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