Morning rush hour. Stress, intensity, focus. Like anywhere. Except here mostly for less than a dollar a day:
And replace briefcases with baskets. What people carry to work, and how, tells us a lot about a place:
But even in a country whose GDP/capita ranks 218th, between Sierra Leone and Somalia, there are some people who slip below even this most tattered net:
yet also some people who manage to retain their sense of style:
no matter what they have to carry around.
When you are poorer, making a living is a usually family affair. This girl was attending the ‘shop’. She looks formidable enough though.
Many of the better off were people who sold stuff from blankets and baskets, and against walls. These two sold nice stuff, and so their customers would have had a bit more money than most.
This woman, mid 30s, elegant and self-possessed, had a table out in the street, selling dinner. She wasn’t ignoring me – she wanted her photo taken in profile.
I saw a few of these guys. Walking around, setting up their tables for a while, then moving on. They were doing less well then some, but smiled easily.
Also happy were these grizzled gents sorting fish. The guy at bottom left reminded me of Zorba the Greek, and to his right the tough guy is somewhat compromised by a pink beanie.
Of course one of the problems of work here is that sometimes it is dangerous. These guys are repairing boats. Lying in the mud, under them, as the tide comes in. They were all young – no middle-aged men among them. Surprising given that this is not unskilled work. Probably it is as nasty and dangerous as it looks.
And no matter how hard you work, sometimes making a living is just tough. You only have to look at their faces to know how tough.
So, the hoodlums from the last post, where did they come from? Likely from parents so lost in their own struggle
that the kids are left to survive on the street as best they can. I watched these three as they took five minutes just to walk past the food sellers to cross the road.
After watching me for a while, these boys asked me to take their picture. As is often the case, a couple of them covered their faces or looked scared for the 1st few pictures
but eventually relaxed and posed as they realized the camera would actually do them no harm.
Why, anywhere in the world, are there kids who think a camera can harm them?
One of them, maybe 4 years old, so afraid in the earlier pictures, but still with a baby’s willingness to trust:
And this kid in clothes so dirty he is hard to see in dim light.
I saw him carrying a sack of rubbish like the angel face kid later that same evening.
I don’t know where he was going, but it likely wasn’t to a full meal.
I was near the edge of a drop taking this picture in one of the nicer areas of town when five boys appeared near me. They looked like they did not study accountancy, did not go to church on Sundays, and at that very moment did not have my best interests in mind.
Of course I knew that here one was not supposed to “show your devices”. Other travelers, guidebooks and even the locals constantly said the same. This is why there are so few real pictures of this place – Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar – even by other blogging travellers, including some whose hardiness is not in doubt.
But I was fed up, I felt the place deserved a better record. If anyone was ever old enough and ugly enough to take care of themselves, it was unimpeachably me. So here I was, somewhat unwisely on the edge of an unpleasant drop, taking pictures. The plan was obvious and elegant: bump me over the edge, which would disable me, then collect my stuff.
I quickly moved around them before they got into place and put them between myself and the drop, and then mild mannered-ly and almost accidentally, moved toward them. So now they were vulnerable.
Having established clearly that this wouldn’t be going to go quite according to the original plan, I then smiled, pointed the camera at them and offered to take their picture. All but one evaporated with the haste of fellows know to the authorities, and who were not looking for further recognition.
But this last one, the only cheery one of the lot, perhaps just along for the ride, didn’t seem to especially care whether he did me ill or got his picture taken. Bless his heart.
So, after this start, for the next few hours that evening, and the next day, I took hundreds of pictures, documenting what I felt ought to be documented. More will appear in the next few posts.
These chaps (the next day) had shadowed me for a while, perhaps with only the most impeccable of motives, perhaps even just for their own amusement. So I faced them, took their picture, then went up to them and showed them. Thanking the Lord for LCD screens. Caught somewhat by surprise, they thought the picture was insufficiently flattering and now insisted on posing for a few more:
And these chaps, who also did not seem like taxpayers or churchgoers, also responded well to an offer to take their pictures:
Sweethearts all of them. A tough life has made them all look so much tougher, and older, than they probably are.
Walking the street late one evening, this boy walked with me for a while, carrying a stick, a sack and an empty coke bottle. I made several attempts to take his picture and finally got enough light from some oncoming headlights.
He seemed much gentler than many kids on the street that evening, a lovely face, almost tender. I got another picture a few minutes later with light from both a building and another headlight (helped by ISO 6400). With his stick and his whitish disney pyjamas he looked like he was sent to lead me somewhere.
After about five minutes he stopped walking with me to continue his own business. A short while later I saw him in a rubbish skip, foraging with two or three older people. Now I understood his stick and his sack. But not his tender face.
When a people are beggared, adults lose half their life, children lose it all.
Luckless and she knows it:
Likely they will sleep where they are standing. Luckless but they do not know it yet.
This girl motioned me to take her picture. It turned out she had never seen her own face. In the villages many children when shown their picture do not recognize themselves. But I did not expect this in the city. Luckless, and after speaking to her, past the point of repair.
I followed and met these two again later. Not past the point of repair, but no repair on any horizon.
Luckless. Like everyone they knew.
But even amid the crumbling, the high-stepping pouss-pouss (rickshaw) men carry the Malagasy pride:
These guys, often in athletic singlets and shorts, take pride in their speed and fitness. They sweat proudly.
Even so, given how little business there is, they must be hungry.
This one was tough to write. Hungry yet proud, the best of humanity.
Alien Heartbeat 