A field guide to fruit in Madagascar

When I think about my favorite parts of life in Madagascar, specifically in the southeast coastal area, one of the first things that comes to mind is the fruit. I am absolutely spoiled rotten by the abundance of inexpensive, delicious fruit in this country, most of which I had never eaten until I came here, and most of which just happens to be grown organically. There is fabulous fruit all over the country, but I’m partial to the coastal regions’ tropical offerings. As I began learning about all the different types, I started taking pictures and cataloging everything in order to make an encyclopedic blog post about fruit in Madagascar, so what you are reading now is the result of almost 2 years of very delicious “field work”. Oftentimes when I’m buying my favorite fruit, the seller will ask, “what’s the name for this in English?”, and I’ll have to respond, “there isn’t one! It doesn’t exist in the English language!” Just like there is no word for “snow” in Malagasy, there’s no word for sakoa, a fruit that I believe only exists here, in English. Update: I now know that the sakoa, a.k.a. ambarella, exists elsewhere, but none of my Peace Corps friends had ever seen it before, either.

There are some other, harder-to-find fruits that I know I have missed—this is not quite as encyclopedic as I would like it to be, but I was trying to keep this blog post to be only about fruits that I had actually seen and photographed myself. For example, I know that I am missing a special type of persimmon that turns chocolate-brown when ripe. I also know that strawberries and peaches are grown and sold in the Highlands, but I haven’t seen them personally with the exception of buying them at Jumbo in Tana. Plus I seem to have also missed something called pok-pok (a.k.a. Cape gooseberry -- thanks to the readers who commented with more information on this.) I’ll continue to update this as I find more missing information and pictures, and if you know of anything else that I could add or need to edit, please make a note in the comments.

Finally, since we're on the subject of fruit, I want to share a joke that was sent to me by Ando, one of my regular readers and commenters. To wish someone a happy new year in Malagasy, you say "tratry ny taona", and then the person responds with "samy tratry ny ho avy"  -- essentially, "happy new year; same to you". Writes Ando:
 

Since around the New Year is also the apple's season in Madagascar (Antsirabe to be precise), people used to joke: 

Person A: Tratry ny PAOMA e!  (paoma = apple, sounds like "taona" in Malagasy)

Person B (reply): Samy tratry ny GOAVY (goavy = guava, sounds like "ho avy" in Malagasy)

Thanks to Ando for sharing! And now, without further adieu, I present you with fruit. They are listed alphabetically by the English name, but where I don’t know the English, I have used the Malagasy.  
Update 4/11/14: I have made a few updates based on reader feedback. Thanks everyone!

Apple

French : pomme, Malagasy : poma

These are grown in the more temperate central highland regions (like Antsirabe, as mentioned above, which is where I took this photo.) I'm spoiled by Vermont apples, so I'm not a big fan of apples from Madagascar.

Avocado

French: avocat, Malagasy: zavoka

One of the best things about life in Madagascar is that avocados are about 10 cents each! The season runs from approximately January- April, and I usually eat at least one every day when they're in the market. This is a picture of the avocado tree outside my house... a dream come true!

Banana

French: banane, Malagasy: akondro or fontsy

I don't know if I can ever eat bananas in America again after eating bananas here, because now I know what they are supposed to taste like: sweet and oh-so-creamy. The made-for-export Cavendish banana (that has somehow become the most popular fruit in America) just doesn't hold a candle to the real thing. I usually buy the small ones like these cute kids are eating because they're the sweetest.

We also have these larger, plantain-like bananas, which are usually grilled or fried as a snack. (I finally tried this when I was visiting Antalaha this past weekend!)

Baobab

French/Malagasy: baobab 

I'm a bit ashamed to say that I had no idea that baobabs had fruit until I went to Morondava in November. The fruit has a hard, fuzzy outer shell, and is filled with seeds that are surrounded with chalky flesh. I wasn't really a fan of the fruit, but while in Morondava I drank some really amazing jus naturel made from it, and I loved that.

Breadfruit

French: fruit à pain, Malagasy: soanambo or sirapay

These cantaloupe-sized fruits are not actually sweet at all, and have a starchy flesh that becomes soft and potato-like when cooked. In my area these are extremely cheap, because when they’re in season the markets are just exploding with them. People will usually cook them to eat as a snack, similar to how they eat cassava, or will sometimes mash them up and cook them with spices and other vegetables to make a laoka (side dish) to serve with rice. I like making breadfruit fries, especially because they’re about 1/10^th the price of an equivalent amount of potatoes! Plus, after finally looking up their nutritional value, I realized that breadfruit is very high in fiber, vitamin C, and potassium, so I feel that my cheapness is nutritionally justified.

Coconut

French: coco, Malagasy: voanio

We either eat the aged coconuts (with sweeter flesh) as modeled below by Leo, Aaron, and Yu...

... or drink the water from the young coconuts, which is a popular beach activity. Here's Nick trying to give the coconut vendor in Manakara Be a run for her money,

Custard Apple

French : pocanelle, Malagasy : konikony/voanjato

I’ll start by saying that this is hands-down my absolute favorite fruit, and I try to eat one every day whenever they’re in season (right now!) Inside the scaly exterior, this fruit is filled with unbelievably delicious flesh that is reminiscent of vanilla ice cream. I will also say that I absolutely hate the name “custard apple” (there is nothing apple-esque about it) and so even though I am using the English name here for continuity’s sake, I will only ever call it a pocanelle or konikony, no matter where I am in the world. The other Malagasy name, voanjato, literally translates to “hundred seeds”, because the creamy interior is filled with dozens of bean-sized black seeds that one must spit out while eating it. But the extra effort is absolutely worthwhile for the otherworldly flavor of this unique fruit. The third picture shows the roadside stands at Faraony, which is a Sud Est town that somehow almost always has an abundance of them. Naturally, it's one of my favorite towns. This fruit is part of the annona family, meaning it's related to the cherimoya, for anyone curious.

Update 4/11/14: I just saw a smaller version of pocanelle during my time in Tana. Here's a picture of them with an apple for sizing purposes. When I asked the vendor the name of it, she said "konikony", which is the same name for pocanelle. So I don't think there is a distinction here in Madagascar, but I believe the English name for this smaller version is sugar apple.

Grapefruit

French: pamplemousse, Malagasy: ampalimosy

I didn't see these very often, but my friend in Vangaindrano had a grapefruit tree behind his house, and ironically didn't even like them, so I'd usually go home with bags full of them whenever I went over to visit.

Guava

French: goyave, Malagasy: goavy/angavo

These are not really guava in the traditional sense (as we know them in America), but that's what people call them here. (Apparently South Africa calls this kind of fruit "guava" as well -- thanks to a reader comment for this tip.) They're small fruits about the size of a key lime, and you eat them whole. We have the yellow/green ones like this...

... plus the so-called strawberry guava, as seen on this tree. I find them to be a bit tarter.

Jackfruit

French: jacquier, Malagasy: apaly be

Jackfruit is the bigshot of the fruit world, mainly because they're huge: around 20 pounds each when ripe! The photo at the top shows the jackfruit tree outside of my house, and the second photo shows what a jackfruit looks like when cut up. You eat the sweet part that surrounds the seed, and discard the stringy extra bits. See this blog post for a jackfruit story! UPDATE: here's a cool piece about jackfruit from NPR.

Lime

French: limon, Malagasy: voasary makirana

They don’t really have a distinction between limes or lemons here. The limes available here are really tiny-- smaller than a Key lime even-- and they don’t have very much juice. If I’m looking for a citrus-y flavor for cooking or cocktails, I usually opt for green oranges instead. Fun fact: the Malagasy name literally translates to “bitter orange”.

Longan

French: longane, Malagasy: longano

These are in the same family as the lychee, but the fruit is much smaller, and I don't find them to be nearly as good as lychees.

Loquat

French: nèfle, Malagasy: pibasy

These tiny, grape-sized little orange fruits have a peach-colored flesh with glossy brown seed in the middle. They’re a bit laborious to eat because most people like to peel the skin off, but they make a good kind of snack-as-entertainment sort of fruit. This picture was taken in Fianarantsoa.

Lychee/Rambutan

French: litchi, Malagasy: letchi

These are probably the favorite fruit of almost all Peace Corps Madagascar volunteers, even though most of us had never had a fresh lychee before coming here. The flavor is unreal, and they're addictively sweet and juicy. When they come into season, they are everywhere, so the markets are just bursting with them. Since lychees don't have a long shelf life once picked, this means that they are very cheap. Score! There are two types of lychees: the prickly-ish, "Chinese" lychee, as seen here...

 

... and the red lychee as seen in this photo. This is what is most abundant in my area, though when I was recently visiting the northeast, I saw (and ate) a ton of the Chinese lychees. Update: I now know that "Chinese lychees" are in fact called rambutan, but in Madagascar, they are just called "litchi".

Mountain Apple

French: pomme Malac, Malagasy: makoba

These are kind of like a poor imitation of an apple. They're mushy and watery, and after trying them once, I decided that was enough. But here's a cute picture of my favorite fruit vendor with them.

Mango

French: mangue, Malagasy: manga

Mangoes explode into season in December/January, and like avocados, they are ridiculously cheap (5-10 cents each) compared to what we're used to paying for them in America. So, consequently, most of us eat our body weight in mangoes when they're in season. I find these to be even more delicious than the "Tommy Atkins" mango variety that is sold in the US. I'm not sure which variety of mango this is (in Mada, I've only ever really seen the variety pictured below), but I'd be really curious to do a taste test between these and Philippine mangoes or Indian mangoes, specifically the Alphonso.

 

Mangosteen

French/Malagasy: mangoustan

The mangosteen is a pretty elusive fruit here, and it seems like we go on a hunt for them every February/March. I've only seen them for sale in a few towns in the Sud Est. Maybe it's because of their scarcity, but they've become one of my favorite fruits. The fruit is about the size of an orange and decorated with small, thick leaves that surround the stem. The thick purple rind holds white segmented flesh that surrounds a seed. It's sweet and a bit perfume-y, but just fantastic.

Muskmelon

French: melon, Malagasy: voatango

Voatango is a specific type of muskmelon that only exists here in Madagascar (there is no specific French name for it.) I had never seen it until a few days ago when I was visiting Sambava!

Orange

French: orange, Malagasy: voasary or voangy

To me, the smell of oranges will always remind me of April/May in Madagascar. Like lychees and mangoes, it's a fruit that really defines a time of year in Madagascar. The sweet smell fills the air in every town, and everywhere you go, there are people sucking the juice out of orange segments. I didn't get a good photo of them at the height of their season last year, so here's a photo of a green orange, which people start eating (even though they're tart) in February or March.

Papaya

French: papaye, Malagasy: papay

This is a photo of part of a turkey-sized papaya that I bought on my way home from Farafangana one day for about 25 cents. It was so big that even after giving away half of it, I still had enough to eat for dessert and breakfast, and to make jam with! Note the pocanelle and bananas next to it on my kitchen "counter". I had a successful day of fruit shopping!

Passionfruit

French: grenadelle, Malagasy: garanadela

We have two kinds of passionfruit here: the yellow-skinned ones like this...

... and the purple-skinned ones like this. The flavor is pretty similar, though I find the yellow ones to be a bit tarter. They make really excellent jus naturel here with both kinds.

Also, here are two pictures of them growing on a vine at my friend's house. I actually didn't know until a few months ago that they grow on a vine and not a tree! Similar to vanilla vines, they need a support tree to grow on.

Persimmon

French: kaki, Malagasy: kaky 

I had always associated persimmons with the Mediterranean, so I was a bit surprised to arrive in Madagascar in March 2012 and find them everywhere here. In fact, my host family had a persimmon tree in their front yard! Here is a photo of me and my fellow PCV Aaron making persimmon jam when we cooked lunch for our host families.

Pineapple

French: ananas, Malagasy: mananasy

The pineapples here are unbelievably sweet... similar to how I feel about bananas, I am never eating them in America again because now I know how a pineapple is supposed to taste. Not only are they the best in the world here, they also grow massively large-- to the point where I once had to strap one to the back of my bike in order to get it home! Unfortunately, because of their massive size, I also discovered here that I am mildly allergic to pineapple-- because if I eat too much, my lips start to get tingly and itchy.

Plum

French: prune, Malagasy: paiso

Like apples, these only grow in the temperate highlands region here. But when I visited Antsirabe in December, it was an exotic treat to find them, because I hadn't seen stone fruit in ages! Funny to think that tropical fruit is my everyday fare, but plums are a rare delight.

Raspberry

French/Malagasy: framboise

When I visited Ft. Dauphin in September, I was shocked to find raspberry vendors all over the place. I had no idea that they would grow in a coastal area here! It was a delicious find, though, and I made a very memorable raspberry and papaya salad when I cooked dinner for my PCV friends who live in the area. I also made rhum arrangee with them before leaving Ft. Dauphin: I put some raspberries in rum bottles which I brought back with me to Vangaindrano, and then drank it a few months later when it was rosy-pink and infused with raspberry flavor.

Ambarella
French: prune de cythère or pomme de cythère, Malagasy: sakoa

This is a bit of a weird fruit that I hadn't ever tasted or heard of until I came here, but I really love it. They look a bit ugly from the outside, but the inside is sweet yellow flesh that surrounds a spiky pit, which you eat around. The flavor is like a combination of orange and mango.

Soursop

French/Malagasy: corossol

This is a relative of the pocanelle, but it is not frequently eaten as a fruit like pocanelle is; here it's mainly used to make really delicious jus naturel.

Starfruit

French/Malagasy: carambole

This is almost always a bit sour, but it makes good rhum arrangee. And it's just so pretty to look at!

Tamarind

French: tamarind, Malagasy: voamadilo

Tamarind makes excellent jus naturel, but it’s not very fun or satisfying to eat. The inside of these pod-like fruits is a thick, sticky paste that doesn’t really lend itself well to eating raw.

Wild Custard Apple

French/Malagasy: coeur de boeuf

For those of you who don’t speak much French, the name of this fruit translates to “beef heart”—owing to its shape, I’d imagine. It’s in the same family as soursop and pocanelle, but it’s the least-tasty member of the family—the insides are less custard-y and are more mealy-textured. I didn’t even know that it had an English name until I looked it up online and found this Wikipedia entry.

Cute kids eating bananas and rice

The neighborhood kids come over a lot to use my colored pencils and coloring books. I gave them a banana snack one day recently, and they ended up being really funny while eating, so I'm glad I caught it on video. The one of the left is my little man Sarobidy, but I unfortunately don't know the name of the one on the right-- he's relatively new.

Here's Sarobidy (and his brother) again, demonstrating what champion rice eaters Malagasy kids are. I thought it would be funny to capture a video of them chowing down on rice, because that's pretty much the essence of Malagasy culture: rice is life.

Vegan-ish

As my time here in Madagascar is rapidly drawing to a close, I’ve begun to take stock of the different changes I’ve seen in myself since I left America. I know that many of them won’t become evident until I return home, but one of the main changes that I have already noticed is the way I eat. Simply because of the nature of the food system and culture here, I eat an extremely whole-foods, plant-based diet, with very little meat, dairy, wheat, or processed foods. I’ve sort of become an accidental vegan—most days I’ll cook something that appeals to me, and then realize afterwards that it was unintentionally vegan. I only cook meat about once a month, and then it’s usually ground beef to make burgers with friends. (Incidentally, it’s much healthier than American pre-packaged ground beef because it comes from just one cow, and it’s ground fresh to order, so I see what goes into it.) I could certainly cook more beef if  wanted to, but it’s expensive, and just doesn’t appeal to me that much, honestly. Plus, without running water or even a sink, it’s a bit of a pain to keep things clean. Chicken is even harder to deal with, because if I wanted to eat it, I would need to buy a live chicken, then kill and butcher it, which I am usually too lazy to feel like dealing with. I’ve eaten it a couple times on special occasions, but then I’ve worked out a deal with my neighbor that I buy the chicken, and she’ll cook it for us. But I’ve also found that the things I crave nowadays aren’t really animal products: they’re things like chickpeas (either in hummus, or roasted whole for a snack), or salad greens (whenever I go to the capital, the first thing I buy at the vazaha grocery store is a giant head of lettuce, which I usually consume in one sitting), or good coffee and chocolate. Sure I’ll eat a burger when I get home, but I don’t miss the American meat-centric diet that much, really. And whenever I do a taco night with friends, I’ve realized that I actually prefer eating my homemade refried beans instead of ground beef.

Probably the number one concern that Americans have for vegetarians and vegans is but where do you get your protein from? I’m not sure where this American obsession with protein comes from, but it’s a dangerous myth that only animal products contain protein. It’s in virtually all foods—some more than others—and with a balanced diet of plant foods (I’m not talking about cucumbers all day or plain rice for every meal), it’s easy to get an adequate amount of protein, as well as any other nutrient that our bodies need.  The fascinating documentary Forks Over Knives has an interview with a strictly-vegan mixed martial arts fighter, who says that he fights better and feels healthier when he stays away from all animal products, and has no issues with protein deficiency. I, too, have realized just how much better I feel eating the way I do nowadays, which I suppose is somewhat similar to the famously healthy Asian diet as extolled in The China Study. Whenever I go into a big city and want to splurge on foods that I can’t get at site, like pizza or ice cream, I always feel a bit sick to my stomach afterwards. And whenever I spend time at the Peace Corps training center for meetings or conferences, where they spoil us with macaroni and cheese and other temptingly delicious non-vegan food, I always find myself battling terrible heartburn and regretting what I’d just eaten. Plus, on top of leaving me feeling not-quite-so-hot, these dietary dalliances always leave me about 5 pounds heavier than normal—so my new way of eating definitely has its weight loss/maintenance benefits to boot.

I’ve thought about going strictly vegan when I go home to America, but then I think about all the things I want to keep enjoying even on a limited basis, like Ben & Jerry’s, or cheddar cheese, or poached eggs, or the occasional bacon indulgence. Plus, I love to cook, and I’d hate to look at my treasured recipe binder and realize that I’d need to throw out half of my favorite recipes simply because they contain some meat, eggs, or dairy.  In general, I struggle with the desire to be healthy and eat the way that my body wants, but also retain my identity as (much as I hate the word) a “foodie”—that is, a culinary aficionado, someone who knows how to cook, and who appreciates good ingredients and good food

But then I came across the book VB6 by Mark Bittman, the celebrated New York Times food columnist, in which he outlines a way of eating that is vegan-centric but also gives leeway for enjoying a wide range of animal foods, albeit in small quantities and only at certain times of the day. The “VB6” acronym stands for “vegan before 6:00PM”, which is a plan that Bittman worked out for himself after his doctor diagnosed him with a host of health problems that could only be caused by the occupational hazards of a food writer: decadent restaurant meals, nonstop recipe tasting, and the task of living up to the persona of someone who only eats delicious food. Bittman started eating vegan-only until 6:00, and then after that allowed himself to eat pretty much whatever what he wanted. The reason for the post-6PM timing decision was because he surmised that dinnertime is when we want to relax and indulge after a long day, and it’s easier to eat vegan for breakfast and lunch. After several months of doing this, all of his diet-related health problems were essentially gone, and he has since adopted this as a way of life. So when I read this book, and realized that it was possible to still be a “foodie”-- even a career foodie like Mark Bittman—while trying to eat a largely vegan diet, it sort of became a lightbulb moment for me. I don’t think I will stick to a strictly clock-based system of food allowances like he does, because I’d never want to give up the possibility of eggs or yogurt for breakfast, but I think I will copy his strategy of eating vegan for the majority of my calories, while still allowing myself to eat some animal products.

In addition to reading VB6, I’ve also recently read a few other food-related books that talk about the dangers and detriments of the Standard American Diet. The first was the groundbreaking 1970s book Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappé, which exposed the shockingly high environmental cost of producing all the industrial meat that our country so loves, and shows readers how to combine vegetarian foods (by amino acid-matching) to create complete, usable protein. After reading this and seeing the spectrum of inputs required for all animal-based foods—16 pounds of grain are needed to create 1 pound of beef, for example—it reiterated my desire to eat less of them, and confirmed for me that when I do eat animal products, I should aim for them to be on the lower end of the input spectrum: eggs, dairy, chicken, and fish are all better choices than red meat from an environmental impact standpoint.

Another food-related book I recently read was also a groundbreaking work, albeit one from the 2000s: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, which is part diary of Kingsolver’s family’s attempt to grow or raise all their own food for a year, and part dissection of the horrendous impacts of our fossil fuel-dependent system of shipping food around the world to satisfy the American consumer’s demand for any food product, in any location, at any time of year. (Raspberries in Minnesota in January? Do people really shop this way?) It was (and still is) an important work that captured the spirit of the local food movement that really began to pick up steam in the mid-2000s, and although I didn’t get a chance to read it until now, it came out just at the time when I was beginning to get involved in the local food movement in Brooklyn—subscribing to and then helping run a CSA, making weekly pilgrimages to farmers’ markets, and generally beginning to have my own revelations about the beauty of eating locally and seasonally.  Kingsolver is actually pretty against veganism and vegetarianism, because she believes that locally, sustainably, and humanely raised meat is a far better choice than eating processed, GMO soy-based meat substitutes. And I have to say that I agree with her —I don’t believe in the kind of veganism that says it’s better to eat packaged, processed food created who-knows-where instead of a small quantity of well-raised meat and dairy products from a farmer in your zip code.  So in addition to my desire to eat a smaller amount of animal products, I also have a desire to keep my food miles as low as possible.

I will never deny that roast chicken is uncommonly delicious. And I will never stop loving cheese, especially true Vermont cheddar, fresh local goat cheese, or an authentic French camembert. But I also will never deny that eating fewer of these decadent foods is better for my body, and better for the planet as well. The key here is the word fewer—I’m not going to say never. How could I travel to Argentina and not sample their local beef? Or not savor an ice cream cone on a hot summer day? The key for me will be to make these occasional indulgences, not everyday occurrences. But I think viewing these foods as the luxuries that they are helps me to appreciate them more on the rare occasions when I do eat them.

Finally, for anyone curious, here are a couple of sample day’s diets that give a snapshot of how I eat here in Madagascar. In addition to their low amount of animal products, my meals are almost wholly local: the oatmeal, rice paper, olives, Mexican spices, powdered milk, and sardines are the only non-local foods I consumed during those two days. I’m lucky enough to be able to eat extremely locally here (even the soy sauce, cinnamon, coffee, beans, salt, pepper, and sugar are local!) for not very much money, and that’s something I will definitely miss upon my return home.

From December:

Breakfast: oatmeal with cinnamon, peanut butter, and sliced bananas; coffee with a tiny bit of powdered milk

Snack: 2 small mofo balls (fried bread)

Lunch: raw vegan summer rolls with soy-peanut dipping sauce; 10 fresh lychees

Snack: handful of peanuts

Dinner: Greek salad (minus the feta) with sardines; 2 mangoes

From February:

Breakfast: 4 mofo balls (like a small donut), coffee, 1 banana with peanut butter

Snack: piece of cooked breadfuit

Lunch: homefries with fried egg, tomato, and avocado; 1 pocanelle

Dinner: Mexican-spiced beans with rice and avocado; 10 small guava

 

Morondava and the land of the baobabs

It was when the taxi-brousse headed south from Antsirabe and then made a right turn on the RN35 that I realized I’d never ever gone west in Madagascar. Sure, I’d gone west from Tana, but my occidental travels had only ever put me as far as Miarinarivo—which is basically still right smack dab in the middle of the country. This journey, I suddenly realized, would be taking me to a new frontier. 

This new frontier was the town of Morondava, a beach city located on the Mozambique Channel, and the famous baobab trees that live in its surrounding countryside, including the famous “Avenue des Baobabs”. My friend Amy and I had been talking about doing this trip for ages, and after many failed attempts and reschedules,  we at last made it happen this past November. I settled into the taxi-brousse and soon drifted off as we made our way towards the west coast through my uncharted territory, illuminated by one of the brightest full moons I’ve ever seen.

What I awoke to the next morning was a landscape unlike anything I’d ever encountered  in Madagascar. As the sun rose over the reddened countryside still 50km from the coast, my first thought was that it looked much like South Africa, with its dried-up riverbeds and expanses of barren shrubland. Generally it looked more African than anything else I’d seen in Madagascar, which, of course, would make sense being that it’s closer to the actual continent of Africa; perhaps this part of the island was holding on to a souvenir from when the plates shifted and Madagascar was torn from the mainland all those millions of years ago. And then suddenly, the baobabs appeared, dotting all over the landscape. Admittedly I didn’t know what to really expect when it came to viewing these famous trees, and I suppose I didn’t expect to see them outside the famous avenue. But here they were, everywhere, and I couldn’t stop looking at them. To my just-awoken eyes, they looked like massive, earthly anchors, their branches like roots fixing them to the sky.

We arrived in the actual city of Morondava around 8AM, when the oppressive morning heat had already settled in, and then took a pousse-pousse towards the beach, where we found a hotel right on the ocean for $12 a night. Not too shabby. After a changing into cooler clothes we ventured back into town, which was right in the midst of its annual explosion of mangoes. Although we have mangoes in the southeast, the ones from Morondava are different—they are massive, globular fruits that absolutely burst with juice. And when they are in season, they are everywhere, and because they are everywhere, they are cheap.  We bought a small paring knife and stocked up on an armload of mangoes (for 200 AR each, about 10 cents), then proceeded to messily eat them over our hotel sink during the course of our vacation. We also encountered the curiously fuzzy baobab fruit, which I didn’t even know existed, and were able to sample a refreshing glass of baobab jus naturel—definitely a first. Afterwards we returned to our hotel  and went for a swim, my first in the Mozambique Channel. The water was warm like a bath, and reminded me of swimming in the balmy Mediterranean Sea in Ashkelon, Israel on a hot August evening in 2009.

Beautiful sunset on the beach outside our hotel.

 

Not bad for about $12 a night.

And the beachside restaurant gives a fashionable windswept look.

And not only was the water warm, but town itself felt like the hottest place I’d ever been in Madagascar.  Here more than anywhere, the afternoon siesta seems to be a necessity. But despite that, Amy and I decided that we really, unequivocally liked the town of Morondava. Everyone was friendly, we never heard shouts of vazaha!, and a lot of people knew and appreciated Peace Corps. Amy bought a silver bracelet from a local jeweler, and when he heard us speaking Malagasy he surmised that we were Peace Corps volunteers, and then regaled us with how much he loved PCVs and insisted that we stay in his large house next time we were in town. But one of the most fun things we did was a favor for Shayla, a Peace Corps volunteer who used to serve in Morondava. After receiving a digital request from her, we stopped by her old house to talk to the local kids and see if they remembered her. They did, and so we took photos with them to send to Shayla as a little ‘hello’ from her old home. She told me that it completely made her day to get those photos, and I can only hope that someone does that for me after I finish my service, when I'll have moments of feeling like I left half of my heart in Vangaindrano. 

Our hotel, Les Bouganvilliers, had an alfresco restaurant where you could sit and have breakfast a few meters from the waves, so the next morning I splurged on a pot of their strong coffee (only about $1, but that’s 10 times the price that I usually pay for coffee on the street) and snuck in a bag of street mofo (fried bread) to make it an affordable breakfast. As I sat sipping my coffee I watched giant-sailed schooners off in the distance, foregrounded by Malagasy fishermen in homemade ‘sailboats’- which are really just dugout canoes with plastic sheeting for sails. It was a reminder that the Western world’s luxuries and comfortable realities are still far off, even though I sometimes catch of glimpse of them-- like when a gleaming 4x4 filled with tourists passes my taxi-brousse that’s broken down on the side of the road.

Shortly after I sat down, a waitress from the hotel stopped by to ask if I wanted to order any food. “Oh no thanks”, I said as I hid the bag of mofo balls under the table, “mbola tsy mosare iaho” (I’m not hungry yet). But forgetting that I was hundreds of kilometers away from my town, I’d automatically used the Antesaka word for “hungry” when I should have used the officiel word since I was no longer in the Sud Est. I apologized and repeated myself in officiel, saying that I actually lived in Vangaindrano and spoke Antesaka. The waitress whizzed back to my table and exclaimed “I’m from there! I was born in Vangaindrano!”, before sitting down and chatting with me for the next 10 minutes. So there I was, practically as far away as I could be from my town, yet experiencing that warm connection that can only come from a shared idea of home. 

Amy and I arranged a trip to visit the famous Avenue des Baobabs on our last day in Morondava, hiring a driver with an ancient cherry-red Renault to take us there and back. We had another comical language moment when a gendarme stopped the car along the main road and kept saying the word “apelasoa” to us. Neither of us knew what it meant and were beginning to get concerned that he was making some kind of demand, when finally he said it in English (“beautiful woman”) and we realized that he was just another gendarme being creepy. Sigh. Some things don’t change no matter where you go on the island.  

 

We had left the town of Morondava in the late afternoon and arrived soon after at the majestic Avenue des Baobabs, which at that point of the day was simply just another dusty dirt road being traveled by farmers herding cows and kids driving oxen carts. Stopping to take a few photos, we then kept driving and stopping to see the masses of baobab trees all around, including the famous “Lover’s Baobab”, so-called because it is actually two trees intertwined together.

 

At last, I got the obligatory Peace Corps Madagascar photo at the Avenue des Baobabs.

This kid and his sister were wrangling (abusing) chameleons and trying to get tourists to give them money. Later, some Madagascar National Parks guides told them to stop abusing the animals-- they got a very stern talking to!

Our driver and our chariot for the baobab trip: an old cherry-red Renault.

After making the rounds and seeing probably hundreds of different baobabs, each of them magnificent and reminding me of reading Le Petit Prince in 8^th grade French class, we drove back towards the Avenue and joined the quickly-growing throng of tourists waiting for legendary sunset to begin. I’m not one for touristy things, but I do have to say that this is a spectacle whose fame is well-warranted. The sun sets at just the right spot behind the trees, and the light suddenly changes to transform the Avenue into one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen in my life, a truly otherworldly congregation of sun and sky and land. There is simply nothing else like it. I took photo after photo after photo, each one better than the next, because the scene just kept getting more and more beautiful. Standing in a field adjacent to the baobabs amongst tourists from all over the globe, all of us reverent and awestruck by these mighty trees, it hit me how amazing it was that these trees are powerful enough to draw people from all over the world to visit them. They stand there, unique and mysterious, and truly are, as I once heard them described, mother trees.

I've seen a lot of beautiful sights in my life, but this truly blew me away.

One final sunset picture to remember Morondava by.

Chameleon in my backyard

This is my friendly backyard chameleon, who decided that my fence was a great place to climb around for an afternoon.