And breathe.

18-9-2010: It’s been just over a week since our group of 13 (including the Resident Coordinator) departed from the airport in New York, but as these things go, it feels like it’s been a month at least. We’re all pretty well situated, finally sleeping through the night, and between the lectures and seemingly endless readings I’ve been ceaselessly enjoying the abundance of wildlife that surrounds us, of course.

It’s crazy that we’ve only been at ValBio for a week. Our campsite is about a 200 meters from the research station, and requires our ascent up a massive hill, but it already seems like home and I’ve yet to lose any fascination with the passing forest each time I make the climb.

Our classes are interesting. Some more than others, inevitably, but all ecology or research related. It took a while to get used to the Malagasy accent, but I caught on quickly as nearly all of the lectures thus far have been taught by the Malagasy researchers here. The days are packed, breakfast starts at 6:30, class from 9-11:30 and 1-4. But we’re on Malagasy time, which is to say that those numbers are actually irrelevant. Class is split between lectures and field work – the latter obviously is the preferred aspect of the course as it hardly seems like work romping through the woods observing and learning about the wildlife.

Outside of the time we spend in class we’re kept busy with an endless supply of readings that, although tedious, are generally interesting and very informative. We’ve been receiving crash courses on how to efficiently read scientific articles, how to write our own, (as a written report is the final requirement of our Independent Research project), Malagasy culture, and some brief lessons on the language.

The first course on Biodiversity and Field Research Methods is already approaching an end – our final is next week – and then we plunge right on into the next class, Primate Ecology.

Our two TA’s are great, one is a native Malagasy and the other from England. The accents delight me, not to mention the personalities that accompany them (they’re certainly each unique characters). Our resident coordinator started out on a bit of a power-trip which made for some bitter feelings, but things have cooled down and now here we are; eager to enjoy our first day off in Ranomafana. The plan is to head into town – about a 6 km walk downhill – spend the day there checking out the town, using the internet (posting this), and hopefully relaxing in the pool (filled with natural hot spring water).


Well shucks. It’s a week later. Whoops.


9-29-2010: Turns out the computers in town can’t read files in .docx format. So as it goes, I got there, was thoroughly intimidated by the French keyboard and an entire blog post to write from scratch, and decided not to post.

And now it’s Wednesday night. And we just concluded the first course of this program today. We’ll see how the exam went, but I’m having a great time in general. Spirits seem to be up, especially with the end of the first course and a prospective night of fun and not reading/studying ahead of us. Right after the exam a group of us headed down to the nearby village (about a 10 minute walk) to buy some peanuts from the locals. 3,800 ariary later (exchange rate is 2,000 ariary to 1.00 USD, so approximately $1.85) we were headed back to ValBio with a half full garbage bag of local edible legumes.

But let’s back track.

Sunday was just what we needed. No one accomplished any work, but we all thoroughly enjoyed exploring town, a few of us went into the pool which was fun, but crazy crowded. I also got real sugar cane for the first time; delicious, but easy to get sick of.

This week through today was quite eventful. Stress was progressively building as the course final approached and we all realized that we weren’t going to complete all the readings. Monday was a full day of lectures, but that evening the first travel illness hit. It was like an epidemic. One by one kids started falling ill. 4 by the time we were headed to bed, a 5th in the middle of the night. The next morning we were 8 healthy, 6 ill, and one more on his way down. By lunch the health ration was 1:1, with two feeling distinctly under the weather. Luckily people only got better from that point on, and my vitamins did their job – I didn’t feel anything but paranoia most of the day.

So now we’re just relaxing for an evening. The cooks made “pizza” tonight, it was delicious, though not quite the pizza as you’d expect in the states. All the food here is delicious though. There’s a lot of rice, inevitably, but luckily I love rice. We get a three course meal 2 times a day, plus a giant breakfast. Noms Now we’re watching Madagascar (appropriate – right?) to de-stress before course two begins.

Tomorrow starts course #2 – Primate Ecology. We’re all trying not to preemptively worry about it, as it’s taught by our very sarcastic, resident coordinator, and we have about a textbook sized stack of scientific articles to read in the next week (at least 250 double-sided sheets from the campus computing labs), joy.

Overall things are great though. It’s only rained once so far, and everyone’s getting along really well. We’ve seen a ton of chameleons, some frogs, and few bats, lots of spiders and other bugs, about a gazillion moths, and of course a variety of lemurs. I’ve taken to walking around the campsite looking for anything interesting before bed, it’s wonderfully serene, the stars are incredible when it’s clear, though the nearly full moon has limited the star gazing since we arrived.

I’m planning on going for a hike to the primary rainforest on our day off this weekend instead of heading into town (where the internet is) so I’m sending this with a friend to get posted; hopefully the internet works out – it’s quite unpredictable and incredibly slow. Everything’s lush and green here, but I certainly do miss the colors of autumn. I just hope it’s not getting too cold up there in the Northern hemisphere – we’re just entering the equivalent of summer here.

And now to depart with some Malagasy vocabulary: Veloma vazaha be!! Mandrampihaona!