“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.

Last day at the English Centre

Some of our students presented their mini-projects and received their certificate on Saturday. They wrote about Democracy, Global Warming and Teachers' Self Training. We supervised their work, and it was nice to be there when they presented it. After we had a small "veloma" (goodbye) party, nice words, songs and even presents were offered... we also started a small "library" for the students... here some photos from the day:

Madagascar falls 40 places in freedom of press ranking

Madagascar falls from 94th to 134th place on Reporters Without Borders’ ranking of freedom of press and medias in 2009. It is tempting to blame this development on the coup d’etat, and the Rajoelina’s regime, but the truth is more nuanced. In fact, for more than half of the period Marc Ravalomanana was still in power.

Arriving in Madagascar, I was in fact a bit surprised by the media situation. In Toliara we had two TV-channels. One was the national TV-channel TVM, where the news basically were dedicated to whatever the president was doing or saying that day. The other channel, MBS, was owned by the president himself…

When the political crisis escalated, the news on both channels was totally useless, since they didn’t report on anything that was happening. (Our only source of information was Radio France International (RFI), when it wasn’t on strike). Then both channels were attacked and looted, so Toliara remained without TV for about 2 months. Now, we are back watching the national TV (the only channel here), and it is actually slightly better than under Ravalomanana. We’re not seeing only the president, but also what the government is doing, sometimes it is even possible to understand that there is an opposition.

Judging from the TV the members of government are very nice and popular, as they are always being welcomed by nice people smiling and waving. These people are of course rewarded with nice gifts on behalf of the regime, always thoroughly made account for by the reporters.

When it comes to newspapers, there are some choices, and they provide less partisan information than the TV. The problem is that they all come from Tana which means that at the earliest they are available in Toliara the afternoon one day after they came out. That’s in the fourth city of Madagascar, with flight connection with the capital on a daily bases. Access to newspapers on the countryside is utopia.

This is without mentioning the problem of actual access, since very few people can afford to have a TV, to buy newspapers or to access the internet. The lack of access to information is an evident problem that we experience every day with our students. It feels very awkward to be asked for information on current affairs by the Malagasy, while we would like to understand more with their help.

But maybe there is hope. Yesterday the minister of communication went out on TV and declared that after many years under the rule of Ratsiraka and Ravalomanana people are finally free to express their opinion in Madagascar. However, she said, there are certain rules to follow…

As a lawyer, I would like to remind her that she also has certain rules to follow when it comes to making rules.





All photos by Lucien David

Academic week

Toliara is slowly going back to the warm summer and we start to feel it. We had a weekend with almost no running water in the house (just in the night), and with numerous power cuts. However, we work on our researches (time has come to produce some text) and we teach English. So, lately our days are quite calm.

Birger had a different lecture the other day, as it wasn’t for our students at the University English Teaching Centre, but for law students following English classes. Solo, a colleague at the Centre, gave Birger the challenge of lecturing about the European Union to students with variable levels both in English and in law. Anyway, he did well and the students seemed to enjoy the challenge and the topic. They asked a lot of questions, from why Turkey is not in the EU to what’s the name of the Norwegian king (!?!?!) and how do you say hello and good bye in Norwegian. I guess it ended up being a quite exotic law/English lecture.
After giving “our” students a challenging lecture on “academic writing”, we attended a very interesting seminar on “Republic and Democracy” at the University (on a Saturday afternoon). The event was organised by an association of Phd students, where one of our students William is a member. The topic was particularly interesting given the political events of the last months, in the country. Three professors briefly exposed some concepts concerning the topic of the seminar, and then an interesting debate took place. Questions and reflections went back and forth in the crowded room. Most of the reflections involved the Constitution, the challenge of building up a functioning democracy in a country with many illiterate voters, as well as the problem of corruption. The dean of the university did a brilliant job moderating the debate.


But the day had still a lot to give, after the debate we were invited to a reception that turned into a small party with the professors and the Phd students. Tongues loosened with the help of Malagasy rum and the never absent THB (Three Horses Beer). It is impressive to see how, despite the poor facilities that this city offers, people with strong desire get informed about what happens all over the world. From the Italian and Russian mafia, to the role of the former Belgian Prime Minister, to the feeling of belonging in Madagascar, we talked about several things in French, English and Malagasy… always in the Malagasy way: a sip of rum for the ancestors first, and a speech to wrap it up!

Crisis and University

Madagascar has now 2 presidents, 2 prime ministers, two of everything. What is not doubling is money, jobs, and resources for the people. Probably the university is not on top of the major worries during a political crisis, nevertheless students are suffering from this situation too.

The university of Toliara has very little means. Not sure if they are given very little means, or the money addressed to the university are getting lost on the way. The point here is that in order to study, to learn, to become the society of the future, you need some basic stuff; very basic sometime, nevertheless necessary.
Torun H. Rognes is one of our predecessors here in Toliara. Like us, she was doing a research. She decided to look into the work conditions of the students. Her article is not flattering, but it is published in Talily (special number 13-14-15/2008), a university journal.
The university campus is at about 5km from the city centre and is lacking the most basic facilities. It hosts about 2000 students, but there are NO functioning toilets or showers. The students are forced to go “in the nature” around the campus, even at night…


the campus:


The rooms are not sufficient to host the growing number of students, so rooms planned to be shared in two are shared in four or more (4 beds, all the personal belongings, 1 table in common, a cooking corner, in about 10-12 square meters). Some students are placed in rooms initially constructed for other purposes, they hang plastic foils to get privacy from other students, also because those rooms are often not divided by gender.
We visited some of them, the place to cook consists of small electric elements, with no switch; students have to very carefully connect the cables to use them to cook their rice.



The classrooms are not enough for all the students and the courses. According to Torun, the acoustic is not adequate, and there are not enough chairs for everybody: students have to bring chairs from their own rooms.
The teaching hours are also heavy: courses start around 7.30 and go on for about 8h, only interrupted by a lunch break of about 1h. The professors, don’t get paid very well, so they are often doing side researches to make a living. The result is that they concentrate their work with the students in few months or weeks, and they are absent for other months.
Furthermore, the university can’t provide professors for all the courses so some of them are just “missionaries” from other universities: they have 10-12 hour courses per day, for 7 days a week for a couple of weeks; then 1 or 2 days after the end of the course, the students have to take their exam.
Clearly, this rhythm is not allowing the students to have a normal learning process.
Torun reports also that the university library is small, with 18 tables and about 8000 titles, most of them quite old. A few other libraries offer some more titles, but have quite limited opening hours.
Without going too deep into the amount of computers and the access to internet, we can just say that they are almost non existent and that students write their papers and thesis by hand, so they have to pay someone to write the last version on a PC. With three main consequences:
-students can’t access enough resources (internet),
-they often don’t know how to use a computer (!!),
-and they miss the very important learning process that is done while revising a paper.
We could continue by telling that scholarships for students are few and small, and that many need to work beside their studies. We could tell about the danger of prostitution for the poorest girls (especially hoping to get a vazaha, maybe to marry). Or tell about the impossibility for most of the students to travel, in order to get material or do research. But you probably got the idea…

What we can add is that there is a crisis, and a lack of resources.
The problems described above are only getting worse.
Furthermore, the electricity is scarce in Toliara, and at the University campus it is often without it for many days, leaving the students in the dark…
How is the society of the future going to be, when even the privileged group that can go to University, are suffering from impossible working conditions?





Italiano: abbiate pieta' e' troppo lungo... magari tra qualche giorno. ;-)