East Coast of Madagascar | The Family Without Borders

Greener and even more challenging roads – that’s the difference between west Madagascar and east. I think in this post I will let Tom’s pictures talk…

Going more east out of Tana (Antananarivo) – means: getting lower (Tana is situated in the middle of the island, on almost 1300 metres above the sea level), with every single kilometre. With every kilometre there is also less and less houses made of stone and more made of wood, bricks or mix of everything. Madagascar is called Red Island because of it’s iron-rich soil. Many houses here are made of bamboo or thin wood frame with adobe walls and thatched roofs. Picturesque!

Picturesque are also the stands full of fruits (for example in the market of Moramanga): all kind of shades of yellow, greenish and orange. I even didn’t try to remember all the names but buying them in discovering the structure, the colour inside and the taste is a game on it’s own.

The game is the same with all the little kiosk and since I have a feeling that the whole Madagascar is a big shop window (on almost every window of every house or a hut, there is something standing and you can buy it), you can play the game forever. What is in this plastic bottle? And what is in those? Those are nuts to eat or to wash something? This is a scarf, skirt or a towel? – It’s a lamba! If you don’t have lamba, you are not a Malagasy women – told me one Malagasy women. Lamba is a traditional garment for both: women and men, highly emblematic in Malagasy culture, of the rectangular size, wrapped around the body in basically any way you wish!