Gatô

By Eric H. Campbell

    On the road east to Fort Dauphin one passes through a village unremarkable but for its large fruit stands...

    “Ô gatô, é!”

Vendors crowd around a taxi brousse with their platters.

   ...and the women who crowd around the passing vehicles, hawking golden cakes.  Cake is “gatô” in Malagasy, from the French.

    The village is Ampasia (“am-pasha”), and until recently it was unique in this region for its cakes.  About eight years ago, Elá, a village mother, figured out the recipe for herself.  She told other villagers and they launched a local enterprise.

The cooks bake the cake batter in small metal cups.

    The cakes are shaped somewhat like American cupcakes, with puffy tops and scalloped edges.  The recipe is fairly ordinary: flour, sugar, oil, chocolate, eggs, milk, and baking soda.  Taste-wise, they’re nothing spectacular, but perfectly satisfying for a sweet tooth.

Sifoa, 15, spoons oil into baking cups.

    The ovens for the cakes are cooking pots, placed on a bed of coals.  In the bottom of each pot is a layer of sand, serving to radiate the heat more evenly.  Another layer of coals is placed on each pot’s lid.

Lampoly, 20, runs to intercept a taxi brousse.

    The dozen or so sellers stack their wares on platters and offer them to travelers who stop in Ampasia.          The vehicles range from huge cross-county trucks to smaller taxis brousse to local pickups to 4x4s carrying tourists.

    Lampoly, 20, pursed her lips in distaste at the mention of the tourists.

    “They don’t buy anything,” she said.  “They just watch.”

    Understandable; if an inexperienced foreigner is nervous about getting sick, they probably won’t touch any local food.

    While they wait for customers, the vendors scan the road in both directions.  The adults chat, while the children might dance with each other.  No one really drops their guard, lest they miss the next sale.

A successful day of selling can bring a profit of around 4000 ariary ($2).  This sum is several times what the average farmer makes per day.

    Fortunately, this difference does not appear to be very much of a lure for the next generation of villagers.  Genevéve, 40, explained how her two children help her during the summers, but will go back to school once the year begins in October.

    The cakes of Ampasia provide a shining example of how villagers with very few resources can unite and start new enterprises.  Such developments, however inconspicuous to foreigners, bode well for the future of Madagascar.