Week 12- Madagascar - Vincent Sonneville

The last week had finally arrived. We couldn’t believe how fast the time had passed and were thinking about leaving. Still, we had another week to enjoy and that kept us positive! Landing in Antananariyo we realised we hadn’t really planned out exactly what we were going to do in Madagascar, it was our final stop so we always figured we’d have it plannend out by the time we got there. Luckily we had booked a hotel for one night in the capital’s city center. At the hotel, we first enjoyed a round of drinks on the house. The drink was called Malagasy, a national beverage made from lychees. After chatting for a while we met a man named Patrick, an Englishman who had come to live in Madagascar after a devastating tsunami in 2004. He had often come on vacation with his parents when he was younger and fell in love with the country. After hearing about the the tsunami he decided move to Madagascar permanently and set up a sanctuary for people affected by natural disasters. Coincidentally he was looking for volunteers to help clean the remaining ruins of a town where close to 1000 people were left homeless. We had the time so of course we said yes!
Leaving the sanctuary was bittersweet, Patrick talked about the devastating effects natural disasters have on the economy of Madagascar. He explained how most of the crops that were grown often rotted and that towns with little infrastructure were destroyed instantly. People who had little to begin with were left with nothing. No wonder developing countries stay poor.

The rest of the week we spent trekking through the Andasibe rainforest and visiting the Vakona Lodges’s lemur island, a sanctuary for lemurs. Our last night we spent on the beach.