It cant be over already!?

Hello everyone! 

Thought Id just do a quick update for you all...i dont even remember the last thing that I posted...Well i guess the last time i wrote was for the PLU blog so you should check that out via this link: http://plu-martinique-2012.blogspot.com/  and look for the one that i posted on the 23rd.

Soooo lets see where to begin... On Saturday we drove to a beach thats basically a real life postcard beach.  It was goregous, white sand and palm trees, calm blue water...actually thats like the description of everywhere here.  But it was super nice.

Yesterday I got to experience a bit of carnaval.  So Carnaval is a big deal here and its basically like a huge party that never ends, well until Lent begins that is.  Yesterday there was a pre-Carnaval parade in Fort de France.  Hailey and I went with our family and with Talina, the granddaugther that we did not know existed until this weekend. Ha.  Ya so long story short but theres this guy who randomly shows up at our house but we werent sure if he was our brother cuz our other host brother called him a friend but it is now 99 percent certain that hes a brother since his daughter is the princess granddaughter.  Shes 5 and shes the bigggest chatterbox ever, made me feel a bit dumb cuz i couldnt even keep up with her, not even when we played a say-the-alphabet game. Ha. But she was our pal for the day.  We got our faces painted when we got there and then wandered around looking at all the vendors selling foods and crafts.  Watched some bands and traditional dancing.  Then we waited a longggg time for the parade to start and once it started we waited a lonngggggg time for it to end.  It was a parade of bands and each band had a group of dancers out in front.  The bands were more like a drumline with maybe a saxophone or two.  The best part were the costumes!  They were so colorful and creative!  We saw one group covered in chocolate, one with big peacock feathers, one with big spiral dresses, all sorts of different things!  There were also a log of men in drag which i dont quite understand since homosexuality is not accepted at all here.  And the people watching was very entertaining.  There were tons of people there and it was like a big party.  I cant imagine how nuts the real Caraval is - aparantly it goes on for 4 days and its nonstop dancing and singing and drinking all day every day. 
Then last night we got home late and then ate Christmas dinner!  I had asked our host mom earlier in the week what they eat for Christmas and so she made it to show me which i felt kind of bad about because its so much work for us to make our christmas dinner and i didnt want her to go through that again but she actually always spends that mugh time cooking so maybe its not that big fo a deal.  We had some meat that i think was lamb with some sort of mysterious beans that she cooked all day long and rice. Ill never escape rice.  We also had some pastries filled with fishy mixtures.  Oh and that mroning she showed us how to make her special bread and hot chocolat so Ill bring that home and hopefully cook it for you all some day!

Lets see what else...theres the story of the president.  Whoa.  K so on Friday we went to tour the conseil regional.  So i have to explain this a bit...Martinique is a part of France and in France there are regions and then the regions have departments within them but Martinique decided to be confusing so theyre both a department and a region but the region is still more important and i met the president of the region who is basically the most important dude here.  My host dad told me he also used to be the major of Fort de France.  Hopefully that made sense...now for the story.  So we had a tour of the building and an elected woman, kinda like a congresswoman, showed us around and talked with us.  We took a picture with a painting of Aime Cesaire who is like their hero here and then we thought it was the end of our tour.  Wrong.  We were just standing in a hallway when suddenly theyre like hes here hes here and reporters show up out of nowhere and bahjam theres the president and hes shaking my hand and asking us where were from.  Whoa. Then next in line is the Prime Minister of Antigua who I also shook hands with and then more people who i couldnt figure out.  Then we went into a room and it was a press conference!  They signed a something that they called historical, i think it was to have closer relations between the two countries, and there were tons of reporters.  They took tons of pictures and videos of us as if were celebrities or something and the president and the prime minister both said welcome to the American students and the beginning of their speeches!  Afterwards we chatted with the president.  He was really friendly and personable, like he is actually a real person! Who woulda thunk?  He invited us to this spectacular show tomorrow night and said thatd hed get us tickets to get in.  Whoa.  He even said bye to us again when he drove past us and we were standing outside.  So basically were buds with the president. 

Today was the first day of school for the rest of the university.  We found out that its against the dress code to wear shorts and so we got in trouble but oh well im only here on campus for 2 more days.  We met some law students today.  They are in english class so they spoke to us in english and we had an interesting discussion about the private life of politicians.  They got really heated and I dont think it was the best way to get to know them but thats alright.  I talked with a nice girl I was sitting next to and we ate tons of food.  OHMAN i cant believe I havent blogged about this yet.  So one of the specialties here is this thing called boudin, its like a sausage casing filled with mysterious red/brown mushy stuff.  I ate it the first day I was here when i was living with that other family.  Well we found out that its actually made of cogulated pigs blood.  No lie.  So today they served us traditional foods from Martinique and that was on the plate.  Everyone else in the group freaked out about it but I decided to just adopt my dont think just eat policy and be polite and eat it.  But ya, if you ever come to Martinique I wouldnt recommend the boudin.  Anyways, we hung out with a couple of the students more afterwards and it was nice to just chat with them. 

Unfortunately now is the time when the educational part is kicking all our butts.  We have a big final exam on Thursday and then were all working on projects that are due before we board the plane home.  I kinda wish I could just not do mine and not board the plane home.  Haha. But mine is on the viewpoint that people have of the environment and im using the study i did in Madagascar as a comparison.  So its an interesting topic for me its just that it has to be 10 pages long handwritten in French.  Boo.  So im going to get to work now.

Im not sure if ill be able to blog again before I leave but if i dont then ill try to throw one last one up while Im home.  Thanks for reading about my adventures again!  I cant believe that one year ago today was my first full day in Madagascar!  Time flies!  Seeya soon!

Jessica

Livin the Good Life

Salut mes amis!

Well basically life is good. A little awkard at times but good.  Spent the weekend with my new and wonderful host family. Im living with my friend Hailey so that makes the awkward moments or misunderstandings less difficult.  But I guess i need to rewind a tad...

So on Friday we went kayaking!  Youre probably imagining beautiful calm blue water and scenic views right? Wrong. Change that image to a torrential downpour.  Ha. So the rain is nuts here. Its like a sneak attack when you least expect it it starts dumping rain. Usually it doesnt last very long but it rained pretty much the whole time we were kayaking. We were drenched. It was pretty epic. The waterer wasnt super clear or blue but it was still beautiful. For the most part we were in a mangrove - SUPER cool ecosystem! Theres trees in water with roots sticking up like snorkle tubes, little crabs everywhere, and it all functions as a sort of filtration system, basically its awesome. Its a type of ecosystem id really like to look into studying more or researching or something.  After the kayaking we went to a beach but it was still rainy on and off. 

We all spent the weekend with our host familys.  Hailey and I thought that we were going to get dropped off at a shopping center on Saturday.  Ha. We got in the car and just kept going all these different places we were not expecting...for example: an eyeglass shop where we helped her sister pick glasses, an overstock-type store, a random mans house to buy fish, outdoor markets, their other house (ya apparently they have 2 houses) where we picked fruit, and finally to our Moms sisters house where we talked and ate lunch.  We looked on a map and basically we got a whole tour of the south.  It was so nice, just driving not knowing what will come next and watching all the beautiful green mountains and crazy blue coastline.  Our parents are very kind and would always stop to let us take pictures and tell us about stuff.  Im really glad i switched houses to live with them.  My host dad was a math teacher and he drives a fun snazzy sports car.  My host mom works at the hospital and she is a wonderful chef.  We have 2 host brothers but one is around more than the other, his name is Jean-Yenn and he works at a bakery, hes very friendly and he usually eats diner with us.  They said theyve hosted students for the past 20 years so they know what theyre doing.

On Sunday we were going to go to this nice beach but you have to take a ferry to get there. Our host dad dropped us off but then we discovered that there were no ferries going.  Zut alors.  So we went to a beach behind a nice hotel, we had already gone to this beach earlier in the week but this time we went with our host brother.  It was luch more crowded this time and full of topless old european women, whoa.  Also a very persistant man kept trying to practice english with us.  But it was still a nice time.  Afterwards we just sat on the veranda and worked on homework and then watched a movie.  Pretty relaxing evening.

This morning we had french class and then a man came to teach us about traditional music here. It was pretty interesting and it made me miss playing bass and bass clarinet... now its our lunch break and afterwards we have a dance class - ha that will be entertaining!

Overall things are great here!  The people are very nice and were trying to explore as much as we can. Its nice that they have a bus system because then we can almost always find our way around.  Its crazy that its already been a week and theres only 3 more to go!  Time is going very quickly, but its all good.  Ill try to figure out how to post pictures...or some of my friends have put some up on facebook so you can see what Im up to there.

Have a great week everyone!  Lots of love!

Jessica

Well its not Madagascar but it sure is an adventure!

Hello again everyone!

So if you dont already know, im spending the month of january in martinique a department of France this is an island in the Caribbean!  Its for french credit and im here with a PLU prof and 5 other students. Id change the title of my blog but thats too much work so just pretend its called my Martinique adventures.

We arrived late Saturday night and got picked up right away by our host families. My host mom immediately grabbed my hand and then interrupted our prof and said ok can we go? Then things kind of continued like that...she is a very authoratative person and she is very very controlling. On Sunday i sat around the house and people came over because it was ephiphany, dont know if i spelt that right. its a big deal here and everyone eats this pastry cake with a little plastic king in it and if you get the king then you are the king of the day. my mom got the king but shes already the queen of the house. she is an older woman and all her kids are grown and gone its just her and her brother who only sits in front of the tv with the bug zapper. well by tuesday she had gotten REAL controlling and said i couldnt go out with my friends and wouldnt let me take the bus and tried to make me take a sweatshirt to the beach so i told my proffessor and she wanted me to change houses. so i moved out which was super awkward. she said im like her daughter and she had cried all day but i was sick so we used that as an excvuse. today i alm moving in with my friend hailey and her family and they seem very nice so that will be better.

So ya i was sick, surprise! I went to the doctor which was one little room with a nice outdoor waiting patio and she gave me medicine and i rested at my proffesors apartment. i staid with her on tuesday and wednesday night and she took care of me. Im feeling pretty much better now so hopefully thqt lasts.

So its really interesting here. Theres certain things that remind me of Madagascar but overall its very different. everyone speaks french which is nice, i havent heard very much creole. the houses are all fairly nice and are crammed on hills. roads are tiny and people drive like maniacs but we take the bus a lot. the ocean is goregous! i can see it right now as im typing at the university. ive only been to one beach that was pretty rocky but were going to find a beach this afternoon. the food is good, minus that its probably what made me sick. they eat a lot of warm food like soup which is weird cuz its so hot here. ill update food once ive eaten more. OH but yesterday i had the best mango gelato!

Yesterday we had a funpacked day. we started at a museum that explained the sugar cane production, thats basically why martinique became a french colony and they were part of the slave trade until 1948 :[ Its pretty sad but its good to be informed about it. then we switched it up and went zip lining! oh man that was so fun! it was more like a 2 hour obstacle course because you had to cross crazy tightropes going upwards in order to zip down and we were up pretty high in the trees. im kinda weak from beign sick and it took all the strength i had but it was worth it. If i can ill post some pictures soon. then after that we went to another museum type thing on slavery. this man basically took a machete and cut down some forest and built replica slave houses and stuff. its been rated one of frances best attractions and its been on national geographic i guess. it was interesting, they looked like the huts in Mada. The guide was the man who built it and he talked SO fast that we couldnt really keep up so Madame, thats what i call our prof, and our bus driver helped trqnslate for us. then afterwards we went to the town of Trois islets, a little coastal town, and walked around and got ice cream. it was a very nice day.

Hope everything is going well there in the states! theres another blog through PLU that we are all posting on...i dont know the link but ill try to get it for next time, maybe its on PLU's website?

So ya this is a pretty frazzled entry so hopefully ill be more settled for the next one. Overall life is good here, its very relaxed and chill. Time seems to be going quickly and im only here for the month so im trying to do as much as possible.  The other Lute gals and generally all the people here are very nice so were sure to have fun!

Talk to you all again soon! :)
A la prochaine fois! (until next time!)

Sainte Luce, The Island Adventure: Part Two

Salama everyone! Well I have completed my fieldwork at Sainte Luce so now I am back in Fort Dauphin staying with my host family and trying to write a crazy paper on the data that I found.  Definitely feeling a bit stressed right now but I’m trying to just take it one step at a time and accomplish things in baby steps…Anyways I’ll rewind and fill you all in on the second half of Sainte Luce.

Soooo hmmm lets see where to begin.  I’m typing this while I don’t have internet so I can’t read my last entry so forgive me if I repeat things that I have already told you.  Ok so I was in Fort Dauphin for 3 days due to the rain-induced evacuation.  For those days I staid at a nice house on the beach that belongs to the man who owns the Sainte Luce Island Reserve (he’s currently home in Australia so we got to kick it at his place).  The house was really nice, overlooked the beach AND had a kitchen with a freezer with ice! First ice water in Madagascar man was that glorious.  But the downside was that they haven’t paid their electric bill so power was cut which was kind of torture because they have a tv and movies IN ENGLISH but I couldn’t watch them since there was no power.  Oh well life goes on.  So ya I just hung out around there, chilled with some Peace Corps volunteers, tried to make cheesy pasta one night for dinner that was an epic fail but I had low expectations so its alright (Grandpa, nothing compares to your mac & cheese).  We didn’t take the lobster car this time we bummed a ride with some South African vazahas who own a hotel in the next village.  Their vehicle ended up being an open Jeep with back side benches.  Actually pretty comfy until they crammed in 4 small children and a ton of other miscellaneous objects.  Its was a pretty rough ride, sitting sideways on a bumpy road while kids next to you barf kind of sums it up.  But it got us there and that’s what matters.  

Then theres the pirogue madness.  So I told you how our holy pirogue was stolen.  Don’t really know why someone would want to steal it because this pirogue has got some serious holes I don’t understand how a single person could steal it without ending up sinking in the middle of the lake.  So we got a ride across the river from the guy who we basically know stole our pirogue but he claims to have found it after it drifted upstream.  Plus somehow the hole had gotten worse.  So he said that he would fix it for us.  He did but then the next day the pirogue had once again disappeared and eventually someone told us that the front of the pirogue had been broken off.  It would take a lot of work to break a pirogue.  So we were a bit stranded on the island. 

Life at camp was pretty much normal.  It was still raining quite a bit so I spent a lot of timing sitting at the table under a tarp.  Found some creative ways to pass time…started making Sudoku puzzles (it’s a lot harder than you would think it would be I challenge you to try) sketched future ceramics projects, wrote, daydreamed.  Pretty long days.  If the weather was good we would go out to birdwatch usually early in the morning. 

Normal people have to deal with traffic in their daily commute.  I have to deal with spiders and snakes.  Man the number of spiders in that forest is insane! Some of them are huge, maybe 3-4inches, but I actually prefer those guys cuz you always see them coming.  It’s the tiny spiders that got me.  Their webs are like booby traps and they’re so fast!  You can walk on a path and then walk back on the same path half an hour later and they’ve already rebuilt their web!  So whenever I went through the forest I yielded a spider fighting stick that I would wave in front of my while I walk to catch the webs.  Going to admit that sometimes I felt like I was in Harry Potter with my little twiggy wand.  Then one day Joe and I were walking to the beach and all the sudden he was like ummmm Jess do you know what you just stepped over? And I was like huhhh and turned around to find a massive boa! Like seriously huge, prob 3-4 feet long and pretty thick.  You might ask how in the world I didn’t see it but that was because I had to keep my head up because if you don’t watch what you walk through then the spider webs will getcha in the face.  So ya I stepped right over this guy! So glad I didn’t step on it that would have been terrifying.  But it was harmless and Joe actually picked it up.  Ive got a cool video of it I can show you all once I’m home.  Also that same evening I found a black widow chillin right outside the door to my tent.    So ya those were the most vicious things I’ve seen here and both in one day too!  Also saw some collared brown lemurs (dad posted a picture of a pretty ugly one on facebook I think the ones I saw were a tad more attractive). 

So we were originally supposed to come home on Tuesday the 26^th but then on Saturday the 23^rd Eric our cook got a call that his son had malaria.  So he was going to leave and with him gone that left us with no cook, no pirogue, no generator (oh ya cuz that broke too) to charge our phones to call someone to get us across the lake, and very low food supplies.  Sounds like a setup for a bad survivor movie or something huh?  So even though I wasn’t really done collecting my data we decided to head back to Fort Dauphin with Eric to prevent being stranded on the island.  This turned out to be difficult because there were no cars going back that day and the next day was Easter so we ended up having to rent out a 4by4 to get us back (first car ride with seatbelts! Yay!)  Spent all day waiting for the car in the hut in the village.  Kind of similar to last time: Eric and his girlfriend fighting, random men smoking, kids buying Madagascar moonshine calld Tokagasy (really dangerous stuff), a drunk woman trying to tell me and Joe that she has a vazaha spirit inside of her, and a mysterious voice that sounded like a gnome coming from who knows where.  Ya, while this was all simultaneously occurring I leaned over to Joe and said “sometimes I feel like this world isn’t real.” But hey that’s Madagascar in a nutshell for ya.

So I got back with my family really late Saturday night and was excited to go to Easter church with them.  I don’t really know what I was expecting, maybe something similar to my church’s Easter service since theyre both Lutheran churches.  But basically it was exactly the same as the other times I’ve gone to church.  Which I guess is alright, it was only 2 hours not crazy long like I expected it to be.  The rest of the day was just like any other…in fact it was more uneventful than usual because my host mom and Linda went away somewhere to get lobster? Anyways it was kind of a lonely Easter. 

But it turns out that n Madagascar the day after Easter is a wayyyy bigger deal than Easter itself. The whole town, and probably the whole country, goes out on massive picnics.  I’ve concluded that its kind of like Mardi Gras but opposite.  Like instead of partying before Lent starts its like woooohooooo Easter is over lets party it up! Except I didn’t know that any of this was going to happen until my sisters were like ok lets go.  So I just followed them.  Went to Dianne’s boyfriend’s house where there were probably about 40 family members there and I was a big focus of all their attention.  Lots of awkward smiling and nodding and failing to communicate.  But they were all very friendly and hospitable.  Then later that afternoon I went to the beach with Jenny, Dianne, and her boyfriend.  We had a nice little picnic and ate coconuts and cookies and played cards.  It was a lot of fun I really enjoyed it.  The beach was insanely crowded and I’m pretty sure that I was the only vazaha there.  So anyways I think we should start this picnic tradition in America so you are all officially invited to picnic with me next year the day after Easter. 

Besides that I’ve just been trying to get this ISP write-up done.  Which is proving to be difficult.  The laptop I was told I could use in the field is broken (because our car ride home was so bumpy that it broke it) and my family’s computer got a virus while I was gone.  So imagine trying to write a 20-40 page scientific paper, with incomplete data, without a library to find sources, without internet or a computer or even reliable electricity, with people constantly looking over your shoulder, while all of your English-speaking friends are out of town so you have no one to vent to.   Ya thats kind of what its like.  Oh yea and this project is basically my grade for an entire 4 credit class.  But you know I’m just going to try to work with what I’ve got and hopefully that’s enough.  Elise has nicely let me use this laptop so I’ve just been sitting at the vazaha hotel everyday this week and going home for meals. 

So that’s where I’m at! This whole week I’ve been the only SIT kid in town so that’s been a bit lonely but the rest of the gang is coming back today so I’m pretty excited to see them.  And in just 2 more weeks I’ll be home and can see you all!!! It seems so far away but so close all at once!

If you’ve got some free time you can check out the website for where I was staying.  Its: sainte-luce-reserve.org  The website makes it look a lot more fancy there than it actually is but its got some good pics.  Also I think they are going to upload my pictures there too, not sure when but maybe you can check that out…

Just realized that this is one crazy long post so thanks for stickin with me if you’re still reading this all the way down here at the bottom.  Ill try to write at least once more before I leave.  Hope that you all had a wonderful Easter! 

Jess

Sainte Luce, The Island Adventure: Part One

Surprise!

Yes this is a sneak attack blog.  Well ok more like things went crazy here like they always do and now Ive ended up back in Fort Dauphin instead of being stranded out in the bush.  Guess I have some explaining to do...

Wow im not even sure where to start...at the beginning I guess...

So I flew back to Fort Dauphin last Monday.  Flight was bumpy as always but I did sit next to an interesting man who was coming here to make a film for UNICEF.  Stayed with my host family for a couple of nights it was nice to see them and kind of feel like I was home.  Also hiked the giant mountain here in Fort Dauphin! We went up to see it at sunrise and could see the whole bay it was really beautiful, cant wait to show you all pictures! Oh yea so that was with Joe and Elise (and a random Malagasy guy with a meat cleaver who was our "guard") Guess i need to rewind a bit.  So Elise is in charge of all logistal things and basically everything at Sainte Luce but shes really chill and fun so hang out with and then Joe is a British student who is the supervisor of the camp at Sainte Luce.  So basically Ive just been hanging out with them.

Ok anyways...so on Wednesday we headed to Sainte Luce in a lobster car.  The mystery of the lobster car has been solved! It is actually a truck with a big case in the back that the pack with ice and then drive out to get lobster and fish to take back to Fort Dauphin.  So just imagine a pickup truck pumping malagasy music with a ton of backpacks, jugs, rice bags, a big tribal looking drum, and other random things straped to the top.  At one point inside there were 7 people and a small child.  Four of us crammed in the back with the kid on a lap and then two in the passenger seat and then also there were 4 guys sitting on the back/roof with all the stuff. Illegal much? Nahhhhhh. But you know whatever gets you there. Not sure how the guys on the back hung on though it was a pretty bumpy ride but overall it wasnt too bad.  It did suck though that I had to pay double for being white. Wasnt too thrilled about that.  But the car took us there to a village and then from the village we had to row across a lake in a pirogue.  Well of course the pirogue would have crazy holes in it so we had to scoop water out with buckets but once again it got us there.  Then hiked in about half an hour to the camp. Camp is nice and simple.  Its suposed to be an ecotourism resort in the future but right now theres just one hut (there was another but it got knocked down in teh cyclone) and a table and a cooking area.  But man is it beautiful! Its such a unique place! On one side there is a river and then you walk through the forest across a dune for about 10 minutes and its the ocean! Its the best of both worlds I dont think I could have picked a better spot! I decided to do my independent study project on birds so i wake up pretty early and birdwatch.  Birdwatching isnt my favorite thing in the whole world but the birds are really pretty and im getting better at identifying them so its getting more exciting.  Explored the island its pretty awesome.  Walked along the beach and through the villages and saw pretty much everything in a crazy 6 hour long adventure one day.  But then the rain started, which is why I am here typing this to you.  So its been raining out there pretty much for the last 4 days and when it rains you cant really do much, especially not birdwatching.  So we were just sitting around...playing cards, reading, swatting away the crazy armies of ants and flys, doing a whole lot of nothing...that was actually pretty rough...way to much time to think and it was starting to make me pretty homesick again. But then yesterday we got a call that we should try to get out before the roads flood.  So began another crazy journey.  Oh yea also some jerk guy stole our holey pirogue and then went and told Eric's girlfriend and brother (eric is our cook, he doesnt talk much but man can he cook!) so basically we know he stole it but cant do anything about it.  anyways we were stuck out there with no way across the lake. so we hiked through the rainy forest to the lake, waited there for about an hour till a kid who looked about 12 years old showed up in a tiny pirogue, bummed a ride across the lake, only to find that the car that was supposed to be there at noon of course was not there.  So we proceeded to sit in a hut for the next 10 hours.  I kid you not.  It was a verrrrry long 10 hours of my life.  But it was Eric's girlfriends house and she was nice and fed us and all.  Also we bought some coconuts and a small child just climbed up this coconut tree like a ninja and kicked the coconuts down for us that was pretty crazy.  Anyways we sat around for a long time waiting for this car.  Eventually gave up and went to bed there in their hut but then the car actually did show up at around 10 (which is really late for here) and so we crammed in there and headed to Fort Dauphin.  Probably the most terrifying car ride yet it was super bumpy and the roads were pretty flooded and the driver was reckless to say the least but it got us here.  So tada! Now im staying here in Fort Dauphin at this really nice house that is owned by the guy whos land I am camping on.  Its right on the beach and they even have an oven so im really excited im going to try to bake something later...But Ill probably just be here until the weather clears up, probably head back around Friday...

Man I feel like that was a really frazzled story sorry if it was hard to follow.  Oh yea i forgot about Beno! Beno is the guard out there and hes really funny. He doesnt speak any english but hes like a big overgrown kid and hes obessessed with spicy food and hes just kind of entertaining to have around.  Yea so at camp its just me, Joe, Eric, and Beno.  I do miss the other SIT kids havent really been in touch with them much but im looking forward to seeing them again.

Anyways thats Sainte Luce.  At times it does feel like being stranded on a deserted island with crocodiles onone side and sharks on the other with no boat of the island (really, there are sharks and crocs)  but at others its like your own beautiful private forest where the rest of the world doesnt exist.  So I flip-flopped between those two mindsets a bit.  Its only really bad when im sitting around with nothing to do I dont mind when im tromping through the forest or birdwatching...  But anyways ill go back out there for another 10 days and then i just have to write up my project and then im done! Ill actually be home one month from today! Man thats crazy! Exciting but kind of sad all at once.

Oh yea and we saw some collared brown lemurs there! Except they were in the part of the forest that we are technically not supposed to go into without paying.  But we might have gotten "lost" and stumbled across the lemurs :)

Ya so I guess thats about it for now.  Lifes always a whirlwind adventure here.  Miss and love you all!

Road Trippin' Across Madagascar!

Hello everyone!

I know that this is a long-awaited blog entry and I do send you my deepest apologies for the delay. But really I blame the computers of Madagascar and unreliable internet. SO I have a lot to fill you guys in on...lets see where to start...

Its hard to think all the way back to being in Fort Dauphin. But I think I was ready to get out of there and see the rest of the country. The last week there was kind of long but I spent a lot of good time with my host family. I learned how to weave mats and bookmarks out of banana leaves! Also my mom and sister taught me how to make this really tasty banana-rice cake (basically you soak rice, pound it and sift it till its kinda like flour, mush up a ton of bananas with a fork, add a pinch of yeast and baking powder, and then cook it forever - except they dont have an oven so we boiled water in a big kettle and then put the smaller kettle with the batter inside. its really incredible the solutions that they come up with here)  You all know how much I like crafts and cooking so I had a lot of fun. Also hung out at my taxi driver uncles house. Had dinner there on the last night dont really understand why but it was really nice, we watched a bootlegged planet earth dubbed in french so I was really happy. He has the little baby named Steven who is so cute! He was just about to learn to walk when I left, he just turned one and figured out how to stand. Also my uncle gifted me some malagasy music videos so I can show you all the crazy malagasy dance moves Im always talking about. So anyways that was pretty much it. My dad, uncle, and Jenny all went to the wirport with me (it was the first time shes ever seen an airport she was amazed that ill get to the other side of the country in one day) The flight was good it was crazy short just half an hour but not too bumpy. Soooo then we were in Tulear!

So Tulear is a pretty big city on the west coast. In one word it was HOT! Oh man it was so stinkin hot there I just had to treat myself to ice cream a good couple of times :) and it was mad delicious ice cream too! mango flavored gelato-basically better than any ice cream ive ever eaten I really miss it a lot now. That city was pretty nice. I couldnt really use the internet there cuz for awhile the whole countrys internet was turned off because they were announcing the new prime minister (who ended up being the same guy as before, bad news bears). Ya that kind sums up politics here basically theyre just really messed up. But we did a lot of different things there. The first 3 days we were camping on our directors land. It was a really nice area right next so some mangroves (mangroves are a really interesting and cool type of ecosystem. Im going to be nerdy and explain it: so its this transitional ecosystem where trees grow between fresh and saltwater bodies of water. So its really cool cuz even though salt in high doses is toxic to plants the trees and animals have adapted to live there. also when the tide comes in theyre flooded so the roots of the trees are like snorkles that stick out of the ground to breathe. Theres tons of little crabs running all over and theres there really cool fishes that have feet and can live on land for up to 3 hours! So basically i really like mangroves. kind of wish i could do my ISP there but it would just be too difficult for me to change my plans at this point.) anyways we had a big party at Jim (the director) house the last night and danced and ate goat fried on a big stick. it was a good time. Then we staid in the city for awhile and i had my FIRST HOT SHOWER! Thank goodness Im pretty sure it was necessary, cold showers just leave you not feeling as clean. So that was nice. My favorite part of Tulear was the last day when we went snorkling!  Went to this organization called reef doctor, theyre an NGO workin there and they were really nice-good things happening there if anyone feels like coming to research/volunteer in marine studies in madagascar. So Tulear is home to the 3rd largest coral reef in the world! Pretty awesome; We had to take little 4 person pirogue boats out to the reef and then wejust got to swim around for a good hour or so. I was a whimp and wore a life jacket but that was actually great for me cuz I just floated around watching the fishes and didnt have to worry about drowning. It was so incredible! The fish were so vibrant-orange, green, purple,blue, crazy colors! The visibility was bad in the beginning but it got better. funny story so I was just chillin when one of my friends said ohmygosh baby shark! so i stuck my head under the water and this "baby shark" swam right into me! i was like ahdfqufhgqmuiohfmyeutgn! (garled snorkle code for OHMYGEEZ AHHHHHH) but then it turns out that it in fact was not a baby shark but rather a friendly little gray cleaner fish who likes to suck the dirty stuff off of you. So he just kind of followed us around and ate all of our dead skin. The coral actually was hit really bad with a disease last year so i guess about half of it was actually dead-i didnt really know what i was looking at though until after we came back to shore. Saw some really cool stuff though, huge yellow and black angel fish (grandpa z this made me think of your aquarium because you always siad they are mean and eat the other fish!) i used my underwater camera and took tons of pictures that i will show you all later. Really awesome though!

After Tulear we started our voyage up north to the capital. Generally we drove for about 6 hours each day in the TATA (this tata is a lot better than the one we took to the village stay though, it actually is a working vehicle and we havent had to push it yet!) Stopped at Islo national park. Went swimming in some natural water holes that was really cool. At Islo we had some really chubby brown lemurs visit us and try to steal our breakfast! Also went to Anja where we saw a ton of maki lemurs (ringtails) and went on a cool hike that included some spulunking, a rope ladder, and a kings tomb covered in zebu skulls. Then got to Andrigatra. Oh man was this intense. You guys wont believe the things Ive done! So we hiked into our campground a good hour an a half basically uphill stairs tha whole time with our little packs. It was tough but really nice because it was sunset time and ther were these two huge waterfalls. Then we staid there for the night and the next morning we hiked the tallest accessible mountain in Madagascar! Thats right folks, I did this and I do have to say that I conquered that mountain. It was called Pic Boby (pronounced Booby so naturally a lot of jokes were made) the first hour was not so bad mostly grassland but then the next THREE HOURS were a straight uphill climb, either stairs or steep rock that we crawled up. Now you all know that I am not the most athletic of all people BUT i was so happy i actually really enjoyed the hike while i was doing it and i wasnt that winded! it was actually really exhillerating im pretty proud of myself for doing it. the view from the top was incredible it was so worth it. cool to know i was at the highest possible point in the country (there is one higher mountain but it is too wild and its basically controled by pot growers/cops working together) Took us about 3 hours to hike back down, think i prefer going up hiking down was more difficult. But it was really fun.  Also it was freezing there! Which was a bummer for me since my sleeping bag is for 55 degrees and up. I literally slept in every piece of clothing i had with me-my long pants with shorts on top with two pairs of socks, long sleaved shirt and riancoat, beanie hat, and then used my sweatshirt as an extra blanket. who knew it got that cold here? but the last night there the profs surprised us with smores so we roasted them around a campfire and sang songs with our malagasy guides and it was a good time.

After that we went to Fianarantsoa. Its a pretty big city i didnt really like it there and I was bummed all of there internet was slow and unusable. It was one of the girls birthdays while we were there so that was fun though. We got to eat cake! Such a treat!

Then we went to Ranomafana national park. Its hard to pick a favorite but I think this one is it. Its a crazy beautiful rainforest! Basically what I imagined Madagascar looking like before I came here. It was so lush and green and there were tons of lemurs! Saw 4 types: sifaka, 2 types of brown lemurs, and the highly sought after golden bamboo lemur! The golden bamboo lemurs are really cool they eat this special type of bamboo that has 6 times the letheal amount of cyanyde to kill a human. and they can eat it no problem, no one really can figure out why. also theyre small but pretty beastly little guys so i think theyre pretty cool. we also got to go on a night walk to see the nocturnal animals. saw cute mouse lemurs, chameleons, frogs; AND I spotted a snake!!! I was really excited to find it, I was the only student who found anything so its kind of a big deal. We also visited an awesome NGO there, i would love to go back and do research with them sometime maybe ill drag one of you here with me :) we interviewed some villagers, basically the national park system is super corrupt and they have gotten jipped from their land and livelihood its really sad. then we went to the"natural hot springs" really funny because it turned out to be a regular swimming pool that the water from the springs is pumped into. it was pretty funny there were actually kids in floaties all over it. water was definitely not clean but i couldnt resist it was probably just as warm if not warmer than our hot tub!

so then we spent a whole day driving here to the capital city. 12 hours in the TATA is a loooong time. But here are some entertaining bits from the trip: a man sold my friend a post card and asked "are you going back to america where barack obama is your dreamland," saw a random ferris wheel (it was being run by a man who literally just pulled it everytime a seat came past), saw a small boy pooping in the river while his mom stood next to him (basically sums up all of the sanitary/water quality problems of Madagascar), and a very funny corn story. So theres a girl here named May and she is from Burma (but studies in the US) and has this darling south african accent (kind of sounds like a british accent). So she had a random craving for boiled corn and was like "ohhhh boiled corn" (with her cute accent you just have to imagine it) then i kid you not, not even an hour after that we pulled into a random town and all of a sudden there were men and women surrounding our tata trying to sell us boiled corn! literally corn everywhere it was hilarous! so we all bought corn from our windows (i got grilled corn) It was so comical May was really happy. It actually works great its just like a drive through except you have to take the chance of getting explosive diareah since its sketchy street food.

The drive was interesting though. basically saw the main attractions in all of the southern half of madagascar. it was crazy how much the landscape changed! from grassland to savanna with massive baobab trees to forest to mountains to basically everything. and interestingly everything improves as you approach the capital. the road got better, houses and stores got nicer, everything is just higher quality (which is still not saying much by US standards) but it was intriguing to watch.

Antananarivo, a real city!? This is the capital city where I have been all week and I am most definitely ready to escape. Its HUGE! Crazy that a city like this exists here! And its really dirty and crowded and honestly I just much rather prefer to be camping in the forest. The food here is nice though last night the girls and I treated ourselves to Italian food - pasta with real cheese it was incredible! But besides that weve just had a lot of free time here. Visited an orphanage thats doing REALLY great things here. You can sponser a kid through them and you all should because theyre a great organization, the best and most organized one that I have seen here, and theyre doing tons of great things. One day when I have more time ill tell you more about it; also went to a huge arts market. didnt like that so much its like the people suck you in and i hate haggeling and i was just like AH this is overwhelming! once you ask a price its impossilbe to escape. and it was really sad because they were selling tons of hardwood (like rosewood) products which is totally illegal and a huge source of deforestation issues. i tried to tell people who tried to sell me stuff that it was illegal but of course they didnt care. also fought with some dudes over Harry Potter in the book marche (ok not really fought i dont want david to come over here to beat these guys, it was more like agressivley haggled) they were ripping me off and wouldnt budge so i didnt get the book,kinda bummed about this. 

Wow thats a lot. so thats about it i think. Today were eating lunch in a cookie shop which might have something resembling a bagel so im pretty excited. tomorrow were driving another 4 hours to visit a national park where the indri indri lemurs are-theyre the largest living lemurs so im excited to see them. then we come back on sunday and on monday each student is going their seperate way!

So to fill you in on what ill be up to: this next month is devoted to the Independent Study Project, or ISP. Mine is officially in Sainte Luce - a littoral (coastal) forest about ' hours from Fort Dauphin. Ill be camping there for 3 weeks and then the last week ill go back to stay with my host family and write up my huge paper. Not exactly sure what my project will be but i think itll be a basic inventory of the forest and the conservation efforts there. I do have an edvisor who will be there with me  from time to time.  There is also a guy doing research and supervising the camp along with a cook and a guard so I wont be totally alone. Thats about as much detail as i have right now. kinda crazy im just going to try to show up and look and the forest and see where it goes from there. I will have my phone while I am there so never fear i wont be totally out of contact with the real world in case of an accident or something. And im able to use their computer (and maybe internet from time to time so hopefully i can update you all!)

think thats about it. oh yea also one night this week i accidentally ordered zebu foot soup. it was strangely fatty. i just couldnt stomach it. its the first thing i really havent eaten since i got here though.

Ok i think thats really it. ill be home in 6 weeks from today thats so crazy! hopefully ill be able to blog during ISP but dont be surprised if you dont hear from me. im glad that my blog is entertaining for you all, cant wait to tell you more stories and share pictures with you! everyone please remember to do what you can to conserve (you know, turn off lights, unplug toasters, turn the water off when you brush your teeth, all that jazz) it really means a lot to me. 

Miss and love you all! Veloma!

Dancin in chicken poo - aka rural village stay

Hey everyone!
So this last week was the much anticipated village stay! man what an adventure it was dont even know where to begin!  Guess ill start with getting there. So as ive said before the roads here suck BIG TIME and thanks to the yclone everything is extra muddy and holy so of course it was difficult to get there because the roads were flooded and then we couldnt go a certain way because it was too close to the sacred burial grounds. plus our main vehicle was the tata bus. oh the tata how can i even begin to describe it. its basically a giant tin can on wheels that would instantly fail all safety inspections in most other countries. and there was about 25 kids crammed on it with all of our luggage on top-no idea how it didnt tip over. and its not really 4 wheel drive but its pretty massive so it just kinda barrels through everything. well on the way there i was in a 4wheel drive car but on the way back i was in the tata but ill get to that later i guess. so the barreling through worked pretty well. until the end of the trip. took us literally 5 hours to go the last 30 kilometers which is like 12 or 15 miles i think? and this 5 hours included trudging through poo mud, digging paths in the sand, and literally pushing the tata. it was mostly the sands fault cuz it was just too deep. i felt really bad for all the kids in the tata so i got out and helped them with the dirty work it was good experience and helped me get a bit of a workout in. so we finally got there at 2 am - oh ya we had left at 7am so thats what 19 hours or something crazy? we ate a nice diner at " am and then set up our tents on the beach-literally on the beach! it was so beautiful when I woke up to the ocean the traveling was totally worth it! it was awesome and there were tons of cool shells so i was really happy.

This whole trip was combined with the malagasy CEL students by the way. originally we all thought they were a bit immature and frustrating to be around but now the two groups have really bonded which im really happy about and were all friends and really chill together. anyways i was in a group with a SIT friend Lisa-shes totally rad and fun to be around, really positive and fun so it was good to enter into the experience with her.  Then we were partnered with a CEL student named Romuald and he was really friendly and nice and translated for us. We declared ourselves the best group pretty much instantly. So we went to the market there- real different from the market here its basically a dessert there, food is mainly manioc, potatoes, and cactus fruit.

Then the adventure really began when we got picked up in a legit zebu cart. I actually felt bad for the zebus its looked like hard work and they kept hitting them with sticks. but they kind of deserved it because they kept walking into the cactus and then they pooed and their tails flicked it on us. but thats just the beginning of the poo haha as david put it - everything was very poo-ey. so took us about an hour to go 3.5 km in the zebu cart. funny thing is that i think that was still faster than the tata. Got to the village and was greated by tons of kids who awkwardly watched us set up our tents.

Gosh i have so much to say i dont even know how to organize this so sorry if its all frazzled...
Ok so ill start with the family. Baba (dad) was the local medicine man and he has 2 wives? maybe 3 we couldnt really figure it out but I guess thats actually not a lot for this region some men have 8 or 10! we asked how many kids he has and he had to try to count them and said 8 but i think there were a lot more. but we had the main mom (nene) and 3 main daughters who were with us the most. ill classify them as old sis, cross-eyed sis, and little sis. cross-eyed sis was my favorite. then there was an aunt (or wife?) that we called papaya face because she always had yellow papaya juice on her face, apparently it lightens your skin? anyways papaya face was always all up in our business and was the one who would usually grab us and make us dance.
So on to the dance. I mean stomp. Haha Well the first full day we were there Lisa was sick so I basically entertained them and we danced for I think around 3 hours. Which is really a workout. The dancing the stomping and waving your hands and the singing is more like screaming as loud as possible. haha and they would use a drum made out of zebu skin. i atually really liked drumming i could lay down a pretty good beat. so yea they REALLY like their dancing. and they get really into it which is really entertaining but really draining sometimes. funny to watch a frail stick thin ancient looking old man stomping around. and they basically have maybe 5 different songs and 3 different dances that we just did over and over and over. cant wait to show them to you.

So the poo. Basically there was poo everywhere. they sit in it, eat in it, stomp in it, play in it, basically live in it. its pretty gross but to them its not because they dont know the corelation between poo and health. and the source of the poo was the tons of animals all around-zebu, sheep, goats, chickens, turkeys, dogs. there was one evil dog who was in charge of the animals and the first night he started growling like crazy outside out tent we thought it was a savage beast but it was just this crazy dog. anyways the poo situation is pretty gross. the worst instance of it was one day we were sitting outside eating lunch and i was really really happy because it was a really good lunch-rice with squash and beans and manioc! and then a dumb chicken came over and so nene shooed it away with a stick and it kicked sand/poo all over my plate. the next bite i took was like pure chunks i couldnt finish it i was so sad. so the poo is nasty but i tried to stay as sanitary as possible-was definitely the dirtiest ive ever been in my whole life though. just had one kind of bucket shower.
anyways the food was good but not really traditional because we brought it for them. it was usually a massive plate with rice and beans. also a lot of potatoes which they call sweet potatoes but they arent orange. someties we got to eat them with honey-real honey with the honeycomb and everything so that was a treat.
they have lots of fields-thats where they get their food. so we went out to the fields with them. fist 2 days we went to the potatoe fields which is actually pretty funny since i always say that i want to be a potatoe farmer cuw its like digging for burried treasure. well il not so sure about that anymore-or at least not a potatoe farmer in madagascar. that was hard work! basically you just find a root and start digging. i worked with cross-eyed sis and she found them and then i tried to yank them out. then we carried them back in baskets on our heads-cant wait to show you all pics! did that twice then the third day i enjoyed more we went to their other fields and weeded and piked beans and then shelled them under the shade of a papaya tree and ate melon. also dug for manioc-like potatoes but even more work. walked to their water hole which is a rock with a huge hole in it and a ladder that goes down prob 12 feet or so? sis filled a bucket to the brim and carried it back on her head without spilling a drop-so impressive!

so we did have homework to do their and we chose to do our project on traditional medicine since baba is the ombiasa-medicine man. so we interviewed him and all was good. then after another group came to talk to him he was like oh we have to finish your homework so we said ok and went into the house ( oh yea the house is a tiny hut made of wood and mud and its probably about the siwe of most bathrooms, maybe slightly larger, with just a bed and a table and we would sit on mats of the tiny bit of floor-barely space for the 3 of us) anyways baba showed us these seeds called sikidy. so theyre basically pebbles that he puts out in a certain order which he is told by the ancestors and he uses them to do consultations. then he ground up some bone and put it in water with some tree bark and drank it and rubbed it on his head and chest. so pretty loopy but whatever you want to believe is fine so i just listened to it and it was all good UNTIL he was finished and proceded to tell us that the demonstration costed money. and 10000 Airyairy! which is only 5 bucks but still thats a ton for here and the way he went about it is was so wrong! so i paid him (was later reimbursed by the program) and we just tried to get it go but after that we just couldnt look at baba the same way. we made lots of jokes about it though- tought Romuald how to say "our dad scemmed us. it sucked" in english. found out he did the same thing to the other group who visited so he made a ton of money off of us. And i lean i know that theyre really poor but hes a hardcore chain smoker and hes probably just gong to use it to buy more tobacco-he already was using the notebooks we gifted the kids to roll his smokes. so ya the family dynamic was a bit off after that but i tried to not let it ruin the experience it was just another thing to learn from.
For living such a ruogh life they really did spend a lot of time sitting around doing nothing. the number one past time was looking for fleas in each others hair. papaya face stuck her head in my lap and made me look through her hair for a solid 10 min i think that was the worst ten minutes there.

Then on Friday-the last day- they did our hair in the traditional braids. So i was really adament that they could only use my comb on mine and lisas hair and they did but then of course it fell out. so they redid it using their nasty hairy comb. then they didnt have rubberbands- they used silly bands for lisa and the first time they used string for mine but then the second time they redid it they used-i kid you not-human hair that they pulled out of the wall or some mystery place. ya nasty. and while this is happening baba was smoking in the hut and oldest sis was scratching at my sunburn. that was when i was like ok im ready to leave now. so we put on our lamawanas -cloth you tie on like a skirt. then we ate lunch-a massive plate of rice and beans with a potatoe. then we prepared to leave and nene gave us another potatoe to eat and literally a live chicken to take back to fort dauphin as a gift for our family. Then the entire village-prob about 25 people- left and danced to the main village area. not exaggerating this is a 3.5km journey most of which we were "dancing" or more like stomping/jogging through the sand in the dessert in the middle of the day with a ton of people chanting and beating drums and taking shots of rum. yea it was insanity if ive ever seen it. luckily i didnt have to carry the chicken the whole way cuz they realized we didnt know how to dance with chickens in our hands. seriously it was so crazy i dont even know how to fully describe it. we got there and all 12 of the villages were there with the other students and we all had to do our dance performances infront of everyone. we went second but the first group did the same song that we were going to do so choas broke out and then family was just screaming at each other and we had no clue what was going on and all of the sudden we were dancing in front of everyone and everything was completely different than what we practiced. we did this follow the leader theing where we would stomp and then suddenly suqat down on the ground. then they made me sing! ah but i was just like i have no clue what im doing but im just going to pretend i do and go or it! so i think we pulled it off alright.  afterwards we gifted them a goat and then i just turned into a mad goat rampage dance party. somehow we said bye to the fam.

so that night was a big party and then the next morning we left nd 10 minutes in we were already pushing the tata through the sand. i was in the tata for all the ride home it was crazy! we pushed it, changed a flat tire, and fiwed the brakes once. also this whole time there are live turkeys and a goat strapped to the top-the goat woulndt stop crying i felt so bad for it- oh  yes and all teh chickens under our seats. and that was nasty since the chickens would poo and then roll in the poo and then flap their feathers and get it everywhere. so we kept our feet us on the old tire which was in the middle of the entry to to bus next to us. and the whole time theres either crazy techo malagasy dance music or super cheesy celen dion blasting on the radio. insanity. stopped for lunch at 5:30 and didnt get back here till midnight. of course it was poruing rain here too. showed up at my host house at midnight with a chicken and a friend because her house was locked up. but my family was so nice they even made up ramen for dinner! so happy to be with them again i appreciate them even more now theyre so nice and their toilete is the best!

So that was the village stay. I think i did a really good job at emersing myself in their culture and just doing everything they threw at me. I dont think i coulda stayed there for more than a week but it was definitely a great experience and im really glad that i did it.

Now im in my last week in fort dauphin. trying to get a lot accomplished this week which is really difficult. today we didnt have class and i just went out to interview people for a project im donig. its on peoples attitudes towards the environment and conservation. really interesting but also really difficult since i cant even just communicate with people. but my prof helped me by translating so thats nice. my malagasy isnt really improving much i just smile and nod and repeat things without really knowing what im saying. its difficult to improve in french too cuz the people here rarely speak it and when they do its impropper so i think my grammer might actually be getting worse? but at least i can have a conversation.

getting my independent study project (ISP) rolling thats really exciting! think im going to camp out at sainte luce its the absolute last piece of coastal littoral forest in madagascar and its barely been studied so it sounds awesome! also its safe and theres a good campground with a cook! met with someone yesterday to talk about it so im pretty pumped.

besides that just trying to get organized and do regular things like register for classes-its so much more difficult here! gave our presentation on the village stay yesterday think it went alright. its interesting working with the CEL kids-some of them had never done a oral presentation before being in this program! thats so insane to think about considering that i feel like ive been doing them since i was born!
so ya thats mostly everything for now i think. ive been enjoying being here and just taking things one day at a time. malagasy culture is really helping me to chill out more. sometimes i cant believe its me whos donig all these crazy things! want to show you all pics but uploading them is impossibly slow so i think when i get home we will just have a big picture party. hope you all are doing well there!  ill try to blog once more before we hit the road this weekend!

OH WAIT!!! WHAT IS THIS BUSINESS ABOUT THE KINGS MOVING TO ANAHEIM!!??!! You all need to go out into the street right now and protest this is totally unacceptable especially while i am halfway around the world! mom and dad told me and it made me so sad! go out and protest! now! no really right now!!!

Ok this is bye for reals for now. Lots of love to you all!