I think the few readers of this blog are all aware I'm back from Madagascar and didn't come to any harm while out there. If any of you assumed I had come to a violent end while out there, you didn't contact me or the wife to check. Only Kirsten, at least, left a comment saying she's sorry if I died.
The dearth of posts is partly to do with the fact that I wanted to craft an emotive description of my encounters with extremely poor people in Madagascar. I wanted to write a brilliant blog entry that would spur any readers to empathy and action. But every time I tried to craft something, it didn't come out right.
Turns out I'm OK at writing AROUND the issue, travel writing and interesting (to me) stuff about the country, but not about the encounters that had the greatest effect on me:
- having a fairly clear idea what our driver earns, and being embarrassed at the answers to his detailed questions about what life in London costs.
- switching off from some of the terrible stories I was hearing in translation, because I was more concerned with getting the right framing on the translators.
- Visiting a mud-hut village of women, children, and almost no men. The husbands had all gone off to find work, and had never returned. I deeply, deeply regret not just giving them all the money in my pocket. I had more, and have more.
2 comments:
i appreciate that it's much more difficult to write about the deep stuff. i have some idea of what you felt - kinda feels the same when i go back home to indo.
At least you went (and didn't come to a violent end). I think more importantly than what, and how, you write about it is how it impacted and presumably changed you.
I assume you didn't ask the locals to share the cost of petrol on your excursions... (and not just because ADRA footed the bill)
Me, I stayed right here and didn't lift a finger, there's a bay, a peninsula, an ocean, a whole continent and another ocean (or maybe just a strait) between me and Madagascar, and it still feels too close for comfort.
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