Working on A Life

Experience is what its all about. And the stories. Post college most people go on to find a job, or apply to grad school. I decided just to live. This is my story as related to my family and friends. (This journal represents ONLY my views and none of Peace Corps or the US government.)

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Location: New England

We are working parents looking to make the most of whatever adventures we can find close to home.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Love Shack Madagascar

Greetings all,

Hello from Madagascar. I hope that this note finds all of you well and happy. Living life and enjoying it. Getting the most and the best out of things etc.

I’ve been here a bit over a week and am doing fine (minus all the stresses that accompany preparing for Graduate school from an Island nation in the Indian Ocean. I have a whole new respect for those few people that managed to do all this while they were actually serving in PC) now that I’ve recovered from the jet lag. There must be something about changing hemispheres that makes it worse than normal. It’s nice to be back in Africa, though, like most places Madagascar and its people defy easy classification into any category as large as that of a continent. I was beginning to enjoy the quieter hustle and bustle of D.C. but its no real substitute for how alive you can feel simply by being here. Antananarivo, Madagascar’s capital city located in the island’s central highlands (the altitude is almost 4000 meters), is a thriving metropolis in its own right at the same time more laid back and much less sterile (and I mean that in a good way) than its American and European counterparts. It is a city on foot as cars are much too expensive to own and operate for most of the population. Everywhere people are walking to and from various errands, stopping on street corners to chat and be social. Street vendors offer snacks and simple meals to passersby. Children play soccer with balls made of plastic bags and twine and adults play pickup games of varying seriousness in nearly any available open space. Chickens and Roosters dart out into traffic and back to get the smallest kernel of grain or elusive insect, narrowly avoiding a gruesome death themselves in the grill of a ubiquitous circa 1960s Citroen taxi (though apparently cockfighting is popular so perhaps death by auto would be preferred). Butchers hang their wares in their shop fronts, café’s set up benches made of old fruit crates and bits of brick on the sidewalk to lure in customers and impromptu “phone booths” where locals can borrow a cell phone for a small fee, spring up on every corner. Men and women carry their goods to and from fields, markets, and homes balanced impossibly on their heads (and some loads seem bigger than the porters!) with a sensuous grace that comes from a lifetime of practice and can only be found on this continent.

Because transportation is difficult, and often dangerous in overcrowded, under-maintained vans, neighborhoods as a unit of organization are much more important. Each has its own character, developed over time and refined by tradition. Most have markets where, if you can handle the hustle and bustle, you can find almost anything, prices negotiable. Some goods rotate days of the week. Souvenirs can be purchased in one market in Hectare 67 on Thursday and Friday while Wednesday you might only be able to find discount foam mattresses. Some neighborhoods have specialty markets where certain goods are sold in co-op fashion by groups of artisans and families. Down the street from the house is a garden market where decorative plants, planters and other basic garden materials are sold. (Because our neighborhood has fenced yards and gardens) I visited the “bamboo” market in order to get a better feel for things in a part of town more for locals than expats, not really knowing what to expect. Like anywhere I’ve been in the third world we were set upon soon after entering by a crowd of hopeful entrepreneurs attracted by our white skins and (ha ha) deep pockets. Most people were friendly though and as we moved through the market and looked at different pieces of the impressive bamboo furniture we left most of the group behind and dealt with craftsmen and women on a more individual basis. Prices were reasonable and any form of furniture available (upon request if necessary). I ended up negotiating for a bamboo lounge chair and handmade cushion. I found (after Morocco and even Ghana) that the whole process was quite laid back and pressure free. Perhaps I’m just getting good at it or perhaps I paid too much but in any event it was fun! Unfortunately, there is also a healthy underground trade in wildlife and wildlife products. I had the opportunity to buy some lesser Vassa Parrots (all black) who were so bored and miserable in their tiny little cages that they had stopped caring for their own feathers. Alas, I am confronted with the age old problem; do you rescue one bird from a horrible captivity or do you leave him there with the hope that by denying his captor business there will be no reason to trap more birds in the future? In the end I left the parrots and a piece of my heart behind. Sometimes, one can only hope for a better future. I know of some people that took the other road and have endangered tortoises roaming their gardens.

The neighborhood in which the house is situated, Ivandry, is a bit different in so much as its well-to-do. The houses are large and most have yards with 20 foot high walls or hedges, fences and full time security. Most, if not all residents have cars and so, paradoxically, the streets are quiet because they lack the more regular pedestrian traffic of the other neighborhoods. Instead of markets we have grocery stores and box retailers. This is both a bit sad and, having lived without these things for several years, much appreciated. Sometimes, I can’t help but feel a little guilty. It’s also a bit further away (I’m sure on purpose for embassy security reasons) from the city center than I would have liked. Otherwise, I can’t complain.

The house is awesome. It’s called Akany Fitiavana in Malagasy, or Villa of Love, or more colloquially perhaps, the Love Shack. Except that shack would imply something small, which is hardly the truth. As my father would put it its funky huge and roughly rectangular shaped. The floor plan is mostly open in the main part of the house with a beautiful antique parquet floor made of thousands of individual little wooden pieces. The dining room, living room and sitting room comprise one wing of the house and are all actually just one space, divided only by the furniture and a free standing fireplace that opens into both the sitting and dining rooms. The kitchen is in the back of the house and divides this main wing from the living quarters; a study, three bedrooms and two baths. The entire front side of the house (sitting room, living room, study, my bedroom and the master bedroom) is a series of French doors that we open during the day to listen to our personal collection of wonderful wild birds and catch the flower scented breezes off the garden. There is no need of lights during the day as the whole house is bathed in sunlight from dawn until dusk. A glassed in sun porch, where I read, write and spend much of my daylight hours at home, is accessible through the French doors in the living room. It provides a 180 degree view of the front yard and garden.
A side on view of the house from the front yard
A view of the house from the front yard


Of course, if the house is awesome than the garden is nothing short of spectacular. I fell in love with it almost immediately. A little overgrown and under-watered when we first moved in (the house has been vacant for some time while undergoing renovations) it was clearly a once loved project and with a little TLC from us and our dedicated and knowledgeable garner Dola it will be again. My mother and I have decided to start a book of all the seemingly countless plants found therein, which will be something of a challenge since we can only readily identify the smallest fraction, and many of those only generally (like palm). We’re trying to photograph each plant as it flowers in hopes of someday having something to compare them against. My current favorite is a tree with large, delicate purple flowers that, while simple, might be the prettiest I’ve ever seen. The garden in the front is a ring around a grassy rectangle that is perfect for lawn recreation. (though I’ve already managed to lose a wiffle ball over the wall into the radio Netherlands compound.) In the back, the garden consists of a series of large flower beds on both sides of the driveway and a second series of herb and vegetable plots in a ring around the outbuilding that holds the laundry room, pantry and the guards’ break/bathroom. All things considered it’s going to be a tough place to leave come August.

A view of the palm trees in the garden out front
Just a few of the many roses gone wild in the yard. Not african really but pretty!
A pretty yellow lilly-esque flower outside the window of my room
This little Madagascar Fody is the undisputed king of our yard
These little green lizards are everywhere!
There are at least two nesting pairs of these Myna birds on within sight of the yard. They are noisy but cool since they mimic all the other birds around.
We have a family of these stonechats that come eat little lizards off the plants by the sunporch
My favorite flowering tree produces these wonderful blossoms
My favorite avian visitors to the yard are a pair (at least) of Madagascar Bee-eaters
Their areial acrobatics are absolutely amazing.. capable of catching any flying insect midair.
Madagascar wagtails. We have a pair in the yard that dig for grubs when it rains and then beat them to death on the patio brickwork.
This tiny bird is a Madagascar White eye who visits whenever the trees have ripe berrys or seeds.
To occupy my spare time and in hopes of getting a chance to get out and see some of the countryside on someone else’s dime I have offered my services to Peace Corps Madagascar (who’s main office is basically next door to the house) and to USAID as an intern/will work for food and transportation volunteer. Peace Corps here is a totally different (and much superior) animal than PC Morocco, but since the details of the differences matter only to a few of you I will save them for more personal letters (so ask me if you really want to know). Suffice it to say that after several meetings at the PC office I almost cried at the injustice of it all. So far I’m doing a lot of database work, creating a central repository for all of the technical resources collected by the different sectors, but I’ve also had the opportunity to travel with the Environment Program director to a session for a group of new trainees at a local orphanage and womens’ shelter. Despite all of PC Morocco’s problems I find that I miss the lifestyle sometimes and it was very nice to be back again amongst a group of volunteers happily discussing the size of various parasites they have or how much they splurged on a cheeseburger the last trip to town. Not to mention that the orphanage, run by a group from England, is a wonderful example of how going green is to everyone’s benefit, even orphans and battered women in the third world. They have self-composting toilets, make their own charcoal briquettes, recycle everything, including making fresh new paper out of any old scraps they collect, raise their own fruit etc. The whole compound is almost self-sustaining since they sell their eco-friendly products. I was so impressed that I bought some recycled paper greeting cards… In truth, I would probably have bought them anyway since the designs are cute, but I’m happy to support a good cause and supply my letter writing habit at the same time. The kids were adorable and I had a great time, along with the trainees, playing with them after all the formal activities were finished.
One of the trainees makes a new friend for life
These girls may not have much experiance with cameras but clearly they get the idea
Since I was showing them the pictures as I was taking them they thought it might be funny to make faces. I didn't discourage them.
Not sure which girl won the contest. Cast your vote!

As exciting as all of this has been and continues to be I have been on one other excursion you might find interesting; that, in fact, you may have been waiting for. This past Sunday marked our first out-of-town family excursion. Actually, we started out driving through town to try and figure out the maze of one way streets and rotaries (roundabouts, traffic circles, whatever they may be to you) on the route to the embassy. Then we went out past the bamboo market and through the suburbs of the city into the countryside.

Most of the area surrounding the city is taken up by rice fields. Acres and acres of flooded fields and rice plants, all laboriously planted by hand one at a time. Great egrets and Madagascar Kingfishers ply the waters while Kites and Marsh Harriers effortlessly circle above searching for their morning meal. Between the birdlife and the guys with the fishing poles I concluded that there must be fish as well as rice in the fields. Rising up here and there from between the stalks are mounds of decaying brick in no discernable pattern which we later deduced to be tombs. When you worship your ancestors apparently there is no problem with burying them amongst your major food crop. The road cuts through some rolling hills and a few small villages over the next 20 kilometers and eventually, seemingly in the middle of nowhere (in fact it pretty much IS in the middle of nowhere) you come to a 4 hectare botanical garden and nature preserve called (perhaps not creatively, but effectively) Lemur Park. Its setting, bounded on one side by a rushing brown river (erosion is a problem during the wet season) that acts as a natural fence for hydrophobic non-swimming lemurs and on the other by an actual fence, which our guide informed us is not so impenetrable a barrier for the acrobatic residents. The countryside is a beautiful mix of natural geologic sculpting and agricultural landscaping with a few human dwellings thrown into the mix to provide a sense of scale. The park, run by French and Japanese non-profits is home to more than 50 lemurs representing 9 species, from the famous ring-tail to dancing lemurs to the tiny nocturnal grey and brown mouse lemurs. I am happy to report that the lemurs are every bit as cute as you might imagine. They are not especially shy even in the wild (much to their regret sometimes I’m sure) and in the park with its frequent walking tours and all kinds of people they clearly realize that they have nothing to fear. We arrived after the morning feeding (they have to feed them each day in order to keep them for escaping over the fence and “expanding their territory”) right about time for an early afternoon nap up in the treetops. Our guide coaxed a ring-tail down out of the trees with a promise of food and it walked right across my feet to reach some leaves. The “dancing” lemurs move across the ground in giant aerobic looking hops with their arms fully extended above their heads. Despite the fact that this was a more or less captive environment it was still terribly exciting and quite well done. The park is proud to report that the Lemur families within its walls are comfortable enough that they have begun to breed naturally. It was a great introduction to the flora and fauna of this island nation. We also saw several species of tortoises, some of which may live for more than 160 years and many species of chameleons in just about every conceivable camouflage color pattern. There was also a plethora of bird life including giant Hammerkop nests and a Fody nest complete with hungry babies. I was quite satisfied with my visit (with the possible exception of the service at the café) and would definitely return. It would be better if I had some company ;-)

A small community across the river from the park.
This baby fan palm is the national plant of Madagascar and my favorite species of palm.
Our first lemur encouter of the day was this sleepy brown leumr
Who only let my flash keep him awake for two photos...
...before dozing back off.

Madagascar is famous for its wide variety of lizards. We must have seen a dozen species just in this small park. Notice how he's watching me even while moving away
I love the clouds here. They are so sharply defined and vivdly white and clear
Something about this arrangement appealed to me.
Another chameleon another color pattern. No two were alike on the day.
I think this is the only chameleon that didn't watch me the whole time
This white or Dancing lemur was one of many we saw. There are two families that live on the preserve
This is an endangered mongosee lemur coming to see if we have anything to eat
Here is a dancing lemur dancing. They were so acrobatic and quick that taking their picture was extreemly difficult despite close proximity.
A curious ring-tail coming to investigate.
He eventually padded up to me and used my feet as a step stool to reach some leaves he was interested in.
One of several cool tortoises found in Madagascar and in danger of extinction through the illegal trade in wildlife.
This black-faced lemur was probably the most shy of the species we saw.

Well, that will about wrap things up I suppose. Not bad for the first week if I do say so myself. I haven’t managed to experience everything yet, but it is my sincere hope that over the course of the next five months I’ll be able to make the very most of this opportunity. I hope that you’ll all come along for the ride, vicariously at least, though the more the merrier in person! The visit would be well worth your while!

In the meantime,
Stay well,
Love and Luck in Everything
-Andy

2 Comments:

Blogger Lc said...

Great pictures.Nice Blog.
Hello from Faial Island - Azores.

Come and meet our beautiful island in the middle of the Atlantic...

http://rotadashortencias.blogspot.com/

Leave me a comment, to keep in touch.

2:43 AM  
Blogger Mary said...

I vote for the girl with the water bottle because she was so excited to make funny faces for you that she did not put down her bottle first :)

12:34 AM  

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