its hard to know where to start, whilst we were only around one and a half hours outside of the second largest town in Madagascar we might as well have been on another planet, such was the experience of our last three days spent in a rural village, called Ambalason, sharing the 'Leadership for Life' modules with various village chiefs and church leaders who joined us from other villages that sit along the 600 kilometer Pangalanes waterway which runs down the east coast of Madagascar.
we were aware that things would be different but nothing could quite prepare us for the remoteness of the place. we'd made our way out of Toamasina in a 4x4 Toyota on sand roads towing a small boat that would become our next means of travel after we'd found a suitable launch gain access to the large lakes which are interconnected by a shallow canals, built by the French to provide a reliable means of transportation rather than the pirate infested and unfriendly Indian Ocean.
once on the water we then travelling along the 'canal' passing by small craft powered by little more than a small paddle or a hand made sail, there were signs of life along the banks which rose with Travellers Palms and after 30 minutes we arrived on a remote beach scattered with small Piroque (dugout canoes) under the shade the exotic trees which hugged the shore.
the use of the term remote has to be put into prospective, in comparison to the village we visited via helicopter only a few weeks before and given the fact that over 85% of the Malagasy population of around 22 million, on an island twice the size of the United Kingdom, this is really the 'norm' for millions of people, therefore by remote we really mean 'cut off from the outside world' and Ambalason is certainly that in more ways than one.
after unloading our supplies, which included the essential mosquito nets such is the high prevalence of malaria and dengue fever in the areas along this great expanse of water, we made a twenty minute hike along a small single track to the village that we would become 'home' for the next three days.
we were introduced to Rudolph (the local pastor) and were informed that we'd be staying in his family home which was constructed out of palm leaves and bamboo, and which stood on a basic wooden structure raised from the ground on low stilts. he shown our 'room', which we shared with our friends Chris and Claire (not to be confused with our son and daugher-in-law who share the same names!) and discussed the important things of life. 'where do we go to the toilet?', 'what will we eat?' and 'can we drink the water?' (that we had already seen was being drawn up by a hand pump that was situated between his home and the cooking area where our food was to be prepared).
thankfully the local young people had dug a 'new' toilet, the first in the village, only a few weeks before and they were keen to show us this 'simple' but effective system which meant that we wouldn't need to venture into the bush to do our business. the topic of food was mainly based around how much rice we would like for our meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner, but thankfully we had bought some provisions with us which would add some spice to the blandness of the staple of which there seemed to be much joy in the kitchen!
that said we were well feed, with meals complimented by a couple of chickens, who lived under our bedroom by the way, cuts of pork and locally caught freshwater crab. without the means of any electricity everything had to be cooked over an open fire which was situated inside a hut which served as both kitchen and dinning area. this is where we all shared meals in the half light smoke filled room, we were blessed with chairs around a small handmade table but others sat cross legged on the floor with a pile of rice set upon a huge banana leaf!
we'd gained access to the village via our connections with Mercy Ministries and were joined on the trip by Fara who was going to interpret for us and Patrisse who has carefully navigated his way down waterway which were filled with fishermen in their Pirogue and complex wooden fish traps which line the edges and even stretch across the whole 'canal' with 'gatemen' (also in their Piroque) lowering the reed structures to allow our outboard motor to navigate through without pulling the whole thing apart.
Mercy Ministries run 36 local health clinics overseen by a trained member of the village and have planned churches into each of those locations, once again the use of clinic and church have to be understood in the loose term of those words but at least the clinic is a brick structure, similar to that that we'd seen being constructed during our helicopter visit.
we were going to be hosting the four 'Leadership for Life' modules over two and a half days in the school, which the children, of who's countenance had lightened a bit to their strange visitors, were keen to show us. what greeted us as we made our way past the football pitch (again little more than bamboo goalposts set on an open piece of sandy ground) was a seemingly derelict two roomed building with metal window shutters hanging broken from the open windows and a desks in various states of disrepair strewn haphazardly around the bare concrete floors, we were informed that over 70 children attend the school which was currently closed for the Easter holidays.
the people attending the modules were arriving in dribs and drabs but by eleven o'clock and after our early morning journey we were keen to start, so we ignored to dilapidated surroundings and busied ourselves by hanging our carefully crafted and translated Emerging Leaders posters which gave the room a brighter feel.
the first module of 'Leadership for Life' is about awakening people to the understanding that their lives are full of potential, looking at the ways of thinking that keep us small and introducing seven leadership mindsets that will help them to start leading their own lives with a new prospective, these are shared via easily accessible activities and stories and the twenty or so people eagerly lapped up the material which we ended at around four in the afternoon to enable those travelling home to make it before dark.
those attending the modules had joined us from five other villages with people either walking or travelling by their own Pirogue up the waterway for up to two hours, what struck us during that first day was the limited understanding they had to 'the outside world' that we were talking about, when we mentioned countries or other people groups their gaze seemed vacant and we had to make sure that Fara was interpreting things in a way that they could grasp. it was slow going and we really had to go back to basics, this is something that we must be aware of when introducing new ideas to people who live in such remote places who have little contact with the outside world.
running the training is quite draining and after another meal of rice followed by 'Rice Tea' (which is basically the remains of the rice water reboiled to make a very thin 'tea') we were in bed by 8.30pm, in fact the whole village was in bed by that time and the silence we quite deafening.
readying ourselves for bed was made all the harder by the lack of electric light and the sand on which the village sits, the sand seemed to get everywhere and we can only suggest you imagine camping (not glamping) in a tent on an extremely sandy beach getting into bed without the opportunity to wash and having to deal with high (for Europe) temperatures which makes things all the more sticky!. however we all slept soundly with our straw filled pillow providing some comfort underneath our higgeldy-piggeldy mosquito nets which were precariously strung above the bed (although we'd taken our own nets the family had invited us to use theirs, the one over our bed contained more larger holes so we're not quite sure how effective they would be but we weren't bitten and that's what they have to sleep under every night so we're not complaining!).
after being awoken by the sounds of the village, cockerels crowing at an unbelievably early hour, the hand pump drawing water, the sound of a large pestle and mortar grinding down the corn which was being used to make our sweet doughnut style bread which we would enjoy with more rice for breakfast and with children playing outside our bedroom we got up early and enjoyed a quick 'shower' (cold water bucket behind a reed screen). breakfast also included the seemingly very precious coffee and before 8am we were already walking to the school to start module two.
we started the session, as always, with a review of the previous day, and asked if people had 'done their home work?', which included looking at their dreams, once again the 'remoteness' of the place hit home as most people informed us that they didn't have any dreams for their lives, that in fact they'd never had any dreams, no dreams of becoming a fireman, nurse, school teacher and all the other familiar childhood dreams that we can identify with. these people, even though they were 'community leaders' themselves, had little expectation that their lives could look any different to the way their communities had been for perhaps hundreds of years.
however not to be discouraged we saw the accessibility of the the 'Leadership for life' modules coming to the fore and were extremely pleased to see the class grow with a few new faces who had joined due to the stories of those who had attended day one and shared how life changing the modules had been.
we are very aware of this long post so we will continue this on a future post which we hope you will enjoy reading later on in the week......oh and sorry about the lack of photos but our limited internet and the slow speeds have made it impossible to upload any!.......
.......to be continued.........!
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