Inside Madagascar Life in the World's Poorest Island

Behind me is a container, like a shipping container. People live in them. They've built houses inside of the cargo. Madagascar is the world's poorest island where 80% of its residents earn less than $2 per day. As you walk around, the reality hits fast. The water that they're using to wash is this river. And I can't imagine that the river is clean. Power cuts, no running water, and families surviving on almost nothing. I'm on a mission with my wife Deanna to explore deep inside the culture and find out why this country stays trapped in poverty.

We are meeting up with our local friend Parfait and we're heading straight into the bustling market. Okay, so I'm going to hold onto my bag like this. Hold on your bag. So then if somebody unzips it from the back. Hold on your camera, your phone. What is the biggest struggle for the people that live in the city? Like, obviously, I can see there's a lot of poverty. People are hustling, they have their shops. But like what is the struggle?

The main struggle in uh, in Tana, in the city for example, is the electricity outage. Because we can have up to five hours a day of electricity outage. Per day? Every day? Yeah, every 24 hours. Five hours every day the whole city shuts off? Yeah, the whole city, or part of the city. Or maybe, for the morning, the eastern part by the afternoon. For other parts of the city, for example, this morning uh, it was cut two hours and then when I left home to go to the airport, it already cut for other two hours. And then for the water.

Water is other history in Tana because the water supply has difficulties. We don't have water by daytime. You only have water, around 10pm to 5 am. No run, running water? What if you need the toilet or shower? Like. So, you um, fill some jerry cans or gallons, by. nighttime when you have water and it will be the water you use at daytime. I hope that the situation gets better. Yeah, yeah, it will get better. We have found this second or third hand clothing market which is only here on Wednesday and today happens to be Wednesday. So, they're all just random shoes.

Look for the shoes. How can they find a pair? You have to look or ask the guy, to look for you. Well, how much is that shoe? Ten thousands. We prefer to buy secondhand shoes, that can last up to two years. For example, this Converse is a good one. Oh, this is crazy, dude, to walk in here. My head! These shoes are so clean. They look brand new. Yeah, some of them are brand new.

This is the professional shoe cleaner here. The reason all these shoes look so sparkly clean because of this guy. These are like the liveliest streets you could possibly imagine. It's so crazy. Their faces, they look Asian. In Madagascar, we don't feel like Africans. If you ask those people if they are African, they will tell you, no. I am Malagasy. I'm not African. For us, an African person, is a tall and uh, black person. Really? You don't consider yourself black? Blasian.

No. We call you Blasian, which is like Tiger Woods. He's half black, half Asian. Yeah, that's a nice word. Blasian. I never heard that. You never heard it? No. Blasian. That's a cool word. What is the average daily wage of the people here? Now, now, the minimum is 6 to. 60. Which is $2 per day. Internet, for example, the fiber is only accessible around 50. USD, so, most of the people, don't have uh, Internet at home.

Okay. This is one of the coolest fast foods in the world. Look at this. It almost looks like. a piece of meat. Yeah, I was searching for this because, you know, the Koba, is the name of the cake and Faravohitra is a neighborhood. And it's it's very famous to have the best Koba in the city. Okay. Okay, let's get two slices. Thank you. It's really sweet, really soft and really peanutty. The brown side you see, is a peanut. Mostly peanut and sugar. Mmm. Good, right? It's really. It's just so sweet. Yeah. It's hard to explain it. For me, for example, it's too sweet.

It's not for every day. Yeah. They have an abundance of fresh fruit on this island. Look at all of this. When they have meat, they will put the label halal. That doesn't mean that they are Muslim. That only means that they don't have pork meat anywhere, where they sell it. Because some people by culture don't eat pork meat or anything touched by pork meat. You know, in Madagascar, we have Muslim and Christians and all religions live peacefully.

Everybody that I see has been really friendly and they smile and they wave. I don't know. They're genuine. That's a good feeling. We're going to try some chicharron, which is like fried pork. Mmmm, I love it. You love it? She ate that as a kid. You want to get a bag of it and eat it later? Yeah. I'm worried I'm going to get my phone snatched. All right, wow! Speaking of snatch, you could not have grabbed that bag any quicker.

I love it. How much was that in? Five thousand aria. Asking me if she is Malagasy? Really? Yeah. She looks Malagasy? You would have never thought on the African continent that people think you're a local, right? Yeah. Yes. So, babe, we've been here for a few hours now. How what do you think about it? It's a make it, reminds me of Bicol. It kind of, that's our hometown in the Philippines. It really does, Yes. like the faces of the people and just like the way.

No, just the market itself. Yeah. This is so amazing. The view in front of us, there's a big hill with a church on top. How is it, good? No pain? Homie is just chilling here on the corner of the street with no shirt on, getting a massage on the street. Oh, yeah. Get the lower back. Yeah. Okay. Just here. Yeah. Oh, my God. See you tomorrow. I'm about to get a head massage here on the street.

Okay. Oh, yeah. Oh, man! That's good? Yeah. He's like, inside of my brain right now. It's actually insanely good. This whole line is for the bus. Look at that line. Dang. Dude, this is crazy! This can take hours. Exactly. You'll be at home around 8:00 PM. Whoa, dude. This is crazy! They're still moving and they're getting on it. They didn't get on it. They missed it. Yeah, you. It's insane! Now we are hopping in the car and heading to the opposite side of the city, to find out what other challenges Madagascar faces. So,

the flights are really expensive and the roads are not good. So getting around is difficult. For example, here in Madagascar, one of the most famous uh, national roads is the National Road 7, which is around 900km long? It will take a public transport more than 27 hours. We just turned off the car because we're stuck in traffic. The cable car, costs a huge amount of money, that the whole country will pay. And a small part of Tana can use it. For example, I will still have to use the public transport to go to a station of the cable cart and then from another station, with one or two different public transport to go home. It's not useful for me.

Yeah. And we're moving again. Finally, after 10 minutes. How much money did the government spend for the cable car? They say that they spent more than 150 million euros. That amount of money is insane! Tell me more about the healthcare here in Madagascar. That amount of money. The healthcare, you, you pay everything you need. For example, we have public heal health care. You go to public hospitals where they would pay a percentage of the medicines, depending on the. the type of the disease. But you still pay something.

What if you can't afford it? They don't do the surgery? No. Really? So then you just have to suffer? Really. Exactly. Wow. When healthcare and road systems aren't efficient, it raises serious questions about Madagascar's leadership, which is one of the many reasons why the country remains so poor. Madagascar became independent in 1960, but since then, unstable politics have made progress difficult and scared off investment. The current president is a former military leader who rose to power after protests over water and electricity shortages. On top of that, taxes are really high, and the island is far from major trade routes. So even basic goods like food, fuel,

and building materials cost way more before they reach the shelf. Madagascar is also prone to severe cyclones, droughts, and floods, which knock families backwards by destroying crops and damaging infrastructure. And right here in Antananarivo, you can actually see and breathe the results of these broken systems, overcrowding, trash, pollution, and families pushed into places the city was never built to support. We are now crossing into a slum to see the problem up close. We're in a community called La Réunion Kely, which means a small version of Réunion island, which is ironic because Réunion is a beautiful island, but here, it is more of a slum.

You have this little polluted river here, with trash everywhere, and then there's markets everywhere, and then people are living in these container ships. Why are people in Madagascar struggling more than, elsewhere in Africa? Like what you said, it's a mystery for me, because unlike uh, African countries, we don't have borders with other countries. We have uh, few disasters. We don't have war, civil wars in Madagascar. So, the fact that we are poor people, that the country is so poor, is a mystery for me.

How can we make a brighter future for Madagascar? The key is education. You have to educate the people in Madagascar. You know, right now, there are more than 1.5 million children without any education in this country. We are living in a corrupt. country. Everything is so rigged and difficult, and the one way to change that is, obviously education. There's a guy selling coffee here. Can we get one coffee? Oh, look at this bag thing, man, that. Whoa! Got the whole system down.

How much is one cup? Four hundred ariary. When I tell you they sell anything in this market, they literally sell anything. They'll dumpster dive and grab stuff and then repurpose them and re-sell them. And people are actually shopping to buy things. Like it, it's busy. Like you can just buy the leg of a doll. When you talk about this, this community in Tana, what do people think about it?

What's the stereotype? The stereotype is poverty, and trashes. People will say, oh, you're gonna get sick there. And among all these piles of trash and re-sellable items, there's just a little corner where there's people eating. This is what we call Kola here. It's a type of nut. It's an aphrodisiac, for guys. Why do you eat that? To make it stronger. It says You speak English? Maybe, I can speak English with you. What's your name? They call me Harry. What's your job? He sells. something. He sells cables and adapters or anything.

He says that Malagasy people are struggling. How are they struggling? No, he says that -- this is the struggle. Everything you see here is a struggle. He's talking about. If you could say one message to everybody in the world, what would you tell them? Love each other. That's a great message, man. Thank you. Thank you very much. Bye. Thank you.

Just for context, we're in the middle of the streets here. And then, this is his barber shop. And then upstairs, is where he sleeps. This is the upstairs area, it's really dark, so my flash is on. But you can see, must have electricity if he's charging the phone. There's a little bed here and that's it. It's only a bed. I have a question, like, do you have to pay for rent here or you can just build a house and stay here?

He pays rent. He pays rent? How much do you pay every month for rent? Sixty thousand ariary. And how much money can you make in one month on your job? It depends on the month. And sometimes he only, he only works to pay rent and sometimes he doesn't even make it. So his rent is $15 a month. A month? And sometimes, he doesn't even make $15 a month. I'm going to give him 20,000. Exactly. 20,000? Yeah.

So behind me is literally a container, like a shipping container. They're laid across here and people live in them. They've built houses inside of the cargo. How many years have you been living here? Seven years. Seven years? Yes. And tell me, what is it like to live inside of a container? No, he's just say that uh, he. uh lived first in a shack made of plastic bag. And then they uh offered him this container. And he prefers the container because the container is uh, fresher. The plastic bag was very hot inside.

What's your job? He works uh, to. clean the river. In one day of work, how much money can you make? Yeah, he works he earns uh, per month around 300,000. Is this your kid? She's the last one, among uh. seven siblings. The last, last three are the, the only that live with him here. And the four, are. married and have their -- own house.

So $80 a month and he has to support the three kids? I mean, that's including food and stuff. That's got to be difficult. What is the actual biggest struggle that you have in your life? To pay for the. school kids. For. for his kids. And he has to pay for the books, for the pen, for everything. That's his big, biggest trouble. There is a famous phrase that went viral in social media in Madagascar. That is ''we are poor, but happy.'' That's what our president says.

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All right, crossing the street is a little bit difficult here. I'm just gonna follow, Parfait. No, no, no, no, no. Okay. The moto. Jesus. We're stuck in this tiny little median. It's about. a foot wide. Let's go. So, we have now made it to the river area, where you can see on one side, it's like a huge brick factory. They're making bricks from scratch. They're taking this little boat to cross the river.

Oh, this is nice and peaceful. This river, when it's uh, the wet season, specifically when we have cyclones, this river floods the whole neighborhood, like, up to the level of the street. We are in a giant open-air factory of brick making, and this guy right here is just making it from scratch. Crazy manual labor. These guys are out here all day just making brick after brick after brick. This is literally how we have to get across. We have to just weave through the bricks. Oh, my God.

This guy has so many bricks on his head. I don't know how he does that. It takes some serious skill. What, two at a time? Yes. Holy crap. It's literally a perfect throw every time. Two bricks. So they catch it n the same spot and then throw it in the same spot. Wow.

It's like a whole community of women washing clothes here. How many hours every day are you working? She works from 8 a.m. to. 1 or 2 p.m. In one day? How much money can you make on your job? Mmm, she work- she earns around 5,000 a day. What do you enjoy about living in Tana? The, the thing that she likes in Tana is uh earning money. She uh, has 11 grandchildren. Six of them, live with her. Does she support them?

Yes. She makes a dollar a day and she supports all those grandkids. You know what I find kind of shocking is that the water that they're using to wash is this river. And I can't imagine that the river is clean, is it? No, it's not clean. The bricks are then transported on a bull, through the city. They just wait in traffic. It's freaking insane. The traffic is completely at a standstill.

Jeez, dude, is this normal? Uh, no. It's not normal. The traffic is so bad, we ditched our taxi and now I'm taking a motorbike to get around town, With this nasty hat helmet. Drive safe, yeah? Yes, sir. Drive safe. Now with the bike, we can squeeze through cars, and traffic much easier. Like this. We don't have to worry about passing this bus. But I can taste the exhaust pipe. Oh, my God, there's so much dust flying in my eye right now.

Oh, my friend is back there. That KFC behind me is the only American food chain in the whole country. No McDonald's, no Burger King, no Starbucks, just KFC. We've arrived at our hotel, the Radisson Blu, one of the nicest hotels in the country. My legs were holding onto that bike so tightly that my ass is killing me and I can't walk straight. But welcome to our lovely hotel, the Radisson Blu.

There's no Marriotts here. There's no Hyatt. It's only 150 bucks a night. Not bad. After a full day of exploring the capital, I am ready for bed. Tomorrow morning, we are flying north to a place called Nosy Be, where Madagascar's best beaches are located. I'm really curious to see how different it is compared to Antananarivo. Our first stop is to see the one thing that everyone associates with Madagascar, lemurs.

No, no, no, no. Okay, look, look. Wow. Holy freak! That was creepy. I was expecting him to jump on me. Okay, Joyce, he might poop on me. Oh, my God! Don't fart in my face, buddy. He I can smell his butthole. Bye-bye. I'm gonna feed the lemurs. No, this one for you, this one for you. Okay, buddy, you're done. No more. Reach.

You know, Madagascar might be a poor country, but it is so rich in wildlife. So cool that lemurs only exist here in the whole world. When I looked up how lemurs were able to get to Madagascar, because we're on, on an island, around 200 million years ago, when Madagascar was connected to East Africa and India, Pangaea, the lemurs were here. And then Madagascar split, and the lemurs smartly, stayed in Madagascar. And they basically conquered this island. All over Madagascar, you can find lemurs, 103 different species. And it's just a blessing to be able to see them, to experience them in their natural habitat.

Nosy Be is built for tourists. But I didn't come here just to film the pretty parts. I'm ready to experience the local neighborhoods and markets and see what life looks like for the people who actually live here. We are in Hell-Ville, Nosy Be. Hell-Ville is actually the name of the biggest city here. Hi, Deanna. Hi. How are you? Good. She's so happy because she's holding her Aperol Spritz to go in a cup. That's the cup that they gave her. It's a plastic bottle.

Being here, it, it's actually like, a pretty bustling city. There's a lot of yellow tuk-tuks, which reminds me of India. And the people's faces here, they feel quite different than Antananarivo. They actually are a lot more like East African faces. Which makes sense because we're closer to East Africa. And, they settled here over the years. So Nosy Be is actually a very touristy island. But it's only a certain kind of tourist. It's mostly French. It attracts an older crowd. You don't really see, like, younger. English speakers here. Actually, not at all. There's no English level.

It's just French. I will say it feels very safe here, in this part of Madagascar. You don't have to look over your shoulder, like in the capital. And everyone's really friendly. These markets are nothing like the ones in Antananarivo. So I have to accept Nosy Be for what it is. A place to relax. Someone told me there's a golf course on the island, and if you know me, there's no chance I'm skipping that. So I got a little problem here. My ball's on the green, and there's an obstacle in front of it, and that is literally cow shit. So I'm not sure what the ruling is. If anyone on the PGA Tour is listening to me right now, if there's cow shit in the way from your ball to the hole,

what do you do? Just putt over it? Okay, I'll putt over it. Playing golf in Nosy Be feels ridiculous in the middle of Madagascar, but it also explains the entire island. Tourism has been one of Madagascar's biggest bets for jobs and foreign currency. But the real question is, does that money reach regular people or does it stay in a bubble? As soon as I leave the golf course, Deanna and I hop on a boat to see where the tourist dollars really go. Okay, we are actually freaking hauling ass right now.

We must be going like 60 miles an hour. Like a cheetah. When I met Deanna 10 years ago, we made a video on the beach. Then we're going to redo it 10 years later in Madagascar. Ready? Uh-huh. Whoo! Does it remind you of home? Yeah. This is home, yeah. Madagascar is perfect. If you love, like uh, root things, and uh, like primitive technology, this country have a nice soul.

This is beautiful, man. This is like one of the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen. Yeah. Incredible. It's crazy, because you have done all the country in the world. Yeah. While we're on this beautiful beach, I want to take a second to tell you about a company that Deanna's been building for the last two years. It's called Remote Genie. It's a freelance marketplace to find top-tier, pre-vetted Filipino freelancers! So if you guys need any assistance to do anything in your own personal life, in your work, if you need a graphic designer, if you need email marketer.

Video editor, audio editor, podcast editor, you can find. Anything that you need. But it's all Filipino freelancers, and it's made by a Filipina, right here. So if you guys want to try it out, you could be on a beautiful beach like this in Madagascar, and you can have people working for you, at a very affordable price. If somebody signs up right now. They get $20 free credit. So, your first task, on us. After soaking up the sun on the beach, we're heading back to Nosy Be to check out the bars in town. The nightlife area here in Nosy Be feels like Bangkok. Look at these places. Literally, like an exact, replica of Bangkok.

Lot of bars, a lot of prostitutes. Yep, that's what it is. Cheers. As we're enjoying our beers, a friendly kid comes over to try to sell us magnets. What's your name? Christiano. Christiano? And you? I'm Drew. How old are you? Eleven. How many magnets can you sell in one day? Twenty. Okay. How much do you earn in one day? Yeah, forty. Forty thousand. That's not bad. So, what happens if you don't sell anything today?

He will not eat. If he doesn't sell magnets. You will not eat? Christiano, tomorrow, we're gonna see you. Okay? Meeting Christiano is such a bright moment, and it's super easy to be around him. The next day, we meet up again so he can show us what a normal day in his life looks like. So, do you come to the beach every day? Yeah. And what do you do on the beach? I work. I look tourists for magnets. And look at that. Heart. He gave me a present. Thank you! Thank you. Aww. What kind of tourists come here?

What countries are they from? In Poland. Poland? Yeah. How many languages can you speak? English, Italian, French. Polska, English, yeah. Malagasy? Malagasy, yeah. You speak Polish? Five. Yeah, I speak Polish. Is your job difficult? Tourist is not good. They say you, you. And. So what happens if you don't sell today? We don't have drink. We don't have. eating. You don't eat? Yeah. Okay. It's so sad. You have school tomorrow, right? We want to take you shopping to buy a new backpack.

Pens, colors, pencils. Pens and pencils. Okay. Yeah? Yeah. There's a big community of kids who are selling, and they all know each other, and they look out for each other. She just gave him shoes because she noticed he wasn't wearing shoes. Have you ever eaten here? No. Why? Because this is very, very expensive. But we go in the. security. We ask or we can, or we will not care. We're gonna eat at this restaurant. Me and Deanna are gonna treat you to a meal. Anything you want to eat. Any big fish from the sea, you can order.

Okay, no problem. Yeah? We just sat down at a beautiful restaurant right on the water. Check this out. It is just beautiful. Cristiano wants to go for a swim while we're waiting for the food, and I'm going to give him the Osmo. So Cristiano has just ran into the water with my camera, and he's just jumping around, playing with his friends, and he's -- seemingly trying to figure out how to use the camera. Are you cold? Stay in the sun for a while. Okay. So, look, he has.

Come here. What? Yeah. How is the water? It's very, very nice. Oh, my God. Wow! Wow. Have you ever had that? No. How is it? It's good. What's more important for you to sell the magnet on the beach or to go to school? Go to school, because, and then, when I big. For, go to school and then I can take pilot. Yeah? Hmm, you want to be a pilot. After a delicious meal, I tell Christiano we're going shopping, and he gets to choose whatever he wants.

This is a surprise. Okay. You're gonna learn a lot in school, right? Yeah. Why are you shy? Because, very, very happy. You're very happy? Aww. Oh, you look good. Look. We're loaded up with school supplies and some, fresh shoes and some clothes. We are now going to Christiano's house. He lives, like, way off the beaten path of all the tourists in this, like, little alleyway. It's really cool.

Super local area, kids out playing, little houses here. It's a very, very communal feeling, his neighborhood. Hi. Hey. Show your mom what you got. Show your mom. This is my wife, Deanna. Yeah. Sister? Ohh. Hi, Deanna. Nice to meet you. That's your bag. So, he chose that bag, for you. Thank you. Christiano, can we have a tour of your house? Yeah. Come on. As soon as you walk in the house, this is the first section here.

Everything's made of wood. Um, you got tin roof. You notice there are holes, which means when it rains, there's huge floods here. Then you've got one bed here. Hooking some things up here. So, this would be considered, like, the main living room. And then, this is the bedroom. Let's go meet his family and see who's in there. This is my TV. And. This is uh, to take books. Yeah. Nice. And where's your clothes? My clothes is, like, here. Where do you sleep?

I sleep. Over there. Here? Yeah. Here?! Yeah. You really sleep there? Yeah. We will sleep that way. That's cute! You have your own fort there. So how many are you in this house? You, your mom, your dad? Your dad is here? Their mom left them. Awww, okay. How many people sleep in this house? Uh. almost uh, almost ten. Ten? Yeah. Aww. Oh, my God! Thank you. Oh, that's so cute, for beach. We are now heading to the bathroom. Okay. This is the shower room, which smells like poop, but I guess it's where the shower is. So, they take buckets and they go here?

Okay? Yep. So, these are all Cristiano's friends here, but he's the only one that speaks English. It's crazy how. Hi. Ciao. It's crazy how he's excelled over all of them. Dang. Just strolling around Cristiano's village, it's so beautiful and peaceful. And it's crazy that, when you walk five minutes onto the main road, you enter this, like, slimy nightlife district that reminds you of Bangkok and all these tourist shops and people trying to scam you. And then here is like this, beautiful, peaceful zone.

Not to mention the beach is like, five minute walk from here. This is totally local life here in Madagascar. Behind me is a well, which I just realized it's nice that they have it, but they have to tie a string around a bucket and go all the way down, like 15ft, grab the water and bring it up. This is shower water, this is drinking water, this is cooking water. So next time you turn on your sink at home, just remember there's a lot of people around the world that still live like this. Each of these homes has seven, 8, 9, 10 or more people living inside of them. People just sleeping all over the different rooms. And the toilets are communal. Out here, as many tourism dollars are coming into Nosy Be,

it appears that they're not benefiting the local communities here. This is a tough reality, not only here in Nosy Be, but all over the world in touristy areas, around the Caribbean. Bali, maybe here is a little bit more impoverished, but still, it's just a sad reality of how the world works. I came to Madagascar to learn and observe its culture and try to understand what it means to live on the world's poorest island. And nothing hits harder than walking through this village and seeing the poverty up close. It's unfortunate that corruption has held this country back for years, but the people I met are still full of strength, kindness, and love.

Kids like Christiano give me optimism for the future. He shows up to school and work every day and still talks about his dreams with a big smile. Madagascar is unbelievably beautiful, and my hope is that as more travelers come here, tourism dollars actually reach the local communities who need them most. I'm incredibly grateful to everyone who welcomed me here. This country has been overlooked for far too long, and it's about time that the world finally sees it.