Some of my friends said that they would take part in this Earth Hour. I hope they did so.

I believe that only a few people are aware of this Earth Hour campaign. Well, there were some people who knew about it but were not willing to take part since there are always some black out every day, they said. I heard that other restaurants such as Carlton, Louvre, Palissandre, La Varangue… accepted to switch off their lights and organise candlelit dinners. Unfortunately, I could not pass by and take some pics. The Queen Palace of Manjakamiadana’s lights were also off, I suppose, since they agreed to join the campaign.

Here are a few photos I have taken for the Earth Hour 2011.

Candlelit dinner at Café de la Gare

Gare de Soarano

Town Hall of Tanà

At the neighbors’

My window

This is supposed to represent a candle or a match

And me, in the dark ^^

This pic was taken in a little “Hotely” (Malagasy restaurant) via my mobile phone (which explains the bad quality of the image [apologies]). I guess they meant “no-entry” ‘coz it’s not the way out at all, the stairs lead to the owners’ apartment

I like the color of the ground, the “Rouge Madagascar” – “Red Madagascar”, Malagasy chameleons, small and big ones, the straw round hats, and then certain air there, which speaks to me about my childhood, about my father who had discreetly worked for a long time in Malagasy countryside , and of all those people I met , formerly, and recently, by returning there.

Lia Naficova:

the wonderful welcomeness of the Malagasy people.I second the frippery!
 

mofo gasy.

ravitoto.

the abundance of the exotic fruits.

the setting down of the sun, either on the mountains, on the rainforest, on the landscape of Tana, or of Morondava

the warmth and the mystery.
there’s definitely no place like it!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 7,700 times in 2010. That’s about 19 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 20 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 133 posts. There were 74 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 158mb. That’s about 1 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was January 12th with 84 views. The most popular post that day was Gasigasy: Vary amin’anana sy kitoza.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were fijery.wordpress.com, ariniaina.com, facebook.com, twitter.com, and friendfeed.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for homeless people, homeless people on the streets, lemur, malagasy people, and tsimbazaza zoo.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Gasigasy: Vary amin’anana sy kitoza January 2010
7 comments

Homeless people sleeping in the streets July 2009
6 comments

Madagascar: a place to go in 2009 says New York Times January 2009
5 comments

Visit at the zoo of Tsimbazaza May 2009
11 comments

The first question was: Are you going to vote?

25.8% said YES; 64.5% said NO and 9.7% said they did not know yet at the moment of the survey.

YES, they wanted to vote because it is their right and their duty to do so. So that they would be able to express their voice. One person said that they did not really want to vote but they heard that there would be a sanction for those who would not come.

For the NO side, the reason can be divided into 3 groups. The first group said that they would not have time for this, they would not be able to do this (because they live abroad), they were not interested in it, or they did not feel concerned, they did not understand the reason of this referendum, it was just nonsense. The second group is people who believed that this referendum was a way to legalize the current regime, and the YES is anyway sure to win. The third group is convinced that the current situation of Madagascar, the political crisis and the social problems are not convenient for an election now and would not bring proper solutions to all the issues. 

The second questions were: Would you vote for the Constitutional referendum? Why?

Unfortunately, the only one person who said would vote for the Constitutional referendum did not give more detail about their choice.

Some of the people who said no for the first question still answered this second one restating the same reasons they had mentioned above. Some were against the Constitutional referendum because they were not for Andry Rajoelina’s regime, the HAT government. Some others did not believe in better changes for Madagascar in this new Constitution, some even added that it would just be for the benefit of Andry Rajoelina and it would bring too much power to the existing executive administration. Other people did not agree with some new texts of laws proposed in this Constitution.

Two people said they would make a blank vote because they did not really know what to choose, what this Constitution was about and that they would not want to regret if they would have made the wrong choice.

The third question was: What would you like to say more about this Constitutional referendum?

We received 7 responses to this last question.

1. Citizens should be aware of what the referendum is really about. I wish that they dedicate more budget on information campaigns than propaganda. Would there be transparency and honesty?

2. Those who will not go voting are coward people.

3. This referendum is a waste of time and money.

4. (abusive message)

5. For me it is just for the form but there is no concrete thing in it.

6. I wish that the referendum would be a complete failure.

7. This election will bring positive things.

For the D-day of the Constitutional referendum, the polling stations were calm according to the pics shared by Jentilisa. But on the meantime, we had a controversial news about some rebellious militaries  who did a coup attempt reported by Dadandry in the Cyber Observer.

This is the video I have made for the worldwide project One Day on Earth. Forgive me if it took me time to edit it and upload it. I hope you will enjoy it.

You can guess by the title of this post that the footage shows buses and markets in Antananarivo. It also shows the street markets on a Sunday morning in the Capital city where you can find a lot of items you may need to buy such as clothes, shoes, bags, school items, toys, DVDs, food, kitchen utensils…

The reason why I wanted to join One Day on Earth for its historical project is I wanted to make Madagascar known. I know I could not do that much but I really wanted to do something. Honestly, I feel sad to see several people representing a country and only a very few for mine. When joining was easier than filming on the D-day, I did not want to give up. It was a challenge for me to go out of my place handling my camera in unsafe streets.

The first shooting was made from my veranda. I started with buses since there was a bus stop just on the bridge a few miles away from my place. This was easy because I was home and no one had noticed what I was doing. It was time to go out and find something else to film but where? It was a Sunday morning; most of the shops and offices were closed. And I did not want to go to church with my jeans and sneakers.  There was a little moment of thinking and… “Bingo!”, there are always markets even on Sunday. My husband did not want me to go there. You could guess it, this would not be safe for me and my camera. But stubborn as I am, I went down the streets and headed to the markets anyway. My poor husband did not let me alone of course, he finally decided to be my “guard” (My husband is lovely, isn’t he? ). Anyway, I could make the video. Only a few people I met in the streets were reluctant with the project, but I sincerely appreciated the sellers in Behoririka market, the bus driver, its conductor and all the passengers who nicely agreed to be part of my film. I am also thankful to Olombelo Ricky, a great and cool Malagasy singer, who let me use one of his songs for the video. I have chosen “Mananilatany”; I love the sound of this song (And you?)

Nothing more to say, I’ll let you enjoy the video if it wasn’t done already

I heard that in the Southern part of Madagascar, people really suffer from lack of water. This zone is dry. People have to walk for kilometers to find water which is not even clean. Some people had even the idea to market clean water at a very high price.

One of my friend shared a simple method to disinfect water during our English Club meeting. I believe it can be a good idea to share it here today. The method is called SODIS (Solar water disinfection).

If you go out of Antananarivo, you may notice “empty” pieces of land (no construction, no farming) surrounded  by brown walls. These walls are the “tamboho gasy”. The new generation people, Malagasy and foreigners, are always amazed seeing these walls knowing that they were made more than a hundred years ago.

Like any other kids, in my childhood, I used to ask a lot of questions on how, why… things were made. I remember, one day, I was in the garden with my father and  my  eyes were attracted by one side of our fence which was different from the other walls. Then, I started to ask questions. My father explained that it was a “tambohon’ny Ntaolo” (Malagasy Ancestors’ fence) and it was made with soil, water and cow dung. I found it disgusting to use cow dung. I imagined people taking it with their hands and mixing it with the soil. “Yuk!”, I said. But my father explained that we Malagasy people should be proud of these walls because they are really hard and can stand for years and years.

I love my father. When we, his children, were interested in knowing things like this, he always managed to show us more. Like one day, my sister and I were astonished seeing well polished pebbles, he brought us to a riverside and showed where he had collected them. Coming back to our topic, the sunday after I asked questions about “Tamboho gasy”, he brought us to the Queen Palace of Ambohimanga. Wow, there was this high fence! Then, my father explained that there was one more ingredient for this wall. They added eggs to the soil, water and cow dung to make it harder. [I'll add the pic of this wall as soon as I will get there ]

Few weeks ago, I went hiking in Ambohitrabiby and we also saw these Malagasy fences. And guess what? The guide added two more things as “secret” ingredients. Can we believe it or not? I do not know. He said some people also added crushed beef and some other put urine in the mixture.

I heard that some researchers are working on finding the secrets of “Tamboho gasy”. We already have the lists of the ingredients but until now, no one knows their quantity nor the process. Well, someday we will know “how it is exactly made!”

For now, enjoy the pics

Click to view slideshow.

The traditional Malagasy fence is composed of horizontal rows. They are of odd numbers; usually three, five or seven.

One more thing to add. A friend asked the following questions on my Facebook page: “I would love to know why they are built. Are they keeping people away from ancestor’s land, so no one goes there? Do you know?” I think, I should put the answer here too. Well, I heard that the square fences were built to protect little neighborhoods and the circle ones were for the cattle in the ancient time. The neighborhoods disappeared but  there are important parts of land which are not taken “yet” nowadays because they are in remote areas.

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I love the sound of the guitar. That is why Mahaleo is one of my favourite bands. My brother and I are used to sing together. He plays the guitar and I sing. “Tiana ve” is the song we always perform because we really love it. How not to feel sad when I heard the news ? The great singer – composer of “our” song passed away. I feel like I have lost a close friend, a relative, a big brother. Raoul – Raosolosolofo Razafindranoa – of the Mahaleo band “left us for a while” (lasa vetivety) on September 3, 2010. Thousands of fans are sad hearing the news. Our consolation is we know that we will have his lovely songs remain: “Miodinkodina letsy “, “Hiaraka isika”, “Somambisamby”,”Pôlitika”, “Asio siramamy”, “Sao dia ataon’ialahy”… We will have him in our hearts until we meet again. RIP Raoul and thank you.