Plumeria
Flowering Tree Xxx Pink
From Morondava we had to get Sid back to Antananarivo for his flight home, so we headed for Antsirabe a town famous for its artisans. Leaving Morondava we were back in the land of vanished dry forests,
The Morondava River was still flowing, but the tributaries were all dried up.
There were no old trees anywhere; we saw only dry shrublands and grasslands. Everything that could be used for charcoal or lumber had been cut. Wherever there was water, valley bottoms were dedicated to rice.
And wherever there were people, there were bicycle rickshaws.
We stopped in a baren landscape in the middle of nowhere to take a pee, and by the side of the road I found some poles hidden in a bush amongst some termite mounds. Lova said they were probably illegally harvested hardwood, and someone would probably come back later and take them home to make furniture. But while looking around I found this cool red spider.
As we got into the uplands, the terrain got more interesting, but trees were still virtually non-existent.
And then we were in Antsirabe, a town famous for the number of rickshaws, locally known as pousse-pousses.
We stayed at Les Chambres Voyager, where we enjoyed the nice grounds.
In the morning we saw a few of the artisans around Antsirabe. Outside a shop where a man was making Serti silk paintings, another man was selling Valihas an 18 stringed instrument where the strings are positioned around a hollow bamboo tube. He said here is one string for each of the tribes in Madagascar. The man could play it really well; it sounded wonderful. He had smaller ones for sale, but they sounded tinny, similar to comparing a Ukeleli to a guitar. I wish I had recorded him playing, as it was much prettier than the things I have heard on-line.
We also visited Miniature Mami, where we watched him make wonderful toy models from bits ot discarded material. The bicycle wheel, complete with spokes, was amazing.
We watched zebu horn being turned into all sorts of useful and decorative things. I was surprised at how easy it was to clean out the interior of the horn after boiling it. If necessary for a particular piece, it could be further shaped in a hand-press while still soft from boiling.
Serti is a type of silk painting where each part of the design is first outlined with a water-based resist. The resist keeps the subsequent dye from bleeding past the border formed by the resist.
We purchased some serti artwork and linens, as well as some zebu horn items for the kitchen. We also visited a gem dealer where we bought a small pink Sapphire for Dona. I have mixed feelings about gemstones, particularly when purchased far from the source. In this case it was a local source, and all of the money stayed in Madagascar with local individuals. However, there is still the environmental degradation that comes with the mining, even if it is locals hand-washing gravels. Once home, my friend at Lynde Howe Silverworks set it.
We only had the morning, then we had lunch while waiting for Sid's driver to arrive. We said good-bye to Sid and he headed back to Antananarivo for his flight home. Outside our restaurant, a band was assembling for a parade celebration of some kind.
