My First Weekend in Madagascar: Part II

It dawned on me the other day that I have not really been presenting Madagascar in the friendliest or most attractive light. Indeed, as I reminisce over what I have shared with you, it appears that I am focusing too much on what could be considered the negative aspects of life on the Red Island. You should not confuse all differences of lifestyle as necessarily bad. Not that there are no bad things here. There certainly are, just as there are bad things about the United States. And I would certainly argue there are more bad things here. But that’s beside the point. Rather, things are simply different, and these differences can often be interpreted as utterly bad or negative if not presented in the most delicate and tactful of ways, which I am sure I have failed in doing so.

That being said, let me ease your minds and show you a different Madagascar, a Madagascar just as wild as Tana but so incredibly more peaceful.

Around 7:30 Sunday morning, my fellow Tana Fulbrighters and I joined two vacationing researchers on a very nice coach bus – it had air conditioning, curtains, comfortable seats, and all – which drove us nearly 4 or 5 hours east of Tana along route nationale 2, a primary “highway” that stretches from the capital to Toamasina, a major port city on the east coast. Our destination was Andasibe National Park, which is located about two thirds of the way between Tana and the coast.

We barely made it 10 miles outside of Tana before I fell in love. The center of this magnificent island is a wide mountain range with green, orange, and yellow. There are massive rock formations along every hill and mountain. And the valleys below are dotted with rice fields and villages. In short, I found the Madagascar I had longed for ever since I learned that I had been selected to teach English here. There are, of course, negative sides of the landscape. These things are generally, or virtually entirely, manmade disasters. But for the sake of this blog, I reserve those commentaries for later, for many of the scars on the beautiful face of Madagascar are self-inflicted by the villagers and farmers themselves. Do not take for granted that we have developed mostly sustainable ways of feed ourselves.

So after the very long, windy, and bumpy ride, we arrived, had lunch, and took a three-hour hike through the smallest part of the rainforest. The larger, much larger, part of the national park can truly only be accessed early in the morning. Its size as well as the type of wildlife found there makes a morning into afternoon/early evening trek the only feasible way of seeing the park for its natural beauty. But I was satisfied with our little hike through the local park, and when I take into account that I will have considerable time to explore, when the weather is much cooler might I add, after the school year ends in June, I will certainly return to Andasibe for an overnight, or perhaps even a few days, so that I can truly take in the extent of what it has to offer me.

I’ll let these photos speak for themselves, but needless to say, we saw lemurs, chameleons, and a few other rather interesting creatures. We even saw a sacred tree that, supposedly, has no species. Apparently this means that every time researchers come to look at it, its leaves change and the tree itself is unlike others. Whether this is true or not, is beside the point. And whether it is actually a sacred tree where people come to sacrifice zebu and other animals to the ancestors or simply a recreation, I will never know. But it is true that the Malagasy do have sacred altars and locations throughout the island which many of the rural people still use and venerate with the highest sense of piety that would put many Catholics to shame. It is fady to point at the sacred tree, but not to take photos. So I did.

Ah, it was such a blessing to get out of the city. The jungle is such a dense and intimidating place. But it is so green, so peaceful, so filled with life. If the garden of Eden were anything like a well-arranged box garden like those in the United States, maybe I would have eaten of the fruit as well just to get out. I jest, of course. But if it were anything like the rainforest, I don’t think I would have sacrificed such a wild place for the bite of an apple, and that’s if I could have even found the tree in the winding labyrinths of the jungle.

All creations reflect the beauty of the creator. The same can be said when we create things. We hold a special place in creation such that we are co-creators, endowed with the reason and will to observe, understand, appreciate, and care for the natural, physical world around us. I think those who are religious all too often forget that we are both spirit and body, not simply spirit, that there is something inherently good about the physical world around us, which calls for us to tend and nurture it, just as God nurtures us in both body and soul. I cannot thank God enough for bringing me to Andasibe this past weekend. It is a blessing I will not forget, especially as I hunker down in the city where things are wild but in a very different sense. Sometimes man is more savage than beast. As always, know you are in my prayers each morning. All I ask is that you do the same for me.

May God be praised.