Red rice for the feast

Vohipeno part three. 

After the fomba I walked back down the hill to where we always stay in Vohipeno, the house of Monique’s mother, Jeanne d’Arc, who died in 2008. Monique, meanwhile, had other ceremonial business to attend to. I’m still not sure what all it entailed. But it involved an extended walk on a flooded path to a piece of family land some distance away, where a ritual was conducted. And what of the hapless zebu? It became the main course of a feast up on Vatomasy enjoyed by somewhere between 150 and 200 extended family members.

The party starts

Night was already falling, early and suddenly as it does in the tropics, by the time Monique returned. I was directing a face-making competition with the kids when she showed up at the head of a noisy procession of dancing women bearing the empty food platters.

This marked the start of a wild dance party. An uncle of Monique’s had installed a sound system in the living room: a pair of cabinets with 15” speakers and no tweeters. Even with the treble turned all the way up the sound blasting out was lo-fi. As it happened, this perfectly suited the 1970s and 80s Malagasy music that Yaya had on his computer: mp3 files transferred from worn-out cassettes that hadn’t had much high end to start with.

And continues

Soft drinks and Three Horses Beer flowed freely, as did dzama. This was not the aged elixir, smooth and golden, we quaffed at Vovo’s (see Feb. 25). Instead, it was reminiscent of something you’d use to strip paint. The idea, someone remarked conspiratorially, was to start people drinking early so that they wouldn’t stay on too late. For us VIPs, meanwhile, Monique had prepared an especially delicious batch of her cocktail: rum, freshly squeezed orange and lemon juice, grated ginger, cinnamon sticks and vanilla bean – all local ingredients.

* * *

Dressed for church

Next morning over coffee, also local, and mokary (rice cakes), everyone agreed that the weekend had been a huge success. Accompanied by much good will, it had generated a lot of social capital, for want of a nicer phrase. In more concrete terms it means, for instance, that folks are happy to come help out whenever we show up. Extra hands are essential in Vohipeno, where daily life is just a step above camping.

More critically, it ensures wide participation and support at ceremonial occasions, especially funerals. There’s also a reputation to maintain. Monique’s family may have had its run-ins with the local establishment – her maternal grandmother’s scandalous relationship with a Frenchman is remembered to this day. But her parents had a lot of standing in the community, boosted by the success of their musical progeny.

Monique takes this responsibility seriously. That’s why throughout our stay the house  received a constant stream of well-wishers, most movingly and raucously the church choir that Jeanne d’Arc had belonged to. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to accompany Monique to church for the elaborate Easter morning do. (It’s the first time she’s attended in years; she has a very low opinion of Church and its clergy.) But church came to us with the choir’s visit.

The day ended with a sunset visit to Vohipeno’s river, Matitanana. We asked some boys emerging from the water whether they were worried about the crocodiles. “No,” they replied, “We’re Antimoro and it’s our river.” 

An ultra-slow-speed internet connection in Tulear, where we were the past few days, has hampered blogging. Here’s part two of our Vohipeno adventures.

* * *

Omens are important in this part of the world, especially up on Vatomasy, where the personal and universal meet. Each time a new ruler seizes power in Madagascar he makes the trek over to Vohipeno and up the hill to check out the omens and get the Vatomasy seal of approval.

Now it was our turn. As scathing as Monique is about some of her ethnic group’s traditions and many taboos, especially those restricting the role of women, she is meticulous about respecting others.

* * *

Saturday dawned bright and clear. A promising sign, given the previous day’s weather. A downpour of truly biblical proportions had pounded the tin roof from morning to night. I was wondering how one orders up a rescue copter from the US embassy. But everyone else reacted with the resigned shrug appropriate to a normally rainy day. Even more reassuring was the total nonchalance of Yaya, the nephew who handles post-disaster logistics for the World Food Program.

Over the past 24 hours the numbers at the ancestral house had grown into a substantial crowd of extended family. Though it was only 9 am as we climbed the hill, I darted from one shady spot to another, amazed that all the houses, trees and dirt hadn’t been washed away.

Our destination was the rickety, one-room house of the head of Monique’s clan, one of seven clan leaders – they refer to them as kings – who live on Vatomasy. Leaving sandals and flipflops outside we entered barefoot through the door in the west wall. Someone motioned me to my place on the mat-covered floor. The king and two counselors sat in battered armchairs against the east wall. Women wearing the traditional Antimoro squarish, straw headgear sat on the south side of the room, men on the north. More folks arrived and everyone scooted over to accommodate them. By now there were maybe fifty of us packed into a space the size of a master bedroom. Others stood outside by the door.

This was a fomba, the Malagasy benediction ceremony. As the morning sunlight streamed through cracks in the walls, the proceedings began with palaver by various men. As usual I didn’t understand a thing, apart from some references to Melie and me. Then the king spoke up in a quavery voice. Christian whispered with awe that he had been born in 1906. Later on, Yaya, whom I suspect is better informed about the country’s mortality rate, dismissed this, as he did the framed ancien combattant certificate on the wall. “After the war with the French in 47-48, a lot of people claimed a lot of things,” he pointed out.

Gazing around the room, I saw that apart from the certificate, the décor consisted of very old plastic flowers, some faded family photos and a Chinese calendar. Conspicuously absent was the kitschy Jesus artwork seen in most homes. The explanation, perhaps, lay in the dusty, tobacco-colored tsorabe scrolls wedged in the rafters over the king’s head: in this household tradition edged out Christianity.

Already the sweat was dripping into my eyes. As I was trying to figure out how to get my handkerchief out of my pocket while folded into an orgami, people started to get up and troupe out. I followed the others filing around the house to an empty space on the ease side.

There I saw a zebu pinned to the ground with its legs bound. The last time I had seen this cow was yesterday at our gate as Monique haggled over the price. The animal now looked up with an impassive stoicism, similar to that of the white-capped man standing nearby holding a sword with a dark, curved blade. Earlier, through the doorway of the king’s house, I had seen a man toting a big bundle of banana leaves, used here as all-purpose drop cloths. Now I knew what they were for.

We stood in a circle around the beast. Someone indicated I should remove my cap. The king, leaning on his staff, said a few words, followed by Monique in an uncharacteristically subdued voice. Then we filed back the way we had come as the swordsman got down to work. Animal lovers look away now.

We squeezed ourselves back into the house, sat for a while and sweated. (I had fished my out handkerchief while outside.) In a few minutes two objects were passed in through the door. The first was the sword. It was placed on an armoire that stood against the east wall, dripping blood onto a lace doily. “The sword is very old,” whispered Christian. “It’s never cleaned and never gets dull.”

The second object was a big wooden bowl passed over the sitters’ heads to the king. He dropped a large silver coin into the liquid it contained, which resembled cherry Kool-Aid. Fishing it out, he flung drops out the window towards the east, summoning the ancestors.

Starting with Monique he then performed the benediction ceremony. As she scooted closer and bowed her head, the king sprinkled her hair, chanting. He did this three times. Next up was Melie. My turn was accompanied, as it always is, by jokes about the drops making my hair grow, which broke the tension. Then it was the turn of Christian and Hanta, our daughter-in-law, and her baby Arthur. The king followed this with collective benedictions for everyone else, flinging drops over their heads. When it was finished the women started singing, a cue for me to tear up. However, I blinked to clear my eyes. Any weeping at this point would have been fady, taboo.

To my surprise, whole ceremony was repeated, but this time by the man with the pointy gray beard that sat on the king’s left. “He’s the king’s seer,” Christian whispered. “I’ve never seen this happen before.” They’d clearly pulled out all the stops for the fomba. 

It's not that Monique had ordered up a deluxe performance, I learned later. Things don’t work that way up on Vatomasy. The correct, respectful and generous way she set everything up certainly had something to do with it. But the community had its own reasons for making this a big-in-Madagascar event. We were fortunate to have a front-row seat.

An ethnographer’s paradise, this island is rich in unusual observances, practices, rituals, ceremonies, taboos and the like. They cover birth, death, everything in between, and the afterlife. Some are downright bizarre. The most notorious is the famadihana ceremony practiced by the Merina of the high plateau. This ritual disinterment and reburying of the dead takes place every seven years with great fanfare – literally – with one or more brass bands.

But I’m told that none of the eighteen-or-so distinct ethnic groups that make up the population of Madagascar is as tradition-bound as the Antimoro of the east coast. The most old-school are found in the town of Vohipeno. Especially on the little hill known as Vatomasy, at the foot of which I’m currently sitting and typing. It’s a sticky night and the loudest sound is the crickets. For once we’re not here as music moguls. It’s more serious than that. Although Monique grew up on the west coast, she’s 100% Antimoro, with close family up on the hill. With this come certain responsibilities.

* * *

In a very poor country Vatomasy stands out somewhat. Just outside the front gate of my late mother-in-law’s house, where we’re staying, is the foot of the broad, crumbling, concrete staircase leading up the hill. At the summit, there are no streets as such. Just red earth. Houses are tiny, one-or-two-room shacks with thatched roofs. Walls are made of flattened tree-bark. The chickens, ducks and geese wandering around are not unusual. But the utter lack of running water is. As is the paucity of overhead electric cabling.

Yesterday I was hanging out with a group of kids, 4-13 years old. I know because I was playing a Q&A game, with the oldest translating from French when needed. They had a hard time with the concept of “What’s your favorite color?” It tended to be what everthey were wearing. Favorite animals were of the livestock variety, not the usual dolphins and lions. Then I got to, “What’s your favorite food?” I’ve polled a lot of kids in various parts of the world. The universal answer is pizza, with hamburger in second place and pasta a distant third. Here it was meat.

It’s not an all-day hike from here to the nearest road. This wireless internet connection is proof of that. Monique claims that what’s keeping Vatomasy so poor is the uncompromising way they’re clinging to the old ways. Tevye may bellow “Tradition!” in the first act. But in the end even he gives way to the new.

* * *

Thanks to French colonialism, nearly all folks here are Catholic. But this hasn’t stopped them from going on with their traditional spiritual practices. These are centered on the key position ancestors hold as interlocutors with god, whatever that is. Someone once described it as a scent on the wind that disappears just as you notice it.

A couple of years ago, with two cancer-afflicted family members on her hands, Monique called upon her ancestors. They delivered. Now we were in Vohipeno to keep her side of the deal. Accompanying was Monique’s sister Melie, also in remission, and Christian, her husband, ironically a non-practicing Christian.

As an Antimoro in good standing, and given the serious circumstances, Monique could not just light a candle and say, “Thanks very much.” This would be a complicated weekend. My role was ridiculously easy: look healthy, smile and pick up the tab. Monique, on the other hand, had to make it all happen. 

 Baristas in Vohipeno

Waiting their turn

Madagascar may lack a Starbucks. But there’s one thing it has no shortage of: incredible musicians. I encountered the latest example on Saturday night. We were downtown at a trendy place called No Comment. So trendy that when Monique tried to order a beer with a side mixer of “limonade” (think of a sickly-sweet Sprite with chemical overtones) she was told, no, but she could order a pre-mixed cocktail called a Panache, essentially the same thing but four times more expensive.

We were there to hear Teta. He was once, and possibly still is, a candidate to fill the acoustic guitar chair in our band. But wait, there’s more.

His older brother Tsihaky was Monique’s guitarist back in the day. Until, that is, the night in a hotel room in Fort Dauphin on the southern tip of the island, when in hopeless unrequited love he tied Monique to a chair and then drew a knife with every intention of slitting her throat. The rest of the group was sound asleep in their rooms. It was sheer chance, Monique says, that one of them happened to be awake, heard her screams, came running into the room and fought off her assailant.

A murderous wingnut Tsihaky may have been (he died a while ago). But he was also the originator of the guitar style, adapted from the traditional marovany, that put Madagascar on the world music map. Most notably as practiced by D'Gary, but also by Monique’s brother, Dozzy, a brilliant guitarist, the founder of Njava and unfortunately a sociopath. 

To give the man his due I’m here because of him. In 1999 I got a call from his then girlfriend, a Norwegian. To this day I don’t know how she got my number. But she needed a copywriter to produce a website text about Njava’s first album, Vetse, which was about to be released on EMI. Not knowing the least thing about Madagascar or its music I went over to their apartment. Listening to an advance copy of the CD I was totally blown away, not least of all by the singer. They liked my webtext so much they hired me to write the album liner notes. The rest is history.

* * *

Teta was great. Listening to him play it sure sounded like Dozzy, but with blues licks thrown in. (Click “Ecouter” and “Renitra”.) But the real discovery was his drummer, Ndriana. He was the polar opposite of Jimmy, our show-off power drummer. A little guy (expressed in his nickname “Kely”) and unprepossessing, Ndriana looked like he was moonlighting from his day job at Radio Shack. His kit consisted of a big bass drum, a very loose shallow snare, a hi-hat and one ride cymbal with a chunk missing.  He began really softly, almost inaudibly, which needless to say is very unusual for a drummer. He used brushes a lot at first.

The more he played, the more impressed Monique and I got. Not only could he perfectly handle high-speed tsapiky and the complicated two-against-three polyrhythm you hear in a lot of southern Malagasy music. He had an astounding funk groove that picked up where Clyde Stubblefield left off, not to mention something suspiciously close to New Orleans second line. He could also really, really rock. Yet he had that Joey Baron trick of making the drums sing – even on that crappy kit. Most amazingly, he was somehow able to blend all these elements together into a seamless flowing whole. Weirdly, the whole time he was doing this he was sitting slumped back against the wall, something I’ve only seen drummers do in between songs.

At the end of the long set when he was summoned to our table (which is how it works when you're big in Madagascar), I raved about his playing, pumping his hand up and down like a maniac. He said, “You’re Monika Njava’s producer, aren’t you?” I suddenly felt bad. He was thinking, “This dude could be my ticket to fame, fortune and a decent drum set,” when in fact I had nothing to offer him.

* * *

I unburdened myself to Monique on the drive home. She said, “I get three of these a day on Facebook, people wanting me to launch their career.” I don’t know what it will be, but if I can think of anything to do to launch Ndriana’s career, I will.

Our Friday night show on a cramped, makeshift stage at the Karibohotel – the location of last week’s after party – was nothing to write home about. Where we ended up afterwards, however, is another story.

* * *

It is already well after midnight when we set out. We traverse the capital, driving along streets that are anonymous and forlorn-looking at this time of night. At what feels like the edge of the city we discover a crowded parking area. Light and low frequencies pump out of a long low building. “The sound system won’t be very good,” Monique warns me.

Indeed upon entering, our ears are assaulted by powerful waves of distorted bass. At the same moment our eyes are dazzled by the sparkle of silver and the glitter of gold lamé. For once Monique seems underdressed. The style is body hugging, short and shiny. Fish skin framed by bare legs and shoulders. Dangerously high heels with hair-dos to match. Men are decked out in suits of exuberant cut and color.

Vast, low-ceilinged and hanger-like, the place holds perhaps 800 people at a wild guess. At one end is a high stage with musicians and singers. The immense central dance floor is packed. Ringed around it are white-clothed tables. They hold a profusion of bottles of every shape and glasses containing liquids in rainbow colors. Bow-tied waiters in white jackets ferry over additional drink and plates of food.

I am gently ushered – being ushered is pretty much how I’ve gotten around since arriving in this country – to a table next to the dance floor with a good view of the stage. We are greeted by its smiling occupants – Monique’s introductions are inaudible – who graciously make room for us. I look out at the dancers. A gaggle of nieces and nephews are already gyrating furiously.

It turns out this is the annual get-together of people from the southern coast, where Monique hails from, who for professional or personal reasons live here in the capital. They represent different ethnic groups: Antanosy, Antandroy, Vezo, Bara and Sakalava. What they all have in common is a love of tsapiky, the high-octane dance music blasting from the stage.

* * *

Back when a teenage Monique was starting her musical career in the Wild West port of Tulear (Toliara), tsapiky, which means spicy-hot, began migrating from village to city in time-honored fashion. The musicians around her, including her older brothers, took this traditional rhythm, amplified it with electric instruments and added South African influences picked up on the radio from across the Mozambique Channel. It eventually replaced the staid, bourgeois party music of Tulear and became the craze that it is today.

Tsapiky tempos are terribly fast, never falling below 152 bpm. Live performances are all-night, non-stop affairs. Fresh drummers replace exhausted ones in mid-song, passing drumsticks between them without missing a beat, like runners in a relay race. Tsapiky singers are dancers too, interspersing their lyrics with call-and-response exhortations urging the crowd to an ever-higher frenzy.

* * *

At our table Monique receives a constant stream of tsapiky celebrities taking a break from their stage duties. There’s Tsiliva, the handsome and flamboyant popularizer of kilalaky, a dance of cow thieves (says Monique) that has swept the nation. He’s followed by Kalheba, by Theo Mikea and by Mamy Gotso, the brother of Hanta, our daughter-in-law. Looking bored at the nearby politicians’ table is the stunning Onja. Sister of Surgi, our back-up singer and lokanga player, she’s the product of a startling transformation from simple Antandroy village girl to S&M-flavored pop goddess.

But my biggest thrill comes when Monique introduces me to Rasoa Kininike. Her name translates into something like "Beautiful Shimmier”. She is known for her high, ethereal voice, which has become a staple of parties across Madagascar and throughout the diaspora. Yet she’s also responsible for turning a hip-shaking village dance into the highly provocative butt-quivering that now dominates the island’s music videos. Age and alcohol have not been kind to her. (Have they been to any of us?) But even garbed as she was for a trip to the supermarket, defiantly violating the dress code, when I squeeze my way up to the front of the stage she does not disappoint. 

The Beautiful Shimmier & me

Here are some photos from our show last Friday. Click on the images to enlarge.

Monique

Fanja

Beby

Monique

Surgi

Nicholas & Dô

Fefy

Jimmy

 

Joël & Monique

      

Miary

Daniel

Most people who know me know how much I like to walk. That’s because I’m always droning on about its many benefits. To be fair I’m in good company, with the Mayo Clinic and the French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, who declared, “Walking is a sensitive, spiritual act.” So I was eager – after a period of enforced inactivity caused by flu, torrential rains and the Herculean effort of helping Monique get even bigger in Madagascar – to finally venture out of my gilded cage on my first walkabout.

* * *

Among the things that strike you upon arriving in Antananarivo are the high walls topped with vicious spikes or evil-looking broken glass. And as a finishing touch, coils of razor wire that would not look out of place at Gitmo.

Where we live is no exception. Driving in or out, a guardian opens the double metal doors. Like most houses in the neighborhood we have a dog on a hair-trigger. “It’s for when the guardian is asleep,” Monique explained. (She does a lot of explaining.) In any developed country the nocturnal canine chorus would be intolerable. Yet here I somehow don’t mind. Along with the birdsong, roosters, crickets, voices and other sounds of human activity, it forms part of a well-mixed soundscape that drifts in through the open windows. Very different from the traffic sounds and lawnmowers back home.

A nighttime drive always involves one or more stops at checkpoints. Armed men in full or partial military garb flag the car down and shine a flashlight in the window. Underpaid, they try to get a little something. Or they’re just bored and want to talk. With us they hit the jackpot. A celebrity behind the wheel means a good story to tell the folks at home. Normally lackadaisical, last Friday night when we were returning from Mojo they seemed unusually methodical with their flashlights. We later heard that some prisoners had escaped.

All this might become more familiar to us in the developed world as the gap between haves and have-nots widens and public services are cut.

* * *

I took Monique at her word when she described how she had tamed the local band of street criminals with some low-denomination bills and a stern warning that if they touched us or any our visitors they’d be sorry. Thus it was with only mild trepidation that, dressed in shorts and sneakers, I left our sanctuary on my own for the first time.

Avoiding the deep puddles of red-silted rainwater I walked down the lumpy cobbled alley to the main road, Rue Tsimanindry. It was filled with pedestrians, scrawny dogs and belching vehicles. I turned left, trying to stay on the narrow uneven surface that serving as a sidewalk frequently petered out. This obliged me and everyone else to step out into the stream of traffic, where the drivers’ margin of error was considerably less than what I was used to.

A line of rickety wooden stands displayed their wares. Fruits and vegetables, both familiar and strange. A dozen baskets, each holding a different kind of rice. Socks. Spicy fritters scooped from bubbling oil. Telephone credit. Unidentifiable mechanical parts. Equally unidentifiable animal parts.

After a few minutes of weaving in and out and dodging motorcycles, taxis and minibuses, on the right I spotted Rue Kotavy running past some rice paddies. I had already identified this on the map as a possible walking route. In fact, it was perfect: well paved and quiet with only the occasional vehicle. A smattering of pedestrians for company. Shady with colorfully flowering plants and trees.

The road curved around a hill above a lake, which I sometimes spied. On both sides of the street I caught tantalizing glimpses of lush gardens hidden behind high walls. Signs announcing Villa Such-and-Such were accompanied by others warning of mean dogs. Some of the huge metal doors were manned by uniformed security personnel armed with walkie-talkies. It was clear that the pedestrians I saw were just passing through. The real residents of this lakefront property were the very rich.

Over the next few days I explored some side streets running steeply up the hill. After short, heart-pounding climbs I was rewarded by expansive views of the many hills and valleys across which Antanananrivo sprawls.

* * *

Yesterday, though, I was a little too sure of myself. For some time I’d been attracted by a dirt path leading down from the road to a narrow-gauge railroad track next to the lake. Monique claims it sometimes carries a train to the eastern port city of Tamatave. But it looked to me like the track served exclusively as a pedestrian walkway. Joining the flow of people I headed in the direction I thought would take me back to the start of my route. I soon realized that the track was curving around the other side of the lake. When it passed under a viaduct I climbed up to the road, figuring that if I kept the lake on my right I would circumnavigate it back to my starting place.

Before long I was lost. To make matters worse, the early morning sun was mounting higher in the sky. Without headgear or sunscreen I would soon be toast. I had my phone. But Monique was on the other side of the city doing a radio interview with her phone probably turned off. Even if I could reach her, I wouldn’t be able to tell her where to find me. I saw an encouraging sign pointing to the World Food Program office. I knew our nephew Yaya worked there. But I also knew he’d left on a two-week road trip that very morning.

Backtracking a ways I came to a road that, while unfamiliar, looked like it might head in the right direction. With no sidewalk to speak of the speeding cars were particularly dangerous. One lightly clipped me with its mirror. Why hadn’t I paid more attention during the drives back from town? At my most despondent, I suddenly saw a landmark: the Clinique St-Paul. Soon afterwards I spied the familiar-looking sign touting Arnaud’s pizza, cooked over a wood fire. When the friendly blue-and-green Belle Vue Hotel sign on the corner of our lane came into view, I knew I was home free. 

I bet Finkielkraut never has to contend with this on his strolls down the Champs-Élysées.

Waking from a well-deserved nap I was surprised to find the entire band hanging out in the garden, turned golden in the slanting rays of the tropical Saturday afternoon sun. Monique explained they were there to get paid – she hadn’t had time to take care of this detail the previous night, which had been a long one.

From my somewhat myopic perspective as musical director, the show at the CCESCA went much better than our debut. There was only one structural mishap, a minor one. And we had completely eliminated the dead intervals between songs.


I even got some very pleasant surprises. To give herself more time for a costume change, Monique had strategically inserted short percussion and bass solos. Unlike Jimmy, our always-on drummer, Dô and Fefy are quiet types. They showed up for the first rehearsal, played perfectly and from then on, like gravity, went largely unnoticed. Dô’s role especially is quite basic, often just shaking a tambourine. This is pop music, after all. I hadn’t realized what a great player he was until Friday night when I heard his conga solo, a jewel of understated precision.

Fefy, too, shown. In a context like ours, bass solos are essentially exhibitions of prowess and are therefore to my mind largely a waste of notes. But given that, Fefy’s showcase was truly impressive, stringing together in a coherent way the entire repertoire of dazzling technical tricks that define today’s hotshot players. Best of all were the Malagasy touches: beautiful melodies and impenetrably complex rhythms based on marovany playing – all the more amazing on bass. In the same traditional style, Miary’s extended guitar intro to Ravola (another costume-change moment), showed what an artist he really is, despite his problem with booze.

The only disconcerting aspect, and one that kept me from fully enjoying the performance, were the many empty seats. After all that media coverage? I found later out what the deal was. The mezzanine, which I couldn’t make out from my deep-stage vantage point, was full. These were the cheap seats, around $3.60. The much larger section of orchestra seats below was for the narrow top of the social pyramid, those who could cough up the princely sum of $5.35. With annual per capita income barely reaching $400, getting big in Madagascar is one thing, getting rich another.

* * *

Packing up our instruments after the final encore, we rushed over to the after-party at the Karibotel (not the Caribou Hotel as I had originally heard it – the nearest specimen of that ungulate being half a world away). Quickly setting up in a cramped corner we ran through some of our repertoire. Warmed up, with no pressure and fuelled by beer and samosas, it was a lot of fun. Even funner was the jam session that followed, where our players really showed off their chops. (Representing the home team, I did my best to be credible.) They were joined by a cavalcade of Malagasy musicians, including a couple performing this curiosity based on traditional operetta (bassists take note).

When things finally wound down and I should have been slumping off home to bed, I instead gave in to the nieces’ entreaties to make the scene at Mojo (see March 12). Hence the Saturday afternoon siesta.

At Mojo

* * *

What started as payday soon became a party, as beer was sent for. It was a nice way to finish off several intense weeks of work. Those who stayed on as night fell – Jimmy, Nicholas and Joël – enjoyed a wild barbecue/dance party animated by the nieces, their numbers swollen by a gaggle of cousins, a girlfriend or two thrown in for good measure. Ten youngsters in all. 

At home

http://www.dannycarnahan.com/writing/music_g_1197_01.html

Wednesday noon. Monique is asked to appear on a musical TV show where all performances are lip-synched. With no exceptions. Ever. Until now, that is. That’s why Joël and I find ourselves dressed in stage garb at Jao’s Pub, where they’re filming the show. While the other acts pretend their instruments and mics are plugged in, ours really are. So the pressure's on. First we play the powerfully spooky new version of Monique’s old hit, Mausolée, so popular it has basically replaced the national anthem. Then she and Joël do a killer performance of Belina, a song from Njava’s first album Vetse. After the Monday broadcast I’ll try to get a copy. The director is so pleased he says he wants to move to a live format.

* * *

Thursday evening. Set-up and sound-check for our second concert. The venue is an 800-seater here in the capital called CCESCA. Apart from “Centre Culturel” I’m not sure what the acronym stands for. But it’s in the auditorium of a Catholic school founded in 1928, so the caretaker told me, by a trio of Canadian priests. The school is a large, solid-looking establishment, if somewhat down-at-the-heel. I think of all those Sunday school kids back in frigid Montreal dropping their Canadian nickels and pennies through the slot of the collection box.

Jimmy is walloping his kick drum through the clunky, scarred mains - possible relics of the Grateful Dead show I saw at the Paramount in 1972. I gaze left at a faux-Matisse mural of a naked Adam riding a local zebu cow, and right towards a surprisingly full-frontal Eve combing her hair next to a banana tree. No fig leaves. On the wall between Eve’s bare feet and the right speaker stack is an Aryan Jesus looking out benignly from a lurid poster, complete with flaming, thorn-bound heart.

If the stage looks a little emptier it’s because Monique and I fired the trumpeter, who it turns out was recruited by error. Back in November when Monique was shooting the Reolo clip and needed a stand-in, someone recommended Faby, who certainly looked the part. It didn’t occur to us that he couldn’t play. And none of the other musicians said anything, although they surely knew. Maybe it's because the community here is so tightly knit – it’s an island after all – that they hesitate to knock each other. Especially in front of a foreigner.

After rejecting a replacement I decided I would double the lines of the sax player, Nicholas, with a Hammond B3 sound. (He’s testing his mic at the moment with Charles Lloyd-esque arpeggios.) It’ll sound a little less Afrobeat and a little more early 70s funk. Tower without the Power. Anyone want a counterfeit Yamaha Zeno Artist Series Bb trumpet (see March 7)?

At yesterday’s fix-all-the-mistakes-of-last-Friday rehearsal Monique and I both noticed a new level of seriousness among the band. She thinks it’s because they saw how we fired Faby. Take Miary (who’s sound-checking his four opened-tuned guitars now). Uncharacteristically, he didn’t argue when I told him he’d have to abandon his cherished preamps and effects, and plug straight into the DI boxes I presciently brought along. All his knob-turning was slowing us down between songs.

Now it’s Surgi’s turn. He saws away on the lokanga, a homemade violin played by the Antandroy people of the arid south. Imagine Orange Blossom Special if the Cumberland Gap were located in Africa. He’s followed by vocalist Beby, his sister-in-law, who comes from the same region. Bass, percussion, electric guitar already done. Now Monique. Eleven on stage is easier than twelve.

* * *

Earlier, crammed with our musical instruments inside a rattletrap taxi on our way to the venue, we're sitting in a traffic jam when we hear a siren. Soon a police escort and convoy of 4x4s with black-tinted windows whizzes past. “Maybe it’s the president,” I joke. Miary and the cab the driver both look at me. “It is,” they say. The former DJ took power in a largely supported coup during my last visit in 2009.

For over a year now I’d been hearing about Mojo, the nightspot Monique took the nieces to when she was in town. Chaffing under protective parents, the girls clamored for these sorties with their bad aunt. I was exhausted after our first concert and should have stayed home. But it was Saturday night and I couldn’t resist this chance to see for myself what Monique and the girls got up to when the parents weren’t looking.

The pre-Mojo warm-up started at home in in the garden with a big bowl of Monique’s cocktail recipe (rum, orange & lemon juice, sugar, grated ginger, cinnamon stick, vanilla bean). Beef brochettes sizzled on the grill while a spicy tomato sauce waited on the table.

Joël, our incipient guitar genius, arrived. I don’t know who arranged this. But I had already suspected that Corine – the big sister, the “smart” one – was interested in him. I learned that Joël was ostensibly enrolled in business studies at the university. When I stated the obvious, that he should quit school and concentrate on music, he was genuinely surprised. “You’re the first one who’s ever said that.”

* * *

We took our time eating. You don’t want to arrive at Mojo much before midnight.

Heading downtown, our party consisted of Monique and me, Corine, Sarah, Joël and Gerald (Monique’s youngest son, in case you forgot). Needless to say, the girls and Monique were dressed to kill. Cars lined both sides of the narrow street in front of Mojo. But a few words from Monique and the bouncers found us a parking spot. “Doo Doo Doo” was pouring out of the open second-floor windows.

We filed along a claustrophobic, blood-red corridor and up a narrow concrete staircase. At the top it was all flashing lights and industrial chic. We pushed our way into the crowd, half Malagasy, half foreign (i.e. French). I went into my default mode, smiling and shaking hands with people I didn’t know, nodding meaningfully when they said things I couldn’t hear through all the din. Monique introduced me to a guy sitting at the bar, explaining, “It’s Baba.” I certainly knew his music. His album, produced by Monique’s brothers, is fantastic. Unfortunately, his follow-up live shows, promotion and organization didn’t match the level of the recording, and his career has since stalled.

We found seating near an open window as drinks arrived. The youngsters immediately hit the dance floor, propelled by a Congolese beat. Along with gazing at the dancers – the gauche French and the more adroit natives – I focused on the music. An African flavor slightly dominated. But there was also Indian bangra, Jamaican dub and salsa. Walk this Way, (the heavy 70s guitar made Joël ecstatic), early Michael Jackson, classic Outkast. In a place like Madagascar, you hear how porous geographical and temporal boundaries are. I wished our other boys, Thierry, Emeric, Milo and Oliver, could be there.

As I feared, it quickly became clear that Joël was fascinated by Sarah. It was easy to see why. With her tall, slim model appearance she drew the most attention. Yet I found Corine a more interesting dancer. Once she gets away from her sister (graduate studies in France next year) she’ll have no trouble attracting all the men she wants. Monique and I were pleased to see, however, that Joël and Gerald danced with both girls in gentlemanly fashion. Watching Joël’s bizarre moves Monique queried, “Why are musicians always such bad dancers?” Maybe a reader can answer this.

* * *

On their Mojo outings Monique enforces a strict “look but don’t touch” rule. On another occasion she had a guy thrown out when he got a little too hands-on. To give him the benefit of the doubt, there are prostitutes among the Mojo clientele. But he had already been warned. Since then the owner has always kept a close eye on the nieces. That, and the presence of Gerald, meant we could leave the place for a while to get some air and see something different.

We cruised through the streets while Monique decided where to go. We ended up at the Carlton, the main hotel. The bar attracted a different clientele, more bourgeois, all Malagasy. I was introduced to yet another famous musician. “A has-been,” Monique whispered. We didn’t linger.

Not long after returning to Mojo Monique decided it was time to go. On the way home we passed through streets along which prostitutes in ones and twos, evenly spaced at twenty-meter intervals, stood idly. “Poor girls,” said Sarah.