Tragedy

These are the only pictures I got of Donaly.  I took them just the day before.  Donaly's on the left.

Njina, Rodin, Fafa, and Donaly, with the first lychees of the season.

Donaly, Fafa, me, Desmond, and Njina.  Rodin shot this one.

Written Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Manambaro

    My host brother Donaly died today.
    Donaly was the nephew of M. Dieu-Donné and Mme Josy.  I didn’t include him in the blog post numbering the family, because he wasn’t part of the immediate family.  He was quiet, and a bit solitary.
    Donaly drowned in the river at one of the nearby towns, Tsihary.  A bunch of the guys, his friends and mine, had walked there to swim and cool off.  I didn’t go because the mayor’s staff had invited me to a meeting about education in the town.  As best as I can figure, he hurt his legs and his right arm on the rocks somehow, and succumbed before anyone could get to him.  By the time a crowd of people carried him to the Lutheran Hospital here, it was far too late.
    Just before 5 I was heading to the market to buy oil, when I met Mme Josy, walking quickly towards the house.  She told me in a strained, hushed voice using simple Malagasy that I’d be sure to understand,
    “Donaly fell in the water at Tsihary.  We don’t know if he’s alive or dead.”
    I met my friend Rodin outside and we ran to the hospital, passing the market and the big Lutheran church.  We ignored the cheerful children who called out to me.  We met the crowd carrying Donaly on a big, sagging reed mat.  I thought, there’s no way all of you could have known him.
    We burst through the gates of the hospital, the clamor of the crowd echoing off the concrete walls.  The men carrying the mat hurried Donaly into the emergency ward.  The doctors checked for a pulse, but there was none.  They didn’t try to resuscitate.  Late afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows, bathing everyone in orange, making the colors of the walls garish.
    In Malagasy grammar, no one’s ever just dead, “maty.”  You say “efa maty,” already dead, as if everyone in Madagascar routinely lives to 100.
    And I kept seeing those words, never hearing them, seeing them spoken between women in the cramped but newly renovated emergency ward.  I didn’t want to see them, I didn’t want it to be true.
    There were shockingly little tears.  Mme Josy cried for about five minutes, then collected herself.  Yvette cried for longer and went to be by herself.  One woman I didn’t know cried hardest of all, shrill sobs that sounded almost metallic.
    Well, I thought, it’s different from Niger.  Among the Zarma tribe, no one cries, ever.  Zarma women are famed for not even crying during labor.  Or so the Nigerien saying goes.
    As the crowd dispersed I walked home with the family, wishing I could be of more comfort to them.  M. Dieu-Donné was in Fort Dauphin for a teacher’s conference.
    I stood with Fafa, Rodin’s twin brother, on the upstairs porch.  Fafa had been there at Tsihary.
    “He was attacked by a lolò-rano,” Fafa murmured, staring toward the darkening horizon.
    “A what?” I asked.
    “It’s an animal.  Donaly’s nose was bleeding.  They feed on blood.”
    I thought he meant a freshwater shark; Lord knows there’re enough saltwater sharks off Fort Dauphin.
    “A big animal or a small one?” I tried to clarify.
    “An animal,” he replied cryptically.
    Curious, I went downstairs and looked it up.  A lolò-rano is a water demon.  I had an image of a huge, spectral rat paddling furiously toward a struggling man.
    Of course there’s the rational part of me that says demons aren’t real.  But at the same time, why not?  He couldn’t just... die.  He couldn’t be running and smiling and gobbling lychees in the sun one day and destroyed the next, unless he was the victim of some malevolence.
    The family walked to the road to look at the schedule of trucks that would pass tomorrow.  Because Donaly was Antandroy by birth, custom dictates that he must be buried in Antandroy lands; one of the big cargo trucks would have to be arranged to carry his body and a small escort of relatives to Ambovombe, the Antandroy regional capital.
    I stayed behind to cook dinner.  I knew I had to make some for the family; there wasn’t even a question of following the traditions of my Southern upbringing, it was just something that had to be done.  I threw together a stew of greens, tomatoes, and onions, and boiled a double portion of pasta.  The stew was pretty bland.  I considered adding the Italian herbs my parents sent me, but decided they’d be too pungent and unfamiliar for Malagasy palates.  A dash of garlic powder instead.
    I carried a plate upstairs to Pascaline, the only person left in the house.  Pascaline is another relation of Dieu-Donné.  I’m not sure of her relationship to Donaly.  I think if she were his sister she would have been more distressed.
    She accepted the plate graciously, accepting my explanation that it was part of an American fomba, tradition.  As I turned to leave I reflected that the tradition here is actually the reverse of what it is at home.  You give flowers for death and food for sickness, usually a piece of fruit.
    I wish I could write more, but I have to go.  The wake is starting.