Wednesday, December 10, 2008
I am leaving
So I am leaving Madagascar tonight. I am super sad about it, I am definitely going to miss it. I will write more when I get home but dont want to spend my last hours here on the internet. Sorry to disapiont. but if it makes you feel better, I am going shopping for presents so you dont totally miss out. -Jeff
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Fort Dauphan, Fort Dauphan
So I am back in Fort Dauphan, one of the worlds most beautiful places (from what I have seen). I am staying with my old host stay family. They were super excited to have me back and hear all about all my stories. It is always good to be welcomed. It was also really fun to see everyone in the group again. Almost everyone has some crazy story from ISP.
Speaking about ISP I just finished mine. I am so relieved to have it done and be done with school until late january. I have to give a presentation but I already have the powerpoint done. I think the best way to explain my ISP is with the numbers...
39 pages
30 pages of writen text (non bibliography, tables, title page...)
18 interviews
540 tree measurements
354 spelling errors corrected (or so)
$58,000,000 in potential carbon funding
4 weeks
2 feild Research locations
4 cities visited
6 different methods of travel (bus, plane, bike, canoe, boat, hiking)
6 Beaches fully appreciated
2 natural pools
1 Man
1 Kickass Project
It was an amazing month, a learned a lot and kind of wish I could do at over again. I am glad to hear that people are reading and enjoying the blog and its spelling errors, the internet here is just too slow to run the spell check. so enjoy the spellling. I hope this message finds everyone well, Jeff
Speaking about ISP I just finished mine. I am so relieved to have it done and be done with school until late january. I have to give a presentation but I already have the powerpoint done. I think the best way to explain my ISP is with the numbers...
39 pages
30 pages of writen text (non bibliography, tables, title page...)
18 interviews
540 tree measurements
354 spelling errors corrected (or so)
$58,000,000 in potential carbon funding
4 weeks
2 feild Research locations
4 cities visited
6 different methods of travel (bus, plane, bike, canoe, boat, hiking)
6 Beaches fully appreciated
2 natural pools
1 Man
1 Kickass Project
It was an amazing month, a learned a lot and kind of wish I could do at over again. I am glad to hear that people are reading and enjoying the blog and its spelling errors, the internet here is just too slow to run the spell check. so enjoy the spellling. I hope this message finds everyone well, Jeff
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
The second half of November
So I arrived in Mananara at 2:30 in the morning. I had texted my friend Sunny and she said that she was getting a double room at this hotel called Chez Roger. I had absolutley no idea where to find it however. I wandered the streets with my oversized backpack, waking up every angry dog in the town. I would have been super easy to track, just follow the sound of ferocious dog barks, and you can find Jeff, senselessly wandering the streets of Mananara. Someone gave me a tip that the hotel was buy the post office. Eventually someone woke up to see why their dogs were so pissed, but of course they didnt speak french. "Iza Chez Roger?" (where is chez roger?) I said in my limited Malagasy. They said a bunch of words that I didnt understand and made some crazy hand motions in nearly every direction. I decided to head in the direction that the they were pointing in more frequently. Somehow I stumbled upon the hotel, rang the bell, and was greated by Roger in his boxers. He lead me to the room where Sunny and I stayed up till 3:30am catching up since she was leaving at 6:00am to go study vanilla farming in some village. It was a crazy experience.
The next day, after sleeping in, running on the beach, and taking a swim, I headed over to the national park service office. I told them that I was interested in studying carbon and that I had heard a rumor that they might be interested in a student studying carbon finance. They explained that they were interested in exploring their potential for recieving carbon finance but they, tragically had no idea what that meant, or how they would go about doing that. Perfect. That is exactly what I had been studying for the past three weeks. They got really excited, telling me that they would totally support me in a project looking at their potential to recieve carbon funding. Awesome, I guess following your gut really can lead to great things
The next morning they had a staff wide meeting and I proposed my project, they loved it and hooked me up with a computer to do satelite maping data, a bunch of information on the history of deforestation, and two already paid for guides / research assistants. The conservation director even made me a batch of lichie jam.
Before I left I saw that the group Tsiliva was comming to Mananra when I was going to be in the feild. That is the same group that came to Fort Dauphan when I was there, the one where I made friends with one of the dancers/members named Julio. I texted him, saying that it looked like I would just miss him. Then he called me saying that he was styaing at chez roger, asking where I was. I looked over and realized that he was standing on the other side of the porch. What a coincidence. He introduced me to his brother Tsiliva, who is the leader of the group and an extreemly popular muscian here. He sings tropical malagasy pop songs and his music videos are always playing on the occasional TV that I find. We all ended up getting dinner, it turns out that he is a really nice guy, they are independent and all about the music, not the money.
The next morning the drove me out to a village outside of the park. I stayed with the same family that Marta was staying with to do her lemur study. It was really good to see her and catch up as to how ISP was going. She hadent really seen that many lemurs and had been going on rediculous hikes in the jungle looking for them but was having fun anyway. Although I asked three times if my guide was going to be different than marta’s and each time the answer was yes, my guide, was infact the same as hers. Because of this I scaled back the amount of time that I was there so I didnt take her guide more than once.
In the feild I made a 20m radius plot and then recorded the diameter and name of nearly every tree in the plot. The procedure is a lot more complecated than that but essentially I measured 500 trees, and nearly 100 different species. I had tons of fun tromping around in the rain forest. I also got to interview a bunch of people in the village.
I hiked back with all my stuff to Mananara to process the results, it was a 25km hike on a road along the coast. I leaft at 4:00 so that I could see the sunrise over the Ocean, it was incredible.
Highlights of my time in Mananara include seeing a wild leaf tailed gecko in my plot, the sunrise, swimming in a super warm amazingly beautiful tropical bay, eating obscene amounts of lichies and hanging out with Tsiliva.
Then Sunny and I flew to Tamatave, figuring that the $100 flight was worth two days of my life. I already had the sweet taxi brouse adventure and driving to Tamatave is twice as long. In Tamatave we were waiting for our Taxi Brouse on nice roads to Tana so we had some down time. We hung out in Tamatave, rented bikes, toured the city, and I went swimming. It turns out that Julio and Tsiliva were in Tamatave as well so I got dinner with them again. I have never been friends with a famous person before (no offense if any of you think you are famous), it is kind of fun.
The ride back to tana was much better than my last taxi brouse, I still didnt have any leg room, and the woman next to me was vomiting all the way, but atleast I had head room and the road was good. It only took 8 hours which felt like nothing, then at 2:30 in the morning in Tana, I knew right where to go and took a taki to my host.
Now I am chilling in Tana, living with my super awesome host family, writing my paper, making french toast for my family, and going to meet Julio’s wife and new baby tomorrow. By the end of the week I will be done with all of my school work until next January. That is pretty exciting.
Thats all from Mada, Jaf (how the malagasy say and write my name)
The next day, after sleeping in, running on the beach, and taking a swim, I headed over to the national park service office. I told them that I was interested in studying carbon and that I had heard a rumor that they might be interested in a student studying carbon finance. They explained that they were interested in exploring their potential for recieving carbon finance but they, tragically had no idea what that meant, or how they would go about doing that. Perfect. That is exactly what I had been studying for the past three weeks. They got really excited, telling me that they would totally support me in a project looking at their potential to recieve carbon funding. Awesome, I guess following your gut really can lead to great things
The next morning they had a staff wide meeting and I proposed my project, they loved it and hooked me up with a computer to do satelite maping data, a bunch of information on the history of deforestation, and two already paid for guides / research assistants. The conservation director even made me a batch of lichie jam.
Before I left I saw that the group Tsiliva was comming to Mananra when I was going to be in the feild. That is the same group that came to Fort Dauphan when I was there, the one where I made friends with one of the dancers/members named Julio. I texted him, saying that it looked like I would just miss him. Then he called me saying that he was styaing at chez roger, asking where I was. I looked over and realized that he was standing on the other side of the porch. What a coincidence. He introduced me to his brother Tsiliva, who is the leader of the group and an extreemly popular muscian here. He sings tropical malagasy pop songs and his music videos are always playing on the occasional TV that I find. We all ended up getting dinner, it turns out that he is a really nice guy, they are independent and all about the music, not the money.
The next morning the drove me out to a village outside of the park. I stayed with the same family that Marta was staying with to do her lemur study. It was really good to see her and catch up as to how ISP was going. She hadent really seen that many lemurs and had been going on rediculous hikes in the jungle looking for them but was having fun anyway. Although I asked three times if my guide was going to be different than marta’s and each time the answer was yes, my guide, was infact the same as hers. Because of this I scaled back the amount of time that I was there so I didnt take her guide more than once.
In the feild I made a 20m radius plot and then recorded the diameter and name of nearly every tree in the plot. The procedure is a lot more complecated than that but essentially I measured 500 trees, and nearly 100 different species. I had tons of fun tromping around in the rain forest. I also got to interview a bunch of people in the village.
I hiked back with all my stuff to Mananara to process the results, it was a 25km hike on a road along the coast. I leaft at 4:00 so that I could see the sunrise over the Ocean, it was incredible.
Highlights of my time in Mananara include seeing a wild leaf tailed gecko in my plot, the sunrise, swimming in a super warm amazingly beautiful tropical bay, eating obscene amounts of lichies and hanging out with Tsiliva.
Then Sunny and I flew to Tamatave, figuring that the $100 flight was worth two days of my life. I already had the sweet taxi brouse adventure and driving to Tamatave is twice as long. In Tamatave we were waiting for our Taxi Brouse on nice roads to Tana so we had some down time. We hung out in Tamatave, rented bikes, toured the city, and I went swimming. It turns out that Julio and Tsiliva were in Tamatave as well so I got dinner with them again. I have never been friends with a famous person before (no offense if any of you think you are famous), it is kind of fun.
The ride back to tana was much better than my last taxi brouse, I still didnt have any leg room, and the woman next to me was vomiting all the way, but atleast I had head room and the road was good. It only took 8 hours which felt like nothing, then at 2:30 in the morning in Tana, I knew right where to go and took a taki to my host.
Now I am chilling in Tana, living with my super awesome host family, writing my paper, making french toast for my family, and going to meet Julio’s wife and new baby tomorrow. By the end of the week I will be done with all of my school work until next January. That is pretty exciting.
Thats all from Mada, Jaf (how the malagasy say and write my name)
Saturday, November 22, 2008
I dont even know where to begin
WOW! these past two weeks have been absolutely nuts! I have been traveling Madagascar's east coast, studying carbon reserves, and doing everything else immaginable along the way. There is no way that I can properly describe it in a reasonable amount of time so I will just give the breif summary and if you want the real deal you will have to ask me when I get home in a few weeks (scary).
OK so I have been traveling by almost every means available here. I have gotten where I need to go by commercial plane, twin otter air plane, taxi, river boat, dug out canoe, hiking, wading, 4x4 pick up, bike, motercycle (just kidding mom), and minibus. The only one that I missed out on was ox cart but I did that last month.
First I was in Maroansetra, a city of 20,000 in the little notch of Madagascar, on the east coast. It was unbelievably beautiful. The rain forest covered the mountains and they ran right up to the beaches. I was working with the Wildlife Conservation Socitey (WCS), studying their reserve called Makira. They are in the process of recieving carbon credits for the avoided deforestation. The situation there is very delicate because they dont have the carbon credits yet so they cant pay the villagers. As a result the villagers are currently worse off since they cant cut wood to sell, only to use. There were some other problems as well but for the most part the project has potential, once it gets the $50 milion in carbon credits, to really help the people there as well as avoid lots of carbon emissions, thus slowing the process of global warming. Beacuse of the tenderness of the situatoin, I could only see the park and one of the 120 villages with a local NGO. After than WCS was too busy to help me much so I decided to head south, following a lead from another student that there was interest in carbon finance in Mananara, a town 115km south along the coast.
The drive was absolutley nuts! It took 18 hours to go 115km! We packed an outragous number of people into this pickup truck. There were 5 people up front, in the half cab, not to rediculous. Then in the bed of the truck, they had made a wood frame to cover the bed, and then put benches down along the sides. we put all of the lugage on top of the frame, including 4 live chickens. Then they packed 6 people in on each side. I couldnt believe it. I was on the end so I had one but cheek on the bench and one of the tail gate. I was thinking, this is going to be rediculous. Then two women, one with a baby hopped in and sat in the isle, taking up all the foot room. I was thinking, there is no way that we can fit anyone else in here, there is literally no room to move. Just as I had that thought, but before I could nock on wood, another guy jumped in and sat on the middle of the tailgate, esentailly right on my lap, our legs fit togheter like part of a zipper. It was rediculous, I couldnt move and of course, I was too tall for the inclosure so I had to crank my neck down so I didnt hit it every two seconds. Then just as we were leaving two more guys ran up and hopped on the back, standing on the bar and holding on with their hands like garbage men. We somehow fit 17 people in the back (plus a baby) and 5 in front, making it 22 total for a regular 4x4 pickup truck.
Neadless to say the ride was the most painful and the most amazing experience of my life. The road was esentially a boulder feild, unpassible by anything but a 4x4 or a motercycle. However we were following the ocean and had countless views of amazing tropical beaches and amazing tropical plants. The car broke down twice. Once it was a tire poping, the other time the suspension broke. At that point I decided to just hike up the road. I got in an hour and a half hike in the jungle before the truck cought up to me and picked me up. Another time we couldnt cross a bridge because it was made of thin plands of rotten wood so we had to wait for low tide so the truck could drive throught the river. I got two spend 2 hours on a trapical beach, swimming twice and just living it up. There were also tons of river crossings, most were on legit ferries but one was on a ferry made of bamboo rods. Other than the adventures the actaul driving was hell, every time there was a bump, everyone would scoot down and just about push me out ot the truck. I had to hold on the the wood plands that made the ceiling for the entire ride. My hads were definitly blisterd by the end, but I guess I got in a workout holding on like that for so long. I couldnt believe that the truck didnt skink. We finally arrived in Mananara at 2:30am. I definitely looked at it as an excercise in mental toughness. It was an unbelievable experience, one of the most painful yet beautiful things that I have ever done.
I can tell about the rest later, it is lunch time now.
OK so I have been traveling by almost every means available here. I have gotten where I need to go by commercial plane, twin otter air plane, taxi, river boat, dug out canoe, hiking, wading, 4x4 pick up, bike, motercycle (just kidding mom), and minibus. The only one that I missed out on was ox cart but I did that last month.
First I was in Maroansetra, a city of 20,000 in the little notch of Madagascar, on the east coast. It was unbelievably beautiful. The rain forest covered the mountains and they ran right up to the beaches. I was working with the Wildlife Conservation Socitey (WCS), studying their reserve called Makira. They are in the process of recieving carbon credits for the avoided deforestation. The situation there is very delicate because they dont have the carbon credits yet so they cant pay the villagers. As a result the villagers are currently worse off since they cant cut wood to sell, only to use. There were some other problems as well but for the most part the project has potential, once it gets the $50 milion in carbon credits, to really help the people there as well as avoid lots of carbon emissions, thus slowing the process of global warming. Beacuse of the tenderness of the situatoin, I could only see the park and one of the 120 villages with a local NGO. After than WCS was too busy to help me much so I decided to head south, following a lead from another student that there was interest in carbon finance in Mananara, a town 115km south along the coast.
The drive was absolutley nuts! It took 18 hours to go 115km! We packed an outragous number of people into this pickup truck. There were 5 people up front, in the half cab, not to rediculous. Then in the bed of the truck, they had made a wood frame to cover the bed, and then put benches down along the sides. we put all of the lugage on top of the frame, including 4 live chickens. Then they packed 6 people in on each side. I couldnt believe it. I was on the end so I had one but cheek on the bench and one of the tail gate. I was thinking, this is going to be rediculous. Then two women, one with a baby hopped in and sat in the isle, taking up all the foot room. I was thinking, there is no way that we can fit anyone else in here, there is literally no room to move. Just as I had that thought, but before I could nock on wood, another guy jumped in and sat on the middle of the tailgate, esentailly right on my lap, our legs fit togheter like part of a zipper. It was rediculous, I couldnt move and of course, I was too tall for the inclosure so I had to crank my neck down so I didnt hit it every two seconds. Then just as we were leaving two more guys ran up and hopped on the back, standing on the bar and holding on with their hands like garbage men. We somehow fit 17 people in the back (plus a baby) and 5 in front, making it 22 total for a regular 4x4 pickup truck.
Neadless to say the ride was the most painful and the most amazing experience of my life. The road was esentially a boulder feild, unpassible by anything but a 4x4 or a motercycle. However we were following the ocean and had countless views of amazing tropical beaches and amazing tropical plants. The car broke down twice. Once it was a tire poping, the other time the suspension broke. At that point I decided to just hike up the road. I got in an hour and a half hike in the jungle before the truck cought up to me and picked me up. Another time we couldnt cross a bridge because it was made of thin plands of rotten wood so we had to wait for low tide so the truck could drive throught the river. I got two spend 2 hours on a trapical beach, swimming twice and just living it up. There were also tons of river crossings, most were on legit ferries but one was on a ferry made of bamboo rods. Other than the adventures the actaul driving was hell, every time there was a bump, everyone would scoot down and just about push me out ot the truck. I had to hold on the the wood plands that made the ceiling for the entire ride. My hads were definitly blisterd by the end, but I guess I got in a workout holding on like that for so long. I couldnt believe that the truck didnt skink. We finally arrived in Mananara at 2:30am. I definitely looked at it as an excercise in mental toughness. It was an unbelievable experience, one of the most painful yet beautiful things that I have ever done.
I can tell about the rest later, it is lunch time now.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
So I am off
First I have to say, GOBAMA! (Go Obama mixed into one word)
I got to see the broadcast of McCain and Obama's speaches this morning while it was still night in the USofA. I was almost moved to tears (or maybe more than almost) when it sunk in that it had really happened. My host brother however was not so happy, being a Hillary supporter. He was also relieved because as he said "now Sarah Pallen can join the pussycat dolls" He is a funny kid. Anyway to the meaning of this post...
So I have yet another revision of my ISP plan. I still leave tomorrow for the jungle, but am only staying until tuesday or thursday, depending on how much there is to do there. If I only stay till tuesday, than I am going to Tamatave to talk to Conservation International there about accessing carbon finance for their new corridor, connecting an existing reserve and a soon to be created reserve. Tamatave is north and east of Tana, it is on the coast and I have heard that it is quite spectacular. It looks like I have a win win situation. Plus I get to go to Andasebe again, a rainforest not to far from Tana, to do a 3 day study of a reforestation project there. I would look at how it is applied at the community level. I am pertty pumped for this adventure to get underway.
GO America!
I got to see the broadcast of McCain and Obama's speaches this morning while it was still night in the USofA. I was almost moved to tears (or maybe more than almost) when it sunk in that it had really happened. My host brother however was not so happy, being a Hillary supporter. He was also relieved because as he said "now Sarah Pallen can join the pussycat dolls" He is a funny kid. Anyway to the meaning of this post...
So I have yet another revision of my ISP plan. I still leave tomorrow for the jungle, but am only staying until tuesday or thursday, depending on how much there is to do there. If I only stay till tuesday, than I am going to Tamatave to talk to Conservation International there about accessing carbon finance for their new corridor, connecting an existing reserve and a soon to be created reserve. Tamatave is north and east of Tana, it is on the coast and I have heard that it is quite spectacular. It looks like I have a win win situation. Plus I get to go to Andasebe again, a rainforest not to far from Tana, to do a 3 day study of a reforestation project there. I would look at how it is applied at the community level. I am pertty pumped for this adventure to get underway.
GO America!
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Part deux
For those of you who are reading this post before the last one titled "the adventure continues" please be warned. This is part 2 of 2 in my epic blog posts. However unlike sequels including Spider Man II, the Matrix II, the Lion King II, 2 fast 2 furious, and X men II, this sequel, is just as good, if not better than the first. If you only have time for one, read this one, but if you want the entire story, see part one below. Bon Appetit.
As for ISP prep (pre last few days mentioned above) back in tana, the experience was not as enjoyable. I went to the Wildlife Conservation Socitey (WCS) office to meet with Chris Holmes, the technical supervisor of the park that I want to study. I had told him on Friday when I was comming but ofcourse when I arrive I learned that he had just left for Maroansetra to visit the park. I called him and explained my project plans. Instead of being excited to see an undergraduate taking interest in his feild of study, he told me that there was nothing worth my while to see at the park and that I should spend the entire 4 weeks of ISP in Tana, esentailly being his inturn. He got mad when I told him that I wanted to talk to villagers about the impacts of the park, saying that me doing that would disrupt their relations with the locals. That didnt sound like too much fun so it appeared that my ISP on avoided deforestation needed to be slashed and burned. Fortunatly I got a call the next morning from Lisa, the head of WCS in Madagascar and former SIT academic director. She had talked to chris and explained the SIT format and worked out that I should delay my trip and do a combination of onsite research and library work in Tana. Although it wasnt ideal it was a lot better than being in the dirty crowded city for 4 weeks. I changed my trip to Maroansetra for the 6th to the 18th. Then I talked to Mamy, our assistant director, and got a homestay worked out for my stay here in tana. Things were looking a bit better. I found a student in the other SIT group who is going to the same park and had the same problem, we are going to be traveling together so that should help. She seems really cool so I will also have someone to keep me company, rather than being alone in the jungle for 2 weeks.
Anyway, this saturday I came to stay with my homestay family here in Tana. They live in the center of the city, the dad is a dentist, the mom, a french teacher. There are three kids, Kennedy or Kenny for short (age 19), Sandy (age 15), and Fy (age 12). The parrents seem extreemly nice and happy to host me. The younger sisters are very sweet and had lots of questions about american culture. Kenny is really cool, one of the first things that he said to me was "I think I saw you at the club last night", we are becoming fast friends. The family is pretty well off my madagascar standards, they have hot water, a fridge, a porcelan toilet with a seat, a TV, a computer, two cute dogs, a pet radiated tortus, a car, a biking machine, and yes, this is a big one, a washing machine. The fact that I am so excited about all of these things tells a lot about my past 2 months. At lunch the the parrents invited me to go to the countryside with them for a 24 hour visit. How could I refuse an adventure? I packed a bag and we were off.
After a 30 minute drive we arrived to this complex in the suburbs / countryside that used to be moma's faters. He gave each of his 7 kids a plot of land and my family has just built a home there. It was very nice, just laking any funrishings. It still needed a lot of work but it was much more calm than the city. I got 12 hours of sleep and helped papa move some sand. It was funny that there kids didnt want to come to visit because their parents put them to work all the time (remind the bishop family of anything?). It was cool to see them invested in the project, making a gardin, planing trees, clearing a driveway, frunishing the house. I really enjoy being able to see upper middle class life in Madagascar. It compliments my past small town and village stay experiences. My parents come on the weekends and plans to retire here. The hole time we were constantly being visited by mama's relitives. I really enjoyed it. It was much more calm than life in Tana. At the same time, now that I know the city and feel more comfortable here, like a resident and not a visiter, life here in tana is growing on me. I am going to be working on my ISP until thursday but will write when I get back from the Jungle, unless something particularly crazy happens of course.
Thats all for now, Jeff
As for ISP prep (pre last few days mentioned above) back in tana, the experience was not as enjoyable. I went to the Wildlife Conservation Socitey (WCS) office to meet with Chris Holmes, the technical supervisor of the park that I want to study. I had told him on Friday when I was comming but ofcourse when I arrive I learned that he had just left for Maroansetra to visit the park. I called him and explained my project plans. Instead of being excited to see an undergraduate taking interest in his feild of study, he told me that there was nothing worth my while to see at the park and that I should spend the entire 4 weeks of ISP in Tana, esentailly being his inturn. He got mad when I told him that I wanted to talk to villagers about the impacts of the park, saying that me doing that would disrupt their relations with the locals. That didnt sound like too much fun so it appeared that my ISP on avoided deforestation needed to be slashed and burned. Fortunatly I got a call the next morning from Lisa, the head of WCS in Madagascar and former SIT academic director. She had talked to chris and explained the SIT format and worked out that I should delay my trip and do a combination of onsite research and library work in Tana. Although it wasnt ideal it was a lot better than being in the dirty crowded city for 4 weeks. I changed my trip to Maroansetra for the 6th to the 18th. Then I talked to Mamy, our assistant director, and got a homestay worked out for my stay here in tana. Things were looking a bit better. I found a student in the other SIT group who is going to the same park and had the same problem, we are going to be traveling together so that should help. She seems really cool so I will also have someone to keep me company, rather than being alone in the jungle for 2 weeks.
Anyway, this saturday I came to stay with my homestay family here in Tana. They live in the center of the city, the dad is a dentist, the mom, a french teacher. There are three kids, Kennedy or Kenny for short (age 19), Sandy (age 15), and Fy (age 12). The parrents seem extreemly nice and happy to host me. The younger sisters are very sweet and had lots of questions about american culture. Kenny is really cool, one of the first things that he said to me was "I think I saw you at the club last night", we are becoming fast friends. The family is pretty well off my madagascar standards, they have hot water, a fridge, a porcelan toilet with a seat, a TV, a computer, two cute dogs, a pet radiated tortus, a car, a biking machine, and yes, this is a big one, a washing machine. The fact that I am so excited about all of these things tells a lot about my past 2 months. At lunch the the parrents invited me to go to the countryside with them for a 24 hour visit. How could I refuse an adventure? I packed a bag and we were off.
After a 30 minute drive we arrived to this complex in the suburbs / countryside that used to be moma's faters. He gave each of his 7 kids a plot of land and my family has just built a home there. It was very nice, just laking any funrishings. It still needed a lot of work but it was much more calm than the city. I got 12 hours of sleep and helped papa move some sand. It was funny that there kids didnt want to come to visit because their parents put them to work all the time (remind the bishop family of anything?). It was cool to see them invested in the project, making a gardin, planing trees, clearing a driveway, frunishing the house. I really enjoy being able to see upper middle class life in Madagascar. It compliments my past small town and village stay experiences. My parents come on the weekends and plans to retire here. The hole time we were constantly being visited by mama's relitives. I really enjoyed it. It was much more calm than life in Tana. At the same time, now that I know the city and feel more comfortable here, like a resident and not a visiter, life here in tana is growing on me. I am going to be working on my ISP until thursday but will write when I get back from the Jungle, unless something particularly crazy happens of course.
Thats all for now, Jeff
The Adventure Continues
So I have been here in Tana, the big city, for the past week and a half. I am going to break this post up into two different parts... Part one features life in tana with the group and our feild trip to Andasebe. Part deux (two) features my independent study project (ISP) fiasco and the past weekend in my new homestay. There are some chronlogical non linearities so bear with me, here it is...
Part one:
We stayed in the middle of the city in a hotel called the Raphia, or hotel rif raphia as we came to call it. The water only works on the first floor, even though there are bathrooms on all the floors. Also the stairs are designed for someone who is 4 feet tall so of course they put the three tall guys on the fourth floor. Other than that, and the smell, it was not too bad. There was a deck on the roof with a nice view of the city. The staff were also really nice. Enough of my hotel review. We had some classes at a classroom not far from our hotel. We met the culture and socitey group for a malagasy dance and music experience (for lack of a better describing word). They have had a very different experience, being here and in the north. It was fun to talk to them though, there are no guys in their group so they told me, eric and James that we were the first american's our age that they had talked to, or even seen in 2 months. Luckey them. We got to show off our new malagasy dance moves, it was a good time. Other than that, not a whole lot went down before our trip to the rain forest in Andasebe.
Last sunday we got on the bus and drove 3 hours north to the forest reserve at Andasebe. On the way we stopped at this "wildlife refuge". We saw a lot of cool chamelions, gecko, frogs, toads, moths and malagasy preying Mantasus (or is it preying Manti?). Anyway it was cool to see some animals that only exist here in madagascar, there was a 1.5 foot gecko and a 1.5 inch chamelion. The preying mantus looked exactly like the aliens from the movie starship troopers. The giant red toads and 8 inch moth/buterflies were cool too. It seemed like a cool place until everyone, including the program director, learned that the "refuge" was actually buying all of the animals from poachers inside the national parks and bio reserves. We all felt pretty skammed. I didnt judge him at the time but our one eyed guide definitely fits my steriotype / mental immage of a poacher.
Anyway we continued on to Andasebe where we stayed in cabins and ate at a restaurant so it was much more cushey than our other jungle adventures. We went on a night hike to see chamelions, and nocturanal lemurs. We saw a microsebus or mouse lemur and a bunch of chamelions. We also played phoo sticks and had a speed walking competition on the way back to dinner. The next morning we went on a day hike of the park. I got some amazing pics of a bamboo lemur going to town on a bamboo stalk. We got really close to some Indri Indri Sifaka lemurs, some of the biggest lemurs. They had these adoreable twins who were practicing their jumping skills. On the way home we stopped in the town of Mora Manga for lunch. It is only of worth because Mora Manga means easy mango, which I think is a pretty sweet town name.
Somewhere in here I somehow managed to write a 10 page paper on how geologic history drives resource use and development in Madagscar. In hindsight I dont see where that fit in but somehow it happened. I even had time to do 2 drafts. Weird hunh?
The last few days in Tana (post ISP fiasco, see part deux) were also a lot of fun. I got to do some research in the internet cafe and Skype some friends (you know who you are). Supprisingly the group came together and bonded a lot the days right before we left. As people started leaving for ISP the group got smaller and thus more cohesive. We had some fun nights, going out to a nice french place and a nice Italian place. The french place was a steal, I got a goat cheese on toast and letuice salad, duck breast with mashed potatos and plum sauce, dark chocolate cake, and two glasses of nice wine for $ 16. Holloween was also fun, I met up with the Culture and Socitey group and had a fun, and very long night of dancing and getting to know them.
Part one:
We stayed in the middle of the city in a hotel called the Raphia, or hotel rif raphia as we came to call it. The water only works on the first floor, even though there are bathrooms on all the floors. Also the stairs are designed for someone who is 4 feet tall so of course they put the three tall guys on the fourth floor. Other than that, and the smell, it was not too bad. There was a deck on the roof with a nice view of the city. The staff were also really nice. Enough of my hotel review. We had some classes at a classroom not far from our hotel. We met the culture and socitey group for a malagasy dance and music experience (for lack of a better describing word). They have had a very different experience, being here and in the north. It was fun to talk to them though, there are no guys in their group so they told me, eric and James that we were the first american's our age that they had talked to, or even seen in 2 months. Luckey them. We got to show off our new malagasy dance moves, it was a good time. Other than that, not a whole lot went down before our trip to the rain forest in Andasebe.
Last sunday we got on the bus and drove 3 hours north to the forest reserve at Andasebe. On the way we stopped at this "wildlife refuge". We saw a lot of cool chamelions, gecko, frogs, toads, moths and malagasy preying Mantasus (or is it preying Manti?). Anyway it was cool to see some animals that only exist here in madagascar, there was a 1.5 foot gecko and a 1.5 inch chamelion. The preying mantus looked exactly like the aliens from the movie starship troopers. The giant red toads and 8 inch moth/buterflies were cool too. It seemed like a cool place until everyone, including the program director, learned that the "refuge" was actually buying all of the animals from poachers inside the national parks and bio reserves. We all felt pretty skammed. I didnt judge him at the time but our one eyed guide definitely fits my steriotype / mental immage of a poacher.
Anyway we continued on to Andasebe where we stayed in cabins and ate at a restaurant so it was much more cushey than our other jungle adventures. We went on a night hike to see chamelions, and nocturanal lemurs. We saw a microsebus or mouse lemur and a bunch of chamelions. We also played phoo sticks and had a speed walking competition on the way back to dinner. The next morning we went on a day hike of the park. I got some amazing pics of a bamboo lemur going to town on a bamboo stalk. We got really close to some Indri Indri Sifaka lemurs, some of the biggest lemurs. They had these adoreable twins who were practicing their jumping skills. On the way home we stopped in the town of Mora Manga for lunch. It is only of worth because Mora Manga means easy mango, which I think is a pretty sweet town name.
Somewhere in here I somehow managed to write a 10 page paper on how geologic history drives resource use and development in Madagscar. In hindsight I dont see where that fit in but somehow it happened. I even had time to do 2 drafts. Weird hunh?
The last few days in Tana (post ISP fiasco, see part deux) were also a lot of fun. I got to do some research in the internet cafe and Skype some friends (you know who you are). Supprisingly the group came together and bonded a lot the days right before we left. As people started leaving for ISP the group got smaller and thus more cohesive. We had some fun nights, going out to a nice french place and a nice Italian place. The french place was a steal, I got a goat cheese on toast and letuice salad, duck breast with mashed potatos and plum sauce, dark chocolate cake, and two glasses of nice wine for $ 16. Holloween was also fun, I met up with the Culture and Socitey group and had a fun, and very long night of dancing and getting to know them.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Best Road Trip Ever!
So we just arrived in Tana (Antananarivo), Madagascar's capital city of one million people. It is a very active big city that is very much in the european city model, except dirtier. It is pretty sweet, and quite a culture shock. What I really want to talk about is our road trip to get here.
By the time the roadtrip started I was in perfect health. It turns out that as soon as I thought I was getting sick, I took antibiotics and made a full recovery in 24 hours. I really doged a bullet on that one, go immune system!
We started out driving to Isalo. We were starting to enter the mountains. It kind of reminded me of the american southwest, but with tropical plants and Africans. We swam in some awesome natural pools and had a hike to see the cool weathered limestone.
Then we headed to Anja for two nights. These mountains are a little bit older, a little bit bigger and a little bit less tropical. It was great to see community managment of a park in action. It appeard to be working quite well. We had a long hike through a saddle. At lunch, Eric bet one of our advisers a case of Beer (only a joke, no real beer was exchanged) that he could hike this one peek from our lunch spot in 10 minutes. Being the true Irishmen that he is, Barry took the bet since the peek was pretty far away. After eating eric took off into the shrubary to ascend the mountain. After a couple of minutes I looked at him and was like, "he isnt going to make it, but he looks like he is having fun" so I took of after him. I caught up and we hiked the peek together, through the shrub covered boulder feild. It was awesome and totally worth it. We came back to the lunch spot an hour later, not quite the 20min round trip that we had hoped. We missed a seista but had tons of tun. We also did some academic work looking at how the park is managed and such. It was a nice visit.
After two days there we headed of to Andringitra, but not before stopping in the market to buy warm clothes. We hiked to our campsite at 6,000ft of elivation. It was definitely a rugged mountain environment. We saw more evidence of the values of community managment and got to live in the mountains. At night it got down to the low 30s. Not the weather I was expecting when I was packing to go live in the tropics. I had a warm sleeping bag and managed. Others werent so down with the cold.
On our second day at Andringitra we climbed Mount Boby, thats right, it is called Mount Boby. It was a solid 7 hour hike round trip and the peek was at 10,000 ft. It is the second talles peek in the country and the tallest that is accessable, the other one is surrounded by dense forest, marajuana farms, and men with guns that protect those farms. The hike was great though. I got to hike it alone since the group took rediculous breads all the time. I got to enjoy some really sweet bird songs and sweet views on the way up. Then I got 25 minutes on the peek to enjoy the quiet before the group arrived. It was really great. The peek was unreal but I have to say that I enjoyed the process of hiking and descending more then the actual peek. These mountains are really cool, they are super old and so all of the surfaces are very weathered. Look at this geo nerd spin his wheels.
Our next two days were an excellent contrast. We spent two days in the the Jungle at Ranomafana National Park. We visited hot springs, went on a hike in the forrest, and talked with villagers about the impact of the Park on their lives. On the hike we saw three species of Bamboo lemurs, a fossa, two nocturnal lemurs (one was a mouse lemur, we saw them on another night hike), some chamelions, and leaf tailed geckos. We were super luckey and got to see the greater bamboo lemur. We saw the mom and his two kids who are the only three wild specis of their kind remaining in the world. The other two are in a Zoo. It was really cool. Living in the jungle maked me excited about spending a month in the jungle for my indipendent study project (ISP). On the impact study we learned that the villagers are not recieving their promised 50% of the entrance fees because of government corruption. They still slashing and buring outside of the park instead and not much in being acomplished, except for happy european tourists and money for rich Malagalsy. It was kind of depressing. I wonder if I will find the same thing when I go to Makira for ISP.
That is all for now, I hope all is well with everyone and I will try to post again before I leave for the jungle for a month of no internet.
By the time the roadtrip started I was in perfect health. It turns out that as soon as I thought I was getting sick, I took antibiotics and made a full recovery in 24 hours. I really doged a bullet on that one, go immune system!
We started out driving to Isalo. We were starting to enter the mountains. It kind of reminded me of the american southwest, but with tropical plants and Africans. We swam in some awesome natural pools and had a hike to see the cool weathered limestone.
Then we headed to Anja for two nights. These mountains are a little bit older, a little bit bigger and a little bit less tropical. It was great to see community managment of a park in action. It appeard to be working quite well. We had a long hike through a saddle. At lunch, Eric bet one of our advisers a case of Beer (only a joke, no real beer was exchanged) that he could hike this one peek from our lunch spot in 10 minutes. Being the true Irishmen that he is, Barry took the bet since the peek was pretty far away. After eating eric took off into the shrubary to ascend the mountain. After a couple of minutes I looked at him and was like, "he isnt going to make it, but he looks like he is having fun" so I took of after him. I caught up and we hiked the peek together, through the shrub covered boulder feild. It was awesome and totally worth it. We came back to the lunch spot an hour later, not quite the 20min round trip that we had hoped. We missed a seista but had tons of tun. We also did some academic work looking at how the park is managed and such. It was a nice visit.
After two days there we headed of to Andringitra, but not before stopping in the market to buy warm clothes. We hiked to our campsite at 6,000ft of elivation. It was definitely a rugged mountain environment. We saw more evidence of the values of community managment and got to live in the mountains. At night it got down to the low 30s. Not the weather I was expecting when I was packing to go live in the tropics. I had a warm sleeping bag and managed. Others werent so down with the cold.
On our second day at Andringitra we climbed Mount Boby, thats right, it is called Mount Boby. It was a solid 7 hour hike round trip and the peek was at 10,000 ft. It is the second talles peek in the country and the tallest that is accessable, the other one is surrounded by dense forest, marajuana farms, and men with guns that protect those farms. The hike was great though. I got to hike it alone since the group took rediculous breads all the time. I got to enjoy some really sweet bird songs and sweet views on the way up. Then I got 25 minutes on the peek to enjoy the quiet before the group arrived. It was really great. The peek was unreal but I have to say that I enjoyed the process of hiking and descending more then the actual peek. These mountains are really cool, they are super old and so all of the surfaces are very weathered. Look at this geo nerd spin his wheels.
Our next two days were an excellent contrast. We spent two days in the the Jungle at Ranomafana National Park. We visited hot springs, went on a hike in the forrest, and talked with villagers about the impact of the Park on their lives. On the hike we saw three species of Bamboo lemurs, a fossa, two nocturnal lemurs (one was a mouse lemur, we saw them on another night hike), some chamelions, and leaf tailed geckos. We were super luckey and got to see the greater bamboo lemur. We saw the mom and his two kids who are the only three wild specis of their kind remaining in the world. The other two are in a Zoo. It was really cool. Living in the jungle maked me excited about spending a month in the jungle for my indipendent study project (ISP). On the impact study we learned that the villagers are not recieving their promised 50% of the entrance fees because of government corruption. They still slashing and buring outside of the park instead and not much in being acomplished, except for happy european tourists and money for rich Malagalsy. It was kind of depressing. I wonder if I will find the same thing when I go to Makira for ISP.
That is all for now, I hope all is well with everyone and I will try to post again before I leave for the jungle for a month of no internet.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Tulear
So we left the city of Fort Dauphan and are now in the bigger city of Tulear on the West coast. It is really nice. Today we had a lecture of coral reefs and then in the afternoon went snorkeling on the reef to see what we had learned. It was unreal. Our hotel is very nice, we have been eating well too. Life is still not "american" but there are definitely more comforts of home (running hot water, a sit down toilet, more than beans and rice for dinner...). It is Mango season and our Hotel has tons of mango trees in the courtyard. Every twenty minutes to a half hour we hear a bang of a mango falling on the roof and rolling to the ground. Consequently the ground is covered in ripe, sweet delicious mangos. Life is good, still very busy but good.
Monday, October 6, 2008
A week in a malagasy village
So I just got back from my eye opening experience at the village stay. I stayed in a little village 4km from the village of Faux Cap in the Tandroy reigon of Madagascar. There were four houses, each about 10ft by 7 ft and 6 feet tall at the peek. There was Papa, Mama, and their kids and grandkids, ten to fifteen in total. I really liked the family, they were all really sweet. We went to the beach to bathe, worked in the fields, planting sweet potato and watermellon, and helped feed the cattle. There were zebu caddle and chickens running around the lawn all the time, none of which they eat by the way. We had dance time everyday. It was an hour to an hour and a half of Malagasy dance. At first I thought it was rather repetitive but each day more and more people would show up to dance and see us. Eventually we learned more complex moves and I started to really like the dancing. That was definitely a highlight. As for food we at the rice and beans that we brought, plus lots of sweet potato (the malagasy version is not as good as the american version). We would occasionally eat eggs from the chickens. I had a lot of fun with Elizabeth, the other student that I was staying with, we got along very well and have similar academic interests so the academic side of the stay went very smoothly. I really enjoyed learning about the culture and lifestyle of the Tandroy people. Instead of a life based on making money and getting power through material possesions, they collect cattle because the number of cattle that you sacrifice at your funeral determines your status in the afterlife.
I really liked my parrents in the village stay. Mama was very sweet and always smiling. Papa also seemed to be high on lifem grinning from ear to ear when ever we would communicate. It was hard to communicate with them at first but by the end my few words of malagasy, his few words of french and my improved skills at explaining with gestures made things a lot easier. There were also tons of super cute kids in the village, I had some photo shoots with them and one of them tought me some awesome dance moves.
My favortite observation was that everyone in the village only worked 4 to 5 hours a day doing all of the various chores. I am extremely impressed that they still manage to live a subsistance farming life, doing that little work during the day. Granted their diet is not to diverse, eating sweet potato, manioc(nasty chalky potato), corn, milk, eggs, beens, squash and watermellon only. I think it says something true about the value of living simply. There was nothing bogging down their lives and they had plenty of time to spend enjoying eachothers company, dancing, and relaxing. It has allowed them to develop some very rich cultural traditions. It made me think about living more simply back in the USA.
I am loving the comments so keep them comming, I love seeing who is reading the blog.
I really liked my parrents in the village stay. Mama was very sweet and always smiling. Papa also seemed to be high on lifem grinning from ear to ear when ever we would communicate. It was hard to communicate with them at first but by the end my few words of malagasy, his few words of french and my improved skills at explaining with gestures made things a lot easier. There were also tons of super cute kids in the village, I had some photo shoots with them and one of them tought me some awesome dance moves.
My favortite observation was that everyone in the village only worked 4 to 5 hours a day doing all of the various chores. I am extremely impressed that they still manage to live a subsistance farming life, doing that little work during the day. Granted their diet is not to diverse, eating sweet potato, manioc(nasty chalky potato), corn, milk, eggs, beens, squash and watermellon only. I think it says something true about the value of living simply. There was nothing bogging down their lives and they had plenty of time to spend enjoying eachothers company, dancing, and relaxing. It has allowed them to develop some very rich cultural traditions. It made me think about living more simply back in the USA.
I am loving the comments so keep them comming, I love seeing who is reading the blog.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Craziest Day Ever!
So we had our lemur study trip this weekend in Ifotaka. We spent three nights and four days camping in the spiny desert studying different field research methods. We observed lemur behavior, habitats and population densities with various research methods. I got to see a pack of ringtail lemurs kick a pair of Sifaka lemurs out of a euphorbious tree. It was pretty cool. The forest here is very spinney, hence the name. Nearly all of the trees have spines covering them, and three are lots of cactus and spike filled bushes. That combined with the intense heat and sun make it a very rugged climate to spend 4 days in. We also didn’t have the best water source. Just after swimming in our grimy water hole I saw a heard of Zebu cattle walk up and poop in the water. We were also getting our drinking water (that we boiled and iodized before drinking, thank god) from a 2 foot deep well, about 5 feet from the edge of the pond. I decided to rinse off with some boiled water after I saw that. Other than the water situation (drinking rice flavored hot water in the desert is definitely a “character building experience”) it was a lot of fun. We also learned some sweet field science methods.
The last day of the trip was probably the craziest day of my life. I am going to keep this short because the story is way better in person. This is the brief synopsis. I woke up, killed a chicken that we had brought to eat for lunch, had 7 parasitic sand felas removed from my feet with a safety pin and a tweezers, studied Lemur habitats, swam in Zebu shit, was stung by a scorpion, was healed by a vodo witch doctor, took lots of western meds, and was almost feed the scorpion’s tail as medicine. It was freaking crazy, ask me about it some time.
Now we are back in Fort Dauphan. We leave for the village stay on Sunday. I am going to be staying in a village of all Malagasy and no French speaking natives. It will be just me and one other girl from the program, Elizabeth, someone who I am friends with, though not one of my closest friends in the group, it should be good to get to know her. I don’t know if that was a real sentence. Anyway the town is a fishing town in the south, only a few km from the ocean and I might get to go fishing in a dugout canoe. I am also pumped to learn the local dance as well. We leave on Sunday and get back the next Saturday. For my ISP I am thinking of studying carbon preserve construction methods in the tropical rain forest carbon preserve in the north (Makira) and then applying it to a literal forrest 2 days drive down the coast (Foule Point near Tamatave). Either that or studying wilderness recreation and how it could be used to teach middle class Malagasy to look at the forests as more than a resource but as something with intrinsic value.
The last day of the trip was probably the craziest day of my life. I am going to keep this short because the story is way better in person. This is the brief synopsis. I woke up, killed a chicken that we had brought to eat for lunch, had 7 parasitic sand felas removed from my feet with a safety pin and a tweezers, studied Lemur habitats, swam in Zebu shit, was stung by a scorpion, was healed by a vodo witch doctor, took lots of western meds, and was almost feed the scorpion’s tail as medicine. It was freaking crazy, ask me about it some time.
Now we are back in Fort Dauphan. We leave for the village stay on Sunday. I am going to be staying in a village of all Malagasy and no French speaking natives. It will be just me and one other girl from the program, Elizabeth, someone who I am friends with, though not one of my closest friends in the group, it should be good to get to know her. I don’t know if that was a real sentence. Anyway the town is a fishing town in the south, only a few km from the ocean and I might get to go fishing in a dugout canoe. I am also pumped to learn the local dance as well. We leave on Sunday and get back the next Saturday. For my ISP I am thinking of studying carbon preserve construction methods in the tropical rain forest carbon preserve in the north (Makira) and then applying it to a literal forrest 2 days drive down the coast (Foule Point near Tamatave). Either that or studying wilderness recreation and how it could be used to teach middle class Malagasy to look at the forests as more than a resource but as something with intrinsic value.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Duct Tape to the Rescue / camping tip #1
Although I could tell this story much better in person, I will try to do it justice on the World Wide Web.
OK so last Tuesday night the pipe that feeds the faucet for my host family and all of our neighbors decided to break. Also our backyard is definitely on a hill and higher than our house so at 10:15pm we had a mini geyser that was threatening to flood the house. We couldn't call and get the water shut off because it was night time and they were closed. Some people were getting sand bags, others were desperately trying to keep water out of the house by pushing it away with a shovel, my host dad was walking around and yelling in Malagasy, and some of my brothers were in the mud getting absolutely soaked. At first I was just observing from the sidelines but then thought, "wait Jeff, dont you like mud and getting wet and fixing stuff?" So I got in there and started helping. First we tried to plug it with some Manioc, which is a common food in Madagascar. It is kind of like a skinny long potato in shape and texture. That didnt work so then they tried widdling down a stick to make it fit as a plug in the pipe. That didnt work because water got out of all the little holes on the side of the widdled wood. This is when I had my big moment. I ran inside and grabbed my Duct tape, which the french / Malagasy call "le scotch". We widdled the stick a little bit to small and then wrapped it in duct tape so that it would make a tight seal. All this time I just here my borthers and neighbors talking really fast in Malagasy with the work "le scotch" thrown in every 5 or 6 words. At first the contraption was too thick so my brother Elias just started biting it off with his teeth. eventually they got it to the correct size, wrapped the duct taped stick in cloths and then covered it with rocks to make it stay in place. It was really cool to see how the Malagasy deal with problems and to bring my own problem solving perspective. I thought the solution was the perfect mix of Malagasy and American innovations. It also helped me feel more like a family member and less like a guest.
Then next day we had our camping trip to Andohahala National Park. We raveled on some of the bumpiest roads in the history of roads and arrived 4 hours late. We did a survey of some spiny forest plots there but everyone was way to fried from the drive to process it at the time. Then after dinner we had a campfire with the Malagasy students who accompanied us. There was guitar, singing, and of course, a hybrid of American and Malagasy dancing. Jim, the academic director had some good moves to teach me. The next morning we went for a hike in the Transitional Forest to identify plants and animals, along the way we learned how to recognize different palms, aloe, lizards and much more. Then we ended the hike at a natural pool with cliffs for jumping and a waterfall. The trip was a solid mix of education, cultural learning and adventure. Tomorrow we are leaving for our Lemur Ecology 4 day long trip.
I would love to know who is reading this so please post comments if you do. If you want to say something lengthy please send me an e-mail (mom).
OK so last Tuesday night the pipe that feeds the faucet for my host family and all of our neighbors decided to break. Also our backyard is definitely on a hill and higher than our house so at 10:15pm we had a mini geyser that was threatening to flood the house. We couldn't call and get the water shut off because it was night time and they were closed. Some people were getting sand bags, others were desperately trying to keep water out of the house by pushing it away with a shovel, my host dad was walking around and yelling in Malagasy, and some of my brothers were in the mud getting absolutely soaked. At first I was just observing from the sidelines but then thought, "wait Jeff, dont you like mud and getting wet and fixing stuff?" So I got in there and started helping. First we tried to plug it with some Manioc, which is a common food in Madagascar. It is kind of like a skinny long potato in shape and texture. That didnt work so then they tried widdling down a stick to make it fit as a plug in the pipe. That didnt work because water got out of all the little holes on the side of the widdled wood. This is when I had my big moment. I ran inside and grabbed my Duct tape, which the french / Malagasy call "le scotch". We widdled the stick a little bit to small and then wrapped it in duct tape so that it would make a tight seal. All this time I just here my borthers and neighbors talking really fast in Malagasy with the work "le scotch" thrown in every 5 or 6 words. At first the contraption was too thick so my brother Elias just started biting it off with his teeth. eventually they got it to the correct size, wrapped the duct taped stick in cloths and then covered it with rocks to make it stay in place. It was really cool to see how the Malagasy deal with problems and to bring my own problem solving perspective. I thought the solution was the perfect mix of Malagasy and American innovations. It also helped me feel more like a family member and less like a guest.
Then next day we had our camping trip to Andohahala National Park. We raveled on some of the bumpiest roads in the history of roads and arrived 4 hours late. We did a survey of some spiny forest plots there but everyone was way to fried from the drive to process it at the time. Then after dinner we had a campfire with the Malagasy students who accompanied us. There was guitar, singing, and of course, a hybrid of American and Malagasy dancing. Jim, the academic director had some good moves to teach me. The next morning we went for a hike in the Transitional Forest to identify plants and animals, along the way we learned how to recognize different palms, aloe, lizards and much more. Then we ended the hike at a natural pool with cliffs for jumping and a waterfall. The trip was a solid mix of education, cultural learning and adventure. Tomorrow we are leaving for our Lemur Ecology 4 day long trip.
I would love to know who is reading this so please post comments if you do. If you want to say something lengthy please send me an e-mail (mom).
Monday, September 15, 2008
Another week in Paradise
So I have definitely been living it up here in Fort Dauphan. Last week we took some feild trips. We went to the Rio Tinto mining site, they are cutting down rain forest to mine ilminite to make paint white. It seems like a straightforward tragedy at first but it turns out that they are bringing the town a lot of jobs, new roads, pipes and more reliable electricity. This makes it not so straightforward. The Malagasy people clearly want the utilities and jobs since they don’t care about forests with endemic species of plants and lemurs. In my opinion, if the forests are worth more to the world than the mining project than that value needs to go to helping improve the standard of life here. Since that is pretty far fetched I don’t see any other practical solution other than using the new capital from the mining project to work on sustainable development so that further deforestation doesn’t occur.
Anyway that was kind of a tangent. The other field trip was to a fishing village on an unbelievable beautiful beach. There were huge granite outcroppings separating the beaches and I felt like I was in some postcard. The discussion with the fishermen was interesting because they cant follow fishing regulations because they will starve. Catching a fish is also seen as a gift from god so throwing it back is tabu or “fady”. It was in interesting insight into how some people don’t have the resources to look at life in the long term and plan ahead. Then we went to a beach for lunch, French class, soccer, swimming.
This weekend I got to know everyone in the group a lot better. My family doesn’t eat much other than beans, rice and some rotating weird meat (fish head for example) so I have been eating at my friend’s houses more and I am definitely enjoying getting to know them and their families. Everyone here is so welcoming and eager to both be a host and get to know you. I have had some interesting conversations ranging from the latest news in France to the Malagasy conceptions of retirement. On Saturday we went to a local club and got to dance to American music. I also had my first Malagasy Pizza which is nothing to write home about (ops I just did). On Sunday I made a killer pasta marinara for my family, it was a dinner that served 8 hungry teenagers and only cost $8. We also have been seeing humpback whales some days from the ecology center where we have class. Oh yeah, I went on a long run on the beach on Sunday and climbed this ridge / sand dune. There were these astonishingly beautiful sand formations with tan, white and black sand swirled together in different patterns. There was also a great view of the town and the ocean. So what do I do… hill bounding workout. Oh yeah! It was fun to be able to get out of the city and explore a bit too.
I am leaving for a day long camping trip to study ecology at one of the national parks on Wednesday. Then on Saturday we leave for a 5 day long lemur ecology unit / camping trip. I am super excited. If anyone wants a baby lemur let me know now so that I can start collecting them. I hope all is well back home with everyone, feel free to post comments, I would love to hear from you.
Anyway that was kind of a tangent. The other field trip was to a fishing village on an unbelievable beautiful beach. There were huge granite outcroppings separating the beaches and I felt like I was in some postcard. The discussion with the fishermen was interesting because they cant follow fishing regulations because they will starve. Catching a fish is also seen as a gift from god so throwing it back is tabu or “fady”. It was in interesting insight into how some people don’t have the resources to look at life in the long term and plan ahead. Then we went to a beach for lunch, French class, soccer, swimming.
This weekend I got to know everyone in the group a lot better. My family doesn’t eat much other than beans, rice and some rotating weird meat (fish head for example) so I have been eating at my friend’s houses more and I am definitely enjoying getting to know them and their families. Everyone here is so welcoming and eager to both be a host and get to know you. I have had some interesting conversations ranging from the latest news in France to the Malagasy conceptions of retirement. On Saturday we went to a local club and got to dance to American music. I also had my first Malagasy Pizza which is nothing to write home about (ops I just did). On Sunday I made a killer pasta marinara for my family, it was a dinner that served 8 hungry teenagers and only cost $8. We also have been seeing humpback whales some days from the ecology center where we have class. Oh yeah, I went on a long run on the beach on Sunday and climbed this ridge / sand dune. There were these astonishingly beautiful sand formations with tan, white and black sand swirled together in different patterns. There was also a great view of the town and the ocean. So what do I do… hill bounding workout. Oh yeah! It was fun to be able to get out of the city and explore a bit too.
I am leaving for a day long camping trip to study ecology at one of the national parks on Wednesday. Then on Saturday we leave for a 5 day long lemur ecology unit / camping trip. I am super excited. If anyone wants a baby lemur let me know now so that I can start collecting them. I hope all is well back home with everyone, feel free to post comments, I would love to hear from you.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
So I am here
So I made it! This is such an amazing place. I am staying in Fort Dauphan, which is in the south of the island. I have been living with a host family here. It is very suiting that I am living with lots of brothers and no sisters. I have a 16, 18 20 and a 22 year old brother. My mother is an absolute sweet heart, she had been very welcoming and such. My father is also great, he is the youth sports minister for the enitre reigon. The house is very modest, there are 4 rooms, a living/dining room, one room for parrents, one for me and the kids sleep in beds in the living room and storage / kitchen prep room.
Fort Dauphan has got to be one of the prettiest towns I have enver been to. There are mountains that pretty much go right to the ocean. The town is on a peninsula so there are lots of great beaches. There is supposed to be some amazing surfing here so I think I am going to try to learn, my host dad has a surf board that I can use. I have met plenty of locals that have offered to teach me. The town is pretty poor however, with garbage all over the place, lots of chickens, and tons of stray dogs. There is poor sanitization as well. Despite the problems most people are very friendly. Always smiling and saying hello.
Everyone in the group is amazing. The group dynamic is great, everyone is excited about being here, learning ecology and french, having new experiences and getting to know eachother.
Before we were in Fort Dauphan we spent a few days in Manatatelly, a village in the mountains. We lived at a farming comune and did orientation stuff. We are learning Malagasy, the local language, and french as well. We also learned local dance, song and cultural costoms. It has been really eye opening to be thrown into a culture that is so different than our own. For example they have a circular conception of time so being late is not rude. It is rude to remove yourself from a menaingful experience or encounter to make it somewhere on time. They also are very direct about personal observations like looks and apperance but very passive about talking about behavior. There is also a distict hierarchy of age. The older people are served first and get more respect. They are also very patriarchal.
Last saturday we climbed one of the mountains here. It was about a 2000 foot elevation gain with four different peeks. There were amazing views of the ocean and the other jungle covered mountains. At the same time it was sad to see how much forrest has been destroyed for fire wood, rice farmland and mining. There is a huge mining project that we visited today that is threatening to mine ilminite and destroy some forrest with the only surviving species of some plants and animals in the world.
I am having an absolute blast, keeping in shape by running on the beach and swimming in the ocean nearly every day. The weather is perfect, mid 70 and no rain. I am really looking forward to spening 4 more weeks here, and then continuing to travel around the country. We are going to be going on various field trips while we are here and then leaving to study in other parts of the country.
Oh yeah and I havent really gotten sick yet. YAY! If you want to reach me you can post on this blog, e-mail me at jbush@bowdoin.edu . I also bought a phone an it is free for me to receive texts of calls. Skype would be the easiest way to call my phone. My number is 032 576 0567 and I dont know the madagascar extension but you could find that pretty easily. there is a 8 hour ahead time difference from central time and I am free from 4:00 pm to 10:30 pm my time. I hope everyone is doing well and I will stay in touch. Maybe even post some video or pictures if I get the chance.
love to all, Jeff
Fort Dauphan has got to be one of the prettiest towns I have enver been to. There are mountains that pretty much go right to the ocean. The town is on a peninsula so there are lots of great beaches. There is supposed to be some amazing surfing here so I think I am going to try to learn, my host dad has a surf board that I can use. I have met plenty of locals that have offered to teach me. The town is pretty poor however, with garbage all over the place, lots of chickens, and tons of stray dogs. There is poor sanitization as well. Despite the problems most people are very friendly. Always smiling and saying hello.
Everyone in the group is amazing. The group dynamic is great, everyone is excited about being here, learning ecology and french, having new experiences and getting to know eachother.
Before we were in Fort Dauphan we spent a few days in Manatatelly, a village in the mountains. We lived at a farming comune and did orientation stuff. We are learning Malagasy, the local language, and french as well. We also learned local dance, song and cultural costoms. It has been really eye opening to be thrown into a culture that is so different than our own. For example they have a circular conception of time so being late is not rude. It is rude to remove yourself from a menaingful experience or encounter to make it somewhere on time. They also are very direct about personal observations like looks and apperance but very passive about talking about behavior. There is also a distict hierarchy of age. The older people are served first and get more respect. They are also very patriarchal.
Last saturday we climbed one of the mountains here. It was about a 2000 foot elevation gain with four different peeks. There were amazing views of the ocean and the other jungle covered mountains. At the same time it was sad to see how much forrest has been destroyed for fire wood, rice farmland and mining. There is a huge mining project that we visited today that is threatening to mine ilminite and destroy some forrest with the only surviving species of some plants and animals in the world.
I am having an absolute blast, keeping in shape by running on the beach and swimming in the ocean nearly every day. The weather is perfect, mid 70 and no rain. I am really looking forward to spening 4 more weeks here, and then continuing to travel around the country. We are going to be going on various field trips while we are here and then leaving to study in other parts of the country.
Oh yeah and I havent really gotten sick yet. YAY! If you want to reach me you can post on this blog, e-mail me at jbush@bowdoin.edu . I also bought a phone an it is free for me to receive texts of calls. Skype would be the easiest way to call my phone. My number is 032 576 0567 and I dont know the madagascar extension but you could find that pretty easily. there is a 8 hour ahead time difference from central time and I am free from 4:00 pm to 10:30 pm my time. I hope everyone is doing well and I will stay in touch. Maybe even post some video or pictures if I get the chance.
love to all, Jeff
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
I am leaving tomorrow!
So I am leaving tomorrow (Friday the 29th) for Madagascar. This is my Blog for people to keep in touch with me, and me with them. I would love it if people posted comments and such so that I can hear from them. I will be posting pictures and stories every couple of weeks. In case any of you want to send me a letter or post card my address will be
Jeff Bush
s/o SIT
BP 283
Fort Dauphin 614
Madagascar
The mail takes a couple of weeks but is reliable unless you send valuables or money, in which case it is very unreliable. Funny that. Anyway, mail is not expected but posting on my blog is. I have one more day of last minute packing, going to the state fair with my cousins, a pre wedding party with most of my cousins and then I am off. Last chance to call me for less than a fortune until December so jump on it if you want.
much love to all, Jeff
Jeff Bush
s/o SIT
BP 283
Fort Dauphin 614
Madagascar
The mail takes a couple of weeks but is reliable unless you send valuables or money, in which case it is very unreliable. Funny that. Anyway, mail is not expected but posting on my blog is. I have one more day of last minute packing, going to the state fair with my cousins, a pre wedding party with most of my cousins and then I am off. Last chance to call me for less than a fortune until December so jump on it if you want.
much love to all, Jeff
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