Round-Up and Outlook, the Pandemic Edition

Currently, I live in Anakao, a small fishing village in the southwest of Madagascar. I came here in the beginning of March for a surf vacation, then the island got locked down, I decided to stay ... and it's been 108 days since.

Ironically, I had hoped for a quiet 2020, i. e. not much work, because I really wanted to focus on surfing and “enjoying life” (whatever that means) after I finished two huge book projects and got my career rolling in Africa in the last couple years … and boy oh boy, did Covid-19 ever grant me my wishes.

 

While many people around the world were isolated or still are, I was always free to roam and surf various breaks around Anakao which I feel very fortunate about. I did not bring my cameras, though (because I didn’t know I was going to stay that long), and my iPhone broke, so I am sans camera at the moment.*  It’s very strange. It has led me to crave taking pictures with all my heart, but also to practice other things I want to get better at, like writing, and perfecting my Malagasy.

Oh, and of course also going out into the ocean every day, that strange beast, catching waves and learning about life, because surfing and life are basically the same, is something I’ve found. I have the exact same struggles in surfing as in life, and it’s been interesting and baffling to analyze those similarities. It’s also good to have a lot of time at my hands, to be bored occasionally, and to be forced to live in one place. Once a week, I find myself wanting to bolt, but of course I need to learn to cope and stay for now.

 

* I bought a cheap Samsung and snapped the pictures in the collage above with it. But the quality, sadly, is shit.