Morondava

Morondava grew where the Morondava river meets the Mozambique Channel, in country long held by the Sakalava. From the sixteenth century this coast formed the heart of the Sakalava kingdom of Menabe, whose chiefdoms were centred on Andakabe, the present Morondava, and whose royal ancestors are still honoured in the region. The shore itself was worked by fishing and boat-building communities, and the sheltered river mouth made a natural landing place.

Guns obtained from Arab traders made the Sakalava a formidable power until the late eighteenth century. The highland Merina kingdom then fought its way into southern Menabe from 1834, winning in 1846, though the north of the kingdom stayed independent. The Menabe chiefs united against the French invasion and met French troops in battle in 1897, but the region was incorporated into the colony, and Morondava grew as a commercial town, where Indian merchant families settled; it is now the capital of the Menabe region.

Since independence the town has lived on that hinterland and, increasingly, on travellers heading for the baobabs and the forests inland. The sea has been the other constant: rising water threatens the seaward side of the sand spit, and sea defences have been built along the shore. Cyclones crossing the Mozambique Channel add to the damage in the worst years.

Morondava is a Sakalava town, and Sakalava identity is bound up with the memory of the Menabe kingdom and with reverence for royal ancestors. At the Fitampoha, held every five years at Belo-sur-Tsiribihina north of Morondava, the relics of the ancient Sakalava kings are bathed in the Tsiribihina river, and ancestral authority still carries weight in ordinary decisions. Tombs in this part of the west are built with care and are sometimes decorated with carved wooden posts and figures; they are sacred ground, shown to outsiders only with permission and a guide.

Fady — prohibitions that vary between families, clans and villages, covering foods, days, directions and places — govern daily conduct, and the correct response for a visitor is simply to ask and to follow local advice. Around the town the mixture is wider than Sakalava alone: Vezo fishing families, Betsileo, Merina and Tsimihety families, Indian merchant families who arrived in colonial times, and people of Chinese descent have all settled here.

Music and dance belong to celebrations and funerals alike, and in tromba ceremonies the spirits of royal ancestors are consulted. Life runs at an unhurried pace, and greetings, handshakes and enquiries about family come before business.

About 50,000 people live in Morondava, which makes it a substantial town by the standards of the Madagascan west but small enough to cross on foot. The economy rests on fishing, on rice and other crops from the river plain behind the town, on trade and administration for the Menabe region, and on tourism, which brings vehicles, guides, hotel work and craft selling for part of the year.

Most residents live inland from the beach, in single-storey houses of concrete, timber and palm along sandy streets, while the seaward spit at Nosy Kely holds the hotels. Mornings begin early and are the busiest part of the day: pirogues return with fish, the market fills, cyclo-pousse riders work the main road, and by the middle of the afternoon the heat has emptied the streets again.

The town's hardest problems are environmental and economic. Rising water threatens the seaward side of the spit; cyclones and floods arrive in the rainy season; and the dry forests inland, the basis of both the baobab landscape and the region's wildlife, are steadily cleared for farmland, including sugar-cane plantations. Electricity and water supplies are unreliable, as they are across much of the country.

The coast sets the menu. Fish, crab, prawns, squid and octopus are landed daily and cooked simply — grilled over charcoal, or stewed with tomato, ginger and coconut milk — and always eaten with rice, vary, which is the centre of every Malagasy meal. Dried and salted fish is traded inland from here, and is a staple in the villages away from the water.

Everyday food in the town follows the national pattern: a plate of rice with a laoka, a side dish of fish, beans, greens or zebu meat in a light broth, with sakay, the fiery chilli paste, on the table. Ravitoto, pounded cassava leaves cooked with pork, and romazava, the beef and leafy-greens stew, appear in the small hotely eateries around the market. Cassava, maize and sweet potato matter more here than in the highlands.

The Menabe plain supplies rice, beans and tomatoes, and the surrounding dry forest supplies the fruit of the baobab, ripe in November and December, with an edible pulp around its seeds. Mangoes, tamarind and coconut turn up in drinks and sweets. Ranon'ampango, one of Madagascar's most common traditional drinks, is the everyday one; Three Horses Beer, rum from the island's cane, and strong local coffee are the alternatives.