A Little Explanation
Aug. 17th, 2008 09:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fauxkloreI arrived in Belo-sur-Tsiribihina on Wednesday afternoon. There was supposed to be somebody from the hotel to meet me, but there wasn't. We salvaged that by my getting a ride from the "dock" (it will take a photo to explain the quotation marks) to the hotel. Nobody spoke a word of English and when I tried to ask about a program for the festival they said they didn't know anything. Maybe something on Friday or Saturday was all I gathered.
The hotel room was filthy and noisy, with a toilet that overflowed. (At least they had a plunger!) There was a fan, but, since the power didn't work most of the time, that was a minor consolation.
So I walked around town trying to find out anything. About all I could find was a T-shirt advertising the festival and a poster (entirely in Malagasy) that had something to do with a radio broadcast, with times that made no sense (e.g. 4 a.m.!) Nobody seemed to know anything at all and, even if they did, I couldn't understand a word they said. Two guys asked me if they could practice their English but it was like listening to Charlie Brown's teacher.
On Thursday, I overheard 2 people speaking English. They turned out to be Aussies, traveling with a Malagasy man (who lives in Japan) and his Japanese wife. They had an actual schedule for the festival! Which claimed that things opened at 4 p.m. on Thursday. So we all went over about then and waited, along with about 50 Malagasy people. By 6 p.m. a zebu cart had delivered some speakers, but nothing else had happened. At 6:30 I gave up, had dinner and then walked back to see more of nothing happening, though I could later hear music.
So on Friday, I went over to the alleged event at 10 a.m. and stood in the hot sun for an hour or so listening to drumming, with a blast of a conch shell here and there. I couldn't get close enough to see much of anything as only a few people (wearing red headbands, presumably the royal family) could go into the compound and everyone else had to stand around outside, barefoot, in a field (with whatever awful diseases one might get from zebu dung).
Hot, dusty, bored out of my skull and horribly depressed, I said "screw this", went back to the hotel and called the travel agent. A guy overheard my conversation and offered me a ride to Morondava with 2 women from La Reunion. I am still trying to figure out something onward, but at least there is net access here and a reasonable standard of cleanliness and a few people who speak English.
The hotel room was filthy and noisy, with a toilet that overflowed. (At least they had a plunger!) There was a fan, but, since the power didn't work most of the time, that was a minor consolation.
So I walked around town trying to find out anything. About all I could find was a T-shirt advertising the festival and a poster (entirely in Malagasy) that had something to do with a radio broadcast, with times that made no sense (e.g. 4 a.m.!) Nobody seemed to know anything at all and, even if they did, I couldn't understand a word they said. Two guys asked me if they could practice their English but it was like listening to Charlie Brown's teacher.
On Thursday, I overheard 2 people speaking English. They turned out to be Aussies, traveling with a Malagasy man (who lives in Japan) and his Japanese wife. They had an actual schedule for the festival! Which claimed that things opened at 4 p.m. on Thursday. So we all went over about then and waited, along with about 50 Malagasy people. By 6 p.m. a zebu cart had delivered some speakers, but nothing else had happened. At 6:30 I gave up, had dinner and then walked back to see more of nothing happening, though I could later hear music.
So on Friday, I went over to the alleged event at 10 a.m. and stood in the hot sun for an hour or so listening to drumming, with a blast of a conch shell here and there. I couldn't get close enough to see much of anything as only a few people (wearing red headbands, presumably the royal family) could go into the compound and everyone else had to stand around outside, barefoot, in a field (with whatever awful diseases one might get from zebu dung).
Hot, dusty, bored out of my skull and horribly depressed, I said "screw this", went back to the hotel and called the travel agent. A guy overheard my conversation and offered me a ride to Morondava with 2 women from La Reunion. I am still trying to figure out something onward, but at least there is net access here and a reasonable standard of cleanliness and a few people who speak English.
