Visitor!
Saturday, March 18, 2006 at 12:42PM On January 23rd, Maya came to visit. I waited on an overpass overlooking the baggage claim area while her plane unloaded. I quickly spotted the only young and lost-looking Vaza (foreigner). I counted to 10 before climbing down to run after her, just to make sure.
We were thrilled to see each other. She looked exactly as I remembered her, maybe better. I negotiated the taxi fare and we headed off for the hotel. Back in the room, we exchanged pictures and stories from our travels and tried to get over the surreal feeling of seeing each other again.
The next day we took the night taxi-brousse to Majunga. We stayed in the run down, yet quant and safe hotel that I usually stay in, Hotel Kanto (ironically, "the well built hotel."). The very next morning we left for Antsianitia. We arrived around noon with far too much baggage and a kilometer to walk, fortunately some villagers were there to help. As the footpath opened up revealing the village and my house a huge crowd of at least a hundred villagers were already scattered around my house and my yard. The goat was already dead and boiling in the pot. My villagers clapped and cheered as we approached. Once inside, they began the "mamangy" (official visitings). Starting with the oldest and most respected village men, small groups of 4 to 5 villagers would come into the house and chat with us for several minutes while we offered them soda. The villagers understood that Maya didn't speak Malagasy, but somehow couldn't quite accept it. Her blank looks helped to reinforce the message that, no, in fact there was no way to communicate with this girl, save for me translating.
When the goat was properly boiled (until it resembled truck tire on a stick) and the rice sufficiently cooked, we laid down several large woven reed mats on which to sit and eat. Amazingly, the floor of my small hut accommodated more than 15 Malagasy, albeit uncomfortably.
After dinner we accepted more visitors, wandered around the crowd, and then slowly began dropping hints that we needed to unpack. First however, we had to do the "Kabary" (speeches). Malagasy speeches are fun contests where the speakers compete to see who can convey the idea of "thank you" in as many different and verbose ways as possible. The last speech was reserved for me. Not being skilled in Kabarying, however, I had to make do with apologizing 3 times, 3 ways for not being a good speaker, then moving on to giving thanks in only a handful of awkward and probably grammatically incorrect ways. Then, when I thought it was all over, they looked to Maya for a Kabary. She didn't really know what to say except thank you, so I told her to just say English sentences while I pretended to translate. I repackaged the speech I had just given while cleverly replacing the word for "I" alternately with "she says" and "Maya says." The villagers nodded in appreciation, although they probably were just being polite.
The next day we hiked to a nearby village so I could show off the rice fields that I oversaw the planting of using a new intensive rice farming technique. That evening we were invited to eat with some a bunch of the villagers who had killed some turkeys and ducks to celebrate the recovery of a boy that had been sick. That night I fell suddenly and severely ill. I kept Maya awake as I got out of bed every 10 minutes or so to go out to the outhouse. The next day I was slightly better as we napped on the beach and played backgammon. However my illness returned that night. At one point I pulled out my medical book to try to self diagnose myself. As usual, the book simply made me aware of more symptoms that I had "yet to notice" (you know, I do have a backache, now that you mention it... hey and my left ear does kinda feel weird... Oh My God I have Schistosomiasis... and Malaria... and Disentary).
The next day we returned to Majunga as planned and I slowly began to recover. After a day in Tana, we flew out to Antalaha in the North East (near the rainforest corridor). We met my friend Steven at the airport and spent a relaxed few days hanging out in Antalaha with Steven and two other volunteers.
Next, we hoped on the taxi brousse from hell (relative to all others I've taken, which says a lot). The brousse was more crowded, smelly, and overheated than usual. After a solid 3 hours of riding we began to see signs for "ANDAPA 10 Km", which was our destination. We relaxed thinking we had only 20 minutes or so left. Unfortunately, the last 10 Km are a severe uphill climb and in a antique and overloaded taxi brousse this meant that the last 10Km took more than an hour and a half. 80 year old women carrying loads of wood on their heads passed us by.
Finally, we disembark in Andapa. I ask an innocent-looking Malagasy man about the location of the National Park office where my friend Paul lives. Quickly I realize that I have made a mistake and opened a conversation with a drunk. He launched into a sob story about his brother who was killed in a park accident on the other side of the island. Then he starts begging for money. We start walking away and he followed. He was trying to convince me to follow him to the Park office, but I will have none of it. He then reaches into my pocket while asking for money. In shock, I smack his hand and threaten to call the Gandarme. Eventually, we lose him and find our way to the office. After meeting up with Paul, who should arrive at the door, but our friend the drunk. We send him away. Undeterred and somewhat creatively, he returns with a pineapple and a banana. Again we send him away.
Later that night we are eating dinner in a somewhat fancy Malagasy restaurant which is open to the street. Mid-sentence, Paul is interrupted by drunky as he lurches into Paul's face while demanding "Acheté moi une cigarette!!" After a short showdown, he retreats back into the street. After dinner, we nervously walk to our hotel, a full 7 hours after our first meeting, the drunk guy must have finally sobered up because we never saw him again.
The next day we began climbing Mt. Moranjejy. The mountain is protected as a national park with infrastructure constructed by a German NGO. It is a rainforest paradise much like that depicted in the Disney movie "Madagascar" (except the lemurs didn't have an Indian accent). As you climb, the forest changes from lowland tertiary scrub to secondary lowland to mid-altitude primary forest to high altitude primary scrub. It was damp and foggy but luckily it didn't rain much. We climbed for 3 days, sleeping in nice nylon tent-shelters at night. The distances were short, 10K the first day, 3 k the second and 2k the third. However, this doesn't take into account the vertical climb. Day two and three were almost unbearably tough. For much of the trip we climbed hand over foot pulling ourselves up on tree roots while sliding around in the mud. If it weren't for the diverse plant life and the frequent sightings of poison dart frogs, birds and lemurs, it wouldn't have been any fun. The fact that Maya's bag was at least twice as heavy as mine (I don't have a hiking pack, just a daybag) kept me from complaining too much. Eventually, late on day 3 we climbed up out of the forest and onto the spine of the mountain revealing a fog covered canopy of rainforest in all directions. It felt like climbing into a national geographic special on PBS. The next day we had to abandon an attempt for the summit due to poor weather (rain and wind) and head back down the mountain. I was so tired I contemplated curling up on a nice fuzzy matt of moss and dying. That day we descended more than a kilometer and a half in vertical distance.
After successfully conquering, despite not summitting, Mt Moranjejy, we flew back to Tana. A few days later I took Maya to the airport for a sad goodbye almost a year to the day since we said goodbye the last time. She leaves for Fiji in May. Maybe next April I'll take the scenic, easterly route home.
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