By Sean Barlow

My Dispatch #4 from Madagascar was a hurried list of highlights plus images from the our adventure so I want to go back and fill in some details and show you some more pictures.

The best part of hiking into the rocky, Southwest like country of Isalo National Park was finding waterfalls to massage our limbs and pools of cool green water to jump into. Dipping into any body of water is Africa is usually a no-no because of water-born diseases like river blindness. But we were in spring-fed, high country. And we did it. Felt great.

The other memorable thing of our Isalo experience was the singing at our camp that night. Banning started on guitar and our local guide Didi joined in, singing and making up words in English along the lines of "I'm happy we are all together and enjoying Madagascar together." He's got a strong, soulful voice. Hanitra and Noor and their brother Naina sang some beautiful songs with Naina accompanying on guitar. Several bottles of "drivers' punch" later, my driver Frank, the 4th generation Chinese-Malagasy guy, and the other drivers--Hadz and Olivier and Parsons--started doing vocals and percussion and then demanded that Banning and Naina play tsapika. More fun than tsapika. The music around the campfire kept going long after I had crawled into my tent.

The next morning, we joked with Hanitra that we were going to release our recordings of the Tarika portion of our campfire jubilee. She shot back, "I was drunk. Don't you dare!" We ALL were nursing various degrees of hangovers from that strong drivers' punch.

Back on the main road to Tulear, we stopped at the boom town of Ilakaka. There used to be about 30 houses here, but then they discovered sapphires in the surrounding sparse, flatlands and the town swelled to 60,000 people. Now it's down to about 40,000. We were advised that vazhas (white people) don't show their faces in Ilakha after sundown. That's when the miners get rowdy and shoot off their AK47s. The rags to riches lore here celebrates miners now driving expensive cars who used to hunt food in garbage heaps.

The Afropop convoy of Toyota Land Cruisers pulled up to Ilakaka around noon and we got out to look around, our street smarts on high alert. The town is a mile long strip of sapphire dealer shops, luxury goods stalls, beer halls, and hotels. The street was bustling with buying and selling and delivering goods. Young, pretty "working girls" walked the streets. We went into a sapphire dealer's shop run by gem traders from Sri Lanka, and after some nervous hemming and hawing, one of them pulled out a small leather pouch and splashed raw sapphires on the table. They use special laser like flashlights that reveal the internal color and quality of the stones. Asking price? 4 million each. Yikes! A bit pricey for this Afropop shopper.

Father down the road we stopped at a roadside village where kids held up live hedgehogs on strings. Asking price? 20,000 Francs Malagache or about two and a half dollars. Hanitra was hunting for something else of course--music. When she asked some of the teenage boys if they played, they happily ran off to get their kabosy's and then performed an impressive set for us. We dubbed this place Hedgehog Village.

We've been driving from Tana for five days and the anticipation is building for jumping into the ocean. First thing Banning, Hanitra and I did when we hit the coastal city of Tulear was drop our bags at the hotel and get back in the Land Cruiser to look of up tsapika guitar legend Jean Noel. Hanitra had first met him by venturing to a mining community one Saturday night where he was playing his wild, fast guitar style for the drunken miners dancing up the dust in the dirt floored venue.

We found Jean Noel and his singer/dancer wife in their small but comfy wooden house in a larger family compound. Jean Noel was disappointed we were not the record producer Hanitra had interested in his work, but glad for the attention anyway. We did what was probably his first media interview and agreed to rendezvous in two days for his band's rehearsal.

That night a most amazing group came to the hotel to perform for us after a rather bland meal of what we joked was hedgehog loaf. This was an Antennary ensemble. The center of attention was a huge man dressed in skins and jewelry who looked like he was having a bad hair day. He proudly told us he had six wives. And that his group had performed in Europe. Accompanying him on maravony and vocals were two slim, smiley fellows we later heard were his "slaves". The French word is "esclaves." But on further discussion of this alarming discovery, it turns out they have more of what we would call a feudal lord and serf relationship. Anyway their dramatic, warbling vocal style and the headman's up tempo violin playing plus an older woman pounding on a cow skin drum, with a 7 women chorus made quite a powerful sound. No microphones. Just strong voices. They pulled us to the dance floor and all the Afropoppers were soon doing the Antandroy thing. Fun fun fun.

The next day we headed north on the rutted dirt road to the fishing village of Ifaty where snorkeling and a bit of R&R were the attractions. The people along this stretch of coast are Vezo, one of the 18 main "tribes" of Madagascar. They make their living fishing. The men paddle out to sea in the early morning in outrigger canoes and then sail back with the evening breeze. These rather elegant, sturdy craft I reckon have not changed much over the years. The women's job is to clean the fish and sell them in the market and look after the babies.

The land was dry and studded with gnarly cactus-like plants. The small houses, built of sticks lashed together, looked like any big storm could sweep them away. I get the sense that these fisher folk scrape on by but they don't get very good prices for their fish. There's no sign of wealth here unlike in the highlands with its bigger houses and cars.

I had pictured Ifaty as bustling with tourists seeking the pleasures of sun and sea, but there were only a few modest hotels scattered between the fishing villages and only a handful of other tourists to be seen. In fact, I was surprised in general at how undeveloped the tourist infrastructure in Madagascar is. That's actually one of the charms of the place. You get the feeling you are one of few visitors. And anywhere off the beaten path, you become a curiosity and are greeted warmly by locals.

We motored out to a coral reef on a boat skippered by a Frenchman named Stephane. I invited Didi and all our drivers and the Tarika crew to the snorkeling expedition as a treat on Afropop.

They enthusiastically accepted my offer but when we got out to the reef and the Afropoppers started flopping into the 20 ft. deep water, they didn't look so sure. "Why do these vazhas pay money to go out to sea to look at fish?" they asked each other. But we coaxed them, one by one, to come into the water. These are Merina people from the high plateau of Madagascar, not water people, and they don't have swimming chops. They bravely dogpaddled around in life preservers and then hightailed it back to the boat, with scarcely a glance at the colorful fish feeding off the coral below.

Hanitra was the boldest of all--surprise, surprise--but even she got spooked by the open water. The reef showcased fish in all shades of gold, black, white, turquoise, sky blue and red. Some of our snorkeling aficionado Afropop buddies later informed me that the reef was pretty much dead, silt smothered and trampled by amateur snorklers. But it still felt wonderful to be enveloped in the quiet undersea tropical world.

No power at our hotel meant gas lanterns, candles and an early night. The next morning, Hanitra arranged with some young fishermen to take us by dug-out canoe and outrigger. My boat was skippered by a smiley, soft-spoken ten-year-old. We dove again and the skipper and I practiced underwater kung fu moves.

A lot of the coastal boys and men die the crown of their hair yellow. Some of the men and women looked to me like Tamils from South India, with dark copper skin and jet black straight hair. The variation of skin tone, hair, build and self-adornment is amazing in Madagascar.

A spirited acoustic kabosy group from the fishing village performed for us mid-day. Three teenage girls wrapped in orange and green cloth sang in high nasal voices, backed by a three piece kabosy section, a kid playing shaker and a guitarist. As the rapid tempo music built to a crescendo, the girls did the tspakika shake-your-bum thing. Then they sang a beautiful slower song where I recognized the Malagasy word for Jesus (sounds like Jay-zoo). Hantira told me they were asking for God's and their parents' forgiveness for shaking it. That's an ingenious solution to the conflict between roots and religion. Do it anyway and then ask for forgiveness. Kind of reminds me of coming up in parochial school, where I asked the nuns incredulously, "You mean, you can sin all your life and ask for forgiveness on your deathbed and still go to heaven?!?" Wow! What a great deal!

We headed back to Tulear to make a 4 pm rendezvous with Jean Noel's band rehearsal. Nobody was there but a few apologetic guys and some broken down sound gear. Jean Noel had been embarrassed he couldn't organize the scene and was nowhere to be found. We drove and found him at home and invited him to sit in with the tsapika band performing that night. He gladly agreed and hung out with us drinking Three Horses Beer at the bar across the road from our Tulear hotel.

The featured artist that night was the tsapika singer Bodita. She had a six piece band that cranked out one rowdy number after another. Sounds like good-timing country boogie to me, but fast! Jean Noel and his wife did a guest set with Bodita's band and it was hot. This guy can play! And his wife is an excellent singer and tsapika bum-shaker. Same moves we saw the day before danced by the teenage girls in Ifaty. But this time, I didn't hear any songs asking Jesus for forgiveness.

The next day was Easter Sunday. We skipped church and made a pilgrimage by speedboat to a small deserted island called Nosy Ve for a peaceful day of swimming and shell collecting. Returning in the dusk that night, the soft blue sky and bright stars were exhilarating but our Afropop crew were quiet and tense as our skipper picked his way through shallow water with no lights on the boat and only his sea memory to guide him. We bumped up slightly on the reef once and visions of high seas drama raced through some minds.

Kabosy players from the local fishing village paddled over and entertained us, fronted by another trio of young girls. We were told these tsapika girls were "the musicians'" and had left their families. I guess that means they had chosen music over respectability. I wondered what happens when they grow up?

This is the place where we parted company with the Tarika crew and our drivers--an emotional scene. I delivered thank-you speeches and a flurry of everyone traded addresses. Once the 4x4s headed out, it felt lonely, like we'd lost half our group. On Easter Monday, the hotel staff drove us to the Tulear airport. Hundreds of young people streamed in the opposite direction--walking, bicycling, and driving--to a holiday gathering by the sea.

The forty-minute flight from Tulear to Ft. Dauphin (Taolagnaro in local language) took us over the mostly dry unpopulated south lands to the southeast coast. Ft. Dauphin was one of the French's first attempts at settling Madagascar back in the 1600s. Ended badly with the double hit of disease and a bloody all-out with local tribes. It feels lush here compared to the dryer southwest coast. The dramatic headlands are scattered with rusted hulks of grounded ships. Beached for insurance scams it turns out.

Our local guide Benoit met us at the airport and after a leisurely lunch in town with Banning serenading us on guitar, we drove north to the Berenty Wildlife Preserve, owned by a French family, the Berenty. They came here in 1919 and built an empire based on sisal plantations and, later, hotels, restaurants and wildlife sanctuaries. They had the foresight to set aside forest lands which are the habitat of lemurs, primates unique to Madagascar, and THE big tourist draw. For Afropop, the big draw of our Tours of course is always people and music. But we worked lemurs into the Madagascar itinerary because, well, everyone loves cute critters.

That night, Benoit, took us on a nocturnal hike through the "spiney forest" of 50 foot high thorny trees looking for lemurs. Slim pickings at first. At one point, we encountered another group of visitors coming the opposite direction. I queried them in French about whether they had seen any lemurs. They answered back in Aussie English, "There's lots of lemurs!" Then we started finding the critters. Our first was a white-footed lemur, then the small mouse lemur with bug eyes and big ears, both nocturnal species who gather food at night. We woke up a ring-tailed lemur--with a raccoon like face and long black and white striped tail--that sleeps by night and nibbles leaves all day long. The coup de grace was seeing a rare brown lemur.

The next morning at 6, we were awoken by pounding sounds on the tin roofs of our bungalows. The ring-tailed lemurs were saying "Hey touristos! Wake up! We're here." I straggled out of bed in time to witness a flurry of Afropoppers in their underwear and camera gear parading after a family of lemurs.

Our nature hike that morning was dense. Benoit showed us fluffy white safika lemurs that do this funny prancing dance on two legs. We also saw fruit bats hanging in the trees, at rest after a night's work.

After a visit to a museum on the Berenty grounds with an excellent presentation of Antandroy (the local tribe) material culture and life cycle rituals, an Antandroy group performed for us. An older guy played a mean accordion, accompanied by two women on percussion. Out front, three guys blasting whistles and about seven women danced story dances. Lots of bird-like movement. Eventually, we were pulled into the dance circle.

Back in Ft. Dauphin that night, Hanitra had rallied some local electric roots bands to perform that Tuesday night at a brand new venue called the Blue Moon Café. Cool place. Felt like a surfer's hang. Dark, with low ceilings and a genuine disco crystal ball hanging over the dance floor. Local chic among the largely 20 something local guys seemed to be dreadlocks and Americn hip hop gear.

Three different groups performed. The first spent more time tuning than playing. The second was hot. Uptempo music on kabosy with three dancers, doing moves that reminded me of the Antandroy ensemble. We danced our brains out. This was one of the most fun live music scenes on the trip. Didi proved to be the hardcore party man tonight. He headed into the locally famous Panorama Nightclub. I heard some mid-tempo American R&B coming from the club and decided to call it quits at 3 in the morning.

We woke to a gentle rain. At the airport, heading back to Tana, we found out the Air Madagascar plane was overbooked and Didi would have to stay behind in Ft. Dauphin. Lousy.

The final morning in Tana, Banning and I and our Dutch public radio colleague, Laurens, went to Mars Records where they had organized a round of interviews with their most popular emerging artists, including Samoela, and Dr. JB. Samoela is a serious 25 year old man whose songs address such topics as sexual tourism and evangelical Christian sects preying on poor people in Madagascar. Dr. JB is a more jovial singer and band leader whose material ranges from salegy to tsapika to Zouk to soukous. He says he and his band Les Jaguar play seven nights a week in Nosy Be, a beautiful island off the Northwest coast. We promised him that next Afropop visit to Madagascar we would visit the north, including Nosy Be.

Our farewell lunch was at the Grill Riva perched on the ridge where the kings and queens of Madagascar held court in the 1800s and overlooking Tana. Our musical friends joined us--Noor and Naina from the Tarika crew, Hanitra of course, Sammy, Jean Emilien (one of the country's preeminent kabosy players) and D'Gary (renowned for his virtuosic guitar playing based on Bara culture from the south). I invited the Telofangady group (Three Shovels) group that Sammy had introduced us to, to perform. And one by one, our other musical friends did guest spots, culminating in a lovely song with Hanitra, Noor, Sammy, Jean Emilien and Telofangady harmonizing. D'Gary was the shy one. We had to lobby him with a group cheer to perform. He smiled and accepted, performing a soulful version of one of the songs we love from his recordings on Shanachie. It was a beautiful, bittersweet moment. Because we all knew this was the end of our Afropop Adventure in Madagascar

Thank you to Hanitra and the Tarika crew, to Didi and the Cortez Expeditions crew and of course to all the adventurous Afropoppers who made this first Afropop visit to Madagascar such a rich, fun experience. We'll be back!

And for you armchair traveler, stay tuned to Afropop Worlwide on your public radio station for audio snapshots of our visit. We gathered so much great tape, we'll make at least two programs. The first one airs in mid-May.

Also, if you live in the New York City metropolitan area, we are putting together an Afropop Evening of music, dinner and conversation, this Saturday May 12th, focusing on the sounds and images and crafts of Madagascar. The event will benefit afropop.org. There will be a silent auction of some gorgeous silks and wookwork we brought back. For more details, email us at info@afropop.org or call us 718-398-2733.

Veloma!

Photos

Click on a caption to view image:

Antandroy group at Berenty

Kabosy boys at Bara village near Isalo

Afropopper Amanda dancing the Antandroy bird dance

Central highlands

Afropop crew at Isalo

Our campsite at Isalo National Park

Afropoppers hiking in Isalo National Park

Chameleon

Sapphire dealer's shop in Ilakaka

View of Tana from Queen's Palace

Ring-tailed lemur at Berenty

Electric roots at Blue Moon café in Ft. Dauphin

D'Gary at Afropop farewell launch
Contributed by: Sean Barlow