Antaimoro

Madagascar.  In Ambalavao, there is a private paper-making business. Their method for making this paper came from the Arabs back in the 9th and 10th centuries. The Arabs had brought some paper on which to print the Koran but they needed to improvise once that ran out. So they came upon this local paper making process to provide paper on which to print the Koran in Madagascar.

To make the paper, the inside of the bark is boiled in water for four hours. Once dried, it is moistened and pounded, rolled into balls (weighing four kilograms) and then moistened again and flattened, cut and dried. Before this finally drying, they can carefully press in flower petals and put on a water and glue mixture.  The resulting paper is called Antaimoro. It was all very interesting. (You will need wild Mulberry trees to try this at home.)

Balls of about four kilograms in weight

Flattened and cut

Pasting flowers

And the final drying.

Madagascar  in the news—“Madagascar’s education minister has been fired over plans to order more than $2m worth of sweets for schoolchildren.  Rijasoa Andriamanana said pupils would be given three lollipops each to mask the ‘bitter’ aftertaste of an untested herbal remedy for coronavirus. The plan was called off after objections from Madagascar’s president. President Andry Rajoelina is promoting the herbal tonic Covid-Organics as a coronavirus cure.” – reported by BBC News, June 5, 2020,

TATTOO—Journeys on My Mind by Tina Marie L. Lamb is available at Amazon and BarnesandNoble and iBooks and Audible.

Buy it. Read it. (Or listen to it.) Let me know what you think. –TMLL