Home sweet home

Final post!

Feels good to be back in a temperate climate again. I flew in Thursday evening, went out to Giordano's with Mom, Dad and Jared, and then waited 5 days for my luggage to arrive while running around to the doctor, Beloit, the doctor again (let me tell you, the tropics halfway around the world can really take a toll on a healthy immune system), the pharmacy, the boatyard, the harbor, etc etc, and then today was my first day back working at the Judd Goldman Adaptive Sailing Program for another (perhaps the final?) summer... So basically, I'm still pretty jet-lagged over here.

After ISP and sea turtles were over, we enjoyed a hasty few days of running around trying to get our write-ups finished and printed off and our presentations ready, a good-bye party with our homestay families that involved a really big cake, and another plane trip back up north, this time as a group. We traveled all around Diego, seeing Ankara National Park, the Tsingy rock formations, a couple bat caves, some Indri lemurs, and snorkeling in the Emerald Sea. The rainforests and waterfalls of Andasibe were breathtakingly beautiful - if you happened to read the article in Time Magazine in April sometime about Madagascar, that was where it was talking about. We saw the world's smallest chameleon, it fit on the tip of your pinky finger, quite adorable.

And hooray, putting pictures up is now about 100,000 times easier!!!

BABY SEA TURTLES.

Pirogue!

Nesting green sea turtle mama!

Walking over the suspension bridge at the Tsingy rock formations

Dancing into the village, after 5km

Tiny tiny baby puppy (one of many) at the Mahavoky Hotel in Fort Dauphin


With the homestay family at the good-bye party


LEMUR! A ringtail, in Berenty



Radiated tortoise eating some raqueta fruit (prickly pear)


Me with a lemur. It had to happen. (Search the background for long furry black-and-white-striped tail hanging down from the tree)


Sacred island called Nosy Lonjo ("Triangle Island") off the northern coast (Diego) - no one's been on it since the French colonization era.


Tiny tiny chameleon!!!


Frog on my pillow! (Nosy Sakatia)

Later gators.

Love Karen (in Chicago)

Baby sea turtles.

I witnessed 17 baby green sea turtles today scurrying adorably from their nest down to the sea. Actually, 15 - two of them didn't so much scurry. One was blind and going in the wrong direction and the other had deformed flippers on its left side so it couldn't walk. Those two I carried down to the water myself, and proceeded to almsot cry watching gimpy struggle in the water, unable to swim and pretty much waiting for his death.

It was probably the cutest, most magnificent thing I've ever seen, and there were lots of pictures and videos taken that will be posted as soon as I have internet access and also remember to bring my camera cord at the same time, which is not now.

I finally got to Nosy Iranja this morning, and I'm staying here two nights and working with Ignace, the turtle expert/conservation guy that WWF trained to monitor and protect the turtles since 2001. Living and eating free of charge at the hotel here, I'm staying in a bungalow deal that is pretty much the most luxurious setup in this entire country I think, except since there are no tourists right now (political crisis and all) they only run the generator for a few hours at night, and the water for only an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening.

Still hot here. The semester's coming to a close, ISP presentations are in a week and then it's travelling in Diego and then U.S.A.! Weird.

Later gators.
Love Karen

ISP madness at Nosy Sakatia

OH MY GOODNESS I have no idea what's happened over the past few days. Probably the weirdest few days of the entire semester.

I left Tuesday morning for Sakatia, an island with a couple beaches that turtles often nest on as well as a sort of expert on turtles that lives there, Robert, chez whom I was going to be housed and fed, etc. I haven't even spoken with this guy, only the director of the CNRO has. No idea what to expect.

I take a motorized pirogue à balancier (see below for example) over to the island courtesy of a couple guys that live in Robert's village. They lead me up freakin Mount Everest, which wouldn't have been as bad if I were wearing something other than wet, thus very slippery, flip flops. Therefore I am making a huge vazaha-like ass of myself trying to lug myself and my bag and a bag of food up this very large hill, slipping everywhere, pouring sweat, while the 2 other guys are obvs super nimble and leaping about. I could just hear them thinking "who the hell is this stupid vazaha girl?"

(not my picture, taken from some website i forget sorry aah plagiarism)

So after settling in, I'm told in broken French (not like mine is any better) that Robert and his wife are both still in town (meaning Hellville, the one city on Nosy Be). I was supposed to be going to one of the nesting beaches that night to hopefully see a turtle come up and nest. So I ate lunch, chatted with "Modest," got very unclear explanations of the relations of everyone in the village - it seems that everyone in Madagascar is brothers but also cousins and also fathers and sons, it makes no sense - and took a nap. Finally Madame Robert (still don't know her actual name) shows up and takes the bag of food and explains that Robert is still in town... come dinner, still no Robert... apparently there were no taxis. Who knows. Anyway it's already dark and clearly too late to take the pirogue to the beach, and as per usual I have no idea what is going on, nor any idea of what I'm even going to really do at said nesting beach.

Next morning, I meet the famed Robert and we go over to the beach just to check it out - me thinking in the back of my mind how I purchased just enough gas, all 22 liters and 57,000 Ariary of it, to take the pirogue out 4 times and maybe we shouldn't be wasting it but whatever - we walk around, he points out some tracks and nesting holes and the place to set up my tent later, and we leave. The plan is to leave the village again at 4:30 pm to get there with enough time to set up camp and survey the beach a bit more before sundown. Well Madagascar runs on "p-time", polysomething or other, described in an article I didn't really read, but it basically means no one wears a watch and being late is totally fine. So I'm ready at around 4:45, pretty typical of me, and Robert starts "ok, le problème à ce moment..." and I'm like well. Obviously.

Le problème was that the previous night there had been a storm and huge waves had destroyed a house down the hill so the pirogue was out getting new walls from Hellville. I was surprised at my complete lack of surprise at this. Sooo we eat dinner, take our time, and when it's pretty dark out we descend and wait on a log while the guys are unloading the walls from the pirogue. I'm thinking it's probably way too late to head over, so I mention this - "ah non, tisy probème, les tortues montent toute la nuit." I was more worried about how it was pitch black out and I couldn't see a thing, yet we were planning on taking a lil ol' pirogue on a lil 20 minute ride over to the other side of the island.... at night.... But hey, why not?

Off we go, pitch black, riding in pirogue, and when we get to the other side of the island that doesn't face Nosy Be, the waves get a little largish. And I'm just thinking oh god I'm going to die out here, no one even knows I'm here because obviously the whole damn village is with us, his wife included, I guess she wanted a vacay sleeping on the beach tonight, we're all gonna get tipped over and die, thank god this pirogue has got some balanciers on it, are there whales out here? ... Anyway we make it, spend about a half hour trying to push the pirogue far enough up the beach so it won't get swept away by the waves, give up and tie it to a tree, throw our bags down and Robert and I start looking. Within like 100 m, I'm like hey that's a fresh looking trace... Robert pokes around and JUMPS up, scares the crap out of me, says it's a turtle and I run and get my camera. Obviously freaked her out taking a picture of her, but she changes nesting spots like 3 times. Picky one, she is. (Turtle pictures still on my camera, they'll come later, apologies.)

So really seeing a nesting turtle has nothing to do with my actual study, it's about comparing physical characteristics of the beaches, I just wanted to see one, but I don't think Robert was clear on this. I was happy after seeing one, and quite tired, so I set up the tent and passed out, only to be woken up another 2 or 3 times by Robert peeking in whispering excitedly "il y a une autre tortue là-bas!" while I'm perhaps a little cranky, as I sometimes get when I'm woken up, and I'm all "yeah yeah ça va.... je reste ici..." and I think he was a little disappointed but oh well.

So this morning, the waves were too big to take the piroge back so Robert and I hiked for FOREVER back tothe village, across several mountain ranges, and now here I am in Hellville cause he's got work to do and I've gotta fetch a measuring tape, thermometer, and "granulomètre" from CNRO which I obviously forgot. Quite essential for taking measurements of the freakin beaches. Good job Karen.

More silliness to come I'm sure. Stay tuned. For now, more pictures!!! (from a while ago):

Homestay mom - Claudine aka "Rasaz" (sp? it's Malagasy for midwife, pronounced "Rashaj") with 10-yr-old bro, Marco (Mom, note the Cubs shirt! He had no idea what it was.)

Momo (16-yr-old bro, unfortunately not wearing the White Sox hat I gave him, but he usually does), Steve (21-yr-old cousin), and Aina (9-yr-old cousin)

And a snake eating a lizard.

With much love,

Karen

Nosy Be!

After much sitting around in Fort Dauphin waiting to be evacuated or have our ISPs repeatedly changed and shot down, myself and 4 other girls ended up coming to Nosy Be, the #1 tourist destination throughout Madagascar. The SIT office in Vermont decided that here and Fort Dauphin, or within 120km of either place, were the only places we were allowed for ISP, so that in case we needed to be evacuated we would be as close as possible to the program's base. Nosy Be is an island off the northwest coast of Madagascar - completely the other end of the country from For Dauphin. It's actually the Culture & Society program that got based here after Tana turned out tob e too dangerous - a couple students got caught in demonstrations during the midst of the massacres a hile back... Everyone's fine though. Just a little tear-gassed.

We all live on site at the CNRO, or Centre National de Recherches Océanohraphique. Chelsea, who's studying reef health, and I live in a quaint little jail cell-like room with no windows. We leave the doors open at night so that we only sweat out half of our body's water supply instead of all of it, which leads to me having 80,000 bug bites and very little rest each morning, despite smothering myself with DEET before going to bed and then again after 3 hours of scratching and swearing and still not falling asleep. I think they mentioned that they have extra mosquito nets...

Aside from that little issu, living at CNRO is wonderful. The view is absolutely gorgeous - lots of sailboats in the bay out in front, and you can see several more islands plus the mountains of mainland Madagascar in the distance. Last night we all got a Three Horses Beer and sat out on the pier while the sun set. Today a cyclone is helping cool things off, which is reeeeeally appreciated. Also we pay nothing for living there, and a small daily fee for someone to cook for us and wash our clothes. Pretty great. Taxis into Hellville (aka here at the cybercafé) are not cheap though.

I've got an ISP pretty much set up, studying the effects of artifical light pollution (from beachside hotels, nearby towns, etc) on the nesting success of sea turtles - greens and hawksbills - on Nosy Iranja and/or Nosy Sakatia. Exactly when, how, and for how long is still to be worked out... But we've gotten a "tsy misy problème" from the go-to people on both islands. That step is generally pretty easy around here, it's getting people to work out details that's always much trickier. None of us even knew what our projects were until a couple days after getting to Nosy Be, which was a little unsettling as our proposals had to be in before we left... I'm about to go write that after I finish with this.

I forgot to being my flash drive of pictures with me into town (it's about a 10 minute taxi ride on wonderfully paved road) - maybe next time.

Much love,
Karen

"DJ to President: Change Rocks Madagascar"

That's the title of a news article found online by Barry (our academic assistant). Oy. (TGV was a DJ first, then mayor of Tana, and now president.) Good pun, Cannaberra Times journalist...

Also here's a local North Carolina news article on Erin, one of the students that got sent to Botswana:

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=6717427

Well. As your may have guessed, or heard, Ravalomanana has officially resigned. There's debate as to whether or not it was forced at gunpoint. Hopefully not, because then TGV's govt can be recognized as legitimate and we can stay. Brattleboro (SIT's campus) is making a decision tonight and as of now they're leaning towards continuing our program. As far as we can tell, now that Ravalomanana's gone, people are pretty satisfied here on the whole. For the time being. No more grève.

This means we'll be leaving Friday morning for our beautiful tour of the protected areas here, ending at Ranomafana (literally, "hot water") National Park - a rainforest, finally! Then we'll be in Fort Dauphin for a few days for ISP prep, leaving April 2nd for our ISP's. I'll be studying with Reef Doctor, an NGO based in Ifaty, a village about an hour outside of Tuléar. It's right by the Bay of Ranobe, which is bordered by a big ol' CORAL REEF. Love. Hopefully I'll be studying the ecology of the known green sea turtle nesting beaches, and maybe comparing whatever data I decide on collecting to non-nesting beaches or to previously found data from other beaches around Madagascar or other parts of the world. Maybe it can lead to directing the focus of conservation efforts on the beaches? Some of the villages in the area are known to collect the turtle eggs, while at other sites WWF has told them that if they touch the eggs they'll go to jail. Maybe a bit harsh, but I want to look at how effectively that's being followed too. I still have to hear from my advisor on that, I have no idea how feasible it is. We'll see. There's 3 other SIT students, Sara Jackie and Chelsea, that will also be doing their ISP's with Reef Doctor. Should be fun!

Later gators,
Karen

Update on politics in Madagascar!

So we almost got evacuated from the country... repeat of Cedar Rapids last summer?

This guy Andre "TGV" (like the fast train in Paris) apparently had a love child with the daughter of the current president, Marc Ravalomanana, who won't let them marry cause of religious differences or something. So TGV is pissed and trying to take over the government. His people have tried to take over ministries by just walking in and like sitting down at desks and starting to work... unsuccessfully, obviously. Their logic is hard to follow. Another questionable bit is that TGV is legally too young to even be president here. What is he even thinking. This is such a big hysterical failure. Except also scary cause people have died. Not a lot, but some, via political demonstrations that had to get calmed down I think. Don't worry, I'm staying far away from those.

Oh and also Ravalomanana is just a jerk who's getting rich off of all his Malagasy industries and buying expensive airplanes instead of, say, repaving their awful roads here or, you know, helping out the hunger/unemployment situation. Which is kind of an issue here, with Madagascar being in like the top 15 poorest countries in the world. So there's that reason to try and kick him out of office. I just think their might be a better means of going about it? Maybe? I'm no expert, but this completely illegit method is not seeming to have any kind of success.

It started out with protests, walk-ins at the ministries, some looting here and there... Now rumor has it that more than half the military has joined the opposition. Some of them definitely have, but it's really hard to separate fact from fiction here. Negotiations were supposed to happen and didn't, several times.

The Peace Corps program here is temporarily suspended and its volunteers are being pulled out and moved to South Africa. (Which is ironic since a lot of Malagasy really hate South Africans - I think it has to do with QMM, the ilmenite mining company in Fort Dauphin that employs a lot of Vazaha esp Sud-Afs, who are kind of inconsiderate and get in fights a lot at the bars and discothèques and try to steal women... who knows.) Anyway the Peace Corps is like a barometer for SIT, so it wasn't looking good for us for a while. We were all really nervous that we'd have to go home. It was a real possibility for a few days.

We were just given the news today that SIT has decided to continue our program - hooray!!! We're cautiously avoiding the dangerous areas, especially Antananarivo, the capital. We're in Tuléar for the afternoon, where there's been a couple lootings, but we're sleeping at this gorgeous place where our director Jim has a house, we're camping around it. It's right on a mangrove coast. I love it. Very safe, and isolated except for a couple neighbors including a guy whose building an alternative pirogue, a guy with a catamaran that I really want to sail on (but won't), and a Swiss guy and his Malagasy wife that own a restaurant/bar that we eat at and hang out at in the evening. Pretty good ambiance. Tonight is the big sheep slaughter party! Probably gonna sleep in a bit tomorrow morning...

Now the bad news - there's 2 students in our program, Erin and Matt, who are being forced to leave by their universities' stupid policies that are just obnoxiously cautious... The travel status was upgraded to a warning, and there's a BBC article with the words "civil war" in the headline (it is not a civil war.), so I guess since they're public universities (UNC-Chapel Hill and CU Boulder) funded by the government, they have to go. They might join a program in Botswana. We're all really upset that they have to leave. Maybe we'll organize some kidpnapping scheme and make them stay. What? Erin and Matt? Last I heard they were lost in the spiny forest, being raised by a pack of lemurs, who knows...

Gotta go meet up with the group again.

Safe and sound and happy to be staying,

Love Karen

PICTURES! and village stay.

ok guys i'm at a super white touristy hotel with free internet as long as i keep buying coffee so it's time for PHOTOS!!!

First off the rural village stay was crazy, we were divided up into groups of 2 SIT students per village, plus 2 Malagasy students in their first year at the Centre Ecologique de Libanona (CEL, whose campus we use for classes). Each group had different themes that they chose to study at the village - ours were health and religious beliefs. I'm obsessed with their traditional "jentilisy" religion here, they place so much importance on their ancestors and they build huge elaborate tombs for the families and the Antandroy people (the Androy region is where our village was) sacrifice the person's entire herd of zebu during the different stages of the funeral ceremonies and place the zebu horns on top of the tomb as a symbol of the person's wealth and hard work during their life.

I was in a little village called Ambory in the commune of Faux Cap (each commune is composed of several villages - all the students were in different villages within FC), in the very southern tip of the island. I stayed with Sara from Philadelphia, and we worked with Herman and Rodrigue from CEL. It was interesting. We expected none of the villagers to speak French, and we're all still completely useless speaking Malagasy, but it turned out the dad was a teacher so he spoke French, somewhat. Helpful. It was a struggle with the rest of the people, though. A lot of gesturing and having Malagasy words thrown at us, and nodding and smiling helplessly. Good times.

At the end of the week was the "fete villageoise" - we got dressed up in traditional Tandroy attire and makeup and danced all the way to the central village - 5 km - where all the 8 villages had a dance-off while they killed a zebu and shared it among the villages. I had a bite of boiled zebu blood. Most disgusting thing I've ever had in my life. It was greenish brown and kinda gritty and tasted like ... something awful.


left to right: Sara, Mami (her real name - also happens to be our host mom at the village), me, Flavienne, and the little girl is Priska - the adorable 5-year-old daughter. This is the traditional hairstyle and makeup that we wore to the village party/dance. The cloths are lambahoany's and every female in Madagascar has one I'm pretty sure. They have different designs, sometimes pictures of Madagascar or lemurs or baobabs or just pretty designs, with Malagasy proverbs at the bottom.

OTHER PICTURES!

The group at the CEL campus - the man standing in the middle is our program director. And yes, he always wears sweet outfits like that. Past those pine trees and down the hill is the ocean.



My homestay house in Fort Dauphin. If you turn around there's a gated "compound" area of little wooden shacks around it, where other family members live, aunts uncles cousins etc. Pretty sure we have the only running water and refrigerator.



People playing soccer on Ankoba beach, right by my house. Daily occurrence. I'm always tempted to go play with them. Haven't yet though. I'm so out of shape...

There were 4 more pictures but the internet crapped out before I could upload them. Another day!

Miss you all,
Love Karen