April 1, 2007
Text and photographs by Andrew Aprile

Andrew Aprile was an intern with Afropop Worldwide during the summer of 2006, and he is now in the midst of a five-month stay in Madagascar.  He is funded by Wesleyan University and the Christopher Brodigan Award, and his work is aimed at helping promote indigenous Malagasy culture.  Andrew began his stay in Antananarivo with Antshow, the arts center created by Hanitra of the roots band Tarika, and send his first report from Fort Dauphin in the south, where he worked with a local arts organization called Afadzy.  Here, from Tulear, is Andrew’s second report from the field. 

I'm writing to you from Tulear in the southwest of Madagascar, soaking up what I can before my much-anticipated return to the states. This third installment reaches you rather than the second; which skirted around a burned bridge and described in varying detail the crossing of a sunken bridge, a fourteen hour boat ride atop more than three tons of clove, a small canoe with 17 fellow passengers, various (mis)adventures with Adam at the seeming ends of the world, and the meeting of a sweet man named Mamy (which means “sweet” in Malagasy) and his rap star brother Big Jimda, who both graciously accepted me in their Tana home. 

For the past two months I have been in the south, postponing a mandatory immersion into the beautiful music of the Androy (pronounced an-drew-ee) region until a little over two weeks ago for the sake of relative comfort in Fort Dauphin. The coastal city provided much needed shelter, beautiful beaches, welcoming people, some productivity on behalf of the NGO Azafady (see www.azafady.org), and camaraderie in the domicile shared by myself and members of the Azafady band. Not all was perfect. I had to battle with the mentality of a different, less sweet Mamy who would place a recently killed goat's leg in our shared college dormroom-esque minifridge, sans tupperware; my computer adapter died on account of Jirama's (the national power monopoly) inconsistency, taking away the possibility of field recording (in tandem with a now defunct brand new Minidisc player) and preventing the dissemination of that aforementioned mass email; and my camera got hit by a saltwater wave.

Putting my archiving impulses to rest, I spent two unplanned weeks forsaking the Antandroy immersion to stay in the comforts of Ft. Dauphin with roommate friends Dimby and Mauretus who understood my feeling about raw meat carcass and refrigerators and who could share a hearty laugh.

A few days before I left, an impromptu concert was arranged for the bush (small rural village) where there would be a celebration for the birthday of an Azafady "pioneer" (vazaha: a volunteer who pays to carry out manual labor for various humanitarian projects like building schools and latrines – if you have the time, money/funds to raise, energy and enthusiasm, I highly recommend the 10 week program). I was ecstatic to have the opportunity to perform with the Azafady band on kasaky, the brilliant and practical Malagasy shaker, for the Mangaliba tunes. However, in typical fashion, I overbooked.

The day before the concert I was made aware of a black South African named Andy with a Powerbook who runs hospitality for a country club that solely benefits/serves white South Africans mining for QMM. I moseyed over to the seaside Miramar at an arranged time, the day of the birthday celebration, to beg Andy to use his power adapter, the only Macintosh equipment on this side of the planet, for a three-hour recording session with Mbala, the brilliant Antandroy marovanist who now guards the house of the director of the SIT (School for International Training) program in Fort Dauphin. I waited on the steps of Miramar for Andy, passing on an opportunity to play ping-pong with an employee for fear that I might look irresponsible. I could not so easily resist the invitation to watch the satellite television. I spent the next moments not so much watching as much as being completely satisfied and dulled by the much-missed mechanical activity of flipping channels on a remote control. The guilty pleasure continued until a white South African with a tucked-in polo shirt inquired as to my existence, making it both rudely and abundantly clear that I was not welcome on account of the fact that I did not pillage the local land by his side. I calmly and coolly accepted his disinvitation (which included the commandment that I never return… "not tonight… wait… no… not even this afternoon"), smiling while concentrating on the mental image of ripping his head off. Then I walked a few blocks to the home-stay mom of a Wesleyan student who did the SIT program last year. She fed me coconut goodru goodru (a delicious cake like substance made from rice flour) and made me feel whole again. After all, I am not in Madagascar for the satellite TV.

I returned to Miramar half an hour later and Andy acquiesced, with much reservation, to my pleading, taking my laptop battery as collateral and loaning me his adapter for a God-given few hours. I rushed over to Mbala and set up to find an awful hum emanating from the ¼" cable that would connect my laptop interface with his marovany pickup. Attempting to remain unfazed by this fit of bad luck, I moved the session to the natural outdoors, bugs and manual labor abuzz, and used only a small stereo microphone. Though not as brilliant in aural texture, the recordings will most certainly please in their sheer musical sublimity. Stay tune for information on how this music can reach your ears.

After returning the adapter, I was faced with the daunting task of racing the sundown to Farafara Vatambe on bicycle, 30km away. I bought a bar of chocolate for the birthday girl and filled up a water bottle. Just after taking note of the halfway point, the disjointed "road" began to make itself more apparent on my bum. Upon further inspection, the back tire had gone flat. Rejecting the abhorrent option of backtracking, I trudged on for a dark 15km walk through the Madagascan countryside, bicycle in tow, exponentially more pleasant than an unmentionable 4km walk I had to make south of Diego Suarez. I arrived to the generator-powered concert with the warmest of welcomes from the band, sad to find out they had played all the Mangaliba tunes. Then they started playing a Shania Twain song that I had previously insisted be removed from their slightly wedding bandish repertoire (though better than the plethora of Celine Dion I heard in Ghana and the James Blunt that is so popular here). I had some fun on kasaky before an English "pioneer" took over the "stage" playing keyboard and singing with a voice that his own ears apparently don't register. The Malagasy crowd was, needless to say, brought to a standstill. I implored the band proper to return to the stage for what turned out to be the finale: a not-so-well-rehearsed rendition of the Ghanaian musical staple "Yaa Amponsah" featuring me on guitar. The song proved most adaptable to their band members’ styles and we grooved. I would play up the experience of playing in front a Malagasy village audience and getting them to move a bit if not for the preceding act and the two Antandroy broadcasts that I was able to take part in over the next week. 

A cyclone (southern hemisphere hurricane, not seminal Brooklyn roller coaster) threat kept me in Fort Dauphin a little longer, and then it was off to Ambovombe, the capital of Androy. There I solicited local musicians to play in a local epicerie for rum. The local television station producer stumbled upon the scene and began video taping. The clip, which supposedly aired on TPA (the Androy television station), included a short segment with me making attempts on the mandoliny.

No dispatch would be complete without mention of the often dreadful modes of transport. The taxi-brousse ride from Ambovombe to Tsiombe moved no more than 500 meters in four hours and included three breakdowns. Well worth the wait. In Tsiombe I had the privilege of staying at Radio Houduhoud thanks to connections made possible by New York friends and Tsimiole, a brilliant radio programmer, bandleader, traditional music festival organizer, NGO operating officer, now carrying out graduate studies in Japan in the field of… paleontology! For the past two years, Tsimiole and Tsiombe have hosted the Rebeke Festival. Although I did not have the privilege of attending, I have heard recordings. Out of this world! Everyone, be they audience or performer is locked in… to the rhythm, each other, and a notion of truth that can only be felt. 

Boba, the marovany player situated across the "street" from the radio station offered great lessons in which his wife would play kasaky and all the neighboring children would come to dance. For my last night, I got to join the charismatic radio DJs to present a marovany healing song initially taught to me by Monja, which I adapted to the guitar. Great vibes on the Houduhoud frequency.

The sandy 50km ride from Tsiombe to Beloha (I had attempting to rent a chariot drawn by two of the Malagasy cows known as zebus, but it was stuck in some market) included a camion (cargo truck) with the unrestrained comforts of a 100 year old rollercoaster sitting atop a rickety carton of raketa (figue de barbar or prickly pears), a rickety bicycle carrying me and my 50kg of vazaha materialism, complete with a porter to carry Eric's guitar and return the bike to his village, and then a pickup truck the rest of the way with 30 gracious students from Beloha who gave me watermelon and proceeded to sing for the whole ride. More natural sounds and smiles from Malagasy people. I arrived asking a stranger named Lary (referred to me by a Frenchman in Ambovombe) if he could put me up for a few days. I have become accustomed to these acts of potluck despite my New York roots, which barely afford me trust in the pavement below my feet. As it turns out, Lary used to work with the a capella group Salala, and was willing to oblige.

Though I vowed never to take a camion again after my first 40km ride, I was stuck in Beloha with that as the only option. For the next 400km I suffered immeasurable discomfort through the lakes and canyons that go by the name "Route National 10.” Three days on the road with average daily speeds comparable to mile per hour minimums on US highways. I now find myself in Tulear, birthplace of tsapiky music, with the comforts of paved roads, modern technology, beds, and packaged dairy products seemingly more appropriate to intake than the roadside cottage cheese I encountered on the expedition.

If other Malagasy music can be described as an insect that has pitch sensitive legs, then tsapiky is a millipede rolling around on the floor, getting tickled to death in a very controlled manner. Though excited by the prospect of experiencing the contained outbursts of tsapiky music in its home, I was disappointed to find once again the trend that pushes aside local music to make room for western dance hall music in nightclubs.