Nights in Madagascar

The last few days can be encapsulated in one line – “Lazy living on the beach.” My responsibilities are minimal most of the time, but on Sunday nothing much happens at all, and on Monday, there was a halt to any work scheduled, as it was a festival day. What this involved was three ceremonies along Ranobe Bay commemorating the establishment of a number of no-take zones within the bay. These zones will be allowed to grow back for six months to allow the octopi population to rebound, which will help the commercial fishermen, as well as to create more spots for tourists interested in scuba diving. I went with the group headed to Mangily, where I was looking forward to the zebu being slaughtered. Whenever something of importance happens in a village, a cow (zebu being the Malagasy name) is killed and the meat divvied up among the villagers. We missed this action, only getting there in time to see the skin being scraped of any remaining meat as the little kids played with the tail. This had happened in the morning, and as the speeches were in Malagasy and French and not scheduled until later in the afternoon, I headed back to Reef Doctor in the heat of day, right after lunch. It was low tide, which made it a nice walk, but the heat made snorkelling in the afternoon all the more enjoyable.

When the crews from the three different sites finally arrived back in the evening, they were a tipsy boat load. It was Nicholas’ thirtieth, and his group had spent the time waiting to get picked up enjoying rum on the beach. The drinking continued into the night and I headed off to bed earlier than most. I was the first back to the volunteer shack, and being without a flashlight, was unable to work the combination lock on the door. Luckily a window was open, so I climbed in there instead, allowing the rest of my roommates to figure out what was going on later in the evening.

The night time is completely different here than the day, within a whole host of different creatures making their appearance. Walking on the path a good ways up off the beach, bats occasionally flit noiselessly into the view of your flashlight. You should keep the light trained at your feet, as the various hermit crabs trundling along can be easily stepped on. I have yet to see the small nocturnal snakes, no longer than twelve inches and thin as a pencil, but their tracks can be easily seen interlaced with those of the hermit crab in the morning light. Walking along the beach at low tide, the ghost crabs slip quickly into their holes at the sound of the feet approaching them. So-called because of their colouring, the ghost crabs may run for a few feet and then suddenly stop instead of heading for their hole, and you are hard pressed to pick them out. They blend well into the sand, and sometimes only by taking a few more steps can you get them to run off again and so be able to see where they where.

Today I did my first dive with Claire, one of two Divemasters here at Reef Doctor. It was basically just floating around in chest-deep water, practicing the variety of skills needed in deeper water. After I have completed the Open Water certification – which I hope to do by the end of the week – I will move on to Advanced Dive training. At the end of Open Water, I will be certified for 18 meters, and after Advanced, I will be allowed to descend to 30 meters. I aim to move things along as quickly as possible, as everyone here goes on holiday on the 25^th, and day-to-day operations do not resume until the 4^th of January. Therefore, I really only have three and a half weeks to get my certifications and secondarily, perhaps be of some use in doing some reef surveying. It looks as if I will be heading out on a vacation with Madagascar near the end of December, or I may hang about here with the skeleton crew for a few days. I have yet to finalize my plan, as I was originally under the impression that I would be able to continue diving through the Christmas holiday.

I realize that I have yet to introduce you to the crew here. They are definitely a motley assortment. There are three other volunteers excluding me, as one has already headed home. Two are Americans, with Julia having finished school and is now doing an internship here for a year, while Rebecca decided that a degree in nutrition wasn’t for her after two years and that Madagascar was a much better option. The third is Belgian, Eileen, and she actually has no true place of residence (an interesting story, as her parents live in the UAE) who is here to do some marine work before heading to a masters’ program in Australia. The director, Shawn, is a guy from the States who did a tour with Peace Corps here for two years before taking the position of director for a year. He leaves his post in two weeks, and is being replaced by Bryan, a guy with almost an identical background – he too is from the States and did two years with Peace Corps in Madagascar. The Divemasters are Claire, an Irish ex-pharmacist who decided that diving was more her style about fifteen years ago, and Johnny, a rough-and-ready Brit in his early thirties who is taking over for Claire, as she leaves her post at the same time as Shawn. There is a British couple, Tom and Caroline, who do tech work and science work respectively. Then there are the French, Nicholas, who is the Science Director, and Elise, whose job I have yet to figure out. Anne is the volunteer coordinator, and is also ex-Peace Corps. These are all the vahaza (vah-za) or foreigners. The English-speaking Malagasy are Pepin, who is now training to come on staff as a Divemaster after originally being a boat captain for Reef Doctor, and Christina, who met me at the airport and plans community development work. There are a few other Malagasy staff, but as we cannot communicate well, except for a smile and a greeting, I don’t know their names well enough to include them in this over-long description of Reef Doctor staff.

As you can see, a mix of ethnicities, languages and cultures, and it makes for interesting dinner times. While a conversation in going on to the left of you in French and another to your right in Malagasy, you have to concentrate to make out what the American and Belgian are telling you about spring tides from across the table. While I am the lone Canadian, and one would think a good target for jokes (it’s cold up there without guns and electricity, eh?), the French bear the brunt of the nationalistic joking. It seems to be the same the world over.