I thought last Thursday was going to be a lazy day, but it ended up being more like an anthropologists dream day--and I say that as someone with an Anthro degree, I am a culture nerd. :) I had laid my wet laundry out on the grass to dry in the sun and was just sitting down to study some French when one of the teens I know came by to tell me there was a no at the market. A what? A no. Eventually I figured out that she was talking about an aye-aye, known locally as eh-heh; the same as the word for no. (A lot of Malagasy words have multiple meanings.) The aye-aye is a strange animal, even for Madagascar: a lemur that looks like a cross between a raccoon and ET and has its own branch on the lemur family tree. It's famous for its extra-long middle finger, which allows it to dig for insects in trees and fill the same ecological niche that woodpeckers do in the US.
Before I got too excited, she added that it was a dead aye-aye. In part because they look so strange, the aye-aye is subject to superstition, and one of the forest towns had considered it a bad omen to see it near the village. Thay killed it and strung it up on a bamboo tripod at the crossroads to ward off bad luck. Apologies for the disturbing image, but here you go:
I had a (fairly civil) argument with the mayor about how no, they are not dangerous, and no, they do not attack people.
On a less gruesome note (since I didn't actually see this body), I got a very kind invitation to accompany a family to a ansaharana (sp?)--the local version of the famous Malagasy tradition of a bones-turning ceremony. It differs from the tradition in other parts of Madagascar (and as the explanations people were giving me were in Gasy, I'm not sure I have it all right), but basically, if a relative dies away from the ancestral village and the family cannot afford to ship the body back, they'll bury the person for 3-5 years, save up money, then dig up the bones, transport them back to the home village, and have a celebration. Most of it is family-only--days of sleepless singing and dancing--but on the last day the community visits for a big feast and speeches, which is what I was invited to. People were seated by town for the communal lunch, so through lunch women were yelling things like, "Tsaratanana! Karibo Sakafo!"--"People from NiceTown! Come eat!" After the speeches, I was invited to look in the family room, where all the furniture had been cleared out except for a small draped box/coffin on a table. It was surrounded by exhausted women sitting on floor mats.
Saturday was a different celebration altogether. A nearby town was celebrating the completion of 3 new school buildings, courtesy of the Japanese government and Aide et Action. After a lot of waiting, I got hustled up to a makeshift dais with a bunch of other VIPs (again, still don't think I belong in this category, but there you go). I was in the second row, but after the back of my chair fell through one of the plank gaps, they decided that was much too dangerous for me and made me change places with the vice-mayor and sit in the front row. The better to be stared at by over 500 people, joy. I did, however, get an amusing view of the kids, who spent the music breaks between speeches dancing like crazy in front of the loudspeakers. At least until it started raining--then the VIPs were talking to an empty field as the crowd retreated to the eaves of the newly completed school buildings. We watched the mayor cut the ribbon to one of the new buildings, then went in to admire the new facilities--basic concrete and wood, but sturdy. Two of the town leaders wrote a phrase on the blackboard in Gasy and French, and invited me to write the translation in English: School, the Gateway to Development. I should mention that these and other schools in the commune are all elementary or middle-school level; there isn't a high school in the commune (Am. equivalent of county).
On the way out, we passed the head and hooves of a bull that had been killed for the celebration. There you go, dead body number 3. I believe we ate him for lunch. (Locally-sourced food, anyone?)
This isn't a picture from the school opening, but from an environmental celebration I attended near Andapa awhile ago--I just though you might like a more cheerful image to end on than the dead bodies...:D
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