A Crew of Young Female Surfers Are Breaking Barriers in Remote Madagascar

Madagascar, with a coastline of more than 6,000 kilometers, is an island off the east coast of Africa that doesn’t frequently cross the minds of surfers across the globe who journey looking for waves. In fact, many of the breaks that sit along its southwest corner go unsurfed for days and days of the year. With offshore reefs that are only accessible by boats met at the jettyless shores by carts pulled by cows, Madagascar is a surf destination seemingly frozen in time.

New Zealand national and long-time resident Blair Rogers runs one of the few surf tour operations in the southwest, and in April 2020, as tourism dried up on the island, something extraordinary happened – the southwest saw it's first crew of local female surfers.

“In April 2020, at the very beginning of the Covid crisis, Madagascar had just firmly closed its borders to all foreigners and the hotel in Anakao was completely empty,” Blair said. “I decided to make the most out of a bad situation and teach my little sister-in-law Bella and my son Josh's cousin Andrea, to surf on the little beachie just down from the hotel. When we got there, there were a bunch of little grommie girls from the village surfing on old pieces of broken pirogue (local dug out boat), and the girls quickly became friendly with them and they started sharing the boards and all had a ball catching waves together.”

This was the start of something big, with Blair sharing boards usually saved for guests at the lodge and the girls starting to surf every day together. “After several months of intensive coaching we ended up taking them all out to Jelly Babies for their first outer reef session and not long after we introduced them to competition,” Blair said. “Since then the girls have all progressed enormously and we’ve even taken them surfing at more notorious outer reef breaks such as Flameballs, Pousse Pousse, Outers, Inners and Secrets to hone in their skills.”

The Madagascar Surfing Federation (Federation de Surf Malagasy) organized the first ever Malagasy National Surf Titles in 2021, which Mary Nomeny Soa Silviane won. In 2023 Mary, along with Andrea Razanamalala, was selected by the ISA to travel to Senegal for its youth development program, completing a coaching course and Andrea placed third in the junior division.

"Since then the girls have all progressed enormously and we’ve even taken them surfing at more notorious outer reef breaks." – Blair

Andrea grew up in the coastal city of Toliara – a cobbled hub, filled with rickshaws, huge markets and run down hotels that line the water's edge, and where surfers will land en route to heading south in search of waves. “I was 10 years old when I first saw surfing; I didn’t even know it existed before that," says Andrea. "It blew me away when I saw it.”

Mary grew up in Anakao, a village in the dunes a short boat ride from Toliara that looks out at the outer reefs and the line of small sails that patrol the horizon. “I was born and bred in Anakao; going to Senegal was the first time I’d left the village and visited [the capital] Antananarivo and I’d never caught a plane before," she says. "When I arrived in Senegal the thing I enjoyed the most was meeting the other surfer girls from all over Africa and the Indian Ocean.”

“I was 10 years old when I first saw surfing; I didn’t even know it existed before that," says Andrea.

Girls in remote villages in Madagascar are known to commonly have children while they’re still teenagers and undertake the bulk of domestic labour, with little opportunities to travel and earn money. But now, the girls are making money giving tourists surf lessons.

“Growing up in a small fishing village was fun, it was on the beach," says Mary. "But as girls, we have to spend a lot of time cooking, cleaning and washing and helping care for our brothers and sisters and cousins." Blair elaborated: “The average indigenous Vezo girl in this village gets pregnant to a local fisherman at around 15 or 16 years old and then has a life of cooking, cleaning and raising kids. In general they will never leave the village – 95% of them will never even get to see Antananarivo, so at least surfing has helped them to break that cycle. They’re all 15-16-17 years old now and very focused on surfing and trying to make money to help their families who are very impoverished.”

“I know for a fact that their parents are very proud of them,” Blair added.

Related: This All-Female Surf Club is Shifting the Paradigm in Sri Lankan Surf Culture