Madagascar Pt. 3: Mora Mora

If America is the fastest country in the world then Madagascar is really in the running for the slowest. Except for the way they play basketball, which is incredibly fast and I will talk about that in some other essay. America has microwaves, fast lanes on the highway, up to the minute news outlets, jam packed schedules, and each person has about six different ways to tell the time (watch, phone, computer, radio, oven timer, bank signs). Things are scheduled to the minute and expected to happen at that time. Showing up late for an appointment is very disrespectful and something like a flight or bus leaving or arriving half an hour late can utterly ruin someone's day. The scheduled departure time in the morning for a bus in Madagascar might be when the bus driver decides to wake up, and still there is breakfast to eat and time spent talking to everyone he meets along the way.

It is almost a way of life for these people, and it is called "mora mora". It kind of means "relax" or "take your time", but I get the feeling that at the heart of it , it is really an expression that time doesn't really matter. If things happen on the hour that they are supposed to, then it is on time. How could something as trivial as minutes be important? A major factor to this is that not many people even have watches or easy access to the time. So if someone is told to be somewhere at four o'clock and for some reason they really want to get there on time, then they try to get there when it feels like it might be around four o'clock. As a bit of an experiment I asked some people who actually had watches what time it was and got a wide variety of answers. In America our computers and phones are automatically calibrated to the correct time and time zone. I'm guessing that here in Madagascar a watch is left at whatever time it was set to when it was bought.

The strangest thing to me is that it seems like the whole country is uniformly adjusted to "Malagasy time". People don't spend hours waiting on other people, they are nearly equally late themselves. Even if someone is left waiting for a good chunk of time they don't get worked up about it. It is only when foreigners come in and jam everything up with punctuality that things come unglued.

Another result of this regard to time is that things are often put off to the last possible moment or beyond. Here, the Malagasy people really shine. If the right people can be convinced that something is absolutely urgent and must be done immediately, then everyone springs into action. It's like watching a three toed sloth get an adrenaline shot to the chest by John Travolta. Papers are signed and stamped, phone calls are made, MInisters nod approval and everyone hustles even more. Things almost always work out in the end in this fashion. The problem with this is that it only reassures the people that things can be put off to the absolute last second.

The greatest thing about "mora mora" is that in the time not spent rushing to get things done on time, the people of Madagascar live rich social lives. Everyone is greeted along the way somewhere and conversations are had at a much more leisurely and civilized pace. No halfhearted "hey, how are you"'s that don't really want an answer are asked. People get to work late or don't work at all in the mornings because the night before was spent with friends and family. Maybe partying, or maybe just talking the entire night because tomorrow is tomorrow and they were enjoying themselves.

The ups ad downs of "mora mora" and America's rushing stare at each other from opposite ends of a spectrum. As crazy as I get waiting on people because I prefer to be on time, I've decided that both America and I could do with some "mora mora".

Madagascar Pt. 2

I walked through a part of the world today I thought I'd never see, Hell. The hotel that the basketball team stays at is removed from the complex where the rest of the sports teams stay and where we eat most of our meals by about three quarters of a mile. Because the men's and women's teams share a bus to get to and from places we happened to get abandoned at the cafeteria while the women's team was on their way to a scrimmage. Soma few of us decided to walk. The fastest way was alongside a narrow canal that runs through Antananarivo. I wouldn't have gone down it if I wasn't with the other guys.

I have never seen poverty like this. It was like I was surrounded by those late night commercials asking for donations for the children of impoverished countries that we all ignore. I am completely at a lose as I try to find a way to describe it in detail and I couldn't bring myself to pull out my iPhone to take a picture. The value of that phone is more than any of the small children I passed by will see in their lifetimes. I couldn't use something that would seem like a wheelbarrow full of gold to record their misery. It was incredibly sad. I feel changed by a fifteen minute walk.

I saw a group of children playing in a small clearing. I don't know what they were playing, the had no ball or toys, but two of them stopped in the middle of their game squatted down and urinated. They rose and continued to play.

The canal is lined on both sides by shacks maybe five times the size of a doghouse. Entire families live in them. Sleep in them, eat in them, and probably give birth and die in them. The shed behind my parent's house that is filled with boxes and lawn mowers would be a palace to them.

The water that fills the canal is as disgusting as you can imagine. I'm not sure if the people are so bold and desperate to drink it but I did see some men fishing in it. I can't imagine the fish that would come out of that filth. There was also a boy flat on his stomach at the edge of the water washing his face in water that was surely worse than any dirt he might have on his face.

I don't think I'll ever say the phrase "I'm starving" again to express that I am hungry.

My Life in Two Bags and a Backpack

I travel a lot. Not as much as some, but when I do travel my entire life goes with me. As of the current trip I am on I live on three different continents throughout the year. I am a citizen of the two countries I spend the least time in. One of the most important persons in my life is whomever is helping me at the airport check-in desk or the agent at the gate. On them depends my sanity and the health of my knees. I would do almost anything for this person to be assigned an exit row seat on my international flights. Even things I would probably be ashamed of. I've flown over the oceans enough times to lose count and I've recently crossed the equator for the first of many times I'm sure. Each trip I've been assigned that Holy Grail of seat numbers.

The title of this essay isnt completely true. I do have things stored at my Mother's house, a few of which I use during the few months I stay in the States, but most of it is stored there unused until my life calms down and becomes far less nomadic. Being able to carry everything I use and wear for the majority of the year has an independent feel to it. I can easily and quickly pick up and go wherever I wish, but it also can be frustrating. Standing at the baggage carousel after everyone has left is very depressing. Your vacation has been tainted by this hassle and perhaps you've lost some vacation clothes if your bag is truly lost and not just arriving on the next plane from wherever you came from. With me, one missing bag means half of all I own is gone. Half of what I planned to wear and use for perhaps the next eight months gone to whatever balck hole it seems airlines leave one in every hundred bags they are entrusted with.

Can we speak a few moments about how bad traveling by air has become? In how many new ways can the airlines find to charge us for? The base price for tickets has gone up along with new charges to check any baggage, get a pillow, headphones, or dozens of other hidden and blatant charges alike. In response to these added charges travelers have become a surly lot. In their own response those who work at the airport or for the airlines have become defensive and spiteful. I don't really blame them. An airport might be the last place I would ever want to work. No customer ever talks to you about anything good. Booking, checking in, and boarding have become so automated that if things go correctly passengers and employees never need speak. The two sides meet whenever something goes wrong. Delayed flights, missed connections, overbooking (how does that happen anyway, does the airline forget exactly how many seats there are on the plane?), and a number of other things have made air travel an incredible source of stress. I'm just waiting for an all out riot to break out in a major airport after too many flights get six hour delays and the airlines can no longer control the masses with meal vouchers and lies about estimated departure times. Just remember when you see the breaking news on CNN about travelers holding American Airlines gate agents hostage with sporks, you heard it here first.

Madagascar Pt. 1

All these people eat is rice. They eat enough of it to fill them up but there seems to be no nutritional value to it. I've also shit maybe three times in the week I've been here. That can't be good.

The local language, Malagasy, seems to be a mix of several different languages. A bit of of French and some tribal languages. Somehow the way they speak it makes it all sound like Farsi as well. The words are all so long and each word seems to have at least four "a's". I may be able to learn French, but there is no way in hell that I can learn Malagasy.

The rules governing traffic seems to be whomever has the largest vehicle or least regard for their own safety has the right of way. Huge traffic jams appear out of nowhere on road barely big enough for two cars to pass and many times the congestion isn't due to anything in particular. To make matters worse, swarms of people walking along will just take over the road and there is nothing to do but wait for them to pass. Beggars or vendors will stand in the very middle of the road to catch the attention of the traffic going in both directions. At major intersections there is SOMETIMES a police officer in place of traffic lights to direct who is supposed to go. But they don't work on Sundays, so it is a real free for all on the seventh day. As crazy as the people in Madagascar drive it is surprising how slowly they go over speed bumps. A near out of control bus filled with people, including myself, slows to a crawl to creep as gently as a kitten over the most subtle speed bumps.

I used to think I got stares walking down the street. I had no idea. The people here see maybe one or two white people a day. They have never seen someone my size before, much less a tall white man my size with a shaved head. I turn more heads than not just by sitting in our team bus to and from practice. If we are stuck in traffic I'll sometimes draw a crowd.

Our practices are at the university in the worst gym I have ever stepped foot in. The floor has more dead spots than not and enough dirt on the court to play beach volleyball. In the mornings there are leaks straight onto the court from the dew that collects on the roof. A wet towel is thrown on top of the puddle and we are directed to run our fast break around it. What's more, is that there are good sized sections of the court that the boards are just missing. I try to avoid these holes as well. Thankfully this isn't where we will be playing or practicing for much longer hopefully. I'm told there is a very nice stadium that we normally use but the African Judo Championships are being hosted there. Who knew Africans did Judo?

As poor as the people in this country are it seems like they spend quite a lot of money on their cell phones. About every fifty feet alongside the streets and sometimes on very busy streets within reaching distance of each other are what you might call pre-paid cell phone recharge kiosks. What they more resemble are three pieces of rotted wood somehow attached to each other with a faded cloth sign hung over the front. Standing behind the kiosk is someone who takes the little money these people can come by and adds minutes to their phone's sim cards. There are so many of these kiosks that it stands to reason that they get plenty of business. It seems these people are just as interested in staying in touch with each other as anything else.

More than anything the people here are incredibly nice and surprisingly happy in spite of the poverty. That is what I've been thinking my first week in, more to come as my adventure continues.

Friends

Dear Friends and Strangers,

Friends to me are the people in my life who I can not see for months or years and then fall immediately back into our groove when we eventually get together. Since a young age I have spent very little time in the same place, except for four years in college, and the years that stretch out before me look to be the same. It is pretty much impossible for me to have that decades long friendship with my best friend who lives just down the road and always will. Due to the basketball jones the amount of time I spend in any given place is measured in months. That is also the shelf life for most of my friendships that are created in that place. With the overwhelming majority of them a reunion years later is the exchange of pleasantries and brief histories of what we have been up to. With the true friends, the subject of this rant, hardly any of that is necessary. We run into each other and say “what’s up” like we had seen each other the day before and not eighteen months before, sit down and watch a game without saying a word to each other for the duration. Those are my best friendships, the ones where that ease just falls right back into place.

Fortunately for me the lifestyle that forces these types of friendships is also one that facilitates them. Naturally, most of my friends are other basketball players, teammates with whom I spend countless hours and have so much in common with. Like me, they have spent their adult lives thus far chasing basketball all over the world and are accustomed much like myself to go months and years without seeing a good friend. Being a globetrotter and having globetrotter friends has an incredible benefit. I can travel almost anywhere within Spain and to many of the major cities throughout Europe and I’m almost sure to have a friend nearby.

In the end, the all over the place life I live does make it difficult to have close long lasting friendships, but the good friends I am fortunate enough to have are similar to me in our nomad ways. So here’s to you friends across the globe, I’ll see you in a couple months or years.