“But what do you do in Madagascar?!?”

This is probably the most answered question during the last 14 months stay on the red island (soon to be replaced by “what did you do in Madagascar?!?”). I think that even our family members still don’t have it clear. Today is our last day in Madagascar, and time has come to tell what we’ve done here.

We were hired by SIK a Norwegian Centre for Intercultural Communication. Financed by Fredskorpet they have an exchange with the University of Toliara. Two persons from Norway go to Toliara and two Malagasy go to Stavanger to do research work in an archive that has plenty of materials on Madagascar that is not available there.
In Toliara we had mainly 2 tasks: run an independent research (we could choose the topic), and teach English at the University Language Centre.

The second task occupied most of our time in the beginning (together with a basic Malagasy language course), as we had to prepare the courses, re-adjust them to the capacity and needs of the students, find material, etc. We had to find a way of teaching that could fit our capacities and the goals of the students.

As for the research, the topics we were planning to investigate needed to be changed due to the political unrest that started in the end of January 2009. At that time offices weren’t reliable, and honestly we didn’t even know if we were going to be evacuated or not. During those weeks we tried to rethink our researches and we found two topics that interested us, that are related to the crisis and that we hoped were feasible even given the situation. Our goal is to produce a relatively short article accessible to a larger public than just scholars.

Birger is looking at the role of the Malagasy High Constitutional Court in the political crisis. A court that declared the power shift in Madagascar was legal, while it was generally labelled as a coup d’etat all over the world. The article is not just for lawyers, on the contrary it can be entertaining as it tries to understand also the (strange?) logics behind the HCC’s decisions.

I am working on a case of land grabbing. Daewoo Corporation was planning to lease 1.5 million hectares in Madagascar to produce corn and palm oil. Those products would have been sent to South Korea to meet internal food needs. The “Daewoo case” is acknowledged to be one of the causes of the unrest in the country leading to the power shift. I’m trying to understand why this case provoked so much the Malagasy, as well as what the project was really about, what procedures were followed and what happened to it… So far it has been a very interesting topic, because it permitted me to work with cultural and historical aspects as well as economical and political ones, furthermore I had to look into the very complicated yet interesting Malagasy land management (and titles) system.

It is soon time to leave Madagascar and go back to Norway. We still have a month ahead to finish up our work…

Veloma Toliara!

It has been more than a year with all possible feelings; confusion, happiness, loneliness, frustration, pleasure, fun, fear and even some anger. Life in the dusty city of Toliara doesn’t leave you indifferent. Time has come for us to say goodbye to Toliara. The last weeks we’ve once again gone through the whole specter of feelings, but the last days the feeling barometer seems to have stopped on contented.

We had a nice dinner with the Fredskorpset-team down here on Thursday. It’s not always easy to know what Malagasy people think, so it was very satisfying to get nice feedback from them concerning our stay here.


Venusia took the initiative to another important event this week, the collection of the money to the NGO, Bel Avenir. Writing to only a few friends, we were overwhelmed by the generosity. The people at the NGO had the same reaction as well when they received 3.5 Million Ariary (1300 EURO) Friday afternoon. Thank you all! That NGO is doing a great job here. All there projects are targeted directly at the people who needs it most, with an emphasis on basic education. It was with pride we could act as a liaison between the great work they’re doing and generous friends and family back in Europe.




Saturday three of our students at the English Center presented their final papers. We’ve been working as advisers for them all, and we participated in the jury (se pervious post). It was a formal ceremony, where the presidency of the University, journalists and family were present. Even though the classroom is not very big, we were of course equipped with a microphone to underline the importance of the event ;-) The students made an excellent job presenting their work, and it was obvious that it meant a lot to them to receive the course diploma.

After that it was time to say goodbye for us. It was nice to hear all the nice words and even to receive presents from both teachers and students. We were also able to give something back to the students, by creating a mini-library for the center, also with the help of some material we got from friends... We hope it will make it easier for them to access information in English.

Since we’re both extremely tough, we almost made it without crying when we left Toliara. The saddest moments were to say goodbye to Voahangy, who’s been working for us throughout the year, and to the pousse-pousse (Rickshaw) drivers outside our building. Seeing them waving and their toothless smiles when we drove off was touching even for experienced goodbye-wavers like us.




We were happy to leave Toliara with the satisfaction of knowing that we have done what was expected of us, and that we can return to cold Norway with warm memories of Toliara.

Arboretum d’Antsokay

Few days before Christmas we visited an arboretum with the students at the English language centre. This is a botanical garden established by a Swiss man who collected 900 different species of plants, 90% of which endemic to the Toliara region. This place is full of beautiful cactus, and exotic trees, all amazingly growing and flourishing from a ground of sand and rocks.

This interesting trip was arranged for those studying English at the University’s Language Centre. The purpose of this type of excursions is to give the students the knowledge and the vocabulary about touristic places around Toliara. In this way, those who want practice their language with tourists, or even work as tourist guides will have the tools to do so.

For us it was a great experience. We have long planned to go to visit the Arboretum, which is only 12km out of town. And this was a very nice way for us to do so. The students are very motivated; they took notes of everything they could grab from the English-speaking guide. They followed all he said, and tried to learn as much as possible from the experience. The Language Centre is ran by some very motivated and skilled people, who give their spare time to the students. The means of the centre are very limited; nevertheless the students are remarkably motivated. They have a very tough life at the university, yet they follow the 6 weekly course hours at the centre, and ask for more… like having extra activities on Saturday mornings!

We really hope to help with our work at the centre, and we invite those of you interested, to come to Toliara and have some special activity for the students, or held some guest lectures. We are also thinking to try to give the students access to some extra material, as simple English literature books or movies and documentaries in English (preferably with subtitles in English), so if you are planning to come here, don’t hesitate to bring novels from high school…

 

Italiano: Pochi giorni prima di Natale, abbiamo visitato un arboreto con gli studenti del centro d’inglese. Questo giardino botanico, creato da uno svizzero, contiene 900 specie diverse di piante, 90% delle quali endemiche della regione di Toliara. Il posto è pieno di meravigliosi cactus e alberi esotici, che sorprendentemente crescono rigogliosi dal suolo sabbioso e roccioso.

Questa interessante escursione è stata organizzata per gli studenti d’inglese del centro linguistico dell’università’. L’obiettivo di questo tipo di attività è di dare agli loro le conoscenze (ed il vocabolario) relative ai siti turistici intorno a Toliara. In questo modo, quelli che vogliono praticare la lingua con i turisti, e persino lavorare come guide turistiche, hanno accesso alle nozioni necessarie per farlo.

Per noi è stata una bella esperienza. Avevamo a lungo pensato di andare a visitare l’arboreto, che si trova a soli 12 chilometri da Toliara. E andare con gli studenti è stato uno splendido modo per visitare il posto. Gli studenti sono, infatti, molto motivati, hanno preso appunti di tutto ciò che era possibile catturare dalla guida in inglese. Hanno seguito tutto ciò che diceva, e hanno provato ad apprendere il più possibile dall’esperienza. Il Centro Linguistico è gestito da alcune persone motivate e capaci, che mettono a disposizione degli studenti il loro tempo libero. I mezzi del centro sono molto limitati, ciononostante gli studenti sono eccezionalmente motivati. Infatti, nonostante la loro difficile vita all’università’, ed il fatto che già seguono 6 ore di corso settimanali al centro, chiedono di più… come avere attività extra il sabato mattina!

Noi speriamo davvero di essere d’aiuto con il nostro lavoro al centro, e invitiamo quelli di voi interessati (e capaci), di venire a Toliara per organizzare qualche attività per gli studenti o sostenere qualche lezione al corso. Stiamo anche pensando di provare a dare accesso agli studenti ad un po’ di materiale extra come semplici romanzi in inglese o film e documentari in inglese (preferibilmente con anche i sottotitoli); pertanto, se stai pensando di venire a Toliara, non esitare a portare con te i romanzi in lingua letti alle scuole superiori…