5. Daily Life in Manomp'(3)

A normal day in Manompana

Manompana is a village made of one main street – a sandy path with palm trees, the ocean on one side and houses on the other, full of hens, ducks, few dogs asleep in the middle, people walking and kids laughing and playing, with a wonderful view every day between 5:30 and 6pm: this is the local Sunset Boulevard. There are three restaurants in the village (but only one of them actually offering food). On the busy days, about five jeeps pass South-North or North-South, disturbing the pedestrians when they don’t take them for a ride in the back of the truck. The liveliest time of the day is in the morning, between 5:30 and 7am: people cleaning in front of their house or going to work, kids going to school, women opening the market with some green herbs, some fruits, two or three eggs, small breads, clothes, fried donuts, fish… After that time, life slowly becomes quiet under the warm sun. The day finishes at 6pm with the sunset. The village is then completely hidden in the night, especially when there is no moon; we can only see a few candles burning in front of a house or in a small shop, and of course the light of our restaurant. There are also lots of stars spread all over the sky and we often can see falling stars, and lightning from a far storm.

We wake up with the sun: Damien, Nina and Tchitcho leave for a two hours morning walk – to the beach, for a swim in big waves, but most of the time in the mountain – while the kids are sleeping quietly at the bungalow. Three times a day we walk from our bungalow to the centre and come back (a twenty minute walk in each direction): in the morning when we go to the library, after the lunch break and then in the evening to go to the restaurant. In the night, we never use electricity, though there is a generator in our hotel (first not to attract mosquitoes, and finally because we like it a lot). We live without a watch: we use the sun or our feelings, but in fact we never really need to know exactly what time it is. In the morning, the rosters start singing at 4 or 4.30, and it’s enough for Damien to stand up in time and wake up Nina and Tchitcho who already refell asleep.

We swim every day in the salty water: either in front of the hotel, on a nice beach at the end of the bay, or in the big waves (where Damien and Tchitcho like to play a lot while Nina is all stressed, expecting the next huge wave to tumble her like in a big sandy washing machine). Our daily shower is only use to wash down the salt from the ocean – with three buckets of cold water, it doesn’t take long.

Health – no problem, and (almost) no mosquitoes

After the paranoia of the first days, the fear of mosquitoes slowly disappears: we see some very rarely. However, we are doing the same ceremonial every evening: after a quick shower (this half bucket of cold water by person), we prepare ourselves fort the night: we put our long clothes impregnated with insect-repellent, and a few spray on our hands, feet and head; we prepare the mosquito-net for the bed and light on a mosquito-repellent incense.

We don't have any problem with health: though our feet, legs and hands start slowly to get covered with scratches, the salty water of the ocean cleans our scars. A great medicine, actually.