i dance in the farms of ambositra, Madagascar.
a memory. two years ago around this time I was settled in ntabethemba area and made my mind up that i would learn a xhosa song before heading off to namibia. During mginti ceremonies, where the boys go to get snip snip circumsized, while they leave their community to head to the bush and when they come back - it is filled with songs. These songs are only sung by the males and they learn many of them when they are in the mountains during circumsicion school. I met up with my buddies down the road and asked them to teach me a classic. its goes like this:
heeeeeyyy MaLahoyaaa, Heyyyyy Malahoyaaa..hey hey…..Kwathluuu Abantu malahoya hey heyy…heyyy malahoya…hey malahoya…kwathlu abantu malahoya enkosi hey hey…..
With your fancy xhosa stick, and a good beat emphasized with a heavy stomp, its a very catchy song. It refers King Malahoya, who formed one of the main ancestors of the isiXhosa people. Put simply it says: Don’t let other people separate your people.
Is it nationalistic? xenophobic? or a encouraging a sense of community peace? Anti-apartheid? Pro Apartheid? One night two years ago, there was a funeral for a extended family member of my host family. All the males got together, sipping the mQhomoti and castles - and we sang Hey Malahoya all night. The next day a local guy who sang with me approached. He started talking about the whites he once worked for, africanners, the apartheid system. He then told me he had never met a white like me before. He didn’t know “we” could be like that. Hey Malahoya. Hey Malahoya.
review
where was i..last we spoke I was in the middle of running the UK IDEALS project in Mpumalanga. Since then the team took a mid term in Sabie, Kruger Park and went back to work in the small community of KaHoyi near the Mozambique border. Back to Pretoria to, as I called it, have a individual retreat - work on a massive amounts of reports for the project and ofcourse, my fav, financial reports. My final good byes to my SCORE family. Apparently its like the mafia, once in, I won’t really be able to leave. And then le trip classic - The same gal from the Congo adventures joined me for a real vacation to Madagascar, no tour company, one guide book and the french road and three weeks to use any extra money I had made.
The rainforests. Here are thick bamboo village in an area calld Ravanofana. before you enter a thick primary forest, your first thought is, this must be a hill that goes straight up. but its not, it is dense, untouched, a real mother of nature that does not grow openings to light.
The train. sometimes you hear of trains form the 1920s that still run. usually that means that th train has been refurbished somehow, but uses the same track. here is the same train, the same seats, the same toilet, that passes through remote highland villages of Madagascar. This is the view you see throughout.
It stops in small villages whos primary source of income is selling exotic fruits and beer to italian tourists. the kids make beads and hats and would approached you “woooza wooza!” . becca and i thought it was a cool slang of “whaaatsup!” - started repeated it back to the kids and they looked back confused. turns out it means white person.
kids are different here. actually it is a completly other culture with few comparisons to my southern african families. Malagash people are much more reserved, less extroverted - compared to kids who will run up to you as a foreigner and follow you everywhere, malagash kids will mostly remain silent if they see you, these few were exceptions
rice fields
traditional houses always depends on whats around it. I’ve never seen anywhere in southern africa however that has such differences in houses - cntral province you will find these red gingerbread houses in clusters on rice fields, on the east coast you will see polynesian straw frames on stilts, and by Antanarivo you can find condensed wooden apartements.
Ambositra
yes. a beach. mada is loaded with them. If you want to escape the rainforests, mountains, lemurs and vanila farms - check out ile de St. marie - a small island off the east coast north of toamasina.
Ile de st. marie used to be The hotspot for pirates - they even have their own graveyard with a memorial to the real Captain hook.
loaded with bungalows and hot shot hotels for retired french aristocrats - it is home - fishing and market in the day, taking dugout searching the reefs for fruits de merre.
Antananarivo (Tana)
The capital of madagascar is magical. as french colony, the narrow streets , rolling hills, tall thin buildings , crepes on the copple stone streets could confuse you for 19th century haute savoie france. taking a second look you see the street children, the indonesian food, asian looking people and rickshaw (pouse pouses) riddling the area - and alas you have real unique madagascar. the history behind the area tracks the growing power of the king and queens of the Merina people, as they forced any foreigners out and throw christians off their palace roofs.
becca and i learned to make friends by buying drinks. this guy hated the governement for the conspiracy of burning down the palaces. he was once a tour guide and now he had no where to tour. the governemnt i guess burnt it down to get money from UNESCO to rebuild it. smart.
Animals
those frolickin furry creatures in the movie Madagascar do exist in real madagascar - there are abot 60 kinds of them - some our tame, some will never be seen - look up The Aye Aye for the coolest looking one. and no i haven’t seen the movie yet.
toamasina, east coast colonial town loaded with pouse pouses
food - as the malagash people came over the past 2000 years from indonesian with polynesian looks and food - they brought with them Malagash rice. its no Nshima though.
interesting kinds of fruits, the nearest place to mada to find these guys is India.
UMHLANGA - reed dance
During IDEALS project with universit of birmingham students, i placed bubbles. I ofcourse knew exactly what a good idea I had, but they had to know it..it was their process. I placed a bubble infront of them to accept or forget. the bubble to take a night away from the village of Hoyi and road trip it into Swaziland to check out the Umhlanga ceremoney. they agreed, and i had to drive.
The reed ceremoney also appears in other bantu cultures, including the Zulu. It traces back perhaps 500 years where young girls across the land would come to the kings palace and actually help build it - in a way to pay homage. They brought reed straws from all across the land and placed them around his home. ofcourse these are not a few ladies, and they are special. Actually 100,000 virgin girls come by the truck loads (really big trucks) from across swaziland with reeds. Conveniently this is also the time where the King (king mswati II) choses his 13th wife. So there we were, at the kings palace in swaziland, watching as these topless virgins sang, danced and placed their reeds.
The king actually doesn’t look at everyone and say “ah ha, you look like a good wife, i’ll have you!” - the kings “people” do a whole evaluation of the local women of swaziland, make sure she “pure” - and i figure an HIV test as well - and the decision is made. the chosen wife does still dance though.
a swazi guard stands to watch
Swazi king palace
Life in kaHoyi
My Gogo. host grandmother only spoke shangani..i spoke siswati…oh the hilariousness continues. currently pitching this as an abc sitcom
My host mom in Hoyi. she was great, the family was great. I miss them.
Kruger and Sabie
my favorite. after driving striaght for 10 hours in Kruger, I stoped the van. something was blocking it. The biggest elephant we had seen all day was charging us. “GO nico GOO!” the brits complained i should race through it, i said no way. “Mandla would do it!” ah good one, use my precious ego against me. No I said again. we waited..it cant coming, reversing…reversing..it was still coming..finally it went to the side just a moment to the bushes. placing the van into 1st , to 2nd, and quickly to 3rd we raced by. way to go. i beat babar. or…he just got bored
Just an update for now….the rest, the past month, and being home. to come soon
off to this hour has 22 minutes,
Nico
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