Madagascar Culture 1 - Being a Vazaha

Well, I finally figured out what it was those kids were shouting at me when I was mountainbiking. It was "vazaha". I mean I could hear that at the time but I know what it means now. It means "stranger". It's sort of like the Mexican "gringo" but without the negative connotation. Children yell it out not as if calling me a name or telling me to get lost or anything but as more of a shout of curiosity sortof "hey, look there's a vazaha".

It's often accompanied with a friendly "bonjour" or a "ca-va?" or "commet s'appelles-tu?" or one time a "quelle heure a-t-il?". These last ones are all questions of course and at first I would answer and follow up with a question of my own but when I wasn't getting anywhere with that I soon realized that those are the first things you learn when you study french and the kids, assuming I am french as are a large portion of the tourists here, are just trying to use the french they know and are not actually interested in how I'm doing (a bit sunburned thanks) what my name is (it's Daveeed in French and sounds awesome when a hot girl says it) or what time it is (time to see if the electricity in the city of Tulear is back on so I can finish up these blogs and get on with things...).

Unfortunately in a lot of cases it's also accompanied by "Donne-moi" (give me). As in "Vazaha, donne-moi de l'argent" (money) or "un stylo" ( a pen) or "un bon bon" or the generic "un cadeau" (a present). All these are easy enough to refuse but sometimes I worry about such a young population (more than 1/2 the population of the entire country is said to be < 18 yrs old) growing up expecting free stuff from travellers.

One thing that I have an even bigger problem with are the adults expecting you to pay them for a service they are providing simply because they are providing it regardless of whether or not you actually want that service. Take for example the pousse-pousse (it is a rickshaw). In certain cities you cannot step foot outside of your hotel without being harassed by a pousse pousse driver wanting to take you for a ride. A lot of these towns aren't very big. You can walk clear accross town in maybe 15 mins. Also, part of the fun of going to new places is in wandering around and checking stuff out. So if I'm going for a walk over to a restaurant that is a couple of blocks away a driver will follow me all the way there with his pousse-pousse explaining how he has a family to support. My advice: be a bit more innovative. Think of a way to either make your pousse pousse an experience unto itself or get out of the well oversaturated pousse pousse racket altogether. I think people growing up expecting handouts are not encouraged to be innovative.

All this said of course I find the Malagasy people exceptionally friendly and welcoming and more than any other impoverished country that I've been to (Brazil) I feel extremeley safe. Panhandlers and street merchants generally take rejection well (sometimes more vocally disappointed than others) and I generally say "Salama" ("hello") to people on the street, sometimes just to pre-empt whatever it is I can tell they're going to ask me but often times just to say "hello". This will cause me to stand out a bit no doubt when I return to London.

Also it is ridiculously dark here at night. There are no street lights and often no lights at all except for generators so if you want to go out after 6pm it is in the pitch black dark of night. Again I've done this alot and have had no problems and still get lots of friendly greetings even at night time so all things considered being a vazaha isn't so bad.