Antananarivo

2 JANUARY 2024

All I knew about Madagascar before I arrived, was that it was described by many visitors as a ‘very poor country and difficult to travel around by road’. I was curious to find out how this impression could sit side by side with the glossy travel pictures of luxury resorts with views over idyllic turquoise seascapes.

It became very clear on walking around the capital, that the publicised resorts were located at specific places around the coastline, most at Nosy Be in the north west and hence kept most tourists away from day to day Malagasy life.

Antananarvo is steeped in history, revealed to me on visits to the Haute-Ville and at Ambohimanga. Here there is proud evidence of a rich and diverse history leading into the period of French rule in 1883 including the rise in nationalism in the post-war era. It carefully charts the evolution of the political, social and economic background to Madagascar’s independence from 1960 with its first president, Philibert Tsiranana.

Walking amongst the inhabitants of Tana, you easily see the diverse mix of heritages in people’s faces and dress, in the food stalls and architecture. There is evidence of Asian, Arabic, African and European influences. Madagascar is a real mix of global interconnectivity going back centuries and a response to the islands location as a trading interchange in the Indian Ocean. The most common language spoken, Malagasy, reflects this mix with its Malayo-Polynesian roots and Arabic, European and Bantu influences. Despite this multiracial history, people told me that there is still a tendency to live, marry and have children within more localised community groups.

Hence, when I started to travel around the southern areas of Madagascar, it became clear that people continued to relate closely to their clan, main tradition of livelihood and culture including their language.