Rova d’Antongona

The other day we went out into rural Madagascar. After leaving the Lemur Park, I had the great idea of visiting what the Malagasy call a rova, an ancient palace of a king long dead but not entirely forgotten. There are twelve famous rova surrounding Antananarivo. Legend, and history for that matter, says that a Merina king went to the twelve hills and married a daughter of each king to unify the valley. When he died, his son, Adiranampoinimerina became king and had a dream of unifying all of Madagascar’s 18 tribes under the benevolent rule of the Merina tribe. He conquered about a tenth of the island, and his son had much better results, which, like always, I’ll talk about in another blog.

Well, unfortunately, the rova d’Antongona is not one of the twelve hills. It’s too far outside of Antananarivo for any Merina king to care about marrying one of its daughters. And after getting there, I know why it remained independent for a little while longer than other surrounding kingdoms.

The rova is off the beaten path, to say the least. From the lemur park, we continued on the very well maintained and paved route nationale 2 for 20min. Then we turned off into a village and began driving, more like trudging really, down the most defeated dirt road I’ve ever seen. I wish I had photos to show you. Words cannot do justice to the 2-feet deep potholes covering all parts of the road, the knee-deep mud and puddles in the middle of the path, the zebu carried carts we had to overtake along the way, and red runoff of clay-diluted water. The image below shows you that from the highway to the bottom of the mountain is about 8km or 5mi. It also says 36min, of which it was closer to 50min.

We had no idea where we were going, and neither did our driver. He stopped and asked directions probably six times. The people outside of Tana do not speak French, so we are happy that our driver spoke both Malagasy and French as well as a little English. We wouldn’t have made it there if he didn’t translate for us. Every time he asked someone, they’d have a little 10sec chat before we moved on again. Joe, our driver, laughed and shook his head each time we moved on. “They all say the same thing,” he said. “Yes, yes. It’s just up there and around the corner. What they mean to say is it’s still several miles away.”

Realizing that it was my idea to come out into the middle of nowhere Madagascar to a rova of which we had no idea what to expect or see, I decided to defuse any brewing hostility, justly held at this time, towards me. Therefore, at some point, I said to my fellow passengers, “Well, since this was my idea, I want you to know that it is currently open to criticism and that all of my future ideas are rightly subjected to any and all cynicism. However, if this somehow turns out well, I would like you to know that I accept your apology now and that I won’t even say ‘I told you so’ at the end.” We had a good laugh. Even Joe laughed.

Anyways, we reached the little spot, which even had a welcome sign in English and French. Our driver spoke with a few ladies there who gave him the details. They were astonished that anyone had come out all the way there, let alone a bunch of vazaha! We finally worked out that they would bring us up the mountain where the rova is and that there would be someone up there that we would pay to look around and answer questions.

And so we started off on our totally unexpected little 40min hike. Our two young guides, one completely barefoot and the other in flipflops, began bounding up the little dirt path. The hike was beautiful. The photos do not do rural Madagascar justice. I felt like I was back in Switzerland again. They say that the center of the island is a plateau, but it is far from it. The landscape is breathtaking, the rolling mountains are dotted with little mud houses, and the journey was worth every minute of bouncing a few inches off my seat as we jerked and skid along the crevasse riddled clay road for nearly an hour.

Once we got to the top, we waited a bit before a man and his son arrived and unlocked the gate for us. He answered our few questions in French and showed us the little huts that they call a palace. I wasn’t supposed to take pictures of them, but no one saw me, and I didn’t know that until the deed was done. It is fady, taboo, to take pictures of the palace of the ancient kings and, especially, their tombs. Oops. If I go missing, you can blame it on the spirits of the ancestors. After a little while on top of the mountain, we could see storm clouds a few dozen miles away and slowly made our descent, soaking in every last glimpse of the land around us. I’m not sure when I’ll be back in those mountains. I wasn’t going to waste a single second of it.

About halfway down, Megan said to me, “Nathaniel, I would like to apologize for doubting how this excursion was going to go.” I accepted her apology. No hard feelings. I won’t lie. Halfway along the dirt road, I was second guessing my decision, too.

We got to the bottom of the mountain, shared some snacks with the little children we found, paid our lovely guides, and made our way off down the road again before the rain got to us and made the road impassible.

All-in-all, it was quite the journey and will stay in my memory for a long time. Rural Madagascar is so different compared to the bustle of the capital. There, people are friendly, curious, and generous. They welcome us very quickly and love watching us. As vazaha, we are a spectacle to them. Something new, unseen, and, sometimes, stuff of legends. Yes, I am a white giant from a land beyond their valley, their mountain, their island. It makes you stop to think, not about anything in particular. But for me, it made me think about how big the world is and how little I am.

I love rural Madagascar. And if I were given a choice, I’d spend my whole time there in those rolling mountains and hills, scattered rice fields, and expansive yellow and green pastures filled with grazing zebu. Oh yes, it was like a very big, red Switzerland really. What is even better is that this is only one part of this Enchanted Island, an island blessed with so much natural beauty. By the grace of God, I’ll have more to show in the coming months. But for now, this taste of the mountains of Madagascar will have to do.

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.