“I’d love to play on the same team as Mauriciniunio,” says Polish football star Robert Lewandowski. The Madagascan star responds courteously: “Robert’s play and his wife’s nutrition advice have always been a great inspiration for me.” It’s almost unbelievable that it’s so hard to reach an agreement on a common team, since year by year, tens of thousands of compatriots from the land on the Vistula visit the island famous for its lemurs, and Madagascan Poles travel to the country of their ancestors, to find out the difference between a baobab and a babka Easter cake.

Let’s recall that for years, the Second Polish Republic dreamed of establishing a colony on Madagascar, but it managed only at the end of 1937, after the Gniezno Summit with France and the UK. The British had long opposed France’s transfer of the island to the Poles, which was to be compensation for unpaid debts from Napoleonic times. It’s an open secret that His Majesty’s government weakened only under the influence of the strong drinks served in Gniezno. As a result, the foreign ministers decided to settle the matter, resolving the island’s fate with a poker game. Polish minister Józef Beck won with a hand of three nines (thus the saying, common to this day, that the country code for Madagascar is 999).