My last 3 weeks have been filled with visitors and travel for work. Living on the way to a lot of things but not really next to or at anything, I have received a lot of visitors ranging from my PC supervisor from Tana, the Capital, almost all 10 other volunteers in the region and even an RPCV from Namibia still vacationing after finishing his service in December. Luckily, my house would allow me to host all PCVs in the region at the same time without much hassle.
As for the work voyages, I have been back and forth to the regional capital, Diego, 3 times and to Nosy Be, tourist island extravaganza 2 times. The first two times I made the journey to Diego in the Toyota pick-up truck owned by MCA, the organization I work with. However, the most recent journey proved to be much more colorful since it was for PC. My PC site partner, Alex, had a phone number for a driver and friend. After confirming a pick up time of 5:30 AM the next morning, I chuckled to myself knowing in Malagasy time that was really 6:30AM at best.
After hearing the extended version of the Muslim prayer call because it was Friday, I grumbled, thrashed around to find my watch and rolled over. It was only 4:50AM; I had plenty of much needed sleep left. Just minutes later, I hear a car roll up outside of my house, a few seconds later, someone knocking on my bedroom window. I had just met the anomaly of Malagasy culture. This crazy driver was 30 minutes early.
I jumped into the big VW bus grabbing the front seat to avoid car sickness. At first this seemed to a very poor choice when I realized I was driving in the Lamborghini of taxis. The driver installed a very small VCD player and everyone behind me was watching Malagasy singers dance. As the road wore on and we stopped every 10k to pick people up, everyone in the back was squished at 5 to a row. However, nobody would sit up front with me since there were no videos to watch. As others were fighting to move their legs and arms that were falling asleep, I was sprawled out in front with the driver dosing off until I was awakened with a tap on my shoulder. In Malagasy, they told me to get the plastic bag shoved in the front side pocket. Time and understanding of the local language was not on my side. A small girl sitting next to Alex was vomiting on her mother’s clothes and the floor. The driver uninterested by this, began his morning routine. First he pulled out a razor and started shaving his dry face while dodging cars on the road. This went on for approximately 15 minutes. I guess he had some stubborn nose hairs. Next, the toothpick, a modified toothbrush. Stick, wiggle, suck, slurp…..20 minutes. Finally, as we rolled into Diego around 10AM, he began to smooth his shirt and examine the cleanliness. This man has been driving this road everyday from Ambanja to Diego and back for one year, only taking sick days off. It was evident that his routine was quite well established. Karma won! The return trip was a 6 hour voyage smashed in a row carefully crafted for 3 people with a whole family: dad, mom, little sister, 10 year old brother, another PCV and I. That was the first part of the voyage. The driver got to a bigger town, lost most of his passengers and determined that he was going no further. At 8PM we were lucky to be crammed into this big white bus with people facing sideways, forwards and even 5 people standing for the final 2 hours. While easy to blame karma, the reality is that I was goofing around Diego and we missed Alex’s friend’s bus. The truly unfortunate part is that I get to do this trip again next week for MCA but there is no car available so taxi here I come.
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