Well, this week has seen two new staff members arrive on site.
Well, one staff member, and a student who has a placement here for two
months. Both are Malagasy and neither of them speak any English at all.
Our Malagasy is still somewhat limited. My own current vocabulary
extends to the following words: delicious. News? (Malagasy greeting)
No news (standard response). None. Hot. Water. Hot water. Large. Little.
Bread. How are you? And "No problem". 
These words are not really sufficient to create a proper conversation or
to deal with more complex matters like expenses and other logistics.
Consequently, we've got to speak to them in the only other available
language - French. Now, the problem with French is that I haven't really
spoken it much since O level (21 years ago). My grammar is particularly
awful, though my vocabulary is actually pleasingly large. It's certainly a
lot more extensive than my Malagasy one anyway. Justin, on the other
hand, remembers his grammar pretty well, but his vocabulary isn't quite
as extensive. My accent is terrible. His is pretty impressive. I understand
quite a lot of what I'm being told, but have some problems constructing a
sentence or a response (mainly due to the grammar thing and word
blocks over vocab). Justin, on the other hand, is really good at conversing,
but seems to understand very little. Between us, we almost add up to a
person who speaks not quite fluent French. 
We're both trying to improve on this situation by listening to some French
lessons on MP3. I didn't quite feel the urgency before as many of the
local Malagasy don't speak any French at all, but suddenly, with Larissa
and Dany's arrival, it seems all the more important to get better at the
whole French thing. I have been making myself use it more with the Coco
Beach hotel staff (usually I make Justin do the talking) and that's helping
too.  
Other news; I (finally!) passed fish tests on the computer and in-water.
Hoorah. Am particularly proud of the in-water test as, while volunteers
only have to get 27 out of 30 right, new staff members have to get 49 out
 of 50. I got all 50 correct (and then identified to myself another 10!) As
none of them were guesses either, I'm particularly proud of myself. I was
initially pretty worried about my ability to pass this test - given that I'd
already failed it twice, but I'm now glad that we made it stricter for staff
as I did loads of work to learn the fish and now am a lot more confident
of them than I would have been had I passed on the past, more lenient
system of 27 out of 30. 
I still need to demonstrate that I can do the 'fish belts' (the scientific fish
monitoring method that we use) before I can be let loose to do the science,
but even if I don't get the time to do those this expedition, I can still do fish
point outs for the next lot of volunteers that come through. :) 
The main challenge this week has been the fact that the Coco Beach
generator keeps packing up. This means that we can't always recharge
our batteries (which we need for essential equipment like the hand held
radios that we take out on the dive boats), or keep our computer batteries
charged up (so we can't always work). Last night it packed up at about
8pm and that was that. So we all had a very early night! I hope it's mended
today. 
The volunteers who were staying for three weeks also left site on Saturday,
along with Garth (reluctantly going back to Tulear to do some errands) and
the passport of one of our (more scatty) volunteers who had managed to
come on a six week trip with a four week (extendable) visa. She hadn't quite
grasped the whole "we're really remote thing" but doing things like renewing
a visa is not as straightforward as just popping into an office somewhere, or
even putting it in the post by registered delivery. Instead, we had to send it
with one of the people who were leaving early (luckily really) so that she
could, in a two hour window at the airport in Tana, pass it onto BV's
representative in Tana who can renew it on her behalf. Phew. 
It should return to site in time for the end of the expedition - hopefully with
our freight, which we are eagerly awaiting. It has a whole lot of equipment
goodies for us (new dive equipment, some computer hardware) and my
own little parcel of food. It was rumoured to arrive this weekend, but the
inevitable Malagasy delays mean that we might get it by the next email I
send. Fingers crossed. 
Food cravings update: Last night I dreamed about making an avocado and
toasted pine-nut sandwich. I don't think I actually got to taste it  though! So,
I'm not even getting to eat 'nice' food in my dreams either!!!! Actually, the
food has been pretty good this week. We've had stuffed aubergines once
(yay), a few salady things, and fish kebabs with sauteed potatoes.  
Wildlife update: there are more birds around than there was when I arrived.
The mina birds are a new addition, and there are a few more sunbirds
(tiny birds with a hooked beak), and some very pretty doves which have
a red wing. Funny how, every week, I think that I haven't got much to write
on my blog, and then I always manage to find something.