Rachel reported that she taught Puppy to sit and beg and maybe also “down”, as she has taught our dogs in the past. Puppy learned very quickly, but only when she uses Malagasy commands. He evidently doesn’t speak English!

Right after she came back from her holidays, a neighbor brought over a hen in a basket as a Bonne Annee present [New Year’s gift, the equivalent of a Christmas gift in the US]. Normally such a present is meant to be served up on a plate, but Rachel is, as we know from her Peace Corp training experience, not into killing chickens. So what to do with this chicken? Today Rachel reported that the chicken has learned to eat out of her hand. We’re not sure how it spends its days [presumably pecking outside like other chickens], but it appears quite content to spend its nights in the woven cage, hanging from Rachel’s rafters–lest it be seriously bothered by the ROUSE!

Her neighbors had said that she should make a cut in its foot so that it could be identified as hers. That was of course not an option, so she settled for banding its leg with a stetchy hair elastic. At first the chicken tried to get the elastic off, but now it appears to have gotten used to it. Rachel is very glad to be home alone no more–in the daytime she is always in the company of neighbors and neighbors’ children, but nights tended to be lonely. Now Puppy and Chicken are sleeping in her kitchen, providing company if not rousting the ROUSE.

Her ducks [obtained with a view to having their eggs to eat; they are the European kind, not the strange Madagascar variety with a horn on their heads] are doing well but not providing eggs best she can tell. She hopes to get a Madagascar male in M at some point.

She plans to be in M on the evening of Sunday 28th and Monday 29th and can be reached by phone, with luck on Monday evening her time. The number is in the Contact section of this blog.
Don’t forget photo link [no new ones for the moment] under October posts.

Rachel got one of her neighbors to build her an outhouse on higher ground. She didn’t know how it would turn out, but lo! she is able to stand up in it, the foot rests are sturdy and the hole deep, and she can lock the door–if she manages to find a padlock for it. At Rachel’s behest, the neighbor even made a cover with a handle to fit over the hole so that the flies can’t get in.

The building supplies (those that could not be reused from the old outhouse or scrounged in the environment like the ravinala leaves that make the roof) cost 5,500 ariary (about $5) and Rachel paid the neighbor $10 for his labor–considerably more than he had asked for since the work was so good. So for $15 she has a great new kabonety, and if Peace Corps doesn’t manage to repay her for it, no big problem.

One of the kids whom Rachel has grown particularly fond of, an 11-year-old boy, has a mother who is a hereditary (fortunately not mean and nasty, but…) alcoholic–and also about 4 months pregnant. Rachel tries to tell her that the drinking will harm the unborn baby, but the point is very hard to get across.

The son [whose name T has not been able to understand] has taken to staying later than the other kids in the evening. The others will get called home to dinner, but this little guy doesn’t get called… One night this week Rachel had cooked rice and marinated fish to fry for herself. When she was ready to eat, the little guy was still sitting there, avoiding eye contact but obviously hoping that she would share some of her food. When she put a big bowl of rice and a piece of fish in front of him, he dug right in. By the time he had finished, another kid, Nivo, was there, having a share as well. Rachel asked the 11-year-old whether he would like more rice or more fish. He didn’t look up, but Nivo answered for him, “He wants some more fish!” Rachel gave him more and it disappeared rapidly.

The next evening Rachel made soup for her dinner. The two kids were there when she was ready to eat and in Malagasy tradition, you can’t possibly sit down and eat in front of someone. So she dished up a quarter of her soup for each kid. Before she could sit down to the rest, M-I came over and said, “Is it ready to eat?” Clear indication that she wanted some, so Rachel resignedly divided what was left into two bowls and sat down with M-I to eat. [Rachel is VERY fond of M-I at this point.] Rachel had a piece of bread and as she was about to bite into it, she realized that M-I was eyeing it, clearly expecting Rachel to share that as well. Nothing for it but to tear the bread in half. After a spoonful or two, M-I observed a bit querulously, “Rachel doesn’t like salt!” Rachel got up, plunked her plastic bag of salt on the table and set to eating the quarter of the soup that was left. Even though she was still really hungry, she didn’t have anything else to eat, so went to bed.

At 2 am Rachel woke up hungry. She would have liked to call home, but there was no reception. Not wanting to try and cook anything at that time of night, Rachel suddenly thought of a little box of Fruit Loops that Sarah had brought as a Christmas treat. So Rachel sat in bed and ate the cereal and read Clan of the Cave Bear until she was able to fall back to sleep.

Rachel said that her dear neighbor and friend Marie-Iodile asked her recently what the collar was on Puppy’s neck. Rachel explained that it keeps the fleas away. M-I said, “Oh, do you mean he’s a clean dog?” And since then, she has been a bit more kindly toward Puppy. [People tend to shoo dogs away or even kick them in an environment where everyday life is so difficult for humans and dogs are so full of parasites and thus unclean.] Rachel has also treated Puppy for worms. He now sleeps in her kitchen every night, though still ignoring the visits of the ROUSE (Rat/mouse) unfortunately. [Rachel described the ROUSE, saying that it is between rat and mouse size but with a rat’s long tail.]

She reported that the neighboring kids had been playing with Puppy, having him chase after one of the stuffed animals sent from the US that they had attached to a string. It is the first time that she has ever seen kids interact kindly with dogs. [Malagasy kids tend to work a lot but not to play very much, unfortunately.]

Rachel is very happy to be back in her village. She found almost everything in her house in good order due to the careful supervision of her neighbor. (A house in a neighboring village was broken into while Rachel was away and the neighbor was doubly watchful.)

Rachel did find two little problems. The first and most immediate was that a mouse/rat had built a nest and given birth to 8 young on Rachel’s bed, which happened also to be the raised spot where Rachel had put her things to keep them safe from the high water. The mother mouse/rat ran away but Rachel, very upset at the invasion, called in the cat next door to take care of the babies. The cat scooped all eight up in her mouth and made off with the feast! Rachel is now baiting her American-made mouse traps to catch the mother.

A second problem is that the kabonety (outhouse beside Rachel’s house) silted in due to the high water and can’t be used any more. Rachel is in the process of discussing having a new one dug into higher ground on a property across from her house, where it could be deeper and perhaps more lasting. Her neighbors unfortunately just go down to the beach to take care of pooping and pee in the fields, presumably, as has been done for millennia. That might have been acceptable when the population was low, but… really bad hygiene with a growing population. Needs to be remedied in some way, but that’s beyond the scope of what Rachel can do, except by setting a good example.

Good news was that Puppy (aka Merry Puppins and Hush-puppy, but known to Rachel’s neighbors now as just plain Puppy because the longer names are too difficult to pronounce) came skittering across Rachel’s veranda to welcome her back. He appears to have grown by half. He spent the night on a mat in Rachel’s “kitchen”. Bad news: he slept soundly through the forays of the latest mouse/rat attack!

Rachel was at the beach with “her kids” when she called and reception was really poor, but we are glad to know that she is happily back in her village. She said she will plan to go to M on the 28th for a day or two. There she will have phone reception and can be called. She has a new phone number: 261 324 508268 but the old one may also still work part of the time.

Rachel’s brother found a phone card that is useable for Madagascar at 20 cents a minute and has no connect charge. If friends want to give her a call, they can perhaps find a similar phone card and call on the 28th or 29th, remembering that right now Madagascar is 8 hours ahead of EST!

Rachel sends love to all! t

Rachel, still in the capital for a day or two, waiting for a plane back to her banking town, just sent this email:

Hi Mom & Dad,

Sorry I missed talking to Mom yesterday. [Mom was going out just as Rachel called and had to leave much as she would have liked to hear Rachel’s voice.] Reception cut out on Dad and I didn’t get the messages he left until this morning.

Yes, here on the plateau I have been saying a lot of tratry ny taona [Happy New Year in Malagasy]. In my region everyone Betsimisaraka just says “bonne annee“. On the plateau I have come to learn that when people say “aiza ny bonne annee” they are not kindly asking me where I spent my New Year’s. Instead, it means “where’s my New Year’s cadeau, huh?” [T explains: a sort of tip, ensuring good treatment during the coming year]

Trying to talk my friend into going to Blanche Neige for ice cream when we’re done in Analakely. [Analakely is the market area at one end of the main street of Tananarive. Blanche Neige is an ice cream parlor at the other end, near the train station; has been there for about 40 years. Rachel’s dad took her big sister and brother, then 8 and 6, there for vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce in early 1977. It was a truly momentous treat since they had never, ever had a sundae, nor been in an ice cream parlor in Madagascar, though they had had Baskin and Robbins’ cones in the US on visits.]

Just got back from the WWF headquarters in Tana and picked up Vintsy magazines in French and Malagasy for my students, to go with your donations [20 issues each of the three magazines published by National Wildlife Federation, which NWF kindly donated to Rachel, to be sent out to her soon to use as texts in teaching conservation in schools around V]. Tomorrow will visit the education coordinator at Wildlife Conservation Society [for whom Rachel works part time] Tana office.

Much love,
Rachel

Dear friends,

Mbolatsara [still well!] and GREETINGS FROM MADAGASCAR! I hope this letter finds you all well!

Come next month I will have lived in Madagascar one year complete. It’s hard to believe it has been so long. I miss you all more than ever and hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday. I just had a great visit from my sister, Sarah, and am now preparing to go back to my village and pick up teaching environmental ed, forest inventorying for the Wildlife Conservation Society, and rice harvesting where I left off in V after the Lemur Festival last month.

To those of you who have been keeping an eye on weather patterns in my hemisphere, we are in the cyclone season and have had some severe storms lately in my part of the island, but nothing to worry about. Sarah and I were evacuated from my village during her visit because of heavy rains and flooding (the water was at shin level outside my door when we were picked up by an ANGAP 4×4). None of my friends in the village were terribly concerned; all had been through such storms before. My house is on stilts and all possessions were piled on my bed and kitchen table before I left, so I expect to find little damage when I get back. My concern during Sarah’s visit was potential election violence, but all went relatively smoothly and Marc Ravalomanana was reelected President.

I think I’ll take advantage of this rare opportunity of computer and internet access in Antananarivo to write you all a little update on what I did this week, if you care to read on. Here goes, a week in the life of a Peace Corps environment volunteer in Madagascar:

After broussing [taking public transport] 9 ½ hours from Antananarivo and getting some sleep at the Peace Corps transit house in banking-town-A, I took a morning bush taxi to my PCV friend A’s site, a small town, also called A.

Small-town-A is nestled in the once rain-forested but now barren hills that line eastern Lac Alaotra, the largest freshwater body in Madagascar. (I have trouble calling it a “lake”, seeing that it’s so shallow that flat-bottomed dugout canoes used by fishermen often scrape the silty bottom even at considerable distances from shore.) Each year more and more of the marshland is claimed by farmers for rice farming, water surface is taken over by invasive aquatic plant growth, and the lake fills in as soils are deposited by heavy rains falling on the eroding hills that surround Lake Alaotra. The lake and its neighboring forest corridor are critical conservation hotspots on the island.

All around small-town-A (whose name implies the town has a train station, but which has not since the days of [former President] Ratsiraka) are rice paddies and zebu and trodden red mud. Houses are made from red earth bricks covered in a layer of dirt, ash, and cow manure and have roofs of thatched reeds or dried matted grass. Very different from the ravinala [palm frond] stilt huts of my coastal region. The town has a small fruit and vegetable market complete with a butcher (something my village does not have,) and there is a small convent of Italian nuns in town who run a medicine dispensary. Rumor has it the Italian masoers love to eat pasta. No rice, only pasta! Just imagine. Scandalous!

My friend A is working on training a small group of guides to take ecotourists out on the lake to see its highly endangered, endemic wildlife. Remaining marshland around Lac Alaotra is critical habitat for a number of rare waterbirds and home to an adorable subspecies of the rainforest-dwelling bamboo lemur, the “bandro” Hapalemur griseus alaotrensis. This subspecies is only found in the diminishing marshes of Lac Alaotra and is thus critically endangered. I had the great good fortune to see five bandro at very close range in the two ridiculously early mornings A and I spent out on the lake with her Malagasy counterpart, a fishermen, and some of her guides in training.

Bandro are most active early in the morning, when they feed on zozoro (Cyperus madagascariensis) reeds, and can be seen crossing reed bridges between clumps of vegetation in their respective territories.

On our first day, we climbed into dugout canoes in the early morning light, shivering in the rain and passing equally cold-looking fishermen whose canoes were laden with hand-woven fishing baskets despite this being a no-take season. To see my first bandro, I climbed carefully out of the tippy, cracked, wooden canoe, camera shielded from the rain by plastic bags, onto the mat of vegetation where a lemur was conspicuously disturbing the papyrus-like zozoro heads as it foraged.

I soon heard the fisherman steering our canoe, who had climbed out before me, thrashing around in the reeds, trying to chase out the bandro so that I could get a clear picture of it. My protests in Betsimisaraka (not the dialect of this region) were either not heard or not understood, and the poor frightened little lemur’s head and beady eyes soon emerged from the tips of the zozoro, a second bandro clutching the reed stalk just below him. Got some nice views of the two of them, but unfortunately with my short, fogged lens my photos just don’t do the little guys justice.

My reason for visiting the Lac Alaotra region included hiking out to the surrounding rainforest corridor National Park of Zahamena, to take pictures for use in a new Madagascar Wildlife Conservation (small local NGO) guide that Amy is writing for the region. We spent two mornings and one afternoon out on the lake, then got our packs and tents ready the following day to head for [yet another!] A, a village a half a day’s hike from the entrance of Zahamena National Park. After locating a fantastic ANGAP guide and porter/cook, we bought supplies for our two days in the forest (10 kapoaka of rice, 4 kapoaka of beans, some rock salt, and a few onions…that’s right, rice and the occasional bean, three meals a day!) and made for the hills.

The half-day hike to the forest corridor was sobering to say the least. The sparsely vegetated dry grassland of the hills leading to the Park, a product of Madagascar’s destructive tradition of slash and burn agriculture, reminded me of the desert scrub landscapes of Arizona or New Mexico. Less than 200 years ago, most of those hills were covered in rainforest. Now, little pockets of trees remain in the gullies between hills where water run-off collects, small reminders of a very different landscape of not so long ago. As we walked, I made up new lyrics to Malagasy pop songs with our porter, mainly singing tunes along the lines of aiza ny kakazo? (”where are the trees?”). I’m realizing how remarkable it is that in my region of the northeast much of the rainforest is still intact.

As if on cue, when we reached the forest boundary, a group of brown lemurs (Eulemur fulvis) began grunting in the trees just ahead of us. The ANGAP agent and I crept closer and started mimicking their grunts to see if any of the members would approach us. Several lemurs got very excited and leaped down to branches closer to our level, peering down at us inquisitively, grunting back at us and straining their necks for a better view. It was incredible how curious they were about us and how close they allowed us to come to them. Making eye contact with one male, I struggled to bend my mind around how many eons of evolution lie between us.

Exhausted, we made camp and cooked a big pot of steaming rice. I gave our Malagasy guides their first taste of beef jerky (which our porter suggested we reconstitute in hot water like they do dried fish, to make loca / ro to eat with our rice). We then hiked up to a magnificent 100+ meter waterfall and basked in its spray for some time, dipping our blistered feet into the cool pool that collected at its base.

We awoke the next morning to the calls of babakoto Indri indri, a haunting, indescribable wailing in the forest that sounds like something between underwater recordings of whale song, air being let slowly out of a balloon, and fog horns. Not a bad early morning wake-up call.

Later that day, at one of the mountain summits, A stopped on the trail and pointed at something in the trees with a gasp. There, staring back at us in alarm with icy clear eyes in stark contrast with its black coat, was a male Indri, the largest of the lemurs. My jaw dropped at the sight. There’s something about the babakoto that just takes my breath away.

After a few minutes of observation, I decided to see what would happen if I mimicked the calls we awoke to that morning. The babakoto burst into a fit of crazed confusion, shifting back and forth on the tree trunk, listening keenly, staring at me. Finally he reared back with his great head, opened his mouth to display teeth and a very red tongue, and let out a long series of deafening, howling replies. I couldn’t stop laughing and gasping. Such a moment! The Indri leaped directly over our heads, hopping to a tree to our left, and then we repeated the exchange. Eventually he caught on that I was not of his kind and moved on down the mountain, disappearing into the canopy.

Our trip out of the forest and back to the village was slow going in the rain along the slippery red mud paths. We stopped to eat rice, boiled eggs, and bananas with a lovely family at the base of the mountain. Then we made our way along the final 3 ½ hour hike back to viallge-A in the dusk and eventual darkness. We arrived covered in a thick layer of mud, feet swollen and muscles aching, but in high spirits after a wonderful few days in the forest. The next morning we headed back to small-town-A and later broussed to banking-town-A.

I love this country.

And that was this week! Would adore to hear how each of you has been if you can find the time to respond. I have three days of internet access left before I fly back to isolated M and then head back to my village. Do keep in touch!

My best to all,
Rachel

Thanks to all my family for the FANTASTIC Ipod! I listened to Sense and Sensibility the entire bush taxi ride over here, and even heard most of it over the blaring Malagasy music! “Samy mafoaka, eeeyo eeeyo, Tsy misy mitsoaka, eeeyo eeeyo”…remember, Sarah?

I made it to A [the banking town of her PCV friend who serves near Lake Alaotra] with the taxi brousse [inter-city public transport] only taking 9 1/2 hours!
Getting out of Tana was actually the worst part, just so many people left over from New Year’s. Off to PCV friend’s village this morning and then will spend time in the new Nat’l Park around Lac Alaotra and hopefully take some photos of the regionally endemic bamboo lemur, along with doing other photography with the camera Sarah brought over for me to use for the new Park guidebook.

The landscape here is bleak and very very red. Hillsides that were rainforested just 100 years ago are now completely barren and scarred from erosion. The only trees are eucalyptus and pine, both introduced “crop” trees for charcoal, which everyone cooks with here. The houses are red mud with dried grass-thatch roofs and little wood-shuttered windows. A thick layer of red dust or, now, mud cakes everything you see. Then again, I just went to the market and saw a wide range of fruits and vegetables I don’t have up in the rainforest and got very excited; bought 1/2 a kilo of plums and a bunch of grapes. This is an agricultural region where land is burned before planting, trees are burned to make highly energy-inefficient but light and transportable charcoal, and the marsh around the lake is burned to make room for yet more rice paddy space.

It’s heartbreaking to think what kind of biological diversity once existed in this region and how largely useless much of the abused landscape is today. VERY different from my corner of Madagascar and very important for me to see so that I appreciate what is left in my area.

We’ve talked to Rachel and Sarah a number of times over the holidays. They had a good time in Antananarivo for a couple of days after Sarah arrived, then flew to M where they spent a few days before going to two nature preserves; had marvelous weather the whole time. It was roughing it for Sarah but luxurious for Rachel because they had someone to do the cooking and all! Hiked and swam and according to Sarah, when they phoned from the beach one evening, relaxing in sarongs, “It was paradise!”

Back to M then on to Rachel’s village, intending to stay there for several days. Sarah got to meet all the folks Rachel talks about. They went from one house to the other, visiting and distributing the presents Sarah had brought–scarves, baseball caps, perfume, and candy canes. Sarah also brought a little canned ham, a bag of dressing mix, and some freeze-dried mashed potatoes for a Christmas meal. They consumed their feast at Rachel’s table with Christmas music and little red and green lights Sarah had also brought.

After less than 2 days in V, however, another PCV came to evacuate them because of flood water from a big storm (cyclone?) off the west coast of the island. Rachel says the water was up to their shins in her front yard, flooding her kabinety [outhouse] with unfortunate results. They learned first-hand why all the houses and outbuildings (except outhouses) are on stilts!

They had only half an hour to pack before leaving, but Rachel was able to put precious things up on her bed where she hoped that, if the water rose higher, they would not be ruined. Sarah was sorry to leave the village so soon, but no one knew at that point what the storm might cause in terms of dangerous conditions. In fact, best we in the US could tell from weather maps on the internet, the storm passed on up the west coast of the island and out to sea. All Rachel and Sarah saw of it was a LOT of rain.

They were brought by car to M where they spent a couple of days in the hotel, unfortunately mostly without electricity because the whole town had none. There was no fish to eat in M for the first time since Rachel has been there because the fishermen could not go out. They had good times anyway with Malagasy friends, other PCVs, and traveling vazahas [foreigners].

They did make it to Ile Ste Marie as planned and are having a wonderful time there—still today, in fact. Stayed in a “luxury hotel” [Rachel’s Christmas present from Sarah!] on the beach, with running hot water in the shower, a beautiful pool, and great food. Rachel got to SCUBA dive and Sarah to snorkel. Also rented bicycles and went to the pirate graveyard where Captain Kidd and others are buried under skull-and-crossbones headstones.

After she accompanies Sarah back to Tana, Rachel will continue on to join another PCV near the capital to make digital photographs for that PCV’s nature brochure–possible because Sarah brought her a camera to replace the digital one that had died, presumably from the damp. Hopefully there will soon be new photos to post to this site, since Sarah plans to bring back a card full as a souvenir from her trip. Sarah is also bringing back the little woven clove sachets made by Maman’ i Linda to earn money for her kids’ school fees–Sarah’s bright idea (see earlier post!).

A souvenir they bought (for Mom) is a T-shirt with a big mosquito and the words “Chikungunya capital of the world” or some such. Mom can’t wait to see it–and Sarah! Sure do wish we could see Rachel, too!