Tamatave / Toamasina (2019)

The City

Fruit stands and small restaurants at the beach

The Market

Visiting a Suburb of Tamatave

We visited a part of town that has seen a lot of growth in recent years. Ambatovy, a large nickel and cobalt mining company and a major employer in Tamatave, has given land in this suburb to its employees, as well as money to build houses for themselves. Of course, some just took the money and fled. Others who already had a place to live, built houses in this part of town and rented them out. And yet others had started to build their house but ran out of money long the way. So there were quite a few lots with unfinished houses. Still, there is some life in this place and most people who live here are employees of Ambatovy.

The train tracks, used to connect the train which commutes between the plant and the harbour

Future Miami

Close to that suburb was a beach with nice sand dunes. It is also used as farm land by some. We talked to the owner of a small farm who obviously didn’t work for Ambatovy and had likely just settled here without a permit. President Rajoelina had just made promises to turn Tamatave into “Madagascar’s Miami” and a large road was supposed to be built just in this beautiful place. Here’s hoping that this project will be put on hold forever.

At the Harbour

I was lucky to have a relative who works at the Tamatave harbour and was able to give me a small tour. This is the main port of Madagascar and most imported products come in here and then get transported with trucks to all of Madagascar (but mostly Tana). When I was there, the port was about to be doubled in size (paid for by the Japanese) so there was some construction going on.

Outside of Tamatave

Next: Ivoloina (2019)