Gap year in Madagascar with Azafady

Elizabeth Bailie reflects on her time in Madagascar with Azafady

I was a Pioneer with Azafady in 2009.  I love the opportunity to reminisce so bear with me if I sound a bit over excited - I'll do my best to keep the cheesiness to a minimum!

was looking for a volunteering project to get involved with for my gap year before going to university.  Madagascar caught my eye purely because I thought it fulfilled my 'random, exciting place' criteria!  I wanted to do a mix of projects and work closely with communities.  The Pioneer scheme ticked all my boxes and my decision was made!  After trawling through so many 'gap year organisations' that seemed to skirt around the usages of your small fortune you paid to get there, the fact that Azafady is a registered charity was also really reassuring.

I have decided that putting my time in Madagascar into words is impossible.  I can honestly say that the three months I spent in Madagascar were the best three months of my life, and even that doesn't do it justice.  The experience you get when you volunteer with Azafady is so authentic; the absolute immersion in a culture so different and so fantastic is something that I'll never forget.

While I was in Madagascar our team took part in three separate projects out in the bush.  The first was the construction of a latrine for a brand new school that had been built by Pioneers on the previous scheme.  It hit me, again, at this point how special the Pioneer experience is when all the beautiful, smiling, barefooted kids dressed in rags crossed the river to come and welcome us.  They helped us move all our kit from the camion (big open truck - the mode of transport to the bush) to our campsite by running up and down the hill and crossing the river in wobbling, pirogues (dugout canoes).

Agnena village was amazing - by the end of our two weeks here we had become very used to waking up to the sun's first rays of the day, stepping out of our tent and living the bush life.  Learning to carry buckets of water on our heads, Malagasy dance lessons, playing tug of war with the kids, learning the basic chords on guitar, having a close encounter with a scorpion and lots of chameleons, experiencing a very wobbly pirogue trip to a deserted beach, making over 800 concrete bricks by hand and of course, most importantly, building a latrine for the school - were just some of the things we got up to!

Some of my best memories from Agnena were the bush parties - the whole village would come out and bring their home-made instrument and get a fire going.  I was pulled into the centre of the circle many a time so that I could show off my 'Mangaliba' (local tribal dance) skills... this always involved laughing with the locals at my disastrous attempts at shaking my hips and moving my feet as quickly as the little girls could!

After a short trip back to base camp in Fort Dauphin for the luxury of cold showers and Western toilets, we were out to the bush again for our second project.  As part of Azafady's reforestation project I can proudly say that, with the help of the local community, we helped to plant 11,000 trees!  This project was in a beautiful setting and the sunrises and sunsets were out of this world...with a few mega storms too.  During our days off at Angazety, we walked for a couple of hours to Sainte Luce, a stunning fishing village.  We camped here for a night or two and had fresh lobster on the gorgeous beach - untouched sand backed by one of the few remaining patches of littoral forest, crystal blue sea and the odd fisherman carrying 2 human-sized fish over his shoulders.

Our third and final project was building fuel efficient stoves in peoples' houses in the village of Ebakika.  World Environment Day, the locals' tales about crocodiles in the river, having an excuse to throw zebu (cow) poo around someone's kitchen (the highly technical way of building a fuel efficient stove!), and the very excitable children were just some of the highlights. Working so closely with the local communities is totally unique and really eye-opening.  One lady told us that she had had 13 children and 7 of them had died.  It really hits home that behind their smiles, each person has their own terribly tragic story that is totally unimaginable to those of us who don't ever have to worry about such things.  I think this is one of the reasons the local people are always so happy to see you, because Azafady's work represents hope to so many people.

There are no words that can sum up my time in Madagascar - attempts at a description include words such as awesome, heart breaking, eye-opening, bizarre, remarkable, stunning, great fun and of course Madagascar doesn't come without the 'endemic' label!  Since returning home, I have tried to change my priorities so that I can still support Azafady and I have decided that I would love to work in the development sector after I graduate from university, something I had never even thought about before going out to Madagascar.  I cannot recommend Azafady and Madagascar highly enough.  Your time there will be great fun, authentic and very special.

Elizabeth Baillie's placement in Madagascar was arranged with Azafady.