Waiting for what may or may not happen

More than one week has passed since we witnessed the looting from our safe balcony and windows in Tulear. It has been a strange week. As the true humans we are, our biggest worries were related to ourselves, and the question if our friends (Børre, Annelise and Jan) would be able to come as planned in February. After a week where good and bad news have been replacing each other, it seems however that the country is calming down. However, it still has two people saying they are presidents, and the capital has two mayors. So, yesterday we had the great news that we will have guests in a few days. We will have to travel the almost 1000 km to Tana to receive them. We hope for a nice calm trip back down to Tulear, stopping at National parks and in interesting villages, far away from demonstrations and politics.

The TV-stations don’t broadcast in Tulear at the moment, and now that we are actually interested in the President’s whereabouts. The few radio stations that broadcast from Madagascar either play music or talk in Malagasy. RFI (Radio France International) is our best news source, but it also reports from the rest of the world, (quite annoying actually!) and it not always very detailed on the situation. And …in good French manner it decided to go on strike for a day!

Our other source of news is the “jungle telegraph”, and these days it is very active. To understand what’s going on you have to talk to a lot of people, and of course they are not all telling the same things, so you have to try to deduct your own truth from all the different facts and rumours you hear. After the looting in Tulear many people, including us, were worried for the demonstration that was announced for Saturday. Since the stores owned by the not always popular Indo-Pakistani population were left untouched on Tuesday, many people feared that we would see a new day of looting. Over a dinner at our French neighbours the other day, different scenarios were discussed, and we even speculated on a possible evacuation. The next day it seemed totally ridiculous, since Saturday passed without major happenings, and we enjoyed a day by the pool in a calm city.

Now it seems that a new demonstration is planned every second day. We’re getting used to them, also because they go on quite peacefully.

We hope that a solution to this political deadlock can be peacefully achieved, as we think that Madagascar needs some stability.