A Day in Ambalavao

There are 18 ethnic tribes scattered across Madagascar. If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you know that a few decades before the first Europeans set foot on the island in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, there was a Malagasy king from the Merina tribe who had a dream to unite the island by conquering it. The capital of Tana has the largest diversity of the ethnic tribes on the island because people from all over come to take advantage of what little opportunity there is in the big city. By far Tana is the largest city in the country with a population of 1.4 million in Tana-proper and nearly 4 million when you include the immediate “suburbs” which we could call the metropolitan area. Still, the overwhelming majority of the Malagasy who live in Antananarivo are direct descendants of the Merina tribe or Merina with a mix. But on the first Friday of my vacation, I was off to the southern part of the island which is home to the Bara and Bestelio tribes.

Historically the tribes have fought each other. However, once the Merina tribe began its campaign against the rest of the island, there haven’t really been any ethnic tensions anymore. My first destination was a town called Ambalavao which is in the grey zone between the two tribes. After arriving in the late afternoon of Friday, I took the rest of the night to rest and made my plans to walk around the city the next day because I had a full day of nothing planned. Thus after breakfast on Saturday morning, I grabbed my bag and was off to Ambalavao, about a half mile away from where my hotel was located.

I had a few objectives concerning my visit to the tiny city. Firstly, I had to find a Catholic church to attend for mass the next day. Second, I wanted to find the famous zebu market which, at the time, I was told occurs on Saturday. Third, I was on the hunt for more hats. And finally, I was told about a wild silk workshop that is well-known across the island.

So I headed out and made my way through town. I said hello to people, got plenty of stares as this tall, white man walked confidently through the city’s small streets. I traversed the 3ish miles to where the zebu market was only to discover that I was given incorrect information, that indeed the zebu market happens on Thursday and not Saturday. Regardless, I found a church and asked some locals on the street about what time the mass was on Sunday morning. After receiving several contradictory answers, I determined that the people I asked were either not Catholic or had no idea what time the mass actually started and were just giving me what time they thought it might be.

Afterwards, I wandered around the markets for a while to scare people when I spoke Malagasy. I found some new hats, zebu-themed of course because I was in Ambalavao, and eventually I walked past some guys playing pool on the side on the side of the street. They said hello to me, and I asked if I could watch them. We chit chatted for about 30min before I headed out and was approached by a young man. He spoke English and was wondering what I was doing in Ambalavao. Turns out he’s an English teacher. He showed me around, gave me a short tour of the paper factory, and we had lunch together. He also showed me where there was a bigger Catholic church where I was able to find a woman who definitely knew what time the mass was the next morning. Thank Jesus.

Anyways, my new friend and I parted ways as I began heading back to my hotel. Along the road was the wild silk factory. I walked into the store part and saw a woman there.

“Salama,” hello, I said.

“Salama tompoko,” hello sir, she said.

“Inona vaovao?” Anything new?

“Tsy misy vaovao, fa mahay malagasy iano.” Nothing new, but you speak Malagasy.

“Aïe, mahay malagasy kelikely aho. Afaka maka tour ve?” Mhmm, I do speak a little Malagasy. Can I take a tour?

That was enough to make a new friend. The lady told me that there weren’t any workers that day because it was the weekend, but normally there are 20 women who live and work at the workshop. She showed me how they collect both wild and farmed silk cocoons from silkworms, a few of which I saw later that week on my hikes. They separate the two, of course. And when I asked why the wild silk is more valuable, she told me it’s a higher quality and stronger. I take her word for it. I have no reason not to.

So in the process of making the silk scarfs, the ladies have to soak the cocoons and roll them into balls. Then they dry for a few days in the sun before they’re boiled twice and then left out to dry again. After they’re dry, the cocoons are rolled into a thin but strong thread. The next step is to dye the silk unless they decide to go with a natural color, which in my honest opinion is kind of a gross brown. The silk is wrapped into spools and then strung on the handlooms where it takes one woman two full days to complete a scarf, making the full process a minimum of a week to complete.

As I have said in previous blogs, I’m a big fan of handcrafts, and these kinds of things always fascinate me. In fact, while I was in college, we had a big group project on the history of the textile industry in Great Britain before and after the industrial revolution. Surprisingly, despite the total 35 pages the four of us collectively wrote, I loved the project. Being the economics nerd, I was tasked with the history of the prices, supply, demand, and manufacturing process. I found it all incredibly interesting, and when we had to present our final project in front of class, my friend Brad had built a small homemade loom that we used to demonstrate how tedious and long it takes to make anything woven by hand, even when you have a good loom.

But that was my day in Amabalavao. I’m sure the entire city was filled with gossip at some point. It’s not every day that a vazaha comes into town, walks around, speaks Malagasy with people, asks about zebu markets, and buys some random hats. Despite the rather eventful day I had there, my vacation was just starting. I hadn’t even reached my primary destination yet.

As always, know that you are in my prayers each morning. All I ask is that you do the same for me.

May God be praised.