I am writing in the back seat of a 4x4in the afternoon of the 16th of March. It is the second day of the Korobo tour so I will back track to the return from Beandry for completeness. We just left a small town (Tsihombe) in between Ambovombe and Cape St. Marie. There were some concrete buildings. We had lunch in what seemed to be the town center. The restaurant had posters of Jesus, J-Lo, Beyonce, and 50 Cent. It was nice that we had only to wait to get our orders right before eating because there were so many flies.
We drove 45km this morning. We left Tsymanakiarake around 9am. We stopped at a zebu market in Ambondro. The watermelon was really refreshing. It has red seeds here! We tried some peanut brittle. I bought a some rope made of sisal for an extra clothes line because I lost the long one I used when we returned from Andramanaka. Also, I was not careful. Firstly, I didn't use sunscreen on my face because I have a painful pimple I didn't want to rub. I hope I dot get sun damage that worsens the condition of my face. Secondly, I stepped in zebu poo. I had to wash my foot in a puddle. I washed with my other foot like I learned to do on the roof of the house of the family of Suraj in Katmandu. Also, Joanne, Ruth, and Declan bought mats that can be made very compact. They are more pliable than the other we got in Anosy. They have designs down the middle of their length but they cost about three times as much as the one from St. Luce that I brought.
We had eggs three ways with toast, tea, and coffee for breakfast. I had warm zebu milk with honey after my first cup of tea. Dinner the previous night was zebu brochette with vegetable curry. It was bedtime when we finally ate so dinner table discussion descended, as it has many times in the last week, into the ethics of eating both chicken and chicken egg in the same day. I am against the the practice because it is insulting to chickens and it is excessive. People tell me to eat free range chicken instead of this tom foolery. I don't have faith in products claiming distinguished quality of life for animals that are bred and raised to be slaughtered and eaten.
Anyway, before dinner, we saw an Ombiasa. He is a healer. There is a cabinet full of bees in the corner. There is also a pot containing a things like a bottle, sunglasses, a cap, and a cup full of a dark goo. We watched him paint the forehead and stomach of a lady who suffered from a stomach ache. He used some white, chalky substance, water, a stick, and board to make the paint. After he asked us whether we had any questions. I ask what a spirit is. He says that spirits are ancestors. The room is so cramped that my right leg is touching the left leg of Ruth and I am leaning on James. The Ombiasa asks weather we want help. Declan volunteers. A bee lands on my forehead. It crawls down my nose. The healer asks weather Declan is from a country with cars. Declan says that he is. The spirit possessing the healer is from the military. Declan and the military man dance to the music of a string instrument and pellets in a can. The prediction is that Declan will get a good job before he goes back to school.
Before seeing the Ombiasa we have a tour of Tsymanakiarake. There is a nice school that is accompanied by good latrines. It is weird to be surrounded by predominantly flat ground. The tour helps us digest our huge lunch in Ambovombe. Claude went to secondary school here. The settlement is large. There must be thousands of people within the city limits. All the structures are wooden. The streets are red sand. The highlight of the lunch for me is a shredded carrot salad. We also eat a cactus fruit. It is green and gooey. It looks like a kiwi and tastes like a honeydew melon. The cactus looks just like a prickly pear. In fact, though the plant is very common in this region, it was imported from Mexico.
We departed on the morning of the fifteenth after crepes, and doughnuts, and orange juice at Lanirano. The vehicle is a right hand drive Toyota Land Cruiser. With the driver, and we are seven. It is great to be on the road. Our first stop is a market near Ft. Dauphin. We get some bananas, oranges, and and we buy honey from lychee trees. Later on in the 110km drive, we stop at a roadside stand. There are wood carvings on sale. They are mostly lemur and chameleon models. They are made by Androy people with wood from Anosy. I see a few buildings built by the Japanese. Just before stopping for lunch, surpass a sisal farm. The plant is grown in proper rows as far as the eye can see. The factory uses the plant to make rope. It starts life looking pretty similar to the spikey bush that is all over my lawn at home in Arizona.
Now, before coming to our stay in Cape St. Marie on the sixteenth, I need to talk a bit about our time in Lanirano at the end of the Pioneer scheme. We got back from Beandry on Sunday the 10th. We take Monday off from work. Romaine hosts a birthday party at his house across the street from the Azafady office. There is pasta with zebu, and rice with chicken. Lots of soda is consumed and we snack on something the shape of a French nch fries that tastes more like fried dough. It is quite crunchy, greasy, and irresistible. Lou, Declan, and me go to Libanona after lunch. We swim, race on the beach, and play pool.
We meet the rest of the pioneers, Sarah, Sam, and Theo for dinner at Mami Abelle's. Theo encourages me about the future of solar power with Azafady. He has discussed with Mark outfitting the office in Ft. Dauphin. I suggested a project for the bush. I talked to Sam about bees. She is developing beekeeping for the purpose of earning profit on honey for the people of St. Luce. She wants to sell it Ft. Dauphin where it fetches a lot more than it does in the bush. I get a fish and a massive portion of rice for what works out to two bucks. Also, I drank ginger beer made by a brand called Stoney. We all go home after dinner.
On Tuesday, I do data entry in the office with Aven and Declan. We enter all the survey data and write blog entries for both the sanplat construction in Lanirano and surveys in Mananara II. Aven and Declan at the annoyed with me for wanting to simplify the data. When Jo shows up to see how we are doing, he says that we are supposed to enter all the data written in the notebooks. We start again. We finish at five o'clock.
The Pioneer have dinner at Island Vibe. Everyone is in high spirits and we take lots of pictures. It is top notch food made by a young Indian man. The server is from Lexington, MA. He is half a year older than me and played Hingham in lacrosse. We stay late for drinks. I talk to the owner. She a retired dancer who has been in business since she was twenty eight. Conversation with her was very refreshing. She goes to bed after telling me the reasons behind her positive stance on euthanasia. We go skinny dipping with the young men before catching a cab home. Declan gets some bad news from home via a text.
The next day is less awesome. We go back to Island Vibe for lunch. I arrive late because I am busy with laundry. Sarah and Yvonne are there. I drink a Piblasse liquor while waiting for food. It is made from a fruit that grows in the Highlands. Everyone enjoys their food. I sing a song after lunch with a guitar accompaniment. Aven says that it is the slowest song she ever heard. We head to Le Local for billiards. I am learning to play pub pool. Declan is pretty good. The Pioneers meet Tsina in Freedom at half four. She read our reviews and wants to discuss our responses. After the meeting, the a lot of the staff shows for drinks and snacks. I talk with Louis about my travel plans. I leave alone around 8pm because I have a headache. For some reason, I smoked a lot of cigarettes today. I watch two episodes of the show Escaflowne in the school. It is enthralling. There are swordsman, sword fighting mechs (Guylefs), demons, high school students, and there is some teleportation.
I shut of the lights to sleep not two minutes before Alley and James burst into the school. Alley orders James to get his sleeping bag and mat out of his rucksack. They are both quite drunk. I help James into a suitable sleeping position and I dress a wound Alley sustained on the walkway in order our camp. The rest come comeback from club Florida between half eleven and half one. People are roudy, so I am rude.
In the morning, Matt, Delphine, and Louis leave. Some people are sad. I feel a sense of completion. I do more laundry because I don't want to carry dirty clothes around for ten days on the Korobo tour. The remaining pioneers, our guides, our coordinator, and James meet at Escale for lunch. The orange juice is top notch. I get poisson frite thinking that it will come with fries since steak frite comes with fries. It is actually fried fish with rice. Eric orders some sauce to go with my rice. I drink rice tea and eat yogurt after the meal. The rice tea tastes a little burned and the yogurt is a bit sour. They go so well together. I come to respect the posturing of Sarah amidst the complicated relationships between the pioneers. I tell Eric that I will look up Raja yoga.
We spend some of the afternoon using the Internet and we spend the rest at the beach. Aven is not going on the Korobo tours but she is still with us. She is not feeling well. She suspects that the food at Freedom is to blame. She did try zebu for the first time. We try out the old Mami Jo's for dinner. It is excellent and cheap. Declan leaves with Aven because she is not feeling well. Joanne, Ruth, James, and I stay. I find myself in a pause while packing when we return. I attribute it to tiredness, so I go right to sleep. The events of this paragraph precede those of the sixth.
The camp at Cape St. Marie
It is three o'clock when we arrive in Cape St. Marie. The camp is really well established. There is solar power, water collection, and a, passive solar stove. On the wall of the office is data on the visitors over then last few years. There are long drop latrines and showers with conduits for the water to flow. Another nice feature of the site is the roofed tent areas. We play Frisbee before setting up camp because we were so long on the road. I read, and watch Escaflowne and catch up on this blog before we eat. The meal is outstanding. Claude got us each a lobster. He made fresh tomato sauce for curly pasta (The first pasta that wasn't a noodle I ate in Madagascar). To finish there was a cucumber salad. Declan does not eat dinner due to illness. The rest of us tourist play James' version of Rummey with Amza, our driver. It is a thirteen round game that lasts a about two hours. Ruth sleeps in my tent as there are only four tent spots. She is sick in the evening. Worse and worse it gets. She is in and out of the tent all night. Declan and Claude both help keep her company. The condition persists into the morning. After cereal, Joanne, James, Declan, Claude, and Amza go to the Cape. I read and study and sleep and sit by Ruth. We are on our way again at three in the afternoon on the seventeenth. There is hope that today we can contact a doctor for Ruth. Her health improves the before we arrive in Lavanino. She is still ill, and but the intensity is lower.
Relaxing in LavanonoThe hotel is on the beach. We have three of four rooms. The rooms are nice: foam mattresses, mats lining the interior of tin roofing, and patio. I surf with James after a pancake breakfast. I don't stand for long. The rest read. Declan is back into the book, Moby Dick. We have an orange fruit after lunch that day tastes like orange melon and feels like a well boiled potato. The dressing is of both lemon and sugar. After lunch, we take it easy. Claude is busy preparing for the evening. In the course of an evening hour, we get high on marijuana, and play a game of Euchre, slaughter a goat, receive our cleaning laundry from the hotel staff, and welcome a band. I stay up late talking to James about the differences between education in the USA and education in Australia. Everyone was very polite in Taelongo Hotel in Lavanino. It was great to spend a day in one spot.
On the 19th, we have over 200km to drive. Claude has instigated two stops before eleven am. We have lots of food. Maybe we won't stop for lunch in order to make the journey to Ejeda today.
We arrive before nightfall. The town is a like a Malagache truck stop with its motels and restaurants. There are soldiers hanging out around the taxi brousse parking lot, but which is the main street of the town. We have a quiet meal because half of the people at our table can see a television playing Malagasy news. A Malagasy student died because he could not pay his medical costs.
Toyota Land Crusher
We are very punctual this morning. Breakfast is at the same restaurant. We get three fried eggs and half of a baguette. We share sweet rice with zebu brochette, and guava. Conversation is about gun control and government housing. Jo thinks Australia, the US, and the UK should open there borders to one another.
this is a tomb...
By nine o'clock we stop for cake. At noon we stop for a rest at a place where our driver, Amza seems to know people. I have some nice yogurt and a cassava ball. We get to Tolear in the evening. Ours is Hotel Manatane. It has wifi and it is a seaside hotel. We go out for dinner to a restaurant that has a wide screen television playing cartoons. James does feel well. Declan, Ruth, Jo, Joanne and I go to a bar near the hotel. We talk about the prostitution. We agree that it needs to be regulated and that there need to be more options for young women. Then we talk about charity. I realize that charities take pressure to provide the basic needs off of governments.
I am ill halfway through the night. I am not in much pain but my stomach is upset. Fever sets in over the course of the next day, the 21st, on which we travel to Mangily. I am privileged enough to sit in the front of the taxi brousse. The ride is not easy. We spend a lot of time parked. We arrive at Hotel Le Coq du Village around two in the afternoon. It is on the beach too. I stay in the room all day and night. I have a fever and diarrhea.
I feel alright in the morning. I eat breakfast with the rest under a large tamarind tree across the street. There is an outdoor restaurant selling lots of good food for very reasonable prices. I have a crepe with baobab honey. We go to the baobab forest in a zebu cart after breakfast. The cart has car tires. The ride is very smooth and zebu can move fast. In the forest we learn that there are a lot of baobab lookalikes and that the real one in this forest has leaves like a cannabis plant. We learn of one plant that helps with ones sexuality and another that is used to waterproof boats. The latter is also used to catch birds like a spider web catches insects. I am still a bit weak.
We spend the afternoon relaxing. I read with Ruth and I watch cartoons. In the late afternoon, we go on a walk around the village. It is quite an establishment. There are about 8000 people in this village. The main street is packed with vendors. We stop at an orphanage. The company is Eau De Coco in Europe. Here it is known as ONG Bel Avenir. The facility is green with solar power and water recycling. The purpose is to provide environmental educations for kids and to give kids a haven. A very luxurious onsite hotel provide income to fund the projects. We are invited to dance in the evening. We see those who invited us at a restaurant next door to our hotel at a time beyond the scheduled dance commencement. Declan, Claude, and James go clubbing. Ruth, Jo, Joanne and I sit and gossip.
We go snorkeling in a pirogue that has a sail on the morning of the twenty third. It is so nice to be on the water. We go early: when the winds are weak. There was no wetsuit, so I couldn't snorkel for too long... I kept getting scared. I swam into some seaweed and when I emerged there was a a swordfish as big as my leg in front of me. One of the boat drivers was on our forest tour yesterday. Declan and I take opposite stances on the government bailout of the Big Three.
When we return we smoke whilst playing Rummey. I lose:( I have duck with tomato sauce for lunch. It is a bit tough. I read and relax in the afternoon. We have fruit juice at the bar next door before to the Rhumerie for a buffet. It is awesome. There are sea urchins and oysters and all sorts of things. A large band plays near our table. A line of dancers is right next to me. There are a lot of vazaha. Prostitution is a prominent subject for us. We see a lot of old white men with young black women. I talk with James about birds after dinner.
We finish reading the book, Emma!
The next day is very relaxing. James and Declan are late to rise. When Jo and Claude get back from a run, they round up the boys for breakfast. Ruth and I chill in the room for a bit longer before another wonderful meal under the tamarind tree. I read and write for much of the day, making good progress on the book by Carnap. Ruth and I opt out of lunch. We play Frisbee on the beach. I watch some cartoons. We all go to a local restaurant for dinner. I did well to order seafood spaghetti! Ruth and Jo talked a mile a minute. Claude told me to watch the movie, and Tai Chi Master, with Jet Li. Ruth and I smoke on the beach after dinner. It is peaceful.
Mangily, from our room
She is begins feeling badly about halfway through the night. There is a lot of com motion about catching the taxi brousse in the morning. I take my time with breakfast because I plan to stay with Ruth until she feels well enough to make the journey. I meet a photographer and his wife. They offer to help Ruth. They ask me about how we are getting around.
Ruth and I spend the morning between the room, beach, and and tamarind tree. I am reading the book, Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess. Also, I begin,The Book of Five Rings, by Miyamoto Musashi. I talk French with a guy who helped us with the pirogue, weed, and zebu cart. He helps organize a cheap taxi ride for us back to town after lunch.
When we arrive we find that the others had a tire go flat twice on their trip in a taxi brousse. Claude and Jo are still at lunch. I use my tablet to surf with the hotel wifi. James is upset about the Formula 1 result. I am upset that Vet tel regrets racing because I think team orders are against the rules. Is Snickers from the UK or the US. I learn that the name, Snickers, is of a racehorse active in England in 1930. The Mars corporation of the United States, founded in 1911, released the Snickers candy bar around 1930. In the UK, it carried the label, Marathon. This is an example of the confusion that arose between me and the British.
We have such a nice meal at an Italian restaurant in Tolear. This is the night of the 25th. The pizza has a firm, light, and thin crust. The cheese is thick. There are some nice fruit smoothies as well. I have vanilla ice cream with freshly caramelized sugar. I drink copious amount lemoncello after the meal. We went straight back to the hotel after dinner.
Oh, but on the way to that meal, we took a Pousse Pousse. Actually, since these man driven carriages hold two people, we took three. These are single axle carriages. Declan and James were last in our procession as we neared the restaurant. From our spot in the middle we hear a loud clap. I dismiss the noise. Claude turns. A support on their carriage snapped. These poor boys are on their backs while the driver slides down the pull rods. After being pulled out of the vehicle, they are laughing as they walk toward me. They've got scuffs on the inner elbows and James is having a tough time looking towards the left. It was pretty scary but after I didn't have to take a Pousse Pousse to keep up with the group.
On the morning of the twenty sixth Claude and Jo left for Tana. I went around town with Ruth. I found some movies, a hat, and some pencils. We talked about the relative location of the word for an object seen. I like to imagine the word, notebook, for example, written in an ever changing way on my notebook. Otherwise, as with Declan the image of the book is immediately transformed into the word. Or, at the other end, for James, he says that when he sees a book, his mouth says book. I think Ruth sort of labels things. The question that got the conversation started was, "Do you think Inn pictures or words?", which I asked the boys, yesterday, over a j. We had lunch in the hotel. They, the Hotel Manatane have the best lemonade I have had in Madagascar.
Monsieur leDec
We go out to the same place as we first ate at in Tolear. I wanted to go someplace new but not everyone felt like walking around at night in unfamiliar city in a foreign country. The pool table at this place isn't nice. The seafood taco I got was delicious. Ruth and I told Declan and James about the night in Andramanaka when I offered Ruth a game to play on my tablet while she was enduring events of a painful phone conversation. Those boys went back to the hotel after a short chat in a bar, Bo Beach, about euthanasia. It ought not always be permitted but I do think illegality of suicide confusing.
hotel restaraunt in Tolear
Declan leaves with a handshake in the morning, good man that he is. There are some dope pastries in the hotel restaurant. Our ride showed up on time. It was an hour before we got out of town because of the bank, gas, and a police checkpoint. Still, we arrived in Ranohira by two in the afternoon and we stopped to buy proper rice cakes (sweet, sour, filling, clean). The driver of our petrol Peugeot sedan is Mami. He is a small old man. Our guide in Ranohira is Dadi. He helped us organize a trip to Isalo national park for the twenty eighth. We met some other travellers who are willing to share the price of a tour but it is pretty steep. The land is like a prairie and there are like tabletop hills.
Ruth Brooker in the backseat of the sedan Mami drives
Hotel Alice is real nice. They have a bunch of well furnished bungalows on a hill that looks out over a little flatland to a small mountain range. James smashes me and Ruth in a game of Railway before dinner. In the morning, we decide to leave our bags in the rooms against advice given by Koto, a man we met on our arrival. We leave for Isalo at half seven with a couple and some snacks.
Bungalows at Hotel Alice
One of the couple is a German girl researching sustainable livelihood in Mahafali, a region south of Tolear. The other is a man from Pennsylvania who is teaching the history of ethics at a university in Tolear. They met at an agricultural school in Germany.
The tour starts at the base of a cliff. We climb on a path, stopping to observe tombs in the sides of the cliff faces. The park is accessible to people of the Bar tribe for religious purposes. We reach a plateau and walk along for a while. She The rocks are sandstone. There is tall grass in the ground that is not too steep. There are many varieties of tapia tree. Some are home to silk worms. We walk a ways on the plateau. Eventually we descend into a tropical ravine for a snack by a pool. The pool is shallow because the recent cyclone filled it with sand. On our way to a lookout point, we stop because our guide sees a praying mantis. He points to a branch of a bush and gives us five minutes to find the insect. We can't until he pokes it with a stick.
James is feeling alright after too many kms of walking for me
From the lookout point, I am reminded a bit of the Grand Canyon because there is a maximum height for the multitude of rock formations in view. I find a compass carved into a slab. Susie disagrees with me about the direction of Berlin. We walk to a crest that looks out over the town. Birds like crows with white vests fly around us on the cliff.
Isalo
A long descent leaves my legs shaking in a tropical area. We see some lemur before setting off up a river. After a short walk, we have a swim in the a pool at the bottom of a waterfall. I find a praying mantis in a hole just above water level. After, we have snacks. The couple gives us half an avocado, which greatly enhances my eating experience experience to the status of lunch. We are off to another, bigger waterfall before the end of the tour.
Isalo Pool
We go back to the hotel to meet Mami who agreed to takes us to Fianarantsoa for the same price as a taxi brousse. As we load up the hotel staff ask for extra money because we did not have our stuff out of the room by eleven o'clock. It is a bit ridiculous because there are hardly any other guests, but we feel we have no choice but to pay...
Our ride to Fianar is pretty comfortable but it is dark when we arrive. The city so ems massive. We check in a hotel near the taxi brousse station. Before sleeping we try to get some dinner. We get some water chinese soup. I take a taxi to an atm before returning to the hotel. Mami helps us get on a taxi brousse early on the morning of the twenty ninth. We give him some extra cash. Before leaving, the taxi brousse people ask for extra cash because our bags are too heavy. Again, we feel obliged.
The ride is quite long. There are small, tall, sturdy house clustered amidst vast fields and terrace of rice for most of the journey. Anstirabe seems really well established. It puts into context the poverty we saw in Anosy. I talk with Ruth about traveling while we are squashed together in the fifteen passenger van scooting across the countryside. She says that who we are depends a lot on both what we have and where we mature.
We go out to a Korean restaurant after settling into Hotel Isoraka in then old colonial part of Tana. I am so happy to have rice instead of bread. Ruth and I tell James about our the social development of the Pioneers including how we all learned of couplings.
The upper lip of Ruth swells during then night. The lip is normal by morning. I bring her some pastries from a boulangerie across the street. Then I go to the internet cafe down the road to settle arguments: cement is heated limestone, cars in the UK average 38mpg... I have breakfast with James before going back to the internet cafe to get a flight back to Madagascar. I need a ticket out of South Africa to get into the country since I don't have a visa. After a lot of hullabaloo, I get my parents, who are vacationing on the Dingo Peninsula in Ireland, to sort out the voyage for me. I have Paella for lunch next to the market. At the market I buy boat shoes, dress pants, and a collared shirt for $25. We meet with Claude and Jo at a Middle Eastern joint that does food, massage, WiFi, and hookah. I am sad that Ruth is leaving tonight and I am happy that people react so much to my change of attire.
Ruth leaves at ten in the evening. I write a little of a paper about the article, The Two Dogmas of Empiricism, by Quine. I sleep late into the morning of the thirty first of march. I have breakfast with Jo, James, and Claude. I am really happy for all of them-and Ruth too. Exciting changes must be around the corner for the older ones and the young two are continuing to travel.
Louis, expressing himself
I added labels to the post because I thought they were captions for the pictures. I think they are actually like tags on YouTube that serve a function of which I am not aware.
