So last time I left you off with high hopes of lemurs and I am ready to deliver. But first I need to talk about the rest of the weekend that happened before we went camping. I spend a good deal of time at this internet café, and therefore spend a good deal of money at this internet café. On Saturday I woke up at a ridiculous hour to come here and bought hot chocolate, pineapple juice, and a chocolate croissant, totaling $9 USD. I think I need to slow it down a little. That day after shopping the markets with some SIT girls, I went to my homestay and made them French toast! It was really difficult for several reasons: the only bread here is baguettes but it was fairly easy to just cut them in halves and then in pieces; I had to use condensed milk but it was good because that way they didn’t need sugar; they only use vegetable oil and initially the boy who helped make the fire put in a ton of oil and practically smothered the French toast pieces in it; the stove is difficult to control the temperature on since it is just hot coals under the pan so several pieces were on the verge of burnt; we couldn’t get our hands on any syrup or honey in time so we just sprinkled a little sugar on top and ate them like little pastries. It actually turned out very well considering all the difficulties. That day I also chewed on a real sugar cane. It was so strange but awesome. Imagine a really sweet, juicy piece of celery that you can’t bite because it’s too fibrous. You just chew on it and suck the sugar juice out of it. It was a lot of fun.
That night, Kate (one of the SIT girls) was having a little party at her homestay house, courtesy of her homestay brother who wanted to meet us and practice his English. She is the one who lives on the beach right next to school! Since we were leaving to go camping the next day, I packed up all of my crap and went to Ally’s where I was spending the night. It was so strange for us to go out after dark since neither of us had done that yet. There are literally no lights. Ally’s homestay father walked us a few streets down where we got a cab to Kate’s party. The party was so island. It was up on a hill next to the beach so you could feel and hear the water but not actually see it past the little bonfire they had built. They were playing island music, both live and through itunes and speakers, and there were hot salted peanuts and crunchy snacks. The best part was her family made some homemade or homespiced rums! There was vanilla rum with actual vanilla sticks in the bottle and all naturally flavored ginger rum, which was my favorite, that was very spicy and delicious with the Coke that was also there. We got tired very quickly since it was a long day so we walked as a large group into town, escorted by Kate’s older homestay brothers. Ally’s house was pretty close to where we ended up so we decided to walk the rest of the way, just the two of us, and it was pretty scary. Everything was fine of course but we still got pretty nervous walking in the darkness by ourselves for just five minutes.
So camping in Ifotaka was wonderful. It took us several hours but we rode in our guide’s comfy 4x4s in groups of 5. We were told if we need to stop to use the bathroom, we say: "olombelo fa tsy akoho” which means “I am a person, not a chicken”. We were in our French groups (teams of 6) and had rotations of four different lemur related activities/experiments across the two full days of our visit. We had a discussion with the villagers on their views of the community conserved national park, did a population transect of the sifaka lemurs, observed the behavior of the sifaka lemurs by following them through the forest for two hours, and looked at their habitat by measuring and evaluating the trees they used. The sifaka are a wonderful species. They just hang out on the trees like bros and look at you all curiously. I actually found myself pretty badly tangled in several types of prickery plants trying to get pictures of these guys. The spiny forest is not one to stroll through casually. I look like the lemurs attacked me with claws but it was just the trees.
One of the nights entailed a night watch for nocturnal lemurs. We saw several adorable little mouse lemurs in the trees! When we shone our flashlights on the trees we could see their tiny little eyes reflecting colors back at us all over the place. We also ran into several chameleons and crazy huge insects that night. The stars at Ifotaka were just amazing. I had a small freak out when the epiphany hit me that there are that many stars out there. You could see billions and billions of them. You could see the colors of the planets and the cloudy Milky Way arm going across the sky and even a couple shooting stars if you paid close enough attention. It was breathtaking.
Our last day, we were planning a “fête” with the local villagers for tolerating our camping there for the week. This involved us eating a feast and later participating in their dances with them. For the feast, we were given a goat and a sheep. These animals hung around tied up to the fence for the first part of the day so we would pass them and get attached which was a big mistake. After lunch it was time to get them ready for dinner… we didn’t realize that this was happening right there in front of us. I see Ally’s face go into shock and she starts swearing and all of a sudden I hear the little cries of the animals as the men are pinning them down. I never thought I would have this reaction to something like that but I felt a pang in my throat and Ally and I both had to run out of there and walk to the river. Some people stayed and watched the sacrifice (even vegetarians!) but there’s no way I could even stomach the sounds. Knowing that this is a daily part of life and that the way we do it in the US is even worse, I did not expect the effect that moment had on me. That night we ate the meat and I felt a great deal of respect for the animals that were killed for the sole purpose of becoming our sustenance.
The party was really late after dinner and we were all exhausted but it was culturally expected that we dance with the villagers. I had been really excited about it all day to learn and sing and dance the traditional tribal village songs. But when it happened, it was just too much to handle. As I mentioned, it was very late and I was very exhausted from a day of chasing lemurs through pricker bushes, and it was pitch black besides the extremely bright white flashlight and strobelight headlamp the teachers were shining around in crazy directions. The village men were making a scary grunting noise in rhythm with the stomping we were all putting our energy into. The girls were singing repetitive high pitched tones. It smelled like village people who have never bathed in their lives and the latrine we were standing next to and we were breathing in all the dirt we were kicking up in the stomping. Needless to say, I was over stimulated. All of the flashing light, noises, smells, and exercises just got to me and gave me a headache which in turn made me nauseous. I was very disappointed in myself when I left early to crawl in my tent and go to sleep. But I will be able to make up for it next week during the Village stay when we stay in a rural village for a whole week and apparently dance like that every single night. At least I can prepare myself now!
On our way back to Fort Dauphin on Wednesday, we stopped at the famous Berenty. This was the lemur forest where the majority of our assigned book Lords and Lemurs takes place. It was very bizarre to actually be in the place we had read about in the novel. Berenty is very touristy with little swanky bungalows for people to stay in, a nice restaurant, a museum, etc. next to the forest. First we went into the Musée d’Androy which had four rooms of exhibits with captions in both French and English all about the local Androy culture and history. I read and observed much about the cloths they used to make and how they are doing less of it and buying commercial clothing from the markets and it actually made me really sad. Most of what we saw in the museum we had already seen with our own eyes in the village at Ifotaka, but certain traditions mentioned in parts of the museum are obviously beginning to fade from the actual culture today. It’s sad to think about how many cultural traditions and hard but beautiful work that go into handcrafts of so many past cultures have been lost over time and we don’t think about it until we see it happening now.
Berenty’s lemurs are crazy!! When we started our trail tour, we were told that it was the lemur’s napping time for pretty much the rest of the day so we were pretty disappointed that what could have been potentially the best lemur experience would be disappointing because of our tardiness to the park. Throughout the trail we saw plenty of lemur tribes just hanging out in the trees though. They weren’t very lively but they were there and they were not afraid of us like the sifaka in Ifotaka. We also so HUGE awesome bats in the trees in one area. Their wingspans were incredible.
After we had the best lunch ever at the Berenty outdoor restaurant, (a buffet of just delicious different dishes and actual cold real orange juice!) a bunch of ringtails came hopping up around the restaurant tables. We got really close to them and they were just investigating and hoping we would give them bananas. Then one of them actually jumps up onto one of our tables and steals a piece of bread!! It was absolutely insane. These lemurs just jumped around the restaurant following us for the next twenty minutes. I was hoping one of them would hop on my shoulder but no such luck. It was still quite an experience.
This Thursday we had a field trip to a traditional doctor an hour away who explained to us through a translator how his business works and how he uses various medicinal plants and spiritual beliefs to cure ailments of the villagers. One girl asked what he does when a child shows signs of a mental malady or is developing slowly (aka autism, Down syndrome, some other disability) and he explained something about creating a solution from a certain plant in which the child is bathed. That sounds like it works… As we were leaving, there was a young man with very visible down syndrome running around with the children of the village and I wish I could have received more information on whether he was or had been “treated” by that doctor and how. I had a discussion with my host aunt recently about my brother and his autism. I explained that basically he looks his age but acts much younger and may make strange noises or sway, etc. She was very understanding but she said that in Madagascar, obviously, they are not aware of things like that and they would probably just think the kid was crazy. I have seen a few young men with obvious mental disabilities on the streets and it’s obvious that they are fed and clothed but it would be interesting to know more about how they are taken care of beyond that in a country where they don’t understand the disabilities. If I were doing the cultural program in Tana, I would do my ISP on that.
We have just three days before our week in the villages. It will essentially be a week of camping and participating in very traditional activities through a major language barrier. The people will not speak French, only Malgache, so two SIT students will be paired with one local ecology student who will act as a translator, but we will still only be able to speak French through them. We will be hot and dirty and stressed and participate in physical labor and dancing and all at the same time attempt to conduct some studies to help with our environmental issues paper for our biodiversity seminar. It’s going to be interesting.
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