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| The bridge near Nosibe on the way into town. |
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| Inside a bush taxi. You can't see the two massive pigs wedged in the trunk. |
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| Manambaro woman planting rice. |
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| Fort Dauphin kids playing games at the American Cultural Center. |
Fort Dauphin
Let’s talk about the heat in Madagascar: it persists to an excessive and unsatisfactory degree. This is the weather that Mark Twain, on his voyage to India, described as “hot enough to melt a brass doorknob.” The Antanosy had 1500 years to adapt to it, of course, but me? The only hot weather heritage I have is a minute smidgen of Portuguese blood. Other than that I’m all Celt and Saxon.
Only mad dogs and Englishmen travel below the Tropic of Capricorn.
Clearly the extra-European geopolitical movements of the last 600 years, especially the Age of Exploration and the subsequent Scramble for Africa, were huge mistakes, if not outright perversions of the natural order.
Okay, that’s out of my system.
I had strep throat this week, so I laid in bed a lot. The bacteria are routed now and I’m feeling much better, but I’ve still got a cold.
Now I’m in Fort Dauphin, awaiting the return of Cyclone Giovanni. Cursed thing razed Vatomandry on the northeast coast, battered Tana, skirted Morondava, and started across the Channel towards Mozambique. And just when we in the South (or maybe just me) were complaining we never get any good storms, it apparently heard us (me), whipped around and is heading right here! Luckily it’s not a very clever cyclone, because to get to Fort Dauphin it has to cross the Androy desert, where it’ll expend a lot of its moisture and force. By the time it gets here tomorrow night it’ll be a Category One.
Taking no chances, Peace Corps has ordered us to consolidate in a hotel in the city until Wednesday. We get reimbursed for the hotel AND we get a per diem for those days. Wow, ain’t been to a hurricane party since I was a kid, spending the summer in Florida while my dad was in Antarctica.
See you after the rain!
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