MADAGASCAR

         Salama! I just returned from six eye-opening days traveling Madagascar with my best friends Rachel and Brittany. As the fourth largest island in the world, Madagascar is an isolated country with such unique culture and history to offer. Interestingly, it is primarily influenced by French and Asian cultures so Malagasy, the national language, derives from French and everyone is short like Asians, yet has black skin. The diverse people are only a fraction of the life on the island; 90% of all animals and wildlife found on Madagascar do not exist anywhere else in the world. 90%! Vanilla is also their largest export and it is supposedly the best on Earth. Their currency is Ariary and an average meal is 15,000 Ariary, approximately $4.00 USD.

         Knowing all that from my research beforehand, I knew I was going to be exploring somewhere different than any other civilization. It is so under-developed that there are no street signs anywhere and the dirt roads that connect different towns are flooded with potholes and confusion so we hired a driver, Hasima, to bring us from place to place, as well as to culturally enhance our experience. Within just the first car ride, from the capital Antananarivo (or "Tana" as the locals call it) to Antsirabe, I asked Hasima an enormous amount of questions. He explained to me that the Madagascan flag's green represents rice since they grow and eat so much of it, red represents the fraternity of the nation, and white represents water. As I spoke to him more, I truly perceived the presence of French and Asian influences and the absence of an African influence. He reacted to my observation in explaining that natives tend to not feel a necessarily strong connection to Africa; most have never even been to the continent. They feel more of a connection with Asia than with Africa but feel that they are considered as part of Africa solely because it is geographically closer. He ranted about how the movie Madagascar (I've never seen it) is obviously so inaccurate and that none of the Big Five (lions, leopards, elephants, rhino, water buffalo) who are characters in the movie even live there. Being of course so fascinated by religion, he shared with me that of the Madagascan population, 45% of Madagascans are Catholic, 10% Muslim, 25% Protestant, and the rest are not religious.

         Other observations and inferences of mine from out the window during that first car ride: Madagascar is beautiful. There are giant puddles of water, basically small lakes, everywhere and it's a land of hills continuing on for what looks like forever. Women actually walk down dirt roads with huge baskets balancing on their heads, just as you would imagine. The variety and abundance of trees are jaw-dropping, I fell in love with Baobab trees. Herds of Zebu crowd the streets at all times. Zebu are essentially a combination of cows and camels; they look like cows with a huge hump on their backs. Madagascans eat them for every meal so I partook in that as well, wanting to have the most native experience I could. Throughout the six days, I tried zebu in filet form, in soup, on kabobs, and as a hamburger. It was delicious and they spice it up with a variety of sauces and vegetables.

         Boys often walk two or three hours to school everyday whereas girls do not receive any education at all. They get married around age 15 and start having children around age 20. Every 7 years, the tribes host a huge circumcision ceremony for all the boys ages 2 through 9. They do not use any anesthesia or medication and afterwards the grandfather of the boy eats the foreskin with a banana. The average lifespan is 60 years. After engaging in an intense conversation about all of that, I was hit with a shocking reality: If I had been born in Madagascar, which any human easily could be, I would now be married, have kids, and my parents would already be dead. Shocking.

         After writing just that^ so far, I am so overwhelmed. This journey meant so much to me and I truly do not know how to portray that through just a blogpost. As I said, Madagascar was eye-opening in so many ways. We drove hours on end through dirt roads cutting through small, under-developed villages. We watched the sunset at the Avenue of the Baobabs, twice, and I found a branch of my soul amongst those trunks. We drank local vanilla rum around a beach bonfire along the coast of the Indian Ocean, playing guitar and singing Malagasy songs. We spent a night in a cabin in the middle of the Kirindy Forest, where we went on a night and day exploration with a trained guide, seeing six out of the eight different species of lemurs in Madagascar. We spent two nights in a bungalow on the beach. We watched Madagascan children pound into the ground to polish diamonds under a bridge (see my video). We played with chameleons, watching their skin actually change colors depending on what they were touching. I kicked around a futbol with a little boy named Nando on the beach. We engaged in cultural conversations with our native drivers, diving into the religion, politics, history, and customs of this intriguing country. We thought and we be’d. I want to share more but for now, I’m still processing. Still reflecting. So grateful.