Huh? “But of course the Malagasy are tough“: more Father Elmanesque whistling? Uh, no, I really think so.

Tough can have several meanings, but today we’ll take it to mean skills, abilities, and aptitudes.

In the sense of kinga kinga too, yes, I affirm it, we really do have certain predispositions.

The problem is the environment. The endemic environment doesn’t allow these skills to fully express themselves.

You can be incredibly skilled, but when you live in such an environment, you tend to evolve in resourceful, make-do mode.

So, constantly tinkering and tinkering is hell. You don’t thrive, it’s as simple as that.

On the other hand, as soon as the endemic arrives in a more or less normal environment, with water, electricity, and a minimum wage that feeds its man, I guarantee you that he will always get by, regardless of his background or educational level.

The problem is that a “normal” environment doesn’t just fall out of the sky. No one will give it to you; it takes a lot of hard work to achieve it, as the catastrophic situation in Madagougou today demonstrates.

Having a normal environment… but also, and above all, knowing how to maintain it! We’ve always had water and electricity in the country… “load shedding” was an unknown word in my childhood.

Unfortunately, no one in government foresaw that the means of production would deteriorate. No one foresaw that the “ngolo ngolo” would increase the population by nearly 1 million additional heads every year.

No one foresaw that the climate would deteriorate, and which is, moreover, transforming all of Madagougou… into a tropical Sahara?

And today, August 13, 2025, is anyone able to predict how the situation will evolve by August 13, 2055?

When I look at the government over the past 16 years, they already can’t manage day-to-day operations properly, so planning 30 years ahead is not even a dream? 🤣

And yet, everything that’s happening today is perhaps also because 30 years ago, in 1995, no one bothered to imagine the Madagascar of 2025?

No, in 1995, the ground was already being laid for the 2001 crisis… which itself paved the way for the 2009 crisis… and since 2009, the utter waste… it’s appalling.

We often mess around with the ticking clock on Actutana. And yet, io izy io, time flies by incredibly quickly. And when you waste it from crisis to crisis, the bill is heavy in the end. Very heavy.

So it’s not in this life, in our life, that you’ll have the slightest chance of having a normal life in Madagougou. That’s a fact.

The second fact: we unfortunately only have one life.

So, starting from there?