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Published: January 31st 2017
Volunteering was a blast! Nosy Komba, or Lemur Island, was where we based ourselves for a month. It is a small, road-free, volcanic island off the northwest coast of Madagascar, a few km boat ride from Hell-ville. Our time there working with the Madagascar Research and Conservation Institute (MRCI) was a bit of a flashback to our Junior Ranger days. Some hard work but loads of fun and lots of good people, from all around the world. There were four different volunteer projects going on at the Institute: Marine Conservation, Construction, Teaching English, and Forest Conservation. We'd both picked Forest Conservation before our arrival and ended up very were glad we did. A typical volunteer day at 'camp' went something like this:
We'd wake up (in our separate huts -- boys with boys and girls with girls!) with the sun and infernal roosters at about 5:30. Then we'd head to the kitchen to have a cup of tea and some breakfast. Breakfast was either baguette and jam (and peanut butter once we got to buy some at the Asian market back in Hell-ville) or tasty crepes. If we were lucky, and up early enough, bananas were also available. Our work
would usually involve a long and steep trek to get to the survey site, and usually we'd leave in groups of about 6, between 5:45 and 7, depending on the survey type and location. In the survey we'd monitor lemur behaviour; identify birds by sight and call; or find and identify reptiles and amphibians. After the surveys we would return, hungry and ridiculously sweaty, for a hot lunch: inevitably it was some combination of coconut rice, beans, ground zebu, and potato salad, with fresh mango, pineapple, or papaya. The Malagasy way is to have a mid-day siesta, so after lunch we'd have time to swim, read, play cards, nap, hand-wash clothes and dry them on the hot sunny rocks.
In the afternoon Forest staff would usually organize some activities that helped the volunteers learn our species identification, or we were given time to study flash cards, learn bird calls, or read books. Occasionally we would be responsible for keypunching the data we collected on our hikes. Our day was always done by 3 or 4, which gave us more free time to enjoy camp, or make the half hour beach/rock hike to Ampange, one of the nearby small villages
on the island. Ampange had the only half-decent access to wifi on the island. Camp dinner was at 6-ish -- everybody would usually be good and hungry by this point (the food was good, but there always seemed to be just enough) and we could not wait to hear the sound of the dinner whistle. We think the local kitchen staff got some laughs messing with us -- that whistle held a lot of power! After dinner, one of the camp staff would always present the "Board", where they told the entire group what each project was up to and who was doing what hike/survey/dive/lesson the following day. They also used this time to review the rules of camp, where they tried to stay on top of issues that inevitably arose when there are 45 - 60 people all living close together. Then after some relaxing or card playing we'd usually be in bed before 9.
As part of the Forest Conservation crew, volunteers were expected to pick an area of focus. Nance became a birder and Frase picked the reptiles and amphibians. We got to see animals of all kinds every day during our work: geckos and lizards
and chameleons and lemurs and frogs and birds, it was pretty damn cool. Some of the highlights of our hikes included: seeing the second smallest chameleon in the world, doing night-time reptile searches, spotting ridiculously well camouflaged geckos, hearing tiny frogs that sounded exactly like reversing trucks or mooing zebus, foraging for mangos that had just fallen from trees, and Nancy having a monstrous jackfruit fall out of a tree and land just inches from her head!
We had the opportunity to hike almost to the summit of the island to conduct a night reptile survey. Because it was so far away from camp, the small church village hosted us overnight. We had a local feast prepared for us, which included coconut rice, green papaya salad, chicken curry, and beet greens. Some folks really enjoyed it. It took us two hours of hiking uphill to reach the village, but then we also hiked beyond the village for a scenic viewpoint that allowed us to see the entire island of Nosy Be. The village itself was made up of only twelve people, and they were responsible for maintaining the church -- which was our home for the night. We slept
right on the concrete floor with the bats, rats and other critters that could make their way in. No bathrooms anywhere. It was quite the experience! All in the name of science...
We were at MRCI over Christmas, which was interesting: kitchen staff were given the day off so camp folks pitched in to make a real cultural food mix. Surprisingly it worked out really well; although after dinner Nancy ended up being physically removed from the kitchen after exceeding her clean-up duty. Minor bruises and scrapes resulted.
The camp itself was absolutely stunning, about 10 cabins were scattered among the rocks in appropriately named Turtle Cove. The cove had a great little sand beach and the coral reef was within easy swimming distance. There were lots of younger people at the camp, in fact the woman running the research centre was 23! We felt a little old, but at the same time we felt energized by the surrounding youth. It was nice to have little in the way of responsibilities for a while; the institute was well run and we were happy to be told where to go and what to do. Except by each other, of
course! New volunteers arrived every two weeks. We were the newbies for the first two weeks, and then we quickly evolved into the "experienced" oldies. It was a bit of a shock when new people arrived, partly because they seemed so young! And loud! We had become very used to, and maybe a little protective of our "home" and all its quirks - such as having only two shower stalls for 50 people (when they both worked), limited power, a one-beer-a-day after 5 o'clock rule, lining up for food, being careful with serving size to ensure there was enough food for everybody, being early to rise and early to bed...it was a unique environment that we really came to enjoy.
On our weekends off from volunteering we took the chance to get off Nosy Komba to see other things. Tellingly, twice we chose to visit National parks and did almost exactly what we'd been doing on Nosy Komba! i.e. checking out the crazy Madagascar wildlife. We did a day trip to Lokobe National Park, which although was just across the strait from our camp, required a couple boat and tuk-tuk rides to get there and back. It was well
worth it though, it has some of the last old-growth forest in Madagascar. At one point we ended up happily surrounded by wild lemurs. They were not nearly as happy to see us as we were to see them though! They literally screamed at us and took some pretty well-aimed shots with various body end-products. We also got to see a huge boa, some sparrow-hawks up really close, and some giraffe weevils, which are extremely interesting looking. Also, after hiking a full km worth of stairs, all uphill, we were rewarded with a spectacular view of the surrounding islands.
We also took a weekend to get to Ankarana National Park, a few hours further north on the mainland. One of the highlights here was the Tsingys. They are huge pointy limestone formations found in different locations around Madagascar. They are hard to adequately describe -- let's just say that were so very different from anything we'd seen before. The other big highlight of the weekend was fulfilling Fraser's quest to find one of Madagascar's coolest critters. We had already spotted the gnarly spearpoint leaf-tail gecko (Ursoplatus ebanauii) on Nosy Komba. However his holy grail of geckos, the frilled leaf-tail
gecko (U. henkeli, known for its ability to scream), took until day 21 (on what ended up being Fraser's last hike) to find. This species of gecko deserves description: it looks as if its back legs were stepped on by an elephant, and then the whole lizard was rolled in camouflaged evil before somebody flung it at a tree at high speed. And as mentioned, it screams. How cool an animal is that?
We also went on two day trips with some of the other volunteers, with whom we were quickly becoming very good friends. On New Year's Eve day we took a 2 hour boat ride to Nosy Iranja, two islands connected by a stunning white sand bar at low tide. We swam, hiked to the light-house and were spoiled with a fresh seafood feast: shrimp, squid, lobster, crab, fish, rice, and potato salad. It was spectacular. Another day we boated to Nosy Tankelli - aka Turtle Island, a protected marine park. The snorkelling was phenomenal and we spent some quality time hanging out with sea turtles. One of them swam and fed underneath us and then surfaced right beside us, looking us in the eye. Such a
Our church home stay.
Note the cushy concrete mat. cool experience, the turtles were majestic and seemed so content!
So, over our month-ish in Madagascar we not only got our fix of unique wildlife from the 'eighth continent', but we also managed to add a few words from yet another language to our repertoire; easily adapted to the splendid Malagasy mora-mora (slow-slow) way of life; and had ample social time with new friends from around the world. We were satisfied, happy and ready to board the plane to start fresh in a new land.
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Surene
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How does onw prepare for this awesome adventure?
Hi there! Wow! I love your story and I cannot wait to visit Nosy Komba myself!! My hubby and I are going there soon to di Forest volunteering, so what advise would you give us, in terms of what to pack, is there electricity at the camp to charge cameras, what snacks can one take with? Any advise would be welcome!!! Also, did you guys dive while being there? Thank so much!