July 21: 8 days have passed since I came to Ambohimahamasina.
What are 8 days compared to eternity? The days have passed long and monotonous, enlivened by small events of great importance: the market, a lesson in English that I did on Friday, the arrival of two foreign unfortunately gone by too quickly, zoma mafinatra or the fever on Friday evening, the sale of a pig, Sunday mass.
I have plenty of time to rework every gesture, every word, every meeting.
Every day I wake up around 7:00. I have breakfast: coffee and cookies or more frequently mofo Gasy, brioscine of rice flour. The morning before I prepare as a long path that leads nowhere. I'm going for a walk? I read a bit '? I go to find some members of FIZAM?
Every day I try to do the programs, which promptly wrecked in anything. Manao program? Inon ny program? I ask everyone. I'll try to arrange a little ', but everything is back to an undetermined after that never comes and the agenda is full of erasures. See you later, I am told, are three in the afternoon or some other time not well defined, if not immediately. Everyone seems very busy in their chores: women in the home, men in the rice fields, children playing in the street.
I find myself going back and forth between the house where they are housed and the town square. In this quiet monotony, I talk to many people. With small children, who play to make the stones speak, with their mothers wash clothes at the fountain or intertwine and combing their hair. Some people ask me about my family, who wants lessons in English, who asked me a few phrases in Italian, who wants me sell peanuts. One two three smoke cigarettes enjoying the warmth of the sun, eat the chocolate bars that I took from the city and, unfortunately, they begin to dry up. I look at the valley. Meanwhile, he made time for lunch, but the balance of the work is quite poor. I spoke with everyone, except with those who could give me a hand to see things more clearly in this research. They, my key informants, avoid me politely, by accident or on purpose, that's not my understanding.
of tourists, even the shadow. The phenomenon is unfortunately so inconsistent as to make my ridiculous questions. Am I the only tourists in this village! Too little to upset the rhythm! Yet, I am convinced that in all these ashes, a bit 'of embers still there!
The hours are pitted one by one like the beads of a rosary. Look forward to light to charge the computer. Look forward to lunch time to dinner. Wait for the sunset to try to catch someone who, at the end of the day, who wants to tell me something.
is obvious, even the conversations that lead nowhere have their magic. I learn many things about the life of this little village sleeping in paddy fields. But patience teases the frustration, the tranquility you waiting and waiting insinuates doubt. What am I doing here?
Inside of me fighting two opposite and conflicting feelings. From the human point of view, I'm happy to be here, to know these people and make myself known to them. Every moment seems to reduce the seemingly huge cultural distances that separate us. It is a continuous exchange, full of surprises. From the academic point of view, however, little new under the sun. The research carry heavily. People are distant, suspicious, particularly in the elderly: the more I try to talk to them, the more you withdraw. Maybe I'm being put to the test, perhaps they are teaching me to be like them, always indirect, always allusive. I try to learn to ask the questions by turning things around.
parlandocon Haja The other day, one of the guides FIZAM, I discovered that one of the initiators of tourism to Ambohimahamasina a few years before the creation of FIZAM is a certain Monsieur Silvestre. As it happened, Monsieur Silvestre lives just opposite. So Monday I go to him early in the morning. I explain who I am and what I do to Ambohimahasina. "Merci d'avance" - he says - "Without someone to give us the feedback, we do not make sense." Kind words, I hope they leave. However, he says, he is not immediately possible to stay with me. Tomorrow, today, must go at left to committees, so we can talk on his return. I thank him for availability and return home, charge pending.
Today I meet him around the village. He has not left yet, she says, probably will start tomorrow. The renewal politely call for a chat. "On my return," he says, even if this return is so unclear in the beginning. In the afternoon, I see him sitting in the sun, alone, in the village square. I decide to show him that I have patience. I go and sit next to him with my book. For two hours we remain silent. He's not asking me why the word, I continue to read my book.
Thus, it is past now, and probably will again tomorrow, and who knows ... maybe the whole week. Someone had warned me: "You'll see! This people do not speak. " Now I begin to understand.
I learn to have patience, and an idiotic smile on his face.
0 comments:
Post a Comment