Coinciding with last week’s flood of rain came an unprecedented flood of another kind entirely: a flood of avocadoes. In the small orchard behind our peppenaire there are four sizable avocadoes trees that are heavy laden with fruit, and last week they began shedding their bounty. It started slowly, Rodrigue’s wife stopped by with three that she had found fallen from the trees and I quickly set to work making some fresh guacamole. Now we have more avocadoes than we know what to do with. Last Saturday I went out in the orchard in the morning and returned with 35 of them, and that does not include the ones that had broken open on rocks or been skewered by the bamboo fence surrounding the yard. What three adults, a third grader and a toddler can possibly do with a shopping cart full of avocadoes is beyond me. At the moment we are trying to stem the tide by devouring them like children with serious self control issues. I eat four a day in a homemade guacamole that I eat with a small pile of tortillias I make on my skillet. Usually I run out of flour for the torts and end up eating the guacamole out of a bowl with a spoon. Rodrigue’s fam has been pulling their weight too, eating them for breakfast and lunch with their obligatory rice but to be honest we are still loosing ground to the tide of avocadoes. Last Sunday Rodrigue’s wife took four grapefruit sized ones into the market and managed to sell the lot of them for a measly five cents, so I was thinking about introducing the Malagasy to avocado wiffleball to help get rid of some of these things. If you have any other ideas I’m open to suggestions.
Not much else has happened in the past few days. I brought Rodrigue’s family a jar of strawberry jam back from Fianarantsoa as a thank you for watching Sharbaraz while I was out, instructing them to use it as a spread for breads and biscuits. To my horror they consumed to whole thing in a day, mixing it in with tsako (essentially corn porridge) and of course using it to flavour avocadoes.
I thought I would include a short description of the city of Ranomafana for you all considering I have written sparingly little about my new home. Ranomafana is located about an hour east of Fianarantsoa and is the first major town on Route Nationale 25. This major highway bisects the town and actually passes a few meters from my front door. Normally I would not been very keen on living next to a major thoroughfare, but traffic on the road is surprisingly sparce, especially considering that it is the only passable road that serves four major cities on the east coast.
Taking the road East from Fianar, the first thing you come to is the forest. About twenty minutes outside of Fianar, the grassy plains and rice fields disappear and suddenly you are descending into a lush forested valley next to a rushing, cascading river. After about 30 minutes twisting and turning down the road you reach the park entrance, a rather unassuming stop on the right side of the road. After the park come the hotels which hug the sides of the valley sporting spectacular view of the lush valley below. 10 kilometers down the mountain from the park entrance you pass the last hotel and enter the Commune of Ranomafana. Ranomafana is a sizeable little burg with a few multi-story buildings, Gasy restaurants and hotelys, as well as a nice Sunday Market. It sits high up in the valley and everywhere you are surrounded by mountains topped with rainforest and accented by waterfalls. Most of Ranomafana is located on the North bank of the river, but the baths, the president’s villa (yes the president has a house here), as well as some Gasy homes are located on the South side. Thankfully a new bridge was cobbled together yesterday so one no longer needs a canoe to visit the other bank.
And I’m out of time, more next week
Mike
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