I have a sickness

instead of working, I watch videos of lemurs playing. 

Other videos here:
http://flic.kr/p/8pwMid

and here:
http://flic.kr/p/8pwkrW

I was spoiled

Looking for monkeys in Panama has reminded me just how spoiled I was by Beza and the ring-tailed lemurs.

In Panama, I'm only doing/piloting/planning survey work on howler monkeys....

But it reminded me that rain forests, in general, can suck. I really like working in wet forests because they are incredibly interesting, but man they're uncomfortable. Too many mosquitoes, you're constantly wet and there are hills. So many muddy hills to climb in rubber boots. Oh, and the monkeys are 20-30 meters up in the trees and like to hide.

For example, while I am not collecting  behavioral data , neither of the situations pictured will ever happen with the monkeys here. Never. Not even a chance. You may be able to take your lawnchair and a paperback out to watch the howlers, but the monkeys aren't going to come down to the ground and sit in front of you.

Instead they will hang out in the trees, maybe 20 meters up where you can barely see them. Maybe you can just see the tips of their tails. Maybe you can see their whole bodies. Or maybe they will sit in little huddles so you can see a black monkey blob but not be to do the one thing that you need to get done with them (in my case, maybe count their nasty bot fly sores). In any case, monkeys in Central & South America aren't too keen on hanging out on the ground (some do come down quite close and maybe do some foraging or play on the ground, but in general, the monkeys here are big fans of staying in trees).

Beza is a dry, flat place. It can get incredibly hot (our max temp for the field season -- and every for Beza -- was just over 47 degree C, so about 117 F -- thanks Ay for the photo) and there are still some nasty plants and horrible wasps, but the lemurs are really cooperative and it makes working with them easy and pretty fun. While we had some days where we couldn't find the group we were looking for [ahem...blue, teal....], the lemurs were pretty easy to find compared to large monkeys that want to hide at the tops of trees, camouflaged as bumps on logs.


Don't get me wrong, hunting for and chasing monkeys in tropical rain forests is still good fun, but it made me a bit meloncholy for the good ol' days of flat forests and animals that would call back to you.


And just for good measure, one more gratuitous picture of me and a baby lemur (Gollum from Green)

Baby Fights!

Ring-tailed lemurs have a very strict dominance hierarchy that regulates most aspects of their lives. Before working with lemurs I was used to primate species where dominance either wasn't all that important or wasn't reinforced on a minute-by-minute basis, like in the ring-taileds. For the RTL's, your place in the pecking order determines when and what kind of food you get to eat, who you can be next to, how often you're groomed, and who will help your baby out when it gets into a pinch. A RTL won't ususally give up the chance to exert her dominance, whether it's by giving a nasty look, making someone get up from their comfy spot, or by smacking them around. Female RTL's like to make sure everyone knows their place. And that they stay there.

Baby lemurs have their own separate hierarchy. In macaques and baboons a kid's dominance status is directly linked to their mom's and their mom's family rank. Not so in RTL's. In the ring-tailed life, it's every baby for herself. You have to fight your way first into your own baby rank and then eventually into the adult ranking system.

This means baby fights. Awesome, adorable, terrible baby fights.


Here's a typical baby fight. Baby A comes up to Baby B. They start playing and wrestling a bit. All of a sudden the wrestling play turns into a fight with the two babies grappling on to one another, growling and screaming and kicking and biting. This little furry ball of baby fury rolls around in the branch for a few seconds until it falls to the ground and both babies get up looking a little dazed and then run off to some adult to groom them reassuringly.

Babies are vicious in sorting out their ranks. Watching the babies figure out their dominance hierarchy was one of the most hilarious times of observation that we had. One of the babies in Orange, i316, earned himself the nickname Bruiser becuase of his sheer tenacity. This baby wanted to be top lemur and wanted everyone else to know it. He had (unfortunately this little guy died at 21 weeks old) a first-time mom (3 years old) of a middle rank who had eyes for the top. Being the kid of a first time mom, Bruiser was smaller than most of the other babies, which made his bullying them around even better.

Bruiser started fights whenever he could, but there was one little lady that finally started giving back to him as good as he gave out. The fights between him and i368 were amazing. They'd wrestle and growl and bite and then break up and then run back at each other and do it all over again. On one occasion Bruiser's mom (316) was so concerned over the fight that she actually stood by, sniffed, and put her hand out at the two warring babies while they duked it out (this was completely out of character for this mom).

Baby smackdown only lasted a couple of weeks, but it was a great couple of weeks while it lasted. Scoring behavior during this time was a challenge -- as much as for what the lemurs were doing as for trying to record data while laughing.

research update

Maybe a little update on how work is actually going? The answer--
better than I could have imagined.

The past 2 months I've had 2 teams of people watching different groups
of lemurs. It's been great being able to monitor 2 groups at once and
collect twice as much data during this period of development. The kids
are really exploring, eating tons on their own, and are incredibly
independent. I wasn't expecting this level of independence so soon in
their lives. It's great. They're like real lemurs now. Just tiny
versions.

Mortality from this birth cohort is low so far. However, we're coming
to the time of the year when a lot of babies start disappearing. I
just lost another of my 1 year olds, which isn't so good. Last year's
birth cohort now has over 80% mortality. Tough times in lemur land.

We're also collecting more fecal samples than I know what to do with.
We'll have well over 3000 fecal samples by the time we wrap things up.
We're just too good at it now. This is actually more than I have
supplies to collect it with, so we will end up getting creative for
ways to store all of these fecal samples so we can get them back for
hormone analysis.

A little note about my field assistants. They are awesome. Incredible,
and I'm really lucky to have them around. They have been collecting
incredible amounts of data, make me laugh constantly and only complain
softly at the amount of beans and rice that they're eating. The Beza
Ecological Monitoring Team has been great and without them things
wouldn't be going as smoothly as they have been. I've been fortunate
in all of the people who I've worked with so far and hope that I can
continue working with them all.

Anakao, Tulear, Defenses

I'm just finishing up a little Tulear/Anakao time and itching to get
back to Beza.

I've been here for a little over a week now. Originally the plan was
to come into Tulear for a couple of days, see my friend J defend his
PhD dissertation (he did a great job -- highest honors) and then roll
back to Beza with another researcher who will be there for 3 weeks or
so.

This was the plan. It's not how it happened.

Ay and I came out with another research team just before New Year's
eve. We left C & P back at Beza -- P is leaving in the next 2 weeks
and they are on their way out today for a little holiday before he
returns home to the UK and C comes back to the lonely life in a tent
(sorry C -- we've all been there).

We left with M&F's research team -- they had finished up all of their
work early and were going for a little holiday at Anakao, a small
fishing village with some nice resorts on the west coast (not too far
from us). They were really generous letting us tag along in the car so
we could get Ay to the dentist (and I got an unplanned trip to the
beach!). We had a great NYE dinner and rang in the new year at one of
the bars down the beach, dancing and drinking THB. It was pretty great
and a welcome change of pace from beans & rice and forest life.

And Ay came down with a nasty toothache. It was bad enough that he
wanted to come to Tulear to see a dentist. This must have been bad,
because i know I wasn't so excited at the idea of a Tulear dentist
poking around in my mouth. So, because of Ay's bum tooth, we ended up
leaving Beza and having a short beach break before coming back to
Tulear.

On the way to Tulear from the beach though we broke an axle on the
Landcruiser. Woops. This didn't make anyone so happy because it meant
we had to stay a night in Betioky (not that bad, and in a hotel that
was nicer than the others I've seen. However, use the word 'nicer' in
its most general and comparative context). Since the car was FUBARd we
had to find a new ride to Tulear that could fit 7 people and their
gear. This ended up being a tiny Peugot truck with most of us piled
into the bed for the drive from Betioky to Tulear. It wasn't a bad
ride in the back and since we had benches to sit on and a relatively
large amount of room (compared to the taxi-brousse), we got to Tulear
in style.

We got Ay to a dentist that actually wasn't so scary. Gloves, masks,
and the appearance of sterilization. He even had the dentist's
standard giant mouth/tooth models and huge toothbrush (I know I felt
comforted). Luckily there wasn't anything wrong with his tooth--
dentist thought he had food stuck between his teeth. The dentist told
him to brush better, gave him some mouthwash and sent us on our way.

By this time we had been in Tulear for a few days. J's defense was set
to be the next day, so we had some time to kill. The hotel we've been
staying at has wifi, so this isn't too hard for those of us who don't
get to check email/facebook/wikipedia/internets all that often. This
is also prime movie and tv show watching time for Ay & I.

I was supposed to head out yesterday, but our car wasn't ready. Then
it was leaving today at 7. Nope. Not happening. In fact we have a new
car coming from Tana today, which hopefully will be able to take N & I
back to Beza tomorrow. I hope so. I'm getting tired of Tulear. It's
time to get back to my tent. It's been nice to have relaxing and tasty
meals with good people, see a colleague accomplish his goal, celebrate
with cold beer, and check back in with the world and loved ones, but
it's time to get back to the babies, poo collection, and unfortunately
the wasps that have started to come out.

One reason why I love my job...

Today one of my favorite infants decided that he would be my friend.
His name is i171 -- he belongs to one of the cheekiest of the females
who comes into camp and has a particularly bold older sister (her name
is Bumps). I haven't been able to think of a name that will stick to
the little guy yet, so suggestions are welcome.

I was sitting on the cement floor of the thatched shade structure in
camp and saw his mom lie down just behind me. I heard a lemur walking
up behind me, then saw a tail out of the corner or my eye. He decided
to slink underneath my legs, and up against my calf like a cat and
then sit down between my shoes. His hands were on my shoe and he sat
and stared up at me for a few minutes. He just wanted to hang out I
guess. After a little while he went under the other leg and walked
over to check out what his mom was doing and hopefully get some milk.
After getting denied a prime nursing opportunity he came back to me,
stood up on his back legs, put his hands on my arm and gave me a
pleading look.

This made my day. I think it's the closest that I'll get to have one
of the babies crawl into my lap, but I'll take it. Man, habituation is
great.

Cicadas everywhere

The cicadas have emerged.

The noise that they make is amazing -- they are so loud that I can't
hear my watch beep to tell me to collect data. They have been on every
tree, Flying randomly, ricocheting off of the tree trunk, us, each
other. One of their more pleasant aspects is that they pee when they
take off, so at any given moment if you kick up a bunch of cicadas you
are rewarded with a lovely bug misting. Just make sure you keep your
lips closed.

The upside is that everything is eating them. The birds, lemurs, and
people. The crested drongos snatch the little beasts off of trunks or
in mid-flight then make off with the angry cicada. It's great to hear
the enraged cicada, buzzing for its life gradually get softer as the
drongo flies away to land on a branch and eviscerate it. On the whole,
the lemurs are pretty bad at catching cicadas. The really good ones
watch a cicada fly off and land and then POUNCE on it. The bad ones
would just grab impotently at flying bugs and come up empty handed.
Some groups are better at catching them than others, and the groups
that live in the center of the reserve (prime cicada territory from
what I can tell) are the best at it.

The people may be the most entertaining to watch catch cicadas. They
started in small groups of 3-4 people, spearing the cicadas (one
advantage of always carrying a spear), pulling off their wings, and
dropping them into a bucket. When the cicadas finally emerged in huge
numbers groups of almost 15 people were wandering the forest, hunting
for this noisy, pork-rind tasting delicacy. Most of the people weren't
sure about what to do when they saw us in the forest -- do they run or
do they carry on with their business all nonchalant-like. Since I'm
pretty sure they aren't supposed to be hunting anything in the
reserve, the smaller groups ran away, but the bigger groups of teenage
boys just seemed to be too cool for school and would wander on by,
check out what we were doing, spear another cicada and move along.

Halfway there!

C & I are heading toward Tulear to pick up her boyfriend (P) as well
as the new assistant (Ay). P will be here for three months or so and
will be helping out with data collection, and Ay will be around until
the bitter end (and then some-- he'll be killing time until World Cup
in June -- anyone need an assistant for a few months?). More people =
more data. Woohoo! I just hope that the computers hold up for the
entire time.

But, bigger news is that fieldwork is halfway done! It alternately
feels like time is flying by and that I don't have enough time to get
things done and that the next 5 months will be a long haul. In terms
of the ease of research, we're definitely coming into the more
difficult aspect of data collection. The infants are hopping all over
the place, putting things in their mouth, eating, spitting things off,
running running running and playing around. They're incredibly cute,
but as C would say, completely head wrecking. Watching mothers has now
turned into watching 2 animals at once so that you can keep track of
what the kid is doing too. We're also coming up on the beginning of
the rainy season, so it means hot and humid, as well as wasps. But,
the leaves on the trees are coming back, so it's getting easier to
identify the sticks that the lemurs have been chewing the buds off of.

Beza feels like home -- or as close to home camping/pit
latrines/sifaka hopping by your window actually can feel. When people
come through it feels like strangers are now in my kitchen, living
room, and bed room all at once. Not a few times have C and I looked at
each other with indignation when a new group of tourists rolls through
and deposits their bags and cigarette butts all over the place. In the
last group a very well meaning, and by far the nicest French tourist
thus far asked if we got exicted to see all of the vazaha come
through. I was forced to deflect the question into something less
controversial (like what time are you leaving in the morning?) rather
than answer her question with an honest 'no'. I'm still not totally
down with the amount of squatting life entails here, or that there are
more buckets in my life now than probably ever before, but, it's still
homey.

It is also incredibly surreal to be living here all of the time. This
happens most often when sitting at the table eating lunch. Orange
group will come through the house and all you can see are black and
white tails floating by the edge of the table. Occasionally when you
look over you see one of the females sprawled on the tile floor like a
dog trying to get cool, or maybe the face of 300 poking out from
around the corner in one of the bedrooms. Sometimes I have company
during lunch -- Bumps will come and sit on the edge of the table or
perched on a chair to watch me, see what I'm eating, see if it's
something she's interested in, and maybe just hang out for awhile.
Having lemurs on your table/in your kitchen/bedroom is a much
different experience then, say, some baboons or vervet monkeys. The
lemurs don't get too pushy, aggressive, or poop on everything when
they're in the house . This is a courtesy that can't really be said
for the monkeys.

Another surreal lemur moment came when I was sitting on the floor of
my tent and heard a low growl. When I looked up all I could see was a
disembodied sifaka face looking in and then hopping by. The animal
life definitely keeps us amused.

So 5.5 months down and 5 more to go. Future highlights include a
second visit by M & F's research team in December and J's dissertation
defense in January. With my research team doubling in size, I'm sure
there will be new adventures to be had, new animals to be caught, and
intrepid stories of wasp stings to be relayed. I'm looking forward to
it all.

The Omnivore's Dilemma

I just finished reading Pollan's book (parts again, parts for the
first time). I forgot that this, actually, is food porn. Blah blah
feedlots blah blah factory farming blah blah hunting delicious pig?
Excuse me? Delicious pork products? Chantarelles? Maybe some chicken
and deviled eggs? I want them. All of them. This is not a book that
should be read when you are forced to eat rice for breakfast,
especially rice with rocks in it. My own personal omnivore's dilemma
is that I haven't had sufficient opportunities to assert my
omnivorosity (yes, this is my new word for the day) here. I guess my
efforts will have to be redoubled.

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.