be*mot /// travel bag

Film Premiere in Tana

2007-05-07T20:01:00.000-07:00

Started in 2004, the documentary film Voyage of the Vezo, produced by Digital Development Communications was finally shown to the public earlier this year in Antananarivo, capital city of Madagascar. The Vezo (VEHzu) are the costal society of southwest Madagascar whose relationship with the ocean has dramatically fallen out of balance over the past last decades. The film follows a fisherman who embarks on a voyage for 100 kilometers north of his home in Ifaty. Sailing from village to village, he meets shark fishermen, sea turtle hunters, veterans and rookies. As he sails along virgin coastal landscapes, and over the crystal waters of the 4th largest coral reef in the world, his experience provides an intimate view of Vezo society and its delicate relationship with the Tulear Barrier Reef.

Check out the Voyage of the Vezo Official Website to see samples of the movie and learn more about the project.

Tana Jazz Band

2007-05-07T14:43:00.000-07:00

It took place earlier this year and was the event of 2007 of the music scene in Antananarivo. A Jazz Big Band was put together to celebrate Valentine's day. The energy and creativity that came out of this unprecendented event was phenomenal. Organized and led by Malagasy singer Anna Razafimbahiny, the show "For lovers only" was a great success and will stay in the mind and hearts of those present. Anna knows how to share her passion for music and offered a show full of love, simplicity and talent. Misaotra betsaka !

Video Clip in Tanà

2007-05-06T16:54:00.001-07:00

That evening, Tsiory was going to get his hair cut in a memorable way. As the lead singer of Natikaly an upcoming rap band, and brother of Madagascar's most wanted video clip director, Tsiory wanted this moment documented and part of his latest clip. They called their childhood barber, a couple of friends and gathered to shoot the story of a guy who wakes up in a torture room. Tied up to a chair, he can only sing his rage while having his hair shaved. With Rado behind the camera, what seemed like a messy shoot ends up looking great once edited.
Another fun night in Antananarivo!

Night at Le Bus

2007-05-05T18:17:00.000-07:00

When you visit Tanà, make sure you spend at least one evening dancing at the famous disco "Le Bus". Of course music is not top of the top, of course the layout is not the best of the best, but the ambiance is fine andit's a pretty good deal compared to what exists in other towns in the country. Built on two floors, Le Bus also has a little outdoor bar where you can have your 3AM pizza, or chill out while waiting for your friends to finish dancing like crazy. And make sure you stay until sunrise, so you can enjoy the morning croissant, hot and steamy, before you walk home in the desert street of Tanà...

Near Dreams

2007-05-03T16:35:00.000-07:00

What is travelling without a good book? And what better reading than the local writers while visiting a new country? As I travel throughout Madagascar, I realize that the choice is immense in terms of oral tradition. More recently I discovered a great poet: Jean Joseph Rabearivelo. He is probably one of the most important of African poets writing in French, considered to be the father of modern literature in his native land. JJ Rabearivelo's writting sounds very modern, though influenced by romantic. While reading his verses, you can almost feel the suffering of cultural clash of an intellectual caught between two cultures in the first quarter of the 20th Century. Inspired by Verlaine or Baudelaire's life style, JJ Rabearivelo followed the "boheme" movement... and lived the poor, suicidal, sick, extravagant life of many artists of his time.

Amongst the several volumes of poetry he wrote, "Near-Dreams" (1934) is really an achievement. First of all, he simultaneously wrote each poem in both French and Malagasy ; second, for a self educated man harassed by colonial authorities and ravaged by drugs, JJ Rabearivelo managed to transcend his passion for French poetry and his deep-felt understanding of Malagasy culture to deliver intense verses.

"Its taste will be sweeter,
because it was pregnant with desire
And with fearful love and scented blossoms -
Pregnant by the love sun."
Pomegranate (lines 9-13)

A true poet in the romantic sense, JJ Rabearivelo wrote beautifuly and lived intensely until his suicide at age 36...

2cv 2 africa

2007-05-03T11:27:00.000-07:00

I recently came to realize that the more I travel, the more countries I want to visit. As a traveller, sometimes you meet others who has gone to places you've never been to and they did it by motorbike or on foot, or with a crazy project in mind... I was pretty happy to have walked Madagascar south to north last year until I met Arnoud, who was about to go back to the Netherlands on the same road he drove his bright orange citroen... 50.000km in an old 2CV !

Check out 2CV2Africa website to read about his great project and the list of countries he will be driving through (most of site only available in Deutch). You can browse the photo album of the first part of the trip which corresponds to around 38.000 kms already!!

Arnoud has started driving back from South Africa to the Netherland. If you cross him on his way back and you need a ride, be sure that he will certainly pick you up. This will be a great opportunity for you to ask him about his experience working for Bushproof in Madagascar and his documentary film project.

If you want to learn more about the old French car, check out the Wikipedia's comprehensive database. The 2CV now counts many fans abroad, notably the Citroën Clubs in the USA. You can also visit this site : 2CVs R Us. Finally, enter the world of Citroënthusiasts, become a member of the ICCCR and participate to the next biggest Citroën gathering.

In the early 20th Century, André Citroën said: "The automobile shall be an instrument for the inhabitants of this planet to get to know and respect each other." Arnoud's trip is probably as close as you can get to that quote. And who knows, after peak oil, a generation of solar 2CV will be available to continue the adventure!

Bill & Silk Weavers

2007-04-26T09:32:00.000-07:00

His name is Bill. Dot com... Bill Bowles is currently travelling around the world with a camera, a Mac, 2 foldable solar panels and a satelite modem. His project is to remain openned in terms of schedule and countries to visit, but to stick to the routine of uploading several video podcasts per week. And keep you updated on his adventure...

During Bill's visit to Madagascar, he got a chance to meet women involved in cooperative of rural artisans. These Malagasy women are weavers dedicated to preserving and promoting their tradition of handmade, all-natural silk cloths. Some of which suit interactive travellers...

Learn more about the Madagascar based Firaisankina Silk Weavers Cooperative. This project is supported by PRISM - Community Arts.

Support Bill by visiting his website : mynameisbill.com

Tana cab

2006-10-15T17:00:00.000-07:00

Back to Antananarivo, literely "the city of thousands". Thousands of what? Well for those who transited through this poorly urbanized city, it could well be a thousand hills or a thousand taxis. I had imagined that Renault 4L and Citroen 2CV, very popular in France in the 50's and 60's were all gone and had been transformed into cooking pans. Actually the paradise of 4L is Madagascar where any old french car can live a second or third life!
Just like the yellow cabs in NY, there are 4L are everywhere crusing the paved and hilly streets of Tana. Painted cream white, revamped with new engines, they'll take you anywhere you need. You'll have to negociate the fare for a couple minutes before you can enjoy the interior decoration made of sticky notes quoting the Bible, newly covered seats and a boom-box that doesn't manage to cover the metalic noise of the broken springs on the pavement.

Forget about the hybrid Toyota you were planning to buy for Christmas. The new cool is the old French car!

more than words

2006-07-18T01:45:00.000-07:00

More than words, pictures can sometimes capture in a better way situations, emotions, a look, a smile... And those are plenty when you travel through villages of Madagascar. Just like writting, taking pictures requires a lot of talent to restitute artistically those encounters. Fortunately, we travelled with Nicola Vigilanti, a gifted professional photographer and good friend of ours.

Check out a selection of his portfolio of Madagascar and other places around the world.

Fenoevo

2006-04-04T06:59:00.000-07:00

We picked a taxi-brousse to take us through the misty hills looking over Ranomafana Sud Valley. There a dense tropical flora hosts all kinds of friendly creatures: lemurs, bats, anacondas, and all kinds of bugs like the crasy looking girafe ants. The unconfortable laury packed with at least 40 passengers bouncing on rice bags, squeezed between chickens and dried fish for 6 hours was a fun ride. We stopped in Fenoevo and stayed overnight at the local doctor's place.
He and his wife have lived here for the past two years; right after he finished his medical studies at the Tulear University and was appointed to this isolated location. "That's my own little paradise here" he said showing us the fish pond he created by taking advantage of the water pump installed behind the health facility. Their house was quiet modest but they have a full set of furnitures and dishes: rich rural folks! A young maid helped at the kitchen while we discussed the life of a rural doctor, its advantages and constraints and the pulic health issues in the region.First of a long serie of rice and manioc diners. Exhausted by a long day of taxi-brousse rodeo, we fell asleep instantly. Our orange tent gloomed under the moon, contrasting with the old huts of the village.
In the quiet night, all we could hear was the soft music of a spring irrigating a corner of paradise.

A narcistic companion

2006-04-03T20:20:00.000-07:00

To accompany us all the way and make the experience more interactive, we recruted a jobless tourist guide appropriately named Narcisse. Our companion was serious on walking but spent an embarrassing amount of time flirting (and shagging) with girls in each village we stopped, constantly made stupid jokes designed to cheer-up flocks of tour-operator middle-class French tourists, and became dumber than a dog everytime food was made available to him whether in form of a cooked plate of rice or wild guavas. He'd ususally scarf down the largest portions his body could humanly absorb in a noisy barbarian manner. We looked at him in turns exasperated, bemuzed, offended and embarassed to impose such company to the villagers. As a matter of fact, Narcisse managed to translate bits of conversations, while simultaneously shoveling mouthfull of boiled manioc and generously batting his eyes to the chief's daughter! But let's be fair: he walked for 30 days without complaining - even as his shoes, bag, and tent fell apart. He was not afraid to visit foreign tribes, he could sleep in a tent out in the bush and was always ready at 06:00 AM. That, not so many Malagasi are ready to achieve. As for the rest, well... it's just Narcisse, our guide extraordinaire!

Lalana Gasy

2006-04-03T16:53:00.000-07:00

Hard to summarize a 2 months back-packing trip that allowed us to fully experience the south-east coast of Madagascar like a few people know it. While we would set our tent in the most remote villages and shared a basic meal of rice and manioc with locals most of our days, we also spent time with well-off Malagasi people around a cold THB beer or a luxurious $ 3 dish...

Our purpose was to get off the main road and walk the "lalana gasi", the trails that locals use to go from one village to the other. Similarly, our intention was to better understand the different cultures, traditions and stories of each of the tribes in this region. So we often ended up humbly accepting poor villagers' invitations to join them for dinner (we'd give in-cash contribution in the morning) and respectfully investigated their development status by asking many questions inspired by our professional background.
Everyday was different, every village was a new experience, every trail brought moments of pain and new blisters... but we made it -- and now we try to share a bit of this adventure with you.

Thanks Mr. Camus

2006-04-01T07:51:00.000-08:00

For those who like music at a reasonable price, before you visit Madagascar, you might want to check the program of the Centre Culturel Albert Camus, one of the final bastion promoting french culture in Africa with French tax payers money. The CCAC actually offers a good selection of concerts and other cultural activities at a locally affordable fare. This month's program includes Mathieu Boogaerts and the Belmondo brothers. Not bad. Now imagine the anglophone version of this: Metallica, R Kelly and Willy Nelson's Indian Ocean tour!! There are days I want to say "Thank you Mr. Camus".

Red Island spirit

2006-02-06T01:01:00.000-08:00

Is it African or Asian? Is it a big island or a small continent? Is it real...? Madagascar, apart from being a country with a lot of "a", is a natural wonder, a gem anchored in the indian ocean. Some time back (165 million years ago) it broke free from the African continent after one of these cataclysmic earthquake they had back then. It took it the next 45 million years to drift around 250 miles to the northeast. For thousands of years the place has been heaven for animals that could find plentiful foodstuffs, and an almost total lack of predators (no lions, no sheetas, no poisonous snakes). Today still the island hosts life forms that have changed very little in hundreds of thousands, even millions of years. In many ways, Madagascar is literally a land that time forgot. Well, until the first humans arrived (around 2,000 years ago), most likely using outrigger canoes hailing from India, Africa, and Arabia. The newcomers were greeted by dense rainforests and an abundance of wildlife – strange monkey-like creatures known as lemurs, dwarf hippos, giant tortoises, ten-foot tall elephant birds (their enormous, thousand-year old eggs are still being found to this day), and over 100 other exotic species of animal found nowhere else on earth. Although they lived in tribes, the Africans, Indians, and Arabs managed to avoid segregation. Over many hundreds of years, an incredible synthesis of tradition, religion, language, and genetics took place, creating a society remarkable in its uniformity of language and beliefs.
Well, until the white man arrived - bringing dreams of trade and industrialisation along.If they managed to exploit the land and the people (with conscent of various local kings until Queen Ranavalona), the Portugese, French and British colonial powers just wasted their energy trying to change the mentalities of tribes like the Androy (south) who knew better than follow the stupid white man in its capitalist anxious quest.
Here the westerner has to forget his education and open up to a new way of approaching life and death, a different set of values and priorities. Even time is reversed here: tomorrow is yesterday and yesterday is tomorrow. Past is future and future is past.

Try to implement (neo-colonial) development programs with that cultural clash!!

Madagascar

2006-02-02T01:35:00.000-08:00

Yes it's the title of a cartoon. Yes in the next James Bond there will be a plot involving the "Big Island". Yes it's in Africa, and yes it's a pretty long name for a country. But wait until they show you a bilingual dictionnary!So yes, we are in another third world nation made famous both by a Walt Disney blockbuster and severe rates of malnutrition, infant mortality and illeteracy.
We have embarked for a 5 months trip backpacking, the only way to really understand the complexity and diversity of foreign cultures and live with people at their pace(Theodore Monot was one of the oldest backpackers I know of). Mostly the idea is to trek every possible corner of Madagascar, meet people, learn the language, take pictures, do music, etc.
Security-wise the country is pretty safe. Compared to DRC or Tajikistan or Somalia this place is VERY quiet and people are super peaceful. I was told by a taxi driver this morning that some politicians here try to play the discord between the 18 ethnic groups present on the island. Despite the temptation to seize power the hardway like it is done in their neighbour african countries, Malagasy have managed to focus around a national identity rendering ethnic-based discourses useless... that in itself is amazing. Besides, you should be aware that mosquitoes are by far the biggest killers in Africa (which in a way makes of them our only untamed predators and puts us only second position on top of the food chain).
Anyway, I am positive the rest of our trip will teach us many more lessons about the place, the rituals, the music, the people and of course the beautiful wilderness (so poorly captured by Walt Disney studios).

Get more data from Madagascar Govt Website
If you want to learn more about Fighting Malaria in Africa
If you have doubts on Disney's ethics, read this one!

Cry Freedom

2005-10-11T11:24:00.000-07:00

Patrice Lumumba, first prime minister of the Republic of Congo and a pioneer of African unity, was executed on 17 January 1961. Centre of the country’s popular defiance towards the colonial Belgium ruthless exploitation, he is remembered by his generation for his unscheduled speech at the official ceremonies in Kinshasa where he denounced "a humiliating slavery imposed by brute force,". Soon after he was arrested, tortured and murdered. The Congo has been paying for it ever since.
Many say that, although he picked the right fight to free its people from colonialism, his survival would not necessarily have insured prosperity and happiness to the country. His liberator's aspirations were confronted with ugly realities. In prison he wrote: "We are not alone. Africa, Asia, and the free and liberated peoples in every corner of the globe will ever remain at the side of the millions of Congolese who will not abandon the struggle until the day when there will be no more colonizers and no more of their mercenaries in our country. (...) I know my country, now suffering so much, will be able to defend its independence and its freedom. Instead no one much cares about it. People have continued to use first the Congo crisis and then the continued suffering of the people of that vast country for their own purposes and ends. History proved him right; and Congo's enormous reserve of natural resources keeps exciting appetites of Congolese and their neighbours.
Lumumba's assassination has been hidden for decades but was not erased from all the history books. It galvanized the African independence movement from the 60s onward. More, he entered history and became an iconic leader; today Lumumba is likely to be named if the topic of murdered African statesmen comes up. The Soviets even named their Moscow University for foreign students after him, to serve as a constant reminder (and probably because of the role played by the western powers and the UN in his death). Although he remains an inspiration for the old generation of Congolese and a romantic hero for the youngest, the world has changed so much since Lumumba's gone. In a globalized world, there are many threats to peace building in COngo. In many ways, Lumumba's days are gone.

Goma-thology

2005-09-20T11:15:00.000-07:00

September – I spent a couple of weeks in Goma, capital of Eastern DRC on the border with Rwanda and city that was ravaged by the eruption of Nyiragongo volcano in January 2002, driving thousands of people from their homes. The lava cut the city in two and flowed into Lake Kivu. Today, the armed forces of both MONUC and FARDC patrol the city. UN and international humanitarian organizations vehicles are everywhere, getting their way through the anarchic traffic and slaloming between the taxi-motos and the indolent pedestrians. Goma is covered with the black dust from the volcano. Its extremely poor population breaths the dirt of temporary settlements that became another lasting shanty-town. Government, institutions et al. are as corrupted as a failed state can be. Decades of Mobutu and Kabila(s) were marked by clientelism, despotism, military dictatorship, massacres, rapes which traumatised Congolese for generations. Providing assistance to health centres and community groups, in order to reduce child and maternal mortality and morbidity, is just a tiny contribution in comparison to the immensity of needs and desperation here. That’s my job. I’ll try my best.

Going out there...

2005-09-17T15:47:00.000-07:00

"I always ask leave, in the interests of science, to measure the crania of those going out there," he said. "And when they come back, too?" I asked. "Oh, I never see them," he remarked,"and, moreover, the changes take place inside, you know." He smiled, as if at some quiet joke. "So you are going out there. Famous. Interesting, too." He gave me a searching glance, and made another note. "Ever any madness in your
family?" he asked, in a matter-of-fact tone. I felt very annoyed. "Is that question in the interests of science, too?" "It would be," he said, without taking notice of my irritation, "interesting for science to watch the mental changes of individuals, on the spot, but …"

From the Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad

Going to RDCongo

2005-02-26T08:11:00.000-08:00

That's it! I won't be a student anymore (before next time for a PhD somewhere). Until then I can finally go back to work in the fields and visit forgotten corners of the blue planet. Can you imagine I actually missed working... What an irony. This time I am going to Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC the ex-Zaire) where I will be posted in Kindu, the capital of the Maniema province, right on the Lualaba River which is a confluent of the Congo River. Once again I operate as a project coordinator with Medical Emergency Relief International (MERLIN) but this time it's a bigger project than the one in Tajikistan. I will oversee 5 programs including HIV/AIDS, Water & Sanitation, the establishment, furbishing and maintenance of about 50 local health facilities in the middle of the jungle, plus the supporting of the provincial central hospital. And as usual I will manage teams of doctors, trainers, community health mobilizers, and all the logistics and administration staff. Of course the security is unstable and ressembles the usual vicious circle of armed rebel forces/political decay/economic meltdown/corruption/fight over natural resources/nasty international geo-politics and global security plots... Additionally people suffer from the remotness of the province, the lack of access to clean water, the collapse of essential social services like education and health. More generally the local communities whose survival depend on the ruthless diamond and gold mining industry clearly live under the poverty line. On average, the richest rural poor owns a bike, up to 5 shirts and 3 trousers and a battery radio...and their children probably received education.

That's all I can comment on so far. Much more to read on this page once I get there. Stay tune and read my adventure in the Congo!

Learn more:
About Medical Emergency Relief International (MERLIN)
About humanitarian situation in Congo at ReliefWeb.com
About the MONUC, the UN peace keeping mission