Madagascar is a poor, rugged, and transport-deficient island-nation of Sub-Saharan Africa. After long years of neglect, the government, supported by international donors, has recently begun to spend substantially to rehabilitate and expand its road network. The setting for our study is approximately 50 km2 of the Madagascar highlands, southeast of one of the largest towns in the country, Antsirabe. Households were surveyed over a broad backward L-shaped swath of countryside from Betafo, a town just west of Antsirabe, southwards to the environs of Bemaha above the Mania river, which practically seals off the region from the south,4 and then eastwards to the isolated village of Andrembesoa and the valleys to its south and east