First impressions of Madagascar's capital city and a volunteers welcome

Blog 2 written on 10/01/15

Well guys how do I explain to you so far about my time in Madagascar, its been a bit of a bumpy ride but things are certainly settling down now. Having my luggage back is definitely a good thing, 4 days after I arrived! I am now on my own in the accommodation provided by Madagascar Biodiversity Partnership. The rest of the volunteers left early this morning. They are travelling to Kianjavato to get back to work after the xmas break. I was instead making the not so nice trip back to the airport to collect my baggage.

So far Madagascar has been all about Antananarivo, the capital.  It is much like other big underdeveloped cities I have been to – such as Dar es Salaam. Basically my first impressions are that its a sprawling mass of congested disorder! I think, at least for me, these are the places that it takes a while to comes to terms with. Just the drive from the airport is enough to bring up every negative emotion you can conceive, from despair to outright confusion. The road sides are covered in dirt and rubbish, adults and children alike lay in the street in the searing sun. Strikingly there are men transporting goods by foot with carts made of steel. These carts are seriously big and bulky. They are carrying anything from wood, fruit, empty beer bottles and all number of things that look far too heavy to be (literally) running along the road with! At the first section of traffic (of which there are many!) people try to sell random stuff through the car window, they appear tattered and desperate.  The smells are incredible; a mix of noxious car fumes, rotting vegetables and  spoiling rubbish heaps seep into your nose most pungently. It’s a real slap back to reality after being in the UK for the past year.

yes, barefoot, on his own, a regular site

3 guys transporting a few bananas - and they have probably been travelling for day to sell their produce in the capital

Gratefully I was picked up from the airport and taken directly to the volunteer accommodation. Here I was quickly introduced to the other volunteers whom I'll will be working with. 3 are Americans, 3 are English, with a French girl and a Swedish guy thrown in. They are all very friendly and caring and I got on with them all fine. It’s a very relaxed atmosphere and I feel I can be myself around them no problem. Most of them have been here for at least 6 months and most are searching for a career in environmental conservation. I am the oldest in the group which is a bit of a bummer!  I am now waiting to travel down to Kianjavato with the foundation founder, Ed Loius, who gets to Madagascar soon from Omaha, USA. Ed is the workhorse of the project and does much of his work in the US, which I gather a larger part is searching for funding.

One of the many traffic jams on the way to Mankambhiny, where MBP base is

I have had some interesting information from the volunteers about the project and its founder which has surprised me. Its certainly different from what I've already been told.  Contrary to my expectations, the area I'll be working in has been almost completely deforested, no primary forest remains at all. Im told the journey down will be a landscape of deforested, degraded and abandoned land. Well all this will soon be put to reality when i finally reach the field site on Wednesday or Thursday.

Internet access is terrible and sporadic. It will be a lot more difficult to communicate than I first thought so I will try my best to post blogs as often as possible but please be patient. I will tell u all when I make a new post.

Road side view from central Tana

Finally a little piece of info on Madagascar itself:

Madagascar has a population of around 22 million (although census stats are perhaps not as accurate as they could be and in fact that number is probably more).  The capital city of Antananarivo has a population of about 2.5 million. The Madagascan island is 4 times as big as England and the 4th largest in the world. The main languages are french (in the cities) and Malagasy (of which there are countless dialects).  

90 percent of the population live on less than 2 dollars per day.  There about 3 hospital beds per 10,000 people and a approx of 3,150 doctors, 5,661 nurses, and 57 dentists for a population of 22 million!

90% of original forest cover has either been cut down or is severely degraded; the current deforestation rates is aprox 9% per year.

250,000 species are found here, of which 70% are found nowhere else in the world (this is incredible)!  There are 7 species of baobab trees in Madagascar, compared to only 1 in all of the rest of Africa. The region has the most extensive mangrove coverage in the Western Indian Ocean. 
There are over 100 species of Lemur of which all are endemic and more species are expected to be discovered.

International funding for environmental conservation of Madagascar is so low that the Madagascar Biodiversity Partnership will start charging volunteers like me to come and work as from Jully 2015.