Ege Denizi

Madagascar

 

About three weeks ago it seemed as if I had completely destroyed my SD card and lost a lot of photos but I have finally recovered a few of them.  I've since made my way back to istanbul and this evening I will be leaving to visit a beautiful city on the Aegean Sea of Turkey facing the Greek island.  It amazes me how different my life becomes over the course of a few long hours and three flights with mixed sleep.  Suddenly I'm back in my favorite city in the world and only a short time later I'm off on my own again in a whole new world.  This summer will continue to be this way as I'm soon to make my way back to Detroit and eventually west to visit some of my best friends in Colorado.  Somewhere down the recent line of my history my brain has shut off and I have become 100% open to watching this story unfold without doing much to manipulate it.  There is a very interesting chapter of my book being read to me in this past few months and it is taking me to some new walk of life which I cannot yet understand.  I embrace it with the same love I have embraced all other curiosities I've come across in my strange life.

Dengue Fever and the dangers of traveling alone

In my last post I felt my eyes wandering tiredly as I stared at a tiny village internet cafe computer screen.  I have had some photo problems with my camera and I was not feeling the patience to sort through technical things at the moment and since then I fear that I may have lost a lot of them.  It doesn't really matter though, at the time I was recently diagnosed with dengue fever and I had thought I was already in the recovery stage.  Today looking back just a short 8 days ago I cant help but laugh at how stupid that thought was.

Dengue makes you feel like every bone in your body has been replaced with shards of broken glass and your head becomes a throbbing ball of confusion, nausea and fever.  Simple tasks become great ones as nearly one hundred percent of your body's energy is being given towards fighting the virus and you end up spending most of your time in bed just laying and thinking and hoping you are doing everything appropriately to take care of yourself. 

I contracted the virus at the worst time as it was really only a matter of hours after I last parted ways with a friend I had been traveling with and it came to be that I would have to deal with this completely alone mostly in the surrounding of a small bamboo hut in a tiny village with no hospital.

Now it is passing and as it passes I choose to let it go.  I don't want to talk about it when I come home as it casts a nasty dark cloud over my experience in Madagascar and I don't want to assosciate such pain with such a beautiful place; the dichotomy is ironic and indescribable. 

So what do we do now?  I'm really not sure.  All this time sitting and thinking has boiled my brains.  I've hallucinated myself to sleep for a week now and rolled out a tapestry of dreams for myself.  I really don't know what I'm doing anymore and that is to say that I have never known what I'm doing.  I've been all over this world to countless places and I have developed an addiction for travel that can never be satisfied. 

I absolutely adore this country and I had never intended my blog to carry such negativity (i.e.  a few posts ago about racism or this post about dengue and internal bleeding).  I'm lost.. I'm lost and I'm in that writer's conundrum of choosing between posting this article or erasing the whole thing and leaving my ideas to rot in my head. 

My mom said something to me on the telephone the other day that was simple yet amazingly empowering to me.  She said, 'stay strong' and as simple as that sounds I thought about it for a while and I don't think in my entire life anyone has ever told me to stay strong.  Strength is an incredible gift and something I've never asked myself if I have been blessed with.  I have a stubborn mind and a brave soul but am I stong?  I guess I will never know.

Isalo.. what a strange place

 Isalo National Park has to be one of the weirdest yet most beautiful places I've passed through on this Madagascar trip.  I'm having some problems with my camera so these few photos will have to do for now but I plan to make an album when I come back home. 

The weather is incredible (in the true definition of incredible).  A few nights ago I saw a storm scrape across the sky like the inside of one of those electric balls or Tesla coils.  My camp was sufficient but this constant sleeping in a tent and being outside has taken a toll on my body.  I don't want to alarm anyone but I've been diagnosed with my second case of mild Dengue fever.  There is no real treatment just lay in bed and pop pain killers.  Actually it really sucks.. feels like every bone in my body is broken.  The doctor told me I actually have a really mild case of it and it should pass in a few days.  Of course Dengue is not dangerous, just a painful few days. 

Having said all that it has been a humbling week.  The body is an amazing machine and I'm impressed how well it holds up in so many different climates.  Humans have adapted to many different places in the world and the way people adapt in Madagascar is really great.  There is also much diversity from within the country too and it varies from region to region as I've said.

My eyes hurt.  Internet cafe wasn't the best idea. 

Jesus of the Jungle (this photo is ridiculous)

Fady

With something like 18 hours left in this small town waiting for my bus to arrive I thought it best to take the opportunity to buy supplies for the jungle and take time to write down some of the things I've learned about Madagascar.  Perhaps the most interesting and poignant of all things to be learned from Malagasy culture is that of the fady.

The word Fady loosely translates to taboo although many people maintain that it has a much deeper meaning.  Fady are usually brought upon by a significant story or an event in nature which is relative to a specific area in Madagascar.  Because of this fady can differ greatly from region to region and as a traveler it is important to be knowledgeable about different fady in each part of the island.

I once heard a story which I feel best gives an example of fady and it goes something like this.  Although I'm not sure which part of the island this comes from there was once a village which was under attack by a neighboring clan.  The village under attack was known for keeping geese as livestock and they were found in pens everywhere around the village.  As the thieving clan attacked the village in the night the geese were startled and sounded massive alarms with their honking and the village was able to wake up in time to defend itself from their attackers.  This being said, the village to this day does not eat goose as it is considered a fady.

From region to region I have briefly encountered other fady some with similar taboos against eating a particular animal and others with deeper and stranger even at times disturbing practices like that of consuming the bodily fluids of the dead to absorb their characteristics they developed while alive.  The Malagasy people are greatly in touch with death and have a great respect for those who have died whereas death is considered to be the most important part of life.  When you leave this world your spirit continues into a better place where you will exist as long as you are remembered here on Earth.  If you are forgotten here then you no longer exist in any realm and your spirit forever vanishes.

In the northeast where I was staying last month I have learned about funeral practices where the dead are uneartheed something like one or two years after death and the bones and cleaned and reburied in a new vessel.  There is actually a holiday to commemorate the dead in this region which is vaguely similar to something like Dia de los Muertos in Mexico where the dead are also celebrated.  On this day the lives of the deceased are remembered with both joy and sorrow and at night there is a great feast accompanied with rum, khat and large amounts of marijuana as it is considered sacred to transform your mind into deep and personal memory of the dead in an altered state.  I have even heard before that in particular parts of this region all of the women of the village spontaneously and simultaneously fall into deep mourning and crying and immediately after they change into laughing and dancing as tribal drums change the direction of emotion.

Another form of fady comes with certain days of the week.  In some villages people will wear colors specific to days of the week and in others the village is named after the day of the week upon which the marketplace is open.  I'm not too sure about the details to which day is which.  On some days it is fady to have a funeral and on others it is appropriate to have a wedding.

Circumcision is an imporant part of a young man's life here and it is usually performed by the grandfather.  In some parts of the island the foreskin is eaten by the grandfather and in others I have heard the foreskin is placed in the barrel of a shotgun and fired into the sky as it is the best way to reach heaven.

In places I have passed through surrouned by thick jungle there are many beliefs concerning spirits of nature.  One place believes in a small forest man who enters your house when your not looking and steals your rice while another place believes that certain trees are sacred and they are to be decorated with artifacts belonging to former deceased village chiefs. 

Some fady do not fit into sanitary favor as in certain parts of the island it is fady to urinate in the same place more than once thus leaving a foul smell in the air when it is hot.  As anyone who has traveled in Madagascar would know it seems that public urination is not really frowned upon so long as it is not done on a walking path.  I have actually seen countless times people urinating in front of me while in mid conversation.

It seems that while many traditions still hang on many have been lost in meaning perhaps due to the many years of occupation from various different countries.  I've been intrigued for a long time about the bold white facepaint found on young village women and sometimes men however nobody seems to know the meaning of it anymore, they simply tell me it is a Malagasy tradition.  Perhaps the faicepaint comes from a tradition similar to other parts of Africa where mating rituals were performed and faces were painted as a sign of beauty and those with the best designs attracted the best partners. 

I spend my nights watching the sun fall into the rolling green mountains like an egg cracking her yoke onto the nothingness of things.  Perhaps overly poetic, yet the beauty of this island is absolutely incomprehensible.  I never in a million years imagined that I would be spending so much time wandering the forests and coasts of Madagascar in search of wisdom and beauty yet here I am halfway through my exploration and busting at the seams with marvel.  I know deep inside that my experience here will never be able to find its way into conversation appropriately and even as I write these words I feel that I have only scratched a tiny percent of the surface to all that I have seen here.  As I say that I realize that these experiences are for me to enjoy for the rest of my life and I know that my travels have taken a whole new definition as I wander deeper through the far corners of this amazing planet.