Inside Madagascar - The Poorest Island Nation in the World 🇲🇬

The second Madagascar video, and the one that gets below the surface of Antananarivo — because this time Harry has a guide, and says on camera that he doesn’t usually like having one and that it took him places he would never have found.

The centre of it is a strip of informal settlement between a canal and a wall, where the average income is under a dollar a day, the economy is salvage, and a shipping container housing six people counts as one of the better homes. Around it: the zebu market, hand-made pork sausage, licensed koba, and a coffee seller who shifts 34 litres a day for about 30,000 ariary of profit.

His conclusion is not the one the title sets up. He calls Madagascar one of his favourite countries in Africa and says he has nothing bad to say about it — the anger in the video is aimed at corruption, not at the place.

Obs: the subtitles on this source are auto-generated; names and figures are recorded only where the source is unambiguous.

Key moments

• [00:00] Local rum, straight and very strong.
• [01:03] A street blackjack game — 10,000 ariary a hand, played in a huddle he first mistakes for a drug deal.
• [02:33] He wins, and decides to give the winnings away by asking someone to pick a number.
• [03:03] He miscounts and hands it to the one man who didn’t need it — his guide — and leaves the mistake in.
• [03:34] Men cutting trees from branches Harry calls precariously thin. People die doing it. A day’s work is worth about $5.
• [05:05] Greater Tana is around 4 million against 1.5 million in the city, on roads that can’t be widened because the houses are built against them.
• [06:07] Phone credit bought daily in tiny amounts, because a month at a time is too expensive to find at once.
• [07:07] The taxi-be — the local minibus, boarded while moving, twenty or thirty people aboard, with routes colour-coded because not everyone can read.
• [09:11] The biggest challenge, per his guide: low salaries, taxes that make business impossible, and no jobs for graduates — which is why the streets are full of people with nothing to do.
• [09:42] On crime: dangerous in places because of poverty, and better to be home at night. Harry has walked at night for four days without trouble and says he probably shouldn’t have.
• [10:12] Travelling the country is notoriously hard — flights expensive and inconsistent, roads bad and journeys long, and no government appetite to fix them.
• [11:13] A market in an alleyway, and a Chinese pharmacy.
• [11:43] The concession: he doesn’t usually like guides, and this one is showing him places he’d never find.
• [11:43] Halal and pork counters side by side.
• [12:14] Zebu — an endemic breed, sold whole down to brain and tail, and his guide’s claim that it’s among the best meat in the world. The best cut is the liver.
• [13:17] Pork sausage made by hand in front of him, and eaten at the stall next door.
• [14:52] Rice consumption: 136 kg per person per year.
• [15:23] The ethnic mix — the northeast tracing to Malaysia and Polynesia, the west to Africa.
• [15:56] Religion: about 41% Christian, roughly 7% Muslim, the rest traditional belief, which varies by tribe and includes veneration of the baobab for its longevity.
• [16:26] Circumcision at two or three years old, and why it isn’t optional: an uncircumcised man cannot be buried in the family grave. The proverb his guide gives is that they live together and are buried together.
• [17:29] The custom that goes with it, which Harry treats as culture rather than spectacle — and notes there are stranger things around the world.
• [17:59] The Madagascar films are known mainly in cities with television and internet; outside them there’s often no electricity.
• [18:31] Tourists ask about King Julien. The largest animal in the country is the zebu — no lions, no hippos, no giraffes.
• [19:02] The informal settlement.
• [19:33] A schoolgirl stops to practise her English with him.
• [20:03] Men playing dominoes for money — the thing he says he looks for in every country.
• [20:33] Inside a home: a shipping container housing six people, two bunk beds, a stove. It’s one of the nicer homes here.
• [21:34] Asked what they need, they say money. Harry says he’d rather buy things because you never know how money gets spent, and gives money anyway.
• [22:35] His line about it: you see the cartoons and assume heaven on earth, and for some people it’s hell.
• [23:05] iPhone screens at 500 each, resold for repairs.
• [23:36] Water at 2,000 a bucket, which is expensive here. Average earnings under $1 a day, and some people earn nothing and work the dump.
• [25:09] Recycled medical supplies, including used Covid vaccination equipment — sometimes refilled with rat poison or insecticide.
• [25:41] Laundry at 100 ariary a shirt, done by hand, by a woman who also sells peanuts.
• [27:16] Government help exists, is very small, and leaks.
• [27:47] A junkyard where computers are stripped into carefully sorted parts worth a few cents each.
• [28:47] The corruption argument: gold and copper in abundance, mismanaged since a rushed independence, and none of the wealth reaching anyone.
• [29:18] And the caveat he insists on — this is a small part of the country; there are also the forests and the lemurs.
• [29:50] His approach to people who look intimidating: walk up with confidence and they smile back.
• [29:50] Slum clearance: a new metro line pushed everyone off one side, and for President Macron’s visit people were moved off the roads. Covering over the cracks, he calls it.
• [30:50] The coffee seller: 300 for a half glass, 600 for a full, out of a home-made filter and an insulated kettle.
• [32:22] Drinking local water, boiled, and saying he’ll report back on whether he gets ill.
• [33:23] His verdict on the coffee: seven out of ten, and genuinely good.
• [33:54] 30,000 ariary a day in profit, on 34 litres. He charges Harry 500 and his guide 300, which Harry notices and rates.
• [34:25] He leaves 20,000 — about a day’s profit — and buys coffee for everyone standing around, because the man never stopped moving.
• [35:26] The koba market. Rice flour and peanuts steamed in banana leaf.
• [35:56] 1,000 a slice, about 20 cents at 4,000 ariary to the dollar.
• [36:58] It’s a licensed product, made in a village an hour away, and unlicensed sellers hide from the police.
• [38:00] Baguettes, and his line about the French: say what you like, they brought baguettes.
• [38:30] Wealthier Malagasy speak French as a status marker. He prefers Malagasy.
• [39:34] Chocolate crêpes for about 10 cents, and madeleines bought for the kids standing nearby.
• [40:34] The closing verdict: one of his favourite countries in Africa, nothing bad to say, and a reminder of how much the basics are worth.

Extracted pages

• Place: Antananarivo
• Country: Madagascar
• Tips: Travel with a local guide, Reward honesty and hard work