"Building skyscrapers by hand."

Something I forgot to talk about in that last post. . .

My second to last day in Ranomafana I was invited by Pat Wright to ascend the ramp to the top of the new building that has been undergoing construction throughout our time in Madagascar.

For a few days prior the workers had begun the task of pouring the cement for the roof of the building. The thing is, it's Madagascar, which means that the whole building was being built by hand. The cement was mixed along the side of the road in two large cement mixers. There were piles of some sort of dirt, sacks of cement, piles of gravel-like rocks, and tons of Malagasy men hard at work shoveling various substances into wheelbarrows, scooping buckets of different materials into the mixers.

The machines would produce the wet cement and men would be waiting with wheelbarrows to be filled and wheeled up the 40 meter ramp to the top of the building where they'd navigate across plywood paths to the edge of the newly laid cement where other workers were waiting, with tools to flatten and smooth over the surface of the cement (as well as a hose-like thing which I can only assume was sucking out the excess water from the mixture). The whole process was pretty incredible to watch, even though much of what they were doing was beyond my understanding.

While we were atop the building we looked out across the roof and noticed an astounding number of moths had collected on the scaffolding and around the lights that had been blaring the whole night long (because the workers worked overnight every night until the cement was completely laid for the roof). A total of 5 comet moths and an uncountable number of other moths were just chilling around the roof. Pat Wright, the architect of the building, Noel (another primatologist), and I made our way across the roof - doing our best to not get in the way of the workers - to gape at the numbers and incredible variation in moths that had all been drawn to the light.

The work that the construction team had done on the new building over the 3 months that I spent in Madagascar is truly amazing. I believe in our brief time there they constructed a full floor and roof of the building. And it's a big building; one floor is a lot of area. They had to build the scaffolding by hand as they went, had very little machinery - aside from the cement mixing material I believe I saw only one electric saw which they used to not only to cut through metal bars but also to sharpen their hand axes - that was cool.

I distinctly remember one occasion during our program when the power was out in Ranomafana for the day - I believe the hydro-electric plant had a schedule of rolling black-outs for all of the areas which it provided electricity to -the construction continued. There were metal support beams which needed to be cut and so out came the hand saws and elbow grease, and the job got done.

Watching these men work, and just seeing the Malagasy people and culture as we drove cross country continually impressed me. It illustrated to me just how incredible the human body is, the things we are physically capable of are far beyond the capacities for which we use our bodies here in the states.

An example: The porters. On two occasions I hiked out to the primary forest. The first time to Vato, the second time a few kilometers farther to Valo. Each time porters were sent out to the campsite with supplies that we would be needing during our stay there - food, wood for the fire, the tents (ValBio provided us with large tents so we wouldn't all how to bring our own 1-3 person tents), and likely other things I hadn't even realized we were using. So the first time I hiked with the faster group out to Vato, it took us approximately an hour and 20 minutes to get there with our packs -designed for hiking and not completely full - hiking boots, and full waterbottles. We were surpassed by the porters, who were nearly (or in some cases were) running - often with bare feet - along the trails, large sacks of various supplies held above their heads. Wow.

For them it was no big deal. It was a morning's work and a quick way to make some extra money. Again: Wow.

Another example: On our cross country trip we passed tons of rice paddies (obviously) but also several brick-farms (I don't know what to call them, really - places where there were making bricks). The absolutely incredible thing we observed while passing these farms were the women who were working at them. On several occasions we'd watch as a woman casually loaded 6, 8, 12, I think up to 14 (maybe more) bricks on top of her head, and then walked - no big deal - along a narrow path between rice paddies. We were stunned, but for them, it's just what they do. Had it not seen it myself I would have had trouble believing they could actually do it, but as I did see it, I am instead just amazed.