Food, wildlife, food & wildlife

Saturday:
Thought I'd update you on the food and wildlife situation
right now.
Mango season has well and truly finished. I'm very sad
about this. Lychee season was also very short (and very
sweet) - for about three weeks in December.
We've moved into orange season now and they're the only
fruit/veg available in the village at the moment. Only
they're not quite in season. And they're not very orange.
They're actually green and pretty sour. More like a lemon
or a lime in taste. We try and eat them anyway though just
to make sure we're getting some vitamins. There are also
sometimes plums for dessert at Coco Beach. They're green.
And unfortunately I don't like them.
Otherwise, the diet continues pretty much as it has done -
bread and eggs for breakfast, rice, beans, a salad, and
fish/meat/omelette and maybe vegetables for lunch. Then we
get more rice, beans, fish/meat/squid/omelette/fried egg,
potatos or pasta for our evening meal. Chips and sauteed
potatoes continue to be a camp favourite. I seem to be the
person who is the happiest about the beans - which I
actively  enjoy. There are three or four different kinds
and sometimes,  if there's no beans, we get lentils. Which
I'm also quite happy about. But not as happy about as the
butter beans which I've now named "happy beans". "Why are
they called  happy beans?" the vols keep asking. "cos they
make me happy"  I reply. Clearly I'm on a different
wavelength to most people here when it comes to food.

Wildlife and food update: On the other hand, I am sad to
report  that Justin has just spent 10 minutes blowing ants
off my  brazil nuts after they ate through the plastic bag
they were kept in, and then proceeded to start to eat the
brazil nuts. We discovered that they'd also attempted to
make a house out of the bits of brazil nuts and clearly
don't recognise that my luxury imported snacks should not
be wasted on ant accommodation.
Brazil nuts now safely sealed away in a lidded saucepan,
away from the thieving ants.

Wildlife update: I'm sad to say that the yellow-beaked kite
that was flying past my hut every day has not made an
appearance since we got back from holidays. There is a
Madagascan kestrel around which is very pretty, and there
are  flamingos out in the spiny forest by the salt lakes.
There were a lot of snakes initially when we got back from
Tulear  but not seen any for a while. There continue to be
resident geckos and small skinks everywhere.
Hermit crabs continue to skulk around, and some of the big
red crabs can be spotted scuttling about at night. In the
water, I continue to not see any dolphins, turtles, sharks
or any particularly big fish. I have seen an octopus this
week though and a very big titan triggerfish. Remember the
night of the suicidal dragonflies? Well, this expedition
we've had the night(s) of the big flying ants, and last
night it was the night of the small flying beetles. The
herd of goats that hang out on the football pitch continues
to breed like... Well, goats and can often be heard marauding
through the camp at 5 in the morning - jumping up on our
verandas and generally causing havoc and mayhem. And trying
to find food.

Meanwhile our group of volunteers continues to shrink ever
further.
Nick, arrived back on camp last Wednesday, only to leave
again (at the insistence of his mother and under the
direction of a  doctor in the US) on Saturday. His infection
was improving, though not yet better, but the remoteness of
our location meant that the doctor (and his mother) didn't
want to take any risks of it getting worse again. Suzan,
a lovely Dutch volunteer, left with him. Her departure
was at least planned.
She had only been able to stay for four weeks. It was sad
saying goodbye. Then, we said goodbye to two more volunteers
on Sunday - Bodil and Julie. They were Danish and had also
been great to have around. Unfortunately, Bodil had a tiny
cut on her foot that had started to be infected and our
medic thought it best for her to ship her out and get her on
IV antibiotics to ensure it didn't go the same way as
Nick's had. Bodil and Julie had been due to leave on Wednesday
this week, but even so, it was especially sad to say goodbye
to them at such short notice. Many tears were shed. Camp was
a bit flat as a result last night and we attempted to buoy
things up a bit by watching a movie. Only the projector
wasn't compatible with our computer and none of the dvds were
compatible with the other computers that were compatible
with the projector. So we gave up and went to bed.
We're now down to 9 volunteers and they're under strict
instructions not to get any cuts or fall over or do any damage
to themselves. Cuts weren't always getting infected as quickly
as they are now. We wonder if it's the time of year or the
temperature of the (sea) water or just bad luck.
Right now, there are also some visitors around. There's a
bunch of people from WCS (wildlife conservation society)
who'd been to a climate change conference in Tana and a
bunch of people from small grants projects looking at two
different projects, including the funding of our proposed
eco-lodge.
Diving continues with some improved visibility (hoorah! At
last!) and we have finally finished some 'science' on some
of this expedition science sites. Phew. Being as this is the
main reason that our volunteers are here, this is good news!
It took so long to train them this expedition for various
reasons, but at last the training is finally over and we can
just get out and do some surveying, some exploratory dives
and gather some more data.
Only 10 more days left of this expedition. Time flies. I guess
therefore that we must be having fun.