When it rains, it pours...

Literally. I have never seen so much rain in my entire life, and I truly wish I was exagerating, but that's what I get for doing field work during a cyclone. But I must start at the beginning of my story (and of course don't be alarmed, because I'm back in Tana, safe and sound).
So, what did I do this past weekend? I went on my third trip to the field to a forest called Mahabo, only an hour away from the large town, Farafangana, which is north of Ft. Dauphin, the very south-eastern point of Madagascar (this will help people who have maps, those who don't go to this site: http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide-577730-map_of_madagascar-i)
It was me and three other Malagasy: Mirana, my new assistant, Rundra (probably spelled it wrong), but a fellow botanist to help us, and Andry, our driver. It was a new experience for me, because I organized and financed this trip and I was curious how it was going to turn out. I had lately been missing the field and feeling like I needed to get some work done in the field for my project. It also turned out that my Peace Corps friend, Roxy's birthday was on Friday and she just happens to live in Farafangana. So everything coincided nicely, and I felt I had a fool proof plan to see a close friend and get some work done.
The drive down is quite lovely, though very long, and the road curves frequently and sometimes barely paved. For the first nine hours or so, it's rice paddies and rolling hills, which are beautiful in their own right, but as I'm quite used to seeing them now, I was more impressed by the newer landscapes I saw. Then you go by the beautiful forest of Ranomafana (near Fianaratsoa) that truly made me feel on a tropical adventure in Africa on par with Jane Goodall, with the winding road through mountainous rainforest, where you could just imagine gorillas living (but only lemurs and leeches, among other things to be found here), but unfortunately we couldn't stop there. Then you cross into the coastal area, which is much poorer and the landscape has been entirely deforested so rather a depressing site to see. Most of the hills are denuded of trees except for the Ravinala tree, whose large, banana-like leaves get torn in the wind, and are not very interesting to look at. We reached the coast at Manakara, which actually had a fair amount of flooding from the tsunami, and damage from that could still be seen around town, though nothing compared to the other side of the Indian Ocean. We reached Farafangana on Friday afternoon around 4 pm (we stayed the night Thursday at a town south of Antsirabe) and it was wonderful to see Roxy. The funniest thing is that even though Farafangana is a rather sizable town, everyone knows Roxy, which is attributable to both her being a vazaha and a rather determined English teacher... I was actually greeted once with a hello from a little boy, quite a surprising occurrence and much to Roxy's credit. We only had to ask the first person we met for directions to her house. As Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV) go, Roxy actually has quite a comfortable house. There are two rooms, a kitchen and bedroom, and then she even has a flushable toilet and running water for a shower, plus she has electricity all day long. Though this all sounds banal to us, it's quite posh for a PCV. Plus, her house is right on the beach and the view is beautiful. Friday night we had a nice dinner at the Hotel Cocotier, the vazaha place in town, where a delicious steak costs $2 (remember that's a lot of money here). We decided to pitch tents in Roxy's backyard, and since the rain hadn't started yet, we thought we'd be fine. During the middle of the night, the rain started coming down, but luckily we had strong tents, and stayed dry.
The alarm was set for 5 AM for Saturday morning, and as many of you know, an hour I detest seeing, because it should be reserved for sleep, but life is different when in the field. We set off for Mahabo by 6, hoping that the rain would stop, and hungry because nothing was open. The commune of Mahabo is actually an interesting place to work, because MBG has been doing a conservation project there for the past two years. They work with the community to protect the forest and only cut certain trees, and are replanting in most of the degraded areas, plus they worked at promoting other income generating activities like basket weaving etc. The town is quite small, but has a market on Saturdays, so as we were driving out there, we saw people walking on there way with the things they wanted to sell. To protect themselves from the rain some people had umbrellas, but mostly they used large banana leaves to cover themselves, which is actually a strange site to see on the road. What was even stranger was to see all of these women who looked to have humps on their backs... once I got a closer look I realized they were carrying small children on their backs, holding them with the ubiquitous cloth here, the lamba, much like a sarong, which is used for everything imaginable from skirts, dresses, cloaks, to baby carriers. I'm still often incredulous when I see these women with a lamba tied around their back, holding a small infant, to a child of 2 years old, plus carrying things on their heads or in their hands. It still makes me nervous to see, and I refuse to try it myself in fear of letting the child fall. On the road to Mahabo, it was particularly remarkable how many women were carrying children on their backs, nearly half of all that I saw. It is quite an amazing site to see women walking towards you with a large basket of bananas on their head and then to suddenly see a tiny face peek out from behind their back. At the market they sell whatever they can or what's in season at the time, from rice to bananas to baskets. Compared to Tana, it is quite a pitiable site, but apparently it is one of the better markets in the area.
Once we got to Mahabo, we had to find our guides, pay the entry to the forest at the mayor's "office" ($5, to valorize the forest to the community) and find something to eat for breakfast... inevitably rice and then some fish thing, which I didn't eat, because I still cannot eat meat like that in the morning, plus a type of fried bread, mofo, which is quite delicious. We didn't start our walk to the forest till 8 am, and it's an hour walk to the real part of the forest. As we leave the town, the rain isn't too bad, and I'm determined to try to stay as dry as possible, particularly my feet, because I detest having wet feet in heavy hiking shoes for a whole day. Well, that plan had to be quickly abandoned because the rain started to come down shortly after that, and as I had to protect my backpack with my raincoat, I couldn't zip it up. By 10:30, I was soaked through, but my feet were still dry and we were finding some good plants, even though we hadn't gotten to the forest yet. Suddenly we reach a marshy area and on the other side I can see a lovely forest that I would enjoy collecting in. The guides then tell us we must cross the marsh, which I don't really want to do, but it would surprise you the lengths I'd go for plants. My feet were then promptly submerged in water, as well as my legs up to my thighs. If you can picture the scene in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers where Frodo, Sam and Gollum are in the Dead Marshes, then you would have a good idea of what the landscape looked like, but without the dead people and scary Nazgul (excuse the reference, but it was the best I could do, plus it was just on tv here, so fresh on my mind). I desperately wanted to take a picture to share with you all, but didn't risk getting my camera wet. We worked in the forest for the rest of the afternoon in the pouring down rain and got back to Mahabo around 4:30, soaked, cold and sore, but satisfied with our day of collecting.
As a treat to all of us and given the rain, I decided to get a room a Cocotier ($10 a night!) for all of us and have a hot shower to wash of the day. We met Roxy for dinner and we all exclaimed how we had never seen so much rain, and that it couldn't possibly rain any harder. There was talk of a cyclone coming in, but it wasn't confirmed, and everyone thought, or rather hoped, it would stop tomorrow. It was Roxy's official birthday dinner party, and it was a wonderful night with four Americans (me, Roxy, and two environmental PCV's who actually live in Mahabo), four Malagasy (my team and a friend of Roxy's) and then a young French couple, that came to teach French at the private Catholic school in Farafangana. We laughed a lot about our different cultures, and it was wonderful to hear three different languages among the conversations, and all of us understanding each other and getting along very well. We recounted our day to everybody and the French couple were so intrigued that they asked to come along the next day. I was hesitant given the rain, and I told them how difficult and somewhat boring it could be for non-botanists, but they insisted. So we set the pick-up time for 6:45 am, and they all departed for the nightclub in town that's only open on Saturday nights, while the rest of my team and I gratefully went to bed.
We woke up again at 5 am to more rain and sore muscles, but as it was our last day in the field, we rallied our spirits. We were invited to the home of the head of the Forest and Water office in Farafangana for breakfast the next morning, and I had the best omelette of my life, with rice. He planned to come with us that day, and I was quite touched by his hospitality to us. We set off around 7 am, and found the French couple ready for a day in the field. We got to Mahabo, picked up our guides and left for the forest again around 8. This time, the rain started earlier and harder. I felt bad for the French couple, but fortunately they came prepared. We took a different route to the forest this time and got to the water crossing earlier than the day before, but given all the rain that had fallen, it was impassable, so we set off for a different crossing. This one too was too dangerous to cross, and we set off for the final possibility around 9:30, not having collected any plants so far, and completely soaked to the bone. We find the third crossing and it appears passable at first so we get submerged in waist high water and go maybe a third of the way. We then get to an obviously deeper spot with a strong current, and one of our guides finds a log to use and tries to cross. Just as he is about to reach the end of it, he slips on the log and almost gets carried away by the current. At this point, I'm feeling very nervous about how hard it's raining and how fast the water could rise on us. It was easy to see that a few more hours of this type of rain would trap us in the forest, with no way to get back. With the addition of the French couple and my own team to worry about, I thought the risk was definitely not worth the few hours we'd be able to spend in the forest. So we all decided it was best to work as much as we could in the degraded part of the forest that we could access. We were able to find some interesting plants in flower, but I felt bad for the French couple, who weren't that interested in plants, and the continual rain. Fortunately, we came upon two small mouse lemurs (my first in the wild!) that saved the day from being a complete failure to all of us. And they were so adorable that our spirite were tolerably lifted until lunch. We ate a miserable lunch of soggy bread, sardines and gross, processed cheese at 11, and around noon, we were all so wet, dejected and tired that we decided to head back, which took much longer than we thought. Once we got to the road, we still had another half-hour walk to Mahabo to find the car, and the French couple and I walked much faster than the rest of the team. After getting out of the forest and marshes, we thought we'd be somewhat safer from the rain, but just when you can't imagine being any wetter or it raining any harder, it does. We managed to get to one of our guides houses just before it really started to pour down rain hard again (the fourth time of the day, though it truly never stopped really raining the whole day), and now I can imagine what a hurricane would be like. Those of you in Florida can imagine what I'm talking about, but it is really impossible to describe here in words. The wind started up and I was so thankful that we left the forest when we did, or we'd be in danger of trees falling on us. The rest of the team soon met us at the house, and after a brief rest and drying out, the Frenchman and I set out for Mahabo to get the car. Though a short walk, it was just as miserable, particularly with the wind, and it was like heaven to see the car, when we finally got to Mahabo.
We all piled into the car, and luckily I had had the foresight to bring a change of shoes and socks with me. We were all miserable, wet and cold, and I felt particularly bad for the French couple, who I don't think enjoyed their time in the forest, except for the lemurs. On the drive back, it was surprising how much the water had risen and how many homes were flooded and fields ruined. This people already suffer enough, and these two short days of rain will make the rest of the year very difficult for them.
We got to Farafangana and it was out of the question to sleep outside at Roxy's in the rain so we tried to get a room at Cocotiers, but some Senator or something was in town, so every hotel room was booked in town. Luckily, the beach resort, had one bungalow left, that we could all crash in, and I very much appreciated it. I felt like I'd just spent the whole day in a washing machine. Every part of me was sore and wet, and I knew if I wasn't careful, I could easily get sick. I felt equally bad for Mirana and Rundra, who were also clearly suffering. We were all happy to leave Mahabo, and considering the circumstances we got enough done to satisfy me. We said a quick goodbye to Roxy (who is actually coming to Tana this Friday) and then had a quick, Malagasy dinner, before falling into bed at 9. We woke up again at 5am Monday morning, to get on the road early, and we all were a sad sight to see. And just our luck, it had stopped raining. Apparently the cyclone never came on land, but just blew a lot of rain and wind in our direction. But of course there is no weather channel to confirm this, and it's all second hand info from people we asked around town. We got on the road promptly at 6am, and arrived in Tana at 9pm. The route seemed longer and more tiring, plus I got an interesting sunburn on my right arm from leaving it on the window too long. I caught a cold from being wet so long, but nothing serious and I'm taking it easy this week. A small open wound on my ankle is also slightly infected from being submerged in dirty water too long, despite all my best efforts to keep it dry. But given the excellent teachings of my father, I'm giving it all the due attention required. Other than that, I'm doing well and look back on my wet weekend with amusement. I plan soon to visit my dear friend Tabitha in Maintirano, but other than that, my daily Tana routine will soon undoubtedly re-establish itself and I plan to be back in the herbarium tomorrow.
After just re-reading my rather lenghty entry, I have remarked to myself that my style is duely affected by my recent readings. I've just completed a second perusal of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and I must so unconciously admire her style as to try to imitate it in my own small way. I apologize for the difference and hope that you notice the change with amusement as opposed to disdain; and I promise to return to former style for my next entry. Yours, etc.