Salama,
We finally found out what we are supposed to do here! For a long time, all
we knew was that we should work within the field of ecotourism but had no
clue exactly what that meant. We took wild guesses and they included
everything from biological inventory, marketing and physical work of marking
out trails. Yesterday we finally had the meeting with Jocelyne, the woman in
charge down here. The meeting got postponed several times, as seems almost
to be a custom here, which highly annoys the German in me, and took place in
the afternoon. We all were very tired and it took us several turns in French
an English to understand our tasks here.
But they are exactly what I am trained to do and what I will be working with
in the future: They need a feasibility study for the planned eco tourism and
the accompanied eco village. The study will be based on a socio-cultural
study, which already had been carried out, and a biological inventory which
is being done right now. Further on, we were asked to look specifically into
the role SAGE (the organisation), the community and other involved partners
should play and to make plans for sustainability, including the financial
sustainability. It is a good thing that we actually have different
background (economy, social science and ecology), we will complete each
other in a perfect way. We haven’t discussed the actual target amongst us
yet, but I think we will focus on the community itself and develop any plan
based on their actual needs. SAGE gave us pretty free hand and I suggested
talking to other NGOs and stakeholders working in the area to form more
harmony, and they thought it was a good idea. There is a reason behind this,
as far I have heard and have told you, SAGE is criticised for doing
everything in a rush and not coordinate with other organisations.
So Francine, the secretary at SAGE, is currently setting up meetings with
the other partners and we are stuck reading lots of material in French (we
have come to love the internet based translation programs). Brett is absent
again, he went to live on the yacht for an unknown period, but we guess he
will be back sometime. He has no clue of the tasks yet, but we will need him
to do some work or we other will just have too much to do. But no worries
yet, translating is fun. And meeting people, interview them and getting hold
of additional information is just time consuming and not very hard.
But Kristina, Arif and I agree that this is a good task, way better than
marking any trails and stuff. We actually get to do real qualified work and
I don’t feel used anymore (like you always do when you do full time work
because you happen to be handy; not to be confused with the pro bono stuff I
do, that is simply fun).
Otherwise, live is moving on. The elections are due tomorrow but I haven’t
noticed anything even weakly relating to the violence described by my
organisation or random people and hotel owners. One (German) restaurant
owner said that the elections had nothing to do with the violence, but that
it was all about poverty – people being so poor that they rob and steal in
order to survive. He also said that this was nothing compared to earlier
events. So we are all taking it pretty easy. And continue to stay in at
night, at least for a couple of more days.
The election campaigning is carried out in a very non-European way. They
hand out sticker and posters but no flyers, but instead have cars circle
around town, playing political music and airing live speeches. I guess that
this is a must when you want to campaign among a great percentage of
illiterate people. The music, of which I don’t understand a word, seems to
get everyone going and everybody always dances as soon as a car with
speakers comes close. This is strange, because to a foreigner like me, you
don’t know whether they support the actual message or are simply in it for
the dancing. Otherwise, you don’t see much from the campaigning…the cars
annoy you, but they are no harm. I spoke to Jocelyne and Kristina and I will
accompany her to the elections tomorrow and see her cast her vote. I working
as an election observer the in the last election in Sweden and it really is
interesting how the process and procedures differ between the countries.
Last weekend we went to the movies. Not because there was anything on, there
are only shows on Saturday and Sunday and you can choose between two films.
But we desperately needed some change in our lives and therefore went to see
the films. An entrance is only 0,08 eurocent, so it is not really expensive
anyways. On Saturday we saw some old movie with Harrison Ford and a very
young Samuel L. Jackson, on Sunday we saw Resurrection with Christopher
Lambert. No new films, but they definitely where some distraction. They
were, of course, dubbed into French and it was a good thing that they were
thriller and you could follow the plot easily anyway. My French is certainly
not that good that I can follow a fat French dialogue (yet that is, I am
still optimistic). But the best thing about going was to experience the
Malagasy people in the cinema. It was mainly teenagers, sitting together in
groups, and some adult couples. I guess that some social groups cannot
afford going or lack the French knowledge to benefit from this
westernization. Everyone in the audience was constantly talking, both
discussing the film but also about other subjects. That was not really a
surprise, but as people started to make mobile phone calls it got a bit
funny. Further on, there were motorcycles and bicycles stored in front at
the cinema, belonging to various people in the audience. This is due to the
fact that people don’t buy locks here; you often have motorcycles in
restaurants as well. Keeping them near you prevents them from being stolen,
I guess. The weirdest thing though was a girl in the row in front of me
yesterday: She actually cut her nails! She got light enough from her friends
mobile phone, but that must surely be the most bizarre place to cut your
fingernails in. The audience also had a strange taste of laughing in al the
wrong places. Every time any on made a funny face, out of disgust for
example, the audience laughed. And when they showed on of the murdered guys,
naked sitting on a toilet and without head, the laughed to (ok, it looks
quite funny, but this is a thriller!). The best laugh I heard was when the
bad guy ran out of bullets and therefore was unarmed…and just can’t help
getting carried away and laugh yourself. And when the bad guy finally was
shot and died, everyone in the audience got up and left. Even though there
were not really any interesting parts left, you do still stick around and
watch any conclusion…but no, that is apparently not worth watching.
We finished off the Sunday evening with a luxury dinner at Gelateria Italia.
We invited the two speakers from the seminar along, they stay in the same
hotel as we, and had a really good time. I ordered pizza and actually didn’t
get nauseous as I do in Sweden, which was good. I then discovered my new
passion: Coconut ice cream. The taste was just indescribable delicious,
trust me, this is the one thing that I will miss the most when going back
home. The ice cream just melts in your mouth and is much fresher than I
think it is in Sweden. An with one scoop only costing 1000 ariary (that’s
about 40 eurocent) I can see myself getting into the habit of buying at
least one ice cream a day!
Take care,
Ulrike