19 March, 2019
This article appears in Volume 25: The Pioneer Issue
I can't tell you a story about Madagascar. Stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. There tends to be some sort of message in them and a clear trajectory towards uncovering it. But the days I spent on this island nation adrift off the coast of Mozambique cannot be chronicled or distilled. They are a matryoshka doll of tales, a patchwork of encounters.
Most destinations come with a preformed narrative that shapes your expectations - you've read the bumf, seen photographs plastered all over Instagram and your colleague visited last year. However, I had few preconceptions of Madagascar. Unlike Kenya with safaris or Bali with beaches, it has not been neatly pre-packaged for tourists but is instead raw, rough around the edges and unabashedly true to itself. As a result, I find myself clumsily clutching at memories: there is no map on which to plot my coordinates or skeleton on which to hang my words...
