You can tell a lot about a country by its transportation system. In America we value individualism and thus the car is king and we have built a country to serve it. And like everything else about Madagascar the transportation system is a messy hodgepodge of solutions held together by pure will and a tomato paste can.
One of the main forms of transportation in Madagascar is the Taxi Brousse, (Bush Taxi). A Brousse is anything from a pickup truck to a huge Greyhound style bus; the most common incarnation is a 15-passenger van, there is always something broken and it NEVER leaves on time. But then nothing in this country ever happens on time.
The Trip from my site to Tamatave should only take a couple of hrs but typically takes a little over 6. The most common way to get in and out of Anivorano is by boat. The boats are large cargo boats that have been converted to passenger boats by adding a lot of wooden boards to sit on, a boat like this will typically carry about 40 people and a over a 1,000 pounds of stuff, all pushed up river by a flimsy outboard motor- the kind you expect to see on a fiberglass pleasure boat. Because the motor leaves much to be desired so the 20km from Brickaville to Anivorano takes about three hrs, going up river. The weakness of the motor is excecberated by the constant stopping and starting to cram one more passnager in or unload a couple of bags of rice. In most cases I am patient with this situation, there is no road people have to get plces this is just the way it is. But the other day I almost went off my rocker. We were headed down river and it was taking a particularly long time due to a larger than normal number of stops, we were on the out skirts of Brickaville only about 5 or 6 min from the waterfront when this young woman asked to by dropped off in a particularly tricky spot that involved a lot of extra maneuvering and added about 30 min to our time in the boat. I was about to blow a casket, this woman had no luggage and was in perfect health and the fact that she prolonged the misery of 40 other people simply so she would not have to walk an extra half kilometer was just too much, if I was a person prone to violence...
After arriving in Brickaville you go to the Taxi Brousse station where you get grabed and harassed and pulled at as everyone is trying to get you to get in THEIR Brousse so they can be the ones to get your money. In Brickaville it isn't very bad as it is a small town and there are only so many Brousses and most of the people that work there know me by now but in large cities it can be miserable. Though the vans are 15-passenger there are never just 15 passengers, it typically sits around 23 adults plus a number of children and chickens crammed into the cracks. The Brousse is just like the boat in that it is constantly stopping to pick up and drop off people and goods, but to enhance this experience it flies down the road as fast as possible taking turns, passing semi trucks and running over dogs. Only once have I had a contrary experience when in some misguided attempt to save gas he would turn off the engine and coast down all the hills until we came to a virtual stop and only then would he restart the engine.
I've decided that the best way to deal with public transportation in Madagascar is with my eyes closed. I simply pretend I don't know what is going on outside of my head and imagine myself in the passenger seat of my mom's car.