More visitors!

My friends R & E are here! It's pretty amazing that they've come all
of the way out to the middle of nowhere. They're on a biking tour of
Madagascar and started at the northern trip of the island (at Nosy Be)
and have made their way to Beza (by car from Tulear). It's been great
having them here. I hope that they've had a good time and that this
has been a little sunny spot in their trip around the island (they
have had some adventures -- some not so great, some pretty
incredible).

So, who's coming next? Email to make your reservation. Time is flying
by, so you better get down here.

Baby Mania

September is the start of the birth season at Beza, and most of the
groups that I'm watching have at least one, if not more (up to 6)
babies in them so far. Baby ring-tailed lemurs are not all that cute.
They look more like little aliens with tiny black and white rat-tails.
A few of them are pretty cute though, and they're especially cute as
they turn somersaults on top of their moms.

On our day off 2 weeks ago we saw 171 (in orange) appear with a baby
after not having one 2 hours earlier when we previously had seen her.
Then, 10 minutes later we saw her eating the placenta. Really chowing
down on it (this is the norm for mammals -- most humans are the weird
ones in that we don't take advantage of this giant protein source.
Some people do eat it and others have placenta parties to share it
with their friends. That being said, I'm not lining up for placenta
bits at the salad bar). That means that the baby was probably less
than an hour old and we saw a brand spanking new kid.

The best, however, was just a couple of days later when we were out
looking for green group. C & I split up when searching out the groups
-- especially now since they're moving their ranges a bit to take
advantage of a new tree that's flowering. I ran into yellow on the
way, and saw 155 acting strangely. She just couldn't get comfortable
and wasn't foraging with the rest of the group. She would get up, turn
around, sit down. Move a meter, sit down. Groom her vulva, get up,
turn around, sit down. No matter what she did, she just couldn't find
a good spot.

Finally I looked up and saw her vulva pulsating a bit. It'd extend
outward and then 155 would get up and turn around again. This is when
I realized that she was going to have her baby. Now. 20 meters up in
the tree. I started calling for C (we have a system of hoots -- 1
hoot- I found lemurs, 2 hoots- where the crap are you, 3
hoots/constant screaming - help). So here I am, thinking that C was
going to kill me if I saw the birth and didn't get her (she was just
talking about how cool it would be to see a baby being born, which I
didn't think would happen since most primate babies are born at night.
Turns out, not so much here).

Anyhow, so I'm hooting constantly (C was wondering what was going on
-- but she stopped to watch a yellow-billed kite) and staring at this
lemur at the top of the tree. By this time 155 has found a seat and
has her tail tucked under her bum and out in front of herself. I can
see her vulva push out and then she grooms herself. Push, groom, Push,
groom. Push -- and head appears (and some goo drips down from the tree
-- I made sure not to stand directly below her). The kid comes out
face up and she gives another push and it slides right out into her
not-so-nimble hands and she scoops it into her belly where it
immediately begins to crawl up. 155 starts grooming her new baby and
herself a little and 10 minutes later is off foraging for flowers.
Done and done. Baby. Check. It's a girl, by the way.

Everyone wants to be near the babies, groom the babies, try to steal a
baby and carry it, etc. The baby stealing is a little difficult in
lemurs since they can't really grab onto the kid. The getting on and
off of mom is mostly dependant on the kid. Mom has a really limited
role and capability for keeping the baby on board. If you are a baby
crazed lemur then you sort of try to move it with you hand and wrist
and hopefully, oh joy of joys, it might crawl onto you.

The ladies in green are particularly baby-crazed now. 23 is the only
one with a baby (C calls it Gollum-- it's kind of freaky looking) and
the females are constantly trying to groom her, and be near her, and
the dominant female 9 will sit next to 23 with her arms around her
belly so she can't walk away. 336, who is 23's 2 year old daughter, is
particularly manic. She. Wants. A. BABY.
BabyBabyBabyBabyBabyBabyBabyBabyBabyBabyBaby Baby! She can't get
enough of the kid and is always bopping around 23 now (23 used to beat
on her a lot -- abusive mom) sniffing and grooming and cuddling and
sitting on top of and trying to get hold of the baby. Whenevever we
need to find 336, we just look for 23 and there she is. It's pretty
endearing.

The kids are only a week or two old and are already riding around on
everyone (even 3 year old males). It's going to be crazy to keep track
of these kids IDs until we get them marked. At least there are a lot
of them so hopefully I'll have a good sample size left after they
start disappearing.

Jurassic Park

Well, sort of. Yesterday Beza became a mini Jurassic park, at least
for about 20 minutes. I was sitting on the ground watching red sleep
(C was with yellow) and looked up to see one of the biggest hissing
cockroaches I had ever seen. This thing was a good 4 inches long, and
was not happy to be poked/captured/prodded. It hissed and hissed and
hissed at me. While getting up to go catch the cockroach, I looked
about 4 meters further back, and moving along in the leaves was what
looked like an iguana. I thought that was a bit odd, since Beza (and
Madagascar as a whole) doesn't have large iguanas. When I stood up I
realized that it was the biggest chameleon that I have ever seen! It
was giant. It's body was about 10-11 inches long and really wide. He
was a few shades of mottled brown, with a red underbelly and legs. It
also wasn't so happy to be picked up and he was able to get his claws
into me fairly well. I finally got hold of him by his neck and casque
so he couldn't bite or claw me. He flashed red for awhile and held
open his giant, bright yellow mouth while puffing himself up, but
eventually he calmed down enough so that I could get some pictures.

It was really cool to see two giant individuals of the animals I've
seen around, but apparently only junior versions of. It's been getting
warm lately, as in it's over 40 degrees C (105 Farenheit), so the
hidden creatures are starting to emerge little by little. This also
means that the giant centipedes and scorpions are also starting to
poke their heads out too, and I'm not looking forward to the rains
when they really make a showing. For the mean time we'll just have to
be content with lemur babies and giant chameleons.

Arboretum d'Anstokay

K & I had a few days in Tulear so we decide to visit the arboretum
that's just outside of Tulear called Antsoky. It's actually a really
nice place, with a small hotel (Auberge de la Table) that's in
construction, as well a a really nice swimming pool and restaurant.

The arboretum was pretty great. We had a tour guide that took us for
about an hour walk, guided in English, through the garden. The plants
were all labeled really nicely and the garden is starting to mature
well. It's filled with plants that are native to southern Madagascar,
and was really nice to see many of the plants that I see every day
(but don't know because the lemurs don't eat them), as well as learn
how local people put a lot of the different plants to use: from
building pirogues to various medicinal uses. A lot of these were
really nicely put together in well-illustrated signs (I must admit,
I'm now a sucker for informational signage).

At the end of the walk we came to their small 'museum', which as a
smattering of different minerals, some nice fossils, and more plants
in jars. And we got to see their radiated tortoise enclosure at had
over 40 tortoises in it! They were packed on top of each other and
hugging the walls for places to sleep. It was amazing to see so many
tortoises all together. We see them on a fairly regular basis around
the forest, but that many tortoises is a sight. I'm not sure how they
all got there -- if they are rescues or if they were collected. I'm
not sure. I didn't get to ask because our tour guide legged it out of
there as fast as she could.

We had a nice lunch after the walk on the veranda, near the pool. Goat
cheese is one of the house specialties, so we had plenty of that. The
Swiss guy (Pétignat) who started the place moved to Madagascar as an
expat and originally tried to raise goats and market goat cheese. In
true Malagasy style, his tomb is in the center of the garden. Anyhow,
while his chevre business didn't really quite take off, he was also an
amateur botanist and decided to open a botanical garden as well. So,
we had plants and goat cheese, and I don't think that either of us
minded at all. The cheese was great -- full of garlic and herbs. Now
if only I can get someone in a village here to make goat cheese, we'd
be set.

Sarodrano & the beach

K leaves in a just a couple of days to head back to Tana and then back
to reality of Arizona. To put that off as far as possible we took a
little vacation to Sarodrano -- a little fishing village on a sandy
peninsula south of Tulear.

We stayed at Chez Andrea. It's a little hotel with a few bungalows
that have no electricity or running water. It's actually pretty nice.
There really isn't anything at Sarodrano, just you, the beach, and the
village, so electricity isn't really necessary. There was still cold
beer, so we were good. We had candles and kerosene lanterns for light,
and outside of the first night there wasn't anyone else there.

Chez Andrea is an eponymous hotel run by a really nice Italian guy.
He's been in the area for about 20 years and can be a bit of a
character, especially when he was telling us about another guy on the
peninsula who is rumored to be a pedophile and abuser of the
handicapped-- but he's not one to gossip. Andrea made sure that we had
great food (all delicious seafood -- fish, octopus, squid in a variety
of sauces, but mostly tomato) and that we were generally happy. Since
we were the only ones around, that probably wasn't too much of a
burden for him.
It was pretty great. We did nothing. We walked around the beach and
mangroves and sat around and read. The only downside was that it was
crazy windy, so there really wasn't any swimming or beach time. It was
windy enough to keep us from going on any boating excursions, but we
were okay with that.

Sarodrano is an incredibly sandy place. While there are huge sand
dunes (with really nice sand), when the wind comes whipping up from
the south, it's not so comfortable. Most afternoons would find us
sitting in the one corner that was in the sun and out of the wind, and
just big enough for two chairs. When we walked around the peninsula we
were usually joined by the 5 dogs that lived around the hotel. It was
pretty funny to have this pack of dogs follow us around, barking at
the other dogs and leaning on us for affection. While they ran far
away from us when we were away from the village, as soon as we came
near anyone else they stuck to us like glue, probably to avoid being
kicked, hit, or harassed by the other people around.

One of the amazing things about Sarodrano is the concentration of
shells on the beach. There are shells everywhere -- some that are
gigantic. Most beaches that I've been to, even ones that are pretty
out of the way, seem to get picked over pretty well, but Sarodrano
beaches are still pretty rich in shells. One of the down sides to the
beach near the village is that it's used as a latrine. Best not to go
shell hunting there at low tide.

We took a pirogue back from Sarodrano to Tulear. It was a really
pleasant sailing trip. The wind wasn't so strong that we got soaked or
so weak that we didn't move. We had taken this guy's pirogue over to
the peninsula as well, but I didn't notice until we were walking the
beach at Tulear with him that he was missing his big toe on his right
foot. Looks like it was chopped right off. While he might not have
been so great at soccer, he could still sail a boat though.

First International Bank of Beza

This is what I will need to brand myself as if things keep up the way
they have been.

It's not unusual for the people who work at Beza to ask for loans--
they do it quite often from the bosses at the reserve, as well as from
the researchers. Loans are usually taken out against future salary,
and when I (and others in the past) make a loan, I always get approval
from the person's boss, or to be doubly sure, get an assurance that if
the person defaults on their loan, I can take it out of my monthly
camping fees.

The loan requests, though are getting bigger.

One of the guys who works for me recently asked to borrow 500,000
Ariary to buy a bull for his father-in-law's funeral. Since he's the
son in law, he needed to make a big showing at the funeral, and I was
able to loan him over half of what he needed (incidentally, the bull
was amazing. Black and white with beautifully recurved horns --
apparently the best for a funeral).

Someone else recently asked for 600,000 to work on his house. For
those of you keeping track at home, there are around 1970 ariary to 1
dollar. If we round out at a nice 2,000 conversion rate, this is
asking for $300. I was able to give him part of this, but man, the
loans are getting to be a serious burden on my own liquidity.

Most people's capitol is in the form of zebu. It's easier to count and
keep track of your cows than paper money, so when the time comes when
people see a need for quick cash, it's a bit more difficult to
mobilize your four legged hedge fund, and it becomes necessary to get
the money elsewhere. I'm happy to help out when I can, but I'm
starting to feel like I need to ask for loan applications and
introduce the concept of interest. This would, of course, never fly.

In the short few months that I've been here I've made many more (and
some substantial) loans. It's sort of shocking to me to think about
how much money has come and gone beween me and these other folks. I'm
used to dealing with plastic, and rarely have more then $20 or $30 on
me at any time (usually it's less than $5). Even though I know the
people fairly well that I'm loaning money to, sending these large sums
of money walking, only to come back little by little in the future
does make me a little bit uncomfortable. I'm going to continue to help
out as much as I can, but considering my own current issues with the
flow of money, it might not be as much as other people hope for.

Good times (or when the money floats away)

Well, not all times are good in Madagascar. On our way in to Tulear on
Friday, I found out that one of my granting organizations was going to
suspend my fellowship (which was substantial) because of security
concerns in Madagascar. I was kindly informed that I could move my
fellowship to another Sub-Saharan African country if I were so
inclined.

Excuse me? What was that?

Now, the serious political unrest in Madagascar started in January
and, for the most part, was over with by the end of February. Since
then there was a general feeling of unease, but currently talks are
under way (or concluded -- I'm not quite sure) to form a transitional
government. If serious security concerns were to be made, it seems
that it was during the initial time of the coup, not now. The
coordinator for my fellowship knew that I was leaving for Madagascar
in May, and I even checked to make sure that the fellowship would
continue to be available to me before I left. It was supposed to start
in July, but paperwork, etc etc. I should have started working off of
their support now, so, the email telling me, that no, in fact they
weren't going to support me here was a bit of a surprise.

We're trying to work through everything, but it's a bit disconcerting,
especially when I'm on the opposite side of the world and 10 hours
ahead of Phoenix and 7 hours ahead of the East Coast. Luckily K & I
were having a final goodbye dinner with AR & BD, and they were
incredibly helpful with support and suggestions for what to do next.
My advisor and director of our international scholarship office have
also been incredibly helpful, and hopefully the fellowship will be
reinstated, especially considering that I am already here. Seriously.
I'm here. Doing my thing. Keep the money coming guys. It's going to
good use, I swear.

Security concerns? Now? I think that someone just caught an old Google
update on Madagascar. Either they have some incredible intelligence on
what will happen in the future, or are a bit behind the curve. Could
be both, I guess.

Some musings on the security concerns. In January-February it was of
incredible concern, especially since my friend S was here working at
Beza. Then, I was unsure about what kind of reaction to the faffing
around Tana she would see here in the south, but the answer is
nothing. Not a thing. The south of Madagascar is really a long way
from Tana, and Beza is a long way from the major city, Tulear. The
people around Beza need to be more concerned with their day-to-day
lives than changes in a relatively non-existent government (in our
area). I don't feel in any way that my security is being threatened
(except by the Police who were trying to extort some bribes the other
day, but that's a different story). I have a great set of colleagues,
friends, and employees here who I really feel that I can count on and
who I feel have my best interest at heart. While we may not go about
things in the same way, I feel like they're always looking out for me
and my team, and I certainly know that they are always keeping tabs on
the vazaha -- whatever we may be doing.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for increased understanding and
movement in the bureaucracy. I hope the wheels keep on turning.