Madagascar March 2009

Our first virtual trip! It was great! My mind fled from my dreary office in March and went to warm Madagascar—and there it stayed. I went to the library and loaded up on children’s books (always get children’s books, better pictures), and a video. At work I downloaded a scene What I did NOT do although I meant to all month long, is to watch Disney’s movie Madagascar.

With this first trip I had to make some decisions. Was the goal here to learn all I could about a place in a fair and balanced way? Or was it to have fun? I decided to go with fun—exactly the way I would approach a real vacation. The big pro to this approach is that I’ll be more likely to spend more of my life in interesting places as opposed to reading one giant book about the history and politics of Madagascar and then never mustering up the energy to go anywhere else in my mind again. In general, it’s safe to say that a countries politics and history are unlikely to be as fascinating to me as its current culture with its food, festivals and scenic places. Unless of course, that history involved head hunting, that’s a different story.

I feel vaguely guilty about this. Somewhere in the back of my mind is a teacher who is disappointed that I can’t tell her the elevation and major exports of Madagascar. But on the other hand, I’m glad I didn’t miss the lemurs! I had no idea there were so many kinds of lemurs (weird creatures) and that so many other animals live only in Madagascar and nowhere else. I found a book with hundreds of lemurs and the book brightened up many a trip to the bathroom—where many books of a browsy nature find a home.

To celebrate our trip I tried to make as authentic a dinner as I could. Looking at recipes on the internet. I decided two things. First—I am just going to do the best I can with any country I visit—some ingredients are simply too foreign or too expensive, substitutions will have to do. Also, while I’m a moderately adventurous eater, some things such as fish-eyes and fried termites are out of the question.

So I made quite a good dinner of rice, a kind of baked meat, and a dessert of fruit with vanilla (vanilla is big in Madagascar). I also tried making the traditional rice drink that is served with every meal. It’s basically rice-water. Either I made it wrong or its an acquired taste. It wasn’t exactly bad; it was just chilled rice water.