"Tana" Faritanin' Antananarivo by quapaw

During my stay in Madagascar I am living in Mahazo, a suburb of Tana 5 kilometres east of the town centre. MATE has its “volunteers house” located here. There are very nice sunset views from the backyard overlooking the nearby hills, while little kids are playing basketball with a flat ball just below. The main road to Toamasina, the Route National 2, runs straight through Mahazo. There is a lively market and there are many small very cheap restaurants or hotelly’s. Zebu meat, including stomach, whole heads and jellied lips, is for sale at dozens of small butcher shops with (very ugly) street dogs loitering about. Gibberish can be heard all day from the countless taxi-be touts shouting there destinations from the back of their shabby busses. Its about a 30 minute taxi-be ride to Analakely in the town centre, but can take up to an hour if traffic is bad, which is very often the fact.
We often go out for a three horses beer or two at the local bar that is just around the corner. The local fermented sugarcane rum Dzama, which basically tastes like petrol, is also quite good but gives you a terrible headache in the morning though…

Avenue de l'Independence, Down town Tana

Avenue de l’independence is the main street in the centre of town. It is a large boulevard, which is quite special in Tana as most of the streets are more like small cobble stone ally’s heavily congested by traffic. The large railway station is unused and there is even a quite large market on the tracks. As you walk along the streets your followed around a lot of the time by people selling all sorts of stuff or by people begging for money. Many little kids say “bonjour monsieur” while giggling as if they have never seen a white person before.

Old cars in the streets of Tana

It is really amazing how many old cars are still driving around in Madagascar. On every corner of the street you see old French cars. It is not uncommon to see 5 or 6 Citroёn HY vans parked along the side of the road. Occasionally you can see vehicles with the old names of the European company on them. I guess they were declared wrecks in Europe but found there place here in Mada.