Monthly Archives: May 2014

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At Least It Looks Nice

Daily Life

Since I work in finance, you might guess that I have a decent collection of local currency from around the world. My favorite bill so far is a color one from Indonesia with an Orang Utan on it. Most countries have at least one nice bill, but Madagascar has a whole colorful family of bills and they are pretty clean too!

The current Ariary only replaced the old Malagasy Francs about ten years ago, so the bills are all modern and colorful and show a variety of cool things that Malagasy’s are proud of, it seems.

I thought that seven different denominations seemed like a lot until I realized that the US has six that are commonly used. Japan, on the other hand, has only three bills, partly because coins cover all the transactions under 10USD. There are coins here in Madagascar, but they are not so commonly used because the smallest paper bill is worth about 0.04USD.

Narrow Streets

Daily Life, ,

I had heard that traffic is a pain here and that I should get a small car to reduce the stress of driving in the city. These photos
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were taken early in the morning when not many people are out, but they give you a feel for how narrow the roads are and how people just walk along the side of the roads. Often cars have to pull off to the side to let an oncoming truck pass. Some just honk and expect the pedestrians to move, and generally cars are often passing within centimeters of hitting someone. I have not seen any accidents so far, so it seems like another case of controlled chaos, but driving in Antananarivo is definitely more challenging that in La Paz, Addis Ababa, or Tokyo.

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Anyway, the upside of this is that you can see all of the people, and shops, and animals from a car because life is happening all along the streets and in some cases, in the middle of the streets. My little morning commute provides some nice surprises of people carrying goods, selling wares, and heading off to school or work. I’m glad I don’t have to drive myself yet, so I can just enjoy the view!

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Well-Stocked Food Shops

Daily Life, Food, , ,

In some countries, people say that you can find anything you want, but it is just expensive. I have not found that to be true in Ethiopia or Bolivia which are both landlocked with capital cities in the central highlands. There was not much ice cream in Ethiopia, for example, and not much variety of seafood in Bolivia maybe. Some of this is just a matter of local taste manifested in high or low demand, but basic logistical problems seem to play a part…

Anyway, I am surprised to see that food shops here are surprisingly well stocked. This is partly because they are run by some very big French (Leader Price and Jumbo) and South African (Shoprite) companies that bring containers full of all kinds of things from abroad. There is German cheese, French pizza, Swiss muelix, South African wine, etc. Much of it costs twice as much as it would back home, but it is amazing that this stuff is available.

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It might seem strange to import so much food so far around the world, but that’s what is already happening in wealthy countries: apples from Chile, oranges from Spain. My favorite frozen fish dinner from Trader Joes in Washington DC came from France! Anyway, it is nice to see that there are also some good local products like yogurts, honey, fruit, potato chips, etc. It all looks good to me…

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