Two Weddings and a Bus (Tana to Tamatave)

I got back to Tana Thursday afternoon at 5pm almost exactly 24 hours after leaving Diego. 

Back in Tana I didn’t do anything too exciting until Saturday.

Thursday night I visited Sr. Mamonjy (I knew her as Zafy).  I taught her and her family in Ivato (out by the airport) but they had been coming to church for almost a year, waiting on some papers and ID cards so they could get legally married and then baptized.  Cellin is to the left of me – he’s 11 and dope.  And then there’s the twins Pita and Bota (“Chubby”) who are always adorable.  Zafy’s husband (Fr. Fabrice) was down in south Tana 1 ½ hours away at work (he works down there on a construction project on weekdays and comes home to his family on the weekend).  To the right of me is Sr. Tina, which is Sr. Fanja (far right)’s younger sister, and Gino’s mom.  Gino is probably my best friend in Madagascar and he’s serving a mission now in Mada. 

On Friday I hung out with Christianna who is a girl that also wasn’t baptized when I worked in Ivato, but had to wait until she was 18 to get baptized because her dad didn’t approve.  Anyways we went around Tana getting me signed up as one of the witnesses for her marriage (which was Saturday).  She speaks English really well, and French probably better than she does Malagasy.

PROGRESS!  In the past 10 months, somehow they’ve constructed several of these really fancy pants bus stations which are like totally mind boggling.  They might not look like anything to Americans, but the whole concept of a bus station is in fact totally foreign to Malagasies, despite their propensity for bus usage.  This has a roof, and benches, and a map, and signs about which buses stop here and where they go.  Super crazy.  As you can see taxi-bes (city buses) and taxi-brousses (buses that go to outlying cities) are not really any different at all.  Except that they only put 14 people in a taxi-brousse, whereas they put 4 to a row in a taxi-be, meaning 18 and then usually cram a couple more to get to 20 or 22.

On Saturday, Christianna got married to her fiancé Johnny who is from La Reunion. I was one witness, and some government worker lady was the other.  Other than that only her family was at the ceremony.  Her little brother was hilarious.  Oh and the missionaries were there to take pictures.

Coincidentally, Saturday was also the day that the sister of one of my mission companions (Ratsimanohitra – my only native companion) was getting married as well.  So I went to the brand new chapel and saw the wedding and a bunch of missionaries and members from all over Antananarivo (Tana).  Afterwards E. McIntire and his companion Collins (who taught me as a fake investigator in the MTC) and I went and got some “soft serve icecream” which was only 75cents, and still not as good as the stuff at McDonalds lol.  America really is just awesome.  But I still love Madagascar.

It was getting late in the afternoon, so I got a taxi out to Ivato (30 minutes, no traffic) to grab my gear, and then back to the bus station in downtown which actually cost me 30,000Ar which is twice what my ticket to Tamatave (9 hours) cost… bagh.   Got on my bus to Tamatave at 5:30, we left around 6pm and then promptly got stuck in a terrible traffic jam (a taxi and a taxi-be had been in an accident... on a narrow 2 lane road) and we were a giant charter bus so it was like Ultimate Log Jam of Doom.  Finally around 7 or 7:30 we got out of the city and arrived in Tamatave at 2:30 in the morning.

I got a taxi to the “hotel” where Busteed was staying.  I was so happy to see Busteed after bumming around for a week and a half!  We chatted for a couple hours (even though we should've been sleeping) and laughed about Madagascar. And then fell asleep for about 2 or 3 hours. 'Twas good times.

Mamy ny Mody (It's Good to Come Home)

So I've included this informative little map to assist you in tracking my journey in this post.  I start out in Diego-Suarez at the north end of the island.    Head south, past the turnoff to Mahajanga (white star on the west coast), and continue to Antananarivo, the capital at roughly 4,000 feet above sea level (same as Provo, UT).

Wednesday morning I had set my alarm fairly early to try and make it out to Joffreville and back before 3pm for the bus to Tana.  But I slept through it and didn’t wake up until 8.  Joffreville, I was told, was a 2 hour bus ride one way and is the entrance to Parc National de Montagne D’Ambre (Amber Mountain National Park) which basically is a giant rainforest mountain filled with lemurs and waterfalls.  Since it was already 8, I was afraid I wouldn’t make it, so I decided to just chill in Diego.  I had some breakfast and chatted with the reception girls who were always very friendly and more than happy to teach me Sakalava (the local dialect).  They showed me cocoa beans and a konikony (the fruit I ate on the bus to Ramena the day before).  

I wrote my first couple blog entries and uploaded some pictures which took most of the rest of the time I had in Diego. 

When I showed up to the taxi-brousse station (to go back to Tana) the bus was not ready to go (typical) so I paid a taxi guy to drive me to a lookout spot so I could snap some pictures of Nosy Lonjo (Pain des Sucres in French).  On the way I got some shots of 

The Cathedral

Typical bright yellow Diego taxi

The Stadium

A cemetery – which I started taking pictures of thinking “oh cool!” and then thought “wait, why is it cool to see a cemetery?” and then realized “oh yeah, they don’t use cemeteries in Madagascar, I’ve only seen like 2 in the whole country” (Malagasies bury their dead in tombs for the most part). 

Finally we got to the lookout and I got my coveted pictures:

Nosy Lonjo is the name of the island in the middle of the bay, and is featured on the Ariary Zato (100 Ar) bill.  

Got back to the bus station and they still weren’t ready to go.  There was a lot of squawking about someone who hadn’t shown up, and someone who double sold seats, and how there weren’t enough seats for everyone…

This is what a taxi-brousse looks like:

The driver plus two people sit in the front and then 3 people per row with usually 3 or 4 rows in the back.  This particular van had 4 rows.  Making a total of 14 passengers plus the driver.

This is the ticket office.  Apparently this company runs busses from Diego to Tana, Mahajanga (12-20 hours), Toamasina (30-36 hours), Tulear (48 hours) and Fort Dauphin (probably close to 80 or 90 hours – which is absolutely the most ridiculous experience I could possibly imagine). 

While I was waiting I took pictures of the local people / passengers.  The guy on the right is what is called a metis.  Most likely his dad is some French dude and his mom is a Malagasy.  Anyways, he looks like he could fit right in in America, but he speaks and acts just like any other Malagasy.  He, along with a bunch of other college kids were on my bus en route to Tamatave to start or end (never really understood what they meant) school.

These lovely ladies are sisters (far left and far right) and they run the ticket office.  They were quite friendly.  I was really trying to get a picture of the lady in the middle a little farther back because she looks like Izma from The Emperor’s New Groove and she had a crazy outfit on.  If you look around the picture you’ll notice many of the women are wearing cool African-esque outfits, which is one of reasons I thought Diego is so cool.

We finally got on the road around 4 or 5pm. 

This yellow bus is a “camion-brousse” (bush truck) which is like the most hauss form of transport in Madagascar. These bus/truck/deathmobiles service the particularly remote/inaccessible towns.  If you’re looking for comfort, speed, timeliness, or predictability – get out now!  However, if you need to get anywhere besides the major towns on the major “highways” then this is probably your only option. 

Driving through the Diego countryside as the sun was setting I took a few pics:

The next morning we arrived in Ambondronimamo (The Drunken Flock) [also the turn off to Mahajanga] where we got some “breakfast” and people paid 10 to 50 cents to pee, poo, and take a shower in relative luxury (aka cement cells).   This is the local fruit/trinket market.

Malagasies are the kings of trying to sell things to travellers through van windows.  This 10 year old girl and her plate of fried frogs were no exception.  (No I didn’t buy one).  

The scenery on the way back to Tana was as spectacular as it was on the way to Mahajanga – red dirt, rolling green hills, grey mountains, and blue blue skies.

I love Malagasy store names: “The Ideal Relax” lol also caters to Muslims.  They actually make pretty dang good laoka (meat & beans that goes on top of rice) here.

This is the bus station in Tana.

Question #10 (and the whole reason I came up with the “Answers to Questions You’ve Never Asked” series) When you combine ketchup and mayonnaise, does it make Ketchaise?...

 Answer: No. It’s called Mayo-Chup.  Duh-face.

The bottom roughly translates as "Puts the Magic in your Plate!"