The pool at Miavana, which occupies a private island off the northeastern coast It’s an equation worth considering: the French are long gone; half a century has passed since political power was handed back to the Malagasy people. Still, the colonial template remains. Thousands of hectares of sisal are grown here for the European fibre market – the farms are the region’s largest source of employment. And, at the same time, guests at Mandrare River Camp can hire an Antandroy guide for walks into the sacred spiny and canopy forests to see wild lemurs, to meet the villagers with their silvertipped spears and elaborate tombs, and to show them, more or less, how it was before the arrival of the Europeans. have a friend who says that all stories are circular, because I you can’t escape the basic shape and nature of the universe. Seen from that perspective, perhaps it was logical that, in trying to make sense of Madagascar, I kept returning to the figure of Queen Ranavalona I. Ranavalona was the first female sovereign of the Imerina kingdom, the precolonial dynasty that ruled Madagascar from 1540 to 1897. Assertive and ambitious, she was also something of an interloper, having ascended to power in 1828 after the death of her young husband. The story of her 33-year reign speaks to the condition of her country before the European invasion and to the condition of Madagascar as it is now. Ranavalona adhered rigidly to her traditional beliefs. She sent the London Missionary Society packing and persecuted Malagasy converts. In an 1835 kabary – a royal proclamation, spoken not written – the queen was clear: “To the English or French strangers ... It would be a waste of time and effort to grab the customs and rites of my ancestors. Concerning you, foreigners, you can practise according to your own manners and customs.” You do you, in other words, and we’ll do us. But Europe’s ambition for the island was overpowering, and the kabary was, of course, ignored. The queen met pressure from the British and French with like resolve. She amassed armies, and when those armies were wiped out, she amassed more. The population of Madagascar plummeted from an estimated 5 million to just 2.5 million between 1833 and 1839; the queen’s soldiers, slaves, and martyrs died like flies. Or, put another way, Queen Ranavalona I wiped out half the population of her nation in an effort to rebuff the influence of foreign invaders. She died in her sleep in 1861, in her early eighties. There’s a French poster celebrating France’s eventual defeat of the Malagasy people in 1895. A soldier astride the island, a bayoneted rifle slung over his shoulder, is plunging the flag of the French Foreign Legion into the capital, marked “Tananarive”.Madagascar gained independence from France in 1958. Not surprisingly, it hasn’t all gone smoothly since. But there are determined efforts to repair the land in places and the wildlife too – and many of those efforts involve inviting visitors to witness the natural riches that remain. Not everything can be healed, obviously, but since land and culture and wildlife and human welfare are inextricably linked, it seems like a good place to start. t is hard to imagine a greater contrast than that between the I canvas tents of Mandrare and my next stop, Time + Tide Miavana (timeandtideafrica.com), an ultra-high-end resort on Nosy Ankao – a private island in the Levens Archipelago, off the country’s northeastern coast. A Robinson R66 helicopter ferried me from the port city of Antsiranana, and from it we saw dolphins, scores of turtles and schools of fish. The experience was like snorkelling from the air. Miavana, meaning to bring together. Here’s how it goes: step out of the helicopter – cool towel, iced mango lemonade – into a golf cart and whir along shaded brick trails to breakfast in a dining pavilion overlooking an infinity pool by the ultra-aquamarine sea. Staying here is like being in a James Bond movie, except everyone in aviator sunglasses is there to help you. You’re whisked, you’re noticed, you’re indulged. It’s never too early or too late at Miavana. The bartender is from Zimbabwe, a place where people know shaken, not stirred. But above all, Miavana is private. Five kilometres of deserted beaches; shelves of coral gardens to snorkel or scuba dive around, uninterrupted; wild winds from Borneo that have swept across the entire Indian Ocean before finally making landfall there. At night I sat outside my villa, doors open to the ocean, lights off. Shooting stars rained down through a sky so black it looked like a time before time. A salad of fresh herbs, vegetables, and sunflower seeds at Miavana CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM 77
