Waiting for the Boat

By Frieda

While we waited for the boat to Mananara we visited an open air concert of a madagascan pop star called Dadi Love. It was a very good and happy atmosphere at the concert and we could take part in  the enthusiastic way of a madagascan celebration J.

The day after that a local farmer invited us to see his farm. Therfore we walked one hour to the opposite site of Sainta Marie. The walk was amazingly beautyful, passing rice fields untouched nature and some small villages. Everywhere friendly people were greeting us as we passed them, sometimes amused that we knew how to greet in the madagascan language.

The Farm was a compound of 50 square metres full of coconut trees, vanilla- and maniok plants, located directly at the beach. His house was a very basic hut, of course with neither running water nor electricity. He makes a living of his plants and some fishing. In the evening he told us that he loved to listen to soap operas on the radio. The basic life and the positive attitude of  this guy impressed us very much and we felt very honured to be his guests. While having one of his exceptionally good coconuts we enjoyed the beauty and calmness of the place.

We stayed so late that we had trouble to get back to the other side of the island before it would get dark. While we hurried down the path several cars with white people passed by without taking any notice of us (we got the impression that Sainte Marie is rather full of old french man moving to the island or visiting it to mate up with rather young madagascan women. Nowhere else in Madagascar we saw so many of those rather unfriendly kind of european people). But the one car driven by young madagascan boys offered us immidiately a lift back to town. Arriving there they invited us to hang around with them later on.

When we met them a few hours later they took us to a very nice spot an the beach to have some drinks with them. Listening to madagascan music we talked about life in Madagascar and in Germany. (they would not even give us a chance to pay for anything). The whole day was a very nice experience of madagascan hospitality.