Madagascar.

Culture.

Malagasy is the main language and is spoken throughout the island which is unusual when you consider how many different tribes there are. French is the next most widely spoken language and English was added as a third official language in 2007 after a referendum. When we first went to Madagascar in 2001 we hardly found anyone who spoke English but on our second trip in 2004 it had become more common. One hotel we stayed in had a night manager who wanted to talk to us all night in his strongly Japanese accented English. He was studying economics in college and his Japanese tutor was teaching the class English as a bonus. After a few 3 Horses Beers it was very difficult to keep a conversation sane with this gentleman. What with our fast talking Irish version of the English language and his Japanese accent most of the conversation had to be repeated over and over before we understood each other. The rest of the staff were highly amused by all this and we had an audience of kitchen staff trying to figure out what we were talking about. They just kept laughing along with us. One thing I have learnt is that the Malagasy have a wonderful sense of humour which is very similar to our Irish humour. They can be quite sarcastic, not with us, but with each other and the jeering that goes on between them often produced howls of laughter amongst themselves which we would get them to explain to us. Once we would stop laughing we would chime in with our own retort which they would translate into Malagasy and off they would go again, laughing their heads off. Hours of cheap amusement while you travel Madagascar's winding dusty roads.

As regards religion in Madagascar, about 41% of the population is either Roman Catholic or Protestant. The first book ever printed in the Malagasy language was the Bible. The remainder of the population practice traditional religions which strongly emphasise the links between the living and the dead. Madagascar is most famous for the "famadihana" or turning of the dead. The famadihana is practised for two reasons. If a person dies and was not buried in the family grave then the family must return within a few years, remove the body, and with much festivities place the body in the family vault. This is an occasion of great happiness, like bringing a long lost member of the family home to rest. A second reason for the famadihana is that due to traditional Malagasy religious concepts the living must honour the dead. About several years after a person has died, a local astrologer determines the exact date, the body is exhumed and wrapped in a plait accompanied by much singing and dancing by the deceased's  immediate family. The deceased is then wrapped in a new Lamba (blanket) and reinterred. In this way they honour their dead relatives and equip them with a new shroud to enable them to stay warm in their travels into the next world. One of our guides told me that the Malagasy believe that this world is not the real world. That the real world only begins after you die and this world we live in is a preparation for the next. How good you live your life in this world determines how good your life in the next world will be. It's a rather nice thought and goes a long way towards explaining how these poverty stricken people can  appear so happy and so willing to share what little they have with outsiders and visitors.

About 7% of the population is Muslim with most of these living in the north of the island where Arab sailors and traders first settled. There is also a small population of Hindu and Pakistani residents who run the retail sector of the country. There has been resentment between ethnic Malagasy and Hindu and Chinese residents in the past mainly fuelled by the misconception that these minorities hold so much power due to corruption. This is clearly not the case as there are many successful Malagasy business people also. We have our own experience of this. In 2001 the drivers we had worked for a travel agency in Antananarivo. In 2007 some of these drivers drove for us again but this time they owned there own vehicles and were self employed. We were delighted to meet them again and  use their expertise to get us to the Tsingy de Bemaraha at the third attempt. 

There is a very good page in Wikipedia which deals with the diversity of Malagasy culture.

Click on the link marked photos above left to see our images of Malagasy culture.

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