At 5:30 am, light is breaking so I leave the house to wander the village. We are still in the mountains so everything is shrouded with a light fog. Slowly the village comes to life – windows and doors open, men amble past with hoes over their shoulder, women light fires and children walk through the village carry baskets on their heads. One little girl who carries a tall stalk of bamboo and a huge knife stops to greet me and have her picture taken.
Mariette, our hostess, brings hot coffee and offers rice for breakfast. Our truck is not coming so we’re up to Plan C. There is a man in the village named Tovy who owns a motorcycle. Since we can’t put three people on a bike, Cathy will go down the mountain first and send the motorcycle back for me. We pay two men to carry our bags and supplies down on foot and they set off long before us.
Fortunately, Tovy has a brother – a young pastor I met two days earlier in Ambohibolakely. Pastor Jaono also has a motorcycle and is more than willing to come to our rescue.
As we wait for for Jaono’s arrival, we visit with Tovy, his wife and one-year-old son Mikael. They have a business husking rice, but the machine keeps breaking down so they plan to raise pigs instead. Tovy asks for prayer, explaining that, while the people will eat pork, to keep pigs is fady – taboo. Though he doesn’t believe it, the villagers warn that he will bring deeper witchcraft to the village if he breaks this taboo. Tovy is only looking for a way to provide for his wife and son and to provide pork in a place where no one else raises pigs makes perfect sense. But he is obviously disturbed by the trouble that he sees coming his way.
Little Mikael entertains us until we hear the roar of a motorcycle enter the village. Now we are on to the next adventure. Having just driven up the mountain, Jaona reports that because of the heavy rains, the road is just a leetle bit….finishing his sentence with a hand gesture. There’s that word again.
Sure enough, we spin out and topple sideways a couple of times in the mud – but Jaona’s a skilled driver, so no harm done. The trip down is exhilarating and the view is beyond words. I’m trying to capture the scenery on video with one hand while hanging on with the other. On the way down, we pass the friends toting our supplies, a young boy with a herd of cows and an older couple out for a morning walk. I could do this every day.
Finally, we are back in Adrindra and our long-lost Ibrahim is there, waiting with the car. After much teasing about our abandonment, we head to Ampitambe for a hot bath and a warm breakfast.
Next stop – the rainforest town of Andasibe….
