The baobab alley at sunrise

The famous baobab alley is located here in Morondava, and we went to take pictures of it this morning at sunrise. Many children in the highland have never seen a baobab, and some of them wonder whether it is true that they exist or if they are a fairytale.

We want to show the whole island in our geographic picture book. This will take a long time, but at least we now have the southern towns Toliara, Fianarantsoa and Antsirabe – and the baobab alley in Morondava.

Uncle Tefy at the printing house

The manuscript for the new book Uncle Tefy which we burnt on a CD and sent to the printing house in Antananarivo by post has arrived. To do the test print can take some time, but we hope that we can see it soon. After that, the printing of the 3000 copies can start.

Our homemade test print for doing the last corrections and looking at the layout.

Atlas/ geographic picture book for Malagasy school children

We have decided that the structure of the new Vakoka Vakiteny book, the atlas about Madagascar is going to be the six provinces. The target group is children in grade 5 (about 10 - 11 years old).

For each province we want to show pictures and explain about the major towns, agriculture and what people live from, environment and nature special for the area, and also about rivers, lakes and mountains in the province. For each chapter we also will have a small interview with a child living in a place special for the province (e.g. rain forest) with pictures.

The six Malagasy provinces are:

• Antananarivo with the big cities, vegetables (i.e. potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, etc.) and three major lakes.

• Toliara with the dry forest, goats, big mango trees, dry rivers and lack of water.

• Fianarantsoa with the rice fields, tea plantation, zebus and forest.

• Mahajanga with the hot climate, the sea, mangrove forest and the Betsiboka river and Kinkony lake.

• Toamasina with the rain forest, coffee and pepper plantations and the largest lake in Madagascar.

• Antsiranana with the famous island Nosy Be, vanilla plantations and the highest mountain in Madagascar.

We hope that we can make the six provinces known to the children through many photos and easy explanations. The work starts already the first week of September where we will go to Morondava and afterwards to Mahajanga to take pictures.

Books for “ONG Bel Avenir” and “AVAT”

The big NGO Bel Avenir working with children and schools in the south of Madagascar has decided to buy 12 books from Vakoka Vakiteny. The project AVAT working with street children and women in Antananarivo has bought 15 books from us with the help of people in Germany.

We hope that we can spread our books even more with the help of NGOs and projects, and hope that we can establish even more cooperation with these and similar associations. Thank you very much!

News from “Uncle Tefy”

We are putting the finishing touches on the manuscript of the new book “Uncle Tefy”. The text has been given to two professors in Malagasy here in Toliara to do the last corrections, and the negotiations with the printing house in Antananarivo are finished. We have got a good price for the 3000 copies we are going to print.

Tojo makes the last check on the pictures while using the pad he got as a gift from the company Otterbach in Rastatt in Germany where he had his training in July. This is of great help, and now we are able to do the layout in InDesign and PhotoShop instead of Microsoft Publisher and Adobe PDF as before. This will make a great difference when it comes to the quality of the print.

Tojo working on the pictures in our home office in Toliara.

Our deadline for giving the manuscript to the printing house is August 23, and we hope to see the first test printing within the end of the month. At that time Sophie and Mparany will be present at the printing house to survey it.

Back in Madagascar

The team of Vakoka Vakiteny came back to Madagascar Wednesday July 28, and we arrived in Toliara Saturday July 31. But already in Antananarivo on the day we arrived, we made contact to a project interested in our books. The project, called AVAT, takes care of street children and unemployed women and they were very interested in receiving books from us.

Today was the first working day for us, and we now begin to make plans for our further work. The next newsletter is now on its way. If some of you haven't received it before, please send us a short e-mail with your address, enabling us to send the newsletter to you. It will be ready before end of the week.