Meeting

Pansi and my mate Mark, both from ADRA-UK, arrive safely at the hotel, but their bags do not. The bags will be missing for a couple of days. So there’s a shopping expedition to the massive supermarket across the road, for clothes and vital supplies before we leave for the project in Fandriana.

The prices are quite high, really. I’m paranoid about malaria and mosquito bites (unnecessarily, I’m told. But I think I’ll go with the advice of my nurse and my guide book). So I buy more insect repellent with 50% Deet. Turns out 10,000 ariary is worth $5 US. A 50ml bottle costs over $10. Surely that’s about what it would cost in Europe? Didn’t I buy a bigger bottle in Boots for around that price?

I sit in on a planning meeting in a café between Warren and Peter, of ADRA-Madagascar, and Pansi and Mark from ADRA-UK. Throughout this trip, whenever I can, I order ‘steak frites’ (steak and chips). The typical Malagasy diet is rice two or three times a day, but their steaks are from something called Zebu beef, which is delicious, and the frites are always freshly cut. Anyway, as it’s on most menus if we’re eating out, that turns out to be my staple diet.

Plentiful Zebu beef steaks here in the capital, while down south there is a famine. Of course you feel guilty enjoying such a good meal.

The Fandriana region, although one of the poorest in the country, is NOT famine-hit. I don't know how I would cope with that.

In the meeting, I’m trying to get as much idea of the project as possible, so I’ll know what to film when we go up into region tomorrow. But I’m also, generally, fascinated by how businesses are structured, and how people’s personalities shape and are shaped by these structures. This is even more pointed here, because hundreds of people’s lives will be changed, hopefully for the better, by the way this all operates.

The Malagasies have called the project ‘SMART’ which is an acronym for a positive phrase in their language. Can’t remember what. Turns out the European Commission contributes 75% of the funds for this SMART project, ADRA-UK liases with the EC and contributes 25% of the funds, and then ADRA-Madagascar implements the project. So it’s going to be very interesting to see Mark and Pansi attempting to ask the difficult questions, because ADRA-UK has an overseer role to play.