I wanted to take a moment today though and talk about the concept of taboo. The word itself derives from the Tonga term “tabu,” and was first introduced to the English language by Captain James Cook. According to Wikipedia (which ye gods I’m relying on far too much for my knowledge of the world these days… I’m as bad as a kid in middle school relying on his dusty old and outdated Encyclopedia Britannicas bought at a yard sale…), tabu/taboo is also related to the Malagasy term fady. Every culture has something forbidden, some custom that crosses the bounds of etiquette and decorum or at its extreme breaks the worldview of the laws of nature. I try my best to respect the local customs and manners, channeling my inner, localized Emily Post. I don’t always succeed but I do try. There have been cases in foreign lands where I’ve had to bite my tongue or turn away from moments or acts that I would have found improper at home but as a visiting guest I didn’t feel I could or should do anything.
Our local guides in Madagascar gave us some great “taboo” lectures on things to avoid and what to do, a crash course in Malagasy cultural sensitivity.
For example, it’s rude to point, even with Disney-approved two-fingers. One should gesture with a wide open hand or point with a knuckle, something I kept equating with a poilitican’s supposedly neutral hand gesture, perhaps best personified by a Bill Clinton impression:
When we almost went to a local village’s rum factory, we were advised that if offered a drink, we should simply dip our finger in and wave the drink over our heads, handing the glass back to the local and say, “thank you… please finish it for me.” Otherwise, if we drank, we’d have to KEEP drinking with them until we were good and drunk. To leave beforehand would be rude and thus strictly taboo.
I think I mentioned during the Queen’s Palace tour that one should enter the home on the right foot as a sign of respect, and when leaving, never turn one’s back on the host, backing out of the house to show respect.
All of these cultural idiosyncrasies are endlessly fascinating to me anywhere I go. It heightens one’s own cultural foot-in-the-mouth possibilities, one’s own weird, “huh… that must seem really odd to someone on the outside looking in!”, and that’s kind of the point of travel — to broaden one’s horizons while better appreciating and understanding one’s own place. Think globally, act locally if one’s being reductively co-opting other terms.
But the one thing I never really got an explanation or primer on involved how to react or handle the poverty that is a part of the Malagasy life. Along the city streets, amidst the potholed and dusty roads of blacktop and gravel between small villages and shanty towns, people were selling trinkets, worthless wares, begging for money.
Some one at some point said I should simply not make contact and ignore them, hustle past, because if you make eye contact or engage in any way, the local will mark you as at best a sympathetic ear and at worse an easy mark.
This is easier said than done when confronted with small children, holding what may be their own babies in their arms, whistling and tapping on the side of the bus, the windows, broken English mixed with melodious French phrases.
It’s easier said than done when seeing the dirt and grime of life in a harsh environment — fields of mud in some places, fumes and trash from passing automobiles in others.
It’s easier said than done when confronted with pathetic images and cries, not in the street slang parlance but in the proper English definition of arousing emotions, of being heartbreaking.
It’s easier said than done even when one breaks down and hands a few thousand ariary, even tens of thousands of ariary to someone only to have them demand more, to have others swarm thinking you might be handing out more. Even then, when I would get frustrated at being hounded and felt attacked, even then I would fins a push-pull in my soul of being angry at being taken advantage of by these people and questioning who was I to speak of being taken advantage of when I have frankly so many advantages, so much privilege, and so much hope.
No one tells you how to act or respond, what’s appropriate or taboo when it comes to confronting such things. Some say you should avoid making eye contact. I probably should have looked more, given more of the ariary I had. Outside of Madagascar, no one takes it. Even at the airport, having cleared security and when buying a soda from the shops around the gate, they wouldn’t take it.
I should have given more.
I should have done more.
I should do more.