Malagasy come together to honour their dead by removing corpses from family tombs during the winter months, in a ritual called a “famadihana”. Picture: Duncan Guy
Durban - “Rice and I are one,” I once read about an early Madagascar’s first post-independence leader saying of the Great Red Island’s staple, which is also a connection to south-east Asian lands far away from nearby mainland Africa. Some journey they must have undertaken across the Indian Ocean centuries ago.
They brought with them, and modified, a ritual that involves removing corpses from family tombs, changing their dressings and, among other things, showing their ancestors evidence of their hard work in their rice paddies in the hope of being granted a good harvest. Rituals slightly similar traditionally take place in South Sulawesi, Indonesia.
I recall the old National Geographic article also quoting the leader, saying his newly independent country’s biggest problem was underdevelopment and he urged each couple to have at least 14 children.
Judging by the huge number of children begging aggressively on roadsides as I cycled the island continent 32 years after independence from France, the leader’s advice was certainly taken to heart.
Extra rice paddies obviously had to complement the population growth, the conception of new ones being fires that often light up the night sky and clearing the ashes being the next step in slash-and-burn agriculture.
Slash-and-burn is called “tavy” in Malagasy and rice in that language is “vary”.
The language of long names, like the capital Antananarivo, is also full of words ending in “y”. You change money at the “banky” and eat meals at a “hotely”.
And, of course, that meal is invariably “vary”.
One of the greatest pleasures of adventure travel is not staying at luxury resorts but interacting with people in their daily lives and their homes.
In Madagascar this involves eating a lot of rice.
It’s customary for travellers seeking rural accommodation to consult the village chief, “le president de la fokontany” (ending in a -y but let’s forget about the first five letters).
He will allocate you a place to sleep and feed you “vary” in return for a little gift. To my astonishment, the first time I used such accommodation, I learnt that on departurem he would offer a reciprocal gift.
I had learnt the “president de la fokontany” rule quickly after not obeying it and trying to camp on a roadside near a disused old forestry station on a cold, winter night on Madagascar’s Haux Plateau (highveld). A local joined me at my campfire and, after some banter, got up and said goodbye.
Some moments later, I came around, lying in the fire I had smothered ‒ my coat protecting me from burns ‒ and my forehead feeling like my bum after I had been caned at school. He had “klapped” me with some or other “moering” tool.
All the thief took were my glasses and my transistor radio. No more BBC news for the rest of the trip but for the “scar of Madagascar” on my forehead, which had to be stitched at a clinic, remains after all this time.
The “president de la fokotany” also offers security.
After that experience, I was a bit nervous when a man cutting grass on a roadside offered me overnight accommodation in a roadside shack where he and his wife sold hot, cooked meals to passing truck traffic between Antananarivo and the port of Mahajanga on the west coast, opposite Mozambique.
“Are you ‘le president de la fokontany’?” I asked him several times before accepting his offer of accommodation. Not that there was any alternative at that time and place.
His shack fell outside of any “fokontany”, so that guarantee of security was absent.
All dubiousness had paled into insignificance by the time his wife, kids and I shared “vary” and fish during a warm family evening. The year was 1992. Madagascar, apparently keen to spread beyond the Francophone world had introduced English in schools. One of the kids hauled out and English-French; Français-Anglais dictionary to help our conversation along.
Came bedtime and the family retired to the half of the shack that was their sleeping quarters. The table at which we had our meal ‒ and their “hotely” sit-down customers also used ‒ was their only place available for me to sleep.
I tried to explain that they need not worry about bedding because I had a sleeping bag.
The father of the family looked confused. However, on seeing my sleeping bag, he remarked: “Oh, you have a ‘lamba’.”
Everyone in the chilly highlands wears this Malagasy equivalent of a poncho.
I settled down for a night with chickens squarking under the table, occasionally jumping on top of me, but warm not only in my sleeping bag but also from the hospitality that included “var”.
Rice, the family and I felt like we were one!
The Independent on Saturday