Goodbye Madagascar

After 6 months, tomorrow I leave Madagascar.

Its been a lot of fun, Madagascar is a pretty incredible country. But I am definately looking forward to moving on. I think I have seen what I wanted to see and a huge amount of everything in between. I would advise all those that wish to visit Madagascar to do it soon, cause its true what they say, the place is getting severely beaten up. People are cutting, burning, digging up, and killing just about everything that makes Madagascar unique and interesting. But prepare yourself, travel here is not particularly easy (at first the laid back attitude and the poor road/car quality is funny, eventually it just gets really old) and 9 out of every 10 tourists you'll meet are just sex tourists (and all 10 will only speak french). But other than that, its a pretty amazing place.

Things have been fairly slow since my last post, things have gone fairly smoothly. I went from Tana out to the west coast to Morondava to see the avenue of the boababs and the Tsingy be Bemaraha. After the 22 hour taxi brousse ride, during which it was necessary to stop for a few hours so that would could wrassle up a posse of other taxi brousse drivers to dissuade the highway bandits from stopping us/killing us and stealing all of our belongings. At least thats what I was told. Once arriving in town I found out that you couldn't get to the Tsingy by public transport, only by private car. Which, after all told, would end up costing nearly $500 for the 3 days necessary to make the trip. I ended up lucking out, and find another tourist, a girl from Japan that could speak english, that was going and was willing to split the cost. Went and saw the Tsingy, very interesting, whether it was worth the $200 that it cost to get up there has not yet been decided, but I know that if I didn't go I would be kicking myself for a very long time. These are the Tsingy.



During the trip I found out (after being told not to mention how much I was paying to Yuki (the girl from Japan) - therefore it became the first thing that I talked about) that the owner of the care was charging Yuki the full price, and then was going to pocket all my money. I gave Yuki a pep talk, told her not to let them charge her full price, and am awaiting the results currently. However on the way back to Morondava from the Tsingy, Yuki got sick. I don't think it was anything more than what everybody gets when they first get to Madagascar, but she wasn't dealing with it very well. I was dropped at Kirindy to try to see some Fossa (no luck there) and the drivers took her back to the doctor. I cut my Kirindy trip a day short (potential to get the flight on the 3rd - which I did - and saw all the lemurs that there were to see) and decided to stop in to see how she was doing. I got there and standing at the doorway to the hotel were both drivers, looking very concerned, and what looked to be a number of doctors, also very concerned looking. They showed me to her room and what was the first thing I saw? An IV! The room was covered with little vials of medicine and needles. In my opinion IVs are used after surgeries and to stave off death, so I automatically assumed that it was a heck of a lot worse than it turned out to be. It was, just as I thought, what everybody gets when they get to Madagascar. It was just handled... differently than I would have done.

Other than that, I returned to Tana, and have sat around here for about 5 days waiting for my flight to come. I went souvernir shopping, bought way to many things, including two stupid wall hanging things that don't fit into my back and therefore are strapped to the outside where I fully expect them to break before I reach Paris.

As for Paris, got two couches to stay on, both located just on the outside of the main centre. One of whom seems to be very keen on going into the Catacombs to show people around, which I am A-OK with. Going to stay there for just about a week, and then head up to the UK. Not really sure what to do there, if anyone has been there and has some ideas, feel free to give me some advice.

And thats about that, I've got to be at the airport at 4:30 in the morning, so I have to get to sleep pretty soon. Have a good night.

Doing a bit of catch up...

So, its been a while huh? What, about 3 months? I think thats about right. Now, normally you would think than in 3 months time a fair number of things could happen right? Well, youd be right. In fact, too many things have happened to write about so I'll touch on a couple of the highlights.

Finished up the work - Everything finished up at Beza about 3 weeks ago now and its was quite the 5 months. In that 3 months since I last wrote the babies were decimated, babies were being picked off daily it seemed. Including one poor little fella that was eaten while we stood about 2 metres away. And it seems that, as with my favourite characters in movies, if you're my favourite lemur, you're not going to make it. Of my 3 favourite lemurs, only 1 survived. And poor, stunted little Owen Meany (his mother busted up her leg and his growth was really slowed) was eaten with like 4 more days left at Beza.
But the work is all finished. It was fun while it lasted, but it sure is nice to eat something other than beans and rice, although I'm still waiting for it to cool down a bit. I think I'm going to have to leave Mada for that to happen.

Muuuuuurder - In the last little while there was an interesting occurance in the park. They found the mutilated remains of someone, obviously murdered, but couldn't find out where the murder was done (apparently finding the perpetrator was an issue). Well, seeing as the murder happened in the confines of the park, they decided to hold the trial at the research centre. And when I mean trial, I mean 2 police men talked to the accused for about 20 minutes. Now let me descibe for you the crime, and then have you guess at the punishment. So what this fella did, was he took this guy (who apparently was a thief and was bothering him for some time) and tied him to a tree. While tied to the tree, he shot him dead. Cut him down, at which point the body was ripped to pieces by the packs of feral dogs that run through the forest. Pretty greusome huh? What would you figure he got, at least like 15, maybe 20 years in jail right? Well, that would make sense. But no, instead he got fined the equivalent of $2000 (easily payable, apparently he was a rich man) and a warning that next time, he better get a note from the family saying he was a thief before murdering anyone (seriously, I'm not making this up).

Riots - After our work completed we took a nice road trip up the country stopping a few places along the way. Once we hit Tana (the capital city) I decided that I needed a few things, deodorant, a new toothbrush, etc and went out shopping. It was a national holiday and everything was closed but I kept looking in the hopes that a independent stall would be open, but nothing. I decided that it looked like things were starting to get dark and so I should get back to the hotel. I started to cross the Avenue of Independence (the main street in the city) and realized that there were a lot of riot police hanging around in their riot trucks. I didn't know what was going on, thought it may be just normal routine for a leader that just last year gained power through a military coup. But as I watch a cop came out of the truck, picked up what looked to be a shotgun, and fired down the street into the crowd. I freaked right out, I thought I had just seen a cop shoot people while I stood about 40 feet behind him. But no-one seemed to be worried, everyone around me was laughing and talking and taking pictures. Then I saw a bunch of smoke and realized that it was a smoke bomb. Apparently there was some sort of demonstration down the street and the cop was making sure it didn't make it up the street. So I continued on my way across the street and once I reached the second median there were about 5 cops out of the truck, and they all began firing into the crowd. Still no one seemed to be worried, everyone except me. As I turned to cross the street people stopped talking and taking pictures, they all started to book it down the street, sprinting as fast as they could. I had no idea what had changed or what was happening, but I figured if the locals were running, then so was I. I took off and went down as side street away from the cops/demonstrators (who were now running all over the place) and wondered what the bejesus was going on. Then it hit me, it wasn't smoke bombs, it was tear gas, and the wind had changed, pulling it down the street towards us. Let me tell you, all those of you who haven't been tear gased (which I assume if most, if not all of you), it really hurts. You're eyes water and sting, but its your nose, its like you just snorted hot pepper up your nose, through both nostrils. So I sped up and headed back to the hotel, where I passed hundreds and hundreds of people crying and wiping their noses down the street. People that had obviously nothing to do with the protests. Ahhhh, dictatorship.

Moths - I took a long trip up the east coast of Madagascar in order to try to get a glimpse of the rare and elusive Aye Aye. One of the hardest to view lemurs in Madagascar. I took the 14 hours truck ride (trying not to fall out the entire way), checked into the hotel, made arraingments for a truck and boat to get to the island. Packed up all my stuff and went. We spotted an Aye Aye about 20 minutes after we got to the island, I put my headlamp and and turned the light on. And had a moth fly into my ear. Not your normal, moth flys in, buzzes around a bit, flys out, but rather a, moth flies in, hits your eardrum because its so deep, and sits there smacking your eardrum with its wings for 2 hours. So I had to leave the Aye Aye, and sit down to try to persuade/wash the moth out of my ear. Apparently the normal procedure is to use a light (a candle, flashlight, etc) and hold it at arms length and the moth will eventually make it out. Its not, at least not at the beginning, to try to wash it out. All that does is stick it to your eardrum and eventually drown it. I learned this while sitting in the jungle alone, wondering whether a moth is strong enough to break my eardrum (apparently its not, but my poking can seriously mess up my equilibrium). Eventually I made it back to the mainland and went to the hospital where a professional washed it out with a big old syringe. And I went to see the Aye Aye the next day, but this time with a large bandana covering my ears up.

Glasses - After seeing the Aye Aye I went to Ile St. Marie, a tropical island paradise that is nice and cheap (bungalows on the beach for $5) with coral reefs surrounding. I took advantage of these reefs by deciding that I would go for a bit of a snorkel, placing my things well up the beach from the rising tide. I was only out for about 30 minutes when I looked back at the shore to see my hat floating away. I ran back, collected all my things, except for my glasses. Which are who knows where now. My guess is India.

But thats that for now. Today I am in Toamasina because the taxi brousses here take forever to get anywhere and I didn't want to arrive in Tana in the dark. So I have spent 4 hours on the internet passing the time away. After Tana I head to Morondava, then to Tsingy de Bemaraha, then to Kirindy, back to Tana, and then to Europe. I'm looking forward to getting to a country where things arrive and depart on time, and people don't stare at you everywhere you go. But I'm not looking forward to the costs.

Thats all for now. I figure posts should increase now. But who knows.

Ayden

Madagascar!

So 2 months ago I came up with a great idea. I decided that on my days off I would write down what happened in the last week. That way, when I got to somewhere with internet I would just copy-paste and my blog post would be done. It would also ensure that I didn't forget anything in the two months between access to internet. Genius idea right? Well the one flaw is that in order for that to work, you have to make sure you bring the posts with you. Which I didn't do.

So instead you get a recap of the past week, and then a massive post in February when I get internet again. But it was a relatively interesting week.

So lets begin this story on Boxing day, we just finished a wonderful day of turkey, beef and potatoes which is essentially all it takes to make it feel like a really really special day anymore. We had the day off and decided to go for a hike out to a Canyon that was about 3 km away. The hike was great, we got to see further out past the local village that I have ever gone, and the actual valley was really impressive. But on the way I realized that my tooth was hurting a bit. Well over the next week that little bit of pain got to the point where I wasn't sleeping at night because it was unbearable and the gums on that side had swollen to the point that they were covering up about half of the teeth. Gross, I know. So I needed to have someone look at it, luckily there were some researchers at the station that were heading out with a car the next day and we would be able to hitch a ride with them. The one condition was, that we had to go to a beach resort with them. Seemed fair to me. So we hoped in a went along.

Now the issue with having something like a cavity in Southern Madagascar is, the dentists aren't trained all that well, or particularly hygenic. So there was a bit of a threat that I may get my teeth buggered up and walk out with Hepatitis and HIV. So I was a little worried and asked Teague to come along to give me a second opinion as someone that has been in Africa for much longer than I have. So Teague tagged along, taking a week off from data collection to help me out. Well you know what happened, pretty much the day after we left the pain started to subside and the swelling started to go down. So I looked like a bit of an idiot.

The beach was really nice, we stayed in a resort that was a bit beyond my normal price range, but we were there from New Years so I figured, two nights? Might as well stay (and by out of my normal price range, it only cost about $100 for 2 nights, food and drinks included). The beach was great, there was a Vezo fishing village right beside the resort on the beach which was great for exploring, but was bad because they liked to just poop on the beach. There was also at one point in the night when one of the assistants of the other researchers and I were walking down the beach to explore the place and a man came up to us trying to get us to take his boat out to an island. We talked to him for a while and explained where we were staying, how long we were there for. It was difficult because he couldn't speak english very well and no one could really speak French. But just as we were trying to leave I think he asked us if we were sleeping with Malagasy children, as in, are we employing children prostitutes. To which the other researcher which remain nameless, in an effort to just get away and not knowing what he actually said, gave an emphatic yes and a high five.

We managed to escape that guy and found ourselves at a celebration for the new year which, as far as I could tell, putting a bag on a cows head, and beating the crap out of it with sticks and cheering. The other researcher then was asked if he wanted "Boom Boom", which we took to mean a prostitute (I think his reputation preceded him) and we decided that perhaps it was time to leave. We joined in a much tamer, less animal-abusive party for the New Years which was a lot of fun. It was difficult staying up until midnight seeing as we normally wake up at 5, but we managed it and had a really good time. Although its the first time I have ever counted down the new year from a man dancing around with an Ikea analog clock held above his head.

We left the beach and headed for town, 8 hours down the road (but only 3 hours by boat - there is only one bridge you see, and it was a loooong way away). At about hour 4 we took a bit of a short cut and managed to snap the axle on the 4x4 in half. Luckily we were not too far away from a small town (which, interestingly enough, was also a Leper Village, which I didn't really know still existed) and we sent Jacky - the director of Beza - into town to see if he could sort out a car to pick us up. Mahefa, the driver, found a small village (3 mud huts) and paid the man there to guard the car so that the road bandits (yes, road bandits) wouldn't gut the car by the time he returned. We pushed it up the road and then waited in this tiny village for about 4 hours before Jacky returned in a Department of Locust control car and they drove us back to Betoiky - a small small town where we stayed the night is a cockroach infested hotel.

We managed to swing a pickup truck for the next day where we drove all the way back with 7 of us sitting in the open back of the truck. It was a little windy, but it looked significantly more comfortable than the 3 people that were jammed into cab.

We made it into town and I scheduled a dentist appointment with the help of Jacky. It was a lot cleaner than I thought, however the equipment was only being cleaned in the sink (which apparently kills all the really nasty things). The dentist looked at the tooth, and with a mixture of french, charades, and large novelty teeth and toothbrushes told us that it wasn't actually a cavity but somehow I managed to get an infection in my gums. He gave me some mouthwash and I went on my way, really really happy that they was no actual dental work done. Although now I worry that it will just come back when I am back at camp, but as I type, there is no pain, so it all seems good.

Yesterday I went to Jacky's PhD defense, and got to see what Tulear University is like. If you wish to have an idea, take your university, then take a nuclear war. mix the two together and then wait 30 years, long enough for people to start to re-inhabit the campus, and you will have tulear university.

Today I do nothing but relax. Teague heads back tomorrow morning but I am going to stay around for a few more days. Then its back to work until February.

If anyone wants a postcard, send me their address on facebook or e-mail and I will see what I can do.

Until later,

Ayden