Salama from Sambava!

Now I have the very difficult task of trying to put into eloquent words all of the experiences that I've had over the last month. I've outlined how I'm going to try to get everything in here countless times, but I'm sure that I will miss some things. Let me first start out by introducing our team.

Our team (l'equipe) comprises a total of seven people, plus Erik who we don't see very often because he coordinates things in Sambava most of the time; he's a very busy man with projects all over the SAVA region. The team has two trackers, two guides, a cook, and then Emily and I who pretty much run the show up at Camp 2. It is frightening to think that I am someones boss. Anyway, I'll start with Nestor who we affectionately call "the spirit of the mountain." He's the oldest of the group, and has been working as a silky tracker since at least 1998. He speaks absolutely no English, except for the odd phrase like "come here." Most of the time he is miming to us, trying in to get us to understand what he is saying. Nestor also speaks very little French, but for some reason I seem to understand what he's trying to communicate to me most of the time. Then there is Guy, a very experienced guide, who speaks the most English out of all of them. He's probably one of the most caring individuals I have ever met. I would trust him with my life, and often do (but more on that later).  He is also one of the best whistlers I have ever met and frequently calls back to whatever bird may be singing overhead. In fact, the first week we were up in Marojejy he caught a bird. He was whistling to it and it just flew right into his hand, probably one of the craziest things I have ever seen.  One particular time he was whistling "Barbie Girl" by Aqua, and sure enough our whole team joined in. Janvier is our other tracker. He is quiet, but a jokester. He knows more English than he lets on. His most uttered phrase is "cool," but in a Malagasy accent and followed by a thumbs up. Babazy is the final guide and definitely tries the hardest to do well. He is new to working with Erik and he isn't as experienced, but he has the biggest heart. Often when I'm alone in the forest and I'm not sure where the rest of our team is I will yell out "ohhhh, Babazayyy!" To which he will reply either "ohhhh, Meaganayyyy!" or "Iyam here." From there I can pretty much follow his voice until I find someone again. We work in teams of three in the forest, one tracker, one guide, and one researcher. My team is Nestor and Babazy. Its pretty hilarious working with the most senior and junior members. Often Nestor is above everyone with the best view, as Babazy strains to see the animals at the base of the tree, while I'm usually stuck somewhere in the middle of them. Seraphin is our cook, and he works wonders with beans and rice. There is something truly poetic about a cook with no teeth. He also speaks little to no English, but I can communicate with him in French, my Malagasy is also coming along quite well. He also likes to communicate with us in animal noises. I can't even count how many times he has meowed as he walks past our bungalow to say goodnight or good morning (hey, Jenna).

Taken after our hike up, from left to right: Babazy, me, Seraphin, Guy, and Emily

 Next I want to quickly write about the safakas who I have gotten to know so well over the last month. First there is AF (Antenna Female), who is the oldest female. The best way to describe her is regal, and she does have a new baby that was born a couple days before I arrived in the country. The infant is yet to be named, but it is absolutely adorable and getting bigger everyday.  BP (Black Face Pink Hands) is the only other adult female, she's not very nice actually. We get to know all their different personalities because we watch them so often. Not a day goes by when she doesn't assert her authority over one of the juveniles. LV (Lahy Voa, means "new male") is the breeding male in the group. It is common in camp to say "LV dia lefaka" or "LV is crazy." He is by far the hardest to follow because he is so vigilant. The oldest juvenile is MB (Mainty Be, means "Very Black"). He has the darkest pelage of them all and is pretty easy to identify once you get the hang of it. The final male juvenile is WM (William, named by a donor). He is by far the biggest attention seeker of them all. When he was an infant he was featured on a BBC documentary narrated by the one and only David Attenborough. We get a lot of tourist from the UK that come and specifically ask to see William; he's kind of a nature documentary celebrity I guess. Finally there is the youngest juvenile, and my favorite, MS (Mena Sako, means "Red Chin"). She is tiny and adorable. I can tell each one part even from a considerable distance; they've kind of become our extending family out there.

AF with her baby Kris who was named in October

BP

LV

MB

WM

MS with her mother

Next I'll quickly take you through a day in my life when I'm working in the park. We wake up at 6am and I usually start my day by checking my shoes for scorpions. Next I'll usually tell Emily about whatever dream I had the night before. The malaria medication I am taking gives me the most vivid and detailed dreams. I can't even begin to explain them. One was a cross between Harry Potter and the Lion King, if they all lived in a lava lamp. Anyway, one particular morning after the ritualistic scorpion check, I was traumatized by a spider that I found on the top bunk. We've now named this episode "the spider incident." As I was reaching for my sweatshirt one morning to go up to breakfast, my eyes were greeted by the legs of the biggest spider I have ever seen. I jumped into Emily's bed and we called Seraphin until he came to save us. "Seraphin, aidez-moi! Valo tongotra (eight legs)!" We didn't know how to say spider at that time. He came down and gingerly removed it for us. We still greet Seraphin in the morning with "Tsi nisy foako andrany" (there was no spider today). I can now say that I have a mild spider phobia, and unfortunately the middle of the rain forest is not the place to realize this. The number of times I perform something of a cross between epilepsy and kung fu after I get a face full of spider webs is staggering. Anyway, after a breakfast of left-over rice and beans from the night before, we start our morning commute which is a hike into the forest up steep slopes that can last anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour and a half. The trackers leave at 4am to find the animals; we call to them by hooting loudly. They hoot back twice to say they have found them and based on where we hear the hooting from, we make our way through the jungle.

Our bungalow

 We spend about seven hours in the forest a day. The terrain is incredibly steep at times. We learned the phrases "tandramo" (be careful) and "moramora" (slowly) very quickly. There are countless stories from the forest, but I'll summarize some of the best ones here. I think the most memorable moment was when I got a leech in my eyeball. Yes, there are leeches here, many in fact. It is a good day if I can go all seven hours with no more than a few leeches crawling on me. They are small, but tend to penetrate socks and have the unfortunate habit of migrating toward your eyes. Anyway, I was lucky I had my contacts in that day. I just took my contact out, had Emily peel the leech off it, then I popped it right back in and kept going. The number of unique animals we see every day is amazing. If you love animals and you ever get a chance to visit Madagascar, you absolutely should. We've seen four different species of lemurs, countless birds that can be found nowhere else in the world, leaf-tailed geckos, many different chameleons, a mongoose that makes its home under our kitchen, and so so so much more. The biodiversity that can be supported in primary forest is just amazing.

A leech

I'd like to now devote a short paragraph in describing how tough the terrain is. I kid you not, the hike up in the morning is comparable to 300s testing for field hockey. And that is on the main trail. You can't even imagine how hard the off-trail is, which is where we are most of the time. It's incredibly difficult at times, to the point where we can't even travel through the jungle and we have to take the long way around a river or cliff. Days spent in the forest are long and hard, but all difficulties aside, they are well worth it to see these beautiful animals that may well be extinct within my generation if something isn't done to save them.

The main trail going up to the silkies' home range

 We return to camp around 2pm every day, at which point I take a cold shower. I think shower is too loose of a term though. The bathroom facilities in camp consist of a small wooden hut with a tin roof. There is a faucet at about waist height connected to a hose that takes water from the river. Next door is the toilet, which is actually pretty modern, although it has no seat. Emily and I kill time before dinner by playing card games, doing the crossword puzzles that my grandmother so graciously cut out of the newspaper before I left (thank you!), and reading. Dinner is at around 6pm and usually consists of rice, beans, and maybe a vegetable if we are lucky. Although the food selection can be dismal at times, Seraphin really knows how to make something out of nothing. The fruit here though is absolutely ridiculous. Mananasy (pineapples) are a staple for me. The fruit here is just out of this world, I honestly can't say it enough. Fridays and Tuesdays we get pasta, which is a really big deal. Sometimes Seraphin will boil these purple potatoes that can be found in the local village, only about a 9km walk away. The first time I had the ovy voloparasy (purple potatoes), it was pretty surreal. It dawned on me about half way through the plate that I was in the middle of the rain forest in Madagascar, sitting around a table with five Malagasy men, eating purple potatoes (that taste pretty similar to sweet potatoes actually). They literally look like somebody chopped up Barney and put him on a plate. The strange colors and names aside though, the food here is pretty good and I've grown quite partial to rice. People here drink ranampango (rice water) after every meal. It is exactly as it sounds, the left over water from boiling rice, and it actually isn't that bad. We go to bed here around 8pm at the latest. Rise with the sun, set with the sun. I'm actually the most rested I've ever been.

The "shower"

We get one day off every week, and we usually spend it doing laundry in the river, which can take up to five hours, drying included. We also pump water on our day off. Our purification system is something like a small keg, that we hand pump about 40L worth at a time. All that done though, we spend our days reading under the "leaning rock" which casts its shadow over camp. Its absolutely stunning.

The "Leaning Rock"

 The highlight of our week is when we get tourists, but not too many because sometimes they kick us out of our bungalow and we have to stay in a tent. This has only happened once so far though. I get to meet so many amazing people who are traveling through the park. So far we have met people from Germany, the UK, Scotland, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Canada, Ireland, US, France, Saudi Arabia, and Australia. One of my favorite tourists was a guy from the UK who was traveling alone through the country. He had just finished his dissertation on sustainable guitar production and lent us an autobiography about an English comedian (thank you!). We also met two guys, one from Ireland and the other from the US, who were teaching English in Saudi Arabia. Emily and I are always naturally a little bit more accommodating when English guys make their way through camp. A group of children also came up from the village, and we taught them how to cupid shuffle. Luckily I had a little bit more juice left on my iPod to dance to "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves as well.

The journey back to Sambava was strange. This was mostly because we hadn't been in open space for over a month, and all of a sudden we were walking through fields of rice to get back to the closest village, Manantenina. Whenever we walk through the village, all the children run out to greet us by saying "Salama vazaha" (Hello foreigner), to which we respond "Salama zaza" (Hello children). As I've said before, it all seems very surreal at times. People also tend to stare at me because I am so tall here compared to everyone else. I tower over even the tallest men in the village.

Part of the trail back to the villages of Mandena and Manantenina

 There is so much more to tell, but unfortunately is has taken me almost three hours to type this and my Internet bill is starting to get a little bit high. Quickly I'd just like to thank Lara who's music is getting me through homesickness and the loneliness that comes from working abroad for so long. Happy birthday to all you who have one in the coming weeks! A special shout out goes to Scott and Logan. I'd also like to wish DFH the best of luck in their up coming preseason training and season. Up, up, BIG green!!

I'll be recovering from the jungle in Sambava until August 20th, at which point I will make the trek back into Marojejy. You should expect the next update around the end of September.

Veloma!