Foreigner in a Friendly Land: Lemurs and Little Kids in Madagascar

It’s my last evening in Antananarivo and I’m feeling like a tortoise that found a skateboard; how lucky to have been here for a second time this year. I listen to live and lively piano music in the pavilion of La Varangue, sip my Cristal (sparkling water) and realize I can’t feel the temperature, which means it’s the perfect temperature—but the dragon fruit and papaya at breakfast and the pink-orange bougainvillea cascading down walls say tropical.

The work was good: my World Bank, UNICEF and Ministry of Education colleagues pulled together through two full-day workshops, field visits and working meetings. We have a good draft of strategic plan in place. The goal is to increase children’s access to preschool. I would add “high-quality” before preschool but—one step at a time. We also need to coax a budget; right now we (preschool stakeholders) get 0.01 percent of the education budget. I’m suggesting a goal of 5 percent.

Aside from work, I got to do two fun things. I booked a Sunday morning tour at national park to see lemurs—I couldn’t come to this beautiful country twice and miss the national symbol both times—and I went to an art gallery.

Being outside at the lemur park, feeling soft dirt under my feet and watching astonished-looking lemurs leap and lounge around was delightful. One breed has hairy cheek tufts that make even the tiniest baby look like a drunk old man. Another breed feels like a cross between a cat, a zebra and a monkey. That would be the breed of King Julien fame from the movie Madagascar.

Today I found funk and fabrics, hipsters and arresting photography at Foundation H. An art gallery filled with contemporary African art, this indoor-outdoor space showcased the same traditions as the masks that used to dot the walls of our house growing up but with a very modern vibe.

Most of the visitors were trendy young people. The artists, according to wall plaques in French, were from Madagascar, Ghana, Egypt, Uganda, South Africa, Togo, all over the continent. Themes covered independence from colonialism and how our materialism is an environmental bummer, but there was more playfulness than preaching. One traditional looking piece was comprised of only mobile phone parts; another that looked like a bird was of plastic toothbrush parts and computer keys.

Despite the good work and cultural fun, the faces of the kids will stay with me the most.

And I may or may not have “barfed in the bushes,” as my mother put it, right in the middle of a key informant interview with a mother and her family. It wasn’t in the bushes so much as behind a line of laundry, next to a trash heap and a bug-eyed chicken. I felt terrible because the mom thought it was the environment of the dirt courtyard that made me sick, and she had been too ashamed to take us into her house (room). In fact, I was in awe of how she fed five children as a widow. I wished I could give her a bottle of Cristal, some dragon fruit and maybe a pot of zebu stew and a ticket to preschool.

Just one last anecdote and I’ll end this missive. Thunderstorms and technical issues delayed the flight leaving DC—four hours on the tarmac—and caused a missed connection in Paris. The exceedingly disinterested Air France rep—he exuded perfect Parisian ennui—booked me into a Days Inn by the airport for two nights until the next flight to Antananarivo, which sounded dreadful. I finally found a route via Johannesburg, but with no space left in business class, I had to sleep sitting up. That seemed better than having my colleagues cancel the next-day conference, at which I was an opening speaker.

I was stressed about not sleeping on the 11-hour flight but had no time to dwell on it because I had race through the massive JBG airport, including getting through (skipping) immigration and security lines in 6 minutes, followed by Air France staff and the ire of fellow fliers. The last person to reach the tram to Tana at 9:49 am for a 10:00 am departure, I turned to thank the flight attendant, who had her hand out for a tip—but I had zero cash. So now I was followed by her ire as well. But I made the last flight to Tana of the day.

Not surprisingly, my luggage didn’t make it with me. I was scheduled to speak the next morning, right after a Director of the Ministry of Education, at a big conference at a five-star hotel which was to be live-streamed across the country, and I had with me only the very crumpled clothes I had worn for over two days. They smelled like airport and may have had a curry stain down the front.

Landing at 3:00, was I thinking about my slides? No. I asked to go straight to a clothes shop. Needless to say, I didn’t find an Hermès suit. I made do with a sleeveless linen blue sundress found in a local shop and a white sweater from the bottom of my backpack, which was not the look I was going for. I also may not have had the smell I was going for. Who packs deodorant in their carry-on, besides Finn? Lesson learned.

After five days, I was reunited with my luggage and thrilled to have work clothes again, including my black suit. Then I arrived at the second workshop and realized I had missed the mark again: My UNICEF colleague was wearing an amazing traditional outfit with bright colors and a headband. Why hadn’t I packed something like that? We laughed and took a photo together. There’s nothing like being a foreigner to feel right at home.