Madagascar – the sad, the plague and the hope

The city of Antananarivo, being the capital of Madagascar, has called me for more than 50 years.

Thus, with great contentment, I visited Madagascar in April this year. I arrived a tourist, with my wife Kathy, and left angry. Rather angry.

Let me start with something sad. We stayed on the island of Nossi Be. One morning I set out in a tuk tuk to the capital, Hellville, just 23 kilometres away. The driver stopped at a place on the side of the road, ostensibly to check his tyres. I think not. A girl of about nine years old walked away slowly in front of me. She needed to brush her hair, have a bath and change out of her rags. She blew kisses at me as she walked off. A lot of kisses. And she did two other provocative actions. She was looking for adult business, if you know what I mean. I found that so sad.

Such activity probably went hand in hand with the plague that annoyed me. We were stopped five times – in 46 kilometres – by police officers, ostensibly to check the driver’s papers. I think not. A policeman in a pale blue shirt, a national gendarme as he told us, stopped us. I pointed out that he was the fifth policeman to stop us. The policeman said he was a gendarme and had to keep control. I told him: “This is not control.” The policeman led the driver away with his papers, to behind the tuk tuk. People I was with turned on me and said: “You have caused trouble for him.” The driver returned and off we went again. I learnt afterwards that the driver had refused to pay the Ariary 5 000 bribe, which was R22.50, as his papers were in order. The policeman was cross with me and wanted to know where I was staying. Local people told us that all the policeman on the island stole or were corrupt. It seemed to be a case of pay A5 000 if your papers were not in order, and pay A5 000 even if they were in order.

Nossi Be was and is worth visiting. Hot, humid, lingering patches of coastal forest, enduring fishermen and far too many Frenchmen my age who have taken up with local women a third of our age. Something annoying happened on the way out at Fascene Airport, which is the gateway to the island. We had to pass through a national police check desk. There were two police officers on duty. The elder officer asked outright as he checked the passports: “Where’s the gift?” Me: “What?” Policeman: “Where’s the gift?” Kathy exclaimed: “A gift? What for?” I said: “We’re from South Africa, we don’t do that.” Well, the non-ANC supporting side of South Africa did not do that. The other, younger police officer seemed genuinely embarrassed by what had happened. He quietly wished us a pleasant flight.

Fast forward to our last night in Madagascar, at a restaurant overlooking Antanarivo. We fell into conversation with a most impressive man of the city. He asked about our stay. We had enjoyed our visit, I said, except for the police asking us for bribes. He threw his hands back and replied most graciously: “On behalf of my country I apologise. It is a national plague.” He was sadly correct.

Looking back, the 13 nights spent in Madagascar were most beneficial. Antananarivo is worth a visit. Part of it looks like a shanty town. And then in between really dilapidated looking buildings are these beautiful well-maintained old buildings. Parts of Antananarivo looked like the French Concession in Shanghai, China. Funny that. We arrived in Madagascar on Tuesday April 8 2025. Lemurs arrived in Madagascar 40-50 million years before us, long after it became an island. Small populations of lemurs floated over the Mozambique Channel from Africa on tangled rafts of vegetation. The vegetation rafts were flushed out to sea from major rivers. This happened over millions of years.  The ocean currents at the time would have made the trip 30 days or less, short enough for a small mammal to survive easily. People reached Madagascar about 1 300 years ago, initially from Indonesia and Malaysia. They were followed by Arabs, Africans, Indians and Philippines people. Together they bought slavery with them. One group sold slaves imported from East Africa to France for guns that were used on their island foes. The foes were often turned into slaves, particularly the surviving women and children. There was also a system of unremunerated forced labour to benefit the ruling classes. From 1820, it was applied on such a scale that it resulted in the impoverishment of the vast bulk of ordinary people. The Portuguese frequently raided Madagascar during the 16th century to try destroy the Muslim settlements there. Other European nations also invaded and foreign pirates preyed upon shipping in the Indian Ocean out of the island.

Fast forward 200 years and towards modernisation. A progressive prime minister and a monarch introduced mandatory universal education in 1881, so schools and colleges were built, plus teacher training colleges staffed by missionaries. The first pharmacy, medical college and hospital were opened. Protestantism was adopted and the traditional Malagasy religion supressed. A code of laws was worked out that combined ancient customs with such Western practices as monogamy.

And then the French colonialists arrived, invading Antananarivo on September 30 1895. The French sent the progressive prime minister and last queen into exile but did abolish slavery. Under the French, tunnels were constructed through two of the city’s largest hills, connecting districts. Streets were laid with cobblestones. A sewer system and electricity infrastructure were introduced, and the water supply cleaned up. Teaching French in school became compulsory. The French opened a railroad, built roads and improved the health service. Airlines were introduced from 1936. The cities and seaports were built up and equipped. Three-quarters of trade was with France. Life became Westernized, especially in the cities, and half the population became Christianized. Madagascar became independent on June 26 1960. Domestic politics have not been settled, with stark differences between political leaders. military intervention at times and attempts made by African political leaders to calm the island. Presidential elections in 2018 saw Andry Rajoelina installed as president. He was still president when we landed in Antananarivo. The hotel where we were staying outsourced collecting us from the airport to a driver, who in turned outsourced our reception at arrivals to a third person. The third person was not impressed that we arrived with no local notes to give him as a tip. The 17 km journey from airport to hotel cost R279.65. There were rice paddies on the side of the road, which made the city look good, and cattle and fishermen in the paddies.

Antananarivo the city was not pleasant. There were so many motorbike taxis, far too many shack shanties and countless shops selling the same goods. There were no traffic lights, that we saw, and lots of policeman seemingly on traffic duty, blowing whistles. We did notice that a skyway was being built. When we stopped along the busy road for traffic, we were accosted by child beggars, including small girls holding babies, pleading for money. There were also too many women selling the same trinkets, and food. A lot of kids seemed to be just hanging around, not at school. Mandatory schooling of 160 years had not been sustained. The streets of the city centre were narrow, cobbled and twisted. There were so many taxis, almost all being beige Citroens and Renaults from 70 years ago and of vintage shape. Without so many cars, the streets would have been quaint and so French. Instead, the brown, yellow and orange buildings were in need of a coat of paint. There was mould on too many buildings. Posters from long ago events were left on too many walls. There was little room for gardens. Some people at the top of hills seemed to not have road access, so going home was an endless walk upstairs. And there were too many destitute people sitting in the doorways of small shops and houses.

The journey from the airport took 45 minutes. The driver pulled up at what we learnt was a taxi rank and vegetable market. Next thing three women arrived, the back door of the vehicle flew open, the women grabbed our suitcases and went rushing upstairs. You should have seen me rush after them. I was convinced our suitcases were being stolen. Up the 73 steps I galloped, after the suitcases. The stairway was rather constricted as there were people selling carrots and brinjals and other vegetables on the stairs. The women turned into our hotel. All was well. I told the family in South Africa and China: “We have gone back to Paris 1920.”  

After a day of travelling, an afternoon nap was in order. Beautiful piano music stirred us after a while. We went downstairs to find a neuro scientist from Paris playing Impromptu de Schubert and Consolation de Liszt on a Steinway grand piano that was worth Euros100 000 and which was just hidden away, as he said. The pianist was touring the island. Being able to speak French made his adventure easier. We will tell of his enchanting music many times going forward, as we will of the vanilla milkshakes we took in later with supper. This was the home of vanilla. Vanilla really did taste better in Madagascar.

On Wednesday April 9 2025 we took in a simple French breakfast then hit the 73 stairs down to the taxi rank and market. We came across a hive of booksellers, selling out of tiny stalls in a rabbit’s warren of stalls. That was encouraging. We headed off along narrow pavements. There were too many beggars and trinket salespeople, not to mention the cars, hence an all-pervasive smell of fumes. There were some very smart shops. We encountered a few stair cases in the city. Some of them dated back to 1832 and linked residential areas to markets. There was not a patch of flat earth as the city was on steep hills. And almost every spare square metre had been turned into shack land. At the tourist information centre, a chap suggested Kathy remove her necklace and put it out of sight. Just like being at home.

At 6 pm a most captivating sound rang out over our part of Antananarivo. Bells at a church played the hymn Blessed Redeemer. It was quite lovely to hear the hymn. I remember singing the hymn in the Umbilo Congregational Church. The hymn was composed through the Baptist Home Mission Board, out of Atlanta, Georgia, in 1920. I could not pin point which church was playing the hymn, as there are more than 5 000 church buildings in Antananarivo and its suburbs. While we were in Madagascar, by the way, the president of America hit Madagascar with a 47% tariff. Madagascar farmers sold vanilla to America, plus titanium and nickel. The textile sector served America and provided nearly 400 000 jobs. Half of the jobs would be lost because of American tariffs. That would really make America great again.

This is good time to note that the population of Antananarivo at the time of our visit was 4 229 000 people. The city’s population was growing at 4.45% a year, as people left the rural areas. The urban migration was driven in part by a national fertility rate of 3.85 births per woman. This was the 27^th highest fertility rate in the world. All the countries more fertile were in Africa, apart from Afghanistan. The global fertility rate was 2.27 births for each woman. About two-fifths of the population in Madagascar was under age 15. Some rural families had 12 kids, and turned some of them out to beg. The population of Madagascar was 32 580 243 people as of April 19 2025, according to the United Nations. Antananarivo was one of two urban areas in Madagascar where bubonic plague was endemic. The city was twinned with Suzhou, China. In 2017, Antananarivo was ranked as the 7th worst city for particulate-matter air pollution in the world. Madagascar is the world’s fourth largest island, the second-largest island country, and the 46th largest country overall. 

On Thursday April 10 2025 we went to a private lemur reserve. Antananarivo was hot, busy, bustling and full of traffic fumes. There was so much traffic. We got stuck in a traffic jam for 40 minutes. And for that time, we were sitting ducks for every trinket seller whose patch we were on. There was an endless stream of them coming to the window. There were food sellers and ice cream vendors. There were little girls with babies. There were beggars. The heat was oppressive and the car fumes damaging. The fumes gave me a very sore throat. However, trapped in the back of the vehicle, I saw a snatch of Madagascar life that gave me hope. There were so many carts, pulled by animals or men; strong men. We saw one chap on the other side of the road restraining his cart on a slight decline. His heavy load comprised of sacks of something. The decline gave the cart momentum. He was battling with all his might to stop the cart from running away from him. His leg muscles were straining, as were his ankles, knees and shoulders. He wore no shoes, and his working clothes were little more than rags. His tug o’ war against gravity was inspiring for me. He was saying that there were people in Madagascar who would make great sacrifices for themselves and their family’s future, if they could. If they had the opportunity. The country had the people power, with strength and determination and will. What was needed now were more ideas to build the economy, to take Madagascar to a better future. His straining back, legs and bare feet was an inspiration. He gave me hope.  If China could lift millions of its people out of poverty, so could Africa.

As for us, we sat. We were going nowhere. They only thing that happening was my throat grew exceeding painful because of the car fumes. Air and water pollution were major environmental problems. Nearly one in three people died from exposure to pollution, so I read somewhere.

We moved off eventually to the lemur park. The park received lemurs that had been confiscated from people who had kept them as pets. There were 55 lemurs in the park at the time of our visit. Their off spring would be released into the wild. There are 107 lemur species in Madagascar, of whom 103 are threatened, with 33 of them labelled critically endangered, thanks to man. Lemurs have  female social dominance. We paid R309.77 each to get in, which was a bit of a rip off. Ah well, somebody had to pay for Madagascar to protect its wildlife. People and lemurs face the same fraught future through deforestation, habitat destruction, slash-and-burn agriculture, illegal logging, fuelwood collection and hunting.

A little more on Nossi Be island, which was 616 km to the north and slightly to the west of Antananarivo. We stayed at a resort at the spectacular Befotaka Bay.  We watched one morning as a fishing boat arrived back with a net laden with fish, mostly small, silver and with a lovely metallic blue strip. Seven men were on board the wooden boat. They unfurled the net in shallow water and the fish were removed manually. Next moment eight women arrived with plastic basins and helped remove the fish. Some sort of counting of the fish took place on the beach. The women bought the fish for R4.50 each and we watched as they walked off the beach to sell the catch at a market or in the street. The boats went out fishing most nights. They could not fish in Befotaka Bay as the fish were eaten out, so they had to go far out to sea, eating rice and bananas while away. They came back in the morning. The fishermen got paid R41.03 a day, which was half of what a toasted sandwich cost in our hotel in Antananarivo. That was a hard life. This was a great social anthropology study waiting to be funded. By comparison, the minimum wage for non-agricultural workers was R398.55 a month.

On our last morning in Madagascar, we took in a walk around the neighbourhood in Antanarivo to say goodbye. I grew angry as we walked to see too many sad, destitute people sitting in doorways, and children not at school. The Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of African History said while slavery was abolished by the French in 1896, the French allowed the system of exploitative forced labour to continue.  Many slaves chose to remain in servitude to their former masters rather than become subject to forced labour. The Oxford text said: “Descendants of ex-slaves have largely retained their servile status, and many have remained socially and economically marginalized.” We possibly saw such people ourselves, on the streets: destitute and abandoned, sitting forlornly in doorways. How horrid it would be if these were indeed descendants of slaves and so condemned to multi-generational poverty. I grew angry at that prospect. Very angry. I left a social critic. Africa had people sitting destitute in the street because their governments willingly left them there.

The streets leading to the airport were lined with large portraits of French president Emmanuel Macron. He was attending a conference a few days hence. The news service Radio France Internationale (rfi) reported that he asked for forgiveness for Frances’s colonisation of Madagascar, during his visit. “Our presence here is not innocent, and our history has been written with deeply painful pages.” He was correct about that. Madagascar’s history could have been so much more pleasant but for the French.

Our trip home was through Bole International Airport, Addis Ababa. What an overrated place.  There were too few seats for waiting passengers, too few toilets and just one drinking fountain to serve thousands of people. Followers of the Muslim faith were compelled to pray in public. There should have been a private prayer room set aside for such prayers in the interests of privacy. There was an abundance of shops with no customers offering expensive stuff that nobody bought. Why there are such shops at airports beats me.