Read Oral History #009. Original interview in Malagasy. An English translation is also available.
My marriage was difficult; my husband was very controlling. I was not happy. As I mentioned earlier, my husband was a jealous man. He didn’t let me interact with a lot of people. We had lots of dispute and when I couldn’t take it anymore, he would hit me. After he hit me once, twice, three times, that was it for me. I knew that marriage shouldn’t be like that, so I slowly left the marriage when my children were still small. My marriage situation affected my children because they also felt the abuse of my husband; they were always scared. I used to think that I will stay married no matter what. When my husband started hitting, I had to save my life and the life of my children because I was scared to get killed.
I left to raise my kids on my own away from my bad marriage…. There are differences between the Malagasy culture and the church culture. We abandoned some of the Malagasy culture. One tradition is called “Famadihana” [a funerary tradition in Madagascar that involves exhuming dead relatives, rewrapping them, and dancing with their corpses]. When we asked the missionaries about the practice of Famadihana, they said it’s okay as long as we do not pray to the ancestors. We can attend Famadihana event to support families because it is an opportunity to learn more about family history. It is a big gathering of family members where everyone knows everyone. It’s an advantage.