To blog or not to blog

The longer we are here for, the less there is to blog about. And yet, at the same time, there is always plenty going on. This week has seen the start of yet another expedition and it's been pretty full on, as ever.
I'm already liking this group of volunteers so far, which is good - they had a lot to live up to after the last two groups were so fab. But so far, they seem a very likeable and hard working bunch. Phew. The visibility is starting to improve and they're all keen and eager to start learning their benthic and fish.
We went out to the village today to meet with the women's association and yet again I sang and danced. Yesterday, while rehearsing on the beach with the women, I had children not only laughing at me, but POINTING and laughing. Thankfully, they also pointed and laughed at one of the older women when she danced, so at least I know that it's not just exclusive to me.
When people return from visiting foreign, usually poorer economies, you often hear them saying "well, they might be poor, but they smiled a lot more and seemed a lot happier than people do in the west" or something similar. Certainly, here amongst the Vezu, there is a hell of a lot of laughter.... Mainly at us, but not exclusively so! I think that it isn't necessarily that people in poorer countries laugh more, relative to their situation as much
as people in richer countries laugh a lot less relative to their situation.
I got three copies of Ethical Consumer magazine brought out to me with by my boss. Perusing them reminds me a lot of the global picture of climate change and about why I'm here in the first place. I came to work for Blue Ventures to try and make a positive impact directly on a community and an environment. I think that I've sort of managed that. Or at least, I'm helping a worthwhile project achieve its social and environmental goals. At the same time, I've also realised that while living here, though it was not my goal, I have radically changed my lifestyle and my carbon 'footprint' for this year for just living will be drastically reduced from what it would have been had I remained in Manchester. If you take aside my flights (and I'm going home for a brief period, so I know, that's pretty bad), I'm living a pretty low-impact lifestyle and although it's not necessarily easy, it's not really that much of a sacrifice either. We are pretty much doing most of the things that the low-carbon lifestyle gurus advise. Not buying much (hardly any at all) food with packaging, eating with the seasons, buying sustainably caught
fish, not using petrol-based transport (sailing pirogues mainly while travelling to nearby villages), not being major consumers (there's no proper shops. There's very little to buy), only buying locally (as far as we can walk to), avoiding products with palm oil, eating locally grown fruit and vegetables (there's very little actually grown locally. But most fruit and veg is at least grown in Madagascar). We do not have to heat our water (the
sun does that), and we only have 7 hours of electricity a day (admittedly from a petrol-powered generator). The boats that we dive off use petrol, and the food is cooked on wood fires, so there are downsides. But comparitively to life at home, it's the lowest impact living that I'm ever likely to experience. As I said before. It's not really a sacrifice. But the main reason that it's not so hard is that there are no choices and there are no temptations. I can't take a car instead of walking somewhere (or taking a sailing pirogue) because there are no cars. I can't buy clothes made from sweatshops because most of the clothes sold in the village are second hand anyway - or made by the women's association. I can't be tempted to buy fresh strawberries flown from another country because there is no fruit sold out of season or from another country. There's very little fruit. (on that subject, we're still getting a few apples and the village is also occasionally selling some sorts of mandarins which taste like a crossbetween an orange and a grapefruit). Anyway, I can't say that it's been too much of a hardship when I haven't had to turn down other options or make any decisions about these choices. Perhaps then, the hardest thing about living in our opulent west, is not the living of a low-carbon lifestyle, it's having to give up things, when there are things to give up. There's nothing to give up here. It's definitely the abundance of choices that makes it all so much harder back home. Perhaps enforcing low-carbon lifestyles on people by reducing their choices will make them happier in the end after all. And be better for the planet. And then maybe we'll start to laugh a lot more too?

Oh, I'd also like to add that this week, I've had the interesting experience of trying to explain a 'swimming pool' to one of the Malagasies. It's funny, because you only realise that many of the things you take for granted, sound absolutely ridiculous when taken completely out of context. If you live right by the sea and live off the sea all your life, then the idea of a big building in which there is a big pool of water just for people to swim in for fun, just sounds really strange....