I love Indris

After my last trip to Tamatave for meetings with Conservation International, I returned to my site/bungalow for one night and then headed up to Moramanga again to watch the Euro Cup final with a fellow volunteer. Austin Rios, very sorry about Italy but they need to leave the fast-break offense to the pros: the NC Tar Heels. I then returned back to site and began preparing a 4th of July presentation for my local community. On Wednesday, July 4th, I had it all ready. Posters with interesting facts about the States and some good ole American playing. About 30 minutes after the time I said the presentation would start, about 50 people come walking down the road to my house. 50! That's about 48 more than I expected to show up. It went surprisingly well. Especially since I had learned most of the Malagasy vocabulary for the presentation only during the two days before actually giving it. Though it wasn't so much a presentation but a question and answer session. Mark it down as a small success for PC service.

I finally moved into my house! After living in my touristic bungalow for 2 months where nobody else lives and it's way too calm and quite (lame), I have finally moved into my PC site house and town. Now, in order to get all my stuff up to my house, we had to use what the Malagasy call a "kalesy". There is no English equivalent. A kalesy is cart made of wood, three roller skate wheels (two in the back, one on a swivel axel in the front for steering), some rope for turning the front axel, and a hunk of tire rubber nailed on the back which is stepped on as a break when going downhill. I have moved many times in my life and I consider myself to be fairly well experienced in it. But this was like no other. Pushing this kalesy up Route National 2, with ALL of my stuff packed high upon it, with semi-trucks and taxi-brousses flying by, and three very nice Malagasy guys to help me, we got it the 1.5km uphill to my town and house. My shower area and WC are not done yet, however. This is no problem as there is a WC at the elementary school (a 3 minute walk) and it's been just too cold for me to even want to take a shower. I actually took my first shower last night for the first time in almost two weeks. And I didn't even smell THAT bad. 

My house: a two story structure built of pine wood and a roof made of ravinala (traveler's palm). Probably one of the biggest houses in town. The downstairs consists of what will be a office/meeting room for me and the local NGOs and community organizations to use. The downstairs also has my kitchen, where I use a propane gas stove to cook my food. Though, a very nice lady in town cooks my rice every evening for my dinner (more about Mama Helene later). Upstairs above all of this, is my living/sleeping area and my porch, which overlooks banana trees, bamboo, RN2, and the river. I think I've gotten pretty lucky with my living situation as far as many Peace Corps houses go. I thank the guys that built my house everyday for the great job they did.

Rats: one of the most common problems Peace Corps volunteers deal with. They tend to just be a fact of life for most of us that we just have to accept and get used. There are many things about my service here that I've learned to accept and deal with and just get along with life as it is. But...I. Hate. Rats. In my bungalow, I had a few of them (I killed three with a trap). Moving into my new house, I was so excited to be getting into a place where there would be no rats to keep me up at night and rummage through my stuff and food. Oh, how wrong I was. My first night in my new house, I wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of those nasty, disgusting, devilish creatures running around my house. I open my eyes to find one staring right into my face on my bedside table. I scream at it. Not from fear, but just plain anger. He scurries away and leaves. I don't sleep very much the rest of night as I can hear them rustling around my walls and ceiling. The next day, I go to Moramanga and buy some materials to plug up the holes in my house that they were coming in through. This works!...for a few days. They continue to find ways of getting into my house during the night even though I've plugged every visible entry point that I can see. This is one of those things that I can't "just get used to". This is one of those things where "I declare war upon thee, foul rodent!!!". The first stake-out is tonight. If I had a Batman mask, I would wear it.

Since moving into my house, I've also had the opportunity to go out into the Maromizaha Forest (the rainforest that I live adjacent to) and help the local research guides with Indri observation. There are approximately 100 individual Indris in Maromizaha. Of which about 20 (comprising 4 family groupes) have been habituated to human presence, allowing the researchers and I to get VERY close to them for observation (check my Facebook page for great Indri pictures, as well as other photos). Also, here's a link to a video I took of some Indri Vocalizations. I went out twice this week, and I cannot wait to get out there all the time. The Indri are not the only species of lemur in Maromizaha, there are 11 different other kinds: 6 total diurnal, 6 nocturnal. There are also diademed sifakas, which sport an orangey kind of color to the time and are absolutely beautiful (though I'm yet to see them in Maromizaha). There is also a researcher named Jody Weir from Canada doing studies on the Indri and diadamed sifakas and their infants' development. Check out her video blog. She is here at Maromizaha with her husband until September this year and I look to forward to talking to them more about possible collaborative efforts that we can put together.

Today, I sit here in Moramanga again, about to head back to site and go to a party with the Maromizaha guides this afternoon out in the forest where Jody and her husband, Alastaire, are staying.

Much love to everyone and do keep in touch!

James