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So, I’ve been in Cape Town now for nine days, and have only got the first week at BV blogged. Clearly, I need to write a little less. The rest of the five weeks followed a similar pattern - diving in the morning, workshops in the afternoon, teaching English to the Malagasy EcoGuides (although I didn’t do much of that), and learning Malagasy as well. Generally, afternoons had some kind of maintenance, chores or other duties, but some time to relax too.
What I’ll do instead of giving such a detailed week by week description is just talk about the highlights in each week. That way, I should be caught up before leaving Cape Town. Anyways, most of you are just looking at the pics ;-)).
April 9 - 15 In the second week, the highlights included digging holes and mixing concrete to help erect the radio mast. Radio communications would be a hassle throughout the expedition; and that week we tried to get a radio mast set up. At the end, it took another three weeks and a couple of tries to get it right. Tough work digging through limestone with a trowel and a
rail spike (which is what we had).
I also got very lucky and was able to spend a day in a pirogue sailing with Charlie (one of the science staff) and Richard (Director of BV, but there as an assistant dive manager) to gather shark and turtle data in a couple of the villages to the south. BV pays observers to note all the sharks and turtles that are caught, and to identify and measure the species, as well as take photos. It was fascinating - the villages were much smaller than Andava, and the furthest south (Ampisalova I think) was the most beautiful. It has a huge sand dune stretching south away from the village, and was very picturesque. Only the very drunk fishermen made it seem a little less nice. You see, they go out in the morning, fish, come back with the catch, sell it, buy booze, drink it, run out of money, go back out fishing and repeat. All day long. So, even before lunch time there were a few too many drunks for my liking.
Amazingly, on one dive we spotted a pod of dolphins, maybe four or five, with at least one
calf. It was incredible. And the staff on the boat said they hadn't seen any dolphins yet. Absolutely stunning. And when we finished the dive, a passing pirogue loaded with watermelons tossed us two, for free. So fresh fruit (we can get some in the village, but not much) to end a great diving day!
Also this week we had a soccer (sorry guys, I meant “football”) match between BV and Coco Beach staff and the village. I got to play goal, and only let in four. We scored two, which is not unrespectable, given the lack of skill on our side - thank god for the Coco Beach staff. We could have tied it I think, but I blew two easy saves. Before the match, there was also a “condom” demonstration as part of Becks’ work included family planning and reducing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Almost of the vols had paid for the Women’s Association to embroider messages, in Malagasy, on our t-shirts - “I use condoms”, “Condoms are cool - use them!” “Condoms go here!” - to encourage condom use.
For the day off this week, we went to see the baobabs via zebu
cart. The carts are incredible - incredibly uncomfortable. The drivers (who are not Vezu, they are an inland tribe and farmers) treat the zebu very harshly - twisting their tails, using a ring studded with inch long nails to stab the zebu, and even, and this is quite disgusting, biting the shit-encrusted tails. All to get the zebu to run.
Funny thing - once a zebu starts to run, after a few meters it’s stomachs start to gurgle, like a half-filled wineskin and then this incredible flatulence and liquid poo starts to come out. Which of course sprays everywhere.
I didn’t take another zebu ride after that one.
The baobabs were completely worth it though. They look like something from a Dr. Seuss nightmare; the landscape is completely alien in the spiny forest. Not to mention the dozens of huge spiders we saw. I’m still not good with the little suckers, but my arachnophobia is much less these days …
The afternoon we spent at a nearby beach, but away from the village. Again, I couldn’t swim because of my cuts. I may have mentioned this already, but you see, the villagers (not all, but many)
use their beach to crap on. Sadly, with 1200 in the village, and the shallow nature of the beach and its bay, it never completely flushes clean. So that beach, although pretty from a distance, is pretty foul. Hence, cuts get infected. Even Half-Moon Beach and the waters offshore had high bacteria counts.
Which is why I think I got sick. After the beach, I started to feel awful and had a terrible night, rushing to and from the toilet. I broke down and took a cipro, and felt much better, but that first day of the next work week I ended up just resting. Besides that minor hiccup, it was another great week.
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masao
non-member comment
Nice baobob
Hey Dr. Doolittle - good to see that the monkey-butt resulting from your gastro issues is not slowing you down any! Yeah, the previous blog entry overwhelmed me. This one is a bit more digest-able - no pun intended. ;-)