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

The Lost Obroni Speaks

Note: This letter was never sent out to the group but I hope you all find and enjoy it here!
Greetings one and all!

As always, I hope that this note finds you well and in good spirits. Enjoying the day wherever you are and generally being happy! It has been months since last I’ve written and in the meantime I’ve hopped across countries and continents and states, celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas with family, explored the U.S. capitol city with friends, passed out valentines to strangers, gotten accepted to graduate schools, and crossed the equator. Having just typed that all out I realize that catching up in one letter will be next to impossible but I’ll do my best, as always, at picking up where I left off.

As I write I’m sitting on the sun drenched porch of our newest family home in Antananarivo, Madagascar, listening to the birds sing and the breeze whistle its way through our beautiful garden. I’ve been here a week now and I have much to say about this country and my experience already but I can’t in good conscience write about new adventures without first completing the record of the old. In any event I have some wonderful pictures of my travels in West Africa that I’ve been promising you all since October and it’s about time that I delivered on that promise.

When last I wrote I was sitting in an overheated and dilapidated internet café in the capital of Burkina Faso getting ready to depart for Banfora, a town in the southwest of the country. We had read in the guide book and heard from a few people that Banfora was a great place to visit with a very laid back atmosphere. Also, there were a number of nature excursions within biking/mopeding distance of the town and since at most of our other stops had little or no natural component or the nature was too hard to reach in public transportation considering the state of our language skills we decided that we couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Besides, we had missed out on hippos in Ghana and figured we had a better chance of seeing them in a lake rather than a river.

The bus ride from Bobo to Banfora was probably the first truly uneventful ride (aside from the fact that the bus was crammed to the gills and we were unable to sit together) we had yet had on the trip. Only about an hour long we arrived right on schedule, so much as we had one, and were immediately assaulted by a horde of hopeful guides and porters. So much for laid back. After a few increasingly agitated exchanges we managed to get the guide book out and attempt to find our hotel on our own. Normally this would have been easy in a town with two streets but, already frustrated it took us a couple tries. Once located, the hotel operator turned out to be a wonderfully nice man and he and I made friends. A fact that would shortly become critically important, as you’ll see. The room left a bit to be desired. The temperature was infernally hot and since we were unable to afford air conditioning at most places we were forced to suffer by with only a rusty, single speed(slow) ceiling fan, secured to the ceiling only by its electrical wiring.

The town, after escaping the crowd at the bus terminal, actually was charming in its own way. Small and compact you could walk everywhere. There were a couple of low budget hotels and some restaurants (we ate at a McDonald restaurant that I’m quite sure was not sanctioned by the franchise. Locally owned it served heaping portions of beef in every conceivable variation, dirt cheap since cows are one of the national industries, and the garlic potatoes were amazing. It definitely qualified as one of the best meals I’ve had in Africa that wasn’t strictly speaking African. Simple and yet delicious.) catering to a tourist crowd that favored places that were off the beaten track. We walked around the market and tried to stay out of the heat as much as possible. The first day we rented a couple of barely functional bikes from the hotel and rode a few kilometers out into the bush to the village of Tengrela. The village was beautiful and synced with my mental image of what an African Village should be. Wild lovebirds flitted about the tall trees. The lake itself was lovely and huge (dashing our hopes of easy hippos) part covered with water lilies (with saw tooth edges… no such thing as an easy meal here for anyone). We hired a boat (witch first had to be bailed out… no such thing as a watertight boat either) and were paddled out into the middle and back and a half hearted attempt to find some hippos. No such luck. It was still more than worth the trip out.
The basic plank boats I went hunting for hippos in. Tangrela Lake in the background was quite beautiful
A photo of me on the hippo hunt at the lake.

The next morning we had arranged to rent a moped (I had received instruction on how to drive it from my friend at the hotel) in order to get to the sacrificial pool and natural waterfall at Kartigula about 15 kilometers from the main town. Unfortunately our plans changed. Carly hadn’t been feeling well for a few days and overnight she came down with the telltale fever of Malaria… at least we finally guessed that it might be malaria since it’s notoriously hard to tell sometimes. First thing in the morning we located a lab that would do the simple blood test and we waited around for it to be completed. It came back positive and suddenly a trip to the hospital was in the works. My friend at the hotel guided us there and showed us where to wait and I put my French to the test to translate for the doctor and pick up the prescription from the pharmacy. I was surprised when the treatment turned out to be only 3 doses of medication to be taken over three days. We hoped for the best.

By the time we got all that sorted out it was past lunchtime. We voted to try and make the moped trip to the falls anyway, malaria and all. So we loaded up and attempted to follow the directions we had received the day before. It was supposed to be very easy and yet somehow we got mixed up and ended up covering miles and miles of back trails through the sugarcane fields, getting back on track only after about 5 sets of directions from locals. We were within spitting distance when the moped simultaneously broke down and ran out of gas. Thankfully, some men agreed to take it to the local village mechanic and have it fixed while we toured the falls (for only a small additional fee of course) and we were able to enjoy the falls and make it home (the right way this time) all in one piece.
A view of the Falls and the sacrificial pool at thier base. Most natural wonders became religous sites for the first inhabitants of the region
A view of the falls from the top.

With Carly on the road to recovery and our nature options exhausted we returned to Bobo to attempt to figure out transportation to Benin. As per our usual track record this proved to be not nearly as easy as we had hoped. With no direct bus available we were forced to take a long overnight ride back through Ghana and change over in Accra for a bus that went east towards Cotunu, Benin’s commercial capital. This actually worked out pretty well and allowed us to do an overnight stop over in a part of Ghana we would otherwise have missed out on in the town of Keta on the south eastern coast near the border with Togo. After a relaxing night to recover from the long bus ride we set off for Lome, the capital of Togo and from there to Ouidah, our first stop over in Benin.

Glossing over the transportation issues and the most bureaucratic border guards I have yet encountered Ouidah was awesome. We went there because it was supposed to be a center for Voodoo, which I am very interested in learning more about, and because it was one of the main depots for the sale and shipment of slaves (which is how voodoo made it to the new world in the first place.) The town is packed with history which is all displayed in poor museums filled with unenthusiastic guides speaking rapid-fire French. And yet the gravity of the place still manages to get to you. (And to be fair there was one museum on African women that was spectacular) The best parts of the town can be seen alone and on foot. There are fetishes on many corners and the road from the town to the beach where the slaves would have departed is lined with monuments and protective charms. On the beach itself is a symbolic monument called the Door of No Return etched with bas relief’s of departing slaves bound in chains.

This was an interesting yet typical meal. Ingredients: Tomato sauce, peanut butter, rice, noodles, hardbolied egg.
My favorite fetish in Ouidah. No idea what it means.
Another view of this intricate fetish.
A view of the Door of No Return looking out towards the ocean.
A closer look at the bas relief carvings on the ocean side (looking towards land)
One of the protective fetishes on the door of no return platform
I'm not a beach person but I could get used to scenes like this. Especially like the sack cloth sailboat in the background

From Ouidah we moved on to Porto Novo, the capital of Benin. It’s actually a very laid back feeling city because most of the hustle and bustle that is usually associated with a capital actually takes place in Cotunu. We stayed in another rundown hotel by the lake because we had heard that you could arrange boat tours from there to a village on stilts in the middle of the lake. Apparently, the slave hunting and blood thirsty kings of the Dahomey Empire had received word from their Voodoo priests that if any of their soldiers crossed a body of water the empire would collapse. They took this news rather seriously and forbade their soldiers the use of boats. The people whom they were hunting capitalized on this and built a village on a small island in the middle of a lake. All was well until the next wet season when the island ceased to exist. Not a people to give up easily they simply jacked up their houses and started carving more boats. Several hundred years later the village is a sprawling metropolis of more than 4000 people all completely inundated for much of the year. They have completely adapted to this environment, with fishing as a livelihood and handmade boats of all shapes and sizes. When we visited on a Sunday we saw many people poling their way to church. (Benin is a shining example of multi-faith tolerance. The floating village and every other city we visited had Christain churches, mosques and voodoo temples and for the most part they get along just fine.) Even the cows had floating pastures.

The stilt village on the lake outside Porto Novo. Called Aguegue
Another view of stilt village
A third stilt village view.
Floating cow pasture. The grass is replensihed each day by hand.
Our noble and tireless boatman... but unlike our other boatrides we had a motor for part of this one.
Last view of the stilt village.
Everyone headed to the church "parking lot"

Porto Novo also turned out to be a good place to take in some information about Voodoo. We hired our boat guides to take us around the city and introduce us to a Voodoo priest. It was an interesting experience though I’m still not sure what really goes on. The priest had a small living compound set up within his house where his personal spirit gods lived and communicated with him. We chit chatted awkwardly for a bit (how does one make small talk with a Voodoo priest and his resident ghosts?) and look at several other temples around the city.

The voodoo priest we met with in Porto Novo. He was a pretty intimidating figure.
Houses for the voodoo priests private spirits. They speak with him and are his connection with the spirit world.

Our last stop in Benin before heading back to Togo was the town of Abomey, formerly the seat of the Dahomey slaving empire. Each successive king swore that he would leave the empire bigger and stronger than he found it no matter the cost and each one built a bigger and better palace than his predecessor. Abomey is full of their ruins. We took a tour of one that had been restored by the government and were appalled at the barbarity of the human race once again. These were men that would quite literally kill you as soon as look at you and who made their livings selling their own countrymen into slavery. They decorated their palaces with murals and tapestries of new and interesting way to kill people. You would laugh at some of them if you didn’t know that they really happened to someone. Instead you want to cry. It’s certainly humbling and it’s almost hard to let yourself think about it too much.

We acquired, with our usual degree of difficulty, this time due to a long term taxi operators strike, transportation back over the Togolese border and on to the capital at Lome. I didn’t like Lome for a lot of reasons. It was a dirty congested city and it was difficult to get from place to place. It felt unsafe where most of the other places we had been in were different but still comfortable. Still, we managed to get out and see the Fetishers market where they make fetishes and sell ingredients. It’s become something of a tourist trap now but there is still an amazing collection of everything you could think to put in a witches brew. Dead birds, lizards, skulls, monkeys, snakes, organs, whole heads and tails of things, crocodile skulls and bits of things I didn’t even want to think about. There were hundreds upon hundreds of different things of all different species. We asked if they still collected specimens to sell or if they were only selling older models. Unfortunately they say they still collect regularly, though I hope they were just telling us that because that’s what they thought we wanted to hear. Everything was completely desiccated and older looking at least. I got roped into getting a travelers fetish from one of the venders but I must admit I’ve had pretty good luck since I “turned it on.”

Alas, our final experience of this phase of the trip turned out to be a negative one. We were robbed by a group of brigands on the main road by the beach directly outside the presidential residence as we were walking back to our hotel from dinner. We knew better than to be walking in the dark but misjudged the distance. The only good news was that they got away with nothing that would prove valuable to them. Nevertheless we were glad to escape Togo and return to Accra and our wonderful host family.
Ok.. there was ONE good thing about Togo. At least the Flag beer came in sizes bigger than 20cl!

The rest of the trip was a relaxed immersion into the culture of Ghana. Drinking palm wine in local cafes and eating local dishes at home and at our neighborhood restaurant, where we quickly became regulars. We screen printed more tee-shirts and hung our with the host fam, went to church and generally thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. When the time came to head back to the US it was the usual mixture of sadness and promises to keep in touch and the excitement of getting back home again.
Enjoying Palm wine with John and Prince. Made from tapping the sap of a plam tree. Its pretty good and gets more alcoholic the longer you take to drink it.
Enjoying a coconut from the tree out front.
Did I mention that religion was a big deal here?

Me and my new best friend and all around great guy, Kobby.

I headed down to DC where I would meet up with my family and friends for Thanksgiving and followed that up with a wonderful Christmas and New Years in Arkansas with my grandmother. Post holidays it was back to Boston for some time with friends and then again to DC where I took up temporary residence with my parents and explored all that the wonderful city has to offer.

Which… with the understanding that much was glossed over, left out or forgotten… gets us pretty much up to date with the sun porch and the bird songs. Of course, I’ll write soon with more details on life in the moment.
In the meantime, I would love to hear from all of you! Take care of yourselves out there. Do something exciting… remember to smile… The world is a magical place.
Until next time,
Stay well
Love and Luck in Everything
-Andy
The hope and future of Africa... and one mischevieous little boy :-)

Bonjour de l'Afrique Ouest!

Note: This letter was originally sent 16th October 2007

Hey All,
I hope this note finds you well. I'm sorry in advance that it lacks a bit in the insight department and is more a report of facts of life for the last few weeks. I find that I'm very short on time at the moment. :-) Further insights will be dispensed at a future date when I get around to posting this on my Journal site with its photos!

At the moment I'm in an Internet cafe in the second largest city in Burkina Faso, called Bobo-Diasoluo (I have no idea how to properly spell it but everyone just calls it "Bobo" anyway) My French skills are getting a workout and I'm getting by but I'm definitely rusty. My accent stinks. :-) The border crossing from Ghana yesterday was smooth and hassle free. I wish I could say the same about the transportation (more on this to come) We hired a local to carry our bags and point us in the right direction. He helped us out and found us a seat in the "bus" (using the term extremely loosely) to the city. I only hope things go as well for the next few crossings in the coming weeks.

Thankfully the people are quite nice and forgive me for my cultural faux-pas and are appropriately grateful for my attempts at language. This morning we toured the old city here and checked out a mosque made in the Sahel style architecture. Think a giant mud castle with 2 conical towers and logs sticking out of it like porcupine quills every few feet. I'll get out a picture whenever I can. We've also done some shopping and in the process learned a lot about a bunch of different tribal artifacts from all of the tribes that have converged (and continue to converge) here over the last few millennia. It’s interesting and from time to time it can be a bit humbling. I find all of their various religious beliefs to be quite fascinating. I'm strange like that I guess. Needless to say, we made a few purchases and had to spend an hour at the post office trying to figure out if it was worthwhile sending them and not having to carry them on the next few legs of the trip. Someday I hope to be rich and not have to worry about things like the cost of mail. I don't need to be fabulously wealthy or anything... just have enough to do the things I want to do and make everyone else happy at the same time. :-) Doesn't seem like too much to ask does it.
Typical Traditional Mosque arcitecture in the Sahel. Western Burkina Faso, Mali etc.

Before we were here we did the whirlwind tour of northern Ghana. It’s been flooded out there for a while but now the dry season has settled in with a vengeance and the waters are starting to recede at more than a meter a day. Our first major stop was at Mole (pronounced Mole-ay) Ghana's premiere national park. We did a walking safari with the required but unfortunately intrusive armed ranger and saw many interesting animals including warthogs, baboons, green monkeys (and perhaps a few other species), three kinds of antelope/gazelles numerous birds, and (drum roll please) elephants! The birds are always my favorite since they are so various and colorful, we've seen 80 species in Ghana so far, though I have to add that anyone who doesn't find elephants to be impressive might have something wrong with them. If we had had a car and were willing to take a guide out at night then we might have seen some lions, leopards and some other big mammals. I can't forget the monitor lizard... probably the most humorous of our sightings running away from us at top speed on his dumpy little legs.

One of the many baboons we saw at Mole. They were definately not afraid of people!.
In fact one of the best places to find them was the park workers trash heap!.
Pumba! The warthogs were in the hotel compound when I woke up in the morning
It was truely awesome to see elephants in the wild. They are definately impressive beings.
Mole NP waterhole at Sunset
Mole NP waterhole at Sunset, another view
An African version of patio lighting


From there we headed to Weichu, a hippo sanctuary in a little tiny town in the middle of nowhere. In hindsight, this might have been a mistake. The sanctuary itself was extremely interesting, comprised of a stretch of the Black Volta River that forms the border between Ghana and Burkina and the surrounding countryside. It’s completely a community effort and in that respect it’s truly an amazing example of a community conservation initiative that works. The problem is getting in and out. The only public transportation to and from is in the form of a small, dilapidated covered pickup truck with wooden benches for passengers in the bed. Into this conveyance cram 18 or so poor souls (including yours truly) for a bumpy 50 kilometer ride over a jolting dirt track. At one point everyone had to climb out and wade across a river before re-boarding on the other side. We passed a few similar vehicles that had broken down on the way and at each one more people climbed into or onto the roof of our truck. We almost made it all the way ourselves but about 5 kilometers shy of the goal then the rear axle fell off the car and we slid to a sudden and rather jarring stop. Carly got a few bruises, I escaped injury altogether but the school boys who had been riding on top got thrown 50 or so feet down the road and got the worst of it. Anyway... we made it eventually and not too much the worse for wear. Didn't see any hippos but got to do a neat river safari in a local canoe and take some tours or Lobi (the local tribe) living compounds. I loved these because of their "living history" feel but was, at the same time, disappointed that there are people in the world who are still living in such conditions.
The name of this truck (and its condition) probably should have given us a clue. Still, we wrode in it anyway, at least untill the rear axel fell off.
View of a Lobi family compound from the observation deck at the Hippo Sancuary lodge.
View of the Hippo sanctuary observation deck from one of the Lobi compounds I visited
A blind Lobi Grandmother with traditional lip piercing consented to have her picture taken
Under African Skies


So far, the only bumps (literally) in the trip have been the transportation. The last few days have given us severe headaches in that department. We got stranded in the hippo town for a few extra days thanks to the fact that the cars to and from the place kept breaking down. Also, it was a Muslim holiday and a predominantly Muslim village so it was a bit hard to find people to help us work things out. The locals kept directing us to this Canadian aid worker who was there and she condescended to us about a number of things that we already knew, having been aid workers ourselves in Morocco for a few years, and not actually solving any of our problems. We got out in the end only to have the bus to Burkina that we were going to take turn out not to exist. We got to the border anyway and then the car from the border to this city broke down and I had my first real conversation in French arguing with the driver to get enough of my money back to pay for the new bus we had to flag down from the side of the road (a failure I might add). I think from here on out though we are sticking to more major routes and so things SHOULD be better... it remains to be seen if they are.

Other than that things are fantastic... I really love the feel of the place and the people (when they're not trying to get me to buy postcards anyway) and I hope that things continue to be as good. In the next few days I'm planning on moving to another town near here and then taking some bike excursions to another hippo lake (where hopefully they are a more captive audience than on the river) and some waterfalls. Then to the capital of Burkina before the long bus ride down through Togo. Hopefully I'll be able to keep you posted on the way.

Until then,
Stay well,
Much love and luck to everyone!
-Andy

The Spirit of Africa

Note: This e-mail letter was originally delivered on or about September 29th, 2007


Hello all,
Greetings from Ghana. Ete sen, how are you? I hope that this note finds you all in great health and good spirits and, for those of you up north that the weather has not yet gotten too cold. If so… you could send some our way… A bit of chilled air would be more than welcome.


Cold is definitely not the problem here. The weather has been too hot to handle for the last two weeks, though thankfully for the first week it was overcast and a good, mid-level introduction to the level of humidity that we could expect in the future. In all honesty, it hasn't been unbearable, and has actually been quite accommodating given the proximity to the equator. Every day feels like rain but the storms seldom actually come through. The one storm we've had though was a doozy and I definitely got caught out in it. Most of my wardrobe turned semi-transparent which made me all the more noticeable… not that I need help with that given my white skin and red hair. I tend to stand out in a crowd here.


That being said, I've never felt uncomfortable with it in the same way that I would in Morocco. It's almost as if the people here have better, more important things to worry about than how strange I am. Still, I sometimes wonder just how strange that is. I can't see myself so I can't really answer my own question but the reactions of young children who still turn and point when their better mannered parents restrain themselves give me some idea. (In Morocco the parents would be the ones pointing… The kids would be laughing… and ALL would proceed to speak down to me as if I was an idiot… just to give you some idea of what it was like being different THERE and the differences here.) Often, I get called Obroni, "whiteman" in Twi (pronounced tCHwee), the Ashanti dialect most common in the capital, instead of my name. For someone used to getting called "red" or “carrot top” for other, equally obvious reasons I can understand that. If I make the effort to introduce myself or use the little Twi I've figured out so far the vast majority are more than happy to adjust and treat me as a full equal.


So… AFRICA… I must admit besides stories and national geographic specials I hadn't had much idea of what to expect. The third world nature of the place I can understand having seen, felt and tasted what it’s like in Morocco but beyond the poverty and the problems shared by developing countries everywhere It's amazing here. Even far from the bush of rural Ghana you can feel the spirit of the country and the continent in every action, in the way people dress, in every conversation and every market transaction, every smile, joke and every prayer. These people are trying to take what they've been given and run with it. Trying, sometimes misguidedly, sometimes inefficiently, sometimes in new and amazing ways, to move forward and improve their own lot, the lot of their families, friends, neighbors and countrymen. After two days here I could see what was missing in Morocco… that drive to improve, to fix what's broken. To complain and then move beyond the complaint. It's unbelievably refreshing (and yet at the same time almost unbearably sad) to realize that many of the problems I had accomplishing work in Morocco were not in myself, or the methods I was attempting, but in the people themselves. It's hard not to love the people here too much. It was hard to even know the people there.


Much of my time so far has been spent in and around the capitol city of Accra. We've been reconnecting with some of Carly's old contacts here and staying in an apartment next to her old host family. It belongs to the landlord's daughter who's off at boarding school currently and was therefore vacant. We met the landlady (one of several "Aunties" I've acquired—All older women are called Auntie by all younger people as a respectful method of address) in the whirlwind of activity the night we arrived and have since been warmly welcomed (as a quiz of our Twi knowledge as much as for any other reason) to the building every time we return home from an outing. Carly's old host sister (Cynthia) and host mom (Auntie #2) are our main contacts next door and her host sister's young children (Kobby who is almost 3 and Duke who is almost 1) are a constant source of both amusement and frustration. I'm pressed into service as a babysitter when the women are in the kitchen or are otherwise occupied and I've been impressed by their attention and knowledge.

A view of a typical Ghanaian shop from the balcony in front of our appartment
You can get almost anything done at these little shops on the roadside. This one happens to be a TV repair shop

A generation gap. Kobby and his Grandfather who is in Traditional dress.


Education and religion are very important here and both are almost universally attended. Kobby is already in school five days a week and knows the full alphabet (when he can be coaxed to sit still long enough to recite it) before his third birthday. We're trying to convince his mom that she shouldn't completely neglect his education in Twi in favor of English while he is young and completely capable of simultaneously learning both. Education is based on the British system (I'm not completely sure what that means) and there are many levels… Pre-school, Prep school, Primary school, junior secondary school, secondary school and university. The schools are half funded by the state and half funded by tuition paid by the parents. As a result they get some say in where their children go and each afternoon, kids of all sizes and dressed in an amazing array of brightly colored school uniforms make their way in different directions across the city. When it comes to secondary school and college prep they will even travel across the country to attend good schools, most of which are boarding school "Academies." I also visited the University of Ghana at Legon. The campus is sprawling and quite beautiful and has much the same atmosphere as university campuses back home… half hushed study and half un-restrained foolishness that comes with learning just to live. Faculty and students from all over the world share classrooms and knowledge as readily and as successfully as anywhere in the first world.


As far as churches go… there is one or more on every street corner and every denomination imaginable is represented. On one end of our street there is a Mosque ringing out an all too familiar call to prayer at all hours (Happy Ramadan everyone!) and at the other end there is a Hindu temple. Methodists, Catholics, Presbyterians, Mormons, and a hundred other variations on the Christian theme all are represented in triplicate and are all packed every Sunday and most other evenings. (Sometimes too often in the case of the church that meets in the basement of our apartment building.) The missionaries that came with and before the colonial era did their job well here and their converts have become missionaries to their own people and have adapted their own culture and practices to mesh with their Christian faith. Most churches are very active in their support of schools and hospitals as well as branch churches around the country. When they meet a traditional practice that might have been a barrier they integrate it instead of demolishing it. Everywhere, you see Ashanti symbols which adapted their religious meanings to better fit (or not conflict) with Christian principles, and the practice of religion here differs enough from the more sedate versions of the same in the U.S. and Europe that it could qualify as aerobic exercise. In most ways all this faith is a great thing. It's real and heartfelt. But like religion everywhere it sometimes leads to turf-waresque problems and other issues that institutionalizing faith has had since the dawn of time.


I've been out a few times with Carly's host brother John. He's the same age as me and went to a high school that specialized in Art. His talent is quite amazing but is underused because there isn't much room for that kind of thing in his world. Talking with him makes me sad because he is torn between wanting to just be young and the responsibilities of life. As the last born in his family he has responsibilities to the family members born before him and so he is pursuing visas to work abroad in many and not always completely legitimate ways. This makes me cringe but I can't deny the difficult road ahead of him. I'm sure that he would do things the right way if he could see any light at the end of that tunnel. Carly and I are trying to help him get set up designing and screen printing various "I love Ghana" shirts for the baby tourism industry (and for the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations soccer tournament in 2008) in hopes that will keep his artistic side entertained and help him buy paints for the canvases that have no current market but better express his soul.

Our Friend (Carly's Host Brother) John using his artisic ability to design and print tee-shirts
Carly and John modeling some of the nights finished product. There were three designs in total.


In the few days off that he's had to spend with us we've spent some time in the city, made traditional Ghanaian food and gone to the beach, a beautiful tropical place with white sand and palm trees. A place where fishermen fix their nets in the shade of their enormous beached dugout canoes and wait for the tide to come in so they can float out for another shift. Where young boys wade in up to their waists and float long lines out on the riptide in hopes of snaring a squid or other big fish to supplement their diet or income. Even though I don't often consider myself a beach person I will admit that I had fun there, like one of those places you hear about in stories. We pretty much had the place to ourselves but our white skin did attract some local kids who I taught to make sandcastles using an old bottle I cut in half with my pocket knife to make a bucket. I also swam for a bit. The body surfing was great but the riptide was fierce and it took a lot of energy even to stay in one place.

Making plantain paste in a giant mortar and pestle as the first step in making Fufu. A traditional meal.

A bit further in the process. Definately takes quite a lot of work and more coordination than you would think. I tried it later.

This is a really big boat all carved (as far as I can tell) out of one tree. We took shelter in the shade it offered since there wasn't much otherwise.
Different view of the boat and its cool paint job. Every boat has its own unique color scheme.
A curious little girl on the beach selling rolls. I bought a few in exchange for this photo.


The city of Accra is a crazy place packed to the gills with people and buildings and cars… Way, way too many cars. Having been built for a different age when so many cars weren't even really a consideration it still has traffic circles (roundabouts, rotaries whatever you want to call them)instead of overpasses and only about half the traffic lights work at any given time. Traffic is ALWAYS backed up and emissions standards are much lower than the developed world. The result is that most of the time you try to get from point A to point B you end up feeling like you're in the world's biggest parking garage and every car is running. On the upside, all the parked cars have created a niche market for selling just about everything. At all the intersections ladies with baskets, bowls and boxes perched unbelievably on their heads in perfect and graceful balance will sell you water, plantain chips, apples, meat pies, skewers of mystery meat, bread, rolls, shrimp, fish, things you might need to make dinner, candy, gum etc. while the men sell just about everything else, walking between cars offering phone cards, newspapers, shirts, shoes, auto decals, matches, knives, machetes, umbrellas, chocolate, window washing, windshield wipers (installed while you wait) and many others. People will also get on the buses (really just 15 passenger vans that ply various routes around the city) to sell miracle remedies or preach the word of God (often related). It takes hours to get anywhere but the spectacle of this impromptu market often makes the wait worthwhile.

A sample of traffic in Accra. This is one of the main roads and none of these cars are moving. If you look closely you can see some street vendors.


Still, it's nice to get out of the city. So far we've been on a trip to a botanical garden that was a remnant of the British African ideal but still maintained enough of its African character that its trees and birds were quite amazing. We just got back from a longer expedition to the city of Cape Coast where we experienced one of the many slave forts in this part of Africa. A monument to a darker time, its both a sad testament to humankinds ability to behave with an unbelievable level of evil intent and also a beacon of hope for the future as well as a place for many to return to their roots and discover their past.

I love these huge trees! The black mass behind my head is an ant colony working its way up the tree. They bite!
This is a Ficus. yes.. A ficus. It started as a vine and over the years completely surrounded and strangled its host tree, which then rotted out from the inside leaving only the tree size hollow ficus behind. This is a view as the dying tree would have seen it.
Self explanitory. The beach at Cape Coast
Carly at Cape Coast Castle Courtyard (how's that for alliteration) View of the colonial buildings and slave auction building in the back.
Slave dungeons at Cape Coast Castle. More than a thousand would be down here in pitch darkness at any given time.
The fishing shantytown at Cape Coast. Each family has thier own set of "colors"
A veiw from the ramparts of Cape Coast Castle down the coast towards the next fort in the Chain. (Elmira)

A nearby national park shelters one of West Africa's remaining rainforests and we spent an entrancing night there being lulled to sleep and kept awake by the incredible diversity that threatens to overwhelm such puny visitors as I am. After some haggling and negotiation that shouldn't have happened… corruption can still be a problem even here… we arranged a guide for the early morning so we could watch for birds and experience the forest and so we enjoyed the rainforest canopy walk, 30 meters above the jungle floor, just as the sun was rising. Despite a bit of human taint, the experience was awe inspiring. I personally find the touch of God much more readily here, amongst the call of exotic birds, the hush of trees 200 or more feet tall, the chattering troops of monkeys, the soft breath of the wind and the smell of decay and regeneration than I do in any amount of fire and brimstone preaching. Yet still human kind is wantonly destroying almost all such places. Even here logging, and poaching are still a problem (often because local people don't have any other choice) and species are disappearing. We saw many beautiful birds, monkeys, and all types of flora. I will remember that place for a long time. We shared the hotel we stayed at afterwards with many crocodiles and more than 20 additional species of birds. All in all I think I've seen more bird species here than I have in my whole life up to this point.
Home away from home in the middle of the rainforest... ok.. well maybe one edge of the rainforest.
Taking in the canopy walkway at sunrise. Birds and monkeys abound. The walkway is built of extention ladders and plywood and is 40 meters up the trees. Thats only about halfway up. These are some tall trees.
Views of the jungle at sunrise.
Views of the jungle at sunrise.
Views of the jungle at sunrise.
This was probably closer than I really wanted to be... but the birds were getting closer so I figured this was safe right?

Anyway… Quite enough for now I've probably got half of you asleep J I need to be asleep soon myself so I'll call it quits though I could go on and on. If you have any questions I'll be happy to answer them. Not to long for now I'll be departing on my month long excursion of Burkina Faso, Togo and Benin and be trying out my rusty French on people who actually speak it. Wish me luck. In the meantime, I'm trying to get organized for grad school and study for the GRE amidst all the other craziness. Wish me luck for that too.


Much love and luck to everyone…
Hope to hear from you soon
Until then…Stay well
-Andy