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Independence Day in Madagascar

Who needs the French when your army has a ninja unit?

Any country whose name starts with a word denoting insanity is bound to be a little off its rocker, and Madagascar might as well have been on some bad Serbian speed when it came to celebrating its independence. You know that saying – "less is more"? Well, they threw that out the window, and it was flags and guns galore in what was essentially a 48-hour free-for-all celebrating the time they kicked out the French. It's worth mentioning at this point, that the island has since been re-colonised by a particularly potent strain of lecherous old French man with a penchant for young Malagasy ladies – but hey, let's not put a downer on things. Independence Day is a slightly foreign concept to us Brits, one that tends to conjure up vague BBC news memories of Margaret Thatcher and John Major awkwardly handing countries back to people they've been oppressing for years. But it's a big deal over here. We celebrated it in Madagascar's capital, Antananarivo; a city the most shit-filled estate agent would struggle to describe as "vibrant" or "up-and-coming". If you squint though, it actually looks quite nice, like an Italian hill city, just with even greater levels of corruption.

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In Britain, we do bunting and restrained revelry, overseen by the omnipotent master of ceremonies, (soon to be Sir) Gary Barlow. Over here, they all just load into a Toyota and spend an evening boozing and letting off dubiously constructed fireworks, which they then follow up with some eight hours of concerts and parades in the hot sun the next day. It's like the Fourth of July crossed with Magaluf.

A terrifying disregard for health and safety abounds – children trot around on ponies next to men waving lit rockets and this cavalier attitude to hand-held pyrotechnics isn't just restricted to young men… The official firework display is A Big Deal here, and we joined what was basically the entirety of Tana as they weaved their way down to the heart-shaped and once idyllic (but now surrounded by human faeces) Lake Anosy.

There was a mass exodus from the city centre at about 6PM, as everyone shut up shop. Tana has no street lighting to speak of, so we simply followed the crowd down to a makeshift fairground to enjoy the view.

As far as fairgrounds go, it was pretty great. It had beers and home brew, casual gambling and a carousel that was so noisey and hectic it seemed powered by sheer human belligerence.

The next morning we were up bright and early, and wandered back down to the seat of last night's festivities, past the Malagasy soldiers who were out in force. Nothing makes you feel safe like a load of guys casually sitting around with AK-47s. The parade itself was held in honour of the son of a general and former DJ-and-media-tycoon-turned-child-president, Andry Rajoelina.

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Andry Rajoelina

Rajoelina is a prick. No really, he's an absolute prick; in 2009, he staged a coup against the democratically-elected president Ravalomanana, promptly suspended parliament and declared that he was now running things around here.

He's also had to tweak the constitution to reflect the fact that he's about 12 – as previously you had to at least have hit puberty before standing for office – and added in a clause stipulating Malagasy residency as a requirement to run for office. Which is convenient, as he's exiled the opposition. We're thinking that Mo Ibrahim award was lost in the post, right?

But you can't argue with style. Arriving in a silver open-topped humvee, flanked by no less than five outriders, Rajoelina's swag straddled despot chic and Michael Jackson circa 1984. What ensued was one of the best, but also most boring, things we've ever seen; an hour of army men walking very slowly past the VIP area, just far enough out of sight so that we and basically everyone in the stadium couldn't really see anything. Long, hot and dull, but worse for the generals who had to stand to salute every time a different unit walked past – which incidentally was at two-minute intervals, so they got some serious thigh-cer-cise.

The ninjas (yup, Madagascar actually has a ninja unit) were pretty wicked, they basically did a very quick trot past dressed head to toe in black Lycra, in what appeared to be zip-up body suits that included the head and face.

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After the ninjas, an inventory of basically everything the military owned was paraded before us. We had cars, tanks, open trucks filled with soldiers and then there was the cavalry, from which two of the five horses bolted. They were swiftly followed by the bike division, who cycled in beautiful unison, like in that Morrissey video if all the nerds had had massive guns.

Speculation about how the hell the navy would be making an appearance was swiftly abated when a couple of speed boats were loaded onto trolleys and dragged past the president. Closer inspection revealed that the passengers in the back of the boat were not only forced to wear wetsuits in the sweltering heat, but goggles too.

The air division provided the climax, as they flew both the planes in the airforce past us twice to make it look like there were four. Then came the helicopters, who began with a fly-past carrying a huge Malagasy flag, before descending onto the pitch where they engaged in a heli-tango of sorts, circling one another about a metre above the turf. The maintenance division had it the hardest, though – there really is no way to make a CAT digger on a trolley look edgy.

As the 30,000 people who'd shoehorned themselves into the stadium for what felt like the last nine hours scrambled for the exits, the parade made an undignified return through the stadium. There was no through road.

While I'd love to say that we stayed for the traditional Malagasy concert, we went home to watch Madagascar on the TV, remarking that it was a pretty odd film for the state to be showing on this most nationalistic of days, seeing as it centres around the protagonists' attempts to escape from it.

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Follow Didi (@didimae) and Matthew (@mrmattlacey) on Twitter.

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