We've been here for over two months now and, as you can imagine, there are more than a few things that I've had to get used to. There are the obvious ones - like not having a telly, not being able to text friends, and ants in the bread and honey.
But there are some less obvious ones too. Ones that require that little bit of a mental shift. One of the main ones is that certain concepts, especially if they involve time, just don't seem to exist in the same way. The idea of 'immediately' just doesn't seem to exist here and expectations for WHEN things will happen have to be much much more flexible than they are at home. There's no point holding rigid expectations that if you're told something will happen on Tuesday, that it will ACTUALLY happen on Tuesday. It might. But it might just as easily happen on Wednesday, Thursday or even the following week.
I learnt quite quickly not to waste any mental energy on any expectations like that, and to be totally flexible about EVERYTHING that I've been told. Douglas Adams wrote about Indonesia in Last Chance to see "We were told that there were only two trucks on Flores and we passed three of them on the way from the airport. Everything we were told in Flores turned out not to be true. Unless we were told that something would happen immediately, in which case it turned out not to be true over an extended period of time." It is extremely similar in Madagascar. Though, actually when I think about it, lots of what we are told IS true, because we are rarely told that something WILL happen, it's usually instead predicted somewhat vaguely with a qualifier of "it depends on which direction the wind is blowing".
Questions such as "how long does it take to get to such and such" are rarely followed by a easily quantified figure. Instead there will be a number of different caveats - the wind, the mode of transport, the time of day etc. etc. I have adjusted to all this in the only way I know how - as relaxed as possible, and with a sense of humour. I can imagine more 'Type A' personalities stressing out about this a whole lot more. Indeed, in my 'youth', I too would have found it more stressful than
funny. Now, I'm just living with it.
The freight (with my food parcel delivery) was supposed to arrive on Saturday 1st. Then Monday 3rd. Then, maybe Thursday or Friday. Now, possibly the weekend or maybe next week. I'll just be grateful if it arrives before I leave site at the end of the expedition.
My stock answer to staff going outside of Andavadoaka for work or meetings or research is not "I'll see you on Wednesday". It's more like "I'll expect you when I see you". It can be very frustrating, or it can just Be what it is. And the positive side of all this uncertainty is that whenever something DOES happen 'immediately' or 'soon', or even sometimes, AT ALL, I get extremely grateful, pleased and happy.
Like, the roof being mended on our hut a few days after the wind had blown the palm leaves off it. Or Farah (one of the managers of Coco Beach) ordering us 4x4s for the volunteers without actually even being asked to. On the other hand, I try not to get frustrated when I have to ask Farah to do something four days in a row and each time, getting told "we will do it today or tomorrow".
And when the generator died - as it did last week - and we were told that we would get the required new part the next day. Well, I simply didn't bother to believe it, nor did I get as frustrated as some of my staff did at the lack of electricity. It broke. There was nothing we could do about it, except just live without lights for a couple of evenings, have early nights and relax a bit more because there wasn't enough power to work the computers or charge things up.
Five days later, Coco Beach is now being powered by the old generator and the new part has yet to arrive. Heri (in charge of electricity on site) seems to be regularly required to hit it with things to get it going or just get all oily and dirty and fix it. But we have (mostly) regular electricity. Uncertainty, weather dictating much of our movements on site and things breaking are just part of life here. The only thing to do is to roll with it, or you'll go mad. And as I have 9 months left, I've no intention of going mad quite yet. At least, not about that aspect of life here!
Meanwhile, we're still deciding where to spend Christmas. Probably on a (different) beach somewhere near Tulear. Hopefully somewhere a bit more touristy and developed so that we can have a few luxuries - like a fan in the room, maybe a choice of food at mealtimes and possibly a tiled bathroom so that my feet don't get dirty immediately after having a shower as they do here. Meanwhile, Tristan, my neighbour in the staff huts and one of the field scientists, has returned from a local village with his christmas dinner in the form of "Stuffing" the turkey. He plans to keep it on his veranda and get someone to kill it on his behalf for Christmas.
The whole expedition is decamping to another village 20km north of here on Thursday. It will be a real adventure I think. It's only 20km away but with no roads and no cars, it'll be a real mission to get there. I'm not sure as yet if I'll be going too. But I hope so, as I have yet to actually see anything of the local area since we arrived.
Things I'm not missing this week: I'm not missing the rubbish weather in the UK. I'm not missing Christmas telly or Christmas adverts, or Christmas decadence or Christmas music on the radio. I'm not missing the dark or the grey or the rain or the cold. And, as I have had no arthritis for over a week - I'm not missing pain either.
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