Just made a wonderful trip to Antsirabe, Fianarantsoa and Ranomafana
National Park on the high plateau. It always blows me away how
different the people, mud earth two-storied homes and countryside are
here, compared to the part of Madagascar I know so well. Here is a traditional Betsileo scene from our drive to Fanarantsoa.

We observed one particular group of lemurs dashing around and
foraging high up in the tall bamboo canopy of Ranomafana. This was
Prolemur simus (the greater bamboo lemur), the rarest lemur species in
Madagascar.

There are an estimated 60 Prolemur simus individuals remaining in the
wild. It cannot cross-breed with other species of bamboo lemur and has
very specific habitat restrictions. It used to be very widely
distributed on the island, but populations have been decimated in the
last two centuries due to habitat loss. This animal is, tragically, on
its way to extinction. I’m glad I got to see it now.

What is interesting about this species is that it feeds almost
exclusively on giant bamboo, preferring the shoots, but also eating
the pith and leaves (we got to observe two individuals skillfully
ripping through the tough bamboo shell to get to the yummy tender
white shoots, seemingly effortlessly). It is not known how their
metabolism deals with the high concentration of cyanide found in the
shoots. The dose of cyanide a greater bamboo lemur consumes in a day
would be enough to kill a (much larger) human.

God Shiva detail from Hindu temple near Grand Baie, Mauritius

We just arrived back in Antananarivo after a very long delay on our already red-eye Air Madagascar flight out of Mauritius. We had the most incredible time during our week of R&R and I now (hopefully) am fully recovered from my long battle with brutal parasites! We kept ourselves happy and busy, snorkeling along the reefs, catamaran sailing for dolphin-sightings, gorging on Indian food, visiting temples to honor the Hindu god Shiva, and much more.

The population of Mauritius is overwhelmingly Hindu, made up of descendants of sugar cane laborers from India brought over by the British after the abolition of slavery, Catholic Creole-speaking descendants of Malagasy and other mainland African slaves (we visited the Mauritian National History Museum and saw some shocking exhibits on the treatment of slaves by Dutch East India Company missionaries and later French and British colonists), Muslim immigrants, and others. Sprinkled all over the towns and cities of the island–in remarkably happy simbiosis–are Hindu shrines, Holy Virgin Mother idols, and mosques. Such a wonderful sight!

We spent a lovely weekend with a Hindu Mauritian family in Floreal (friends of Erik’s and now dear friends of mine), learning all about life for the average Mauritian on the island. We have been extremely impressed by how far communities there have collectively come in such a short period, by means of very hard work, openness to free trade, and by investing in high quality public education and other services. Much as I adore Madagascar, it seems it might learn some valuable lessons on successful rapid economic growth from its Mascarene neighbors.

This is not to say that all is rosy on the island. From a biodiversity standpoint, Mauritius is moot compared to Madagascar (Dutch, French and English sailors, slave traders and plantation owners, along with the menagerie of monkeys, rats, dogs, cats and deer they introduced on the island, devastatingly caused over 90% of Mauritius’ animal species to go extinct, including the famous dodo bird and the giant land tortoises that once roamed the island in herds, sparking Darwin’s imagination.) Tragically, 9 out of 10 endemic species were wiped out within a period of around 300 years of human disturbance.

For vacationers interested only in white sand beaches and turquoise blue waters, Mauritius is a paradise. For biologists, it seems the island is written off as a “paradise lost”. Regardless, we were very happy there and our trip made for wonderful diversion before I continue on with my third year of work in Madagascar!

ABOVE: A 17th century map of Madagascar that also shows the Comoros islands to the northwest and Reunion (then called “Bourbon”, an island in the Mascarenes group that also contains Mauritius) to the southeast. This map, in which the width of Madagascar is underestimated, the Masoala peninsula drawn one-third of its actual size, and the island of Nosy Mangabe documented as enormous in a tiny Bay of Antongil (perhaps overestimated due to it’s value to Dutch slavers as an access port) was used by pirates, slavers and traders of old. Thousands of slaves were abducted from Madagascar and shipped to Mauritius to work as laborers, pillaging the native forests of Mauritius for their valuable hardwoods and slaving for colonists in sugar cane plantations.

CASELA NATURE PARK, Mauritius

Have you ever wondered how to make a cheetah purr? We found out this week.
Note: big cats are NOT native to the island, they were transported to Mauritius from captive breeding programs in South Africa and are carefully monitored in a special outdoor facility.

There is an incredible animal park called Casela in Mauritius where
visitors are able to see a number of the island’s rarest endemic
birds. Since 2007, a group of three South African/Mauritian handlers
has been rearing 4 baby cheetahs and 6 lion cubs (all from captive
breeding programs in South Africa and/or rejected by their parents
after birth–this apparently happens pretty frequently with lions).
The lions are now 18 months old and the cheetahs a bit younger than
that. It is possible (if you meet a strict height requirement and sign
your life away so to speak) to, in a group, take the lions out for an hour-long
walk and accompany them while they wrestle, play, climb trees, visit
the river and have a drink, and generally enjoy their freedom for a
time. It is also possible to spend half an hour playing with the four
(now much grown) cheetah cubs.

The black “tear lines” that surround and extend under cheetahs’ eyes help them to see well when hunting prey in environments with intense sunlight. They are also just plain adorable.

Being so close to cheetahs is an indescribable experience. They are
highly endangered today, a very ancient breed of cat (older than lions
and tigers, we were told) and just the most beautiful and majestic
creatures there are. These four (about 14 months old) were loving and
playful, actually enjoying the attention from us. A rub behind the
ears induced magnificent purring and gurglings from the two females
with white-tipped tails, that I fondled for about half an hour.
One of them licked my hand for a moment (must have tasted of lion from
our walk earlier that morning) and her tongue was rough and dry as
sand paper. I walked out of the outdoor pen with kitty hair all over
me—BIG kitty hair. It was unreal.

These four cheetah cubs were meticulously selected for their genetics and come
from stock as diverse as possible, with such a small remaining
population left in the wild. The same is true for the genetics of the
six lions. In the future (lions take 5 yrs to reach sexual maturity,
cheetah females are highly selective and thus more complicated to
breed), the facility hopes to produce offspring that will breed young
(having no interaction with humans, raised hunting their own live prey
on the private park grounds) who may be reintroduced into the wild, in
certain areas of east Africa where land grab farmers have severely
reduced lion populations in recent years.

We got to go for a walk with and even pat and stroke two of Casela’s lions on the rump a few times. The wildlife park has done an impressive job recreating continental African savanna, complete with dried grasses–the lions would just
completely disappear in it at times, a little unnervingly–and thorny acacia bushes, guinea fowl, wild pigs etc. (This recreation was not particularly difficult or damaging to native island biodiversity. The area is practically barren, except for planted non-native trees and introduced bird and other animal species, due to colonial-age pillaging of the magnificent
ebony forests that once stood on this part of the island).

According to the Casela nature park handlers, these lions are, at 18 months, only 1/3 their adult size! These are some BIG kitties. I’d love to go back in a few years and see how they’ve grown. The lions’ fur was rough to the touch on their backs and hind quarters and their paws were magnificently large and awkward. Tails are long and stiff, less flexible and silky than I had imagined them to be. Just magnificent.

The shaggy mane on this “adolescent” one and a half year old male is just beginning to grow and looks at bit awkward still.

We got to accompany the lions while they freely wrestled in the grass,
climbed trees, freaked out flocks of guinea fowl, and sniffed their
surroundings after the rain (in the company of several handlers armed
with chickens as treats, for positive reinforcement, of course). One
expects to have a survival instinct kick in at any sudden move by a
lion freely lurking just feet from you, but I at least felt completely
at ease. It’s all a matter of ego, as the handlers explained. These
are big kitties that don’t know they’re big. They’ve been trained
since they were little cubs to understand that anyone carrying a
(symbolic) stick is a human who is top dog (or, in their case, top
cat) and not fair game for wrestling with or sneaking up on, as young
lions do with their buddies.

An incredible experience that I’d recommend to everyone!

For recent photos of wildlife and village life in Madagascar, follow the link to Rachel’s new galleries:

http://www.pbase.com/rak_929/madagascar_miscellaneous

15 February 2008 UPDATE FROM RACHEL

Karakory e olona djiaby!

I just got in to Tana for our COS (Conclusion of Service) conference and have internet for the first time in what seems like ages.

Erik brought with him to Madagascar a bag of magnificent children’s nature books from Kris for the library and kids in Voloina (and soon Marovato), a sack of lovely baby clothes donated by Michelle for the Seecaline (mother-infant nutrition center), and a package from Sarah with photos and cards and little Bonne Anee lamps for all the friends she made in V and M when she visited the island last December. I am so blessed to have such caring friends and family.

It’s been a rough month, everything supposed to be winding down at site, but, of course, doing exactly the opposite. I received private funding from a wonderful contact in the US to fund an operation for little A, who is 7. He was born with a bad congenital hernia, and he’s been living with a growth about the size of a coconut ever since I arrived at site two years ago, poor thing. He’s been teased by the other kids all his life, and hasn’t been able to swim and play like normal little boys in the village.

In these seven years, there has never been enough money for his mother to bring him to the hospital in M for this (potentially life-saving) simple operation. Anton’s mother decided to have him circumcised at the hospital at the same time as his hernia operation, on the surgeon’s recommendation. She, quite rightly, thought that was safer than having it done with a knife in the village. Maman’i A was happy to forgo the expensive ceremony in the village, to have it over and done with, and healing at the same time as A’s other wound. For my part, I was grateful not to have to watch A’s uncle eat his foreskin wrapped in a banana and washed down with betsa sugar cane rum, as is Betsimisaraka custom.

Little A was remarkably brave throughout the process. The trip into big town M, sharing a room with other post-op patients (the woman in the bed next to him passed away last Saturday, tragically, of infection resulting from a bad country abortion that ruptured her uterus—she was already the mother of seven). It all must have been absolutely overwhelming for him, but A has proven determined to heal quickly and start a less inhibited life. Now that his stitches are finally out, the transformation is remarkable.

“A” used to be a meek, humble little thing, painfully aware of his condition, having withstood teasing ever since he could remember. He just thrived on all the attention he got from his mother and from me before and after the operation, and now spends every moment he can over at my house, bringing along his mother for a visit by candle light each evening. We chat and laugh and exchange village gossip at my kitchen table. A is bubbling with energy and questions, suddenly wanting to play and color and make up for the years of mischief making he’s missed out on. He calls me “mama kely” (little mother). I’m so proud of him.

A final loose end I’m trying to tie up is finishing our MB village rice hulling station/fuel-saving ampombo cookstove demonstration center (funding was slow to arrive, and then mistakenly even sent to the wrong country before it finally made it into my account!). The dollar has devalued rather dramatically, meaning the exchange rate changed considerably between the time I submitted the grant ages ago, and the time the money finally came through to Madagascar. It looks like we’re now about $200 in Ariary short, which I’ve ended up paying out of pocket for the time being. E and I just yesterday purchased the cement and foyer material and paid the installation specialist, so hopefully the machine will be installed and ready to go in two weeks. We should have our grand opening with the Fokontany President, village elders, fikambanana members, and community in the middle of March.

Just last week we built a beautiful tree nursery at the village CEG (middle school), with my ever-motivated environment youth club students (see photo of three of my brightest 2008 conservation club students). I can’t imagine middle schoolers in the U.S. ever working so hard or collaborating so well to get a job done. It really was their project, start to finish, and they made me very proud with beautiful results!

Over my students’ easter vacation, I’m planning a week-long trip up-river to A in Makira, to do a “visite nature” to try to see silky sifakas in the rainforest on AN mountain. We’ll be camping, learning lessons and playing games by candlelight (my friend Kris just mailed some fantastic ones!), bathing in the icy stream near camp, climbing the mountain each day, and filling out nature observation journals. Erik and I will put the kids to “work” re-flagging previously GPSed research trails within the silky habitat and teaching the students to use GPS units and map gaps in the population’s range for future WCS field seasons. Ought to be a good opportunity for skill development for the students. Who knows, maybe some of them will work for Makira one day! Should be wonderful, but will be a lot of organization on my end, all at the very finish of my time at site. Then again, I told the kids we’d go see the silkies some day after they performed their lemur play at the Enviro/Health fair. I guess it’s time I lived up to that promise. It’ll mean some valuable quality time with the students before I go, which will be wonderful.

It just kills me to think that I only have a month left in my precious village before I change sites to partner with WWF for my third year here in Madagascar! My new home in AD will be so different, but it’s important to have new experiences. I’ll still be able to fly back and visit friends and family in V in the upcoming year, and see how much the children have grown. I’m planning a grand going-away fete of games and arts and crafts for the children (courtesy of Kris!), eating on the ground off of ravinala leaves as is custom (I’ll buy the zebu meat, Valentine and Marie Odile will help me cook it, and everyone will bring their own vary masaka). I just know I’m going to cry uncontrollably.

Well, must pack for trip to S tomorrow. This will be my last time on internet for quite a while. I hope all is well back home and send best wishes to all!

Amanaraka indray!

Rachel

CEG middle school students from our “Club VEC” youth environment group prepare papaya seeds on ravinala palm leaves for planting in their new school tree nursery/garden plot.

February 9, 2008

FAREWELL TO DOGGIE

I’ve witnessed so many comings and goings in this world during my short time in Madagascar. More, I think, than in all of the rest of my life. This month I lost my Doggie.

He came to find me in the village while I was away at the hospital with Anton to have his operation in M. He slept on my porch curled up next to the front door, and was spotted the next day by the well, the children tell me. He disappeared the day before I returned home.

I imagine he went and found some place calm and green down at the marsh below the washing area, and quietly left the world. I wish I could have been there to pat his muzzle one last time, to watch his stump of a tail wag and his dark soft eyes gleam up at me. He was such a good little thing.

People who saw him in the village told me he had a badly broken leg and was skin and bones. Practically unrecognizable. I’d rather not picture it.

Doggie was not mine, he belonged to Papan’i Anita, and lived down the lane. Ever since he was a tiny puppy he visited my house every day and, radiating sheer joy, greeted me by wagging the entire lower half of his body, wrestled with Puppy, and eventually got fed at mealtime on his own tin plate. All the kids learned his name and Puppy and Doggie became an item. Quite often the littlest kids would mistakenly call him “Goddie,” to be corrected by a chorus of little voices.

He and Puppy stayed with me during the cyclone last March. Their presences kept me sane as my tin roof groaned and shuddered and the wind howled through the cracks in my thatch walls. While Puppy disappeared for the worst sleepless night, huddled under my bed absorbed in his own fear, Doggie spent it curled up beside my head on the hard wood floor under my kitchen table. As the water began to enter our houses and many of us had to search out higher ground away from the swollen river, I tried to bring Puppy and Doggie with me. Doggie was so little he got swept away by the current at one flooded crossing. After a long struggle, he managed to drag himself up onto a hummock of soggy earth and head back to the other side of the water. At a warning from Marie Odile, I had no choice but to leave him behind and cling to Puppy ever tighter. I was overjoyed when I returned to V some days later and found him safe.

Last November, a little girl in my village was bitten by a dog. Tragically, she died a few days later. She was the second child this happened to in our area within a short space of time, and it was decided that all dogs in the village had to be vaccinated, or should be killed. A traveling vet came through town, charging 12,000 AR ($6) to give the vaccine. Very few villagers could afford to spend so much, certainly not on their dogs. Puppy in the clear (he got his vaccine long ago, when he chose to run after my bicycle all the way to M one day, rather than be left behind,) I went away on a tree species inventory mission in the rainforest. My mind was so absorbed with other things that I didn’t think to worry about Doggie.

When I got back from that mission, Doggie was gone. Papan’i Anita couldn’t afford to have him vaccinated, and so took him off to a distant village in the forest and left him there with a new family.

I never saw him after that. I don’t know how his leg came to be broken or what kind of treatment led to his pathetic state. Three months later, Doggie made his own way the long road back to V all alone, limping on a broken leg, skeletal, with an empty belly. He came to die in the place he knew to be his home.

I know he was just a dog, and that doesn’t count for much here. But he had so much life in his little person. He was brave and good and loyal. I think that deserves to be remembered.

I’ll miss him.

WCS MAKIRA Protected Area 2007

FOLK STORIES RELATING TO THE SILKY SIFAKA LEMUR, AS TOLD BY VILLAGE ELDERS IN ANSAHABE FOREST-ANDAPARATY

TANTARAN’NI SIMPONA FOTSY AVY AMIN’NY TANGALAMENAN’NY ANSAHABE-ANDAPARATY

ANJARANIRINA Evelin Jean Gasta, Interviewer
Rachel Kramer, Peace Corps Environment Volunteer, Translator
Erik Patel, PhD candidate Cornell University

The silky sifaka lemur ranks among the top 25 most endangered primates in the world. An accurate population estimate for the species is as of yet undetermined. This elusive variety of all-white sifaka lemur occupies a limited territory in the rainforests of northeastern Madagascar. In November 2007, Rachel worked with researcher Erik Patel and Malagasy students Lanto and Haingo to establish a field research site in the forest of Ansahabe to track the range of a small group of the lemurs in northern Makira Protected Area.

The team also conducted a series of basic socio-economic surveys and interviews with village elders, to learn villager understandings of the “silkies’” behavior, distribution, ecology and nature/character. Some stories are remarkably perceptive, others amusing and imaginative.

VILLAGE ELDER STORY #3

“I regret to say that I do not know very much about the simpona.

According to legend, the simpona is a conceited animal. It is the fastest of all the lemurs in the forest, whether in the trees or on the ground. It is not like other lemurs that are afraid of people. When a simpona sees a person, it approaches the person and becomes very mean. People compare the simpona’s quickness with the lighting in the sky.

According to this village elder, the simpona is not very fertile. It is for this reason that there are not as many simpona in the forest, as there are other lemurs.

It is not hunting that makes the simpona scarce, there have always been very few of them. We do not know for certain, but perhaps they are scarce because the simpona do not know very well how to raise their young. Or maybe, they just go and live in places people have yet to find.

This village elder truly believes that the mountains of Marojejy and Anjanaharibe-Sud have a connection. Perhaps the simpona in these two places belong to the same family. I would even say that the simpona here in Ansahabe come from Anjanaharibe-Sud.

I would now specify the areas in which simpona differ from other lemurs. First, it is their color. Also, their speed. Also, they do not like to go places alone. Also, their size. Finally, they are not afraid of people.

It was in 1980 that I last saw the simpona lemur.”

VILLAGE ELDER STORY #1

“If we are to discuss simpona here in Andaparaty, I will tell you the following story. This village elder has seen the simpona before, the place where he found the simpona was close to home of Rabeson. It was in 1960, that he often saw the simpona there. In that year he saw 1 time a group of 15 simpona. If we compare simpona with other kinds of lemurs that this elder has seen, we can say that the simpona is the largest of these lemurs. He is also the meanest of the lemurs.

This village elder also believes that it is not really the simpona that is mysterious but rather the forest where it is found. It is for this reason that people who cannot find the simpona use honey. That is to say that honey serves to counter-taboo if someone does something that is not in keeping with the customs of the place where the simpona are found.

Simpona are accustomed to not changing their traveled path. Even if someone places himself in the path of the simpona, the simpona is obliged to expel that person from his territory. If a person comes to the place of the simpona, not only 1, but all members of the group must chase that person away.

Since the beginning of time, there has not been a single person who has hunted simpona in Andaparaty. It is for this reason that villagers know very little about the animal. Even many elderly people in the village have never seen the simpona before.”

VILLAGE ELDER STORY #2

“According to this village elder, since the beginning of time, there have not been very many simpona. The simpona are scarce, because they don’t know very well how to raise their young.

We say the simpona is the king of all the lemurs in the forest. They can even unite over 70 kinds of lemur for a meeting in one place. If you see 50 different species of lemur at one time in one place, it is certain that there is a simpona nearby. The simpona is the chief of lemur meetings.

Simpona reproduce one time per year.

What differentiates the simpona from other lemurs, is that it knows how to pronounce its name. That is to say, the simpona proclaims it’s name as it leaps from tree to tree.”

VILLAGE ELDER STORY #4

“It was in my youth that I first saw the simpona. I saw simpona for the last time in the region of Andapa. I have seen the simpona many times, before but I have never seen a group that was larger than nine individuals or that had fewer than two members.

I have never heard a person say that they have seen many simpona in one place. That is to say that since the beginning of time, there have never been many simpona.

I have also remarked that simpona do not reproduce very frequently. They also aren’t very good at raising their young.

The simpona really hate loud noise. This village elder is convinced that it is their scarcity that causes them to be difficult to find.

The simpona are not numerous, but they occupy a large space per single group.

It should be remarked that the color of the simpona is white. Quite often, simpona like to approach people who are wearing white clothing. That is to say, even if a person cannot see the simpona, the simpona will approach one wearing white. Therefore, if a person wants very much to see the simpona, he should wear white cloth, that way the person will search out the simpona and the simpona will also search out the person.

Simpona don’t jump very high in the trees, but prefer to stay lower down in the branches. It was the simpona who created his own name, because when he leaps, he proclaims his name.

I first saw the simpona lemur in the year 1935.”

TANGALAMENA 1

Araka ity ray amandriana ity ihany dia efa nahita simpona izy. Efa tany amin’ny tany misy lasin’ny RABESON indrindra no nahitany azy tamin’izany. Tamin’ny taona 1960 tany hoany no tena natetika nahita simpona izy. Mahatetika tarika 15 no hitany tamin’izany. Raha ampitahaina dia ny simpona no anisan’ny be indrindra amin’ny varika fahitany. Nilaza koa ity olona ity fa tsy ny simpona no misy jina fa ny toerana misy azy. Izany no mahatonga ny olona mitady azy rehefa tsy mahita dia voatery mampiasa tintely. Io tantely io hono no entena manala fady rehefa misy zavatra tsy fantatra mikasika ny tany misy azy. Ny toetrany io simpona io koa dia tsy mba miova lalana. Na mahita olona izy rehefa mijanona amin’ny lalana handehanany ilay olona dia voatery izy mandroaka an’ilay olona satria tsy maintsy io ny lalana. Ary rehefa masiaka hono izy io dia tsy maintsy izy rehetra no manatona. Hatramin’izay ka hatramin’izao dia tsy mbola nisy olona sahy nihaza simpona eto Andaparaty. Izany no mahatonga ny olona eto Andaparaty tsy be mahafantatra io varika fotsy io. Misy efa antitra be eto Andaparaty fa mbola tsy ary nahita simpona.

TANGALAMENA 2

TANGALAMENA 3

Raha mikasika ny simpona indray dia tsy betsaka ny zavatra fantany fa araka ny lovan-tsofina dia miavona be hono io simpona io. Ary raha mbola varika dia tsy misy aingampandeha mihoatra ny simpona, na ambony hazo na eny ambony tany. Tsy toy ireny varika sasany mahatahotra olona ireny ny simpona, izy rehefa mahita olona dia manatona ary tena masiaka mihitsy. Hoarin’olona amin’ny tsikelabaratra ireny ny hafenganam-pandehan’ity simpona ity. Araka ity Ray amand-Reny ity dia an isan’ny karazam-barika tsy vanona indrindra ity simpona ity satria tsy betsaka toy ireny varika hafa ireny izy. Ary tsindriana mafy fa tsy fiazana velively hono no naha tsisy azy fa efa rahatrizay izy no sasatra. Ny tsy fantatra tsara hoe tsy mahay mitaiza marina ve ilay izy? Sa any amin’ny toerana tsy mbola nalehan’olona any no misy azy betsaka. Rehefa dinihina tsara hoy ity Ray aman-dReny ity dia misy ifandraisany tsara ny tanety Andapa sy Anjanaharibe Sud, ka mety taranaka iray ihany ireo simpona ao Andapa sy eto Anjanaharibe Sud ireo. Ary ny simpona avy ao Anjanaharibe Sud no midina ao Ansahabe ireo. Ireto avy hoy ity olona ity no zavatra tena hitany mampiavaka ny simpona amin’ny varika hafa: -ny lokony -malaky -tsy mandeha irery –ngeza -tsy mahataotra olona.
Tany amin’ny taona 1980 tany ity ray amandreny ity no nahita simpona farany.

TANGALAMENA 4

Mbola tamin’ny fahatanorany ity Ray aman-dReny ity no nahita simpona farany. Ary tany amin’ny faritra Andapa no nahitany izany. Efa mahatetika izy nahita fa tsy mbola nihoatra ny sivy ary tsy mbola latsaky ny roa ny iray tarika fahitany. Araka ny fahalalany azy aloha dia tsy mbola nisy olona nilaza nahita simpona betsaka. Izany hoe efa rahatrizay ny simpona no tsy betsaka. Araka ny fahitany azy koa tsy matetika miteraka izy io ary tsy mahay mitaiza. Ny maresaka no zavatra tena tsy tian’ny simpona indrindra. Mino ity ray amandreny ity fa ny fahavitsiany no mahatonga azy sarotra tadiavina. Vitsy izy nefa be na midadasika ny toerana ampy iveloman’ny iray tarika. Marihina fa fotsy be ny lokon’ny simpona. Mahatetika ny olona manao lamba fotsy no atonony. Izany hoe na tsy mahita azy ny olona rehefa manao lamba fotsy dia atonony. Noho izany raha te-ahita azy i anao dia manao lamba fotsy amin’ny izay lasa izy indray no te ahita anao. Ary manaraka dia tsy mba mambokona ambony ny simpona fa ambanibany eny ihany. Izy no nahatonga ny anarana. Izany hoe rehefa manbokona izy dia manokona Simpona. Tany amin’ny 1935 izy no nahita ny simpona voalohany.

Rachel with Environmental Youth Club students at health/environment training

I’m sitting in the taxi brousse in M waiting for the back to fill to bursting with people and rice so we can finally make the trip to V/N. It’s a miserably rainy day, so despite my excellent dry bags, I’ve decided to strap my bike to the top of the brousse and tomobile it home. I got a call from Peace Corps yesterday warning that I had to stay away from the ocean as a tsunami (!) might be coming. Was told by the meek receptionist to “get to a high place somewhere safe” because there had been an earthquake in Indonesia. It rained like hell but that was it as far as I know. So frustrating having no means of learning what’s going on in the world outside of M. I hope all is well in Asia. I think by now I would have heard if M’car had been hit. It’s funny, actually. This Peace Corps warning was exactly the same as the one I received before the cyclone hit last March. Then it was totally insufficient warning and there was nothing I could do to improve my situation but wait until the water started entering my house. What a week that was!

My youth environment/health education program went well. After an HIV/AIDS presentation at the middle school in R, I was asked by the natural sciences teacher why the government doesn’t isolate everyone whose blood is seropositive, the way communities do people infected with TB or leprosy. She argued that HIV-positive people are public health threats and should at least be made to advertise their condition to the public. Not knowing the words for “discrimination” or “confidentiality,” and unable to explain properly in Malagasy, I couldn’t effectively enough address her question, except to pull out a basket of fonsy masaka (overripe bananas) and a bag full of PSI condoms in STD-educational booklets and have every student and teacher in the room practice putting them on the bananas. I tried to tell her that people infected are, in effect, victims. Individuals who insist on using PROTECTOR condoms (USAID-subsidized, 3 for 100 ariary-5 cents) however are mazoto be [very clever indeed] because they are preventing themselves from being victimized by HIV.

The national infection rate for M’car is officially less than 1%, but most don’t think that statistic is very credible. A 2003 “random sample” NGO study for seropositive pregnant mothers in communities around M’car found that 6% of women tested in S (northeast of M) were HIV positive. Shocking, but I think the sample size was too small and the study is old. Any pregnant woman infected is a tragedy, and certainly an issue that’s difficult to address in my region.

My puppy, “Puppy”

Below are two journal entries I’ve written from the village this month. This laptop is incredible… (Rachel managed to post one story herself from Tana today. Here is the other, briefer one.)

Voloina

What a strange and wonderful world this is. I sit in bed under my mosquito net and write this entry on my laptop by candlelight. In the huts around me I can hear Maman’i Mesido prodding the fire in her cooking hut, and the faint squeak of a rat in the thatch roof of Maman’i Mora’s house next door. Puppy’s head is resting on my knee as he assumes the endearing position he’s mastered to be close to me, while not technically in bed (which he knows is not allowed). His feet are resting on the floor and his upper half stretched out on my sleeping bag. It’s our little compromise. Dogs that wrestle in the mud and go out into the fields at their masters’ heels are not allowed in my painstakingly hand-washed clean sheets (except in the event of cyclones when I need that warm presence enough to brave the fleas).

Every so often Puppy lets out a long sigh of contentment, obviously in raptures that I have finally come home to the village.

White Thighs (Fotsy Fehy) and Clear Soup (Ro Mazava) also seemed glad to see me, at least as glad as chickens with tiny brains can be. So were, of course, the children. It’s lovely to be surrounded by Maman’i Lito’s troop again, Lynda peering shyly through the cracks in my thatch walls until I notice her, then giggling and hiding her face in her hands, strong little Stella, baby sister on her hip like an accessory, tiny Frankline, and the always endearing, but mischievous Franko and Franklin, asking if they can go fetch water for me (for a reward, of course) and disappearing with my two plastic buckets.

I saw one of my favorite fruit sellers in the market in Maroantsetra today and exchanged the usual string of Betsimisaraka greetings with her, in which much is uttered but nothing is really said. Yesterday, I discovered her at the airport and asked what she was doing there. I assumed she was one of the crowd of peasants huddled against the glass of the waiting area windows, watching for the body of their relative to be unloaded from the plane so he could be buried with all the other ancestors in the family tomb (the Malagasy will go to incredible lengths to ensure that a family member’s remains are laid to rest in the appropriate place, no matter how far away they have to send for them).

To my surprise, Vegetable Lady said she was at the airport on her own, saying goodbye to her son, who was going off to Antananarivo to study. I could hardly believe it. How incredible that a little vegetable seller in the bazary of M has managed to put aside enough money to send her son to Tana for an education. It is so rare that youths get out of M and can experience more of the island than this intimate, northeastern corner…

The humpback whales are making their way out of the Bay of A and back to colder waters, and the days are getting warmer as our southern hemisphere summer begins. All is mangina [quiet] here…

Much love to all and please keep in touch (by snail mail, otherwise forgive my long delay on email, as usual). Rachel

R&R

When I came back from a visit to Dadyn’i Jo’s hut late this afternoon, I found Maman’i Mesido from nextdoor pounding her own manioc leaves. I asked her what she was cooking with them (usually people try to make the rice-accompaniment with some kind of fat or protein, often coconut milk or small minnows and tiny shrimp), and she said it would just be the leaves. I went into the house, grabbed a ginger root, two small onions and some garlic cloves, and brought them over to her to flavor the ravinbazaha.

Quite often I’ll ask people in passing, as they often do me, what their ro is to be this evening. I get the reply, “ah, tsis’sy ro, niany” (nothing to go with the rice today). What they really mean is they have only greens, nothing yummy worth mentioning. Here, where you can always go out and collect wild greens or send children off with wicker baskets to wade in the river and catch minnows and crayfish when you need it, most families are able to provide for themselves. This way families can live on less than a dollar a day, as long as their rice stores last.

The usual gang of children crowded around the small oil lamp on my kitchen table this evening, faces illuminated in the flame’s orange glow, the rest of their forms dissolving into the darkness. Among them was the Riche, Richeal, Richard, and Nivo, sibling group.

I turned at one point to Riche to ask if he could take me to collect ravinbazaha (manioc leaves) tomorrow morning to pound and cook with an Indian spice packet I bought when last in Tana. Riche looked at me and said that he had to think about where we could get them, because ravinbazaha was sasatra (scarce) now. I thought this strange, having noticed all the women I passed in the village today on their way home from the mountainside, had baskets balanced on their heads, piled high with ravinbazaha for the evening’s ro.

I noticed today as I watched Riche playing with baby Dodon’i Julio, how his beautiful dark face had suddenly become mottled with light blotches of a kind of minor fungal skin infection that discolors the chocolate skin of many villagers in my region. I’ve read that malnourished people are most susceptible to it. I’ve only observed the blotchy skin-tone so far in older students and adults. It eventually goes away and people have learned to live with it, but it’s a bane to the vainer young women in the village.

As I heated up my dinner (half of what I cooked at lunchtime) I asked Riche what their ro was today. He bowed his head and said, embarrassed, “tsis’sy ro zahay, niany” (we have none, today). I looked at him reprimandingly, assuming he was exaggerating, and said he shouldn’t be silly. I then asked again what their rice-accompaniment was going to be. He shook his head and said, “Marina, Rachelle. Tsis’sy ro niany. Vary, fo.” (“It’s true Rachel. We’re just eating rice tonight.”) I told him he knew better than that, that I had told his mother if they wanted to be healthy the family had to eat things with vitamins and fat and protein, besides rice. He didn’t answer. Instead, Riche pulled out 100AR (5¢) from his pocket and said he was supposed to buy ananambo (mirangue tree leaves) to cook, but that he couldn’t find any for sale after he finished school.

I asked who was cooking that night and he told me he was, and that the rice was already done. Riche is a 13 year old boy who sacrifices everything to care for his 3 younger siblings. He is one of the most selfless people I will ever know, dividing everything he is given into a share for each little brother and sister, then pocketing it for later distribution. Since the day I first met the machete-yielding, scrawny little boy, he impressed me with wisdom far beyond his years.

When I asked why his mother wasn’t cooking, he said she was gone off to a village far away to try and sell used clothes. Knowing his father had been away for the last two months, mining quartz deep in the forest, I asked where his older (but less responsible) brother was. I was told that he had left this afternoon to try and find day work several villages away.

The four children, ranging in age from 13 to 2 ½ years, had been on their own for the last three days. I looked at Riche incredulously and asked if what he was saying could really be true, then noticed my dinner getting hot on the stove. When I stood up to turn down the flame, Riche got up and announced to his siblings that it was time to go home and made for the door. He knows I expect kids to head on home as soon as I’m done cooking, because I can’t make enough to share with everyone, and can’t bare to have so many eyes watching me eat entire platefuls of what they see as ro with no rice.

I told Riche to wait and removed the pan from the stove, grabbed a metal plate, and transferred the contents (spaghetti with my monthly ration of ground beef from Maroantsetra, tomatoes and green peppers) onto it. Riche usually objects to taking food I offer him, insisting that I need it, and that if I share with everyone I won’t have enough. I often have to coax him into accepting things. Tonight he watched me pour my dinner onto the plate and hand it to him to take home. He was quiet for a long time, then mumbled “misaotra, Rachelle e” before walking out the door, little brother Richeal following at his heels. That silence said everything. He needed the food that much, not just for his supper, but for Nivo, Richard and Richeal.

Maman’i Riche is not from Voloina, she has no education and no apparent skills, apart from childbearing. She’s from Mandritsara, far away on the other side of the forest corridor, and has no inherited land to farm, so must buy rice to feed the family. Her husband has been spending months off surface mining far away, but earns money from the rich Asian quartz buyers only when he manages to uncover valuable inclusion-free rocks. It’s a matter of chance and not skill, and sometimes he returns home empty handed.

Times like this are so hard. I love this family. I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer. I’m supposed to think up ways to help in cases like this. I should be figuring out a sustainable income generating opportunity for the family. Teach a skill, search for an income generating opportunity. But in this case, I’m at a loss.

If I hadn’t asked Riche what was for dinner at his house, I would never have known that the kids were alone and had nothing but rice to eat. My supper portion will feed four tonight. Spaghetti on rice.

I’ll go boil some water and make up a packet of TJs miso soup…

Don’t forget to look at August posts.

Thanks for the DVDs, received today. “I watched Shakespeare in Love” with friends in town and have brought the rest back to V. What a wonderful thing TiVo is [that is, copied TV specials thanks to TiVo]. It’s so nice to have a full day of calm in the village, making the rounds and stopping to talk in each cooking hut along the way with mothers and friends, then come home and watch an episode/movie by candlelight while I eat my rice and ro [vegetable stew, with meat or fish if available or tiny shrimp–not Rachel’s favorite!].Don’t know if life can get much better.

I can’t believe you [Dad] sent me cupcakes. Had forgotten they existed. Am saving them as a special treat when I finish my upcoming regional youth seminar in R next week. The Endangered Species Dark Chocolate is wonderful. Did you try a piece before mailing it–or was that the post fairy? [He did not; musta been the post fairy!] I’m eating the little Snickers as I write this [the letter has greasy finger marks on it] and remembering when you would bring a bar home in Tunisia and put it in the freezer, then bang it on the kitchen countertop so it fractured into lots of yummy frozen fragments. In Tana I noticed they now sell Snickers bars. They cost 2,500 Ariary each–what I spend on food for a day in the village. I couldn’t bring myself to buy one. Do you think the relative economics were the same in Tunis? If nothing else, Peace Corps has taught me to appreciate things. I hope I always remember that, even when back in the U.S. [where she is planning to be this Christmas!]

It’s so good to be home in my village again. A little girl (10 or so) from the village was bitten by a “sick” dog and died while I was away. I wonder what could have caused that… Don’t think rabies develops that quickly. It’s so frustrating having no capacity to determine causes of death here.

On the 11th of Sept. I’ll be leading a health/environment training seminar for select youths from M, V. and R’s regional environmental clubs. Will teach about local biodiversity, conservation strategies, family planning, and HIV/AIDS prevention. Am working hard preparing lesson plans and organizing the excursion.

At the end of the month I’ll be up-river to participate in a “checking-out the situation” trip (with WCS staff) in the village of M and to help train local community forest management council leaders to begin a system of ecological monitoring and human disturbance evaluations along a series of rainforest transects within their zone of conservation. Should be interesting work. Hope all is going well on your end, too. Much love, Rachel”

UPDATE on Sept. 22: The rice huller project is fully funded! Rachel’s friends and relatives contributed over $1,000 to it and then a Florida veterinarian who chairs a “Friends of Madagascar” group, decided to fund the remainder. We hope that Rachel will have the money in time to begin the project before her intended trip the the US at Christmas.

PREVIOUS POST: In order to implement her rice-hulling machine project , Rachel must raise $2,688.00 from friends, family and other organizations in the United States. The rice-hulling machine will help several surrounding villages in various ways and is especially geared toward making the life of women and teenage girls easier. If you are able to make a contribution, you can go to www.peacecorps.gov/contribute and select Rachel’s project (Africa Volunteer Project Number 684-059). Copying and pasting

https://www.peacecorps.gov/resources/donors/contribute/projdetail.cfm?projdesc=684-059&region=africa

into your browser will take you directly to this project. The information about the project posted on the Peace Corps site is unfortunately not very informative. For a better description, please see the description in this blog posted in April 07. Thanks for helping Rachel fund this project! t