The Sainte-Marie island, located in the north-east of Madagascar, stretches over about 50 kilometers. Between the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, the island abounds in assets to shelter sailors in search of food and peace: a vast coastline with many creeks, a luxuriant vegetation, fresh water and a warm and welcoming community. The most famous bay of Ambodifotatra treasures memories of a mythical period when Sainte-Marie was a hideout for pirates. The Island of Forbans, dominated by the pirates' cemetery and protected by an isle named “Ilot de Madam”, is located in the heart of the island.

Pirates’ history: an orally passed on treasure that grows richer with each generation, for three centuries now.

It is believed that in the middle of the 17th century, more than a thousand privateers, freebooters and traffickers of all kinds once reigned over this small piece of land.

The story goes that English, French and American pirates hid some of their treasures there. Thomas White, an Englishman, is said to be the grandfather of the famous Malagasy princess Betty, who gave the island to France in 1750. It is also believed that Caribbean pirates, chased away by the English monarchy at the beginning of the 18th century, took refuge in the welcoming waters of Sainte-Marie. The question is, how much is left of the great piracy era?

Hardly anything: the leftovers of history are mostly the work of the Indian Company, a prosperous trading company that dominated the island in the 18th century: a landing stage, a strong and a few graves in a devastated cemetery. This is the famous pirate cemetery, which is more the cemetery of traders than of forbidden men: we can meet merchants, governors, a few privateers, women, children and missionaries; but few pirates.

A memorial to the famous pirate William Kid, who was hanged in England in 1701, and a quaint headstone engraved with two tibias surmounted by a hilarious skull, the tomb of a certain Pierre le Chartier, who was born in Normandy and died in Sainte-Marie in March 1834, but nobody knows anything about him.

Pirates die without leaving many traces: their ships are sunk and their bodies are more often thrown into the sea than lying wisely underground. Their intense activity around Sainte-Marie has been attested by others: acts of the maritime companies that declare the disappearance of ships, judgments and a few interesting or terrifying stories. Few vestiges remain, but their presence seems much more alive in the collective memory than the merchants.

The power of the cemetery is not to provide historical clues, but to bring together in the same place of memories: the enemy brothers, pirates and merchants; and to bring them back to life through an epitaph.

Sources : Madagascar Treasure Island, lle Sainte Marie Madagascar, Office du Tourisme de Sainte-Marie

The first flag of the United States was adopted in 1777 out of three colors: red, white, and blue. The new country had just declared its independence from Britain, and was made up of 13 new states that used to be British colonies. So, they decided to put 13 red and white stripes on the flag. In the blue area of the flag, called the canton, they placed one white star for each of the 13 states of the union: Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, North Carolina, and Rhode Island.

Eventually, two more states were added to the U.S., so they added two more stripes and, of course two more stars for Vermont and Kentucky—15 stripes and 15 stars. Soon enough, there were five new states: Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana and Mississippi. People started to realize that if they kept adding more stripes, those stripes were going to get ridiculously skinny.

In 1818, the United States passed a new Flag Act law, which would keep the number of stripes at 13 in honor of those first 13 states. However, they would add new stars for the flag for the new states to come in the future.

The next state to enter in the union was Illinois, on December 3, 1818. The new Flag Act declared that once a new state or states enter the union, the flag would not officially get its new stars until the next Independence Day, July 4th, which is still the rule today. Because Illinois became a state on December 3, 1818, a new star was officially added to the flag on July 4, 1819.

Two new states had joined the union in the same one-year period: Alabama and Maine—which split off from the Massachusetts. The flag jumped from 21 stars straight to 23 stars in 1820. As time goes by, the number of states increased steadily. From 1822 to the Civil War in 1861, 11 states joined the Union which made the stars number rise to 34: Missouri, Arkansas, Michigan, Florida, Texas, Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, Oregon, and Kansas.

The Unites States kept all the stars even for those states that were trying to leave the union. During the war, a bunch of the western counties of Virginia wanted to stay part of the USA. Therefore, in 1863, Congress let them split from Virginia and become the brand-new state of West Virginia, and the flag had 35 stars. Later, from 1865 to 1912, there were 13 new states: Nevada, Nebraska, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona—48 stars.

In 1912, the first specific star pattern was made official by the U.S. government. Before that year, people were just making up lots of different star arrangements. The number of stars stayed at 48 for quite a while until 1959, when Alaska and Hawaii became the two last stars of the U.S. flag—with 50 stars that we still have today.

Sources: USA Today, Britannica, Public Broadcasting Service, US history, US Flag, History, National Flag Foundation, Battlefield

« Lahaly eh! Tsara be fanotsafa e! » Such is how we greet people in Manambato, in the eastern side of the island. Many holidaymakers travel to Manambato because of its free clean air. Manambato is simply put a touristic destination. Yet, it is noteworthy that Manambato has its own history.

The unique feature of Manambato lies in its blue river along with its beautiful beaches. Geographically, Manambato is part of the fokontany that makes up Vohitranivona, in the district of Brickaville.

In the past, Manambato was just a simple green forest. The city of Manambato was formed only in 1947 and divided into four parts. The name of Manambato comes from the presence of rocks in the lake. The people who came first to Manambato were its first settlers. Then they made many of friends and became a whole population.

As for the freshwater lake, embellished by a fine sandy beach, it was a lake of a certain giant named Darafify - a ruler at that time.  According to legend, Rasoabe was named after the first wife of the giant Darafify. Legend tells that she lived in the place where the lake stands and where her husband had put her to make rice fields. The lake bears her name now. When her husband was away, Rasoabe cheated on him with another man and when he found out, Darafify drowned her in the lake. She then built a village at the bottom of the water where she lived with her slaves. Some say that when the water is calm, you can still see the falafa – traditional huts— at the bottom of the abyss.

Pork remains one of the taboos still observed in Manambato because of the river's virtues that no one dares to abuse. If someone does it intentionally, rituals must be performed to break the curse, otherwise it is believed that the person will die.
Besides, other taboos do exist due to the presence of crocodiles in the lake of Manambato. Therefore, the inhabitants of Manambato have imposed the Fanidy – other small taboos such as removing all gold jewelry before bathing – to stop the crocodiles from attackingpeople passing on the beach. By respecting all these guidelines, your stay will be more than pleasant.

Manambato is also home to products highly valued in the eastern part of the island.  During the litchis harvest, Manambato produces up to 50 tons of litchis per day. In addition to litchis, coconuts are also harvested.  What makes Manambato similar to other parts of Madagascar is the fact that it also produces rice but only for local consumption. Manambato is also famous for fishing— one of the main means of subsistence for local people. The Manambato River is connected to the sea which also makes it a shipping lane.

Sources: Madagascar Treasure Island, Madagascar Green Island Discovery

The world is changing in every way, and engineers are those who would change the future and contribute to a better world. Some of them, scientists for the majority, have been true geniuses by creating absolutely incredible things while they were still young. Here are five game-changers whose inventions have gone essential for the humanity.

Louis Braille. He invented the Braille language at the age of 15. Louis Braille, born in 1809, was the inventor of the tactile writing system with raised dots commonly called Braille for blind or severely visually impaired people. He invented it when he himself became blind due to an accident while handling objects as a child.

Alexander Graham Bell. Graham Bell was the father of the first telephone. Many are those who are hooked on their smartphones but do not know the man behind this invention—the one who has revolutionized the world of telecommunications. At the age of 18, Alexander Graham Bell became a phonologist and a specialist of sound emission. Alexander created the first harmonica telegraph during his research on sound with his sidekick named Watson. His goal, at that time, was to transmit speeches throughout his country.

Philo Taylor Farnsworth. Philo Taylor was born in 1906 and created the television design at the age of 14. He came up with the idea in 1920. It is important to note that this young American did not invent television, but he was the one who created a complete television system, including transmission and reception. After a few years in the army, he returned to western Idaho through the state of Washington and Oregon where his first research was supported and funded.

Mark Zuckerberg. He developed the world's largest social network at age 21. Mark Zuckerberg was born in 1984 in New York. He was passionate about computers and gifted in programming from a very young age. At the age of 20, in 2003, he created his first social network when he entered Harvard University. In 2004, at the age of 21, Mark Zuckerberg officially launched his Facebook site—a social network initially for Harvard students’ use only, and eventually for other universities later. It was an immediate success. Gradually, he added features that could make it easy to find acquaintances and mutual friends.

Boyan Slat. While a young Dutch ecologist was studying aeronautical engineering, he wanted to clean up the oceans. He was born on July 27, 1994 and made his name when he created the OCEAN CLEAN project in 2012 at the age of 18. The aim of his project is to clean the oceans by placing floating barriers three meters deep. The barriers retain plastics and other drifting objects, then lead them to an extraction platform. The extraction platform is powered by solar energy and recovers the materials for disposal and recycling. His project has already been tested in June 2015 on the island of Chichi-Jima located between Japan and South Korea. Once popularized, the project was entitled to a two-billion-dollar crowdfunding.

Sources: Britannica, History, Biography, Computer History, Paths to Literacy, Sight Scotland, Clean Ocean

The BlackFly, also called a sleek, conical, somewhat confusing flying car, like what Hollywood would give a sci-fi hero to rescue faster. It is not a helicopter not a plane either; it is a cross between both, with a curved hull, two small wings, and eight spinning rotors aligned on its nose and tail.

"It may look like a weird beast, but it will change the way transportation goes," said Marcus Leng, the Canadian inventor who conceived the plane named BlackFly.

Marcus Leng refers to his invention as an electric personal aviation vehicle, a plane so easy to fly that you just need a little training and no license in hand. Engineers and entrepreneurs like Marcus Leng have spent more than a decade developing this new breed of aircraft, electric vehicles that can take off and land without runways.

Fun things to discover about the flying car.

Computer-controlled flight. With just a press on a computer screen in a nearby tent, it powers up, rising from a grassy slope on a central California ranch and speeding toward cattle grazing under a tree.

No need for a landing strip. Just state where you want to go and the car will fly for you within two to three minutes. When you arrive, it lands safely for you. You always have the final decision on the safety of the landing. In a matter of seconds, the plane transforms into a car, providing true door-to-door transportation.

Two electric motors and a megawatt of power lift you up. Dr. Sebastian Thrun, the Stanford University computer science professor who founded Google's autonomous car project, now says autonomy will be far more powerful in the air than on the ground, and will enter our daily lives much sooner. "You can fly in a straight line and you don't have the massive weight or stop-and-go of a car on the ground”, he said.

What is the goal of the inventors of flying vehicles?

They envisioned the vehicles would be cheaper and safer than helicopters, and could offer virtually anyone a way to fly over crowded streets.

"Our dream is to free the world from traffic. " said Thrun

Currently, dozens of companies are building these aircrafts, and three of them recently agreed to go public in deals that value them at up to $6 billion. Others are building larger vehicles that they hope will roll out as urban air cabs as early as 2024 - an Uber for the sky. Some others are designing vehicles that can fly unmanned.

Sources: The New York Times, Aeromobil, Pal V, British Broadcasting Corporation

Every year, the last week of June is devoted to International Deaf-Blindness Week and Awareness. This year, the week running from June 27th to July 3rd is devoted to the life of individuals who are deaf-blind, and to celebrate the birthday of Helen Keller—a well-known deaf-blind woman.

Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. In 1882, Helen was stricken by an illness today believed to have been scarlet fever. That illness left her blind and deaf when she was just one year and seven months old. She struggled to communicate and she even would feel isolated from the world. On Graham Bell’s advice, her family brought her to Perkin’s Institute for Blind. There, she met her teacher Anne Sullivan, who totally changed the way she saw the future. Sullivan taught her to communicate with the world around her. Their partnership lasted 49 years.

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.”—Helen Keller.

She touched the lips of Sullivan to learn how to speak. The first word she learnt was “water”. Helen became the first deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1904. In 1953, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Helen Keller is known for her strong support for people with disabilities. She travelled to over 25 countries for lectures and motivational speeches about deaf-blind people’s conditions. Helen Keller died on June 1st, 1968 at her home.

Her life story inspired many organizations, communities or even movies’ production, such as “The Miracle of Anne Sullivan” and “Black”.

What is HKNC?

HKNC stands for Helen Keller National Center for deaf-blind youths and adults. In the lobby of the center, a relief and an oil painting depict an older Helen Keller. The goal of HKNC is to enable each deaf and blind person in the United States to live and work in the community of their choice.

Created in 1967 by an Act of Congress called HKNC Act, the center is the only agency in the United States which exclusively works with deaf and blind adults. The HKNC continues to provide a wide variety of services to the deaf-blind population, including vocational services, independent living skills, and so much more. The HKNC for deaf-blind youths and adults provides a transdisciplinary approach to training programs, where anyone will not feel isolated anymore. Everything is designed for an individual’s need.

Sources: Britannica, Perkins, Deaf-Blind International, Helen Keller Nation Center, Awareness Days, Helen Keller Deaf-Blind

The average age of marriage varies from country to country. Here in an overview of when couples decide to make it to the altar.

In the United States, the average age of marriage is trending upward as Americans wait much longer before making the move. A delay of one decade has been recorded over the past century. In 1920, the average woman married at 21, whereas men married at 25. While men have historically married later than women, the age gap between the two genders is narrowing today.

In 1978, more than 59 percent of Americans aged 18 to 34 were married, compared to 29 percent in 2018. The number of people choosing to live together without being married is also increasing. The latest official statistics available show that in 2018, on average, women jump in at the age of 28; and men at the age of 30. No need to rush!

In Africa, according to a recent UNICEF report, 40 percent of women are married before their 18th birthday. Attempts to explain such precociousness include religious or cultural pretexts, obsession with virginity, the common idea that being legally married protects against sexual violence, the fear of unwanted pregnancies outside marriage, the desire to have children early. African women also marry early for economic reasons: parents living in poverty sometimes think it is profitable to get rid of the burden that their female children represent. 

As for Asian countries, the average age of marriage has continued to rise in recent years. The annual report on marriage published by the municipality shows that the average age of marriage was 33 for men and 30 for women in 2020.
Many young people confirmed to People's Daily— the largest newspaper group in China—that the ideal age for them to get married is between 30 and 35. Before their 30’s, their focus would be on building a professional career, earning more money, and traveling around the world.

In China, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the Ministry of Civil Affairs of China, a growing number of young Chinese men and women express a negative image of marriage. Official statistics reveal that only 7.2 percent of Chinese couples were married in 2018; and this rate keeps decreasing.

Sources: Brides, people daily, Humanium, Filles Pas Epouses, People’s Daily

We all know that a lack of sleep prevents your brain from being able to make new memories. With less sleeping hours, the memory inbox of the brain shuts down and you cannot commit new experiences to memory. Thus, new incoming informational emails are just bounced, and you end up feeling as if you are amnesic because you cannot essentially make and create those new memories.

A lack of sleep will also lead to an increased development of a toxic protein in the brain that is called beta amyloid and that is associated with Alzheimer’s disease. It is during deep sleep at night that a sewage system within the brain kicks into high gear and it starts to wash away the beta amyloid. Therefore, if a person does not get enough sleep every night, more of that Alzheimer’s-related protein will build up inside his or her brain. The more this protein builds up, the greater this person runs the risk of developing dementia in later life.

How the lack of sleep affects our body.

Sleep deprivation affects the reproductive system. Some studies have shown that men who sleep just five to six hours a night have a level of testosterone which is that of someone ten years their senior. Lack of sleep will age you by almost a decade in terms of virility and wellness.

At the same time, not enough sleep impacts human immune system. After just one night of four to five hours of sleep, there is a 70-percent reduction in critical anticancer-fighting immune cells called natural killer cells. For this reason, short sleep duration increases your risk of developing numerous forms of cancer including bowel cancer, prostate cancer, as well as breast cancer. Breast cancer rate is currently rising too much, leading the World Health Organization to classify any form of nighttime shift work as a probable carcinogen.

In addition to that, sleep deprivation impacts our cardiovascular system because it is during deep sleep at night that human beings receive the most wonderful form of effectively blood pressure medication. The heart rate drops, the blood pressure goes down. If we are not getting sufficient sleep, we cannot get that reboot of the cardiovascular system, and the blood pressure rises. If we sleep six hours or less every night, we run an increased risk of having a fatal heart attack or stroke in our lifetime.

It may remain questionable what the recycle rate of a human being is and how long we can live without sleep before we start to see declines in our brain function or even impairments within our body.

Here is the answer: Once we get past 16 hours of being awake, that is when we start to see mental deterioration and physiological deterioration in the body. After a person has been awake for 19 or 20 hours, his or her mental capacity gets so impaired that it would seem like that person was drunk behind the wheel of a car! We need about eight hours of sleep to repair the damage of wakefulness.

Sources: University of California Berkley, the book “Why We Sleep” written by Matthew Walker

Father's Day was established in the United States many years after Mother's Day which was created by Anna Jarvis in 1908. Getting a holiday celebrating fatherhood was not easy. It took so many years for it to be agreed upon as a day to be celebrated. Although many people advocated for Father’s Day, it took a very long time for it to be accepted and recognized as a real holiday.

During the earliest years that Father's Day was celebrated, it was merely a very small event and was not spread because nobody promoted it. It had its first step in 1907 in a church of West Virginia after a horrible mining accident in Monongah which killed more than 200 fathers.

Grace Clayton, one of the children involved in the loss of a father, asked the pastor of Central United Methodist Church to hold some sort of event to honor and remember all the fathers who had died in that tragic disaster. The pastor agreed. However, the event passed unnoticed outside the town and stopped there.

In 1909, a woman named Sonora Dodd— whose father, a Civil War veteran, raised her and her five siblings after their mother died in childbirth— first heard about Mother's Day and wanted to have a similar celebration for fathers. She shared her opinion with her pastors, who supported her. Thus, they decided to hold a sermon on the third Sunday of June, the 19th of June 1910.

This continued for a few years and Dodd attempted to make the day famous into the 1920s. In the United States, Father's Day got a boost from President Calvin Coolidge in 1924, who encouraged state governments to begin observing the holiday. However, Father's Day faded again. Thus, Mrs. Dodd started promoting it again in the 1930s, trying to get people to embrace Father's Day. She was even supported by different companies this time since the companies would benefit from the gift sales. This went on for many years, but was never really seen as a holiday like Mother's Day.

Many years later, in 1957, a senator, Margaret Smith, addressed to Congress that it was inequitable to celebrate only mothers and not fathers. However, nothing really resulted from this until President Lyndon Johnson issued a presidential proclamation to honor all fathers on the third Sunday of June. That was in 1966, but it was not really observed as a national holiday until 1972, when President Richard Nixon finally declared it a law.

Generally speaking, there has been a lot of resistance to Father's Day. Mother's Day, on the other hand, was recognized as a holiday in 1914, just a few years after it first appeared in 1908.

Sources: Britannica, History, Hopkins House

Mokary is a typically Malagasy recipe. Sometimes, people mistake mokary for the famous “mofo gasy” which literally means Malagasy bread. Mokary is a small, sweet, succulent, and appetizing doughnut, flavored with coconut, or chocolate, or even cheese. Usually, Malagasy people make it their breakfast in the morning, but of course it can be a taste bud’s pure delight at any time of the day.
What are the ingredients for a delicious Mokary?

Then we need:
•    250 g of wheat flour
•    300 g of rice flour
•    one teaspoon of salt
•    one tablespoon of yeast
•    100 g of sugar
•    250 ml of milk
•    150 ml of butter
•    100 ml of oil
•    two eggs
•    800ml of coconut milk
•    200 g of grated coconut
•    200 ml of condensed milk
•    250 ml of warm water

A good preparation always produces a good result.

To begin with, turn on the oven to the minimum temperature, meaning 160 °Celsius. Pour the warm water into a bowl and add the yeast. Mix lightly and set aside.

Then melt the butter for a minute. In a large bowl, pour the wheat flour and then the rice flour. Add the yeast and mix slightly. Add the coconut milk to the dough and stir it in. Incorporate the sugar, the salt, and mix everything with a whisk.

Pour the butter and the coconut on the liquid dough and stir it again until you get a smooth and creamy dough. Cover the mixture with a clean towel to prevent it from flying around in the oven, then turn the oven off. Let it rest in the turned-off oven for an hour so that the accumulated heat can appropriately raise the dough of the Mokary. You will notice afterwards that the dough will have risen and small bubbles will appear on the surface due to the effect of the yeast.

Crush the eggs in a bowl and add the sweetened concentrated milk. Whisk the mixture until it forms a smooth liquid.

Add the milk and egg mixture to the Mokary dough and stir well to form a new and smooth dough.

Let's move on to baking!

Heat the Mokary pan over medium heat and coat each cavity with oil. Then, take a ladleful of Mokary dough and fill each cell two-thirds full to give the dough room to expand while baking. By using two finger sticks, turn carefully each Mokary into its cell. Continue with the remainder of the Mokary dough the same way: coat, pierce, and turn; and the Mokary is ready. Enjoy!