The clock keeps ticking and its not too much longer for me in this country. I'm saying goodbye to some really good friends, and its making me feel ready to get myself moving towards the exit, but I still have a little bit left to go. Let's buckle in and see what we can turn out in the home stretch.
No rest for the rains so far, and boy what a mess have they made of my fence!
Here's what I came home to one day. The fence had been starting to lean the day before and I made a note to fix it the next day. I never got the chance. I cleaned it up a bit, and this was the end result. After this I let my school principal know that my fence had broke and he informed me that since I've done such a good job for the school so far that they needed to fix my fence to pay me back. I'm not one to argue when someone offers free labor, so...
Here's the fencing crew. A group of students who came over the day after the fence fell over and cut down the saplings for the posts, dug the holes, wired the cross braces, and shored everything up. They were unprofessional, late, lazy, noisy, sloppy, and the trampled everything. I loved every minute of it! They were very happy to have their picture taken too!
Speaking of fencing work, here's a cow that had very little appreciation for my fencing work. As you can tell he knocked over my fence and also ate my corn... All of my corn. I was, needless to say, extraordinarily frustrated. Even more so when I learned that this was my neighbors cow, and it was put next to my corn to graze on purpose. I guess its Malagasy corn from here on out, no American corn for anybody!
Other animals I encounter are usually less destructive, for instance:
Momma girl. She's taken a real shine to coming over each afternoon for some behind the ear scratching. I am also a complete sucker and will sit there and pet her for hours on end if uninterrupted, so I often do. I'm fairly certain she's pregnant again, and, if so, I look forward to meeting another wonderful batch of puppies shortly!
This guy was crossing the road and I almost ran him over with a wheelbarrow. That would have been a tragedy, because the Malagasy people believe that if you kill a chameleon, you will die in the same way that you killed the chameleon. I am not ready to perish by wheelbarrow, so thankfully he was noticed and lived to finish crossing the street.
Here's a furry example of the local fauna from a neighbor's shack. You might not be able to see in the picture, but hanging down from the rafters is a black rope that was tying this lemur to the beam. Someone was keeping it for either consumption or as a pet, either way not good for this poor lemur.
By contrast, this guy is much freer, and will hopefully remain so for a long time. I caught him on a trip to Ankarana National Park. He was hopping around with some friends which makes for some blurry pictures, but I got this one off before he sized up his next leap and departed for greener pastures.
Also in Ankarana was this interesting forest crab. They live on the ground in forested areas and not in or even near water! They only come out during rainy season, so they're not completely lacking in the water department, but by normal crab standards they're practically in the Sahara.
We also ran across this really cool snail that eats particles off the rocks and helps promote their erosion which turns them into the tsingy (pointed rock monoliths) that the park is famous for. I took a picture just because I thought the shell design was really neat. Also, I was in Ankarana hoping to see a similar spiral but on a massive scale.
Unfortunately there wasn't enough rain in the preceding days to fill the rivers leading to the sinkhole, so we didn't get to see the eddy. However, we did get to see this stream dropping a few gallons down the hundred foot drop to make up for it.
It was a long and hot hike through the park, so we escaped to a hotel afterward to relax. In the hotel I saw this wonderful advertisement for:
Tsunami! Tsunami is a camphor and mint rub that is being sold as a panacea to the malagasy people. Around the chart are drawings of people using their tsunami to make their ailments disappear. We had a lot of fun trying to distinguish what it is we thought each person was doing, and we finally gave up as some of them were just too convoluted to try and decipher, but if you have any fun guesses, please let me know!
Of course I didn't just go traipsing through a national park this month, I also did some work. First up, I visited another volunteer friend doing some amazingly good work at the La Maison d'Arnaud Orphanage in Diego Suarez. She helps them try to improve the lives, health, and education of a small group of orphans, but who helps her when a bigger problem arises? I stepped in when called to try and aid La Maison to find a solution for their road washing out in the heavy rains. They are still investigating options, but if I'm called in to do any further work I'll be sure to post as many pictures as possible of this awesome and potentially large undertaking!
If you want to learn more about La Maison d'Arnaud then please check out their link here. They do great work and could always use a helping hand.
I've been keeping my own hands busy back at home too finishing my cutting board. Here is the finished product with a few coats of oil and wax for protection. It's amazing how the color really pops when you put some protectant on it. I broke it in with a fish that I filleted and it stood up to the task beautifully. I look forward to having a nice new non-smelling cutting board for the remainder of my service now!
Of course there was some leftover from the cutting board wood, so I had to find another project to do as well. Enter my new house sign. Last month you saw the beginnings in the lettering that I made, and here it is transferred to the board.
After much sweat and hard work with a small brush and some paint thinner and a steady hand, here is the lettering. And its almost ready at this point. I had to do a few touch ups on the paint job over the next few days, but they were mostly for minor issues in the lettering. After that it was time to apply a finish sealer for protection.
And here it is all finished and ready to hang on the house. I'll be sure to post a shot of it in its final place when I get it finished next month, but for now I'm just glad that it's finished and ready to hang up. It was a long way to get to this point!
After all that detail work and road construction estimating, I worked up some steam and what better way to blow off steam then attending a nice concert?
So that is what I did. I saw Stephanie (yes, THE Stephanie) in concert in Diego Suarez. Stephanie is a pop star here in Madagascar with a string of hits including Mahatsiaro which is particularly over-played. It was a good time and a great way to vent some energy. It left me feeling ready to tackle the last few months and hopefully finish up strong. I've got a good feeling that everything's going to turn out just right!
