Finding our rythm

Another few days have passed and we are slowly but surely finding our rythm in this remote corner of the world. The introductions are behind us, the rules have been established, the goals have been set.

I received some feedback that my description of Coco Beach Hotel might sound like we are at a luxury resort. Well, compared to the living conditions in the village, this is certainly true. Compared to where we come from, not in the least! Our new home, although known as a ‘hotel’, would probably much more deserve the title ‘hostel’. It consists of a dozen or two of small huts, made of wood and thatch. The volunteer huts are currently shared between 2-3 people because we are a small group, but they can contain up to 4 people. Showers, sinks, toilets and roofs tend to leak, the mosquito nets on the windows (where they exist) are broken, the beds are creacking and the matrassess have seen better days. The permanent staff have their own huts, but these are without toilets, so Im not sure its worth the tradeoff...

A short anecdote of the kind of experiences we have here on a daily basis: yesterday I caught a scary millepied in the bathroom (after we chased each other through the 2 m² room several times). Once I was settled in my bed, thinking that the adventures of the night would finally finish, I was stung by a small scorpion on my toe. My roommates were asleep by this time, so I had to face this drama alone and decided to do an emergency internet consultation (Wikipedia). I was told to squeeze out the venim immediately (I hadn’t done it and by then it seemed too late) and then put some ice on the spot (hahaha...). I was reassured to find out that out of 150 scorpion species, only 30 are fatal, and guessing by their names, they are not located on this island. (The bite since then has sort of disappeared and someone told me at the breakfast table that I was probably only “warned” by the scorpion and not stung by it. Lucky me!)

Our days also remain eventful. We were officially introduced to the ‘nahodas’, the elderly men of the village, including the vice-president. The meeting –to our surprise- took place in the village’s biggest social venue: Dada’s Bar and Disco. We all said a few words in Malagasy (our names and where we come from) and then listened to the welcome speech of the vice-president. He was very kind and told us that the village is very happy to have us here. Additionally, he offered to be at our disposal if we ever needed anything.

(I brought with me 10 laminated pages of pictures of where I come from, the animals/fruits/seasons etc in Hungary and of my family and passed this around. It gave me a huge smile to see these Malgache fishermen look at them with a lot of interest. And for the record, the map of Europe and Hungary have been very useful, also to show geographically-challenged, European (!) volunteers where my country is located...).

Once the introductions were over, we were encouraged to dance. It was 5 in the afternoon and felt a bit strange to stand up and start moving ourselves in front of a group of old men and some bystanders, but we had no choice. Luckily, I had an appointment with our education team and left after a few minutes, but the rest of the volunteers were stuck on the dancefloor for a while, feeling like some sort of entertainment crew... To make the evening even more unforgettable, one of the volunteer girls was licked on her face by an intoxicated local gentleman... ;-)

Since the beginning of this week, we spend three times one hour with Malagasy Blue Ventures staff, teaching them English. We were all assigned a partner and are encouraged to engage with them in whatever way we wish to improve their English. Their levels of English differ, but they all seem equally motivated.

Last, but not least, I have to mention our most frequent topic of discussion: our disgestion. Im very excited to be surrounded by doctors, because I can by now say in a very fancy way that I have diarrhea: ‘I have some gastro-intestinal discomfort and my stool is loose’. Only British people can be so polite about this, I love it! Without giving away much detail, let me say that we are still very much adapting to the local bacteria with various degrees of success... ;-)

Little pleasures

Towards the end of our first week in Andava, I thought I’d take the time and reflect on the little pleasures of living here. 

Waking up early and having some quiet time before breakfast: given the constant heat, it is impossible to sleep long. Most of us are usually awake an hour before breakfast (some, for example, our dear Indonesian roommate are even earlier!). The time until 8 passes with getting ready, taking a morning swim on our “private beach” ;-) (the little bay below our huts), reading on the veranda, or just staring at the Mozambique channel and asking ourselves the hypothetical question: ‘How the hell did we get so lucky to be staring at this view every day?!’. There is usually some morning breeze and the temperature at this time is just perfect! (By 8.30, however, we are all feeling quite warm, and by 10 it’s impossible to walk a few meters without loosing half of your body weight in the form of sweat...)
Buying food from Papoussi before official meals: there is a 13 year old girl, Papoussi, in the village, who comes twice every day. Her visits are strategically timed for the moments before lunch and dinner, when we are all starving and would give anything to eat something nice... Her grandmother bakes little donuts with chocolate inside (boko-boko) or samosas with spicy fish inside and they are simply DELICIOUS (and a life-saver, every single time!). She has a notebook for accounting and is a charming business woman with an irresistible smile. By now we have all opened an account with her: we gave her 5000 Ariary each (1.5 Eur) and she just marks how much we consume each time. Everything costs 200 Ariary. (I really hope she doesn’t take Sundays off, because I’m already starving and it’s only 10.30...)

Making our hut tidy: this is probably the most nerdy pleasure I have (and I think Im correct to assume that I share this with my newly acquired Indonesian friend). We sweep the floor about 3-4 times a day to get rid of the sand (blown in by the wind, brought in by booties, flipflops, visitors), to expulse the corpse of various insects who died in the hut overnight and to give us a homely feeling in general. Our hut is slightly different from the others, we have proper ceramic tiles on the floor, so sweeping is a really rewarding exercise! (In exchange we have no mosquito nets over the windows, which is not very convenient, but we’ve been quite creative to address this situation). Thanks to our frentic cleaning practices the hut is usually cosy and the other volunteers like to chill at our place.

Taking a cold shower: each of our huts has a little, very basic bathroom integrated in it. We have running water, however, its salty and cold. When I read about this back home I was slightly concerned, but it turns out this is one of the most refreshing things ever! Taking a cold shower to wash off the sweat, the sand, the numerous layers of sun lotion and mosquito repellent of the day is the perfect ritual just before going to bed (or upon awakening).

Looking at the sky at night: This should probably be at the top of the list. Electricity in our site goes off at 21.00, and there is none in the village so once the night falls we are looking up to the brightest sky we’ve ever seen with the highest amount of shooting stars we’ve ever seen. Its absolutely beautiful and we even see the Milky way! We had the first weekly party last night, and after hours of dancing (at 11.30...) we came back to our huts together and just sat in the sand and started at the sky for almost another hour.

Extracurricular activities: We have each Sunday off, to do whatever we’d like to. There are plenty of options and only 5 Sundays left, so the pressure is high. Today afternoon we will go sailing with the pirogues (the wooden boats the fishermen use, I mentioned them earlier) to a nearby sand dune not far from the coast, to do some snorkelling and sail back home in the sunset. Could be worse... ;-) We might also learn to make samosas from the women’s association, visit the mangroves, visit the sea-cucumber “plantation” (?), walk to the baobab forest or learn to drive a zebu cart.

Solidarity among volunteers: our group is really great! We have three 18-19 year olds (DK, USA, FR) and 6 people between 27-30 (4x UK, IDN and myself). We’ve been getting along well already, but a new level of solidarity was demonstrated last night, during and after the party. Everyone is looking out for the others and we were like one big family when we were supporting the youngest youngster in the aftermath of his first encounter with alcohol. I’m not entirely sure that the 30°C average temperature is the ideal environment for a hangover, but in terms of the people surrounding him he couldn’t wish for anything better than us (no matter how un-modest this might sound, I actually think it’s the truth). We have several “chicken-moms”, several “relaxed dads” and two peers of the same age, so wisdom is flowing in from a whole range of people. (By the way, the chicken-moms are also active on sun-lotion, remaining hydrated, applying mosquito repellent, taking the anti-malaria pills etc etc.).

I’ve quickly done an unrepresentative survey among the others about the little pleasures. Here are the additional points that were mentioned:

• Remoteness
• Wearing flip-flops all the time
• No cars
• Not missing emails + Facebook, not knowing about the news of whats going on in the world
• Integrating with locals instead of being tourists/ Learning about the local culture

Sun, sea and sand: Welcome to Andavadoaka!

We did make it through the bumpy road! What a ride! ;-) 8 hours through the mainly sandy coastal “road” in two cars. One of them, a standard 4WD and had 5 people, the other a sort of minibus, with two rows of seats facing each other, taking the remaining lot. Two of the volunteers had the “Madagascar bug” by this time, I assume for them the view over the turquoise sea didn’t compensate for the quality of the road... (However, they managed to hold everything in until our arrival- to everyone’s relief...). The rest of us –luckily- could listen to songs, stare out the window and have a relatively good time. To be honest, it was not as bad as the warning of our expedition manager had suggested.

Andavadoaka is a small fishing village in a bay, with 3000 inhabitants. They are 45 minutes drive from the nearest village and about 40km from the nearest town, Morombe (to the north). The sandy coastline of the village is decorated with the fishermen’s traditional boats, the “pirogues”, carved out of one piece of wood. There is one main street in the village, and the houses that are not on it seem to be randomly scattered around. There are a few tiny “shops”, where one can buy the essentials: some vegetables, meat, flipflops, nailpolish, rhum and beer. There are two schools and two different churches. Surprisingly, there are 2 or 3 disco bars as well, giving me the impression that the locals like to enjoy themselves...

The houses are made of wood and are quite fragile. A year ago, this region was badly hit by a cyclone, apparently the biggest in three decades and it left a lot of desctruction behind. Some houses were still not rebuilt and demonstrate how very vulnerable everything is around here to the forces of nature.

Seen from the coast, to the left of the village, there is a tiny peninsula with some rocks and the statue of the Holy Mary looking towards Africa. Behind this peninsula lies the Coco Beach Hotel, where all Blue Ventures staff and volunteers are based. This area is (naturally) divided into three smaller bays: the tiny Half Moon beach just in front of the volunteer huts, the Coco Beach and the Turtle Beach.

In the four days we’ve been here, we’ve seen numerous presentations and have been introduced to tons of rules (and even signed official papers that we agree to follow them ;-). One of the presentations explained how we need to take care of ourselves medically (should be relatively straight forward, out of 8 volunteers, 5 are medics). Another presentation introduced us to the scientific research BV is leading and how the diving volunteers will contribute to data collection. I was surprised to find out that they have to do 4 weeks of training (both in terms of diving praticalities as well as species recognition skills) to be able to participate in data collection during the last two weeks.

Volunteers also have a rotating set of duties, and these were  explainedas well. We do this in groups of two:

• Weather monitoring 4 times a day
• Making sure we have drinking water (we receive water in a big barrels, but that still needs to be filtered and then purified. Consequently, the water we drink is safe, with a slight swimming-pool after taste...)
• Cleaning the hut where all the diving equipment is stored

Yesterday we had our first malagache language lesson and today we were supposed to meet the village elders to officially introduce ourselves. There was a big storm last night, so the village didn’t receive its supplies (among them, rhum, which is indispensible for any social occasion) therefore the introduction was postponed until next week.

Each day is well structured and we have less free time than I had expected.We start with breakfast at 8, directly followed by some duties, study time for the divers or some lectures until lunch, which is at 13.00. Then we have an hour off, but until now we’ve been using this time to settle down, unpack our suitcases, deal with our mosquito nets (or the lack there of...), wash our clothes, etc. The afternoon continues with more lectures/introductory presentations and closes with duties at 18.00. Dinner and feedback about the day at 19.15. Twice a week someone does some entertainment after dinner (like a mini talent show, with one person at a time). The electricity goes out at 21.00 so we usually go to bed around 22.00.

Our food is provided by the hotel whose huts we are renting and it’s of very good quality. I expected much less, but they really make an effort to make good and healthy combinations of available ingredients.

For now, that’s enough detail about the practicalities. Concerning how it feels to be here: since we’ve arrived I have the impression that Im in some sort of a parallel universe. Time is still passing, but my relation to it has completely changed. It’s quite slow if I look at it at a minute by minute basis, but overall, the days go by quite fast. Life has become so straight-forward and simplified, I love experiencing this. I don’t spend half an hour picking my clothes in the morning, I have all meals provided by someone else, I know where to go and what to do at each hour. (And the one thing that concerned me from home, the cold, slightly salty shower is about the best thing ever, because its super refreshing!).

The physical isolation also brings peace to my mind, I’ve successfully left all the worries of my daily life in Toliara. I haven’t checked my emails in 4 days and I’m not missing them at all. It’s extremely relaxing to get away from the usual environment and be here, in the middle of nothing, disconnected, only focusing on the here and now and on the forces of nature. The Mozambique channel lies 30 meters in front of our hut with a coconut tree and endless sand in between. The sound of the waves is deeply therapeutic (although it can get quite scary during a storm), and the wind never seems to stop blowing.

It’s great to be here. 

Toliara- D-1

For the past day and a half we’ve been heavily sweating - Toliara is super hot! Apart from being incredibly hot, I find it a strange town, very different from the ones we’ve seen on the high shield. It doesn’t have the colonial architecture (at least we havent seen it) and it’s somewhat of a ghost-town. The streets are much wider than anywhere else, they are long and straight and there are a lot of “pousse-pousse” (bicycle taxis) with insistent drivers looking for new customers.

We are staying in a luxorious hotel (we were quite doubtful about this when we first heard this would be the case, but it’s actually true!). There is even a pool and it’s a constant life-saver. The three additional volunteers who belong to our “expedition” were waiting for us here, and so were the people from the outgoing expedition. We had a delicious lunch and later on a big dinner all together.

It was useful to meet the “outgoing people” and receive some tips from them- for example regarding the need for spices and sauces during the next six weeks. We had already assumed that a month and a half of rice-beans-fish diet could get boring, but now we’ve heard the confirmation. (As a result, we emptied the local supermarket this morning in a last attempt of bringing some civilisation with us to the site in Andavadoaka).

We’ve also been introduced to the first stories about life in Anda- the good, the bad and the ugly... ;-) Sounds like we should all be prepared for early mornings, relatively monotonous meals, hard work, lots of fun, the “Madagascar bug” as they refer to the “tornado” that goes through one’s digestive system at any given moment, the occasional rats in our huts and leaking roofs... We’ve also heard stories about cyclones, inappropriate volunteers and emergency evacuations...

Although some of the stories sounded quite scary, my overall impression remains: Blue Ventures is incredibly well organised, has more than a decade of experience and the worst thing we are likely to experience is a few day long diarrhea.

Between the big meals (including ice-cream in an Italian restaurant!), the frenzic shopping and the pool time, we met the leader of Blue Ventures’ blue forest work. He gave us a presentation about the work of BV in general, how it started, where it’s going, all the different sub-projects that have developed over the years. I found it deeply inspiring and became very excited about having the opportunity to be part of this.

We are 8 volunteers in the end in this expedition, and everyone apart from me will be diving. Everyone is very surprised to find out that I chose to be involved with the community work, instead of discovering the “under-(water)-world”, but this afternoon I was once again reassured that I made the right decision.

Blue Ventures is divided in two parts: the expeditions and the conservation work. The former welcomes the volunteers and teaches them to dive (people have to pass fish and coral identification tests to be able to contribute to the research work). Their (well, our) participation fees are then used for the conservation work, which ranges from the community managed protected area, to aquaculture project (growing sea-cucumbers) through blue forest work (taking care of mangroves up in the north western coast of Madagascar) to the project I’ll participate in on community health.

Tomorrow we are driving through an amazing coast-line to reach our final destination. There are no proper roads, so the 170km ahead of us are expected to take about 8 hours, with 4 wheel drives... Hopefully the view will make up for the shaking and the bumpy road.

First moments in nature

Over the past two days we visited two different parks (still on the way to the south). One of them is a small, community managed protected area called Anja, about an hour drive from Fianarantsoa, another lively city, where, according to my guidebook, many of Madagascar’s intellectuals originate from. I’ve already been to Anja four years ago and it was equally pleasant this time. In fact, I think we even had the same guide on both occasions!

We saw our first ring-tailed lemurs and learnt that their community is a matriarchal system with a queen. Unintentionally, the explanations about lemurs also reveal details about malgache society. Our park guide was telling us how lemurs sleep in the afternoon “like a woman”. I found this hilarious, as –until now- my experience has been that African women are precisely those who “carry the continent” on their back as opposed to being the “siesta” kind of people. I have yet to see more about how things work here, but I suspect that women are pretty damn hard working here as well. (Needless to say, I very much look forward to engaging with the women’s group in the village where we’ll be, and hear their take on things and listen to their expressions about the men...).

It seems there is another similarity between lemurs and the malgache: they both tend to be polygamic. I don’t have proof for the lemurs, but I can confirm, that we have already been explained about the concept of one wife (as they are “catholic”, therefore only allowed one wife) and several other female “friends” in various locations. Age difference does not seem to pose big challenges either and some local men have an openly declared “soft point” for foreigners. (I’ve already been asked by a schoolteacher whether I am available, because he is looking for a wife and has a preference for foreigners. I politely declined the offer and refused to give him my address...)

The second park we stopped in was the Isalo National Park, founded back in 1962. I think this park is usually very dry and desertic, but we are just at the end of the rainy season and everything was green, abundant and in certain places even jungle-like. It was the most exciting park I’ve seen so far, there are parts of it that look a bit like the Grand Canyon, and other parts which are little tropical environments growing around a water stream. We’ve bathed in two different natural ponds, walked in big, open spaces between sandstones carved by the weather, and hiked in narrow mountain trails surrounded by dense forest, orchids, and lots of plants we don’t yet know. We met a small boa, a group of ring-tailed lemurs and several really cool cameleons.

There was also a big group of malgache teenagers with their teacher next to one of the ponds. We spent about 30 minutes photographing one another in every possible formation, with both sides equally amused. French continues to be the main language in which we engage with the locals, although English is also an occasional possibility.

Our own group is very nice so far, 3 women and 2 men. Im at the “upper end” of the age-scale, with the lower end around 18/19 (impressive that they'd have the courage for a trip like this!). There is a very relaxed, fun athmosphere, people are paying attention to one another, sharing their water/mosquito spray/sun-lotion ;-) and its reassuring to see the little gestures of solidarity already now.

I have the impression that time is passing much slower here than at home. This is good, it allows to enjoy everything in more detail and (in theory) it provides opportunity to contemplate the big questions of life. At other moments this slower pace is something that concerns me and makes me wonder whether I will not find this 6 weeks a bit too long?

Tomorrow we have a 5 hour drive to Toliara, lunch with the project people+the volunteers from the previous round and a day off on Sunday.

Cultural discoveries

Our little team of five, plus the malgache guide started driving down south early this morning. We shed a distant glance at the queen’s palace from Lac Anosy and turned left to Route Nationale 7, the only road that connects the capital to the South. The first half of this road is what means Madagascar to me- at least until now. Dozens of shades of green and the pictures of the clouds reflected back from the rice-fields, bright blue sky, traditional red clay houses, some colonial buildings and sunshine.

We stopped for lunch at the “malgache Vichy” a thermal town called Antsirabe with a beautiful hotel from 1897 reminding visitors of a very different past. The road until this point is is very narrow , but surprisingly good quality, despite all the traffic going through it. Afterwards however, the road turns into a “collander” with cavities every few meters and the last 50 kms to get to Fianarantsoa take well over 1.5 hours. This last part of the drive was under Belgian-like weather conditions, so the bumpy ride and the grey weather made everyone a bit grumpy by the evening.

I’ve tried to talk to our guide during the long hours of the car-ride, but so far he is more focused on driving than sharing detailed analyses about the economic or political situation of his country. Without his input, Im only guessing how things have been developing over the past 4 years.

One interesting thing I’ve found out, however, was that he is one of eleven children. He himself had only three, and is telling his sons not to have more than one child. Overall, this is not a general trend in the country, but it seems that the middle/higher classes are drastically reducing their reproduction rate.

His character also makes me think about the culture: he sort of “steered things” in a way (several times by now) that resulted in us paying a bit more here and there. It is clearly a way to make sure we support the local economy, and I can accept that (and we are talking about small amounts), however, the way its done is not completely transparent and leaves me with the impression that even this guy might see us as walking euro-bills, (as opposed to volunteers coming to contribute to his country’s wellbeing). Well, let’s see, I am sure that overall he means well and is a reliable driver, which is clearly the top priority.

Day 1, Antananarivo

Three of us volunteers arrived on the same flight and landed late Monday evening. Getting our visas sorted took quite some time and by the time we finally arrived to our hotel, just outside the airport, we were all exhausted.

Today morning, after the first, slightly agitated night, half recovered from the travelling, we took off for a small walk in the neighbourhood. To my great joy, Madagascar smells exactly the same as four years ago! ;-) Im not sure I can describe it well, but its warm, humid and somehow has some of the malgache soul in it. Towards the end of the flight, while I was stressing about the landing and the turbulence and getting tired, I thought to myself ‘What am I doing here? I just want to go home to my normal life...’ Today I have no such thoughts, excitement completely took over and it makes me smile to be back here, enjoy the vivid street life, be blinded by the sun, appreciate the colours, the remains of the colonial architecture, and the wave of children towards us.

We took it easy today, welcomed two more volunteers, met our guide for the next few days and reviewed the program of the first week.

Speaking French and having already been here help me a lot, not only because I personally feel much more comfortable than the first time, but also because my previous experience comes in handy for the rest of the group who are less certain in their language skills.

We have a big day of driving tomorrow and then will visit to a community managed park, Anja. Its a place with some impressive big rocks, from which there is a breathtaking view over the landscape.

Madagascar

Four years ago I spent two weeks in Madagascar as a tourist. It was the first developing country I’ve ever been to and it really touched me. It was –not surprisingly- completely different from anything I had seen before, but I have to say, no country has enchanted me the same way since then.

So, where is Madagascar exactly and what is it like?

•           Situated in the Indian Ocean, about 9000 km from Paris and 400 km from the East coast of Africa
•          Surface: 587 000 km2 (I can’t find this in the guidebook at the moment, but if I remember well this is approximately equivalent to France+Belgium+Luxembourg together)
•          Population: 2x million inhabitants
•          Capital: Antananarivo (Tananarive)
•          Official languages: Malgache/Malagasy and French
•          18 official ethnique groups
•          Currency: Ariary

Madagascar disattached from the initial “super-continent” 25 million years ago, resulting in a fascinating range of animal and plant species that do not exist anywhere else (80-90% of the species are endemic to Madagascar!). It is this level of uniqueness that triggers the curiousity of environmentalists and biologists and tempts them to come and explore how this ‘Arch of Noah’ has evolved. Unlike Africa, Madagascar doesnt have large terrestrial mammals- here, the most well known and symbolic species are the lemurs. (And please remember that lemurs are NOT monkeys, they are prosimiens! ;-) There are about 30 different species, including the ring tailed lemurs (like King Julian from the famous Madagascar movie) and the aye aye.

If you prefer other breathtaking creatures you will not be disappointed: there are at least 60 species of cameleons, geckos, radiata turtles, insects, butterflies, giant jumping rats (lets hope I dont meet those in person...) and the infamous fosa (fox-like animals) who are the main predators of the lemurs (you are also likely to remember those if you’ve seen the Madagascar movie). A fun detail I found in the guidebook: the Malgache say that one eye of the cameleons looks to the future, the other to the past (as they can move separately). I was just trying to imagine how a human would look like with such eyes and it dawned on me that Jean-Paul Sartre must have had some link with cameleons... ;-)

Madagascar is a tropical environment and is really varied in terms of landscapes. Before the arrival of humans on the island, it was densly covered by forests. Today, only about 10% of these forests remain and deforestation (to use wood as a cooking fuel, a building material or make handicrafts) is one of the most pressing issues after poverty. Such violent rate of forest reduction also leads to further environmental problems, such as soil degradation/desertification, habitat loss, species extinction, modifications of the local climate etc. The economic situation, the constant political instability and the continuously increasing population rate exaggerate the problem even further.

I’ll plan to explore these topics in more detail in upcoming posts, but I wanted to give a general introduction first.

As for the location of the project, I’m going to the south-western coast of the island, somewhere between Toliara and Morombe. There are only dirt roads between these two cities, so it will take long hours in 4x4 vehicles to reach the site. Luckily, we start off by a 4 day overland tour from the capital to Toliara, so we’ll have time to get used to the local conditions and mentally prepare for the last part of the trip.

Context

Towards the end of 2013 I was in the middle of some turmoil at work and decided to see a ’professional coach’. After a few sessions with this coach one of her sentences really stuck with me: ’Give yourself a break!’. No one has ever encouraged me to do that and being the diligent person I am, I always try to spend my time doing something „useful”. For this very reason, giving myself a break requires a real effort on my side. Nevertheless, I took her advice literally and started to explore holiday options in December to get away from my usual environment and take a “real break”.

Although initially I was quite tempted to learn surfing in Martinique, I soon realised that I am not ready to be just on holidays for the sake of being on holidays. It was about this time when I found ‘Blue Ventures’, a British NGO working in Madagascar (and in Belize) on population-health-environmental objectives. All three issues combined! Their website and project description was so amazing, that I almost immediately contacted them and signalled that I was interested. After a couple of emails and discussions over Skype, I found myself in the middle of buying airplane tickets, looking for travel insurance and exploring Decathlon for suited (small size) fins.

Over the course of six weeks I will work on a community health project called Safidy (means ‘choice’ in Malagasy, the local language). This project aims to provide information and health services to the coastal  communities who are already involved in Blue Ventures’ environmental work. Such health services include ante- and postnatal care, education about water, sanitation, hygiene and family planning.

Blue Ventures started their work on the South-Western coast of Madagascar about ten years ago. Initially, they were a marine research project on the almost incredible, 100km long coral reef, but it soon became obvious that environmental protection in the traditional sense (excluding people from a certain area altogether) was not going to yield long lasting results. The more suited, inclusive approach resulted in the Indian Ocean’s largest community managed marine protected area, and sub-projects on aquaculture, mangroves, health and environmental education. At the core of Blue Ventures’ work lies the understanding that the environment and people’s wellbeing (both in health and in economic terms) are strongly interlinked. To give you a concrete example, today, Blue Ventures’ support enables about 200 local students to receive quality education and dozens of villages to have access to health services. Another detail I deeply respect about their work: they place high importance on educating girls.

Based on our exchange so far, I will developing education materials ranging from t-shirt designs to posters/graphics and small picture stories. I might even get to collaborate with an artist from a local town! Additionally, there are some radio spots and community theater plans in the pipeline, so clearly a whole range of creative opportunities! ;-)

Safidy also trains “community based distributors”, a group of local women who are the local “health focal points” in over 40 villages. Such training is of very high value in this remote region where most people have no access to medical care at all. The project leads visit the villages on a regular basis to assess how their work is evolving and what impacts it has and if everything goes well, I also might join a village tour like that.

Last, but not least, I will have the opportunity to work with children, youth and women’s groups in the framework of weekly English and environmental classes.

I wanted to do something different and creative- well, here I have it! I look forward to starting and hope to be able to contribute in a meaningful way.