Thursday, June 19, 2014

L'est

the last few days have been wild.  i took the opportunity to write about them in my journal in a series of short notes so i could tell a story.  it begins in Mahambo, where I have been staying for the last week, and continues north along the coast of eastern Madagascar.  I went there to hitch a ride on a 4x4 but soon found out that there are many other elements to deal with when traveling this part of the island.



so it goes like this:

-swim with Alex
-learn about today's holiday in memory of the dead
-go with Mimi to buy chicken
-pray for chicken
-watch Mimi and the village boys turn chicken into feast
-drink homemade Lychee rum
-pass out
-weird dreams
-wake up
-drink coffee with Alex
-leave village and say good bye finally to the father of Da (chief of the village)
-Taxi-Brousse two hours to Soanierana
-get to river crossing and pay old man to use his boat
-buy old man breakfast on other side
-baffle through French and Malagasy and get pointed down a long desolate wet road
-walk two km and burn in the sun
-walk two km back
-cross back to original side of river with old man
-old man realizes the next village is 140 km down the road he pointed to
-drink coca-cola with old man and talk about life
-find $2.48 hotel
-drink coffee and eat rice with Malagasy woman
-take doxycycline for malaria
-clean feet and attend to minor surfing wounds
-talk to people and learn more about the holiday of the dead
-discover place to hitchhike in the morning
-wild storm begins
-set alarm for 2.45am
-crazy derams
-wake up and go to docks
-rain
-a ton of rain
-get soaked for two hours and learn the long desolate road is now completely gone
-take impulsive taxi-brousse to nearest village at 6am
-stopped by police
-forgot my passport at the hotel
-arrested (more like taken for a ride on a motorcycle)
-held in police station for 6 hours
-draw charicatures of police
-police hang charicatures on the wall
-give copy of passport from my bag to police
-police officer hints for a bribe (he called it a 'gift')
-jokingly offer beer
-proceed to get blindingly drunk with police officer
-free
-return to seaside village
-everything is soaking wet, village has flooded
-bucket shower
-eat beans and rice
-learn from mistakes and get past failures both preventable and not
-storm passes
-waiting for a cargoship














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