Vary Triathlon

As Marshall and Charlie have already so richly described, the face of death is strikingly apparent and influential in the every day life of rural Madagascar. In a continuation on the funeral theme, I’d like to share the rather impressive 40 day Sakalava Muslim mourning tradition after a death in the community.

The day of the death, a chicken is killed at the mosque. Over the following three days, many people solemnly gather at the home of the deceased, spending many hours cooking and eating very large meals, paying their respects to the mourning family and praying. Over the next month money is collected and given to the family and smaller meals are shared periodically. On the 38th day of mourning, another chicken is killed at the hour of the death, and the final 2 days are filled with group cooking and eating again, but this time the air is light, celebratory and one of happy remembrance.

And this is also where everything devolves into chaos…a sort of entropy in which everything, remarkably, settles into the right place…eventually…
The Vary (Rice) Triathlon
Leg 1. A 60cm in diameter pot full to the brim, with rice. The art of measuring out exactly the right amount of dry rice and water to accomplish this is unknown to most Americans, and after completing my two year transplant here in M/car I still don’t think I’ll understand. And if the pot big enough for a child to go swimming in doesn’t impress you, then perhaps the 1meter long wooden spoon needed to scoop out the rice will. This device is aptly called the ‘spoon tree’ and requires 3 people to operate (or maybe just 2 if neither of them is me) – one to hold the pot in place (did I mention that this is all taking place over a still very hot, but dying fire?), one to hold the giant serving ‘tub’ in place as rice is scooped into it and to scoop sticky rice off the spoon with a plate, and one to do the actually scooping – this person is standing with the pot at about knee level and is remarkably strong yet agile.
Leg 2. Now, at least 2 people must carry the tub of rice to the ‘platter preparing station’ – this leg is a challenge for the following reasons: 1. The tub is heavy and full of steaming rice; 2. to get to the platter prep station, one must walk on what feels like the world’s hottest sand; and 3. the entrance to the station is blocked by a barely visible clothesline, approximately 5 other people carrying their own bowls/tubs of various food items, and a very low porch roof that even I (5’2”) find a struggle to duck under.
Leg 3. This leg of the vary triathalon is way too advanced for me – the platter prep station requires the ability to dish out the correct number of platters of rice, construct towering bowls of sidedishes (usually 3 – one meat, one mashed pumpkiny deliciousness, one coleslaw-like salad with mangoes) and dispense this food in the correct ‘respectful’ order to approximately 50 hungry men, women and children.

Now seems like a good time to point out that the vary triathlon is a female only event, and despite its physical and mental strenuousness, does not stop anyone from speaking their mind about how things should be done (or weren’t done correctly), eg. Your side dish is just too salty or Oh my god, are we out of rice?! I would also like to share that the women of Katsepy speak very expressively and emphatically, in other words lots of arm waving, finger pointing and hand slapping. This is their normal habit. Now imagine they are all slightly excited, agitated and armed with serving spoons dripping with sauce or sticky with rice. No middle school cafeteria has seen more food flung.
Finally, we all settle down on our straw mats, 5 or 6 people gathered in a circle around platters of steaming food, introducing strong and delightful smells to our nose. ‘Bismillah’, hands dig in and as the eating begins, memories and stories are shared, sadness over death is replaced by a celebration of lives current and past, and content bellies are filled with rice.