While Rachel was off in the rain forest it poured in the village and the water level rose. Sandy soil and wetlands right behind her house so can’t really reinforce or deepen the kabinety (toilet/hole in the ground with enclosure). Not a big problem right now, fortunately.

A taxi going around the pooled water on the road in front of her house hit her front fence and her wild orange tree (inedible oranges, but a tree never the less where trees precious) was completely knocked down. She came back to find the “giant tree� down in her front yard. Her neighbors came over immediately upon her return to say that they will be very happy to cut the tree up and haul it away (for firewood). She is glad that that will save a forest tree, but sad that she has lost her tree.

A mouse got into her rice while she was away. Sad; especially disturbing to her neighbor (an unmarried lady of a certain age) to whom rice is ‘more valuable than gold’.

A boy came by with pieces of freshly slaughtered pork (skin, fat, and some meat) on a string somehow attached to the front of his bicycle. People have money now because it’s the vanilla harvest season, so those who have an animal to spare are slaughtering it for sale. First time there has been meat to buy in the village. Rachel bought a piece of the pork and gave the skin to the neighbor lady. She said the skin looked like human skin—same color and with sparse hairs on it Only the second time she’s eaten meat in the village. (The first time was on Malagasy Independence Day when folks have meat to celebrate.) She does have meat when she goes to town, and she has fresh fish from the Bay in the village sometimes.

She went to the neighbor who makes ‘mofogasy‘ (bread made out of homemade rice flour) that looks something like British crumpets and got the first four of the day today to have with some cherry butter she got in a package from home. Mofogasy are cooked on a fire in a pan with four round holes, sort of like a muffin tin, but no oven (we think) just on the top of the fire in a brazier.

She started getting “The Week� directly so we don’t need to mail our copy anymore. Everyone in town (i.e. the other Americans she sees when she goes to the big town) likes to read it.

Rachel met a couple of accountants (women) from Price Waterhouse who are there, looking at pumps that have been installed in some villages along the coast–in Rachel’s village for one. The pumps are built by a sort of non-profit that is in fact For Profit (so as to avoid the hampering restrictions on NGOs, apparently) but does development work like an NGO; called “Bushproofâ€? (we think she said. Maybe Price Waterhouse is auditing how the money is being spent?) The women interviewed Rachel on how pump is used/received in her community. Also asked what other investments could be made to help provide fresh water; Rachel was able to suggest a contact in a town in the highland as well (Fianarantsoa).

Rachel says that she is very grateful for the pump in her village which gives her decent water to drink and cook with. She told Teresa that the water forms a skin on the top when left to stand a while in a bucket, but is much better than the water that comes from the well that is also used—and was the only fresh water source before the pump was put in. She has been in other villages where they have to walk a mile or so to get water to drink.

The vanilla harvest began on July 16th (maybe to give everyone a fair chance at harvesting and selling the green vanilla from their orchids, it apparently can’t be done before that day legally). This means that the people in the village now have money. They sell the vanilla in bunches (Rachel earlier said it looks like green bananas before it is dried) to middlemen. She says the drying is a long process where the pods are (if we understood correctly) blanched in hot water, then put in jars ? and dried in the sun for several days. Rachel smelled the wonderful vanilla perfume coming from a neighbor’s hut and assumed that woman must have kept and dried some. She went to the neighbor to ask to buy some vanilla pods and to the store where local rum made from sugar cane is sold. She cut up the vanilla and put it in rum to ferment.

Feel she’s really improved her Malagasy by doing the transect work. Wonderful to earn the respect of the team, she said. On the first transect, she was ‘along for the ride’ but on the second one she was in charge. Only 22 and without a degree in forestry, but she’s doing really professional field work. [Teresa would guess it’s partly because she has an overview that the Malagasy tree experts can’t have] She says they respect her in same way they respect the more experienced German leader before her. Every day was hard but rewarding.

Didn’t take her hiking boots on last transect because they hurt her feet too badly last time (feet were always wet inside them and got bad fungal infection. This time she tried her Tivas but that didn’t work, so she had to go back to camp to get her jelly shoes. Better traction but no arch support. Has to wear socks inside them. Now the two pairs of socks she had with her have irreparable holes in them. Only wears socks when on transect so she has enough. We’ll try to send her waterproof Birkenstocks for her to wear around village.