Blog Entry Feb 05, 2008. First and foremost, Happy new year! We have seen a lot of change over the past year with coming from the U.S. to Madagascar as Peace Corps volunteers.  Our one year anniversary is quickly approaching on February 22.  We continue to ponder the never-ending complexities of social, economic and agricultural development under the umbrella of environmental responsibility.  Tom thinks this topic deserves several volumes but he attests he is not the one to start writing it.

It has been a long time since we have updated the blog, so we’ll start with the most recent trip.  We went to Maintirano on the west coast to assist a fellow volunteer, ben, with a local sea turtle project. Geraud heads and runs the project. Our plane stopped in a few small villages along the way and at one stop we had to get out for an hour and wait for the plane to return. We flew in at the end of January and stayed on a small island called Nosy Aboazo (part of the Ile Barrens chain) about 55km southwest from Maintirano.  It was about 35 degrees C everyday and the sand was hot enough to peel the skin off Faith’s feet. We had a couple of rain storms that blew our tarp down and I thought it was going to take us with it. We stayed in a tent when it rained, but we mostly slept on the beach close to the ocean in the wide open spaces. To stay in amongst the foliage invited sleep interruption from the hundreds of rats on the island. It is fady, or taboo, to kill the rats as the local people believe that rats harbor the souls of their ancestors.  It is just too bad the people don’t afford the same protection to lemurs!  On one occasion during a mid-day nap, a rat or two walked between Faith and I and scared the living daylights out of us. One day I had one actually sit on my head. Crazy! I was not amused and had no compassion for the rodents.

After our fifth or sixth night (hard to keep track of the days when living in paradise) of walking around the island (it took us about 45 minutes to circumnavigate the island by foot) at high tide, we finally got to see a huge green sea turtle.  She was magnificent and a wonder. The research work was done by two Malagasy men,  Mender and Dookie. They first counted all the eggs in the nest and then measured and weighed a random sample of 30 eggs.  There is some theory that the weight of the eggs can determine the age of the turtle.  If she was not marked, a silver tag was placed on her front left fin.

After seven days on the island we returned to Maintirano to wait for a boat going North to Mahajunga.  Well, needless to say, boats are few and far between during the infamous cyclone season. We waited for about five days (and not just any five days… five days of 100 degree heat with no air conditioning or breeze) before missing our boat and were finally forced to take the plane south to Morondava. You may remember Morondava from our pictures of the baobob trees.  Well, it wasn’t our first choice destination, but we enjoyed it. We got to see the baobobs with leaves.  Then we hitched a ride back to Tana with a peace corps car (thank god for Peace Corps vehicles) and stopped at a few sites along the way.


We completed our first rice harvest of the year which yielded about twice as much rice in the same field as the traditional technique.  Tom started to work the field and planted a few cover crops to increase fertility.

Faith works with the local Seecaline which works with mothers and children (0-5 yrs) to improve nutrition.  This is my home girl, Madeleine, who is in charge of the Seecaline.

We started a new women’s farming group and here we all still celebrating the New Year on January 3.

Geraud heads and runs the project.

Ben and Geraud

Our campsite on the Island.

I will get some photos up.