid out the streets on a grid pattern aligned with a broad boulevard, now called the Avenue de l’Indépendance, with the city’s Soarano railroad station at its northwest end. Engineers drilled tunnels through two large hills, connecting isolated districts; streets were paved with cobblestones, and some later with tarmac; water, previously drawn from springs at the foot of the hills, was piped in from the Ikopa River. Since independence in 1960, urban growth has been largely uncontrolled with the city spreading out across the plains in every direction. In the districts of the basse ville, where roughly-built houses are vulnerable to fire and flooding, residents splice into city power lines to steal electricity. Informal settlements, without adequate water supply and sanitation facilities, have grown up on agricultural land on the outskirts.

Today, the haute ville retains its late 19th century charm. Trano gasy houses with steeply-pitched tiled roofs, verandas and flowering cactus line the cobbled streets snaking up the hillsides; alleyways with stone steps descend to the Analakely market and shopping streets branching off from the Avenue de l’Indépendance. Among the most impressive buildings are the stone-built churches on the summits. Below the Malagasy Montmartres, people cook over open charcoal fires, draw water from hand pumps, and sleep in doorways. The population of the metropolitan area is close to three million—about one eighth of the total population of Madagascar—but that does not count unregistered migrants from rural areas who arrive every day to work or engage in petit commerce, selling fruits, vegetables, cheap electronics and friperie.

The French influence is still apparent—in language, the architecture of public buildings, the bakers selling baguettes and croissants, the escargots and pâté de foie gras on the restaurant menus. At the Soarano railway station, the Café de la Gare resembles a brasserie in a French provincial town, with its dark wood paneling, chandeliers, candle-lit tables and white-shirted waiters. The best hotel in the city, the Colbert in the haute ville, founded as a handful of rooms above a café in 1928, reeks of colonial extravagance with its marble-clad lobby, patisserie, hair salon, perfume shop, spa and casino. At the nearby Café du Jardin, overlooking the Analakely market, the large-screen TVs rebroadcast French provincial rugby matches.

The menu at most restaurants is French with a sprinkling of Malagasy fish, poultry and pork dishes, served on a bed of vary (rice).  In one dimly-lit, wood-paneled restaurant, with its long bar, tasteful artwork and attentive waiters, I felt for a moment as if I was in Paris. Then the bill arrived, and I knew I was definitely not in Paris. Haute cuisine at astonishingly low prices. Paris with rice paddies suits me very nicely.

Kenya Airways Customer Disservice

Kenya Airways customer service counter, Nairobi Airport, 6:00 a.m.

“Good morning. I’ve just arrived on the delayed flight from Antananarivo and need to re-book …”
“Welcome to Kenya, sir.  I hope you have a wonderful stay in our country.”
“No, you don’t understand.  I’m not planning to stay.  I need to get home to the U.S.  Can you re-book me on a flight later this morning?”
“The lion park is near the airport.  Only ten U.S. dollars by taxi.  Many tourists visit it.  Maybe you will have time too?”
“I don’t think so.  Can you re-book me?  Other passengers got new itineraries in Antananarivo but the rest of us were told to get them here.”
“I’m sorry, sir, you will need to wait.”
“Isn’t this the customer service counter?”
“Yes, it is.”
“But you can’t help me?”
“No, sir.  We have to wait for the supervisor to unlock the computers.”
“When will the supervisor be here?”
“Very soon, I hope.  Please wait with the other passengers.”
I join a group of weary, disconsolate travelers, some of whom I recognize from the lines at the airport in Antananarivo, Madagascar.  We had arrived there in mid-afternoon to be told that the Kenya Airways flight to Nairobi had been delayed.  We were bussed back into the city, returning at midnight.  The flight eventually left at 4:00 a.m.  Everyone missed their connections to Europe, Asia and North America.  A few were given new itineraries and boarding passes but most of us were told we would receive ours on arrival in Nairobi.
8:00 a.m.
“Where is the supervisor?”
“He is not here.”
“Yes, I can see that.  When will he be here?”
 “Very soon, I hope.  He rang to say he is finishing his breakfast.”
“Any chance we can get some breakfast?  You’ve got some angry, hungry passengers over there.”  For a moment, I imagined a group trip to the lion park and wondered who would eat who.
“I am sorry, sir.  There is no food available in the transit area.  Please wait.”
8:25 a.m.
“Sir, this is George, our customer service supervisor.”
“Nice to meet you, George.  Can you re-book me?”
“Please give me your passport and itinerary and I will enter the details into the system.”
“You mean it’s not already in the system?  I thought that’s what airline computer systems were designed to do—store information.”
“We will see.  Your passport and itinerary, please.”
8:30 a.m.
“Sir, your details are now in the system.”
“So can you re-book me?”
“You need another flight?”
“Yes.  Don’t you understand? Your flight from Antananarivo was delayed, and I missed the connection to Paris and then on to Atlanta.”
“Please give me your credit card.”
“Why do you need it?”
“So you can pay for the flight.”
“I’m not paying for it.  It’s your airline’s fault I’m stranded here.  You need to find me another flight.”
“I will have to talk to the sales office about it.”
“Please do so.”
George fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a tattered slip of paper with several phone numbers on it.  He dialed the desk phone.  After a few moments he replaced the receiver, pulled out another slip of paper and called on his mobile.
“They are not answering.  Maybe it is too early and no one is there.”
“What time does the sales office open?”
“In the morning.”
“At what time in the morning?”
“Maybe by 10:00.  It depends.”
“I’ll come back to the desk at 10:00, then?”
“Yes, sir, please do.  And welcome to Kenya.  May I recommend the lion park …”
10:00 a.m.
“Is George here?”
“No, he has left for the day.”
“He’s left?  Where did he go?”
“He went home.  His shift is over.”
“He told me to come back at 10:00 and he would call the sales office to rebook me.”
“I will be happy to help you, sir.  My name is Gladys.  Let me welcome you to Kenya.  Please give me your passport and itinerary so that I can enter the details into the system.”
“But George already did that.”
“We each have our own system for entering data.  I will take care of it.”
Gladys pounded the keyboard for a few minutes while I pondered the digital disaster that was the Kenya Airways reservation system.  Gladys called the sales office.  No answer.
“While we’re waiting for the sales office, can you check available flights for me?”
Gladys pounded a few more keys, then frowned.  “You could have taken the 8:00 a.m. flight to London and then connected to Atlanta on Delta.”
“I was here at this desk at 8:00 a.m., and was told I could not be rebooked.”
“I am sorry for the inconvenience.  The next flight is not until tonight at 10:30 p.m. The Paris flight you missed last night.”
“I didn’t miss it.  Your airline did.”
“Whatever you say sir.”
10:45 a.m.
Gladys has reached the sales office which issues a new itinerary.  
“Can you print it for me?”
“We need to wait for the manager to approve it.”
“You’ve got to be joking.”
“No, sir.  Only the manager can approve a rebooked itinerary.”
“Where is the manager?”
Gladys conferred with her colleagues.  “He is in a meeting.”
“When will the meeting be over?”
“Soon, we hope.”
11:30 a.m.
“Is the manager out of the meeting?”
“Not yet, sir.  Please wait.”
“We’ve all been here for 5 ½ hours.   No food.  No water. And no help.  Tell the manager he’s going to have a riot on his hands if he doesn’t deal with the situation.  Can you call or text him?”
“We will try.”
Noon
“The manager has approved your new itinerary, sir.  Here it is with a voucher for a hotel for the day.  You will need to be back by 8:00 p.m. Perhaps you still have time for the lion park.”

Not-so-wild Madagascar

It’s just over 90 miles from Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo, to Andasibe National Park on Route Nationale 2 (RN2), the highway to Toamasina, the main port on the east coast. If the weather is clear and the traffic light, you can reach Andasibe in two hours; for my colleagues and I, traveling to a UNICEF seminar, our outbound and return trips both took three hours. Trucks hauling fuel and containers wheezed up the hills; every few miles, we came across one stranded by the roadside, its driver sprawled across the open engine, or the trailer precariously jacked up, teetering on the edge of a cliff. Almost all freight to the capital and highlands is transported on this road. The single-line railroad the French colonial government built along the route could carry heavy freight, but the truck owners’ cartel has put pressure on the politicians to withhold funding for maintenance and the track has fallen into disrepair. We saw only one train.

From Antananarivo’s so-called ring road, the surreally named Boulevard de Tokyo (presumably built with Japanese aid), RN2 rises through the hills. The rice paddies stretch out over the bottom lands and the lower slopes of hills where farmers build terraces; water flows from springs into the terraces and then, through channels or pipes, where flow is controlled by sluice gates, to the lower paddies. In the fields, wood-fired brick kilns stand like sentries, and large stacks of rough red-mud bricks line the roadside; in several places, the granite outcrops have been gouged to quarry stone for road and home construction.  

As RN2 descends from the highland escarpment, the hills on either side are clear cut or covered with second-growth eucalyptus forest. A hundred years ago, old-growth forest extended over much of the highlands and northeast, but most has been destroyed by slash-and-burn agriculture and the cutting of timber for charcoal, firewood and home construction; perhaps as much as 90 per cent of the island’s original forest has been lost. The French planted the fast-growing eucalyptus to provide fuel for the railroad and steam engines used on plantations, and today these trees are the main source of charcoal. It is estimated that 95 per cent of Malagasy households, including those in urban areas, use firewood or charcoal for cooking and heating. Along RN2, the trees are cut down to their stumps, and the wood slowly burned in earth ovens to produce charcoal. Sacks are piled by the roadside; the local price is about $2, making it worth the trip to transport charcoal to Tana where it fetches $6 a sack. The eucalyptus stumps soon sprout again, but it is a stubby new growth. Any wildlife that once lived in these forests has fled or been hunted. Only in the protected areas of the national parks do the eucalyptus trees and native varieties grow high, providing shelter and food for wildlife.

Today, mining poses a deeper threat to the environment. For many years, foreign investors shied away from Madagascar, deterred by political instability, corruption and poor infrastructure. What was the point in building a mine or factory if the politicians were going to nationalize it or grab the profits? Or if there were no roads, reliable power supply and skilled workforce? Recently, multinational mining companies have started to exploit the vast and largely untapped resources. At Moramanga, the Ambatovy nickel and cobalt mine, built by a Canadian-Japanese-Korean consortium at a cost of US$8 billion, claims to be the largest-ever foreign investment in the country and one of the largest lateritic nickel mines in the world. The ore is strip-mined and sent to a preparation plant; the nickel and cobalt ore slurry is then piped underground for 136 miles to a processing plant and refinery south of Toamasina where it is separated and loaded onto ships.

Critics say the government granted the mining license with minimal study of its potential impact. Rather than employing and training local people, the company brought in a foreign workforce (mostly South Asian and Filipino) to build the mine and pipeline. The influx of foreign workers and money transformed Moramanga, a regional market center, into a boom town, its streets lined with import shops, hotels, restaurants and karaoke bars. Rents soared, forcing local people to move out of town. Crime and prostitution levels increased, with teachers reporting that most teenage girls had dropped out of school. There was more money to be made working the streets than working the rice paddies. That went for the men as well as the women. The streets of Moramanga are crowded with brightly-painted pousse-pousse bicycle rickshaws. The drivers, who rent their machines by the day, must hustle hard to make money. 

The tourism industry, while less destructive than mining, is changing the country in other ways. There are two types of tourists. One heads for the beaches and tropical islands; there are direct flights from Paris to Nosy Be (Big Island), the largest and most developed resort area off the northwest coast. The tourists never see the urban sprawl and poverty of Antananarivo, or the rural central highlands. The second type comes to see the lemurs and other wildlife in the national parks. They stay at tastefully designed lodges with manicured gardens where diesel generators provide back-up power, the showers always have hot water, the juice is freshly squeezed, and the buffet offers a mix of European and Malagasy dishes. Andasibe National Park has half a dozen lodges catering to foreign tourists who come in small parties (no large buses) and sit at dinner tables reserved for “Wild Madagascar” or “Jungle Adventure.” Then they go off to see the lemurs. 

My colleagues and I did too, on an afternoon break from our UNICEF workshop. You don’t have to venture too far into the jungle to find your photographic prey. At the Wakona Lodge, most lemurs live on a small island in a river (a 30-second canoe paddle from the parking lot). They do not hide in trees but bound out of the undergrowth to greet you, climbing on your head or shoulders in the hopes you brought bananas. This is wildlife at its most accessible. Most of these lemurs were donated by people in Toamasina who had kept them as pets. I’m sure they’re happier living on the island than in cages but calling this “Wild Madagascar” seems a stretch. However, it’s enough for many tourists who don’t want to walk too far to get their photographs. They can go home with stories of the jungle and make donations to wildlife charities to protect Madagascar’s biodiversity. They may not think much about the people of Madagascar or economic or social conditions. The national statistics for poverty, health, education, safe water and other indicators are woeful, but also tedious and easy to ignore, especially for tourists on jungle tours. Poor people are not nearly as cuddly as lemurs.

Abide with me in Madagascar

The sound of the group singing drifted in from the courtyard during breakfast on my first morning in Antananarivo.  The tune was familiar, but in my early-morning stupor after a long flight I couldn’t place it.  Then it came to me.  It was my father’s favorite hymn, Abide with Me, composed in the mid-19th century and an Anglican standard.  I had sung it often during my childhood, usually at school assemblies or compulsory Sunday church attendance.  I remembered the opening lines, “Abide with me, fast falls the eventide,” although the line seemed surreal on a hot sunny morning in the middle of Madagascar’s capital city.  I wondered how this hymn had traveled across two continents and been translated into Malagasy.  

For that cultural exchange, we can credit a lesser-known group of 19th century colonizers, the Norwegian Lutherans.  They were young men from the farms and fjords, called to the mission of converting the peoples of southern Africa to Christianity and civilization.  They boarded ships in Bergen and Stavanger and set off for a long sea trip to an unknown island in the southern Indian Ocean.  The first two missionaries arrived in 1866 and established a Lutheran church at Betafo in the central highlands south of Antananarivo. Others followed and were joined by American Lutheran missionaries.  Some had left young wives on the farm, promising to return when God’s work was done.  Most never did, and entered into accepted, but unsanctified, unions with Malagasy women.  

Lutheran church in Antsirabe, Madagascar

Through most of the 19th century, the Merina monarchs who ruled Madagascar were diplomatically and militarily supported by the British Empire. That gave an early field advantage to the London Missionary Society (LMS) which was first on the scene in the 1820s, although the king, Radama I, valued the missionaries more for the industries they established and the skills they taught than for their religious teachings. After almost two decades of openness to trade, religion and other European contacts, the Merina kingdom turned inward and xenophobic under Radama’s successor, the capricious and bloodthirsty Queen Ranavalona I. For a few years, the missionaries were allowed to continue teaching, preaching and distributing religious texts, but from 1831 the government started clamping down on their activities. The queen’s hostility was fed by reports that Christian converts were contemptuous of ancient customs and regarded the royal talismans—sacred wooden objects carried on military campaigns and state processions to protect the kingdom—as idols. In 1835, she banned Christianity and ordered all who had been baptized to confess and recant. Most did, but those who refused, or continued to practice religion in private, were vigorously persecuted.

In 1835, all missionaries left Madagascar, but many converts held to their faith, worshipping in private homes or in the countryside, hiding their bibles in caves and holes in the ground. The martyrdom suffered by Malagasy Christians only served to strengthen their resolve. When, in 1861, the new king Radama II restored freedom of religion and declared an amnesty for all condemned for their beliefs, thousands flocked to newly-opened places of worship. Christianity was no longer a foreign import because the Malagasy Christians had their own martyrs, preachers and ordained pastors. Protestantism became established, even socially fashionable, among the ruling classes.

With the field opened again for missionary activity, the LMS faced competition from other Protestant denominations, including the Anglicans and Lutherans. The Jesuits, based on the French island of Réunion, established small missions on the west coast, and by the 1860s were competing for souls in the central highlands and on the east coast. The influence of the Roman Catholic Church increased after Madagascar became a French colony in 1896. Yet Lutheranism continued to thrive, and the missionaries built churches throughout the country.  Today, the Malagasy Lutheran Church claims to have more than four million members in Madagascar and other countries.  And they do love to sing.

We were staying at the Norwegian Mission in the Isoraka district, high on one of the city’s hills.  It was originally built as an administrative center and provided accommodation for missionaries visiting the capital.  Today, its guest houses are open to all, but you won’t find it advertised on the hotel or backpackers’ travel websites.  It was recommended by one of our team members, Luke Freeman, an anthropologist who has worked in Madagascar for almost 25 years and had stayed there on previous visits.  A group of two-story buildings around a garden, it’s an oasis from the traffic and bustle of the city.  Each building has a memorial plaque to a noted missionary or church leader.  History is even celebrated in the Wi-Fi code.  No boring “guest 123” stuff, but a real name, Andrianarijaona (which is difficult to type, especially if you’re in a hurry).  Rakoto Andrianarijaona, whose father and grandfather were both prominent revivalist pastors, became the first native Malagasy to be named leader of the national church in 1960.   

For about $18 a night, you get a simple, clean room with bathroom, and a shower (the water was always hot).  The so-called “Norwegian breakfast” (rolls, butter, jam, cheese, ham, tomatoes, cucumbers, juice and coffee) sets you back 8,000 ariary ($2.50); for $2.00 you can get the Malagasy breakfast of rice with leaves (rice and leaves in a broth), juice and coffee.  There’s no bar, of course, but you are within a few minutes’ walk of three excellent, and modestly-priced, French restaurants and a Vietnamese.  It's the best accommodation deal in town.
 

On the market in Quartier Isotry, Antananarivo

In Madagascar, where about three quarters of the population live on less than US $2 per day, recycling is not a matter of social responsibility but an economic necessity. The most ingenious examples of recycling are on the markets. Not the upscale markets where middle-class Malagasy, expats and tourists shop, but the regular markets that serve most residents. On a break from our work with UNICEF in December 2015, my colleague Luke Freeman, an anthropologist who has worked in Madagascar for over 20 years, took me to the rambling market in the Quartier Isotry, one of the poorer districts of central Antananarivo.

One stall featured a selection of farming hand tools, with blades of different lengths, widths and angles designed for every task, all forged by blacksmiths from scrap metal. Next door, a Citroën 2CV had donated its organs—its gears—which had been fashioned into hand weights. Bottles and jars are washed and reused. I bought jars of home-made lasary mango hot sauce, a specialty of northwest Madagascar, and sakay, made from red chili peppers with ginger and lemon juice. To carry the jars, a shopping bag made from polyester straps used to secure boxes for shipping. The Malagasy have long learned to recycle and reuse—not through any sense of environmental consciousness but because in a poor country there’s no alternative.  

The Isotry bazaar is off the tourist route, and all the more interesting for it. Live geese, ducks, chickens and turkeys are crammed into straw baskets. Scrawny cats, tethered by string to the baskets, are on sale; the point-of-purchase message is that if you buy a cat to keep down the vermin, it will not attack your poultry. There are live crabs in buckets, and stacks of friperie and shoes.

Manioc seller on market

There’s new stuff, of course, including the bizarrely branded Chinese T-shirts and underwear—Tokyo Super Dry, Cool My To Rock, Hugo Premium Fashion Boss. In early December, vendors were hawking artificial Christmas trees and decorations. In the consumer electronics section, it took me a few minutes to figure out why stalls displayed guitars, amplifiers, car batteries and solar panels together. It’s because electricity is still not available in some communities and city districts experience power cuts. The band must play on, so musicians travel with their own power supply.

Dried fish--an important source of protein

In the traditional remedies section, stalls are piled high with sticks of wood and bark, shells, bottles and packets of remedies.  One promised to cure almost everything—diseases of the heart, liver, lung and stomach.  Others claimed to improve fertility or to build muscles.  To ward off evil spirits, there were amulets to wear and incense to burn.  Traditional medicine use is obviously not confined to remote rural regions; here in the capital city there were dozens of stalls, most offering the same range of merchandise, and people were buying.  

The best road in Madagascar

It’s officially 923 km (577 miles) from Antananarivo, Madagascar’s capital in the central highlands, to Toliara, the main port on the southwest coast, on Route Nationale (RN) 7. All the guidebooks (and every Malagasy I’ve met) say that RN7 is the best road in the country.  It’s all relative, I guess.  I’d classify RN7, a two-lane highway with many one-lane bridges, as a superior county road in Ohio or West Virginia, or maybe a lesser state route in need of maintenance. Yet, for better or worse (mostly for worse), this is the main route to the south. And it doesn’t even go all the way. The southernmost port and city, Tolananro (Fort Dauphin), is another two days’ travel from Toliara on dirt roads (which also have at least the official status of Route Nationales), bone rattling in the dry season and impassable in the rainy season.

With Air Madagascar on strike, the only way for me to reach Toliara, where I was scheduled to run a workshop for UNICEF, was on RN7.  We left Antananarivo’s airport mid-afternoon on Saturday and had to spend two nights on the road before reaching Toliara on Monday morning.

Driving on RN7, it sometimes seemed that half the country was on the move. By taxi-brousse (bush taxi), the minivans with luggage, bicycles and the ubiquitous yellow bidons (jerry cans used for carrying water) piled so high that they look as if they will tip over on a curve (they sometimes do).  By auto and bicycle rickshaw.  By bicycle.  On carts pulled by zebu, the humped cattle used for every agricultural task and (with fish) the main source of protein for the population.  Every hour or so we stopped to let a herd of zebu cross the road, the boy herders shouting and waving their sticks.  Outside the towns and villages, there were always people walking along the road.  Rice farmers going to and from their fields. Men with axes and long sticks with curved blades, cutting eucalyptus trees for firewood and charcoal.  Children returning from the river with bidons, lashed onto wooden push-carts, the day’s supply of water for cooking and washing.  Families walking home from church.

Of course, most people in central and southern Madagascar were not on the move. It’s just that those who were traveling were squeezed onto the narrow ribbon of RN7. Outside the towns, I saw only two east-west roads leading off RN7 with a tarmac surface, and who knows how far it went?  The poor infrastructure—primarily the roads, but also rural electricity supply—is the major barrier to economic development in a country where most people are still subsistence farmers, and which lags behind most countries (even many African countries) on human development indicators for health, nutrition, water, sanitation and education. Every rainy season, landslips block the road, and sections wash away, or develop huge potholes. Each administration in this notoriously politically unstable country promises to fix the roads and extend the network but, faced with poverty, hunger and pressing social problems, the promises are soon forgotten. “You can’t eat roads,” remarked our driver dryly.

South of Fianarantsoa, the second largest city, RN7 turns southwest, dipping down out of the highlands to the treeless savanna grasslands.  This is Madagascar’s High Plains country, where herders drive their zebus and sleep out under the stars.  If it wasn’t for the distinctive red and white kilometer posts on the roadside and the absence of pick-up trucks, it could be Wyoming or the Dakotas, the long grass blowing in the wind, the mountain ranges on the horizon.  The grasslands gradually give way to a desert landscape dotted with scrubby trees and cactus, reminiscent of the American Southwest.  

The wealth in this beautiful but desolate landscape is definitely in them, thar hills—in this case it’s not gold, but sapphires.  Migrants from all over the country have come to this region to seek their fortunes, digging into the hillsides with shovels and pickaxes. They live in rough, single-story shacks in a series of small towns that straggle RN7.  The real wealth is controlled by foreign traders—mostly from Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Thailand—who buy the rough sapphires and sell them, mostly for export.   The names on the gem stores tell the story—Fayez, Najeem, Iqbal, Farook.  These are reportedly wild towns, with high rates of crime and prostitution, where the lucky miner who has just sold his sapphires blows it all on sugar-cane moonshine and the slots at Les Jokers Hotel and Karaoke Bar. 

The final 100 km to Toliara is desolate, and the people poor. In contrast to the rough but functional two-story houses of the highlands, the villages consist of single-room mud huts with thatched roofs and fences of branches and cactus, their occupants literally scratching out a living from the dry, sandy soil.  Finally, we glimpsed the sea in the distance and crossed the low sandy hills into Toliara.  We made it to the Chamber of Commerce just in time for the mid-morning coffee break.  And just in time—my first presentation was on the schedule for right after the break.  

Vive le Renault 4L!

“Do you have a lot of 4Ls in the United States?”

My friend, sociology professor Richard Samuel, asked the question (in French) as our Renault 4L taxi hurtled down a cobblestone hill in Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo, dodging pedestrians, parked vehicles, and hand carts hauling furniture, metal fencing and sacks of charcoal. It was a jarring, noisy ride. I gripped the door handle which appeared to have been re-riveted to the frame more than once. At the bottom of the hill, the driver crunched into low gear, and began a slow climb.

I told Richard I had never seen a 4L in the US.  His question puzzled me but, as I looked out at the chaotic traffic, I realized why he had asked. In his urban landscape, the 4L was a dominant species. 

His pride and joy—a Renault 4L

When I traveled in France in the 1970s, the Renault 4L was a common sight. With its functional, box-like design, it sat high (for its size) on its chassis, its front end inclined downwards as if it was getting ready to dive into the muddy farm fields. It was introduced in 1961, aimed at the lower end of a market dominated by the two-cylinder Citroën 2CV, the celebrated deux chevaux (two horses), a small front-wheel drive saloon marketed as a people's car in the same class as Germany’s Volkswagen Beetle. The 4L, like the 2CV, was seriously under-powered, taking several minutes to reach its preferred cruising speed of about 80 kilometers (50 miles) per hour. Once it made it, it chugged along happily, using much less gas than anything else on the road. The gear shift on the 4L and 2CV was a challenge—you pulled it out directly from the dashboard, then twisted it left and right, forward and backwards, in a complex series of motions. In my 20s, living in Britain, I owned first a 2CV and then the slightly up-market (but no more powerful) Citroën Diane. I soon became expert at the contortions required to shift gears.

Citroën 2CV

I visit my sister and her husband in southwestern France every couple of years. These days, it’s unusual to see a 4L or 2CV on the road, although I’ve spotted a few rusting in barns. But they are still the most common taxis on the roads of France’s former colony, Madagascar. Many are veterans of the traffic wars with battered panels and spectacularly out-of-whack alignment. You try to forget that there’s almost no suspension and just marvel that the car is still running.

The history of the French automobile industry lives and breathes—or rather wheezes—in Antananarivo and other Madagascar towns. I’ve seen other Renault and Citroën models, the Peugeot 204, 304 and 404, and even an occasional Citroën DS (Goddess), the sleek, streamlined car with a hydraulic system that looked years ahead of its time when it was introduced in the mid-1950s.  

Some have a dodgy electrical system that requires wire-twisting to start the engine.  In Toliara, on the southwest coast, one taxi driver told me the alternator on his 4L had long ago expired; each day, he manually recharged the battery, providing enough juice to start the motor but not enough to run the headlights as he navigated the darkened streets. Another proudly showed me how he could pull the key out of the ignition of his 1990 red Peugeot 404 without any effect on RPM. 

There are gas-guzzling SUVs on the roads of Antananarivo, most of them owned by  politicians, business owners and aid agencies, but in a country where all indicators—unemployment, poverty, health, literacy—put it in the “least developed” category on global indexes, you’re fortunate if you can move up from a zébu (ox) cart to own a 4L or a 2CV. The last ones came off the production line in the early 1990s, but still command high prices on the used-car market, more than $2,000 for a model with a few dents, a cracked windshield and worn seats.

With spare parts no longer available, except from specialty dealers at high prices, how do drivers keep their cars running? The answer is bricolage (from the French verb bricoler, to tinker), loosely translated as do-it-yourself. The auto parts trade, Richard said, is controlled by Indian and Pakistani shopkeepers who import parts from factories in Mumbai and Karachi. Many either fit the old cars or can be made to fit with a little bricolage. For that service, you go to a metal fabrication shop that cuts and welds made-to-order fencing, pipes, market stall frames, and agricultural implements. They can take a Tata or Mahindra part and make it work for your 4L; if not, they’ll just make you a new part. When cars eventually break down and cannot be repaired, the parts are salvaged and resold. “In this economy, there’s almost always a new use for something,” said Richard.