Monday 22 September 2008

In which ruth eats a birthday lunch of rice and beans and takes public transport

In most countries, a fully operational website, along with up-to-date calendar and booking system is usually a sign that a company is operating fully. Not so in Madagascar. We turned up to the 'bus stop' of the Madabus company on Monday 1st September to find that it was no longer in existance and had not been for the past few months at least. But that was okay. We've been in Madagascar long enough to know that wherever there is a plan A, there must also be a plan B, plan C and plan D.

We put plan B in operation. This consisted of turning up at the 'taxi brousse' station in Tana and being mobbed by people trying get us to use their bus. Confused by the melee, we paid way over the odds for a seat on a bus going to Tamatave which would drop us off right by our hotel in Andasibe. Apparently. We were assigned seats and then waited on the street for the bus to fill up with passengers. This taxi brousse station was less like a bus station and more like a bunch of minibuses parked on either side of the road while the ordinary traffic continued on its way on the main road. Vendors wandered around each selling just a few - apparently random - items, offering out a bunch of sunglasses or a hair straightener towards us hopefully. When added all together in list form it began to look like some sort of conveyor belt of prizes on "The Generation Game" (the seventies version with Bruce Forsyth).

There were (not in order of being offered them); Oranges, baseball caps, hair clippers, sunglasses, torches, watches, sausages, screwdrivers, dvds, wallets, pens, batteries, hair conditioner, nail polish, garlic, hair straighteners, tool set, photo album (with photo of half naked blond white girl on the front), 6-gang plug, cd cleaning kit, knife, football on a strong, pliers, weighing scales, plastic clothes pegs, lanyards, mobile phone covers, bed covers/sheets, mirrors, biscuits, cakes, pants (underwear), socks, belts, combs, breadsticks (baguettes), brooms, moisturiser, tape measure, protractor set, deoderant, malagasy newspapers, flexible fabric bandages, an electric toothbrush (singular), calculators, small mp3 players and of course, just like the generation game, the obligatory "cuddly toy". In this case, pink and blue hideous monstrosities.

The journey itself was fairly painless. We set off about two hours after arriving at the station and continued more or less at a steady pace on the first fully tarmac'd road we've seen in... Well, our whole time in Madagascar actually. We made a pee stop after about 2 hours - all the men on the right hand side of the bus, all the women crossed the road and peed on the left. I did not need to go. During this time, Justin checked with the driver that he could drop us off at the hotel. He looked bemused at the very idea, shook his head and agreed instead to drop us off at the turnoff to the village of Andasibe.

Luckily, the hotel we'd booked into was less than five minutes away from this turnoff and we were happily resident in our wooden bungalow overlooking the forest and river by lunchtime.

Andasibe is three hours from Tana and is next to the Perinet national park, probably the most visited national park in the country. It was a huge contrast to our experience of travelling in the west. All the hotel staff spoke English, the place was full of tourists and there were even a few veggie options on the restaurant menu.

We did a circuit in the Perinet national park the following morning. The main attraction of this national park is the Indri Indri - the largest lemur in Madagascar. It looks, says Hilary Bradt (guide book guru) like a cross between a panda .... It is known for its singing - a sound we'd earlier had heard from our hotel. The Indri does not chatter like some lemurs. Instead it sings. Though that's a generous word for what sounds like a cross between a police siren, whale song and a hyperactive child who's just discovered how to use the theramin (weird musican instrument popular in the 60s and used by the Beach Boys).

During our 3 hour circuit, we came across two sets of Indri families and heard (and saw) one sing its heart out. We shared each Indri sighting with more tourists than we'd seen for our whole time in the west of the island. We also saw a family of diademed sifakas, some 'common' brown lemurs (not sure how they feel about being called common) and three woolly lemur asleep in the trees. It was exciting to see them all, though it did feel like being in a lemur theme park rather than any kind of wilderness.

Our night walk that evening was a lot more satisfying. We did not share this experience with any other tourists and our guide not only spoke better english than the guide we'd used in the morning, but also understood and laughed at one of Justin's jokes. He had the most amazing eyesight - and a very good torch - and found us two mouse lemurs (oh so cute), a tree rat (also quite cute) and three different kinds chameleons, including one that was the size of my forefinger. We were most excited by all of these sightings as we've not seen that many reptiles. We were especially excited by the 'leaf-tailed gecko' which was kind of cool as well and had an excellent latin name as well - the "europlatus phantasticus".

We did another circuit the following day with the same guide. This was in Mantadia national park which was not only a bigger national park than Perinet, but contained fewer tourists and primary rainforest. We saw less wildlife, but it didn't matter as I was endlessly fascinated by the mosses, ferns, lichen and huge trees that we saw there. We did come across a family of diademed sifakas though, so there was some primate action.

National parked out, we ended up leaving Andasibe a day earlier than planned on my 38th birthday. We might have stayed longer but the food in our hotel was particularly bad, the desserts limited and the wine Malagasy (ie awful) and so we decided to move onto Tamatave in the hope of better food, extensive desserts and decent wine.

I therefore spent the majority of my 38th birthday at the back of a very cramped taxi brousse. We had to get one taxi to the town of Moramanga. This was a very old school bus type of affair with the muscliest driver ever. At Moromanga, we only had to wait about 2 hours before leaving in a minibus which would take us all the way to Tamatave. We were not overcharged this time. We had the back seats and the journey was fairly uneventful if a little stinky. I stuck my head as close to the open window as I could, choking only slightly on the exhaust fumes.

We made two pee stops and one lunch stop at a town with many fruit and vegetable stalls and a 'tex mex' restaurant called Fantasia. We ate at a Malagasy hotely and I celebrated with a birthday lunch of... Rice and beans of course. A bargain at only 50p.

We finally arrived in Tamatave at about 4.30 and made our way to the one of the poshest hotels there. They had room for us for only one night but by this point, I didn't really care. I just wanted a wash, a decent bed and a glass of white wine. which is happily, exactly what I got. The food at the restaurant was excellent, the dessert -ice-cream - delicious and the wine, South African. Afterwards, Justin finally gave me my presents (three Malagasy themed items) and I fell into bed.

We'll be a few days here in Tamatave. Plan A was to head south down the canal system of Pangalanes and stay at a lake there. However, nothing is as easy as it appears from reading the guide book and also all hotels are booked up or their phone numbers no longer work. Instead I think we're going to fall back on plan B (again) which is to head to Isle St Marie earlier than planned and spending the rest of our Malagasy adventure sipping rum coco and snorkelling with the fishes.

Written on 5th September

Sunday 31 August 2008

lemurs, birds and snakes! oh my!

The drive up to the Tsingy national park wasn't as tough as we'd been led to believe. We were told that the road was terrible, but in fact as it was actually a single track route that was pretty smooth, it was a vast improvement over the Morombe to Belo route. We even managed to hit about 70mph for a few minutes on a couple of sections. Like our other 4x4 journey, we passed through a variety of landscapes including the famed "Avenue of the Baobabs" as well as grasslands, dry deciduous forest and dried up rivers (it's the winter/dry season right now). There were also a few rural farmed areas (rice paddies mainly) and small towns and settlements. When we passed them, instead of being greeted by the children with "salama fazahar", they ran towards the road waving and calling out "eau vivre" in chorus or on a copule of occasions, "cadeaux" or "bon bon". This route clearly sees many tourists.

"Eau vivre" by the way is a plea for our empty water bottles which are reused as vessels for carrying all manner of liquids, candle holders or made into toys by the children.

Along the road we'd pass the occasional zebu cart - the local methods of transport. Most of the women that we passed had a straight posture and were carrying buckets or shopping bags on their heads. The men that we passed were rarely - if at all - seen without a tool of some sort. Whereas near Andavadoaka it was usually an axe, in this region it was more likely to be an "?" shaped blade on the end of a stick, a spear or an axe. You wouldn't want to mess with any of them. But then again at least if you broke down in the vicinity of one of these guys, there'd be available tools for repairs.

The Tsingy National Park exceeded all my expectations. Words really can't do this sort of vast scenery justice, so I'm not even going to try. Okay, well just a little bit. I'll start with a brief explanation of the landscape. The Tsingy is Malagasy for "walking on tiptoe" because the first settlers in the region collected honey and the only way to walk on the spiky limestone rock was on tip toe. Tsingy is the name for the limestone rock - ancient coral reefs - which now rise up from the forest like spiky skyscrapers as a result of tectonic movement millions of years ago. Because of the acidity of the rain, these limestone formations are constantly changing as the rock is eroded by the rains each year. Our leaflet describes the Tsingy thus: "from a very thick system of faults, cracks, calcareous blocks areas sculpted in sharp blades or needles". don't know if that helps you imagine it or not. Probably not. Certainly, nothing I'd read about really gave me any idea of the vastness of this landscape, nor how dramatic it would actually be to be in amongst it.

We did four different 'circuits' altogether over our three days there plus a short gorge trip on a pirogue. Our guide for all trips, Narciss, was extremely knowledgeable and hugely enthusiastic about all things Tsingy - animate and inanimate - and I learnt a lot. He was able to identify all the birds by their calls alone, and once he'd heard a bird, would get out his binoculars and search them out for us. We saw over 20 different species including four different kinds of raptors. We also saw three different kinds of lemur - in the forest and climbing on the Tsingy and startled one group of grey bamboo lemurs who were hanging out right by the path we were walking on. We also surprised a snake on our very first walk which made me jump just a little.

All of our circuits took us into the forests and we were able to see the Tsingy from all angles. From the side from the forest, from the ground, as we sidled in between the cracks, from underneath in the caves and caverns and from the top after clambering and climbing up rocks, ladders and across suspension bridges. We had climbing harnesses which I was exceedingly grateful for at times, especially as we teetered precariously over huge drops, deep crevices and jagged rocks. I loved every moment of it. I especially loved the different formations of the rocks, seeing the massive roots of all the different trees and seeing how the rain had affected the limestone in the caves.

After three days and four hikes in the Tsingy, it was time to move onto another national park - the Kirindy Forest - which was on our way back to Morondava. Our accommodation was more basic and in the forest. We were underwhelmed by our night walk even though we did see a couple of kinds of lemurs including a cute mouse lemur. However, our day walk the following day was much more exciting as we had several encounters with families of lemurs - two kinds - and I was astounded to find on a number of occasions that my zoom lens on my camera was just too zoomy - we were too close! We also saw more birds but only two kinds of lizards. It's the wrong season for reptiles apparently - so our snake sighting was especially lucky it seems.

And now, after arriving back in Morondava, we had a couple of days to chill out before hopping on a short (one hour) flight to Tana. Tomorrow we head east for some more national parks and hopefully more birds, lemurs and maybe some reptiles.

Favourite photograph that I didn't take: Woman in the town of Belo Sur Tsirinbina carrying a sewing machine on her head! She had rather a huge bottom, so I think that helped counter balance the weight of the old-style Singer sewing machine.

Thursday 21 August 2008

It depends on the wind - part two

Morondava
It's been a very Malagasy first week to our holidays.
We'd wanted to do some diving after the volunteers left, but the winds were way too strong to go diving.

In the end, we spend our remaining time in Andava packing up and handing over things to Axelle. We finally left Andava on Tuesday 12th August in one of Ilias's 4x4s. There was hardly anyone left on site to see us off, though all of the Coco beach staff did come down to wave goodbye. The first stop on our trip was Morombe - an extremely laid back town to the north of Andavadoaka. Laid back is an understatement in fact. It's possibly the deadest town I've ever visited. But that was okay we thought as we only intended to be there a night. The first choice for our exit strategy was a plane - expensive but quick. Ilias offered to book us seats, but that afternoon we got a message to say that planes from Morombe were still cancelled. Our second choice, to leave by boutre, looked extremely promising however as Jean from Andava - in Morombe visiting family - managed to find us one that was leaving the next day. I had mixed feelings about the boutre. Yes it was cheap. Yes it was 'romantic' and yes it was adventurous. But it was also unpredictable and the toilet options were minimal. Well, non-existant. Still, I thought, how hard can it be to pee over the side of a boat?

It all seemed too good to be true - the boutre was leaving the next day and we were on it. We left the hotel at 5am Malagasy time (ie 6.30am) and Jean and two crew members carried our luggage through the town to the north end of the beach. I can report that Andavadoaka's poo beach is not the only one in Madagascar. Morombe has one too. Anyway, the smallest rowing pirogue in the world took our luggage onto the boat and we followed behind in an even smaller pirogue. We arrived on board at about 7.15am to find the boat full of passengers. About 30 in total. There wasn't much space and there was even less privacy. What reservations I had about boutre toilet arrangements were multiplied as I realised that there was no where on the boat without onlookers. Peeing over the side of the boat was one thing but to do so with an audience was another thing entirely.

As is the way in Madagascar, after plenty of waiting around, suddenly there was a frenzy of activity with a sense of urgency as the anchors were pulled up (they took half an hour to get on board) and the sails were erected. We finally left Morombe at 9.50 and set sail for Morondava and Belo Sur Mer. The wind was not ideal. Some might say that it was bad. In fact, someone did say it was bad, but the captain seemed to think it was worth trying anyway. We'd been shown into the captain's cabin, a tiny wooden box on the top of the deck. We shared it with a woman (the captain's wife I presume) and three or four children as well as lots of bags. We dozed on and off and ate some rice and fish prepared on board.

The sandy coast went past the window to our right as we sailed north. Though there were no engines on board, it wasn't that peaceful due to the plink plonk of the homemade Malagasy guitars which were attacked by the children. The boat tacked a few times and the noise of the crew above our heads was pretty loud too.

Still, the motion of the boat was pleasant and I was sort of excited about the journey, though anxious about what I would do when I finally needed to pee. At 1.30, the coast appeared through the left window. I'm no whizz with direction, but even I knew that meant we'd done a 180 and were heading back to Morombe. The captain had decided that the wind was too bad after all and so we'd anchor in Morombe and set off again at midnight. The idea of going all the way back to Morombe and starting all over again the next day pretty much floored me. At this rate, it could take us a few more days - and we still might not get anywhere.

A few phone calls later and we'd made other arrangements for transport. Back in Morombe, the tiny pirogue was lowered into the water from the boutre and we departed with our bags precariously perched across it, waving goodbye to the passengers and crew. Justin had tried to get some of our money back from the captain but he just looked frightened and explained that he'd already spent the majority of it on food. Our boutre journey was over somewhat prematurely - and had turned out to be quite a pricey day out which I would have enjoyed more had I known it was to be our only day out on the boat.

The adventure did not end there. Oh no. One of Ilias's friends came to the beach to pick us and our bags up and promptly got stuck in the sand as it was not a 4x4 and not made for sand. We were another hour on the beach with about 20 vezo men and children trying to push it out of the sand. Muscly though the vezo are, even they could not shift it and it needed the help of a 4x4 to pull it before it shifted. We finally arrived back in the same room of the hotel Baobab less than 12 hours after we had left it.

We finally managed to properly leave Morombe on our second attempt (third if you include the plane that didn't get booked) only 8 hours later than planned. We'd booked a 4x4 through Ilias to leave at 8am the following day after the aborted boutre journey. At 9.30 (which is approximately 8am Malagasy time) the car had still not turned up. Nor at 11. Nor at 1. Leaving Morombe was proving to be harder than it sounded. After lots of reassurances and blatant lies from the hotel staff, the car finally turned up at 4pm that afternoon with Patrick, Ilias's driver, smiling broadly at us. The staff advised us to wait for morning but I was worried that the invisible forces that had so far kept us in Morombe would strengthen overnight and we would not manage to leave at all.

We waved goodbye to Morombe with no tears at 5pm and drove for 3 hours through the most spectacular scenery until we got to a town called Ambiky. The drive really was incredible - with huge monster boababs lining the road and a rainbow over forest in the distance. I say road, but for most of the journey that would be a generous description for what was actually just an absence of vegetation. The journey was uncomfortable and violent as a result and it felt like a cross between being in a carcrash and being on a rollerocoaster. I did not mind. At least we were going somewhere.

We ate a lovely local meal (beans and rice. Hoorah) and then bedded down in one of Ambiky's 'hotels'. I don't think many tourists stop through the town. The hotel owners initially showed us a barn with no furniture in at all, but when we seemed unphased by the prospect of sleeping there, they relented and offered us a room with an actual bed in it. Justin erected our mosquito net and I was shown the bathroom which turned out to be a small room with a bucket of water in it. No toilet bowl. No hole to pee down, just a tiny hole in the back of the back wall where the pee was supposed to drain. Only apparently it hadn't drained for a while and there was a big puddle of pee towards the back of the room. Still, at least it was private.

We set off on the final leg of our journey to Belo sur mer at 6am the following morning. We stopped off for bok bok and coffee at 9 and then in a town called Manja for lunch before arriving in Belo at 5pm. The journey was as spectacular as it had been the day before and we drove through quite a wide variety of habitats on the terrible 'road'. Children in small villages ran out, singing "salama fazahar" in unison when we passed. My favourite image of the day however was not the huge towering boababs shrouded by mists in the early morning. Nor the two young zebu herders crossing the river while holding their clothes above their heads to keep them dry. Nor was it the village meeting in one of the farming villages. It was the sight of a naked man who was sat on his own in one of the rivers eating a french baguette grinning hello to us as we passed.

So... We finally arrived in Belo sur mer, optimistic and excited. We'd planned to do some diving there and visit a national park as well. I was initially disappointed to find that the diving centre was not sending out dives because the diving manager was on holiday. However, due to my divemaster status, Stephane, the hotel manager (who knew of Blue Ventures) agreed that we could rent out the boat for a day to go diving. Sadly, it was not to be. Monday dawned with a southerly wind and Stephane advised us that the visibility would be too poor and it wasn't worth our while.

Meanwhile lots of investigation over our first two days had finally rewarded us with a booking for a local guide to take us to a national park and we booked it for Tuesday. That day dawned with another southerly wind which the pirogue could not sail against to take us there. And so that too was cancelled. In the end, we spent four days in Belo relaxing, reading, not diving and not visiting national parks. I did, on the other hand, manage to find the best coffee in Madagascar at one of the roadside stalls. We ate breakfast there each morning (coffee and bok bok) and also commandeered the friendly woman to make us lunch which she did at a very reasonable price of 3,000 ariary per person (£1) for a delicious 'all you can eat' meal of very tasty beans and rice.

Belo is a vezo village - but much bigger than Andavadoaka. There are more hotels (mostly foreign owned) and more tourists. It is the centre of boutre building in Madagascar, and there are boutres in different stages of construction all along the beach. Apparently they take between 4 and 6 years to build. As I never saw anyone working on one in our five days there, this is possibly why. However, a brand new one was launched while we were there - though we were too tired to stay for more than an hour at the all-night party in its honour.

And now we're finally in Morondava having left Belo on a motorised pirogue this morning. Thankfully, that transport method was not reliant on wind direction. Ironically, the wind would have been in our favour for either diving or for visiting the national park today, but we were running out of cash and it was definitely time to move on. We've found ourselves a hotel that's a little more luxurious than anywhere we've stayed at yet. We have hot water and electricity that's on all the time! The hotel also arranges 4x4 hire (it's the only 'reliable' way to travel in this country it seems) and we're (fingers' crossed and all that) going to the Tsingy National Park on Saturday. The hotel is owned or run by a nephew of Ilias (the owner of Coco beach) it turns out - though we didn't know that when we booked in. In the meantime, we shall feast on some tourist food and prepare ourselves for six days of 'roughing' it. Whatever transpires, at least we are no longer reliant on a 'good wind' for our plans.

Tuesday 12 August 2008

It's my last blog from Andavadoaka and it seems fitting that our final week here has been one of the most hectic of all.
On top of doing 'end of expedition' admin (which is always hectic and time consuming), sorting all our stuff out into three piles (ditch behind, take travelling, send onto meet us in Tana) we've also been doing as much handover to Axelle as we possibly can so that she is well equipt to deal with her first expedition.
The days seemed to have zipped by in a whirr and I have barely had time to reflect or feel too sad, because as soon as we stop, we fall into bed and pass out. It has been a week of highs and lows - which also seems appropriate. Our goodbyes have been prolongued and drawn out. On Thursday we said goodbye to three vols (leaving two days early) as well as Georgi, Louis and Bic who were going to the south to do some diving for Georgi's project. It was hard to say goodbye to them all, but hardest to say goodbye to Bic who has been a big part of expedition life and who I may never see again.
On Wednesday evening, we had our final party night and I got drunk and stayed up by the bonfire with the volunteers until about 3am. It was good fun, but my head definitely suffered the following day.
I had my FINAL dive on Friday morning. We went to 007, one of my favourite reefs here with a really high percentage of hard coral cover. It was a stunning and relaxing dive as there was no current and fantastic visibility. We stayed together as a group and I was happy to see over 50 different species of fish, including some of my favourites from our stay here. Alec took lots of photos including some of me, which will be a great memento. Justin unfortunately did not dive as he still had sensitive ears.
On our final final night (with the volunteers), we had a lovely sendoff as the Coco Beach staff sang us two goodbye songs, the Malagasy staff sang two more and we were presented by an amazing gift by the Coco beach staff - a wooden model baobab. The BV staff gave us a model clown fish and a lovely card. I was quite overcome and gave a long speech about
how fantastic everyone had been.
Rather appropriately for our last expedition, the camion arrived more than 24 hours late but the volunteers finally left at 6pm on Saturday and since then we have been doing more training, more packing and saying our final goodbyes to the village and people in it. I am sad to say goodbye and have shed many tears. I am extremely sorry to say goodbye to all of the staff here and it makes me sadder because I do not know whether I will see any of the Malagasy staff again.
The wind had dictated our final week here and has also dictated our exit strategy. We were not sure how we were going to leave, we only knew that we were going north. However, the wind has meant that leaving bypirogue is impractical, the tides and winds means that there are no boutres (cargo) boats to hitch a ride on and so we will leave tomorrow on a 4x4 which will take us up to Morombe, and perhaps beyond to Belo Sur Mer.
I'm not sure how much internet access we will have from now on, but I'll try and keep this blog updated whenever possible. It's been an interesting experience. I have never worked so hard or such long hours in my life. And I never hope to again. But my tears at saying goodbye are also a good indicator of how attached I've got to the people here and to the life and I will be sorry to say veloma Andavadoaka and veloma Blue Ventures.

Tuesday 5 August 2008

Penultimate blog

We're almost at the end of expedition 39. As with every expedition, the last few weeks go even quicker than the first. It still seems a bit unreal to me that we won't be here any longer. I can't quite imagine not going to sleep and waking up to the sounds of the waves. I've already said goodbye to one of our Malagasy staff members - Daniel - as he's gone to Kenya for some training in running marine protected areas.
The hardest thing about saying goodbye to the Malagasy staff is that there's a really high probability that I'll never see them again. The non-Malagasy staff will, at some point, be in the UK in the future so there's a possibility of seeing them. But the chances of our local boat drivers making it to Manchester, are pretty much zero.
Axelle, our replacement, arrived on Friday. I was a little nervous to meet the woman who was going to take over. I wanted to hand over to someone likeable and capable, but at the same time there was a little insecurity about it too. I didn't want her to be so good that it looked like we weren't up to the job.
Happily, she is a really lovely woman, and human too. We're in the middle of training her right now and I'm sure she'll be great but I don't feel intimidated by her or by that.

I've done a couple of lovely dives in the last week, each time aware that I'm probably saying goodbye to that dive site. We did a lovely dive on Recruitment, though it was actually supposed to be on THB but a current took us to there instead. As I also did a dive to THB as well, I'm pretty chuffed because it meant that I got to say goodbye to both of those dive sites - which have a very high percentage of hard coral cover. I saw an octopus this week too, which is always a treat. It's great to see them changing colour. It's better than many film special effects. :)
On the day off, Justin and I took a sailing pirogue out to one of the islands north of Andavadoaka. We took a packed lunch with us and had a lovely, lazy day out on the pirogue. We landed on Nosy Matata which is a tiny, rocky island with a few bushes, cactuses and trees and even a few mangroves. You could walk around it in less than ten minutes.
Despite its size, it is still home to two tiny settlements of people with around four grass huts or so in each settlement. We saw a bunch of women returning from octopus gleaning with a bucket full of octopus. I was surprised to see the octopuses (or is it octopi?) still changing colour in the bucket even though they must have been dead. It was a really enjoyable day out and I'm glad I finally did it as it's been on my todo list for months.

Finally, we held the concert in the village on Saturday. It took place on the front of the Club Alo Alo building and our staff organised lots of benches from the primary school to be taken onto the beach. As per usual there were about three hundred children there, but happily, there were also some adults as well including a few of the village nahodas, the staff from Coco Beach and a few other village personalities.
BV kicked off the gig with a rendition of the sixties song, da do ron ron. I'd taught it - and two harmonies - to the volunteers three weeks ago. They were pretty sceptical initially about their ability to sing in harmony, but happily, with plenty of practice, they managed to make a lovely sound. Just before we went on, Gildas gave us blue sarongs to wear. As predicted, the audience loved it and clapped and laughed at us singing and dancing.
The second number was one of James's Club Alo Alo songs and we'd learned it all in Malagasy. They laughed and clapped quite a lot to that, especially when they realised that we'd be singing the whole song in Malagasy. The biggest laughs however were reserved for the dancing section at the end of the song. The women drew some loud guffaws and chuckling, but the men were rewarded with full on hysterical laughter which was so catchy that we all ended up laughing along too. I think that's one of the cultural things I'll really miss about here - the way that laughing at people is not cruel, but a sign of acceptance and joy. Because it's done with those intentions, the person being laughed at usually ends up laughing with them.
I performed a Scottish folk song after the BV crew did their thing. James had learnt the guitar part and I stood on the concrete veranda of the building and used a microphone. The sun was shining right into my eyes, but I could still just about make out the audience who were scarily silent for the duration of the song. I did not draw any laughter at all in fact which I'm not sure is a good thing or not! They did applaud me when I finished though. As the song was about the sea, I thought it appropriate to sing, and though I was completely terrified, I'm still glad I did it. Gildas briefly explained that it was about the sea before I began. Looking out to sea, singing the words "the tide, at thy head and feet, the wind about thy shoulders" never seemed more appropriate, even if most of the audience would not have understood the words.
The rest of the acts were varied and entertaining. The women's association did three songs that they'd prepared - including one especially for us to say goodbye. They'd all dressed up with make up and glitter on their faces and looked amazing. Madame Ziza made a short speech beforehand thanking us for our work for the women's association and presenting us with a present each (matching shirts in orange and blue garish pattern). I was quite overcome and thanked them. Following the WA, there were two groups (mostly related to James) who sang and danced, Angelo's wife who sang alone, and Vivienne (the lady who does the washing) who sang with three young girls.
They also sang a song wishing us well and saying goodbye to us. :) It was lovely. Finally, there was a band with drums and Madagascan homemade guitar. They were pretty charismatic and their dancing was furnished with lots of arse shaking, drawing more laughter from the crowd. Finally, elina came on again with her two friends and danced to two epi-bar songs. It had been a wonderful concert - what I'd imagined and more - and a great way to end our time here.

Tuesday 29 July 2008

Whale song

This week I also managed to tick off a few things from my before I leave tick-list.
One of them was to do some table coral measuring on a dive site called Cloisters. We went there on Wednesday and I had a really gorgeous dive there measuring table corals and getting exciting over the variety and abundance of coral. It is a very colourful and pretty site and one of my favourites.
I also logged my 500th dive on Friday on a dive site near the sandy coral island of Andramambala. I'd gone there with five volunteers, Louis (field scientist) and Thomas as our boat driver. It was quite an eventful trip overall. It was extremely calm when we left Andavadoaka's poo beach at 7am on Thursday morning, but by the time we arrived on the island, the waves had picked up and it was pretty rough. We dropped off our stuff and went for our first dive on the reef that we were surveying.
Before the dive, my Lizzie's high pressure hose burst and she had to use the spare
regulators. Then on the dive, her tank slid off and I had to reattach it.
The dive site wasn't very interesting and the swell made doing science quite tricky. Lizzie lost her fin as we got back on the boat after the dive. Oops.
Unfortunately that wasn't all of our bad luck. The weather picked up so that by the time we got back in, it was really rough and very windy. I was too cold to go back in for a second dive. Thomas filled up the tanks (we'd taken a small compressor with us) and we went back out for the next dive with Lizzie (my buddy) and I as boat marshals. But then the high pressure hose on Louis' kit burst! So he had to use my regulator to dive. Luckily, by the time they descended the wind had died down and that dive was uneventful and we got back to the island safely in time for lunch. One of the women on the one of the tiny settlements had cooked us beans and rice.
Afterwards Alec - a lovely young man (as many of our young male volunteers have been) - and I went for a walk and took my binoculars. We spotted two whales while sat on sand dunes looking out to sea. That evening, we made a fire and the lady who'd cooked for us earlier and her family brought us dinner of octopus, fish soup, rice, two kinds of fish and omelette. What a feast. We made a fire and told stories and then slept out by the stars. The only thing marring this rather pleasant experience was a persistent smell of poo. I wasn't too cold as I slept in all my clothes and my sleeping bag, but woke up a few times to put my woolly hat back on.
We woke on Friday morning and munched on some biscuits before heading out to dive a site that BV has only dived once before. We were now down to five divers as we'd lost two sets of regulators the day before so there were two boat marshals.
On the way out to the site, Thomas called out that there was a whale (or two) in the distance. I didn't manage to see it. But as we were descending on our dive, all of us could clearly hear the whale song. It was an eery sound. Sort of booming and out of tune. It was extremely exciting to hear though.
Then, about five minutes into the dive Roger - a 64 year old American volunteer - pointed out a green turtle on a ledge just below us. We had a really good sighting of it as it woke up, sleepily assessed the situation, looked around and then lazily swam off. The dive continued to be enjoyable after that as I found lots of little flatworms and nudibranchs to engrosse me. The site was interesting but there were very very few fish and only 10% live coral cover. We heard the whale song again later on during the dive. I looked out into the distance but did not see it.
That dive had been so good, I thought our run of bad luck had ended but on the second dive, Lizzie went through her air in about 7 minutes (we think there was something wrong with her kit as well) and ended her dive early and then I was quite discombobulated and while untangling a tape measure managed to let go of the SMB (surface marker buoy) and so we had to abort the dive as per BV protocol. Luckily, it was picked up by the boat marshal. The dive lasted a total of 20 minutes for me. It was my 500th and I shall probably remember it - though not for the right reasons! The 499th was more positively memorable.
Our underwater concert wasn't the only whale encounter this week. Most of the group us saw one half way between the shore and the horizon on Tuesday over breakfast. We were able to see it quite well with binoculars and saw it breach quite a few times. There were also sightings by divers after their dives on two separate occasions. Justin and I also had some very good sightings from the whale watching platform on Nosy Hau on Sunday. We saw about seven or eight in total, including a group of three which were very active - slapping their fins and coming half out of the water. It was exciting - despite being quite far away.

Village news
As well as being a good week for whales, it's also been a good week for peanuts and tomatoes - as both appear to be in season and in abundance in the village at the moment. There are numerous tiny stalls along the main street piled high with small tomato pyramids. Five cherry tomatoes cost less than 7p at the moment. Though sometimes the prices vary depending on who is womaning the stall and whether or not she thinks you'll pay more for them than that.
It's also been a good week for the peanut lady as she seems to have sold rather a lot of jars of home made peanut butter to this group of volunteers. She is now charging 4,000 ariary per jar (up from 3,000 last time I bought some) which is quite a lot of money (£3.30) in this village.
Meanwhile, samosa boy - the young boy who comes up to Coco Beach twice a day selling samosas to hungry BV staff and volunteers - has now apparently extended his range to selling us bok bok as well. And it's rather delicious bok bok too.

Finally, I am getting ready for my concert which will take place on 2nd August. So far, I have taught the group Da Do Ron Ron and James is teaching us one of his songs as well. Hopefully we will be more tuneful than the whales! We will rehearse every day this week. I am looking forward to it, but hope that we will have other participants from the village and an audience as well. I'll let you know all about it next week which will be my penultimate blog from site! The end, as they say, is now in sight.

Tuesday 22 July 2008

Like footprints in the sand

I've done some nice diving this week, very aware that each dive brings me closer to my last dive here. Went surveying at THB, deep on 007, and led a navigation training dive with the advanced course. I saw a gurnard on the latter dive which is a very very cool fish to see.
Justin and I also had a lovely morning with Italo and Nina on Saturday. We paid to go out diving with them and though the dive was pretty shit - three metres visibility and a strong current meant we aborted after 15 minutes - I still enjoyed being a customer for a change! It was nice to hand over responsibility to someone else and we got to spend a few hours on the boat away from site. So it felt like a break, even if it wasn't the dive that we'd been hoping for.
Also this week was the 'medivac' operation. Becks, the medical students and a few helpful persons acted out some emergencies for us to respond to, in order to see how well we would cope under pressure, stress and if any real emergencies occurred. We did pretty well I think. They made it quite real and it was a good exercise to have done. We probably should do one each expedition.
Justin and I are not the only ones leaving. Tomorrow (Monday 21st July) Becks, our medic, leaves us. Hanta leaves too and will be missed by Lalao, her partner in crime and in seagrass surveying.
The women's association held a party last night and there was dancing and drinking and the usual epi-bar shenanigans. There were lots more drunken nahodas than usual - the togagash was flowing I think - and the old men and teenage boys a little bit more amorous in their dancing than they usually are. Justin and I stayed til about 12, when the five songs on rotation started to get a bit repetitive after the third, fourth or fifth time. We left most of the staff behind and a few of the volunteers, some of whom stayed til sunrise. There was no curfew.
I admire their tolerance - for alcohol, for being able to hear (and dance) to the same songs all night, and for putting up with the amorous men.
We retired with a few of the other volunteers to half moon beach with my ipod and speakers before heading to bed at 2am. Late for us. There's now only three more party nights left til we leave. Three weeks left til the end of the expedition. Then two more days after that. Then we leave. The clock is ticking.
When we arrived, I was hyper aware of everything - trying to take it all in and appreciate each aspect of being here. Somewhere in the middle, it began to be a bit more normal. Less remarkable. My level of awareness dipped. Now, it's back up again. Each time I trudge up the sandy hill to the batcave, I'm aware that there will be a last time for that short walk. I pay attention to the feel of the sand over my feet, to the sound of the sea and to the full moon in the night sky. It's my last full moon in Andavadoaka now.
I'm hyper aware of how the winter and dry season has changed the landscape. Walking across the football pitch on the way to the village this morning I realised that nothing now remains of the grass that grew during the brief rainy season. It's no longer a trodden down field of dusty green grass. It's back to being a very sandy dust bowl. The spiny forest is dry, and the road to the phone point sandy and hard to trudge through again. The kite flies past our hut late morning, regularly mobbed by the pied crows.
It's only been ten months, but somehow it almost feels like a full cycle of the year as things appear very similar to the way they were when we arrived. It's strange to think that the view from my hut that I've seen every day will soon be just a memory.
In ten days, my replacement will arrive and then we'll just be another two staff members from BV who came, stayed for the best part of a year and left again. Vainly, I hope that we'll be remembered positively. But who knows? I'm certain that the memories of Andavadoaka will stay longer with me than the memories of us will remain here. Since we've been here we've seen many staff members go and new ones arrive. The gap that you feel once they've left closes pretty rapidly and the staff turnover means that by this time next year, there may only be one fazahar staff member to remember us by.
Hopefully the Magalasy staff won't forget us too quickly though. I hope that I've made a positive difference overall - to BV, to the village and to the environment.

Tuesday 15 July 2008

A quiet week

This week is possibly the first time I feel stumped for something interesting to write. It's been a busy week with only a few volunteer mishaps and one telling off, but other than that, it's been probably the most unremarkable week that I can remember.
I've been diving. I've eaten fish and beans. I've seen some lovely sunsets and I've hung out with volunteers. That is more or less it. We did have one volunteer go AWOL for a
couple of days. She'd decided that she wanted to go to a desert island for a couple of days and went with an ex-BV volunteer but did not tell any of us that she was going. She managed to send us a message the following day to say she'd be another day away. Even so, she got a good ticking off when she returned and has been 'punished' with a bunch of 6am boat marshals.
Living without phone coverage really is a bit of a bind at times. Yesterday, for example, Justin and I went to Laguna Blu for lunch. Some volunteers also went and we'd tried to send a message the previous day to let their kitchen know. However, the person didn't manage to take the message over and so we turned up unannounced. Happily, the kitchen was(just about) able to accommodate us.
Laguna Blu is really only a couple of kilometres away. Not far at all. And yet without a phone, it might as well be miles and miles away when there's no wind (or too much wind) or it's dark you want to get a message to them.
So, that's about it for this week. No bok bok making extravaganzas. No major wildlife sightings by myself (though some other volunteers did see a very enormous stingray). In fact, nothing very exciting to report at all. Just lots and lots of hard work (4am until 9.30pm last Thursday on the part of Justin) and mental arithmetic - working out the numbers for the meals with people coming and going. There are over 40 of us at dinner each night, but luckily the kitchen is keeping up, which is kind of a miracle in itself.
Next weekend, we have an STD play competition, a women's association party and Justin and I may go and do a couple of tourist dives with Laguna Blu. So, hopefully I'll have more to report next week.

Wednesday 9 July 2008

This is the last time I'll......

Expedition 39, our final expedition, is now fully underway. It's the largest ever BV group - 23 volunteers, two researchers and two medical students.
Happily, it's a really lovely group, full of interesting, helpful and amicable people. Consequently, though it's been hectic, busy and a little bit full-on, it's also been great to have some new energy around (the last group were quite lacklustre overall). Unlike the last group, it's also much more diverse in terms of ages, with the youngest volunteer coming just after his A'levels, and the oldest being 64. So, all in all, I'm quite glad that I've got such a good group for my last expedition.
I'm trying to appreciate every minute (when I'm not too busy to appreciate anything). However, I also find that many of those minutes are tinged with sadness as I remember that this is the last time I'll be doing something - such as meeting with the nahodas (a very lively and successful evening) or dancing with the WA, or just doing the site tour with a bunch of new volunteers.
The influx of new volunteers has also brought an influx of new germs and viruses and so first Justin, and then myself were floored for a couple of days with a heavy cold and fever. Having had a holiday recently, I think my immune system is a bit more robust than Justin's who is finding it hard to fully recover.
Today (Monday) is the first of our days off this expedition. Being a list person, I had constructed a list of things I wanted to do before leaving.
I'd already started on a few of the things last expedition (going whale watching, diving on Dos De Baleine) and today I was able to tick another thing off the list as I went into the village for a bok bok making lesson.
You'll hopefully remember that bok bok are the deep fried doughnut doughy balls much loved by Andavadoakans and volunteers alike. I went down to the coffee shop opposite the supermarket and was greeted by a smiling Fastine who welcomed me into the small hut that serves as a coffee shop, and is immediately in front of her living quarters.
I sat down on the bench while she gathered the ingredients together. The children (four of them) gathered round me, a fazahar and therefore and endless source of fascination. Once the ingredients were gathered together, Fastine talked me through the process (in Malagasy).
First of all we sieved the flour into a rattan basket/bowl. Then, in a metal bowl we mixed up the sugar (two of the tomato paste tins worth), yeast, bicarbonate of soda, oil and water. We then added the flour and I got to take over, mixing it all together with a spoon until we had a big mass of dough. We then went out to the back of the hut where Fastine built a small fire and added more oil to a heavy iron pot. Once the oil was hot enough, she showed me how to make the small balls of dough which she dropped into the oil.
She prepared about eight, and then I continued with the rest - letting them fry until they turned from a vanilla colour to a dark crispy caramel. Simple. Fastine tended the small fire - I'm more used to turning knobs on hobs to control the heat - and we sat on a rattan mat on the floor while we cooked. It's a far cry from the sterile steel kitchens you see on tv cooking shows. There are flies galore, the water bottle used as a vessel to contain the oil looked old and never washed and there was a baby chicken hopping about and dodging the children, who themselves looked far from sterile.
While we were cooking, a kid goat wandered through, passed me and the fire and meandered out to the back, baaing as he went.
Gordon Ramsey would have had a field day. Still, I'm sure deep frying would have killed any possible germs and I brought twenty still-warm bok bok back for some hungover and very grateful volunteers. As Lalao said, anytime that I get homesick for Andavadoaka I can now make myself some bok bok and imagine myself back here.

Thursday 3 July 2008

Declining fish catches

It's been another eventful week here in Andavadoaka. I interviewed two more women from the village on Monday. Celestine, who was around 50 years old had 12 children and 23 grandchildren. Though she wasn't quite sure. Susanne, the 70 year old woman, had 11 children but she wasn't sure at all how many grandchidren or great grandchildren she had. One of her grandchildren was sat next to her on the sand as I interviewed Susanne. She looked like a teenager and was breastfeeding her baby.
The name of the women's association in Andavadoaka is "women for development" and in all the interviews, the women talk of 'developing' women or the village being more 'developed' than 'before'. But when you ask them to describe what they mean by developed and developing, they cannot elaborate. It's as if they know it's a positive concept, but they cannot actually break it down and say what it means for them.
So far, it seems that the women have more 'festivities' now, can wear trousers and clothes (compared to when Susanne was a child when they had no proper clothes at all) and are more organised with doing things. Though she claimed that life was easier for women now, this seemed to be tied in to the fact that they have more material goods now than they did before. Fish and octopus catches have declined drastically. Both women described how daily catches used to reach 20 - up to 40, but now they are averaging about 4 or 5 octopus, maybe as few as 2.
Fish catches have declined similarly and pirogues have to go further and further out, and are catching fewer and smaller fish than they used to find just in front of the village. Last week I talked about how important the WA was for providing the women with financial alternatives. Celestine and Susanne highlighted the importance of the WA for a social support and network. All the women I spoke to talked about how great it was that the WA got together and sang and danced and hosted parties.
For Celestine, the festivities were her main reason for belonging to the WA and Susanne described how a WA in another village paid for her to return here to Andavadoaka when her husband died. Celestine wished for a road to be built to Andavadoaka as it would make it easier for the women to send their products out of the village and to sell them further
afield.
Susanne meanwhile hoped for a mobile phone to communicate with her family elsewhere in Madagascar and for a TV. The most rewarding aspect of the interviews was taking the women's photos afterwards and being able to show them the photo on the back of the camera. Their hysterical laughter and pleasure at seeing themselves on screen is quite a contrast to the way most of us western women react when we see our photos.

Independence day
The day the volunteers left Andavadoaka, the rest of the BV staff hopped onto the back of a 4x4 and went inland to the village of Befandefa for the independence day celebrations. Befandefa is a village inland from Andavadoaka and the administrative capital of this small region.
The 25th was the mayor's inauguration and we got there just in time to see the inauguration ceremony. This culminated in presentations and dances from different villages in the region. Morombe donated a zebu (which was slaughtered shortly afterwards) but other gifts were somewhat less extravagent and included some flowers and from us, some cash. Charlie danced with the family of Thomas - our boat driver and her boyfriend - while Becks and I were roped into dancing and singing with the women's association of Andavadoaka. All of this took place in the dusty large square of the village. The square was lined with lots of stalls selling food (bok bok, fudge, peanut brittle) drink (beer, rum, togagasy), had a flagpole in the centre, and at the east side an awning under which all the important people (including the mayor himself) were sat on chairs, watching the entertainment. The awning was flanked by two enormous speakers out of which was pumped very loud epi-bar music throughout the morning, afternoon and night.
It was interesting to see everyone in their finest clothes and there were some very impressive suits and dresses. The entertainment was followed by 'cocktails', toasts and lunch. We all got suitably tipsy on rum or whisky and spent the afternoon hanging out in the sun and entertaining all the children (and some of the adults too) by... Well, just by existing really.
Underneath the biggest (only?) tree of the square, a man spent much of the afternoon hacking the zebu to bits with an axe watched on by the hungry eyes of dogs and goats. Angelo bought a segment which was cooked up later by his wife. It wasn't much of a holiday for her as she not only cooked for her own extended family, but all of the BV staff as well (and kindly did an omelette for us non-meat eaters). We ate in the mayor's office and hten we headed back 'out' to the bar.
It was like a proper festival, except that instead of queuing for the toilet, you to head out into the spiny forest and try and find a cactus or spiny tree to give you enough cover. Sometimes I had to walk for quite a while before stopped feeling conspicuous. The most popular drink on offer was the togagasy - cheap, cheerful and very very strong. I did not partake. There were fireworks at 8 which sent many of the crowd running away in terror (they had probably never seen them before) and then more music and dancing.
Our crowd (BV staff, both international and Malagasy) went to sleep in the mayor's office on the floor at a very lightweight time of 11pm. However, the main party didn't kick off until midnight and continued right up until about 6am! One of the first things I saw that morning was an old man (maybe in his 50s) dancing on his own to the still-playing epi-bar music. It was a sight that would not have looked totally out of place at a British festival.
I enjoyed breakfast in the sun - coffee and bok bok, and avoided the eyes of the men who were still drunk from the night before.
Independence day itself followed a similar format to the day before, except that this time, all the villages joined a parade, and marched through the village singing. The women's associations from many villages had uniforms - and the Andavadoakan women managed to find two of their (new) uniforms for Becks and I to wear. We marched through the village singing, ending up back in the square for the raising of the flag again. Then followed four hours of 'play', as Gildas put it - as each group sang or danced or both to two songs. Sadly, the programme ran too far behind for the women's association of Andava to get their turn. I was most disappointed by this, especially as many groups were not really singing, just dancing to epi-bar tunes. However, there were a few groups who were very tuneful and fun to watch, so we were entertained for much of the time.
After a late lunch, the final of the football tournament took place on a massive football pitch. Andavadoaka played Lamboara. It was quite a lacklustre game really - possibly as a
result of the party the night before - and unfortunately, we lost on penalties. Gildas missed one, which was quite upsetting to watch. Being English, I'm not unfamiliar to losing a football game on penalties, but even so, it was quite hard to watch the jubilant Lamboaran sing and dance around after their final goal.
We got a lift back to Andavadoaka on a loaded 4x4 and were back in time for dinner. Much of Andavadoaka was partying again that night in the village (those that managed to get back from Befandefa), but we just could not take the pace and had an early night! I thoroughly enjoyed my first independence day in Madagascar, all the more so for being able to share it with my Malagasy colleagues. It was also particularly flattering to have been asked to participate in both of the days' events rather than just experiencing it as a spectator.

Wildlife update:
There is still plenty more positive news to counter the dead sharks and cats of recent weeks. As well as a few more whale sightings, we were extremely excited to get news from the guardian in Lamboara that the turtles that he had been guarding had hatched. Charlie zipped down there the following day and managed to get some film footage and photos of about 72 baby turtles scrambling out of the nest and into the sea.
Some of our volunteers had clubbed together to help pay for the guardian to guard the nest and so all our efforts have paid off. Sadly, only something like 1 in 10,000 turtles makes it from egg to an adult. Still, at least we've done our bit and stopped the nest from being excavated and the eggs from being eaten. Now, it's up to the turtles.
I'm also very excited to report my first ever sighting of a yellow-spotted scorpion fish, nestling in amongst some pocillopora coral. I don't know how rare it is, but I've never seen one before and it looked very cool - like a cartoon fish, red with yellow spots and big bulbous eyes. It was only about 2 or so inches long and well camouflaged.
I finally got to dive one of the deep dive sites to the south of Andavadoaka and enjoyed seeing one of the biggest groupers I've ever seen. It was probably as large as me, except with scarier looking teeth. It was hanging out with lots of other fish, who were most likely using it as protection against the school of gold spotted sweetlips that were swimming through.

Tuesday 24 June 2008

Second blog this week

Some animals are actually alive!!!
It's been such an eventful week that this week seems to warrant two blogs.
Yesterday was the winter solstice here - the longest night - and also the two year anniversary of my first date with Justin. We celebrated by going whale watching, and actually seeing a whale!
We took a pirogue over to Nosy Hau (the island just west of Andavadoaka) and sat on the purpose-built whale watching platform looking out to sea. The platform is about eight metres high and is on the south west of the island. Behind it, there are great views of the whole of the island - and beyond to Andavadoaka. In front, there is the reef flat, and beyond that the deep channel.
We scoured the horizon for a good 90 minutes. Every time I saw a pirogue or a white-cap, I
looked closer to make sure that was what it was. Then, I saw something unusual - a spout!!!! I asked Justin for confirmation, and yes, he confirmed that it was indeed a spout. Shortly after that we both saw the iconic sight of the whale's tail. After a few sightings of this, that was it. The whale had dived back under and we did not see it again. It might have been far off. It might have been tiny in comparison to the large sea in front of us but it was most definitely a whale - probably a humpback - and absolutely
definitely alive. Hoorah!
In the afternoon, the village took part in a 'theatre competition' initiated by Becks, our medic. The idea was to get a number of different groups to write and perform a play about STDs and using condoms and was inspired by the success of the play that BV has now put on twice.
Becks was terribly worried as there didn't seem to be many entrants. In fact there were only two. However, there was a good audience turnout - mostly of children it has to be said. I think there must have been about 100 of them - maybe more - and about 50 adults. The first play was almost identical to the BV "Captain Kapote" play - even down to the cross dressing theme with girls playing male characters and boys playing girls. When the young female character came out from behind Club Alo Alo the audience laughed for a good five minutes without stopping. With very tight jeans (complete with thong showing over the top of them) over his slim legs, a tight t-shirt with fake breasts underneath and pigtails, the vezu man made a very good woman. The audience thought it was hysterical and he really played up to the crowd. The crowd also loved the characters of the two drunk nahodas as well and the play finished with a song.
The second play was less obviously comical though the characters were all familiar as they were all supposed to be well-known members of the community and BV including Bic, Georgi, Farah (from Coco Beach) and Becks our doctor. This story was a bit more realistic and
involved the director of a big fish company sleeping with all the women in the village (including Georgi and Farah) but not using condoms, so that they all got sick.
Unfortunately, the audience got extremely distracted about three quarters of the way through, and in fact, more than half the children ran off into the village when the street lamps turned themselves on for the first time.
Yes, Andavadoaka - not on the national grid (or any grid at all) - now has its own street lights. Five of them to be precise. Powered by solar panels, they were erected over the last two days and funded by the money that the village received from the Equator Prize which they were awarded last year. Eventually, many families in the village would own their own battery which would then get charged up by the solar street lamps. So, as you can imagine, there was much excitement when they were turned on.
Back at Club Alo Alo, the second play finished and the judging began. The judges - Gildas, Becks, Garth and Mr Roger decided that though the second play was the more original, the first ended on a song and had more inventive costumes and so was awarded the first prize.
The shortest day was topped off by a sur boom (organised party) in the village organised by the women's association. BV staff and volunteers all went down to Chez Leon's - the epi-bar on the main street - and joined many women from the association, a few of the village nahodas and various other community members in the epi-bar. As we were there by official invitation, the curfew was lifted which made the evening much more relaxing for me as it meant that I didn't have to keep clock-watching to make sure that everyone left by 12. I managed to keep going until nearly 1. I think the last volunteer left by about 3.30 but I suspected that some of the village were still dancing past that.
Most volunteers really love the epi-bar nights. I much prefer organised events like this one when fahazar (tourists) are in the minority and where the attendees are from the whole community rather than just being teenage boys, very drunk fishermen and Floretta.
Unusually, Floretta wasn't actually there last night, and her shakey arse was definitely missed. I danced to more than a few tunes and it was really great to see a range of women from the village out dancing and having fun. I left just before 1 and walked back along the main street lit by solar street lamps and then back through poo beach, lit just by the almost full moon.
Though it was the 'shortest day' I think it has been one of the most eventful and is one of those days where I feel extremely happy to be here and to have had this experience.

Wildlife update: This morning, the group of volunteers plus staff members Louis, Justin and Al went out on a night dive. I had volunteered to shore marshal so woke up with Justin at 4am. They were held up for one reason or another and did not get out to the dive site until about 5.30ish. Anyway, to cut a long story short, they all had an amazing dive and got out to see about 12 whales not far from the boat - playing, jumping, breaching and
whatever else whales do. They got about 50 metres away from them and all came back glowing, saying it was the best morning of their lives. I am only a little sore that I woke up at 4am to NOT see any whales close up, but glad at least of my superdooper binoculars as when I was looking out for the boats - literally on the horizon, I actually spotted a whale breach and create an almighty splash on its way down. A small compensation for not being as close to them as the divers. But a compensation none the less.

Conflicts and contradictions

I seem to be full of contradictions. We are nearing the end of expedition 38 and also therefore, the end of our 10 month contract, as the next expedition will be our last. On the one hand, I can't wait for it to be over. I'm excited about travelling around Madagascar, and about seeing what happens to my life once I get back.
On the other hand, I'll be very sad to leave here, sad to say goodbye and it will be strange not to be living in a one-room hut by the sea any more. Generally, though, the positive emotion about being near the end is stronger than the negative emotions about leaving it behind.
I've also been wanting to avoid scuba diving as much as possible as the water is now 22 degrees centigrade, which is cold for tropical diving. At the same time, I'm also feeling that I want to log as many dives as possible while it is so easily accessible and part of my job. While I want to make the most of being in a marine environment on the one hand, I keep putting it off because it's too cold for morning swims.
This group has been quite young and on the whole, quite, dare I say it, bland. Yet, they've been pleasant to be around and easy to manage. So, on the one hand, I'm looking forward to a new group with older volunteers and a mix of nationalities. Yet the next group has 27 volunteers and researchers, which is so large, I'm also not looking forward to managing it. I'm getting used to the fact that it's possible to want two completely different things at the same time. At least this way, I'll be happy whatever happens. Or I could be unhappy whatever happens I suppose, I guess it depends on whether I'm in a glass is half full mood or a half empty one.
As well as being full of conflicts and contradictions - which isn't really that much different to usual - I've been interviewing some women from the village women's association. Mainly, it's to get some background about the WA but it's also with a view of maybe writing an article at some point about them.
I found it quite a frustrating experience - Lalao's English doesn't really capture the subtelties or complexities as well as I would have liked. It is her third language after all. Sometimes, I'd ask a question which she'd translate into Malagasy. The two women would talk, laugh with each other and be animated in Malagasy, and then Lalao would turn back to me and either say something like "yes" or maybe "no" or ask me to repeat the question! It's not the first time I wished that I'd been able to learn the language. However, I did in the end manage to interview three women (and will be interviewing three more).
I think I really really appreciated for the first time just how important the volunteer revenue is to the women here. The village largely depends on the sea for its income and, indeed, its sustenance. But the marine resources are depleting rapidly and the fishermen have to go out fishing for longer and need to go further away. For many women, the situation is even bleaker. With fewer octopus around for them to glean, their options for earning money are pretty reduced. For many women - especially those with children, and no husband - the money they earn from selling souveniers to BV tourists is therefore vital for their survival as it gives them ready cash which they can use to buy essentials.
The WA president is a wealthy woman in comparison to many in the village - she has her own business (collecting salt) and her husband is also an owner of one of the village epi-bars. She told me that women using men for money (effectively, prostitution) was one of their only options and that she wanted the WA to be able to offer them an alternative to this. I wanted to find out how many women in the village had children but no husband and were in this situation but unfortunately, no one is able to tell me.
Clarice, one of the women I spoke to, lives in a one-room rattan hut on the beach with her three children (and no husband). She is 33. The room is just large enough for her bed (in which they all must sleep), a tiny table and a couple of chairs. The holes in the rattan walls have been repaired by cardboard and there are holes in the roof. She is unable to embroider at night because the wind blows out her gas lamp. It's no wonder then that the women's main goal with the association funds is to build themselves a concrete building to work and meet in.
With only one expedition left, it's unlikely that I'll get to see them earn enough profits for their dream building. However, I hope to continue somehow with my involvement with the WA even after I return home. Even if I don't manage to accomplish much from the UK I do think that I'll leave here knowing that the work I've done so far with them has been positive and made a real difference to their lives.
Following on from last week's slightly morbid theme of dead animals I am sad to report that Coco Beach has three fewer cats than it had before. Al (one of the big cheeses from the UK office) is here for his PhD research and apparently had a word with the Coco Beach staff about the cats begging at mealtimes. The next day, three of the cats mysteriously disappeared, last seen being put into a bag. Past volunteers reading this might want to look away NOW if they don't want to know that Gummy and Levi, two of the friendliest and most domestic of the cats, are no more. Let's hope that next week's blog ends on a happier note.

Tuesday 17 June 2008

Island life and Rats!

Been quite an eventful week this week. Justin and I took a little trip away to a small island 8km north west of here called Andramambala. This small, very sandy island is home to two tiny settlements of about 5 houses each and a few families live in each settlement. We took a pirogue there and back, and yet again were reminded about the importance of wind direction when it comes to travelling (oh, wouldn't Virgin Trains love that as an excuse).
It took us just over an hour to get there on Friday with a favourable southerly, and nearly three hours to get back, with barely a breeze at all.
It was a great visit. We were walked around the island when we arrived - just as the sun was setting. We were with two volunteers and we slept out on one of the dunes close to a fire which one of the villagers had constructed for us. We ate rice and fish along with some of the villagers, and about three of the young men came to our fire and played the guitar for us. I say guitar. It was actually a three stringed, home-made instrument - constructed from wood, drawing pins (instead of frets), nylon fishing wire for strings, and staples holding the wood together. Quite ingenious, and surprisingly effective.
We slept well considering the chilly winter air, and I opened my eyes on Saturday morning, looked out to the sea and saw the sun coming up over the horizon. We had some fresh bok bok for breakfast, along with the weirdest tasting coffee ever. There is no fresh water on the island - they have to import it - and the water they cook with is quite salty. They disguise this fact with the coffee by adding copious amounts of sugar. As you can imagine, it wasn't particularly palatable. I drank half a cup to be polite.
After this, we walked around looking at the fresh fish that had been caught that morning - and sharks too. Two tiny hammerhead sharks by one family, and a slightly larger shark, by another. Sadly these are the only sharks I have seen in nine months.
The routine appears to be that the men (and some women too) go out early in their pirogues, catch fish, and then collectively, they spend the day gutting, splitting, salting and drying them. They are no longer just subsistence fishing, and sell the dried fish to one of the fish companies which sells them on in Tulear.
It was fascinating watching the process. The troughs to dry the fish out in are just hollowed out wooden tree trunks - much like their pirogues in fact - and large turtle shells are where the fish have salt rubbed into them, before being placed into the troughs. After a night or so in the troughs, they are put out onto the hut roof to dry.
The island was also for me, a reminder of how prosperous Andavadoaka is in comparison to many of the fishing communities along the coast and on the islands. There is no well, no shop, no school and no epi-bar. Nothing, in fact, apart from the tiny huts - some not more than 5 foot high - a number of pirogues and a few home-made guitars to while away the spare time. Of which, there must be quite a bit really.
I tried for a while to imagine what my life would be like if I lived in a community as tiny as this, on an island so remote and so small. I failed.
After we snorkeled for a bit on one of the reefs, and watched two guys spear fishing (sadly, successfully), it was time to pirogue back the 8 miles to Andavadoaka.
My other news is that the rat, which was keeping us awake at night by rifling through our food and belongings, is now dead. One night, it had the audacity to drag a pot of almonds half way across the room before Justin got up and took it off him/her. Anyway, the next day, Justin managed to catch it in a box and borrowed my dive knife in order to kill it! I was slightly horrified at the idea, but the rat managed to get out somehow and thus
escaped a messy death by dive knife.
However, its reprieve was short-lived as Gildas dropped off a rat trap, and thanks to a dried apple ring (courtesy of Liz and before that Neal's Yard), it was lured in overnight and dead by the morning. Justin was overjoyed and took photos. I was just glad that
nights will be restful again, but had mixed feelings about being responsible for the death of an animal. Even if it was a rat.
Other than being a rat-killer, I have been trying to get lots of admin tasks done before the end of this expedition. This is because the next expedition is not only my last, it'll be the biggest we've managed yet. I don't anticipate any spare time for all those little jobs that I've been putting off for the past two months.
We're all a bit scared by the volume of volunteers and 'independents' that we're expecting actually. But I'm trying not to think about it or the rat's death will have been futile and I'll be up all night worrying anyway.

Wildlife update: the sunbirds are back. Haven't seen them for months. They're flitting about the place singing and looking decorative and petite.
The yellow beaked kite is also back - my favourite friend. It has been absent since Christmas.

Tuesday 10 June 2008

Back in Andava

Well, I'm back on site after two weeks away. It was quite an epic journey to get back. A one-hour delay in Manchester airport meant that I finally arrived in Tana, Madagascar 24 hours late.
Air France were all "it's not our responsibility" and rerouted me via Reunion, leaving me with a 10 hour wait in Paris, 10 hours in Reunion and an extra flight from Reunion to Tana.
Ridiculous. At least it wasn't too much of a palava once in Madagascar. My little plane left Tana on Friday after only a short delay. The twin-engine otter plane flies pretty low and the views of Madagascar below were pretty spectacular. Tall baobab trees tower over the pastel green scrub forests.
These baobabs, unlike the ones near us in Andava have thin, silver trunks which, like all baobabs, are naked. Just their green bushy heads stretching outwards and upwards begging for the sunlight. They're mostly singly dotted around the forest, or there are small patches of them where they meet to converse. It's cliched to call them majestic, but looking down from the plane, that's how they appear, giants of the arboral kingdom, gazing down at the forest below them.
As we flew over the sea, there was a lone white pirogue sail, looking like a tiny handkerchief dropped onto the sea.
I was glad to be back. Nothing too amiss appears to have occurred during my absence. Whale watching has begun, though no whales sighted as yet. We're also sending out volunteers to stay up all night guarding the turtle nest in a village called Lamboara. But as yet, no baby turtles have emerged. Soon, we hope. Fingers' crossed.

Previously I've written a lot about how different Andavadoaka is compared to home, and now after having spent 10 days back home in the UK, I've also come up with a few observations about what is different about the UK compared to here. Here are a few of them:

There are a lot more old people around. This thought did come to me while I was in M&S however!
In fact, it's noticeable that they actually are some old people.
There aren't many children around in comparison.
It's highly possible that the ratio of children to adults and 'old people' to adults is reversed with a ten to one ratio in Andava in favour of children and possibly the same in reverse for old people in the UK.
I also noticed that people are a lot fatter in the UK than they are here.

Of course, I also noticed lots of other, more expected things - such as the level of advertising around and how much crap telly there seemed to be. And the fact that the world is going to hell in a handbasket - something that you just don't hear about here by virtue of the fact that there's no tv or radio or newspapers. I definitely have to admit that it's much less stressful to live in ignorance. Preferably forced ignorance like here as I managed to get angry at least half a dozen times while listening to the news or glimpsing a newspaper.
I also noticed that people aren't very good at Be ing on public transport. They aren't yet at the stage where they'll talk to each other. Instead they'll talk on their mobile phones, play games on them or listen to music on headphones. Anything, in fact, rather than having to talk to the people around them or to sit in silence alone. Anything really, rather than just sitting and 'be-ing'. This is a stark contrast to what it's like sitting on a pirogue for four hours where you can do nothing BUT be. Of course this may be because it's preferable to look out at the sea than it is to look out at Upper Chorlton Road but the train journey from London to Manchester really isn't THAT bad.
Finally, it seems to me that people laugh less in the UK than they seem to here. They also don't smile as much at each other. And despite (or maybe because) having satellite television, an abundance of available fruit and vegetables, breakfast cereal, fairtrade chocolate, microwaves, fresh juice bars, mobile phones, digital watches (hello Douglas Adams), reality television, celebrity magazines, New Scientist, Starbucks, chocolate cake,
Sex in the City, shoe shops, shoes, crap films, 24 hour news channels, fast food and faster cars... People just don't seem particularly happy. Or if they are, they just keep it well-hidden. I'm not the first person to have observed this. I won't be the last. And I'll sign off this week with this well-worn cliche - is it so preferable to have all this stuff? Is giving up smiling at strangers and not-laughing the price we have to pay for it? Which is really the richer society? The one which can laugh and smile through life, or the miserable one with all the stuff? And if I'm concluding all this, why then do I still look forward to getting back to Manchester at the end of my stay here, rather than jacking it all in and living permanently in this little village by the sea? Answers on the back of a postcard....

Tuesday 20 May 2008

Monday 12th May

Andavadoaka village is not a large one by most standards, around 1250 people (including children - who make up the 65% of that total).
This week, it's hosting a huge inter-school sports tournament and is expecting huge crowds. It starts tomorrow, and already 65 competitors and 40 spectators have turned up from Morombe. The main street is littered with new stalls selling fried fish, cassava, manky orange/mandarin fruits and there's even a stall selling what looks like brand new clothes (as opposed to second hand clothes).
There is an air of market day about. Just a reminder for you about what the village is like. Andavadoaka itself is situated at the top of a beach in the area that lies between the beach and the spiny forest and hence is mostly sand. When I talk about the main street, what I'm actually describing is a path in the sand lined with wooden stalls and huts and a couple of single story, more solid buildings.
One of these more solid buildings is the 'supermarket' which is a general store, made from solid wood, with a concrete patio with small wooden seats outside and a corrigated iron roof. It sells everything from Pringles (at the price of an average day's wage for a fisherman) to single cigarettes to toga gashy (illegal moonshine), to chocolate, to tools, nails, rice, beans and medicines. Opposite the supermarket is a half-finished concrete building which will be a new 'pizza restaurant cum internet café'. It is owned by the same man who owns the supermarket and it will inevitably be solely used by Blue Ventures staff and volunteers and passing tourists (of which there are about 2 a week at the moment as it is 'high' season). Unless we boycott it. But I can't imagine that we will.
Volunteers still buy the vastly overpriced jars of Nutella, peanut butter, chocolate bars, and yes, the Pringles. So, I would imagine that they'd also buy internet access and pizzas at prices far above what the average Andavadoakan could afford. The few stalls (either wooden tables or just food laid out on rattan mats) that litter the sides of the main
road - a handful of them, don't imagine this is like the high street you know and
love at home - sell whatever has been brought in on boutre (ship) or zebu cart, or what has been caught or made locally. There are pretty much always fried or dried fish. There's nearly always cassava and sacks of rice. There's also often fish samosas, bok bok (sweet doughy balls) or rice cakes too (doughy spheres made from rice flour but with the texture of english muffins). For those with a sweet tooth there's usually bon bon kapiky(caramalised peanuts in a square) or coco bon bon (the same, but with coconut). They're yummy. But you can feel your teeth rotting as you eat them! As a price comparison, most of those items cost somewhere between 50 ariary and 300 ariary apiece. In English money, that's between 1.5p and 10p-ish.
At the moment there's also bananas, monkey nuts, and the lemony grapefruity fruit things. The lady on the stall opposite the supermarket has got herself a nice sideline in peanut butter at the moment. She will crush the peanuts for you as long as you provide the jar and then sell it for half the price of a pre-packed jar from the supermarket - and it will taste twice as nice.
Just like every high street in the UK, Andavadoaka's main street also has a coffee shop. This is a far cry from the Starbucks and Caffe Neros at home. It is a small wooden shack with a concrete floor and - like most of the houses in Andava - a reed roof. There is a doorway and a window with no glass in which a young lady often sits and looks out. It sells coffee from a thermos flask and rice tea (the water that's left after the rice has been boiled) for 100 ariary a mug (about 3p) and bok bok for the same price each. There are a couple of wooden chairs, and thin wooden benches and two tables. There are no pictures on the walls and no music playing. Out the back, there is space and pans for frying more bok bok (or fish) on the fire and to the back of that, another hut - presumably, the home of the family that runs the shop. It's a nice place to sit, munch bok bok and watch the world go by.
Which today, consists mostly of the children visiting the village for the sports competition. At a table sits a teenage girl doing her homework, and occasionally stealing glances at the strange white people chatting at the table. We have been here 7 months, but we are still a novelty. It is impossible to walk through the village without children running up to you and calling out Salama (hello). I wonder how many years we'd have to live here before we could walk through the village without attracting a second glance?
Update: the sports competition attracted so many people to Andavadoaka. It was bustling like a small town and felt like market day. There were bunches of bananas on sale, some 'greens' (oranges. But they're not orange) and guavas. I even spotted five tiny tomatoes on one stall and someone was making zebu kebabs. I bought some guavas - my first ever - and tasted them. They are now my favourite fruit since mangos. I was hoping that it heralded a new season of fruit and availability in the village, but two days later, the visitors are gone, as are the guavas. Oh well.
This is my last 'blog' from site as I'm off 'home' for a 'holiday'. Can't wait. Will be my first real break since christmas and my first break from Justin since before we came. I'm leaving him in charge. Eek! Luckily, this expedition is quite small in comparison to previous ones and they're quite young too. No real characters so far - but then you can't always tell this early on.
Back blogging in Mada in two weeks after my holiday! But then, I won't believe it until I'm on the plane. This is Madagascar after all, and anything could happen.

Tuesday 13 May 2008

Captain Kapote to the rescue

Expedition 37 draws to a close and it's time to say goodbye to another crop of volunteers. One thing this job has allowed me is the opportunity to meet lots of interesting people from far-flung places (to Madagascar, but also to the UK!).
I think I have enjoyed this group socially a little more than others - maybe because there were a few of us 'oldies' in it. Am intrigued to see what the next set of vols is like as they're all between 20 and 24!
The final week of the expedition rolls round so quickly it seems. I can't believe I have just two more to go.
We had some nice dives in this last diving week - including one at a site which I think we will call "Emerald City" because it is full of green and purple Galaxea coral. It was exceedingly pretty. The final day is one where we send out dives purely for recreation. Before I came here, pretty much all my dives were recreational but now that diving has become 'work' it's rare that I get to dive purely for the love of it and the fun of it. Don't get me wrong - I do really enjoy guiding vols, helping to train them and showing them stuff. And I sort of enjoy the data gathering too. But there's nothing that beats just swimming round a new reef, exploring under water and doing so in calm conditions and good visibility.
So, I'm happy to report that's just what I got yesterday diving on a new reef (to me). The visibility was gorgeous and there were some shallow reef tops full of blue and green table corals populated by pretty pink baench damsels, chocolate dipped chromis's, masked banner fish and threadfin butterflies. I hung in mid-water enthralled by the picture postcard scene which would have simply been titled "coral reef" and took heaps of pictures - at least a few even came out! The dive was really gorgeous and there was more to explore than our 45 minute bottom time could allow sadly. I hope to return there another time. It really is the longest time since I've just chilled with an experienced buddy and marvelled at the beauty of the reef. An additional excitement was a bright yellow, blackspotted puffer fish which pouted at the camera, but refused to stay still long enough to stay in focus.
The other major highlight of this week was the play which the volunteers put on for the village. I'm not sure if it had a name, but if it did, it would have been 'captain kapote' (Captain Condom). The play was hastily written, and put together by our medic, whose mission here is to increase STD awareness in the village and condom use. I was sceptical, to say the least, that she could do something so ambitious in the three days that she'd given herself, but I'm happy to say that I was proved utterly wrong.
The volunteers all rallied together, including our Malagasy scholar, who helped write the script in Vezu and served as a narrator throughout. The play took place on the beach, behind the concrete Club Alo Alo building about forty minutes before a spectacular sunset lit up the sky behind it. It was watched by an audience of women and children (to my right), children and teenagers of both sexes (in front of me) and burly, vezu men fresh from playing football (to my left) as well as a few of the men from the village and a couple of drunk old guys too. Many of the Nahuda in the village (heads) weren't available as they were in an important meeting with our science staff to talk about octopus, turtles and sea cucumbers. But the main target audience was, and that was the important thing.
The play was all in Malagasy - the actors did a sterling job of remembering their lines - and the crowd took to the theatre like any village without television or live theatre would do. They were totally engrossed in the fates of the pregnant lady (played by the Dutch tourism researcher called Mikael), of the prostitute (played by a 19 year old loud American boy called Sam) and all the other characters too - laughing hysterically throughout.
The villains of the piece were the Chlamydia crab (played hilariously by our new dive manager Al), AIDS shark (Tori from the UK) and the syphillis sea cucumber (?!) played by the Canadian, ex-environmental lawyer called Mike whose efforts to kill and attack the characters, were thwarted by Captain Kapote, the hero, played by Philippe, our compressor operator. I think it will be a long time before he is known by any other title! I took more photos than was really necessary and hopefully BV will post them on the website as soon as they get them so you can get an idea of the production. It really was a great way to end the expedition and left everyone on a high about their contribution.

Tuesday 6 May 2008

The chameleon week

Last week, rather amazingly, we had the best visibility we've had almost since I got here. Sadly, most of our volunteers could not take advantage of it as they'd drunk too much the night before and were therefore unable to dive. So, we only sent one dive out. But it was a really really gorgeous one - even though it was one of our near shore sites which are usually not so great, especially when the vis is pants. But it was glorious being able to
see more than 20 metres and to get an idea of the topography of that whole part of the reef. I saw some really cool fish that I had to look up, and we did a full hour's dive, which made it all the more special (most of our dives here are only 45 minutes long).
One of our field scientists was also out of the water with a hole in his foot (well, more like a cut that was oozing and needed to be kept dry, but hole in foot sounds more dramatic) so I ended up doing far more dives than I would have done ordinarily - 9 in the
last week in total! I even started to feel a bit dived out by the end of the week.
The water temperature is dropping too and I'm soon going to have to resort to wearing a hood to try and keep my body temperature up. Sadly, I think I acclimised too much during the very hot season and now I'm finding that I'm wearing jeans and a hoodie during the day, when temperatures are merely 24 degrees C. I'm terrified of how I'll cope when I get back to the UK (three weeks before my holiday! Yay).
Other than the lovely diving, and the science diving, it's been a fairly average week on site. No more dramas (phew), no more rules broken (phew) and the vis is back to being rubbish again, so it's business as usual again now!
We had had a particularly good food day last Tuesday (food is integral to camp life and my day seems to revolve around eating it, looking forward to eating it, and trying not to think of all the food I can't eat here). We had fish bok bok for lunch (fish which are deep fried in dough balls) and then fish kebabs and chips for our evening meal. The memories of that day will last a long time I think!
Justin and I also had a special pre-birthday lunch on Friday (it was Justin's birthday on Saturday) at Laguna Blu, so I'm feeling particularly spoiled in terms of food at the moment. I am also quite excited because I have ordered some peanut butter from the peanut lady. I shall go and collect it tomorrow I think.
Fruit-wise - there are bananas in the village at the moment (hoorah!) and we had another weird fruit for dessert the other night. Mandarins are also in season right now. That's it for this week.
Oh! But I forgot! Other than exciting fish underwater (new species for me include a sunset wrasse, a yellowsaddle goatfish and a blackedge thicklip wrasse) we also saw a chameleon on our sunset trip to the phone point. It was quite small (about 20cm long) and sort of orangey and green but with a big bulbous spot on its nose! It really was weird looking. I've looked it up in our reptile book and think it's a "Furcifer antimena" and we saw the female one. My first chameleon since I arrived in Andava! Hope it's not my last.

Tuesday 29 April 2008

Poo beach

I may have mentioned before that the village of Andavadoaka does not have any sanitation and that the main spot for toilet visits tends to be the spiny forest. In fact, one volunteer on an earlier expedition (hi Ellie) said that she went for a walk in the spiny forest one day and came across a man doing a poo (was he actually doing it while you walked past him?) while reading a magazine or similar!
Most of the children however don't bother with the forest and just poo on the beach instead. There are many many many children in Andava. Consequently, there is much poo on the beach. Doesn't sound like paradise any more really does it, when you put it like that?
Justin and I walked up to a beach north of the village the other week and had to dodge all the poo. Some volunteers counted..... When they were out the other week.
So... Where am I going with this? Well, last week Andavadoaka was visited by the deputy environment minister of Madagascar in order to present the village with the Equator Prize trophy which it won with Blue Ventures last year for developing community run protected areas.
Although the village won last year, it's taken ages and ages (because this is madagascar of course) for the prize-giving to take place and for the VIPs to come and make it down here. In fact, most of us doubted that it would ever happen.
The night before the prestigious event took place, the village had a meeting and got together to clean up the rubbish from the sandy passageways/streets and the poo from the beach. A guard was even placed on the beach apparently to stop people from going down and pooing on it.
So... The big event took place on Saturday just outside the primary school. The
women's association sung the dignatories in, and there were many speeches.
Club Alo Alo - the environmental club that Blue Ventures run with some of the children of the village - sang their song and the women's association performed. Half the village, lots of the Blue Ventures staff, and (as usual) hundreds of children watched in the mid-day heat. The dignatories were presented with gifts from the village - a model pirogue, a carved baobab tree, some blue ventures Velondriake t-shirts (no photo of the minister wearing one I'm afraid Richard) and four huge stinky dried fish (I know they were stinky because I made the mistake of standing next to them while they were drying and nearly fell over from the strength of the smell).
After this, for the Important People there were cocktails (coca cola, beer, rum or fizzy orange) and some schmoozing. I was one of the few women in the room.
Schmoozing in English is okay, I quite enjoy it most of the time, but schmoozing in french is just a bit beyond my capabitilities I think. And then it was all over. The dignatories, Important People and Army guys all drove off in their 4x4s for a slap up meal at Coco Beach (as far as slap up meals are possible at Coco Beach) and then drove off sometime in the afternoon.
What else has occupied me this week? Well, we had some poor visiblity days last week, but things have improved substantially again and we're back in the water so I've really enjoyed doing some fish point-outs and tests with some volunteers. We all watched a film (in two stages) called Kontroll - set in the Budapest underground system - which I'd really recommend and we had a fantastic 'cross-dressing' party where everyone dressed as someone else (of the opposite sex) from the expedition. As always with these things, the men dressing as women were much, much more entertaining. Kyle (tall, 19 year old Californian) came as me and painted some tattoos on his belly and arms. :) most fun.
Justin and I have started to do some yoga together in the mornings :) and we had quite a scare on Saturday evening as one volunteer went swimming at dusk and did not come back with his buddy, but carried on swimming on his own. We had to get the boats out to search for him as night fell pretty quickly and I had nightmare visions of pulling a half-dead volunteer out of the water.
He was absolutely fine, had not got into trouble at all, and just wilfully ignored common sense, his buddy asking him to swim back, and other people warning him that it would be dark soon and was just all-round arrogant and stupid. Thankfully, I didn't have to tackle that one alone as Al, our wonderful new dive manager, joined me in dealing with the aftermath, the debriefing and disciplining of the volunteer.
Oh... And I wrote my first song! It's a very very cheesy folky ballad, but I figure that as it's the first song I've ever written from scratch, I can afford to be at least a little bit cheesy. Have not played it to anyone other than Justin as yet.
And as for the poo on the beach? Well, I'm sorry to report that it seems that the beach was far too long and far too big for one guard to tackle alone. Say no more.