Saving is a largely foreign concept in these economic conditions. This season, income generated by farmers of vanilla in my village (from the sale of their green vanilla) was spent right away on “famadihana� (turning of the bones, i.e. ancestor acknowledgement ceremonies that last days and involve feasting and drinking lots of local rum) and on purchasing meat (zebu or pork) to supplement the usual diet of rice, greens, fish, and little crawfish/shrimp obtained from the rice paddies and the nearby Bay of Antongil. Now, a month later, most of that money is gone. Because this season is between rice harvests, the price per kapoaka of rice has gone up from 200 AR to 250 AR.

The average Malagasy eats one kapoaka of rice per meal each day. For large families such as Mama ny Linda’s, where there are 7 kids, that’s a lot of rice. Many in my village manage to grow, harvest, and store enough rice to feed their families from one season to the next. Others run short around this time of year and have to buy rice. This increased demand leads to price increase per kapoaka, which makes for hard times for many in my area. Then you have families like Mama ny Riche’s where neither mother nor father’s family is from V., but from small towns some distance from my village. Mama and Papa ny Riche didn’t inherit a claim to land where they can farm rice. They farm taro and other “ro� (sauce) foods but cannot afford to lease land for growing rice to provide that staple food for the family.
[note: Mama ny Riche–pronounced ree-shay–is the mother of an 11-year-old named Riche; as soon as you have a child in Madagascar, your name becomes Mama/Papa ny [of] and the first child’s name]