Round the Bend

(This post was originally written on July 5th, 2008)


You don’t see, what I see, everyday in this country. Another sunny day; another bright blue sky… The sands of time have such a strange way of moving in my world. We are all a part of this vast world; you in your corner, I in mine. It can, at times, be overwhelming to the five senses when standing face to face with an infinity where the sidewalk ends. Madagascar may be an island, but it is the fourth largest on this planet. In my neck of the woods there extends a vast air; a dry network of patchy, sand valleys sporting the stuff tumbleweeds are made of and a hell of a lot of cactus. Sometimes when I walk through it I feel like I’m walking on open water in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Flat but rolling; mild yet rugged, as far as the eye can see in any direction. No human, hut, or road in sight. It is this dreamy, surreal sensation that can feel heavy. But I am from the land of snow and purple rain and this feeling is not unlike a whiteout blizzard on a frozen lake. So, it runs through my blood of course. I once heard something like this described as ‘agoraphobia,’ but I’m not sure this fits. I believe that implication indicates a kind of fear, an ingredient lacking in my equation. It’s a feeling more like he must have felt by the rivers of Babylon where he sat down and remembered Zion. No matter what you call it, it is my life.
I recently was rolling through this environment on a bush taxi; barreling down the one road that actually exists in south central Madland. My old friend, RN13. It boggles this mind that RN13 is all there is. This dirt path, a very generous term, is riddled with waist-deep holes and frequently ceases to exist at all, at which time you drive blindly through the desert due south until it picks back up. It is a national highway. Bush taxis are reminiscent of the truck driven by the Beverly Hillbillies, or better yet something out of a Steinbeck novel. In the shape of a VW bus, the brousse (French for ‘bush’) is never newer than five or ten years old. After a mandatory two hour waiting period, you’re crammed aboard slave ship-style. You face forward and shut up, and mentally prepare for a journey anywhere between 2-50 hours long. After you board, the thing teeters out of the station with luggage, furniture, bikes, and a variety of livestock tied on the roof, forming an awkward bulk often higher than the brousse itself. If at any time throughout you need to visit the little cowboy’s room, you get to use the phrase, “Azafady sofera! Olon-belo fa tsy akoho!” which, roughly translated, means, “Excuse me, Chauffeur. I have to use the bathroom now. Can you pull over? After all, I’m a human being. Not a chicken.”
So barreling down RN13, the road barely fit for a 2009 Landcruiser, in one of these ridiculous brousses last week, I felt the urge to have a movement. I was getting ready to tell the people pinning my left arm that I needed to move it to tap the driver and tell him I was a living, breathing human being, and not a chicken, when he pulled over on his own. We had reached the village of Llanana. Most headed towards the one hotely in town to get themselves some rice, so I followed to ask the worker where I might find an outhouse. I received information that the only one in town was at the clinic off yonder. I scanned the horizon and spotted a newer building far off that could only be the clinic. Hands in pockets, I lazily strolled off in its direction, pondering the vastness of this particularly golden plot of land; a kind of peculiar mix of marsh, desert, and savannah. After a bit of time, I couldn’t say how much, I reached the clinic and eyed a Johnny-on-the-spot behind it. I approached the door, took on look around again, had a chuckle, and went in.
Upon completion I stepped out and took a deep breath of fresh air. I was walking away, buckling and hiking up my pants when my eyes, focused on the ground directly in front of my feet as I walked, came into direct contact with a blue note of some kind just sitting on the gravel. I recognized that blue. It’s what green would have meant to anyone back in the States. My brow furrowed and my lips formed into a tight space. I bent over and picked it up, immediately noting it was at least a couple 5,000 ariary notes folded up. Before counting my head instinctively jerked up and snapped around, scanning. There was no one. Earlier I had made a mental note of how strange it was that his clinic should be closed during a Monday afternoon, but sure as I’m writing this there was no one working and it was locked tight; save for the outhouse. There was one man a good 150 meters west, who appeared to be walking from a far-off place to a far-off place. Then the village sat about 200 meters south. Turns out it was 10,000 ariary. It could have easily been dropped by a doctor, who would not miss it terribly, or dropped by a poor villager who won’t eat for the next week as a result. There was no way to know or return it, so I prayed for the former, put it in my pocket, and walked towards the brousse.
Shortly thereafter the brousse shuffled us around and loaded us in. It peeled out leaving only a ghost of dust it had kicked up. The gentleman sitting to my left had gotten off in Llanana, and the driver had replaced him with a rather questionable youth. There was something to him though, some indefinable quality that hung in the bags beneath his eyes. I asked him who he was, where he was going. He remained stone-faced and never used two words to answer when one would do. He wouldn’t divulge what line of work he was in, but alluded to the idea that it was not particularly legitimate. He was Dahalo. I’d never been more sure of anything in my life. I asked him how he could do it, live a life like that; and you know what he told me? He told me that the most important thing was to keep moving. That way they might never catch up to you. I eyed him for a moment and let him be after that.
We tumbled into Betroka sometime after the sun had set. I slung my knapsack over one shoulder and strolled in the direction of Kate’s old house with visions of the brousse falling off its wheels and tipping over to my back. Ever since Kate’s departure last June I’ve been the only vazaha for 200 k in any direction, and Betroka has felt a little empty. I reached the lycée, hopped the fence, and groped the darkness for Kate’s old front door. As I let myself in, I flipped on the light. I heard eerie echoes of our laughter, bottles clinking together, and DVDs playing in the sitting room. There was none of that now. In fact, the silence was deafening. I set my phone alarm, laid my head down, and began to mentally prepare for my next multi-month bout in Isoanala to begin before the next high noon. I remember thinking that Kipling said it best, “Lord God be with us yet; lest we forget, lest we forget...”