In order to earn money to buy rice at 250 AR per kapoaka, the men in the family leave the village for months at a time to “mitady vato� (literally, “find rocks�, i.e., mine optical-grade quartz from somewhere deep in the forest). It broke my heart to learn that this year Riche [pronounced ree-shay], the bright-eyed 11-year-old little boy down the lane from my little house, would be going with his father to “mitady vato� for the duration of his school vacation, because his family needed any money he could help to earn. When I returned from my last transect study in Northern Makira, Riche and his father had left. Since then I have been away in Tana, Nosy Mangabe, Tampolo, Maroantsetra, and Mananara, but Riche has still not returned to V. to show up at my door as he used to do each morning, his baby brother slung across his back, eyes and ears open to learning anything I had to teach him and always eager to help me garden, build fences in our constant war against Marie-Iodile’s destructive chickens, or go for walks about the village.

The other day, Riche’s mother came over and sighed and claimed how much she misses Riche and his papa. When I asked when they would return from their quartz quest in the forest (“anaty ala be�), she couldn’t tell me. I hope it is soon because school will begin again in early September. Also, I miss him.

Today, I have more little boys and girls showing up at my door than I know what to do with, each of them special in their own way, and many of whom I would miss terribly if they went away to live in the grown-up world prematurely, as Riche seems to have done.