When I walked through the door I was almost blinded. Outside, the day was quite uncharacteristically – for Kuwait – grey and rainy. Inside this house, tucked into the non-descript residential area of Qadisiya, all was ablaze in light and color, refracted off every possible surface.There was no hiding the fact that this was the House of Mirrors. The life’s work of Lidia al-Qattan, an Italian-born, British-educated woman who married a Kuwaiti man (Khalifa al-Qattan, who became one of the most famous Kuwaiti artists), the House of Mirrors is just that: a house covered inside and out in mirror-fragment mosaics. This vivacious septuagenarian woman, a widow since 2003, gives private tours of her home if you ring ahead. Originally, I had planned on joining my hosts, Hamlet and Anita, for an excursion... read more

I. Hot Returning to Toliara after a blissful New Year’s getaway in Ambola was a slight shock to the system. Gone were the gentle sea breezes and dry air; here was the sticky heat and humidity of the tropics (well, the Tropic of Capricorn does run just south of the city!). How could the climate be so different in spots so close together, relatively speaking? But I’d been wondering that since arriving in Madagascar in mid-December. We ended up having almost two full days in Toliara, doing little besides resting, as Abby was recovering from a bout of illness. But it is somnolent sort of town anyway. It’s the kind of place were people retreat into the shade and take a siesta during the heat of the afternoon. And when you are out and about, rather ... read more

I knew that Madagascar was a big island – usually classified as the fourth largest in the world.* However, I have been constantly amazed on this trip at just what an amazing variety of landscapes and ecosystems are found on this natural Noah’s Ark. While the length of some our taxi-brousse “adventures” have been equivalent to flying from North America to, say, India (shout out to Werner for pointing this out), the time it takes to travel often belies the short geographic distances covered. And the change that can be observed in these short distances is sometimes nothing short of startling. After a couple days in the cool humidity of Ranomafana National Park, surrounded by dripping, lush rainforest full of lemurs and leeches, we continued on, heading southwards. At first this took us back into the ... read more

The reason I came to Madagascar, like so many others, was to see lemurs and baobabs (and so forth), so it was a no brainer that Abby and I would make the long journey from Antananarivo to Morondava. Although an easy hop by plane, we were on a bit of a budget and the domestic flights, while convenient, were pricy.* So taxi-brousse (bush taxi) it was – 15 hours, overnight (see previous entry - I may need therapy soon). However, once we stumbled out of the cramped confines of the mini-bus and met Riga, the taxi-driver who would become our go-to guy for driving around the area, I knew the pain of the trip was going to be worth it. I sensed immediately that I was going to like this sleepy little seaside town called Morondava. ... read more

Let me just say it from the outset, because I know so many of you are going to ask: no, there are no singing and dancing lions, giraffes, or other such animated fauna populating Madagascar.Alas, there aren’t even any lemurs belting out “I like to move it, move it.” It’s sort of a sad fact that Madagascar really only came to be a household name after the Disney film was released. My interest in the country, however, long predates that bit of musical cinematic magic. The childhood biologist in me has longed to see this utterly unique island from the moment I encountered images of its strange and wonderful wildlife and plants in a National Geographic article. It looked like another planet, so I just had to go. It turned out Abby, my fellow history teacher ... read more