Anakao

Anakao belongs to the Vezo, the fishing people of Madagascar's south-west coast, whose settlements have moved along this shore for centuries as fish, wind and water dictated. Vezo identity is defined by the sea rather than by descent: people become Vezo by living from fishing and sailing. The village lies on a long beach facing the island of Nosy Ve, with the great mouth of the Onilahy river to the north.

The bay north of here has a longer written history than the village itself. In the seventeenth century English settlers attempted a colony at St Augustine's Bay and were expelled by the Malagasy; European ships nonetheless continued to call at the bay to trade, and Toliara was later founded to the north to keep up that trade. Anakao stayed a fishing settlement outside that story.

In the twentieth century the coast was drawn into the wider economy through the fish trade, and in recent decades a small number of beach bungalows and lodges opened, bringing divers, birdwatchers and, in the southern winter, whale watchers. Tourism now sits alongside fishing rather than replacing it, and the village has kept its shape: no road runs through it, and most arrivals still come off a boat onto the sand.

The Vezo way of life shapes everything here. Men fish from lakana, the pirogues hollowed from a single log and driven by sail and paddle, going out before dawn and returning through the day; women glean the reef flats at low tide for octopus, shellfish and sea cucumbers, and dry and trade the catch. Boat building and repair happen on the beach in full view, with hand tools and local timber.

Ancestral custom is taken seriously. Tombs stand near the point of the village, apart from the houses, and are not approached casually: the living go to them only for burials and the work of building tombs. Fady differ from family to family and from village to village, so the safe course is to ask and to follow what a local guide says. Christianity is practised alongside these observances.

Music and dance belong to celebrations, funerals and the end of good fishing seasons, and the fast guitar-led tsapiky of the Toliara coast is the sound of them. The village is small and social life is public: conversation on the sand, football on flat ground at low tide, and long greetings before any business is done.

Anakao is a village strung along the shore in timber, reed and thatch houses with a handful of concrete buildings, a school and small shops. There is no mains electricity network of the kind found in the towns; lodges and some houses run on solar panels and generators, and fresh water is scarce enough that it is carried, stored and used carefully.

Almost everyone lives from the sea, directly or through the trade in dried and salted fish that moves inland to Toliara and beyond. As fish stocks have come under pressure, some Vezo fishers have gone far offshore for months at a time in search of sharks and sea cucumbers, and a minority of households keep small gardens and goats in the sandy ground behind the village. Tourism provides boat work, guiding and lodge jobs for part of the year.

The day follows the tide and the wind: boats out early, the catch sold and dried through the morning, repairs and rest in the heat of the afternoon, and the beach busy again in the evening light. Distance is the constant problem — the nearest hospital, bank and market of any size are across the water in Toliara — and drought, overfishing and cyclones are the recurring threats.

Anakao eats what the reef and the channel give up. Fish of many kinds, octopus, squid, crab, lobster and sea urchins are grilled over charcoal, fried, or cooked with tomato, ginger and coconut milk, and are eaten with rice where it can be had. Octopus, much of it gleaned from the reef flats, is stewed slowly, and small fish are salted and dried on racks along the beach for trade inland.

Away from the visitor kitchens, everyday food is the food of the dry south rather than of rice-growing Madagascar: cassava, maize and sweet potato, boiled or pounded, with dried fish and greens. Sakay, the fiery chilli paste, is the usual seasoning, and coconut and tamarind add sweetness and sourness to sauces.

Drinks are simple. Ranon'ampango, the water boiled in the rice pot, is drunk with meals, alongside sweetened coffee and tea; Three Horses Beer and rum made from Malagasy cane are the alcohol, and fresh coconut and fruit juices appear when supplies come across from Toliara. Meals in the lodges are usually fixed by what the boats brought in that morning.