Week 1 - Introduction to Life in Andavadoaka

Apologies in the delay for the next installment...the creative juices have not been flowing, even a little but I gave it a shot!

So as I may or may not have mentioned – we worked on a 6 day week. 5 days of diving and 1 day off – because according to some bizarre rules, you’re not allowed to dive every day. This is important when you understand that each week culminated in large quantities of food, rum and fuzzy memories, but that I’ll get to later.

A quick explanation on Andavadoaka – this is a little village on the South West coast of Madagascar. Madagascar has, and I stand to be corrected, 18 tribes that make up this country. We were in the Vezo tribe region. The Vezo people live off the sea – which is the reason for the presence of Blue Ventures. Through the years, destructive fishing practices have been employed and thus the destruction of the reef has been immense. There are less fish available to sustain the growing numbers and the people are feeling this decline. You will very rarely see turtles and sharks as these are fished for food. Blue Ventures have endeavoured to teach the people of Andavadoaka as well as the fishermen in the surrounding villages, sustainable fishing practices and this has been largely successful. This project has resulted in the birth of “Velondriake” which means “To live with sea”. This consists of 40 villages along the coast – 20 north of Andavadoaka and 20 South. We were there to survey the rehabilitation of the reef and see whether the work and teaching that Blue Ventures have put in, has had any impact.

In our first week, we had a fair amount of orientation to go through and of course our science training. As is customary in Andavadoaka, we were required to meet the Villagers elders “Nahodas” and introduce ourselves, request if we may stay in the village and await their blessing. As is also customary in Madagascar, every tradition is overseen by rum – white or black. I now find myself partial to this particular spirit to my own detriment. Before we made our way to Dadas, the local Epibar (what better place for a cultural meeting of importance), we had a crash course in Malagasy as we were required to introduce ourselves in Malagasy and say a little about ourselves. Armed with varying linguistic abilities, we made our way down to the village of Andavadoaka, all of us tingling with anticipation (fear?). We had to wait outside until all the Nahodas were seated in the little bar. We, the Vazaha (white people), then made our way in and the rest of the village watched the proceedings from outside. A speech from Bic our Malagasy Dive Manager was followed by each of our great speeches. This was followed by a long-winded speech from the President – he accepted us staying in the village, thanked us for the work we were participating in and blessed us. His speech was followed by the rest of the Nahodas. Once Bic had translated for us, we each had to pour our drinks and finish them. We all got up to shake the hands with the Nahodas and the meeting then culminated in a dance to Malagasy music – white people can’t dance... especially to this music, we do not have enough joints. Once this task was completed we made our way up for dinner: Beans with rice and fish (BWRAF for you divers), which we soon grew to love or rather accept.

Let me get into the science before I go in further. We were there as volunteers to complete surveys on the near shore sites as well as those sites further out. These surveys included the determination of the amount of soft coral versus hard coral (Benthic) on a reef by P.I.T.s; the presence of indicator invertebrates as well as the abundance of fish indicator species. We therefore had to learn 150 fish species, coral categories and indicator invertebrates. Once we had learnt these, we had to do out of water tests and once we had passed those, then we did in-water tests. Once we had satisfactorily passed, we could do science diving – which was incredibly intense and exciting. In our first week we learnt our corals, passed all our tests and began practicing P.I.T.s – when you could do 3 speed P.I.T.s in a buddy pair...you were ready for some Benthic Science diving. The feeling that once you have received the nod is equivalent to the feeling you get when you know you’re about to be involved in something important. Little did the BV staff know that they had a volunteer group that could give MENSA a run – we learnt pretty darn quickly.

Once a year, Blue Ventures invite the people of Andavadoaka up to the “Operation Centre” to see what they do. We are privileged to say that we could be involved in this special day. It started fairly early with the setting up of the projector to show ‘Voyage of the Vezo’ in Nosy Cao (our classroom). We also set up mock P.I.T.s and fish belts with Malagasy explanations. Safidy had set up a family planning stall and Zanga Matt had brought some sea cucumbers (more about this all later) for people to see. Naturally, the children from the village were the first up. We had Bic stationed by our dive gear rinsing barrels with tanks, regs and masks. The Malagasy kids are small enough to fit into the barrels, so we gave them masks and regs/octos and let them breath underwater...the LOVED it. The concept of a queue in Madagascar still has yet to be introduced but each kid in the mass around the barrels had a chance to experience the small delight of diving – even if it was warm turbid water. An announcement was made for the sandcastle competition taking place on the beach and a swarm of dirty, wet children rushed down to Half Moon Beach. After “judging” various turtles, hammerheads, blobs and castles we announced 4^th, 3^rd, 2^nd and 1^st – prizes were English books carefully selected on age and ability. After this rather difficult task, the kids were sent back up to Nosy Cao and were each given a sweetie – needless to say chaos ensued and some were brilliant enough to negotiate their way to the back of the queue (roughly termed) for a second treat. And now for the event that everyone had been waiting for: The Pirogue Race. Captains from villages near and far made their way down to Andavadoaka for this prestigious event. The race started at 3 pm from Andava beach. We, as Blue Ventures Volunteers, and vazaha were shared among the locals and put on a pirogue. The bigger lot of us were looked at rather disdainfully as we signified the loss of the race. Nick was told he was too big and nobody wanted him, but after much negotiating, he was placed on a pirogue with 3 children, the eldest who probably hadn’t even seen 15. I was with Patrick -who will always be known as my potential CK Model. He is beautiful and has the most engaging smile. After being on several pirogue trips with him – I now understand why he looks the way he does...he can paddle like a dream but his sailing isn’t so strong.  Reike – Roa – Telo (1, 2, 3 in Malagasy) and we’re off, all the way out to Nosy Fasy. This event was full of collisions (Thanks Charlie) and even a broken mast – Nick will forever be known as the vazaha who breaks pirogues. Kim came in first with the winning pirogue, I came in third to last and Nick came in stone cold last, being towed in by another pirogue – in fact, he was so last that we didn’t even wait for him on Andava beach, much to his disgust. This very exciting day was followed by a quiet evening, because the projector had exploded (thankfully) and the evening’s festivities couldn’t continue. All of us sun-kissed and windswept, made our way to supper – swooping on the wares like hungry animals, nothing like more beans and AWESOME rice. The rice is AWESOME because Nick endeavoured to say that every mealtime for 6 weeks – he did, even when the rice stopped being awesome.

And so party night arrives but before party night can be had – boat maintenance must occur. Boat maintenance involves removing our dive boats from the water (Tson tso and Madablu) and scrubbing them inside and out. This took place on Andava beach and was an EXTREMELY unpleasant experience. This owing to the fact that Andava beach is used as a local latrine for the children of Andavadoaka and you know that the grey sand you are picking up and standing in is a component of human faeces and other human waste material (including underwear) and of course the fish remains of last night’s dinner. And unfortunately for us, the wind was blowing in a direction that resulted in all the oceans seaweed (there was tons) being deposited on the beach – what a nice little incubator for all those unpleasant things. The boats, once cleaned, are then returned to the water and so with a sigh of relief, we run into our own private bah (Half Moon Beach) where the water is clean...and soak. After that...Party Night is upon us and so the preparations begin.

 Something that one must remember about Madagascar, is that everything...EVERYTHING revolves around rum. Slaughter a goat - don’t forget the rum; annoy the ancestors – placate with rum; its party night – lets drink LOTS of rum. So this was our first party night – as we were unaccustomed to this tradition we didn’t know what to expect. We arrive at the dinner table to see that all the staff had brought along their various vices. We had now learnt and from then forth, we brought our vices to the table and boy were there a lot of those. Our first party night was calm, all of us testing our boundaries and personal capacities for rum – these were to be pushed, to the extreme in some instances, but I shall not divulge that information...just yet. This rather tame (in comparison) evening culminated on Half moon Beach around a bonfire – with the Malagasy boys playing the guitar (until it broke, was repaired and then broke again) and trying to teach us songs. This party night, we had not discovered that Dadas delivered which was soon to be our downfall on subsequent party nights.

Although it was a tame night – all of us woke up feeling a little tender, donning sunglasses and litres of water we got ready for our trip to Nosy Hao. This is an island 1 km off of Coco Beach, 1 hour away by pirogue. Our pirogue captains stopped off a little reef where we could snorkel – what a beautiful reef! Goff (one of the Malagasy DMs) told us that this was his “brother’s secret reef”. We got stung by those invisible little jellyfish (I wanted to insert another word here but thought it inappropriate), everywhere and after tiring of that – we climbed out and beach on Nosy Hao. The pirogue sails were laid down underneath some trees where we all lay and relaxed, working on our hangovers and Charlie insisting for what wouldn’t be the last time – that we must keep her away from rum. All of us went for short walks around the island and were all told a little about the situation surrounding the locals on Nosy Hao. The island had been leased to a French businessman by the Malagasy government for a period of 99 years. He has started building a hotel on the island but unfortunately to the detriment of the local folk. He is paying locals 10 000 Ariary Ariary (R34.75) to move to the opposite end of the island or 35 000 Ar (R121.55) to move to the mainland. Some have moved, others haven’t – but it really is a sorry state of affairs. After we had had enough relaxing (if that is possible) we made our way back to Andavadoaka. This signalled the end of our first week with Blue Ventures – and what a fantastically busy and exciting week it was.

From Tulear to Andavadoaka

The day we left for Andavadoaka – wake up at 4:45 to leave by 6 as we had to pack the Camion. To try and describe this – picture a cattle truck, complete with the metal bars over the top and tarpaulin: this was to be our chariot. This is an authentic mode of transport for the Malagasy people and here we were embracing the experience. Suitcases were packed, then mattresses placed on the floor and last but not least – people. There were 14 BV people and 3 Malagasy stowaways all crammed in the back. We stopped for breakfast in a small village along the way (3 hours into the journey) and had their local rice cakes (Mokare) and doughnuts (Bokoboko) for 100 Ariary each –  it certainly wasn't fantastic but we soon learnt to love the local cuisine. We went and all emptied our bladders in their local latrine area – all expertly dodging large animal (and human excrement) as well as animal carcasses and more human excrement. After wringing our kidneys dry we hopped back onto our chariot and continued. The chariot stopped and we found we had a puncture – this was repaired and we drove for a further 20 minutes and experienced the same problem. At that point we decided to have lunch: dry baguettes, cheese and tomatoes. To eat the aforementioned lunch you had to bite each thing and put it all in your mouth to give yourself the illusion of a cheese and tomato sandwich. We each had an apple and then waited for the chariot to be ready, taking bets on when we would leave and devising games to keep us entertained. We eventually left and drove into the night and suddenly the radiator overheated, so we stopped again and our driver and his buddies walked to the next town to bring back some water. On the road again – once we passed the Italian Hospital, we knew we were close. We drove through the Village of Andavadoaka and were welcomed by BV and its staff. Relief! Less than 200 km in 14 hours 15 mins – world record I reckon. We were welcomed, took our bags to our cabins and headed up for supper. More information on the meals will follow in the next instalment.

WELCOME TO ANDAVADOAKA!!!!!

We woke up to a not so beautiful Madagascar morning complete with a sky full of clouds and a temperature that wouldn’t cause any profuse sweating. We headed off to breakfast at 08:00 which was soon to become routine. Breakfasts usually consisted of mushy rice pudding, 3 slices of freshly baked bread and tea or coffee. We had honey on the table; sucre au lait (condensed milk) and normal sugar and sometimes something that closely resembles butter but doesn’t melt. Tea is made as such: 1 tsp suc au lait plus tea equals breakfast tea. Yummy. At our first breakfast morning we were given a timetable for that day – consisting of science training and other introductory talks to Blue Ventures and what they do. Our first 2 days were introductory talks and pretty much stuff to get us up to speed. I would love to give you day by day accounts of our 6 weeks here in Andavadoaka but we have a routine which is repeated weekly, so the few things that do stand out will be detailed. We work on a 6 day week where we have 5 days of diving and 1 off day. Our weeks looked something like what I have mentioned below but this would change with certain activities.

Monday – Malagasy lectures

Tuesday – Teach English to staff and eco-guides

Wednesday- Something would be keeping us busy

Thursday – Malagasy lessons

Friday – English lessons

Saturday – English lessons at school in village

As I was there for 6 weeks, I will be giving you a week by week play over the next couple of days. The fun is just about to begin. Until next time! Veloma!

Madagascar - The Overland Tour from Antananarivo to Tulear

11 February 2011

After a very tearful send-off from OR Thambo I began my adventure of what would possibly be the most memorable trip in my lifetime. I met some of my fellow travellers on the bus to the aeroplane – Sally and Georgie, 2 girls from the quiet town of Devon, England and Lauren – from California. Upon arrival in Antananarivo “Tana” we were welcomed with warm, humid weather and hordes of baggage handlers. After we successfully combated this rather insistent attack, we were met by Dave Raza, our guide and driver for the overland tour. He drove us all the way to our hotel (5 minutes from the airport) Auberge du Cheval Blanc. Here we had a toilet and actual running shower which we soon learnt would be a luxury on this trip. After opening all our bags and re-arranging we were welcomed by our Tasmanian – Nick, our other American traveller Kim and finally our final 2 from the UK – Steve and Hannah. A meeting began detailing our overland trip. We would leave Tana early the next day at 07:30 as we had a long and tiring journey ahead. We were told to pack an overnight bag for the next night because they didn’t want to remove the bags from the roof – so we went back to our humble abodes and repacked...again. Then it was off to dinner where we all filled up on some sort of red meat – Zebu steaks and medallions with pepper sauce. SUPERB!

12 February 2011

And so the drive to Fiananrantsoa began, after a breakfast of rather peculiar tasting fruit we all climbed into our vehicle proudly named ‘Mazdave’ and set off on what was to be a journey that closely resembled a rollercoaster ride, complete with screams. Dave, although a great driver, appeared to get a disturbingly large amount of joy from close-shaves. As you leave or enter a town in Madagascar, you are stopped by police- 3 different groups of them, all checking papers and looking for bribes – welcome to Africa! The roads are reasonably well-tarred except for the occasional run of potholes found in the low-lying wetter areas. A sight you will never forget – a taxi, much like our one comes screaming past with – and I kid you not – a coffin complete with a corpse and purple shroud. Naturally, this resulted in some untameable laughter and crude jokes – only to be told later that this was Dave’s uncle – that didn’t stop the jokes. It was after that that we stopped for lunch in a small town (the name I cannot remember) at a pizza place called...wait for it...Le Gastro Pizza. Needless to say we were hesitant to have a go but as it turned out the pizza was great and it didn’t end how we all suspected it would. This was to be our last proper stop before we got to the Mini-Croq hotel in Fiananrantsoa. The journey took 9 hours scattered with various toilet breaks in the bushes. The restaurant at the hotel was a Chinese restaurant so tested the Malagasy/Chinese cuisine. Schedule for the next morning was to be: wake-up at 06:30 (which we soon realised would be the norm), breakfast at 07:00 (normal) and depart by 07:30 (normal) – which we never achieved but came close.

13 February

We departed from the Mini-Croq hotel and went to a small bakery in town for some pastries for breakfast, which were divine. After that we took a 2.5 hour drive to a small National Park called Anja (pronounced Anza). Here we did a walk through the forests, spotting ring-tailed lemurs and a variety of chameleons. It was amazing to see them in their natural habitat. We walked up sheer rock faces and down into caves. As you walk between the massive rock structures you see holes cut into the rock closed up with smaller stones – this is a family burial tomb. They were built so high in the rock to protect the valuable silks that the bodies were wrapped in, from grave robbers. At the peak of our walk, we came into contact with a group of young locals who wanted some pictures and videos with the Vaza (white people), so they surrounded us, played some music on a phone and recorded these antics. We finished our walk with a lunch of beautifully steamed buttered (also a luxury) vegetables and more zebu then climbed  on Mazdave for our 3 hour drive to Momotrek which borders Isalo National Park. There are few photo’s from these journey’s as most of our days were cloudy supplemented by a light rain – I couldn’t bring back photo’s of cloudy Madagascar now could I? On our journey to Momotrek, we stopped at a rather random, lonely stall that sold wine and various other sorts of spirits. The others brought a couple of bottles of red and white and some even braved a shot at a clear litchi flavoured liquid (today we still do not know what it was) and a pineapple flavoured liqueur – for lack of a better word. I have to admit that dad’s warning of the deadly rum was still reverberating around my head but went with it anyway.  Dave came out at supper time and presented a rather large, scary – looking...chilli. We were all dared to try it so Nick, Sally and I had a go and I am pleased to say I survived and suffered no long-lasting repercussions. For those of you that know me, you realise that this was an incredible feat. This chilli experiment was followed shortly thereafter with the alcohol experiment – the wine (I didn’t taste) was had with varying degrees of long-toothiness. Naturally we couldn’t let the other sinister liquids go unattended so we all agreed on a single shot of each, continuing further if we liked it. Pineapple down...tastes a bit like tequila. Right, now for the litchi – nothing could quite have prepared us for that experience, possible the most revolting thing I have knowingly had to drink...ever. Needless to say we passed the litchi on to Dave who enjoyed it in his room.

14 February

We all woke up to a glorious Valentines morning, full of cheer and butterflies and background music...scratch that, we all woke up thinking about our 6 hour hike. We had our 06:30 07:00 07:30 schedule and left for our walk just after 8. We were met Evo who was of the Vezo tribe but was now living in the mountains. The Vezo people are the people of the sea and live mainly off the fruits of the ocean – fruits de mer. We walked up and panted, then walked up some more, and panted and finally after what seemed like a rather laborious ascent, we got to the edge of a cliff where we sat, took some photo’s and caught our breath. As much as I would love to describe our picturesque view, my words would not do any justice – hopefully Heaven will suffice. Our walk culminated at the foot of a waterfall in a natural pool (piscine). Having done 5 km in 33 degrees Celsius we all took the opportunity to remove unnecessary clothing and shoes and jumped in. Cold and refreshing, just what we needed. After drip-drying we took an easy walk to our lunch spot and were spoilt by a 3 course meal – a potato/onion salad followed by some zebu sosaties and spicy rice and finally some fruit. We were all fully fed and feeling a little (sorry mom) “maagies vol, ogies toe” and realised we still had the long trek back – we took a short cut and were back to our humble homes before we knew it. That evening was our Valentine’s day dinner and it did not turn out how we had expected it to. It was not a night to be forgotten as we had a rather memorable experience with our fellow Momotrek inhabitants. The owner and 4 other patrons of said bar had been sitting in the corner for the majority of the afternoon drinking large varieties of well... everything. By the time we had come through for supper they were well on their way to a magnificent hangover in the morning. Steve and I had already been auctioned off (a joke – he kept telling me) and I only managed an offer for 5 Zebu – I was largely disappointed. We placed an order for supper and waited, 2 hours later dinner arrived and we were told to have a seat, above which the fluorescent light tube had blown and was in the process of being (in)expertly replaced above our heads by a very inebriated bar owner. After most of us telling him we liked the romantic lighting (for fear of losing an eye) he left it, and proceeded to fix the other lights around the bar. After a very nice dinner albeit cold, we sat and chatted for a while. One of the corner occupants in a blue shirt, aided by his friend was led to the exit where he enthusiastically walked into the wall – laughter erupted and we could no longer keep our eyes off these clowns. Once blue shirt managed to get outside he sat down in the typical vomiting position and all of us expecting the inevitable were pleasantly surprised when he stood up. Before we knew it he had whipped his uh...male organ from his pants and was attempting to have a wee while facing downhill. His sense of balance wasn’t great and eventually we noticed blue shirt stumbling down the hill as gravity got the better of him while having a wee. On this note, we decided that bed was our safest option and got up quietly and went to bed.

15 - 17 February

This was our last journey in Mazdave and would take us to Toliara/Tulear/Toliary and the Victory Hotel. This was to be the first part of the journey where we would see Baobabs. Just after we set off, I desperately needed a wee – so I asked Dave to pull over and dashed behind a tree. Little did I know that the oncoming traffic could see my Vaza bum and this resulted in a Malagasy gentlemen almost coming off his bike. After much teasing and joking and police stops (all 11 of them just outside Isalo) we set off on our journey to Hotel Victory. Passports were checked on arrival in Tulear and then we arrived at what can appropriately be described as Paradise – Hotel Victory with a swimming pool and air-conditioned rooms. We offloaded and before we knew it we were all in the pool savouring the cool (warm) water. I had brought a romance Novel down to the pool to read and as we were all lying around the pool, nick decided he would read the steamy scenes for us in his best News Reader voice – this was hilarious and just as the scene was about to climax, Jen and Hannah arrived (2 of the Blue Ventures “BV” staff) and couldn’t figure why we were laughing so hard. Paperwork done and out the way we then met the volunteers from the previous expedition – there were rather quiet and we couldn’t help but laugh and think that Andavadoaka did not have a clue what we had in store for them, as not one of us is quiet and normal. That night we went out for supper to La Maison with the staff we would be with and the old volunteers. We had some fantastic cocktails which ended in me assisting Hannah (H2) in counting out money had her brain was slightly fuzzy. After a few good laughs and glass harmonics, we headed off back to the hotel and went to bed.

The next day was a day pretty much at leisure. At 9 we went into town using the rickshaws – I have pictures of them which I will have to show you. They are called “‘poes poes” in Malagasy – I could not bring myself to repeat it, my mouth just felt dirty. We met at La Terrace and walked from there – all of us getting our last little necessities, changing money and eating ice-cream. More will be said on Tulear at the end of this expedition as we have a day there were I can do present shopping before my trip home. That day being pretty uneventful only warrants a small paragraph.