Home after a mad time in Madagascar....

A visit to a Love'NCare school which is providing
education for these children for the very first time

I'm sitting at my laptop on a dull and wet day in England, just two days ago we'd awoken to the bright blue skies that provided a starke backdrop to the plight of thousands of people who were going about their busy mornings just below us. There was a slight chill in the air, at 20 degrees celsius this was decidedly cold compared to what we had become used to during our over 100 day trip that had seen us travel to four African nations, with people were wearing thicker coats, hats and even scarves.

Sunset over Antananarivo 

It was the end of our trip and we were staying in a little hotel in Antananarivo (Tana), which provided us with our 21st different bed, for a couple of nights before flying home (to England) via Johannesburg. Where does all that time go?

So what will follow next is a brief summary of what we have been upto since our last full update after we left Bulawayo in Zimbabwe at the end of March, you can read that post by following the link here should you wish!

Maz and Ken chatting about the products that he
is making out of the flour he has ground from
Breadfruit and Cassava as an alternative to traditional flour
which is naturally gluten free. 

Arriving in Madagascar is always a bit of a culture shock, we know that much of our time spent in South Africa gave us the opportunities to enjoy many of the creature comforts of the western lifestyle that we enjoyed as we grew up in England and that aren't so available further up in Africa, but having visited other challenging nations such as Burundi and Zimbabwe we hold Madagascar at an even more challenging level.

Barge transporting charcoal which is the main
source of heat for people to cook on
given the fact that only 13% of the population have
access to electricity.

It's not only the stunning colours, scenery, the different smells and sounds overwhelming our senses, it's also the knowledge that Malagasy have some of the lowest levels of access to water, basic sanitation, education, employment and access to the outside world. It's a nation that seems to be stuck in time, taxi's are old Renaults that we used to see in the 1970's, carts drawn by cow or men are a plenty, cobbled streets are still de rigueur in Tana with other roads in the nation in such a state of disrepair that its hardly right to call them roads.

After arriving in Tana from Cape Town we spent a few days catching up with old friends in the capital city before deciding that it would be best to reschedule our planned trip and head across to Toamasina (Tamatave) to work with our contacts there first before returning to Tana towards the end of the trip.

An evening out with some very special people
Colin and Kimberley, Cho and Deborah 

Once again we were welcomed in Toamasina by our good friends Cho and Deborah who head up the amazing local charity called Love'nCare (LNC) and whom we first met way back in 2013 when Cho, a South Korean pastor, and his Malagasy understudy, Theo, visited us at the Village of Hope in Grabouw. Since that meeting we were invited to visit their project in Toamasina in 2014 and have subsequently returned in 2016, twice in 2017 and after a year out due to the internal issues within Madagascar, a cyclone, the plague and a governmental election to name just three, and we were so glad to be back.

Maz, Cho and the ambulance 

Cho is such an awesome guy and he and his team at LNC have now opened up 19 schools, most of them in rural areas where children are now able to access an education for the first time. LNC have also opened a new hospital in Toamasina, of which we were honored to take a tour of.

During our first few days we were also to reconnect with two of the most wonderful people we know, Kimberley and Colin have been friends since we met them in 2016, they run an NGO called HELP Madagascar and have been running the Leadership for Life (LfL) and LEAD NOW programmes with those that they work with since we trained a couple of their staff in 2017. Kimberley and Colin have been great advocates for both the programmes and they were the main reason why we had returned to Madagascar this time.

LEAD NOW

As usual we were keen to get out and meet other people and so it was wonderful to have the opportunity to visit a local school, the head teacher had been trained in the LEAD NOW (LN), children's leadership programme, by us in 2017 and has adopted it into the curriculum of five of the year groups within her school. The school has seen the dramatic effect that it has had on the children, not only are their grades going up, which is great news, but how the children see themselves and those around them has also improved, to such an extent that parents are now wanting their children to attend this privately run school (so many of schools in Madagascar are not run by the government) because of the new ways of teaching and the LN programme being offered!

Children being creative around the topic
of 'heart and character' which is at the
center of good leadership

It was wonderful to see the teacher, her husband was later to attended the LfL Training of Practitioners (TtP) that we ran and who will now be using that to share with the parents of the children!, really embrace the LN programme, using it to be creative outside of the actual LN lesson, with children making flowers and hearts in preparation for the lesson in their art and craft class. 

The lesson was on 'Heart and Character' and the children explored any of the characteristics that were causing keeping them small and not allowing them to grow into the full potential that lays within each one of them.

We also made time to visit the inmates who we had trained up to share the LfL within the local prison. I'm not sure if I can even attempt to convey the shocking conditions that are found not only this prison but also those throughout this vast island. Over 1500 men, women and children are kept in such shocking accommodation which not only plays havoc with their physical health (over the last year LNC have set up a daily feeding programme to combat the malnutrition which was found to be rampant during a recent Amnesty International report, see link, and during the time we were there one man died) but also their mental health.

Out fishing on the Panaglane

It was great to see the seven men who still remain inside, as well as meeting up with the guards who were also on the same programme. We also met up with the new prison commander who has committed herself to implement the LfL to help both those new inmates and those set for release. We hope to hear some better news around the ways in which the prison will further improve as both the inmates and guards start to write a better story for their lives and the lives of those around them.

Maz meets up with some men walking to sell
their recently made charcoal

We were also keen to make a short trip down the 600km long Canal Des Pangalanes where we had worked and stayed in 2016, this was at a local village where LNC have just recently built another school and where they have an orphanage to care for some of the local children who live in this rural area. It was wonderful to spend a day with these people and have an interaction with some local people who were making charcoal to sell, you could read about this by following this link to an earlier post.

The main reason for this part of the trip was to train up 35 local people who the trainers who we'd trained in 2017 from HELP had been sharing the LfL programme with during the last two years, our five day training would ensure that each of the 35 people would be equipped to be able to deliver the LfL programme into the organsiations and networks where they are working. 

It was great to spend time investing in these awesome people who we shared meals with and even in the humidity managed to keep from falling asleep in the afternoon session! They have all already been putting the leadership principles into action in their own lives and hearing the stories of the difference it has made.

Training 35 people in LfL is a tough task
given the humidity which saps all your energy over
the five days of training. 

We had a diverse group of people attend the 
training, including a man who lives and works in some remote locations outside of Toamasina helping local people understand the need to live alongside the lemurs that they share their space with and helping to help maintain the unique flora that exists in that part of the big island under the MFFG organisation, a lady who works in the local fistula clinic that our friend set up after the Mercy Ships had spent time in Toamasina in 2017, and many other heads of local organisations who are helping to uplift some of the poorest people in the city via sustainable projects.

Smiling faces

After spending near on three weeks in the east coast port we made our way back to Tana where we worked with some of the people who we had first met in 2016, most of these people are connected with the FJKM church in Ambohipo a huge church (well in numbers of people, 15,000, not the size of the building) which is based near the university of Antananarivo which attracts a large number of intelligent young people who are keen to make a difference in their nation.

Teachers trained to deliver LEAD NOW into their schools

We hosted a three day TtP for LN where we trained 10 local teachers who will now be sharing the programme with the children that they teach. Once again it was great to invest in these people who will grow the potential of the children that they are working with, helping them understand that they are the leaders of their own lives and that the way that they lead themselves has an impact on those around them.

Third world meet first world at the port of Toamasina

Madagascar is like no other place that we have ever been to, which as we said earlier include some of the most challenging places and nations in the world such as Burundi, Zimbabwe and the townships of South Africa, according to the World Bank 'Madagascar is lagging in a number of development indicators. Every second child (under the age of five) suffers from stunting, and the country has the world’s fifth highest number of out-of-school children. Furthermore, at only 13%, the rate of access to electricity is one of the lowest on the planet. In 2018, Madagascar’s Human Development Index (HDI), as measured by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), improved slightly from 0.512 to 0.519, but the country fell three places in the world ranking, from 158 to 161'.

Food is at the center!
Although the photo looks more like the Last Supper.

There are many factors that leave us with that feeling, but we think that the vastness, remoteness and failing infrastructure are major contributing factors but also it's risk to natural forces beyond its control, such as cyclone and disease, that place this nation of over 25 million people in a very challenging position.

Catching up and updating those who
we trained in the LfL programme in 2017.
Some very friendly faces there including
Flaurid who was instrumental in organising our time in Tana

After running the LN programme with the teachers, (which gave us such great joy as with all of the other issues the education system in Madagascar is severely lacking, as highlighted by UNICEF in this simple web page which shows that 'only 20% of teachers are civil servants and 97% do not have a vocational education degree') we were able to share the updates that had since been introduced to the LfL programme with those people we had trained in 2017. It was so good to see these wonderful people and to hear of their stories of how they had put the programme into action in their lives.

Prayer times with the Sisters

Our final engagement of this early spring 2019 trip was to run a four day retreat for eight people who we would train up to share the LfL programme within their networks. We were hosted by an order of protestant sisters who live in a small 'center' just outside Tana. As we said eight people joined us as we ran a LfL TtP with some very long morning, afternoon and evening sessions but we made sure that we had the opportunity to join the sisters during their three times of prayer during our days.

Off to our 'Leadership' retreat
Vonji and Voirana at the fore!

We are thankful to our friends Flaurida, Vonji and Voirana who were so helpful in arranging all our needs in Tana, from gathering people, arranging interpreters and translating the LfL programme, now in a second updated format into Malagasy.

The accommodation was quite basic by European standards but it was great to share this special time with these people who had attended LfL programmes that had been run by some of the people we had trained during our time in Tana in 2017, we shared meals together, and I (Tim) even managed to get out for a couple of runs which took me into the communities that live in between the rice paddy fields that surrounded the center.

More food which was prepared to suit our
'Plant based diets'

We left Madagascar with great expectations, we are very pleased with how the trip went and although we could have trained more people we are confident that those that we have trained are going to be great advocates and trainers themselves.

So now we are back in England having visited four different nations, worked with people from six different cities and sit with the knowledge that the Leadership for Life programmes are already having a huge impact into some of the most vulnerable communities in the world, delivered by local people to their own people groups, thus ensuring long term change coming through an understanding that everyone has amazing amazing potential to change their minds to change their lives.

Rice, rice and more rice

It's kinda weird being back in England, we are overwhelmed by the good state of the roads, cleanliness and availability of food and other products that we often take for granted. As for the foreseeable future we no further planned trips until at least October so we are going to make the most of this time by spending some time with family, meet up with old friends and have some down time in readiness for the next adventures that we are sure will come our way.

Madagascar we'll see you soon!

our last week of Leadership for Life training in Toamasina

last week was a little hectic and although we did enjoy some 'me time' it was 'full on' for three days in the middle of the week and over the weekend too. the week bought to an end of our time in Toamasina where we were able to run three 'cafe'/feed back sessions, teach the whole four module Leadership for Life training to a group of people who joined us from a local charity network and were surprised (although not shocked) to have the opportunity to share at the Bethany School Church service again on Sunday.

our week started with the usual run around to the local photocopy shop to get some printing sorted prior to the start of Leadership for Life workshop that we were to start on the Tuesday morning. we have grown to love the town (second largest in Madagascar) of Toamasina, its small enough to know where we can get hold of the basic needs such as western style food (if required) a good cup of coffee and yes our faithful photocopy shop.

18 people had joined us from six local organisations who work with the vulnerable children in the town, these organisations range from a large children's center set in some extensive grounds where schooling and homes for orphans are provided with house mums looking after up to 10 children in their homes (sorta the Village of Hope dream we had back in 2005 come to life!), to smaller set ups who are working with the street children in the various neighbourhoods of the town of around 250,000 people.

once again Theo from Love'nCare interpreted for us and it is always so exciting to see the hearts and minds of those we share with come into a realisation that they can start to think differently and pick up their pens to write a different story for their lives.

this was the sixth group that we were sharing with and since arrived we have lead over 280 people through the four module Leadership for Life training. we normally like to gather people together for four separate sessions (each three hours long) over four weeks to enable the new mindsets to take root and begin to have an impact in the people lives, however time was against us with this new group and we had to 'cram' the modules into two full days.

Theo is due to meet up with the group again early next month but we have already received encouraging news of the training really helping individuals who were sent from their various organisations. thanks to Kimberley from HELP Madagascar who has provided us with these updates!

on Wednesday we had the opportunity to meet up with two previous groups, both the Officers, Wardens and administrative staff of the prison, as well as the group from the large church in town. once again we heard stories of how lives had been transformed with new ways of thinking. the whole essence of the modules is to call people to action, it's not just training material that people keep for themselves. so the stories of families and communities transformed confirm that this Leadership for Life can really really have an impact in Madagascar and we are already planning to build from that.

we hope to share some of these incredible stories on a separate blog but that will have to wait until we are back in England with some stable internet connection, however it is so great to see people putting together action plans to bring hope to their lives, financial budgets and commit to community programmes that will see their lives and the lives of those around them improved for the better.

on saturday morning we had the joy of meeting up with the teachers and key staff from the schools that Love'nCare run in the peri rural areas around the town, this group of over 40 staff have joined together to see their schools changed and with those who we'd already meet up with during the week we were able to present their Certificates in Community Leadership to them bringing the total of those who have not only attended all four modules but attended a follow up cafe/meeting and shown themselves to have put their learning into action to over 220 people, thus if they all have an impact on just five people over 1,000 people will have seen their lives transformed in some way since we arrived in February!

we were given the opportunity to spend our last Sunday sharing at the church service that takes place at Bethany school, with no planning we shared the story of Joshua and the fall of Jericho with the children and adults who had joined us and spent much of the morning marching around the open sided church singing 'we are marching in the light of God' which caused much joy and laughter.

on Sunday afternoon we took the short, forty five minute, flight westward to the capital Antananarivo where we are spending the week prior to our flights back to England via the Seychelles and Abu Dubai on Friday. since arriving we have had the chance to meet up with a local pastor (of a church with a congregation of 15,000) who is very very keen to see some of his members join us in September where we are looking to train up local leaders to take this incredible material into the most inhospitable and rural areas of this vast island.

it is with sad hearts that we will be leaving but we know we will be back later in the year (God willing) and that it's important for us to spend some quality time with Maz' mum who is currently battling cancer.

learning to dream again.....part one of two!

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.........!