Dispatches From The Field

22 June 2003 -- Ted Gilliland

I am beginning to feel that it is healthy to not have any preconceived notions about what one may do during a day in Madagascar. This morning after finishing our work in the forest, we attended a rodeo. We arrived in the truck and, seeing as we were the only vazahas (foreigners), we were charged an excessive rate by local standards: the equivalent of about two dollars.

When we arrived at the pen, I was less than excited to find that the only thing separating me from the angry, raging bull was a fence made of thin wooden poles and lashings of grass. I was worried, but the crowd of Malagasy people crowding inches from the fence indicated that either the fence was stronger than it looked or the Malagasy people were tougher than I thought. I was hoping it was the former.

The rodeo was actually rather unlike an American rodeo. Instead of a single bull and a tough-as-steel guy with a cowboy hat, there were two bulls and a dozen tough-as-steel Malagasy men, most of whom were barefoot. Also, instead of riding atop the bull, each man tried to grab onto the side of the bull and hold on as long as they could. It was mainly herding in an enclosure and contact was rarely made. While much was different, some thing are universal: The men still joked and egged each other on, children still squealed and giggled, and the bulls got bigger and the feats greater as the tales were told and retold. All in all, it was not what I expected when Luke said, “Lets go to the rodeo,” but I suppose that’s a perfect reason to eliminate all preconceived notions about what one might do during a day in Madagascar.

Ted Gilliland