White Woman finding her step

Early Saturday Morning, Antsirabe

It is acceptable to call a Latina woman “white” here.

I learned that white women can’t walk alone after 5:30 PM. I found myself shopping for a few eggs after 5 one afternoon, popping into little shop after little shop without success. As I trudged home with my empty bag an angry gaunt man kept a half a step behind me, muttering all the way from city center. He yelled in anger after I unexpectedly slipped into my gated garden. I assumed he wanted money. He called to me for 20 minutes through the gate. Perhaps he was telling me “Go home ugly white woman.” I watch the time before I leave home now.

 I don’t know if my language skills are improving, but my courage is. One day, being tired of my own company, I took a walk towards the supermarche for a chocolate bar, a splendid luxury on my stipend. After the encounter with the angry man last week, I walked a new route and found an old, cobbled lane that runs behind the French cathedral. It’s lined with individually owned stands, each one specializing in different products. There is less hustle and bustle on this stretch, the shop people patiently wait for me as I stretch my Malagasy skills.

The stand at the end of the road features 4-5 baskets of different greens caught my eye. We were having a terrible time communicating with one another. Due to my hunger for her greens and the shopowner’s determination to make a sale we found a neighbor man to help with the transaction. Problem solved!

 

All of my stipend is spent on food. Baskets of fresh produce are sold everywhere, at the markets, along every lane, on the corners, and there are even sellers that walk up and down the streets selling their specialty from a basket balanced on their head. Yet I am down to my college weight, skinny and tanned.

Neighbors in Tsarasaotra, Antsirabe

daybreak in Antsirabe

I reach for my fag, ½ smoked from last night. That first drag clears the fogginess of sleep. I throw back the heavy acrylic blanket, head to the kitchen slowly as to not awaken anyone. Soon enough my son and another’s grandson will be stumbling into the kitchen, expecting their pot of steaming vary (rice). The apartment next door is quite still. It’s always been reserved for American Peace Corps volunteers. Nine different volunteers have lived next door since 1998. The current volunteer is a tall woman named Michelle. She seems nice enough, she’s often seen walking around town and at the various food markets. I wonder what it’s like for her to sleep and eat in the apartment all alone, how lonely.

entry into my neighborhood

I smell the cigarette smoke even before I open my eyes. I glance at my phone to check for messages. It’s 4:30 AM. No messages. Gawd that smoke. I sleep for another hour with a man’s cotton undershirt over my head to block the smell. As light emerges through the shutters I pull back the curtains, carefully prepare my morning coffee, then pump up my bike tires. Gleefully I wheel my government issued bike out the gate, waving good morning to the neighbor lady, Adeline.She is there everyday, standing at her kitchen window feeding the coal fire cooking vary for her grandson’s breakfast. At times some of her adult children live with her and the boy, leaving when they find short term work elsewhere. Somehow she isn’t irritated by the assumed roles of cook, washerwoman, and housekeeper placed upon her.

North of the Tsarasaotra neighborhood

Herding cattle to feed on an empty lot, North Side of Antsirabe

Agricultural lands on the R7, a favorite bicycle route on Sundays

Saturday Morning in Antsirabe

Diners line up at local hotely for breakfast

The stringy little boy nestles next to his granny under the tarp. Last night they set up behind a non-descript hotely on the side street around the corner from the Alliance Francaise complex. They were begging on the corner last night, well into the dark morning hours, as hundreds of bar-hopping revelers streamed past them without a glance. Popular neighborhood karaoke bars competed with the thumping speakers of the all-city block party held on the central boulevard, just past the Carrefour supermarket. The promise of an almighty hangover only seemed to extend the party until, finally, the generators run out of electricity.

A hotely on the way to the market

When Joslyn arrives to open her hotely for breakfast, the revelers had just left a few hours ago. She recognizes the tiny, huddled frames under the tarp in the back. Her hotely is supported by a few odd boards with pieces of tin nailed together as a roof. As customers stream in and out of Joslyn’s place, she will set a bowl of white rice and weak coffee on the ground for the woman and child.

I walked by this scene every day, unprepared for their consistent schedule. Impossible to guess their ages, the boy underdeveloped due to his diet of rice and coffee, and the woman is prematurely aged for the same reason. I feel the intensity of their stares when I walk by.

There is little to be said.