Clownered, in Madagascar

the floor took shape really quickly and was going to be solid for years to come.


this is the first time that we used cement on the school build
a dry cement mix was then tapped in between the gaps and on top of the stones to create a strong base, this cement set incredibly quickly and was completed within a few hours.


overlapping boards were then cut and nailed on, we had 2 teams cutting and 2 teams fastening again this was really quick and within 2 days it was complete.




the floor was finished off with a cement and water mix, which gave it a shiny hard finish.

i don't think i mentioned where this school was - in the tiny village of Tsiroa, it had an old school which the locals had built themselves but it wasn't water tight and was in a state of collapse.
the school we built had 2 classrooms, for the 2 academic age groups 5 - 9 yrs and 10 - 16 yrs. Madagascar has a very low literacy rate, with an estimated 10% of the pop'n of the region we were in who could read, so schools were an important part of our work.
the teachers were paid by the govt and generally lived with the villagers through the week, going back home at weekends.

the charity also funded adult learning, but this was not well supported by the villagers, who were generally un willing to learn.
this was down to working in the fields during daylight hours (there is no electricity except in the main town fort dauphin)
and down to an attitude of not having the need to read and write on a daily basis - no news papers, no books, no tv, no radios, no mobile phones.

 

the children watched us most days and are very inquisitive.
I had been to checkout the progress of this site before the volunteers arrived and did an impromptu english lesson.
when i arrived to start the building with the volunteers, the kids came running out shouting my name…. this was really heart warming an kinda cool.


we also made the benches for schools, these benches could easily seat 3 or 4 children and were of simple but hard wearing construction


the windows and doors were made by the building team - they couldn't trust us amateurs to make them haha.


this was the old school

and our newly built school

 

the school was opened by a local dignitary of anosy region, i can't remember her name but she was the equivalent of a mayoress.
the whole ceremony was an excuse for a village party.

as tradition in any ceremony in mad, wether it be a wedding, death, birth, new school etc. a Zebu (domestic cattle similar to a cow) was slaughtered and blessed.
this was a huge deal, zebu are the malagasy currency and are highly revered and a symbol of luck.

the meat is divided up into portions and given out to the villagers and we also got a share. it is spread out on the floor and most would only get around a handful of meat.
Meat is not part of the malagasy diet and is only ever eaten at these kind of celebrations. one villager told us this was only the second time in his life he had eaten meat.


this was the meat being butchered and spread out on the floor - really hygienic haha


a local band played music….
and children danced




and thats how to build a school
in total we built 5 schools, all of the same construction, one group of volunteers build the school, the next group will then go out and paint it
all public buildings in mad are painted the same
red roofs, while walls and green doors and windows.
those colours are the colours of the madagascar flag.

thanks for taking the time to read.
that it for tonight…

 

todays topic…. transport.

For the most part volunteers walked, however when we went out on a project for upto 3 weeks at a time, we had to take out all of the provisions we would need, this meant we needed a large vehicle.
the chameon in question was half fitted with benches and the volunteers usually ended up sitting on supplies (toilet rolls were particularly comfortable)


certain "roads" the volunteers had to get off and walk due to the rockiness and instability.


the chameon had to also carry all of the volunteers camping equipment. and by the time we set off was packed to the rafters

the locals walked everywhere, and it was common to see people travel for 2-3 days into the main town and walk back with sacks of rice on their back - when i say walk, they kind of do a funny fast walk/run and can make it back in half the time it took them to get there in the first place!


the only other form of transport was pirogue, a hollowed out tree trunk.
these were used not only for rivers and lakes, but also out on the indian ocean.


they often had holes in and needed bailing out on the whole journey.


very early one morning we joined a few of the locals as they went out fishing in the indian ocean….
it was the scariest time of my life…..
on a lake the pirogue is pretty stable and although wobbles, its safe enough

out on the open ocean… its a whole different beast. the slightest waves send the pirogue into uncontrollable wobbles, very rare do they actually turn over, but the sensation is scary to say the least

 

ok, one of the worst parts of the experience was toilet time…

everywhere the volunteers camped, the first job was to dig a toilet for the volunteers to use.
This was generally a hole dug 1 metre down, plus another metre down for each week we were there. we normally dug 2 or 3 holes (for queueing purposes)

the hole was then covered over with a concrete san-plat basically a slab of concrete that we take with us with a hole, and sometimes the "luxury" of standing plates. then a pipe sticking out of the back.. to keep the flies out of the way as much as possible

ok…. I've left the pictures til last…. just incase you are eating haha.

they were the smelliest toilets ever - and i have been to festival toilets on day 3 or 4, so i can compare!!


this was by far my favourite one… completely surrounded by trees and in the open


after a heavy rain storm this one was demolished

bathing and washing was an important time every day, it was really special, we generally bathed in streams and rivers.
the water was warm due to the sun beating down all day. the water had to be flowing, due to the waterborne diseases and those pesky little things that crawl inside a mans… you know what….
as well as there being fewer mosquitos
clothes and bodies were washed in the same areas
men generally bathed naked, but women had to be fully covered up.

 

just a few pictures of the malagsy people
their origins are somewhat mixed, the earliest settlers can be traced back to Indonesia, mainland Africa and India.
as a general rule they tend to be a short in stature but very strong.
we met some real characters, very few of the older generations knew their age!!

the children were always the first to jump in front of the camera, and as soon as you showed them their pictures back, it caused great hilarity

however a lot of the older generations believed it was fady (forbidden) to have your photograph taken, so i had to ask permission from everyone who had their portrait picture taken


this guy was the "cater taker" of a forest at Vatambe - the location of the large colonies of fruit bats
he guided us through and showed us the best places to see them.


a market stall holder at mahatalaky market. you can buy everything in these markets, from plastic bottles, dried fish to the contents of his stall.
drugs - everything from paracetamol and anti malaria drugs right through to antibiotics and sterile scalpels
a course of antibiotics was only 30p!!


this guy had never seen how things looked in the dark, so we loaned him our head torch… he then proclaimed "it looked the same as when it was light"


this chap was by far the oldest person we met (he claimed he was 78). life expectancy in madagascar is around 67 years, which splits as 64 for men and 69 for women.
in the south east this figure drops to 62 on average. with men averaging 59 and women 61.
just looking at his face, he could tell a million stories. he was around when 70% of the island was covered in indigenous forest… now that figure is around 10% and still falling


this fella was the second in command in the village of tsiroa, he stands out in my mind because he knew 2 words of english before any volunteers had even been there… his 2 words???
chicken and football

 

Thanks for all the posts sounds like you had a very interesting experience captured in some great photos.

 

cheers mate it was an experience that will always be with us.
still have plenty more to put on, but don't want people to get bored.
i rarely speak about it much to people i know, i wouldn't want them to think that was all i ever went on about lol

 

Keep posting I think a lot of people are gripped by the work you've done and the stories

 

Cheers kev. I'll carry on til we make our first signing .............



December it is then

 

tonights picture and info selection comes in the form of scenery………

flying over mad from the capital to fort dauphin is an eye opening experience. what i can only have imagined to be a once green and lush rainforest, was now just a scared red landscape. the interior of the island is somewhere where you could hide without being seen for years. the majority of the pop'n is based on the coasts and in the capital city .

however there is some absolutely story book scenery….

this is the interior of the island (just think back 70 years to a green lush tree covered place)

this was our first sight of fort dauphin (our base for the year)



gorgeous sunrises

followed by amazing sunsets


and unspoilt beaches

 

food was always an issue out in madagascar
I have touched on diet of locals, but to expand that a little more….

The malagasy diet is not very varied and is high in carbs. White rice is the main staple along with cassava. There is also red rice.
The white rice is mainly imported from china and india and is eaten daily, villages and families often purchase a sack of rice and share it out.
Cassava is a root crop (grows like potato) but is really bland and not very nice.
Red rice is similar to risotto rice, in that it absorbs lots of moisture. It is the main rice grown in madagascar due to its high starch (carb) content. it is allowed to go cold and it was not unusual to see the malagasy walking round with a "bar" of rice!!
fish was available to the coastal towns and they only used to catch what they needed.

Families purchase rice from the sale of crops. pineapples and bananas grow well and can be sold easily in the markets.

But these are seasonal.
One of the biggest earners for local people are lychees, the trees grow huge and are smothered in fruit when in season. most villages have a few lychee trees in.

quite a few of the volunteers did get the old trots from eating too many lychees but at around £3.00 for a huge basket full, who can fault them lol

ooh i will just touch on money.
the currency is the ARIARY, but its confusing. pre 1980 most malagasy were still using the malagasy franc.
£1 is around 4,000fr (malagasy franc)
£1 is around 1,200Ar (ariary)
the confusion came when quoted one price… this was always quoted in francs, but then expected you to pay in ariary (the local would never mind you paying 4 times the price haha)

Myself and the volunteers ate a similar diet to the locals as much as possible, but we were bound by our doctors advice to also supplement the food to ensure we met their basic needs. this also changed quite a lot wether we were in town or out in the bush.

in town….
breakfast consisted of a large pan of red rice, half a baguette, bananas, honey and tea or coffee
lunch was primarily rice with beans (freshly boiled beans coated in a tomato..ish sauce)
dinner was the same as above. however twice a week we would try and do meat (this consisted of 2 cubes of zebu meat per person) and a vegetable stew for the veggies.

In the bush……
breakfast was mofo bread (a cassava flour mixed with water and kneaded to a thick dough then cooked on the upturned lid of a boiling pan of water) actually tasted ok (but most things did when you were hungry), red rice and what ever fruit we could get hold of - sometimes jack fruit (which stinks), papaya or prikcly pears)
lunch was the standard rice and beans.
dinner was the standard rice and beans. and maybe if the local had some chickens or geese they could spare we would buy them off them at double the market value, to help their economy.

Water was the choice of drink, but fresh water was often dirty and even where we built wells was in short supply especially out of the rainy season.
All of the water we drunk was treated with bleach (a product widely available and cheap in mad, called sur-eau, one 100ml bottle would treat 10,000 litres)
tea and coffee was made in the morning while the fire was still hot.
Fires were only lit at food times to boil the water for the rice. we couldn't burn any precious fuels other than we needed.

on our return to the town (after 2 or 3 weeks in the bush) we would treat the volunteers with a fresh salad and tuna. this was expensive but kept morale up after a very tiring few weeks.




this is the only pic of food i can find…. this is us taking shelter in the school we built, to eat our dinner… if there was no school, it was under a tarp… or in your tent.


these are zebu, the meat is tough as old boots and there isn't much of it, but it does taste good and is very low in fat.
a zebu will cost around 400,000 fr (around £100). most families will own at least one zebu, and these are looked after by one family in the village whose children will keep and eye on them day and night.

another source of income, and quite a contentious one, for the coastal towns is shark fishing.
sharks are caught using home made spears, normally on pirogues out in the indian ocean.
The money however is not in the shark meat but in the fins. the chinese market for shark fin soup is huge, which make the flesh almost worthless and not eaten because they like to transport them whole so the fin stays fresher for longer.


this guy didn't want his photo taken as the killing of sharks is illegal without a licence in mad (the main reason is so that the govt can make some of the large amounts of money from selling the fins)
i promised not to show it to anyone until i had left the country but i wanted a record of this happening.



most of the time the volunteers were well fed compared to the locals. we always used to keep money in the local economies by buying local produce and meat.
but as the main town, fort dauphin, was growing with the impending mining the volunteers used to supplement their diets with food from the local supermarket (at hugely inflated prices) almost wholly imported from south africa.

 

Did at any point did you feel threatened at all out there ?

 

No not really mate. When I first got there and didn't know the language, got by on a bit of French, there were a few hairy moments when I didn't have a clue what they wanted. But once I'd got a grasp then I didn't have any issues.

We used to walk 3 Miles from the town to our campsite in pitch black, felt safer there than I do walking back from pub.

When out in the Bush, the locals watched out for us.

 

creepy crawly time…….


madagascan hissing cockroach……this was a young one, i saw one that was almost 8 inches long…. bloody scary when they hiss at you.
in the hut i lived in, i had mice… so i got rid of them. within 24 hours i was infested with cockroaches! so i went and got some more mice!


orb spiders… there webs span huge expanses. the spiders themselves are as big as a hand (legs included)


ghekos… the coolest things on the planet


mating grasshoppers…. xxx rated at this time of night


a spider with its prey, a dragon fly

 

well digging.
we dug 6 wells in total. the water quality in mad is as you would expect from a third world country. drinking from contaminated rivers, streams and also rainwater collection. Although not as bad as you would see in these red nose day films, its still terrifying.

another aim of the charity was to provide wells for fresh drinking water.
These were generally built in the areas that we provided schools and latrines, so that each village could have a fully functioning "infrastructure" of sorts.

as with the latrine pits, the wells were dug out by hand. however before the volunteers arrived to dig the wells test sites were hand drilled to check on the approximate depth of the water table (although the villagers knew where the best locations were)


this was the site chosen (where the metal cage is) this well was only going to be 3 metres deep as the water table was quite high.
The "cages" were 1 metre tall and made from rebar, bound together on site by the volunteers.
the cylinder in the pic is made from old oil drums (a smaller one inside)
these create the frame for the cage to set in. and are around 1 1/2 metres wide, the hole is dug 2 metres wide.

the deepest we dug was 5 metres (that was scary down at the bottom of that hole)


this was just at 1 1/2 metres down and the water table was already showing.


the frame with the cage was then filled with concrete. this picture shows the second ring going on. each step takes a day to complete so that the concrete can dry enough to set the next layer.


sticks were used to keep the frames circular (just basic things that work - nothing complex)


once the 3rd layer is set, a stone structure is built around the outside to make the base for a cement water proof base so that the water is contained.
at this stage the water is all taken out of the well 3 times to allow all of the scraps left from the concrete process.
after the 3rd drain the water is pure enough to drink. however the well needs enclosing to ensure nothing can get in.

 

once the concrete is set this is what it looks like… made so that the water can drain off when spilt, and also so it can be easily cleaned.


the lid can then be made.
again using why ever is to hand. a small hole is dug, to the size of the lid. then lined with a rice sack inside. a wire rebar cage is made to fit inside and holes left for the pump assembly and an access panel




takes 5 or 6 people to lift the lid into place, i never let the volunteers do this, if they got their fingers trapped.. they would lose them!!

the pump assembly is fitted, which is supplied from the UK (when volunteers come out from the Uk, they are told to leave space for taking items in their luggage, these pumps were taken out by them - it saves on postage - one volunteer had 6kg left on their allowance so had to take 12 hard hats,…)

hey presto fresh water.
in the dry season this well will produce 80 % of the water needs for the entire village.

out of all the buildings, wells were my favourite. real intense work but with hugely satisfying rewards

 

market days were always special in madagascar.
larger villages held markets on fridays mostly (not that the malagasy had any real ideas of days/times - most people we met didn't rely know what year or month it was)
smaller villages used to converge on the larger ones
most people wearing their best clothes, young adults looking for partners, older people catching up with each other. they were just huge social gatherings and a real pleasure to witness



the markets sold everything you could wish for, fruit and vegetables, fish and meat, medicines, moonshine, tobacco, empty plastic bottles, all kinds of plastic objects from washing bowls to (randomly) plastic gnomes?? not that i ever saw any being sold!!!

tobacco was widely available and is grown in the north of the island, it isn't smoked often, mostly late in the evening when the men gather to "chew the fat" over the days work and stuff. the men often get into loud discussions which are hilarious to listen and watch.
the tobacco is pure leaf, pleated into long strands, and sold by length.
i brought some back for my brother who smokes, it almost choked him! its pure and raw, he coughed his lungs up!!


one of the best bits was the gambling wheels… the volunteers lost loads of money on these (talk about being fixed) it was an old bicycle wheel with numbers on… wherever the wheel landed…. you won
brilliant fun and the locals used to laugh at the vazahah's playing and not really knowing what was happening
the locals would bet with the smallest notes (100ar - or around 8p!!)


clothing alterations were done on site….
this wasnt generally a male occupation (sexism isn't prevalent in Madagascar the women wouldn't allow it - they are fiery women)
just on another note….. for women in madagascar it is considered very polite to be called "petuna be" (big woman)
this guy had a huge queue as no one owned a sewing machine, he often worked later than the market actually opened


ever wondered what happened to those clothes bags that you put out for charities???
ok these aren't them but these clothes piled up on the floor are from french charities that do the same….. they collect clothes and send them out for use. the clothes get sold and whoever buys them, then sells them on the market. so when you see someone on a red nose day video walking round in armani jeans… this is where they come from.
i bought some good clothes from these markets for great prices, i purchased a hugo boss t-shirt for 6000ar… or £1.80!!

 

When I was in the Army we saw a lot of creepy crawlies in the foreign lands we visited and I'm sure I was once told that orb spiders are the biggest web dwelling spiders in the world. I can't confirm the accuracy of this claim but the ones I saw in Kenya were huge.

 

whilst most of what we did was serious hard work, it was good to let our hair down
the volunteers used to be challenged to go to the markets and spend no more than 4000ar to create a costume, we used to wear these in the bush and let the locals pick a winner (might sound surreal but it was really fun for the volunteers, but mostly the locals who had a really good laugh at us all) as well as boosting the local economy by spending money in the markets.

this was pirate night.

we also had a sporting event… the long jump…
the malagasy won (even though most hadn't done it before - but learned from an american guy who did the first jump)


i had a go!!!! i finished 8th out of 12…. not a bad result for a fat lad from barnsley!!! just n the fat bit…. i went out there 12 1/2 stone… i came back 9 stone!! best diet ever


dancing was a huge part of malagasy life…. can i post a music file onto here????