Luke had been a late addition to our research team, stepping in when another member withdrew for medical reasons. His knowledge of the history, geography, economy, and culture of Madagascar proved indispensable; he was the first to make us aware of the divisions between the Merina and the côtiers and their implications for the research study. He helped us understand how our UA colleagues viewed the project, and what they hoped to gain from it. In Tana, he knew where to shop and where to eat (he introduced us to Ku-de-ta). Like anyone who has lived long enough in another country, Luke knew how to get things done. A case in point: most bureaucratic transactions require an official stamp. When Luke applied for an extended visa, the immigration authorities demanded a stamp from his institution, at that time the London School of Economics (LSE). LSE does not have a stamp, but Luke had to come up with one. He went to the bazaar where a skilled artist created a mirror imprint of the LSE logo and made a stamp. It was good enough for the immigration authorities.
Luke helped us understand Madagascar’s complex, love-hate relationship with its former colonial master. French rule brought law and order, roads and railways, schools, a health system, nice restaurants, and good pastries, but it also forced people to leave their homes to work on plantations. France is still the leading foreign investor (although China is catching up), and French tourists bring in much-needed foreign exchange. France is still seen as the place to receive higher education, and maybe to migrate for work. At various times since independence, nationalists have discouraged the use of the French language, yet it is still taught in schools and widely spoken, especially in urban areas. Madagascar-historian Sir Mervyn Brown, who served as UK ambassador in the late 1960s, recalled that French nationals still occupied senior positions:
It is normal when a country becomes newly independent that colonial officials should remain in important positions for a short time. . . . But in Madagascar, even ten years after independence, the French were still there in force. In the President’s office his secretary general was French, and the head of security was French, the head of his personal staff was French, a gendarmerie colonel; and they weren’t very discreet about it. Neocolonialism was very evident.6
I wondered what people would think of my rusty French. I need not have worried. As I emerged from a mobile phone store after buying a SIM card, I told Luke that the staff must have been snickering over my mangled syntax. “They don’t care,” he said, “It’s not their language.”
Vive le Renault 4L et le 2CV!
“Do you have a lot of 4Ls in the United States?”
Richard asked the question as our Renault 4L taxi hurtled down a cobblestone hill in Tana. It was a jarring, noisy ride. I gripped the door handle, which appeared to have been re-riveted to the frame more than once. At the bottom of the hill, the driver crunched into low gear and began a slow climb.
I told Richard I had never seen a 4L in the United States. His question puzzled me but, as I looked out at the chaotic traffic, I realized why he had asked. In his urban landscape, the 4L was a dominant species.
When I traveled in France in the 1970s, the Renault 4L was a common sight. With its functional, box-like design, it sat high (for its size) on its chassis, its front end leaning slightly down as if it was getting ready to dive into the potholes and muddy farm fields. It was introduced in 1961, aimed at the lower end of a market dominated by the two-cylinder Citroën 2CV, the celebrated deux chevaux (two horses), a small front-wheel-drive sedan marketed as a people’s car in the same class as Germany’s Volkswagen Beetle. The 4L, like the 2CV, was seriously underpowered, taking several minutes to reach its preferred cruising speed of about 80 kilometers (50 miles) per hour. Once it made it, it chugged along happily, using much less petrol than anything else on the road. For the new driver, the gear shift on the 4L and 2CV was a challenge—you pulled it out directly from the dashboard, then twisted it left and right, forward and backward, in a complex series of motions. In my twenties, living in Britain, I owned first a 2CV and then the slightly upmarket (but no more powerful) Citroën Diane. I soon became expert at the contortions required to shift gears.
I visit my sister and her husband in southwestern France every couple of years. There, it’s unusual to see a 4L or 2CV on the road, although I’ve spotted a few rusting in barns. But they are still the most common taxis on the roads of Tana. Many are survivors of the city’s traffic wars, with battered panels and out-of-whack alignment. On some, the ignition no longer works, so the driver hot-wires the engine. As you rattle up the cobbled streets you try to forget that there’s almost no suspension and just marvel that the car is still running.
The history of the French automobile industry lives and breathes—or rather wheezes—in Tana and other Madagascar towns. I’ve seen other Renault and Citroën models, the Peugeot 204, 304, and 404, and even the occasional Citroën DS (Goddess), the sleek, streamlined car with a hydraulic system that looked years ahead of its time when it was introduced in the mid-1950s. There are gas-guzzling SUVs on the roads of Tana, but in a country where all indicators—unemployment, poverty, health, literacy—put it in the “least developed” category on global indexes, you’re fortunate if you own a 4L or a 2CV. The last ones came off the production line in the early 1990s, but they still command high prices on the used-car market, more than $2,000 for a model with a few dents, a cracked windshield, and worn seats.
FIGURE 3.7 His pride and joy, a Renault 4L taxi
With spare parts no longer available, except from specialty dealers at high prices, how do drivers keep their cars running? The answer is “bricolage” (from the French verb bricoler, to tinker), loosely translated as “do-it-yourself.” “We Malagasy always manage to find a bricolage solution,” Richard told me. The auto parts trade, he said, is controlled by Indian and Pakistani shopkeepers who import parts from factories in Mumbai and Karachi. Many either fit the old cars or can be made to fit with a little bricolage. For that service, you go to one of the many metal fabrication shops that cut and weld made-to-order fencing, pipes, market stall frames, and agricultural implements. They can take a Tata or Mahindra part and make it work for your 4L; if not, they’ll just make you a new part. When cars eventually break down and cannot be repaired, the parts are salvaged and resold. “In this economy, there’s almost always a new use for something,” said Richard.
Madagascar Recycles
You’ll find the most ingenious examples of recycling and bricolage on Tana’s markets. Not the upscale markets where middle-class Malagasy, expatriates, and tourists shop, but the regular markets that serve most residents. Luke took me to the Isotry quartier, one of the poorer districts of central Tana, south of the Soarano railroad station. The Isotry bazaar is off the tourist route, and the more interesting for it. Live geese, ducks, chickens, and turkeys are crammed into straw baskets. Scrawny cats, tethered by string to the baskets, are also on sale; the point-of-purchase message is that if you buy a cat to keep down the vermin, it will not attack your poultry. There are live crabs in buckets, and stacks of friperie (secondhand clothes) and shoes. There’s new stuff, of course, including the bizarrely branded Chinese T-shirts and underwear—Tokyo Super Dry, Cool My To Rock, Hugo Premium Fashion Boss. Because it was early December, vendors were hawking artificial Christmas trees and decorations. In the consumer electronics section, it took me a few minutes to figure out why stalls displayed guitars, amplifiers, car batteries, and solar panels together. It’s because electricity is still not available in some communities around Tana, and city districts experience power cuts. The band must play on, so musicians travel with their own power supply.
At one stall, we found a selection of farming hand tools, with blades of different lengths, widths, and angles designed for every task, all