Day 333 - Centre Fihavanana, Antananarivo

by  Maxfear ® 

There was another Sandra in Antananarivo, the foreign service nurse practitioner at the embassy. And the call for Sandra was Centre Fihavanana, an enterprise run by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd in Antananarivo. The Centre has operated since 1985, providing a safe place for abandoned or abused women. The sisters set up homes in groups of three so that the women would all have two close neighbors they could turn to for help. In exchange for having homes to live in, the women embroider tablecloths, runners, napkins, aprons, and clothing items, especially T-shirts on which they embroider images of the many different types of lemurs. They also made cards combining handmade paper and cross-stitched or embroidered fabric. The women earned the profits, part of which went towards paying for their houses, important for their self-sufficiency and independence so they would not fall back into patterns that led to their being abused or abandoned or to begging, the only means of support most had before becoming part of the Centre's programs.

The Centre also provided health care for the children and training for mothers on how to care for their infants. Sandra volunteered with the Centre each Friday as part of that program.  She weighed all the infants to ensure they were gaining weight consistently. If a child failed to gain weight, Sandra provided the child's mother with instructions for what to feed the child and the Centre sent food home for the mothers as well as they also needed to be well nourished. Children in Madagascar did not look like most children in the west. They had no baby fat, no chubby cheeks. Toddlers in Madagascar looked like miniature, almost anorexic, adults. While I was never able to go with Sandra to the Centre, I imagine her spending much more time than necessary to weigh each child so that she could hold and cuddle them, provoking a smile and laughter to match her own infectious smiles.

Cards made by women
of the Centre Fihavanana

The Centre also provides schooling for street children between the ages of 3 and 12. Some of the children do well enough in the school to be accepted into the state secondary schools. A number of western tourist organizations have teamed up with the Centre, organizing trips for tourists to see for themselves how a very small donation can have an enormous impact. Hilary Bradt, a travel guide writer from the U.K., has included information about the Centre in her guidebook on Madagascar for the past ten years, and she brings groups to the Centre each year.

The year I was in Madagascar, I sent Christmas cards that were made by the women at the Centre. The cards had a cross-stitched design with Best Wishes stamped under the embroidered square. Sandra told me she had ordered Hanukah cards from the women for another friend and the women did beautiful cards with a menorah on each, but they then added the words Merry Christmas under it. The couple who ordered the cards were amused by the incongruity, but gladly collected and sent out the cards. 

I also bought a few cards with two beautiful white doves holding intertwined gold rings in their beaks embroidered on fine linen as well as cards with a cross-stitched pelican holding a baby by two corners of a blanket wrapped around him. I had a hard time parting with them, but I realized I could share the impact of them with others by using the cards to congratulate couples at weddings and the birth of a child.

It was not at all a surprise that Sandra had found the Centre and spent several hours each week with the women, children, and Sisters. Before she joined the State Department, she had volunteered for extended periods in Moldova where she collected watercolor paintings and sold them in the U.S. to raise funds for orphanages in Moldova. She also spent time in Rwanda after the genocide of 1994 that pitted the Hutus and Tutsis against one another. Sandra was able to return to Rwanda when her tour in Madagascar ended, this time with the embassy.

Centre Fihavanana was not my calling. It was the calling of the other Sandra. And I felt blessed to have gotten to know her.