13.05.2010
© Eleonore de Bonneval
Madagascar’s government has today declared that tomorrow is a national bank holiday.
For our Fort Dauphin to Antananarivo flight transfer Eleonore’s passport doesn’t get checked. Mine does, twice.
Posts Tagged 'sainte luce'
Madagascar’s government has today declared that tomorrow is a national bank holiday
Published May 21, 2010 Madagascar Leave a CommentTags: air madagascar, ancestors, antananarivo, Azafady, charity, documentary maker, Eléonore de Bonneval, fort dauphin, kenya airways, Laura Heighton-Ginns, Madagascar, madagascar government, marathon, paris, sainte luce
Slight change of setting and circumstance
Published May 20, 2010 Madagascar 2 CommentsTags: air madagascar, ancestors, antananarivo, Azafady, charity, documentary maker, Eléonore de Bonneval, fort dauphin, kenya airways, Laura Heighton-Ginns, Madagascar, marathon, paris, sainte luce
10.05.2010
© Eleonore de Bonneval
Slight change of setting and circumstance. Private beach in Sainte Luce, sunbathing. On a rock in the sea, surrounded by rain forest, no one in sight.
Dawn Tuesday we leave Fort Dauphin, where we’ve been living in some luxury, for the bush and meals of beans from steel bowls
Published May 20, 2010 Madagascar Leave a CommentTags: air madagascar, ancestors, antananarivo, Azafady, charity, documentary maker, eau vive, Eléonore de Bonneval, fort dauphin, good look cigarettes, kenya airways, lanirano, Laura Heighton-Ginns, Madagascar, mahialombo, marathon, paris, sainte luce, sorcerer
09.05.2010
© Eleonore de Bonneval
Dawn Tuesday we leave Fort Dauphin, where we’ve been living in some luxury, for the bush and meals of beans from steel bowls. In the face of a no-education curse cast by the same sorcerer that blighted Lanirano, the charity volunteers we are travelling with are half way through constructing Mahialombo’s first school buildings.
Mahialombo has 717 inhabitants living mostly on three meals of casava a day according to the village chief, with few able to send their children to the local private school.
On arrival we pitch our two man tent, the volunteer coordinator commenting ‘I had that tent when I was a volunteer. I hope it doesn’t rain’.
The nearby roadside shop, a wooden stall, is carried into Mahialombo on our arrival due to the business opportunity we pose. The shop sells Coca Cola, Eau Vive, questionably named Good Look cigarettes and various biscuit brands, including Bolos which are something of a currency amongst the volunteers (one evening one of the group eats a live stag beetle for 2,000 ariary or ‘8 Bolos’). When the shop runs out of Eau Vive everyone drinks well water or river water with a cap of chlorine mixed in.
© Eleonore de Bonneval
After three days and having come to enjoy bucket showers it reaches our last night in Mahialombo. On the highest mountains of the great chain, we can see the reflections of lightening, every few seconds. It is beautiful. Later we hear the first spots of rain.
Our two man tent has patches of netting in the top for ventiliation and no lining. Gradually, inevitably, rain comes in. Trickles form. The walls of the tent seem to be letting rain in too. Puddles grow on the ground sheet. I try to sleep on an increasingly small surface area. Eventually, we move tents.
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