mora mora - a taxi-brousse trilogy

ep. 1

the child & the sage

Route: Fianaratsoa > Ranomafama
Distance: 63km
Duration: 2 hours
Ego-deaths: 1

The journey’s beginning was ominously smooth. The station was small and manageable, provoking flashbacks of my first venture into a Malagasy bus depot just a few days prior. Fasan’ny Karana, the capital’s portal to the south of the country is – to the untrained eye – senseless, lawless and logic-defying. Objectively, it is a chaotic mass of travellers, traders, workers and pickpockets teeming across a litter-filled tetris of gridlocked minibuses, known by locals as one of the most dangerous places in Madagascar. By comparison, Fianaratsoa’s quaint gare routiere paled as positively suburban and soft.

We set off soon after I boarded the front row, which boasted significantly more space than succeeding tiers (though rest assured, my quiet satisfaction was short-lived). Upon departure, my precious legroom was quickly filled with miscellaneous cargo, people and a huge tyre. Among this burgeoning body of activity was a small boy, unaccompanied. It felt odd to see such a young child – who looked no older than five – without the obvious presence of a caretaker. As the mass of passengers in the footwell grew, the boy became slotted in the human-cargo jigsaw, his head lolling precariously from side to side as he drifted in and out of sleep, struggling to keep hold of the zip-up hoodie in his hand.

The bus slowed down to pick up a woman from the roadside. She was extremely old and small, clothed head-to-toe in patterned fabric and aided by a hand-made wooden walking stick. Her ear lobes were pierced with short, thin sticks that looked like the graphite core of a pencil; the folds of skin set majestically on her face like accumulated wisdom. The young man next to me gave up his seat and she wiggled herself into our crowded row. Soon after settling the woman invited the unaccompanied child – wedged directly in front of her – to lean on her and sleep. And so it was. Until some time after when she gently motioned the boy awake. Calmly she stood up, leaned towards the window and began throwing up.

Such abrupt change to our delicate ecosystem went unnoticed by no-one compacted into the front section. The driver remained either indifferent or blissfully unaware as he sped into hair pin bends with his previous level of gusto. A neighbouring passenger and I supported her back as she fought against the pot-holed G-force, vomit splattering down the length of the bus. After some time she returned to her seat, in doing so releasing the child from his limb prison. I took this opportunity to lift him out of the footwell, thinking that the woman might like some space after enduring such an audience during the ejection of her breakfast.

The strange child is now on my lap. I’d first considered this scenario when I noticed him and the bus filled with passengers, turning the front section into a game of Kerplunk. At the time I hadn’t felt sure it was my place to assume such a responsibility. He immediately settled and slept in my arms for the remainder of the journey. I realised I’d never held a sleeping child in my arms before. I felt a nurturing energy emanating through me which transcended my residential feelings of a general unreadiness to parent. For the first time in my life the primordial act of creation wasn’t a prospect felt like a fist in the pit of my stomach.

As we neared our destination I readied myself to end my special charge’s deep sleep. The bus ground to a halt. I gently lowered him to his feet as the doors slid open, the bus’ contents spilling out like an over-carbonated drink into Ranomafana, gateway town to 161 square miles of tropical rainforest. As I walked down the busy market street and away from this experience, I bid a wordless farewell to that boy and the person I no longer was.