26 August 2008 - Day 1, part 1
The short flight from Mauritius was notable for the area of burning rainforest seen soon after we crossed the eastern coast of Madagascar on our descent to Ivato International Airport. As our time in Madagascar continued we were reminded of this sight by the large bags of charcoal for sale next to the road and the seemingly constant smell of woodsmoke whenever we got out of the car.
We were greeted at the terminal building by a man in a pinstriped suit holding a paper with our name on, he was accompanied by a policeman. Paul, who inspired our charitable effort, had told us that we would be met by Richard and Albert, two of Paul's friends. Richard was the man in the pin striped suit and we would meet Albert outside the terminal.
On entering the terminal a further three policemen joined Richard and the four of us - Robin, Amanda, Alice(14) and Philippa(10) - were escorted past the queues at passport control through the VIP channel to await our large collection of luggage.
Through the fantastic generosity of the children and parents of Horsell Junior School, our luggage contained 1,500 pencils, 200 pens, 800 exercise books, 1,000 pages of A3 paper, 288 paintbrushes and 8 tubs of powder paints this amounted to 100 Kilogrammes, tightly packed into four well-secured boxes.
The police escort got us to the front of queue at security control where our three trolleys of bags and school supplies got a speedy search and approval. This was a great contrast to the treatment we had received at Mauritius where it had taken a great diplomatic effort from Robin to be able to clear the powder paint through security in to the hold for our Madagascan flight.
The owner of the tour company, Benjamin, our guide, Tahiry and our driver, Rijt, were awaiting us holding the obligatory card and found themselves surrounded by police who thouroughly checked their identity cards, car registration documents and drivers licences before they were allowed to greet us.
We finally left the terminal building and met Albert who turned out to be general of the airport Police. Albert was dressed in the smartest uniform with wonderul gold braid and looked very imposing. Albert made sure we were all OK and together with Richard oversaw the loading of us and our luggage and our departure from the airport and the start of our adventure.