Storm clouds

I dump my bags at the hotel and go straight off across Tana to the ADRA offices. I record an interview with the director of ADRA-Madagascar, Peter Delhove, by far the chunkiest man I see in my time in this country. He’s nominally Belgian, but was born, brought up, and has lived his whole life in southern African countries.

Our interview is interrupted several times by phone issues to do with the famine in the south of Madagascar. There seems to be a lot of trading and back-scratching with other NGOs and charities: ‘you can have half our rice to distribute if we can use your warehouses for the next few days.’ It sounds like the organisations work together quite amicably, with the primary aim of feeding the starving.

Life or Death
Later we hear of the stresses the ADRA workers are under down there in the famine-zone: they literally have to decide who gets food and who will die, because there isn’t enough for everyone.

I remember my father going through a similar experience in Nigeria when he was working for the Red Cross. Did he give the available food to one child, or to three? If he gives the food to three, all will die a bit later. If he gives the food to one, that one might live.

He gave the food to the one . . .

A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall
My interview is curtailed by thunder, lightning, and an immense downpour which is so strong it comes through the window seals and knocks out all the electricity in this part of the city. Peter leaps up to open the doors and pull down the shutters, a move which takes about 3 seconds, and he is as drenched as if he had plunged into a swimming pool. Although it’s the rainy season, this storm is of another magnitude to the norm.

Apparently.

When the storm finally dies down, I am driven back through the street markets to my hotel, and see the impact the storm has had.

There are torrents of red muddy water pouring down the slopes, and once again I’m struck by how many people are barefoot, ankle-deep. People are still going about their business, but all are drenched to the skin. Some of this business includes getting into skips to search through rusty debris for saleable or useable stuff. The store-shack wares are still on display, but nobody seems to be buying.

We pass by slowly in the traffic jam. Most ignore us, some stare in blankly, a few smile or wink. One young bedraggled geezer, with a glint in his eye and a good awareness of irony, pretends to be considering whether or not to get in for a lift.

I’m another white bloke, peering out the windshield of another air-conditioned 4x4. The windscreen wipers give my camera a better picture.