Breaking taboos in Madagascar (From Times Series)

Breaking taboos in Madagascar

11:40am Friday 24th December 2004

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by JENNY LINDSTRAND

Madagascar conjures up exotic images of coffee, cocoa and tropical beaches. However Sarah Hammond has experienced first-hand the plight of its residents who live with unclean water and poor sanitation.

"When I tell people I've been to Madagascar they say, Oh, is that in America?' and have no idea of what's going on there," said Sarah, 19, of Ventnor Drive, Totteridge, who spent three months working on the island, which lies in the Indian Ocean off the Mozambique coast.

She was busy building toilets and installing wells with the charity Azafady (meaning may it not be taboo' in the local Malagasy dialect) but said her work was not helped by aspects of the local culture.

"Burying waste is a taboo for Madagascans because their ancestors are buried," she said.

"So we had to provide health eduaction about toilets and preventing the spread of disease."

Mark Jacob, of Azafady, explained: "Madagascans are animists, which means they pray to their own ancestors as opposed to praying to a god. They believe their ancestors are in the air and in the ground, so the idea of putting waste into the ground was alien to them."

Before the charity put in a well, locals got water from a nearby river which, along with the risk of disease, was home to crocodiles.

"It was really scary," Sarah said of the experience. She also spent time in the rainforest to help build a school roof.

"It's not like work here where nothing changes. There you turn up in the rainy season and the school doesn't have a roof, and when you leave the roof is built," she added.

Sarah intends to go back to Madagascar in January and would recommend the experience to anyone. "You get so much out of it, I absolutely love it, 100 per cent," she said.

For more information on the charity visit www.madagascar.co.uk

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