Flying Home

Elaine and I's flight home was scheduled to take off at 3:10 with boarding starting at 2:30pm. Elaine and I left Moramanga with Jess, Laetitia, and Loïc at 8:45am. It's supposed to be a two hour drive in the morning but we had scheduled four hours to leave time to drop by their house in the capital. We got to the Tana outskirts at 10:40....and hit traffic. Traffic was SO bad, it was 15km to the airport, which theoretically is 45 mins in normal traffic....we moved 50 feet in 30 minutes. We were starting to think we wouldn't make it to the airport in time. I didn't know what to do, I didn't want to miss my flight and get stuck in Madagascar. I just started praying "Dear God please ease traffic, please let us get to the airport in time." I was getting ready to abandon ship and flag down a moped and hire it to weave us between the cars until we got to the airport. If Jessica and our luggage got to the airport in time, awesome, if not I'd figure out how to get it stateside when it got to that.  Finally, we got to a traffic circle, which took us 20 minutes to get through, but afterwards traffic eased up a bit (12mph) all the way to the airport with only a few short stop and go areas. We finally made it to the airport at 1:30pm. The lady at the counter took some convincing but begrudgingly let us check our bags. (we arrived 2 minutes before check-in closed) and then got to border control...Elaine's visa had expired when she missed her flight 3 days prior. We had talked to a Ethiopian Airlines pilot who thought it wouldnt be a big deal. However, they wanted her to go back to the ATM to withdraw money and pay a $37 fine/visa extension. At this point we were panicking, it was 2:00 and she was going to have to redo all the lines and get through security before our flight.

Well, I continued going through customs while Elaine with a little confusion and a helpful customs officer navigated to the ATM and paid the fine and skipped all the lines and even beat me through security! We arrived at our gate at 2:30 exactly and boarding hadn't started yet. Phew, what a relief.

I will never again let anyone convince me to spend the night two hours away from the airport the night before an international flight much less an international flight home.

Andringitra National Park:

It was a two-hour drive from where we met the guides in Ambalavao to the trailhead. Two hours along the worst dirt road I had ever seen, during my stay in Madagascar or otherwise. All our food and gear was packed into the bed of the Nissan frontier with a foam topper as first-class padding for all five of us to squeeze together. (insert photo) from right to left: Jessica, Laetita, Loïc, Elaine, me) it’s a good thing there were hand rails on the sides of the truck because there were many times the truck was tilted 45˚ to either side, it was a little tricky to stay on the truck to say the least.

Basically, during the trip, we climbed the second tallest mountain in Madagascar in three days, swam in the mountain springs, saw chameleons, indigenous birds and butterflies.

I love going up, so climbing up to Mt. Boby was pretty easy for me, at least until everyone else ran out of water and my remaining liter practically evaporated, I couldn't even find the bottle! (I'm not sure why they didn't fill up their bottles that morning or at the midmorning break spot)

Approaching the summit

Being the fastest hiker in the group, and all the faster in my attempt to find water and rehydrate, I got to the lunch spot by the stream quickest; I grabbed water and set up my hammock next to the river to kick back and relax and then take pictures of people as they arrived. However, it was not meant to be, let’s just say it was a good thing Kaitlyn’s camera was in the case and strapped around my neck. (Mom ;) you might want to skip the remainder of the paragraph) I sat down in my hammock, got out readjusted it, sat down again and CRACK! I did a back flip as my hammock spontaneously snapped in half. I wish the guide that had stayed at the lunch spot and was watching had caught it on video! I’m sure it was an impressive sight.

It was very sad event…that and seeing an airplane while coming down the mountain were the two downers that day. (That was the only plane I saw for the entire month I was in Madagascar, and it was temporarily awesome to be completely removed from civilization.) But at the same time I felt so BLESSED to have an awesome guardian angel. I walked away from the back flip with only a minor cut on my back, but my head came within inches of the massive river rock I had been sitting above. (You’ve got me convinced mom, I will always buy insurance from now on, even if I didn’t end up using it this time.)

The Ridgeline

We crossed at the pass in the left third of the photo

The next step was to climb back out of the valley over the ridge. Why didn’t we just continue along the ridge after descending from Mt. Boby, I don’t know. By this point, the sun was setting over the ridge we were attempting to scale. To give you a picture, imagine steps upon steps upon steps, I thought that my legs would be in pretty good shape after hiking all summer and biking 205 miles from Seattle to Portland last month, but man, Mt. Boby didn’t tire my legs but those stairs certainly did. We finally got to the “top” of the ridge and realized there was still more to go. What we originally thought was the top of the ridge was actually what they call the moon plateau because it strongly resembles the surface of the moon. We passed by a really cool rock in the shape of a cowboy hat,

most definitely a cowboy hat

yes it was completely natural. Here I realized that if we sped up just a little, we might be able to catch the sunset again on the other side of the ridge. Just another half-mile and 30-40 feet of elevation. Finally, we got to the top of the ridge.

Wow.

I have never seen a more beautiful sunset my entire life, and I get spoiled at home with the sunset over the Puget Sound and Olympic mountains. It was the definition of stunning. You could see over at least the next ten ridgelines to a sky that was pink for almost a full 180 degrees around. It was kind of like the sunsets I’ve seen over Greenland in the airplane but because I could see a full 360 degrees, I saw it all of a sudden instead of slowly watching the sun descend and I wasn’t watching through a dirty, tiny window it was a whole new level of surreal beauty.

Unfortunately, we were not done hiking for the evening. Side note: walking by moonlight is very peaceful. We still had another hour and a half of sketchy wobbly steps down into the next valley to camp. MY KNEES HAVE NEVER HURT SO MUCH. About half way down I was praying for even just a small patch of dirt for a change. About a minute and a half later, my heart did a mini happy dance, I didn’t have the energy to actually dance.  Low and behold, I found a small dirt landing. Every 5 minutes or so I prayed for another dirt landing to spare my knees and every 5 minutes I looked up and said thanks. We finally came into viewing distance of the camp fire, and after what seemed like an eternity we finally got to the camp by the river and washed off the day’s sweat. I didn’t know I could sweat going down steps in the dark. I learned at dinner that night, when rice is harvested, a lot of tiny pebbles, in this case also white, come with the grain. In Madagascar, people have to pick out or sift out the pebbles by hand but because there was so little time, it wasn’t done during our hike. Usually there was a pebble in every or every-other bite. I just hope my dentist doesn’t find any holes in my teeth at my next appointment. After some carmelized bananas for dessert I turned in for an early bedtime. I was exhausted after all those stairs. It was probably the hardest day of any hike I’ve ever done for that one reason. I got to brush my teeth with the wild zebu that night as they walked next to our tents. Thankfully they were pretty tired because they can be very aggressive beasts. I get the impression they are similar to buffalo, deceivingly docile until you startle them.

The next day wasn’t as scenic as the two previous, but as we were descending into the valley we approached a small village where approximately 20 children were lined up selling bracelets and necklaces from purple green and blue stones for 1,000 ariary (less than 50¢). Maybe 50 feet behind the last child there was a little girl at most 4 years old with her older sister who was maybe 6 or 7. The little girl started crying when she saw me. Her sister shielded her eyes so she couldn’t see me. I tried saying salama (hi) in a soft friendly voice, at first I thought she was scared of white people, (which isn’t uncommon in the south) but when I brought it up with Loïc and Jessica, they said she also cried when Loïc passed but not when she saw Jessica, her sister Laetitia. It broke my heart when I heard that. No one should have reason to be afraid of men, especially not four-year olds. But what can people in Madagascar or the rest of Africa do? Even in the US women are just starting to come out with the #MeToo movement but in Madagascar you can’t call 911 or child services. To all people who have been victims of abusive men. I’m so sorry. Writing this blog I realize how trivial my original disappointments about the hike were, it was another reminder of how privileged I am to be a white man in the US.

Christina & Enno

After another hour of hiking we caught a ride back to Ambalavao rather than hiking the remaining 4 hours because Loïc busted his knee on the way down the ridgeline the night before. Then we dropped of our German friends at another national park and exchanged emails for photo trading purposes and continued to the hotel to shower before going to our next excursion.

Driving

As almost every foreigner notices, Google Maps is very limited and there are no street signs in Madagascar. So if you're driving in an unfamiliar area, at some point you're probably going to come to a fork in the road and not know which way to turn. Or maybe you'll be close to your destination but not know the exact spot so you'll have to roll down your window and ask a local how to get to the town hall, a restaurant or tourist attraction. Basically prepare to get lost. Side note, when driving through the country it's best to have any white skinned people (or vasa) duck down when passing a police check station to minimize your chances of being stopped. That is, if you don't want to waste time arguing about some stupid made up rule you broke. You can also avoid the argument by giving into their "fine" but I would rather not fuel their corruption with bribery. So we told them we would pay the fine in Tana (Antananarivo, the capital) but we wouldn't give the money directly to them. Today they gave up after fifteen minutes and let us go because "Sunday is a holy day". We weren't as lucky as last week. It took us only 5 minutes for the same issue then. The police came up to us and after a checking the car's paperwork, asked for Elaine and I's passports. They tried giving us a fine for not also having a certified copy of our passport from the town hall in Tana. But what is the point of a copy if you have the real deal? Today the national police brought up the same issue but didn't even check our passports, which proves once you get pulled over once, they radio all the other police check points to look out for your car. Yay more harassment! Worse yet, in the south, which is much poorer, the police are rumored to radio to bandits down the road which cars look like good targets, particularly at night. The roads are so straight you can see a car coming from 15 km away. They have plenry of time to set up a road block to turn you into a sitting duck or make you pay a fee for their help moving the barrier. So much for the police badge saying "Division of Public Safety". Every time we managed to get past a police check point, I did a little happy dance.

While driving with friends, I've quickly learned many different driving courtesies. If you look in the dictionary for the definition of a windy road, it says: "Madagascar's central highways".We drove 11 hours today, 11 hours of constant twists and turns. When entering a turn, unless you are familiar with the road (which we were not) you have no clue whether you are entering a 30˚ 90˚ or 150˚ turn, which can result in some exhilarating G-forces. Most lanes are the size of a US one way road plus the shoulder. Because roads are super narrow you can get stuck behind a semi-truck for miles, especially when exiting small towns. To try to mitigate this, you can give a short honk when coming up on a slow car or truck to say: "Hi! I'd like to pass please!". Slow cars will either honk back in acknowledgement, turn on their left turn signal to indicate its safe to pass, or the right to indicate a car is coming. And because, we are good people, whose mothers taught us not only to say please but also thank you, we give another short honk as we pass, turn on our emergency flashers on for half a second after passing, or wave. However, the latter is not very commonly used. The same rules apply to traffic which, by the way, is horrendous. Prepare to turn off your car repeatedly. If you happen to be in a part of town with multiple lanes, and you would like to change lanes, good luck trying to do it on your own. But if you ask a driver in the lane next to you with your blinker and a short honk they usually are happy to let you in once traffic moves forward again. It also helps to have a passenger who can get out and wave at the driver. Once you've arrived at your final destination, its common for a street merchant to come help you parallel park. And again because we like to say thank you, its common to give 200-500 Ariary (6-15 cents).

The thing about Malagasy roads is sometimes they are in great condition, and sometimes its better to drive next to the road.

Here's to safe travels in my last few days and to not being stopped by police.

Volcanoes

Today I had a little science experiment to explain how volcanoes work and what it looks like for a volcano to erupt. I preceded the experiment a skit version of the Pixar short "Lava". I translated the song into French for the campers to understand and sang as Sophie and Elaine morphed into magnificent volcanoes erupting, going into extinction, reawakening and falling deeply in love. The campers then made volcanoes in a convenient sand pit. Some decorated the volcanoes with some small flowers and vegetation. We then took vinegar, mixed with dish soap in a glass buried in the heart of the volcano and added baking soda for a nice lava eruption. The campers absolutely loved the volcanoes but I think they loved the skit more. (You can thank Elaine's goofy acting skills)

Persevering through language barriers

I grew up speaking English and French, and last year I began learning Dutch to be able to converse with my grandparents in their native tongue. I also thought it would also be nice to understand my cousins when they talk behind my back. Amongst the ten staff at Camp Fi, we also speak Korean, Spanish, German, and Malagasy, (obviously).

Océane has been giving the American staff lessons in Malagasy.  Last week Jessica filmed us introducing ourselves to include our laughable accents in the opening ceremony presentation for Camp Fi 2018! It has been an adventure for all of us as we try to converse with locals or practice together. For example, it is not uncommon for one of us to ask for the hot sauce by saying “sakay por favor” instead of “sakay azafady indrindra”; often accompanied by “DARN IT!” as we realize our brain is processing the wrong foreign language.  Or today, Laura asked me “How do you say, how do you say in French?” and I responded “Cómo se dice”…..SILLY BRAIN! UPLOAD A NEW DICTIONARY, PLEASE AND THANK YOU! If only it were that simple. Instead, our brains tease us by responding, “ERROR. FILE NOT FOUND”. So instead we continue to laugh as we butcher word pronunciations 50 times before finally getting it right.
us far we have learned how to introduce ourselves and say simple phrases such as: “we are students and teachers at Camp Fihavanana”. I found Malagasy very phonetic once I got the hang of the vowel sounds. The trickiest vowel for me has been the letter “o” because it sounds like a long “u.”

Learning Malagasy and camper names outside of the mini class sessions have been a huge challenge, because natives like to drop syllables randomly. To make it even more confusing different people will add different accents or drop different syllables, making it nigh impossible to visualize the word said. Manahoana means hello in Malagasy but it is also pronounced

Manôan, and Manôna. And it gets even worse with people’s names. Unless the name is French derived, I haven’t been able to correctly pronounce any camper’s name until I see it written. However, it’s worth the effort to see the camper’s eyes light up when we correctly pronounce their name. Two days ago, I finally memorized every single campers name!

Organizing a camp like Camp Fi has taught me to be creative in my English and Chemistry lessons and soccer practice to surpass the language barrier and maintain the attention of 30 restless teenagers. The song “Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes” was came in handy to teach the campers body parts in an entertaining fashion. Campers have never heard of classic American games like red light green light, ninja, scoot your butt, WAH, Simon says, or classic camp songs like “baby shark”. Its weirdly awesome to see high schoolers playing red light green light with the enthusiasm of a 5-year-old who has never played it before.

Staffing Camp Fi is a lesson in perseverance. It demands the courage to be goofy in front of teenagers who have never seen a clown, be VERY wrong when learning new names and words, the creativity to have conversations in Malaga-lish and the boldness to direct 30 sometimes stubborn teenagers only a few years younger than you.  

I don’t know…it would still be cool to upload a new dictionary into my brain.