Mission To Madagascar

TV News bulletins featured the news that Andrew Lees, the Deputy Director of Friends Of The Earth, had gone missing in Madagascar and, four days later, that his body had been found in the jungle.

Andrew was the son of Great Yarmouth Rotarian Edward (Ted) Lees and in November 1997 Ted made a trip to the island to see the spot where his son died and inspect other aspects of his work.

Ted travelled in the company of three young ladies - Dr Christine Orengo, Andrew's fiancée, her sister Yvonne and Angela Gibbons, Events Organiser for Friends Of The Earth. "They were wonderful minders," said Ted, then 74 years-old, "I was very lucky".

The adventure began somewhat inauspiciously as, after leaving Waterloo on November 7th for Paris, where the plane to Antannarivo Airport would depart, he discovered that he had left a contact lens behind and therefore would only have one functioning eye for the duration of the trip. Bad was to go to worse as, in the scrum that was arrivals and passport control in Madagascar, he was relieved of his traveller's cheques and credit cards!

The party eventually made it to Fort Dauphin and the Kaleta Hotel, which Ted describes as "cleanish, with brown hot water and atrocious coffee". The nearby Libanona Research Centre is where the money from the Andrew Lees Memorial Trust has been spent and there is a plaque denoting the fact. "My eyes were watering" notes Ted.

The party retraced the cross-country route to the escarpment above the village of Loharanoa, which was the last place where Andrew was seen alive, and made their way down into the settlement to arrange a memorial service with the villagers. At the end of negotiations through their interpreter the villagers agreed to contribute a cow, for which Ted and Christine paid and Ted would also provide rum and wine. Surprised by the hostile reaction to him by the children of the village, Ted was informed that if they are bad they are threatened that a tall white man would come and tear their hearts out - Not surprisingly, they were not overjoyed at his arrival.

Three days later they returned to Loharanoa where a procession formed up for a half-mile walk to a banyan tree where one of the local Zebu cattle was sacrificed, its throat cut and the blood collected. They then moved on to the place where Andrew was found. There, in a small clearing, was a memorial stone decorated with two Zebu skulls and the new sacrificial skull was added. The local priest anointed the stone with fresh blood and rum, muttering incantations in local dialect in a ceremony that was a mixture of Christianity and Animism. Dancers lead the way back to the banyan tree where Ted presented 20 litres of red wine and 40 litres of rum, all in jerry cans. "There were at least 450 people," said Ted, "and they got very excited".

On departure, Ted was presented with a live chicken and 12 eggs. "We were privileged to be involved in such a tribal ceremony," says Ted. The total cost had been about £300.

The following day they made a trip to see lemurs in their natural habitat, which allowed emotions to return to normal. The next day saw the start of an equally difficult trip back home - The transfer bus left without them, their taxi then punctured on the way to the airport and, back in Paris, their Eurostar tickets were out of date.

What did Ted think of his trip? "I was, to put it mildly, spoilt rotten" he says, "My minders were wonderful and I love all three of them". However, Ted noted that Rotary Foundation's Polio Plus campaign had been operating on the island during the previous week but the villagers had been unaware of it as they are at least half a day's walk from Fort Dauphin where the notices were posted.

See RETURN TO MADAGASCAR about Ted's return in November 2000.

Top of this page