Madagascar
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For many the word Madagascar conjures up images of a group of animals who escape from New York Zoo to an island in the Indian Ocean, where they encounter lemurs singing, "I like to move it, move it!"
Mada, as the locals call it, broke off from Africa 160 million years ago. It is the world's oldest and fourth largest island, twice the size of Britain. As a result of its long isolation more than 90% of its wildlife is endemic. Strange denizens include the rhino chameleon, the now extinct elephant bird, and the puma-like fossa, which eats lemurs, so was the baddie in the Madagascar movies. In addition there are more than a hundred species of all-singin'-n-dancin' lemurs. The animal life has a varied diet with around 15,000 species of plants to munch on. While Britain has thirty species of trees Mada has a thousand, including the iconic baobab, the Tree of Life, which can grow up to thirty metres tall and live for a thousand years.
The island was first settled in about 800 AD by sailors from the Malay Archipelago and subsequently by East Africans and Arabs. Given its favourable geographical position the inhabitants have always traded widely, with goods including vanilla (about 85% of the world's supply today) and, in former times, its own people, sold as slaves. Trade made it an attractive target for pirates, especially during the 16th to 18th centuries, and they established their own kingdom, Libertatia, on Île Sainte-Marie off the east coast.
By the turn of the 19th century King Andrianampoinimerina had united the various tribes and established the capital Antananarivo, or Tana for short. The French had long coveted the island and in 1895 they invaded and subjugated the population.
During World War Two Mada came under the control of Vichy France, who were allied to the Germans. They were defeated by the British at the Battle of Madagascar, after which the island reverted to control by the Free French. They might have been free but the Malagasy people only secured their own freedom in 1960.
The relationship between the two countries remains complicated. Although the President has French citizenship and French is still widely spoken the people resent the power that the country continues to exert, and some do not celebrate Independence Day, believing that Mada is still not entirely free. Croissants are one of the few elements of French rule that are still popular.
One thing that does unite the country is the Malagasy language, spoken proudly wherever you go. It is not related to African tongues but to languages from South East Asia and even the South Pacific. Indeed, the locals do not consider their country to be part of Africa.
Despite its idyllic portrayal in the movies the country is beset by deep-rooted problems. It is the tenth poorest nation in the world. The average annual salary is under £2,000 and a third of the population live on less than £1 a day. There is a general lack of infrastructure and the roads are poor. Nearby Mauritius is 250 times smaller, but fifteen times richer.
The tenfold growth in the population in the last century, to about thirty million, the majority of whom work the land, has led to great pressure on the environment. Widespread use of slash and burn has resulted in the destruction of 90% of the forests. (In Britain only about 2.5% remains, so we can't preach.) This in turn has worsened the effects of the frequent and serious floods that occur. Nowadays 95% of the wildlife is threatened with extinction and the problems are set to worsen due to climate change. Even though large parts of the country are designated as national parks the next few decades will be critical for the future of Madagascar.
Antananarivo
Stopping overnight in Addis Ababa Ethiopian Airlines provided free accommodation in a newly-built hotel. At the sumptuous buffet dinner I met members of the Namibian Olympic team, training hard for the Paris Games. Later I took a taxi and toured the dusty, high-rise city centre, its boulevards lined by palm trees and women forced to work the streets.
Arriving in Antananarivo the air was warm, and polluted. Outside the airport ladies in traditional dress welcomed visitors with a kind of line-dance performed to raucous jazz. Driven into town by a local called Liva we passed rice paddies and advertising hoardings before arriving in the densely-packed buildings of the Basse Ville.
Tana is situated on the Hauts Plateaux, a mountainous spine running down the centre of the country that reaches heights of almost 3,000 metres. This blocks the rain from the Indian Ocean from reaching the west, where droughts can last up to ten months. The city was founded in 1610 by King Adrianjaka who successfully united the country's tribes. He built a Rova (fortress) on the top of what was to become the Haute-Ville and stationed a garrison of troops there, giving the city its name, Antananarivo, which means "place of a thousand soldiers."
The Rova was home to the Merina royal family for three-hundred years until the French abolished the monarchy in 1896. Originally built of wood the fortress burnt down in the late 19th century and was rebuilt in stone (traditionally used only for tombs), only to burn down again in the late 20th, necessitating yet another rebuild.
The main street of the Basse Ville (originally named Avenue Fallières but renamed Avenue de l'Indépendance) resembles a provincial French town of the 1960s, and some buildings retain the signage of that time. There is a town hall and an ornately-decorated gare. Although there have been no trains for years distances in Madagascar are still measured from there. At the top of the Avenue is the Analakely Market, the oldest and biggest in the country, under whose red-tiled roofs one can buy everything from wedding dresses to pigs' heads.
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