Cyclone Season: Anne
- nfbald
- Jan 26, 2022
- 6 min read
School this week was canceled because the first cyclone of the year swept through Madagascar beginning on Saturday. Cyclones are pretty much the same as hurricanes. The only real difference is that hurricanes happen in the Atlantic Ocean whereas cyclones happen in the Indian Ocean. Just like the south-eastern United States, Madagascar has a cyclone season, but it runs from January through February. This year there is an estimated 3 cyclones which may or may not rip through the Red Island.
The first we heard about the cyclone was on Wednesday. At that point, there was no confirmed storm, but the conditions were perfect for one to begin forming out in the Indian Ocean. Some school zones closed school on Thursday and Friday, particularly in places prone to flooding, whereas others, like mine, remained open. Come Saturday, there was a confirmed cyclone off the coast headed straight for northern and central Madagascar. Like our storms, they are named, and this one was named Anne. By Saturday night, we started getting some heavy rains, and by Sunday, the full brunt of Anne hit Tana, flooding the streets with rainwater and putting a pause on pretty much all daily life. Needless to say, schools decided to close for the week on Sunday when we realized how much water was going to come from the sky.
Now cyclones are not very exciting in the way we may think about them. On the coast, they’re extremely dangerous. Just like hurricanes, they are most forceful on the coastlines but lose strength when they cross a certain land threshold. Since were a little over 100 miles from the coast, and protected by the mountains, we don’t really get struck with the high winds associated with such storms. Rather, we get just get buckets upon buckets of water. However, because Madagascar is primarily composed of clay, hence the name Red Island, water runs off and causes major problems when it pools and fails to either evaporate or seep into the ground.
It’s been raining all week since Sunday. Well, it has been raining on and off all week, I should clarify. Nonetheless, the damage in Tana is also pretty bad. Up on the hills, people are generally safe. Well-built homes have no problems, and sometimes power doesn’t even go out. In the lower parts of the city or out in the rice fields, however, people are not as fortunate. Flooding has covered many parts of the city. Landslides have cut off pieces of hills. Many roads are submerged in water and are impassible in some places. Nearly 10 people have died, for certain, from the related storm.
It’s a very serious thing. The worst off are those without shelter, the homeless and the poor. There are no emergency shelters or places for them to go. The only hope for many of them is to get to higher ground, which is easier said than done when water is rushing down from every possible channel.
During the day, most life activities go on a usual, although there are less people out than an ordinary day. Megan and I had to make our way to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs this week to get our visa paperwork underway. Along the way, several roads were flooded. Most cars can pass through, but sometimes the water is simply too deep for pedestrians, reaching depths close to one’s knees or deeper. That would be my knees, which is closer to thigh or waist height for the Malagasy. And the water isn’t friendly. It’s a brown and red color, a mixture of the rain and water tainted by either sewage, garbage, or worse. This makes the puddles dangerous if one’s immune system isn’t prepared for such a heavy burden. Even with waterproof boots and a good rain jacket, I rarely make my way into the streets when it rains this much and I always avoid deep puddles.
Nonetheless, people make the best of these situations. Pousse-pousse drivers, which I will explain in another blog, will take passengers onto their carriages and bring them across the water for a small fee. Some homeless children set up steppingstones and were charging people for using them. Other people just walk right through the brown water with their flip flops, bare feet, or whatever else they’re wearing. Life changes pace when there is this much water. Yet it must go on.
I think this is an appropriate time for me to talk about a key concept to which I have alluded to but have not named definitively. In past blogs, I have referred to it as Malagasy time or island time. Anyone familiar with island nations or cultures know that things seem to move slowly, or not at all sometimes, that there is a level of carefreeness about everyone and everything. In South America, they sometimes call it Latino time, a concept I am very familiar with. But here on the Big Island, they have a Malagasy word for it, moramora. Slowly, slowly.
Moramora permeates everything here. There is no rush. There is urgency. There is no need to make something happen. It will come. It will pass. It will be alright. It means people will be late. It means that nothing is quite as important as you think it is. It means that you will wait, and wait, wait some more, just before you wait a little longer for something to happen, or not happen at all. Not even the clocks are on “schedule”. The bell for the 6am mass at the Cathedral rings at 6:05am every morning. At school, there are alarms and periods, but the alarms, which sound as if the Luftwaffe is about to rain down hellfire, are manually operated, are never consistent, and class ends whenever the teacher decides. The fokotany are open every day. Nevertheless, their lunch break changes from day to day at random, whatever the person working feels like really. This is all encompassed by that single word, moramora.
When something happens, when something or someone is late, when something changes unexpectedly that could have easily been prevent with any level of prudence, the answer is always the same. Moramora.
We use the word quite often now. The Malagasy people like that we have adopted it and use it consistently within its cultural framework. There are many things like this which I have managed to master. For instance, making certain sounds to indicate reactions such as, “eeh?!” for, “what?” Or, “aye,” for, “yes.” I know how to incorporate rice into random subjects. Rice is almost a national joke with how important it is. I still haven’t gotten the hang of using the ancestors in conversation yet. This seems to be a concept mostly used in the rural parts, which makes perfect sense when one considers that ancestor veneration is a traditional animist practice and that here in Tana the primary religion remains Christianity, mostly Catholic or Episcopal. It is something that will come with time.
Below I’ve attached a few links to a newspaper called L’Express de Madagascar. It doesn’t matter whether you speak French or not. What matters more are the photos of the flooding from the cyclone. Please do not falsely believe or presume that I press an environmental message here. I am not. Natural disasters like this occur every year. It is “normal” to a certain degree in a place like this. What I want you to see is what I see. And these photos do better justice than my words every could. We are primarily visual beings, after all. Was it not in the garden of Eden that the fruit looked appealing? Was it not the eyes that confirmed temptation? Should it not also be that our eyes, the gateways to our minds, also be the windows to what is good and to what motivates us to conversion and change? Does the beauty of a building, a piece of art, or another human being not stir within us some deeper emotion and call to a more profound spiritual reality? So yes, please see what I have seen. I am very far away from many of these photos, the most devastating, in fact. But these people are still people in my community here. Please keep them in your prayers.
And as always, know that you are in my prayers each morning. All as I ask is that you do the same for me.
May God be praised.
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