Madagascar Travel: Aluminium Workshop
On our epic overland tour of Madagascar we stopped on route between the capital city of Antananarivo and Antsirabe.
Situated around two hours south of the capital, along the main Route No. 7 road is the town of Ambaymolampy. We were there to see the metal crafts and the aluminium trade in action. The town is famous for its metal foundries and in particular the making of pots and pans. The process of making kitchen ware was introduced in the 1950’s, the most famous are the kitchen utensils pots, saucepans, frying pans, spoons and teaspoons.
I wanted to share a little bit about their craftsmanship and how you can visit yourself whilst in central Madagascar.
Ambatolampy, Antsirabe, Central Madagascar.
Although the town is famous for its aluminium trade they also work with copper and bronze too. The skilled tradesmen create all kinds of tools and art that you can take home with you. I realise that taking home a giant soup pot isn't exactly souvenir friendly!
What I liked is that they used recycled materials. Aluminium has a relatively low melting point they can use cans, bolts, and woodworking waste as raw materials. The scrap pieces of aluminum are melted and reused.
Our tour guides led us into their workshop, as we passed the lined up shiny new pots and pans on display in the street.
The Workshop
Many of the metal works are family run and the skills have been passed down through the generations.
Inside the bustling workshop the men are hard at work shovelling hot black sand into square set wooden moulds. The sand is very fine and a pot is pressed into the mould to replicate the desired casting shape.
The two wooden moulds are pressed together and a small tube is used to provide a place to pour the hot liquid aluminium. The molten metal has to reach temperatures of around 660°C before it can be used. The sand filled moulds can only be used once.
The lava red liquid is poured into the narrow tube, as you can see from my photography no health and safety precautions were made. The men are barefoot inside the workshop, balancing their feet onto the wooden crates.
However, the tradesmen were confident and precise. To me the pouring of the liquid metal reminded me of Indian Chai wallahs pouring hot tea from a height.
The speed of the process was impressive and just after a minute or so the glowing liquid metal has hardened and the casting can be removed.
Despite the moulds still being extremely hot to handle and quite literally steaming hot they are taken out of the castings and a new, usable product is ready to be sold - again, the workers don't wear any protective gloves.
On average one worker can make around 20 pots a day and their eagle eyed manager watched over them to ensure good quality.
Nearly all of the aluminium pots, pans and tableware in Madagascar come from Ambaymolampy.
I have to say it was very insightful to see this Malagasy craft and I'm glad we made a stop here - at the end I did purchase a Barbie sized aluminium pot and lid to take home.
Madagascar Travel Guides
Our guides, Lova & Zu on this tour were from
https://itravel2madagascar.com and I can highly recommend them an overland tour in Madagascar.
