We, not to mention the Malagasy population, were hoping that the political crisis was going towards a solution. Three former Presidents and the acting president of the transition had two meetings in Maputo. It seemed like they had come to an agreement concerning a consensus transitional government, but I guess the agreement from the first meeting was just hiding their differences. During the second meeting, the four movements were not able to agree on the positions in the transitional government.
Some days after returning from Maputo, the ”de facto” president Andry Rajoelina, decided to ”implement” the agreement by creating his own new ”consensus” government. This decision seems to have two major consequences:
-The three other movements are now united against Rajoelina, something that 6 months back would have been nothing less than a miracle. These movements are led by a dubious bunch, three former presidents: Albert Zafy (impeached for corruption in 1996), Didier Ratisraka (the dictator given the boot by the people/Ravolomanana in 2002), Marc Ravalomanana (chased out of the country by ex-DJ Rajoelina, his followers and the military in 2009).
-The people in Tana seem to be reacting against Rajoelinas movement’s unilateralism and lack of democratic spirit. (All demonstrations have so far been suppressed). The “united” opposition has called for a big demonstration the 20th of September, and a large turnout is to be expected.
So far it seems like the demonstrations have been concentrated to Tana. We hope that they will be kept peaceful. However, if there is one thing we’ve learned from living here for almost a year: to predict what will happen when Malagasy politicians are calling the shots is close to impossible.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Friday, September 4, 2009
Back to Toliara
Ehm, yes, the blog hasn’t been updated lately. Sorry for that. After some busy times and vacation, we’re back.
Back to Madagascar, this time we got our courtesy visa quickly: 24h and we were ready to leave Tana! With an Air Madagascar plane this time, as the Route National 7 is gorgeous, but also very long. We sent part of our luggage by taxi brousse (Air France allowed us 46Kg each, while internal AirMad flights allow 20Kg), and everything arrived safe 2 days after us.
We expected to have a hectic start, as a Fredskorpet conference was to be held in Toliara starting from two days later. We met with Bartelemy, Lucien David and De l’Or, to get an update on what was left to do, to discover that all was finished and we could just wait the arrival of Kåre (our responsible from SIK) and Saliuo (from FK), to start working on the very last things.
Friday 21st, just before dinner we discovered that some people from Tana couldn’t make it to the conference, but most of the people we booked meals and hotels from, had no problems to adjust to the new number (valid for Etoile de Mer, Esterel and Chez Andrea in Sarondrano; a bit less valid for Palétuvier).
We wont describe here the conference, but we would like to say that everything went fine, and we were overwhelmed with the level of participation during the work. The meeting had as main goal to create a Malagasy FK network, and people worked very good together. Most of the people there were Malagasy who participated to an FK exchange to Norway before. It means that they lived and worked in Norway for several months (as we’re doing here), and they all speak Malagasy, French, English and…Norwegian! Some of them even know some words of Italian!
Everyday we meet people (expatriates), who don’t believe Malagasy people are interested to work hard to improve things in the country. Worst, we meet people who think Malagasy don’t have the capacity to do so. Well, what we can say loud and strong is that at the conference there was plenty of clever and motivated people who have plans for this country. Malagasy who are not naïve, and are ready to work hard and long to ameliorate others’ life condition. FK seems to be there to support those resourceful people, and we’re very glad for that.
The FK conference in Toliara was a great opportunity for us, to work together with interesting people and enrich our experience!
So, back to Toliara: lot of energy, positive thoughts, and all good!
Sarondrano (south of Toliara):
A little present we made for those attending the conference:
Folkloristic evening, students from the university of Toliara perform dances for us:
Few days after the end of the conference we got an invitation to go to Lavanono, very south of Madagascar, and then to Forth Dauphin east side. Could we refuse? Not.
This was a trip we wanted to do, so now we did it in a few intense days. Antonie, who is doing research for her Phd, invited us. She will have to forgive us if we say it imperfectly, but she does research on the population’s perception of the QMM-Rio Tinto mining activities in Forth Dauphin. A very interesting topic we cannot get too tired of discussing. With her we also had the opportunity of exchanging opinion, material and tips for each others research work, while travelling trough some very interesting areas of Madagascar, were traditions and landscapes are very different from Toliara.
We recommend Lavanono if you like surfing in a beautiful surrounding; and Forth Dauphin as the city has some lovely beaches all around! Great experience.
On the way to Forth Dauphin from Lavanono:
Market in Ampanihy:
Market in Lavanono:
Sculpture from a Mahafaly tomb:
Lavanono:
Market in Lavanono:
Lavanono:
Forth Dauphin:
Forth Dauphin from the plane looks like southern Italy!
Around Toliara:
Market in Lavanono:
Lunch in Forth Dauphin:
Lavanono:
Toliara from the airplane:
Back to Madagascar, this time we got our courtesy visa quickly: 24h and we were ready to leave Tana! With an Air Madagascar plane this time, as the Route National 7 is gorgeous, but also very long. We sent part of our luggage by taxi brousse (Air France allowed us 46Kg each, while internal AirMad flights allow 20Kg), and everything arrived safe 2 days after us.
We expected to have a hectic start, as a Fredskorpet conference was to be held in Toliara starting from two days later. We met with Bartelemy, Lucien David and De l’Or, to get an update on what was left to do, to discover that all was finished and we could just wait the arrival of Kåre (our responsible from SIK) and Saliuo (from FK), to start working on the very last things.
Friday 21st, just before dinner we discovered that some people from Tana couldn’t make it to the conference, but most of the people we booked meals and hotels from, had no problems to adjust to the new number (valid for Etoile de Mer, Esterel and Chez Andrea in Sarondrano; a bit less valid for Palétuvier).
We wont describe here the conference, but we would like to say that everything went fine, and we were overwhelmed with the level of participation during the work. The meeting had as main goal to create a Malagasy FK network, and people worked very good together. Most of the people there were Malagasy who participated to an FK exchange to Norway before. It means that they lived and worked in Norway for several months (as we’re doing here), and they all speak Malagasy, French, English and…Norwegian! Some of them even know some words of Italian!
Everyday we meet people (expatriates), who don’t believe Malagasy people are interested to work hard to improve things in the country. Worst, we meet people who think Malagasy don’t have the capacity to do so. Well, what we can say loud and strong is that at the conference there was plenty of clever and motivated people who have plans for this country. Malagasy who are not naïve, and are ready to work hard and long to ameliorate others’ life condition. FK seems to be there to support those resourceful people, and we’re very glad for that.
The FK conference in Toliara was a great opportunity for us, to work together with interesting people and enrich our experience!
So, back to Toliara: lot of energy, positive thoughts, and all good!
Sarondrano (south of Toliara):
A little present we made for those attending the conference:
Folkloristic evening, students from the university of Toliara perform dances for us:
Few days after the end of the conference we got an invitation to go to Lavanono, very south of Madagascar, and then to Forth Dauphin east side. Could we refuse? Not.
This was a trip we wanted to do, so now we did it in a few intense days. Antonie, who is doing research for her Phd, invited us. She will have to forgive us if we say it imperfectly, but she does research on the population’s perception of the QMM-Rio Tinto mining activities in Forth Dauphin. A very interesting topic we cannot get too tired of discussing. With her we also had the opportunity of exchanging opinion, material and tips for each others research work, while travelling trough some very interesting areas of Madagascar, were traditions and landscapes are very different from Toliara.
We recommend Lavanono if you like surfing in a beautiful surrounding; and Forth Dauphin as the city has some lovely beaches all around! Great experience.
On the way to Forth Dauphin from Lavanono:
Market in Ampanihy:
Market in Lavanono:
Sculpture from a Mahafaly tomb:
Lavanono:
Market in Lavanono:
Lavanono:
Forth Dauphin:
Forth Dauphin from the plane looks like southern Italy!
Around Toliara:
Market in Lavanono:
Lunch in Forth Dauphin:
Lavanono:
Toliara from the airplane:
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