For Your Eyes Only

Sometimes I get to thinking that everyone in Madagascar is just part of an entertainment directed solely towards me. Before explaining, I should point out that most, if not all, Malagasy view me as the same way, whether I am leaning out of a taxibrousse waving frantically at strangers or looking directly at strangers and belting out classic rock anthems at full volume. Much like myself, once they learn to laugh at me we all get along much better. But as for the constant entertainment for my viewing pleasure, I offer the example of taxibrousse travel itself. In my experience, particularly on my journeys from my site to my banking town and back, a 3 hour ride along a crummy mountainous road, the taxibrousse can provide moments of pure hilarity. I should note that this “road,” for which a better description might be “disappearing clay sliding off moutains interspersed by massive craters,” has once taken 10 hours to navigate by brousse. So that 3 hours is just what it should take. Anyways, on the taxibrousse there are always moments that I feel are aimed directly at me. Today we stopped in a mudpit to shovel in some solid dirt for traction. The driver’s helper takes one dig and stops and looks directly at me in the front seat – he cracked the shovel on the first scoop! It hung there at a right angle to the wood handle, making a humorous L. He then continued to somehow scoop enough dirt into the pit with the spade hanging on by a thread of metal. If not hilarious, at least impressive. Also, the brousses are usually performing an Iscapades act on the slick muddy road, sliding every possible way before at the last second before a bridge or tight pass straighteneing out. Another example comes from my site visit, when I was reading Hemingway’s description of artillery bombardment in “A Farewell to Arms,” that I felt a massive bump and looked up to see our ascent of a hill “paved” with rocks with huge holes in it. It too looked like it had been assaulted by World War I artillery. Oh, anytime we have to pull over to make way for an oxen-cart, that is always a classic (my first instance of this was during training, when we were stuck in massive Tana traffic only to find out the cause were some ombys). And of course, whenever we get a few km out of town and the brousse breaks down and we have to wait for a new one (one of the two times this has happened I just walked for a few hours until it showed up for the final 10km. Everyone had a good laugh AT me that time). So an important lesson I have learned here is that humor is all around us, always. And if none of these fun things happen to you, you can always take enjoyment from the ridiculous American music the brousses play (travel just isn’t the same without Justin Timberlake followed by 80’s hair classic “Carrie”). Of course, the humor that only I get to see may leave the Malagasy feeling a bit left out, but they all get their chances to laugh as well. Like when I laugh as a bag falls off the top of the brousse, and then they all laugh when we all realize it was my bag. D’oh!
-Chris Planicka, he of the oft-creepy facial hair (and who Hobi refers to as "The Creepster")