What are we celebrating? An amazing piece of almost-forgotten history that started
in disaster when, in 1818, all but one of the first
group of Welsh missionaries,
sent by the London Missionary Society, died of fever within eleven weeks of
landing in Madagascar. The survivor, David Jones,
went back to Mauritius to recover but later returned to Madagascar. A third
young Welshman, David Griffiths, and his wife Mary arrived there in 1820.
What followed was truly
astonishing: Mary and the two Davids went up to the capital, learnt Malagasy and started schools, with girls included
from the very beginning. By 1824, scarcely three years after their arrival,
over 2,000 children were in school and being taught in their own language. The
two Davids built a chapel and started preaching in Malagasy. With the help of their most able pupils they
then set about translating the Bible and the first complete edition was
published in 1835.
At the request of King
Radama and using the Roman script, they created a written form of the Malagasy
language which is almost perfectly phonetic. As a result, learning to read has been a relatively painless process for
generations of Malagasy children ever since.
Various events are planned
to mark this bicentenary. Ny Ako, a group of Malagasy singers and dancers, will
be touring the UK from 31st May - 18th June.
Their programme will be detailed in another blog. The Welsh Independent Chapels have plans for
celebrations from 8th – 10th June in West Wales, from
where the first two missionaries came, including a play, a concert and a
service of thanksgiving.
Theresa, Co-ordinator of MfM
for many years, is putting on a concert in Cardiff on 22nd September
featuring Welsh and Malagasy musicians. Details of this will be included nearer
the time in another blog.
Music reaches every part of
life in Madagascar and when King George IV sent King Radama the gift of a piano
he was overjoyed. Some of the music
composed by him in the 1820s will be performed in this concert.
Paddy Bush, brother of the
singer Kate Bush, is Irish, not Malagasy, but he is a fine performer on the
Valiha, the national instrument of Madagascar, and
will be joining Justin Vali and his group in the Cardiff concert.
We look forward to seeing MfM
supporters at one or more of these events.
To find out more information email info@moneyformadagascar.org or to make a donation visit www.moneyformadagascar/donate
By Theresa Haine
To find out more information email info@moneyformadagascar.org or to make a donation visit www.moneyformadagascar/donate
By Theresa Haine
