highlands. Termed the trano gasy (Malagasy house), it is a two-story, brick building with four columns at the front that support a wooden verandah. In the late nineteenth century, these houses quickly replaced most of the traditional wooden houses of the andriana. As Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church gained adherents, stone and brick churches were constructed.
In the early twentieth century, under French administration, the city spread out along the lower hilltops and slopes in la ville moyenne (the middle town). In the basse ville (lower town), northwest of the Analakely market area, French urban planners laid out the streets on a grid pattern aligned with a broad boulevard, now called the Avenue de l’Indépendance, with the city’s Soarano railroad station at its northwest end. Engineers drilled tunnels through two large hills, connecting isolated districts; streets were paved with cobblestones, and some later with blacktop; water, previously drawn from springs at the foot of the hills, was piped in from the Ikopa River. Since independence in 1960, the city has spread out across the plains in every direction, and urban growth has been largely uncontrolled. In the sprawling districts of the basse ville, where roughly built houses are vulnerable to fire and flooding, many residents splice into city power lines to steal electricity. Informal settlements, without adequate water supply and sanitation facilities, have grown up on agricultural land on the outskirts.
FIGURE 3.6 Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo, “Paris with rice paddies”
Today, the historic haute ville retains its late nineteenth-century charm. Trano gasy houses with steeply pitched tiled roofs, verandas, and flowering cactus line the cobbled streets snaking up the hillsides; alleyways with stone steps descend to the Analakely market and shopping streets branching off from the Avenue de l’Indépendance. Among the most impressive buildings are the stone-built churches on the summits. Below the Malagasy Montmartres, people cook over open charcoal fires, draw water from hand pumps, and sleep in doorways. The official population of the Tana metropolitan area is more than two million—about one-tenth of the total population of Madagascar—but that does not count unregistered migrants from rural areas who arrive every day to work or engage in petit commerce.
The French influence is still apparent—in language, the architecture of public buildings, the bakers selling baguettes and croissants, the escargots and pâté de foie gras on the restaurant menus. At the Soarano railway station, the Café de la Gare resembles a brasserie in a French provincial town, with its dark wood paneling, chandeliers, candlelit tables and white-shirted waiters. The best hotel in the city, the Colbert in the haute ville, founded as a handful of rooms above a café in 1928, reeks of colonial extravagance with its marble-clad lobby, patisserie, hair salon, perfume shop, spa, and casino. At the nearby Café du Jardin, overlooking the Analakely market, the large-screen TVs rebroadcast French provincial rugby matches.
My guide to the city was Luke, who had worked in Madagascar on and off for more than twenty-five years. He arrived in Tana in 1989 as the country was emerging from more than a decade of what some termed “Christian Marxism” (Marx would have turned in his grave). He was supposed to be fulfilling his university foreign-language requirement by spending a year studying French. He had another motive. “Saying you’re going to Madagascar to study French is rather like saying you’re going to Nigeria to study English,” he said. He improved his French but concentrated on learning the Malagasy language and studying the culture. Since 1989, he has returned to Madagascar almost every year. As an anthropologist, cultural study meant more than wading through dissertations, books, and articles on kinship, tradition, and religion. Luke worked as a rice farmer and herded zebu across the southern deserts.
It was in 2004, while Luke was on a zebu drive, that he was summoned to the capital by the so-called yogurt king Marc Ravalomanana, winner of the December 2001 presidential election. The president wanted to reduce Madagascar’s dependence on France and open trade links with English-speaking countries, particularly the United States and South Africa. Luke was appointed the president’s English speechwriter and communication adviser. “One day, I was sleeping under a tarpaulin,” Luke recalls. “Three days later, I was in a luxury hotel in Addis Ababa, writing a speech for Ravalomanana to deliver to the African Union.” He moved to Tana and worked for Ravalomanana before returning to the UK to take a university position.
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
