Mission to Madagascar – August 2025

Maria Adelaide recounts her experience

I accepted my twenty-year-old daughter’s suggestion to share a volunteer experience in Africa, We found ourselves on the path of the Sisters Hospitallers of Mercy first, and then of Anemon, whose goals I felt I shared. Soon, my nephew, a nineteen-year-old girl, and I, with the same desire to get involved, became four of us, and the long journey to Vohipeno began. We had brought with us from Italy some necessary medications for the hospital, provided by Anemon, and about 160 prescription and non-prescription glasses, provided by the Comboni Missionaries in Rome, as well as a small amount of daily hospital supplies, children’s clothes and toys, and a great desire to get involved.

It was a long and tiring journey, especially the part where we crossed Madagascar with its bumpy, dark, dusty, narrow roads filled with taxis, buses, trucks, bicycles, countless people walking their own, zebuses, and chickens freely crossing the road. This is how we began to get to know this country, so physically and mentally distant from our idea of life.

As we got closer to the mission, living conditions became increasingly minimal: water, electricity, and even a simple pair of shoes are beyond the reach of most of the population in southern Madagascar.

Since our arrival at the Henintsoa hospital we have been looked after in every way by the nuns who certainly made us feel, undeservedly, like “special guests”.

I come from a large Roman hospital, and I still have this place before my eyes and in my heart. Surrounded by a wonderful garden, there is a hospital that operates with minimal equipment and very few staff—three doctors and a few nurses who, for obvious reasons, reside there. I watched with disbelief and admiration at the work carried out with dignity and dedication in a facility so far removed from our concept of a hospital, supported by so many donations from Italy (I smiled when I saw that some of the operating room drapes were nothing more than tea towels sponsored by a famous Italian pasta brand!)

We tried to make ourselves fully available; that was why we were there. The young medical students were gaining their first experience in the operating room. As an internist, I tried to help with my ultrasound knowledge and meet the clinic’s needs. We certainly played a more active role during the days when we went to the countryside with Sister Aureline and a midwife. In these remote places, for a population that mostly travels on foot, they do a great deal of educational work every week and set up a clinic where we found many people waiting for a doctor’s appointment, medicine, or ultrasound. The language barrier was overcome thanks to the help of our companions.

The second week we were at Ifatsy, cheered by the children’s eyes, their playfulness, and their desire to communicate that transcended all barriers, by their seeking and giving affection. Playing with the children, we all became children again.

Here too, the nuns’ work is remarkable, with total dedication to the children and the clinic for malnutrition in children and pregnant women. We witnessed and supported the work carried out with professionalism, dedication, and meticulous care in preparing and distributing the medications. Sister Abeline worked tirelessly to ensure I could best visit the many waiting patients, demonstrating a keen mind and the ability to find solutions with the resources available, as well as a great desire to learn. She and the other nuns often have to contend with the reticence of local communities, for whom going to the hospital for serious problems is often considered a problem rather than a solution. For example, in the countryside surrounding Ifatsy, she had to do her utmost when a mother who had brought us a sick, and more importantly, severely malnourished, child asked the nun for help in convincing first her husband and then her mother-in-law of the absolute necessity of enrolling her daughter in the malnutrition clinic program.

We left Maria Chiara and Sofia at Ifatsy for the whole week, where they continued their work with the children with love and joy, managing to overcome the reluctance even of those who had initially been afraid of these pale-skinned adults, and we returned to Henintsoa.

We gave something, maybe little, we got a lot.

As a doctor, I have sometimes felt tired, sometimes helpless in relation to the resources available. I have involved some friends and colleagues who are specialists for more complex diagnoses and treatments. I believe I have done what I could.

I’ve been thinking about the power of telemedicine, where perhaps an integrated system could provide ongoing support and specific expertise from Italy for a greater number of conditions. I don’t know how feasible this would be specifically, but it’s certainly available in some African countries. As far as I know, a center in Madagascar is also under consideration.
My thanks go to everyone I met in Madagascar for making me see the world through different eyes, to the nuns of Vohipeno, Ifatsy and Antananarivo for the countless attentions given to us and to Anemon who, in the persons of President Gabriella Guglielmo and Dr. Durando, provided me with precious information before departure and also support during the trip and to my young companions on this adventure who alleviated and cheered up the inevitable logistical difficulties with their light-heartedness.

Maria Adelaide M.
Anemon Volunteer