Madagascar. Part II

January 6–14, 2012

Almost all the traffic signs are made of concrete, which makes stealing them inconvenient and pointless (like in Dagestan).

Stop signs still have the old design here.

A rare species that can be found only on Madagascar: the “danger” traffic sign. It’s usually encountered before sharp turns, in places where the road narrows, etc.

The “children” sign has endless variations in terms of appearance.

Pedestrian crossing.

Bus stop.

A kilometer marker.

No smoking.

No crapping in the middle of the street, no sleeping on bags of rice, no pulling carts through the market rows, no riding around the market on a bike, no feeding stray dogs from the counter, no tossing banana peels on the ground. Instead, toss trash in the bin, sweep and wipe everything, and pour slops out into the ditch.

No engaging in the sexual exploitation of minors. On all the pictures, the tourist is shown throwing around bills which say $, € and Ar (ariary—the local currency).

A shop that manufactures license plates.

An official license plate.

The main form of public transportation within cities is the taxi-be (pronounced “taxi bay”), a minibus that loads and unloads passengers through the rear doors. A sliding door on the side exists, but it’s blocked by seats.

On the left side of the taxi-be rear door is a number, on the right it says “km/h.” This is the only design detail they can afford here.

There are regular taxis, too. They’re all French car models at least 20 old, painted the same cream color.

Stores all have individual objects drawn separately from one another on their walls (this is where the Comoros must have gotten the habit from).

Construction site fences are rarely painted, but when they are, it’s with red and white stripes.

Every construction site has an information board which consists of individual wood planks (we’ve also seen this in Tanzania and Mauritius).

Menus at restaurants are always written on chalkboards—something Madagascar also inherited from the French.

Soap is sold in long bars, like in Fiji.

The staple food is rice.

This is why rice has an entire wall devoted to it at the supermarket.

Transformer vaults resemble medieval towers. They’re all of the same type, with the same design. And nowhere are the openings at the top, which look like loopholes, used for their intended purpose—instead, the wires are attached right to the walls.

Every rural town has exactly one building which has been carefully plastered and painted from top to bottom with advertising for a single brand, be it a beer or a mobile operator. In big cities there are more buildings like this, of course.

Kebabs being sold. Those who sell them need to survive. And the buyers feel so entitled and are so lazy that they can’t even be bothered to get out of the car. The sellers will swarm to them like flies and exchange money for goods right through the window. In addition to kebabs, you can buy water, bread, a mop or a newspaper in similar fashion on the go.

The outward appearance of villages varies greatly around the country. People build their houses using whatever’s at hand. If there’s clay—sure. If not, a straw hut works just fine, too.

Some people live like this.

Some—like this.

And some even like this.

Looking from the outside, it’s hard to imagine that the rooms in Madagascar houses are actually very cozy.

Let’s step into this rural home. Its corners are decorated with pieces of metal so that rats can’t climb up onto the roof.

Not that different from a traditional Russian village home, is it?

And the kitchen with a chimneyless stove is wonderful, too. Don’t mind the hole in the floor, the termites gnawed that through.

Here’s another, more modest home. A chameleon sits on the wattle fence on one side. A relative is fixing a plough on the other. Let’s step inside.

Charming and cozy.

And here’s a city apartment. The entrance is on the ground floor, through the kitchen.

The dining room.

The living room. It’s like stepping into an apartment belonging to a member of the Soviet intelligentsia of the 1970s.