(Written March 16, 2010)
Bong, Bong, Bong…
I awoke with a jolt.
Bong, Bong, Bong…
Slowly, I registered in the dark that it was Sunday morning, and the ringing I heard so loudly was the church bells of the Catholic church nearby.
Bong, Bong, Bong…
I grasped for my flashlight and my watch, and using the faint beam was able to make out the time – 3:45 AM. That can’t be right…
Bong, Bong, Bong…
Sure enough, the time was right. What was going on? I had at least another half hour before the roosters woke me up. Who was responsible for this craziness? The church doesn’t start calling people to prayer until at least 7 AM…
Bong, Bong, Bong…
It could be only one thing: DAHALO!
At the time, I just waited for the ringing to stop, and went back to sleep (for a few more minutes). But later, I received the full scoop: Cattle rustlers had struck in the middle of the night, and made off with a herd of prized Omby (cattle). The Malagasy term for these criminals is “Dahalo,” which I usually translate as Cattle Thieves, Cattle rustlers, Cowboys (think Tombstone-style), or Banditos. Whatever we may call them in English, these bandits plague various parts of Madagascar. They usually only go after cattle, and rarely harm anyone. But in Madagascar, cattle signify power, prestige and wealth. This is not a matter taken lightly.
In many regions, these bandits are armed and potentially dangerous. This is mostly for show, and again as long as you are not herding cattle at night you likely will never encounter them. Here in the Alaotra Mangoro region, they apparently are not always armed… When the bells of the Catholic church rang out, a group of townspeople (a posse?) gathered quickly and set out. They chased the Dahalo, who were easy to track with a herd of cattle on the only road out of town , and when they overtook them, the unarmed Dahalo simply took to their heels and ran off. The “posse” were focused on saving the cattle, and they corralled them back to town and the owner’s home. So a mostly happy ending: the cattle were returned, but the bad guys got away.
What do Dahalo do with stolen cattle? This is a question often on my mind, as word travels fast in small towns (faster now, thanks to cell phones), and a large herd of cattle are easy to spot. I am told they usually slaughter the cattle to sell the meat; even so, arriving at market with a massive amount of fresh meat has to be a bit of a sign to an alerted community. Some may add them to other herds or sell cattle living, but I haven’t heard of this in my area. It would seem a tough crime to get away with, yet many Dahalo escape and (conceivably) prosper. Shortly before my arrival, Dahalo stole cattle from no less a personage than my town’s Mayor, and got away.
Dahalo and lawless characters are a scourge in Madagascar, but not a very threatening one. There impact on a non-cattle owner such as myself if minimal, and everyone in town jokes about it and says there is no need to be worried. Unless you are a cow…
Friday, March 26, 2010
Temporary Scars, February Stars
(Written 27 Feb 2010, but internet was not working!)
Ela ela, tsy tahita!
That’s Malagasy for “It’s been a long time,” or “Haven’t seen you in a while!” I hear this when coming back from a brief trip of a few days or when returning from the US after nine months. So, it’s flexible, but the meaning is clear: we’ve missed you! And this applies to you, my audience, as well. It HAS been a while! And you have been missed.
When last we saw our hero, he was preparing for an epic hike into the rainforest to assess the resources of his local national park, Zahamena, and the surrounding communities. Five days of rainforest bliss was planned. Alas, it was not to be; due to budgetary restraints, the trip was postponed indefinitely. But never fear! A new adventure was quickly planned to replace this trek, and it is to this adventure that we now turn.
I had been spending time working with some farmers one-on-one in planting leguminous trees near their crop fields (Agroforestry) and making compost. These projects were slowly progressing (and we will examine them in further detail in the future, hopefully!) when I got a call to attend a Peace Corps conference in Mantasoa. While the conference itself focused on internal Peace Corps training development and programming details, it did allow me a chance to travel after to attend to some business on the East Coast. I went to visit with the director of Zahamena and an NGO (Non-Governmental Organization, basically a non-profit) “ONG Mateza” working in the park in Fenerieve Est. We set up some potential work ideas and projects, and then headed down to Vatomandry to work on a school garden project with the local Education Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV).
Before getting into the excellent garden project, allow me a moment to reflect on Madagascar’s East Coast: it is beautiful. Sand and coconut trees, ocean and palms make for a very different experience from my Alaotra Mangoro valley daily life. My region grows lots of vegetables and rice, and has massive amounts of Eucalyptus trees and deforested hillsides. The East Coast has Ravinala trees and fruits galore, mixed in with some great beaches and shark-infested waters. Okay, so maybe that last part isn’t so great, but there are some beaches you can swim at too. The people are laid back and welcoming, living a slow yet passionate life. They cook with coconut in just about everything, and have shrimp and crab regularly on the menu. They make great rum (Rhum Orange) with a wide variety of fruits. I thoroughly enjoy the people in my hometown and Lac Alaotra region (Sihanaka), but the East Coast people (Betsimisaraka) are also amazing and a wonderful change of pace. I fell in love with the East Coast, despite the oppressive heat and tough farming conditions.
The farming conditions are tough because it is hot, windy and sunny, but most of all due to one reason: the sand. The soil is almost completely sand, and it makes anything that is not native to the area or sand friendly (i.e. Moringa [Ananambo in Malagasy] trees) very difficult to grow. This leads us back to the garden project. The Education PCV in Vatomandry, Megan Davidow, set up a gardening project at her high school (Lycee). She teaches English at the Middle School and High School, and her students had wanted to make a garden and learn about growing vegetables. So another Environment PCV, Katie Bacharach, and I went to Vatomandry for a few days to convert a grassy sand dune into a massive garden. We worked with hundreds of students over that time, clearing the area, digging a canal surrounding the garden, preparing a fence, planting fruit trees and permanent crops like Moringa and Lemon Grass along the canal, and then prepared nine long vegetable beds. We added green manure (leaves from leguminous, nitrogen-fixing trees that acts as fertilizer) and other locally available fertilizers (cow manure, ash) to the beds. Then we intercropped different types of vegetables in each bed, ranging from carrots and tomatoes, to squash and corn, to pumpkin and corn, to beans and cabbage. The fruit trees planted range from small, fast-growing types like banana and papaya to slower maturing trees like orange, litchi and jackfruit. The children learned a lot, well those who seemed interested, and got to do a lot of hands on work outside the classroom. The middle school students were the best, as even the oppressive afternoon heat could not hinder their enthusiasm to try new things and plant new varieties of vegetables. Now hopefully something will grow there! I won’t be able to look after the garden, but Megan will watch over it, and ideally the students themselves will take responsibility for its upkeep. I have lots of pictures of all their work (which I will post… when I have a decent connection!) and maybe someday I will have pictures of the growing garden and even the harvest!?! Enga Anie! (Hopefully)
So the trip was quite the success, and now it is back to my town to get back to work. I will certainly remember the trip and the east coast; in particular, the beauty of the sunrises over the ocean and the starry nights as the surf crashes. Vatomandry is Malagasy for “Sleeping Rocks,” as there are a series of rock formations lying off the beach that get battered by the waves. It is beautiful. So we’ve covered the February stars, and in reference to the scars, the beach is also full of Parasy, or toe fleas, so I’ve been picking these little buggers out of my feet and leaving behind cuts and scrapes. No pain, no gain! Or: Temporary scars, but lasting memories!
PS: Check out the Madagascar National Park’s new website: www.parcs-madagascar.com If you click on the British flag, you can peruse it in English. My national park is Zahamena. This can also be a good resource for planning your visit to me and Madagascar!
PPS: Total number of students who took part in the garden project: 360 2nd students (equivalent to freshmen/sophomores in high school, but ranging from 16 to 20 years old) and 90 4th students (equivalent to maybe 7th graders? But ages 12-16ish). The students were evenly split between girls and boys. Hopefully a few took something away from the project!
Ela ela, tsy tahita!
That’s Malagasy for “It’s been a long time,” or “Haven’t seen you in a while!” I hear this when coming back from a brief trip of a few days or when returning from the US after nine months. So, it’s flexible, but the meaning is clear: we’ve missed you! And this applies to you, my audience, as well. It HAS been a while! And you have been missed.
When last we saw our hero, he was preparing for an epic hike into the rainforest to assess the resources of his local national park, Zahamena, and the surrounding communities. Five days of rainforest bliss was planned. Alas, it was not to be; due to budgetary restraints, the trip was postponed indefinitely. But never fear! A new adventure was quickly planned to replace this trek, and it is to this adventure that we now turn.
I had been spending time working with some farmers one-on-one in planting leguminous trees near their crop fields (Agroforestry) and making compost. These projects were slowly progressing (and we will examine them in further detail in the future, hopefully!) when I got a call to attend a Peace Corps conference in Mantasoa. While the conference itself focused on internal Peace Corps training development and programming details, it did allow me a chance to travel after to attend to some business on the East Coast. I went to visit with the director of Zahamena and an NGO (Non-Governmental Organization, basically a non-profit) “ONG Mateza” working in the park in Fenerieve Est. We set up some potential work ideas and projects, and then headed down to Vatomandry to work on a school garden project with the local Education Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV).
Before getting into the excellent garden project, allow me a moment to reflect on Madagascar’s East Coast: it is beautiful. Sand and coconut trees, ocean and palms make for a very different experience from my Alaotra Mangoro valley daily life. My region grows lots of vegetables and rice, and has massive amounts of Eucalyptus trees and deforested hillsides. The East Coast has Ravinala trees and fruits galore, mixed in with some great beaches and shark-infested waters. Okay, so maybe that last part isn’t so great, but there are some beaches you can swim at too. The people are laid back and welcoming, living a slow yet passionate life. They cook with coconut in just about everything, and have shrimp and crab regularly on the menu. They make great rum (Rhum Orange) with a wide variety of fruits. I thoroughly enjoy the people in my hometown and Lac Alaotra region (Sihanaka), but the East Coast people (Betsimisaraka) are also amazing and a wonderful change of pace. I fell in love with the East Coast, despite the oppressive heat and tough farming conditions.
The farming conditions are tough because it is hot, windy and sunny, but most of all due to one reason: the sand. The soil is almost completely sand, and it makes anything that is not native to the area or sand friendly (i.e. Moringa [Ananambo in Malagasy] trees) very difficult to grow. This leads us back to the garden project. The Education PCV in Vatomandry, Megan Davidow, set up a gardening project at her high school (Lycee). She teaches English at the Middle School and High School, and her students had wanted to make a garden and learn about growing vegetables. So another Environment PCV, Katie Bacharach, and I went to Vatomandry for a few days to convert a grassy sand dune into a massive garden. We worked with hundreds of students over that time, clearing the area, digging a canal surrounding the garden, preparing a fence, planting fruit trees and permanent crops like Moringa and Lemon Grass along the canal, and then prepared nine long vegetable beds. We added green manure (leaves from leguminous, nitrogen-fixing trees that acts as fertilizer) and other locally available fertilizers (cow manure, ash) to the beds. Then we intercropped different types of vegetables in each bed, ranging from carrots and tomatoes, to squash and corn, to pumpkin and corn, to beans and cabbage. The fruit trees planted range from small, fast-growing types like banana and papaya to slower maturing trees like orange, litchi and jackfruit. The children learned a lot, well those who seemed interested, and got to do a lot of hands on work outside the classroom. The middle school students were the best, as even the oppressive afternoon heat could not hinder their enthusiasm to try new things and plant new varieties of vegetables. Now hopefully something will grow there! I won’t be able to look after the garden, but Megan will watch over it, and ideally the students themselves will take responsibility for its upkeep. I have lots of pictures of all their work (which I will post… when I have a decent connection!) and maybe someday I will have pictures of the growing garden and even the harvest!?! Enga Anie! (Hopefully)
So the trip was quite the success, and now it is back to my town to get back to work. I will certainly remember the trip and the east coast; in particular, the beauty of the sunrises over the ocean and the starry nights as the surf crashes. Vatomandry is Malagasy for “Sleeping Rocks,” as there are a series of rock formations lying off the beach that get battered by the waves. It is beautiful. So we’ve covered the February stars, and in reference to the scars, the beach is also full of Parasy, or toe fleas, so I’ve been picking these little buggers out of my feet and leaving behind cuts and scrapes. No pain, no gain! Or: Temporary scars, but lasting memories!
PS: Check out the Madagascar National Park’s new website: www.parcs-madagascar.com If you click on the British flag, you can peruse it in English. My national park is Zahamena. This can also be a good resource for planning your visit to me and Madagascar!
PPS: Total number of students who took part in the garden project: 360 2nd students (equivalent to freshmen/sophomores in high school, but ranging from 16 to 20 years old) and 90 4th students (equivalent to maybe 7th graders? But ages 12-16ish). The students were evenly split between girls and boys. Hopefully a few took something away from the project!
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