In more rural villages life is even more rudimentary without electricity, running water or sanitation; only 14% of the rural population have access to water and 7.5% have access to sanitation causing health risks particularly to children under the age of five of whom half die of diarrhoea. Its shocking to think that half of the young children shown in this video won't live long enough to attend school and virtually none who survive childhood will reach their 55th birthday.

Houses are built from mud and sticks or hand made wood fired bricks with thatched roofs made of grass and dirt floors. Farming is equally basic with tools often made by hand and fields ploughed by zebu, an ox-like creature. One eight year old describes village life in Madagascar as spending time at primary school learning English, French and 'other things' then returning home to play 'it' before carrying out tasks such as carrying water to the home and helping his herder father grow rice and manage the family zebus.