Week two - Sainte Luce
I’ve really settled into life here now, our weekly plan is great so that I know what I need to be doing and as everyone knows I like a bit of structure :-). I am slowly coming to terms with cold showers, especially after a hard graft in the day. We have changed the shower rota and the girls with the longer hair get first dibs on hair wash day to give us a chance for it to dry before it gets dark and cold, life is so complicated!
It is the dry season at the moment, They are waiting for the rains to come which should be September but climate change has delayed this. It is so dry and the Malagasy love to burn fields or rubbish are having a hard time containing the fires that they start. Sunsets here are weird as the sun appears blood red as a result of the smog from the fires. We sit in camp at night watching the stars above but also watching the fires run down the mountain out of control at the back of us, it is so heartbreaking to see this as I know that precious rainforest is being destroyed and animals killed. There is a river between us and the fires but I stay up long enough to see them peter out at the river just in case.
Another aspect of climate change is that the lemurs mate in April and give birth in September (there are loads of babies here) but the new food which arrives with the rain is now late so the lemurs are having to work so hard to get their food to have enough to feed their little ones.
Talking of lemurs this week was a real treat for me, woolly lemurs are nocturnal but because of the full moon they are a bit confused and we found some woollys awake in the morning low on a branch just looking at us. This is a very rare sighting and really exciting (well for me it was). I also had a close encounter with a troop of lemurs coming back from the beach (I was coming back not the lemurs, they don’t like the suntan cream in their fur). They were very low in the trees and all came past me at head height bouncing from tree to tree stopping for a while to have a good look at me to find out what I wanted. I was literally two feet away from some of the lemurs, I’ve never been that close before!
We also have had a bit of snake activity as well, we have a ground boa that lives around the open air dining area that usually comes out when we are eating and find a lot of snakes on the paths as we go up to the toilet at night. One of the girls, Valeria is scared of snakes (she was of spiders but this trip has cured her of that as we end up living with them in every room) and we had got her to touch a snake to see they weren’t dangerous. She was almost there on the ‘snakes are okay scale’ until she went to the bathroom and a boa reared up at her and cornered her on the path….. Snakes are off the agenda for her again…..
Week two activities are as follows:
For 1-2, 4 and 7-8 read week one
Other activities were as follows:
It is the dry season at the moment, They are waiting for the rains to come which should be September but climate change has delayed this. It is so dry and the Malagasy love to burn fields or rubbish are having a hard time containing the fires that they start. Sunsets here are weird as the sun appears blood red as a result of the smog from the fires. We sit in camp at night watching the stars above but also watching the fires run down the mountain out of control at the back of us, it is so heartbreaking to see this as I know that precious rainforest is being destroyed and animals killed. There is a river between us and the fires but I stay up long enough to see them peter out at the river just in case.
Another aspect of climate change is that the lemurs mate in April and give birth in September (there are loads of babies here) but the new food which arrives with the rain is now late so the lemurs are having to work so hard to get their food to have enough to feed their little ones.
Talking of lemurs this week was a real treat for me, woolly lemurs are nocturnal but because of the full moon they are a bit confused and we found some woollys awake in the morning low on a branch just looking at us. This is a very rare sighting and really exciting (well for me it was). I also had a close encounter with a troop of lemurs coming back from the beach (I was coming back not the lemurs, they don’t like the suntan cream in their fur). They were very low in the trees and all came past me at head height bouncing from tree to tree stopping for a while to have a good look at me to find out what I wanted. I was literally two feet away from some of the lemurs, I’ve never been that close before!
We also have had a bit of snake activity as well, we have a ground boa that lives around the open air dining area that usually comes out when we are eating and find a lot of snakes on the paths as we go up to the toilet at night. One of the girls, Valeria is scared of snakes (she was of spiders but this trip has cured her of that as we end up living with them in every room) and we had got her to touch a snake to see they weren’t dangerous. She was almost there on the ‘snakes are okay scale’ until she went to the bathroom and a boa reared up at her and cornered her on the path….. Snakes are off the agenda for her again…..
Week two activities are as follows:
For 1-2, 4 and 7-8 read week one
Other activities were as follows:
We built a new nursery for the pots and seedling planting that we have been doing over the weeks. We have been so efficient at it that they had run out of space so we built a new one. This included going into the forest to chop down wood (which was done better by Solo the groundsman and Maro the guard and we carried the cut wood back to the camp, you certainly get a good workout with that!). Also we had to clear the site to build the nursery including clearing the scorpions from their homes, all of the debris is then put into the compost pile for the vegetable patch that is being cultivated.
We spent a few hours visiting the three villages on the other side of the river. We are asked to visit the villages to show our faces and let the villagers know how important it is to the rest of the world that we keep rain forest. The villagers live in huts that are so small 10 x 10 feet made of wood but are not solid so the wind will whip through the huts in the cold times. There are no mod cons in these huts but some have solar power now. We bought bananas in the village and six bananas cost 10 pence. The poverty here is incredible, the people really have nothing but they are so happy. The villages share a river, people wash themselves, their clothes, their pots and pans and their animals all in the river as they don’t have running water to their huts. The villagers are fishermen and if they don't sell their goods on the beach they walk for miles to try to sell the fish and longer it takes to sell the fish the cheaper the price becomes. Solo, who works with us in the camp when volunteers are here, is a fisherman by trade. We are only here 6 months o the year because o the cyclone and rainy seasons.
It is really windy here so rowing to the village in a pirogue into the wind with quite large waves was not easy - there were times when we almost toppled overboard because we rowed along the waves rather than into them. Rowing with a wooden oar which looks like a sword is not easy either - I think I may donate some money for a propeller engine for them…..
While we were visiting the villages we witnessed three fires that had started and watched as the villagers bravely fought the flames with big branches. There are no fire brigades or hoses which can be fed into the river they have to try to quell the flames by hand. The heat from where we were standing was pretty hot, let alone being so close to try to put it out. If the flames get to the villages the wooden houses go up in seconds and the people have lost everything.
Bonfire on the beach on Saturday night. Although we can’t usually stay awake past 9 pm we went to the beach after dinner and sat looking at the stars around the bonfire having a beer and some vanilla rum. I didn’t like rum until I tasted this…. The volunteers are not allowed alcohol during the working week and this was the first time in three weeks that I have had a drink so what better way to do it than drink the local beer which is 8% proof! I left the party at 11.30, the rest stayed out to after midnight, our day off the next day started a bit slow!
Planting trees in the open grassland in the reserve. This has been done a couple of times before but the guys that are here all the time have managed to set fire to them when burning rubbish (this is a big thing here they have nowhere to dump the rubbish like us so they dig a hole and burn it, which in the dry season is so dangerous) or smoking!
I have experienced rain for the first time since I arrived here :-( Our day off beach walk was stopped as rain stopped play. The rain started at midday and went on till 3am the next morning. It was cold as all our areas to sit in apart from the bungalows are open air (although the bungalows leak). It was crazy, but by the time we got up the ground had soaked all the rain up as if it had never happened.
So two weeks in and the first of the volunteers are going home, Valeria and Alix said goodbye which leaves me and Rom and our new recruit Sarah (UK 64) who is joining us.
I have now been away for my first full calendar month - time flies when you are having fun!
We spent a few hours visiting the three villages on the other side of the river. We are asked to visit the villages to show our faces and let the villagers know how important it is to the rest of the world that we keep rain forest. The villagers live in huts that are so small 10 x 10 feet made of wood but are not solid so the wind will whip through the huts in the cold times. There are no mod cons in these huts but some have solar power now. We bought bananas in the village and six bananas cost 10 pence. The poverty here is incredible, the people really have nothing but they are so happy. The villages share a river, people wash themselves, their clothes, their pots and pans and their animals all in the river as they don’t have running water to their huts. The villagers are fishermen and if they don't sell their goods on the beach they walk for miles to try to sell the fish and longer it takes to sell the fish the cheaper the price becomes. Solo, who works with us in the camp when volunteers are here, is a fisherman by trade. We are only here 6 months o the year because o the cyclone and rainy seasons.
It is really windy here so rowing to the village in a pirogue into the wind with quite large waves was not easy - there were times when we almost toppled overboard because we rowed along the waves rather than into them. Rowing with a wooden oar which looks like a sword is not easy either - I think I may donate some money for a propeller engine for them…..
While we were visiting the villages we witnessed three fires that had started and watched as the villagers bravely fought the flames with big branches. There are no fire brigades or hoses which can be fed into the river they have to try to quell the flames by hand. The heat from where we were standing was pretty hot, let alone being so close to try to put it out. If the flames get to the villages the wooden houses go up in seconds and the people have lost everything.
Bonfire on the beach on Saturday night. Although we can’t usually stay awake past 9 pm we went to the beach after dinner and sat looking at the stars around the bonfire having a beer and some vanilla rum. I didn’t like rum until I tasted this…. The volunteers are not allowed alcohol during the working week and this was the first time in three weeks that I have had a drink so what better way to do it than drink the local beer which is 8% proof! I left the party at 11.30, the rest stayed out to after midnight, our day off the next day started a bit slow!
Planting trees in the open grassland in the reserve. This has been done a couple of times before but the guys that are here all the time have managed to set fire to them when burning rubbish (this is a big thing here they have nowhere to dump the rubbish like us so they dig a hole and burn it, which in the dry season is so dangerous) or smoking!
I have experienced rain for the first time since I arrived here :-( Our day off beach walk was stopped as rain stopped play. The rain started at midday and went on till 3am the next morning. It was cold as all our areas to sit in apart from the bungalows are open air (although the bungalows leak). It was crazy, but by the time we got up the ground had soaked all the rain up as if it had never happened.
So two weeks in and the first of the volunteers are going home, Valeria and Alix said goodbye which leaves me and Rom and our new recruit Sarah (UK 64) who is joining us.
I have now been away for my first full calendar month - time flies when you are having fun!
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| frogs come in different sizes |
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| Woolly lemurs |
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| planting tree saplings |
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| Woollys with baby |
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| and another |
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| giant coua |
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| resident dinning room boa |
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| not sure what this is but thought it was pretty |
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| more red collared lemurs |
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| are you looking at me? |
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| building a nursery |
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| pineapple growing fresh |
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| traditional Malagasy house |
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| children in the village |
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| villagers fighting a fire |
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| posers! |
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| fisherman selling their catch from their boats |
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| village supermarket |
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| waterway around the reserve |
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| team photo after planting mangrove seeds |
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| dragon fly helping digging for mud |
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| one of my companions on the beach |
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