DAY4 Madagascar

Road trip🇲🇬

Why Malagasy Women Paint Their Faces

When you are on your dream holiday in Madagascar look out for the Malagasy with women with beautifully painted faces and bright traditional clothes who will surely bring a smile to your face, and don’t be too shy to ask for a picture. In Madagascar it is not only the flora and fauna that is both unique and intriguing but the people as well. There are so many customs and traditions that are particular to the country, stirred together from a melting pot of cultures that span Africa, Asia, and even Europe. Travellers to the country may be surprised to see women walking around with beautifully painted faces and wonder whether there is a festival that they were unaware of, or whether it is a connection to a specific tribe or group. The patterns and area of the face covered may vary but one thing remains consistent: the colours of the paint. Why is this so? What is it made of and why do they do it? Read below to find out more about Madagascar face paint.

The “paint” is actually made from a special type of wood, specifically the bark of a tree that is ground into powder and then mixed into a paste. These elaborate patterns aren’t merely decorative but also are applied to protect the skin from the damage of the sun as well as ward off insects such as mosquitoes. It is also believed to make your skin more beautiful, much like a face masque or cream would. The mask is known as Masonjaony. The custom is also a common occurrence in the nearby Comoros islands and it is said to have originated there.

13/05/2025 - Morondava - Antsirabe :

Trip plan: 470 km - about 9 to 10h drive : Return back on the same road and have long drive again, the landscape is good, it is still possible to stop take pictures - Arrival in Antsirabe by the end of the afternoon - Installation at your hotel - overnight

Today we travel back to the east coast using the same route. It probably won't be any different from the way we came, except that we will get to see the same places at different times. Yesterday we saw the lives of the locals in the evening, today we will get to see what they do in the morning.

As far as I have observed, the suburbs are not as lively as in the evening. There are no products being sold on the side of the road, and there are no groups of people cooking in front of their houses. Older children wear light green uniforms, some walk, some ride tricycles to school, and some travel to work with their families. Small children were running around the neighborhood, but there were fewer of them than yesterday evening.

Situation of the children in Madagascar

Demographically speaking, Madagascar is a fairly young nation: Around 44 per cent of the population are less than 14 years old. Many children grow up without parental care and protection. In the streets of the capital, thousands of young Madagascans roam the streets begging, engaging in child prostitution, cleaning car windows or selling merchandise.

While in most African nations HIV/AIDS tends to be the major reason that drives children into orphanhood, figures show a rather different picture for Madagascar. Out of a total of 910,000 orphans, 11,000 children have lost their parents due to AIDS.

Although the infant mortality rate has dropped significantly since the early 1990s, it is still high at 51 per 1,000 live births.

Although primary school enrolment has increased significantly over recent years and is now at 98 per cent, the Madagascan education system is marked by generally high drop-out and repetition rates.

Lack of funds, further aggravated by the EU foreign aid freeze policy, and discontinuity in educational reforms pose a threat to the adequate education of children.
After donor funding came to an end in the wake of the military coup in 2009, many poor families now have to pay either partially or completely for the primary school education of their children.

Child labour is an issue tightly associated with the problems in the country's education sector. Although the government of Madagascar has introduced laws to combat many of the worst forms of child labour, the problem persists. Thousands of children between 5 and 14 years of age work in agriculture.

Children as young as eight engage in the production of wine, tea, cocoa, cotton and vanilla. Many of them have to use dangerous machinery and inhale toxic fumes on a daily basis. Child domestic servants work 12 hours a day or more. Most of them never receive a salary.

The commercial sexual exploitation of young boys and girls, particularly in tourist areas, is a sad reality in Madagascar. Additionally, human trafficking and in particular child trafficking has become a common phenomenon in Madagascar. It is a source country for both domestic and international trafficking. Young girls are recruited near airports and are trafficked abroad, where they have to work in private households.

VILLAGES

The SOS Children's Village in Madagascar provides loving homes to orphaned and abandoned children

On reaching the highland, we briefly stopped for breakfast at a scenic spot and continued our journey.

We arrived at the riverside community again. In this area, most of their houses are plant base construction.

Plant-base construction

Dwellings made of plant material are common in the coastal regions and were once commonly used throughout the Highlands as well.^[5] The types of plants available in a given locality determine the building material and style of construction. The vast majority of homes made of plant material are rectangular, low (one-story) houses with a peaked roof and are often built on low stilts. These architectural features are nearly identical to those found in parts of Indonesia.Materials used for construction include reeds (near rivers), rushes (in the southwest around Toliara), endemic succulents (as fencing in the south), wood (in the south and among the Zafimaniry, and formerly common in the Highlands), bamboo (especially in the eastern rain forests), papyrus (formerly in the Highlands around Lake Alaotra), grasses (ubiquitous), palms (ubiquitous but prevalent in the west around Mahajanga) and raffia(especially in the north and northeast).^[5] For much of the length of the eastern coast of Madagascar bordering the Indian Ocean, architecture is highly uniform: nearly all traditional homes in this region are built on low stilts and are roofed with thatch made of the fronds of the traveler's palm (ravinala madagascariensis).

The stilts, floor and walls are commonly made of the trunk of this same plant, typically after pounding it flat to make wide planks (for floors and roofing) or narrow strips (for walls). These strips are affixed vertically to the frame; the raffia plant is often used in the same way, in place of the traveler's palm, in the north.^[5] When bamboo is used in place of ravinala, the long pounded sheets are often woven together to create walls with a checker-like pattern.

These traditional homes have no chimney. Their floor is covered in a woven mat with stones heaped in one corner where wood fires can be burnt to cook food; the smoke that accumulates blackens the ceiling and interior walls over time.The doorways of these homes were traditionally left open or could be shut by a woven screen held closed with a leather strap;^[8] today the entryway is frequently hung with a fabric curtain.Variations on this basic template can be found in all coastal regions using locally available material. The largest of the traditional coastal houses are found in the southeast among the Antemoro, Tanala and Antefasy peoples, where homes can reach 18' long, 9' wide and 15' high. Elsewhere along the coast homes are much smaller, averaging 10' long, 8' wide and 9' high.

Local Taste

Madagascar is known for its unique local coffee taste, often characterized by a sweet, fruity profile, especially the Robusta Kouillou variety. This coffee is grown in various regions, including Antalaha, Sambava, Fenerive, Brickaville, Vatomandry, and Vatovavy fitovinany, which offer ideal climatic and geographical conditions.

Wood-based construction

It is believed that wood construction was formerly common in many parts of Madagascar but it has all but disappeared due to deforestation.^[10] This is especially true in the Highlands where, until recently, wood had been a building material reserved for the aristocratic class due to its increasing rarity, leaving the lower classes to construct in other locally available materials such as reeds and grasses; sticks and branches are occasionally used where available, creating sporadic villages of wood typically within proximity to forest reserves.While the wooden architectural tradition among the aristocracy of the Merina has died out,^[at least two ethnic groups can be said to have a continuing tradition of plank wood architecture: the Zafimaniry in the central Highlands, and the Antandroy in the far south. Each of these three traditions is described below.

We stopped for lunch at the same restaurant as we pass this town last time.The menu had grilled zebu beef with sauce, served with rice and mashed potatoes.

Warm Evening again

Soils

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Madagascar has been called the "Great Red Island" because of the prominence of red lateritic soils. The red soils predominate the Central Highlands, although there are much richer soils in the regions of former volcanic activity, Itasy and Ankaratra, and Tsaratanana to the north. A narrow band of alluvial soils is found all along the east coast and at the mouths of the major rivers on the west coast; clay, sand, and limestone mixtures are found in the west; and shallow or skeletal laterite and limestone are located in the south. Deforestation and grazing cause aggressive erosion in many locations.