would there be singing?

last weekend some of my community members took a trip to the neighboring village of anketrekabe to celebrate the religious holiday of pentecost. a fellow PCV also happens to live in this village, so i went along on the trip to visit her site and spend some time speaking english and asking cultural questions. even though the villages are some distance apart on some pretty bad roads, everywhere is far and all the roads are bad in madagascar, so why not? i am always up for an adventure.

in madagascar though, you don't just hop in the car or bus and ease on down the road to your destination. most vehicles are rusted-out, dirty and always breaking down for some reason or another. the typical way of getting around here is on a taxi-brousse (bush taxi). the vehicles are usually 12-passenger vans carrying 25 people squeezed inside with baskets, chickens and bananas strapped to the tops and sides, or larger deisel trucks spewing black smoke and hauling loads of rice, peanuts, buckets of fish and sometimes upwards of 40 people sitting or standing where they can.

it was on one of these larger trucks that i returned from my weekend visit. it seemed that half my village was squeezed into this taxi-brousse. unbelievably, more and more people piled in and on top of this truck. as a kind gesture, i got to sit up front next to the driver and four other people, which meant uncomfortably straddling the stick shift, covered with greasy motor oil, for several hours.

to no one's surprise, as we were slowly making our way down the bumpy, gullied dirt road, the truck broke down. some guys happily jumped out to help make a quick adjustment, and several women and children gathered small fruits growing on the trees nearby. in not too much time, we were on our way.

but then it happened again, as the innards of the truck's engine groaned and creaked and came to a lurching halt. the repairs took longer this time, and people stood around cracking jokes. no one really seemed to care if the truck repair took ten minutes or ten hours. a group of children entertained themselves staring at me and intermittently scribbling in the sand. as the sun began to set, we once more piled into this monstrosity of a vehicle and crawled further down the road.

in no time at all, someone called out to the driver that there was a flat tire. at this point, everyone poured out of the vehicle. a large group of men began not to fix the tire, but promptly formed a circle under a tree, rhythmically singing, clapping and drumming, faces beaming with smiles and merriment. this went on for probably a half hour as a few other guys worked on the tire.

i sat in the grass, struck with wonder and amazement, taking in the beautiful sunset.

if this sort of thing happened in the states, people would be angrily grumbling to each other and cursing into their cell phones. here, it was an opportunity for togetherness, and celebration.

i kept asking myself, "if this happened in the states, would people be joyful?"

and would there be singing?