Antsiranana

Madagascar is a desperately poor country. It ranks in the bottom ten globally by most measures and is said to be the world’s poorest country not currently going through a violent conflict. According to this article [https://gfmag.com/data/economic-data/poorest-co…] from Global Finance magazine, over 75% of Madagascar’s population lives in poverty. Given this, it’s not hard to see why locals so very much want, or need, really, to sell you their wares or provide you some service.

This was very much the scene in Antsiranana, once, and sometimes still, known as Diego Suarez. We did not have a formal plan for the day. There is a gorgeous bay nearby known as Emerald Bay or mer d'emeraude, but we had no easy way to get there to see it. Back in our younger days when it was just Elizabeth and myself we would likely have found a local to take us over there in a boat. But with the boys we like things to be a bit more structured than that. So the two of us just left the ship for a bit and saw some of the local wares for sale. We did buy a t-shirt to take home as a gift, but passed on the other items. We’ve never been big souvenir hounds, and as we get older we find we have even less interest in collecting things.Read more