Tolognaro Prison
Dear Friends,
We are about to leave Madagascar, so my blogs will be going backwards. I have been so busy traveling from place to place, making contacts and visiting prisons, that I haven’t had time to catch up.
We just completed a two-week work trip to Tolognaro, a quiet coastal town at Madagascar's southern tip. The town is also called Fort Dauphin, and it holds special meaning for me—I spent my entire school years there, living in a boarding school with sixty other students.
It always strikes me, the disparity between the beauty of Madagascar’s topography, and the prisons, innocently tucked inside the towns, hidden hell-holes. When I was a kid, I never knew that the town prison existed just around the corner from our school. Now as an adult, thanks to some local contacts and permissions from the Ministry of Justice, I was able to enter the gate, personally connect with prison officials and establish important initial connections for future work there.
This prison holds about 550 inmates, including thirty-five women/young girls and ten underage boys. During the initial tour, I asked many questions and in the process, managed to trip into the sewer, ending up with a gash to the bone, requiring stitches and strong antibiotics. This is when I am thankful to be married to a doctor. While I was working at the prison, Bruce was training local SALFA physicians into hand-held ultrasound skills.
I greeted the women inmates as they gathered in the small courtyard, and asked them if any were willing to share their stories. All thirty-five of them lined up, hungry for a listening ear. I will send clips to you as I am able. Actually hearing them voice their sadness and frustration is powerful. I became enraged hearing stories of women being locked up for cutting down branches of firewood from the protected forests, while corrupt people in power bleed this country dry of precious rosewood. Came home and cried.
Mme Antoinette, Head of Prison Welfare, was especially welcoming. Her current project is to build a rehabilitation and training center in order to lessen recidivism. The prisoners will physically do the mason work along alongside professional masons and receive a certificate at the end. I echoed my support on behalf of our team, however with a caveat. As long as the living conditions are unacceptable by even the lowest standards, as long as prisoners continue to receive only one starchy meal per day, as long as there continues to be malnutrition, scabies outbreaks and unacceptable sleeping quarters - I have a hard time prioritizing a rehabilitation center. She heard me and we agreed to work together, to try and accomplish both goals.
Bruce and I were sleeping under a cozy comforter at night, as Tolognaro can be very cold during this time. The women were complaining of not having sweaters and their babies were getting sick. I called upon my community to help fund the purchase of blankets for the women and underage boys, warm clothing for the babies, and some rice, oil, beans and peanuts for a hundred inmates who are clinically malnourished.
I totally recognize that these are not long term solutions to some deeply imbedded problems. However there is something to be said about “small acts of kindness”, showing mercy to those who are desperate. I didn’t just want to quickly walk in, collect stories, nod my head empathetically, and leave without giving something back. Charitable giving also seals a commitment to work together long term in order to achieve more sustainable solutions. As my Dad used to say, “Put your money where your mouth is.” When I put a call-out to my old friends and former colleagues of my Mom and Dad who used to live in Fort Dauphin years ago, we received not only enough money to pay for emergency relief, but also to continue the process of long-term prison renovation.
While I was distributing the goods, other prisoners were practicing for the next day’s festivities, a fund-raising event for the rehabilitation center. We were included by special invitation and invited my old friend Fara of over 50 years, and totally enjoyed the skits and dancing. One skit showed a school teacher having the pupils recite the rights of prisoners - food, education, due process, clean environment etc. As in other Malagasy prisons, 50% of the inmates are in pre-dtrial detention awaiting a court hearing, many for over a year, some kept in jail months or years longer then their eventual sentence. Twenty percent of the inmates are significantly malnourished. There is no soap. There are no mattresses, only moldy torn up mats. The women sleep thirteen plus two babies in a tiny 8x10 foot room, no toilet, no windows - from 6 pm to 6 am. A pail for peeing into. The clothes washing area isn’t functional, no faucet. Fara had had no idea such things were happening only a five minute walk from her house.
We have so many prisons that need “urgent” work - in Morondava, Tulear, Tana Tsiafahy Prison and Antalaha. Slowly we are chipping away as funding permits. The plan at present is to send Maoly and Francel (contractor) down to Tolognaro in October, when Mme Antoinette, the Prison Welfare Director will able to receive them. They will put together a budget to renovate the women’s ward sleeping quarters, and assess the progress of the Rehabilitation Center.
The good news is that we have people to partner with. Mme Antoinette is willing and ready to work with us. Mr. Zo, a community activist and a Neny Lava shephard (I will write more about this spiritual and mystical movement at some point), is eager to coordinate with local Malagasy leaders to improve life in the prisons. The head of one artisan group in Antsirabe, and one artisan group in Fort Dauphin, are willing to pursue the idea of training prison women into marketable crafts. I will help with marketing and design, as this is my area of expertise from my work in India for over 30 years. There is positive energy out there, waiting to be channeled into sustainable change.
I leave you with a video I made from the fundraising event. The dancing is superb.
During the months before October, we hope to start on one of the below:
Morondava desperately needs sanitation renovation. Toilet waste is overflowing into the women’s chambers during the rainy season. They literally have to sleep in excrement.
Tulear has four outside toilets for 800 prisoners, no doors, no septic tank. Waste has to be shoveled from the toilets to behind the toilets daily.
Tsiafahy can only provide 2 liters of water a day to the inmates, including drinking and washing. They suffer. We need to dig a well but are awaiting funds.
Antalaha is getting there. We still have 4 chambers to renovate (2 of the worst off finished) - fixing the dilapidated roofs, installing ventilators into the roofs of the deadly suffocating rooms, and painting the interiors. The farm prison building is completed.
Antsirabe is “done”, finished this past year. The entire septic system has been revamped, the waste drains to the town septic system instead of flowing downhill to the houses nearby, huge pipes were special ordered for this purpose, toilet doors made and broken toilets replaced. The outside muddy, cold courtyard has been paved and the men are happily playing basketball there during the day. I’ll be addressing the state of each of these prisons separately, as well as keep you updating you on our progress.
As always, we are deeply in gratitude for the generous donations that continue to be offered. Please forward this blog to others you think might be interested. We don’t have enough funds to finish what we would like to accomplish at this point. If you would like to donate to the Fort Dauphin prison, or for renovation work in the other prisons we are involved with, here is the link. Please contact me if you are giving a donation, big or small, so I can personally thank you. I only get reports every so often.
With warmest sentiments,
Tamar
