Madagascar Journal

Saturday - 28 June 2004

We reached the low point of the trip this morning on the boatride from Nosy Mangabe to here (mainland). It was rainy and the seas were rough and we all got soaked and had to sit in the turbulent wetness for nearly 2 hours. I can't imagine what would be so good on this isolated part of the mainland that would make the boat ride worthwhile. The worst part is that now we have to drive back tomorrow morning and as this is a rainforest area, it will most certainly be raining. That sucks a lot.

Now we are in an unfinished bungalow hotel with no pathways--only muddy walkways that double as streams that you have to slog through to get anywhere. And the mud stinks too. So we're all wet and muddy and seasick and we only have half a day left to look around for lemurs (if anyone cared to look for them at this point). All this for half a day of doing nothing. It is stupid. The hotel we were supposed to be at sucked too. That's why we're here. The other place is owned by some Italian guy who "forgot" to tell us that the bungalows rooves leak, so the beds are soaked through and even the empty, open bungalows that you could pitch a tent in have holes in the roof, so are also very wet (and the tents are so old they are not waterproof). So we saw that awful place, and decided to come here (3km away).

We saw dolphins though. As were climbing back into the boat, we saw dolphins in the bay. We had driven out just a little bit and they were right behind our boat, then beside us. We could hear them breathing, they were that close. It was really neat.

This place we are now is owned by our guide, Armand, and his French business partner. They named the place Arol, after the first two letters of Armand's name and the first two letters of the Frenchman's name (Olivier).

We talked to our chef today and he taught us some Malagash. I remember every direction except North.

south: asimo
west: andrefana
east: antsinanana
hot: mofana
very good: tsarabe
good: tsara
so so: tsara tsara
awful: ratsy

And the motto here seems to be "mora, mora," slowly slowly. It makes me realize that I don't need to rush around to do Important things. What things are so important anyway? I hope I don't end up having a job where I do Important things and forget mora, mora.

The people here are nice. If you try to learn, they go mora, mora with you. The boat driver...I thought he knew no English. But after we let him teach us all those words, after he drew a scale (from 1-20) to show us how "tsara" tsarabe was, then he tried out his English too. He was able to tell us that he took English at school for 6 months in 1979. He told us about his 5 children, aged 2 to 13. He drew on his wooden porch with a piece of charcoal from the fire to show his children's ages and to draw the 20/20, 15/20 scale, etc. He also wrote asimo (south) for us. I had been afraid to talk to him because I thought he didn't speak English and I don't speak Malagash or French. But when Daniel and I tried, it worked very well. I think he was as happy to teach as I was to be taught.

Jen and Phillip went on a hike to find the red-ruffed lemur.

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