We’d been driving for hours in a jeep on tumbling roads of sand, our heads bobbing about as if we’d been listening to rock music instead of the fantastic mix of Celine Dion and old school Britney Spears our driver played for us. Dirt, sand, and salt powdered our skin like a French dessert, and I could imagine a voice announcing to all of Madagascar: coming right up! Andavadoaka’s finest and freshest order of vaza! Vaza is the Malagasy word for foreigner, which we certainly felt with our complete lack of understanding for local languages and butter-soft white skin. But as that sun was setting, the last thing on anyone’s mind was what made us different – we had arrived to our new home for the next three weeks and only felt welcomed.
Once inside the wooden fence that circled the Blue Ventures research site, we were met with warm smiles and many British accents as we introduced ourselves to our roommates, the other 16 volunteers, and the Blue Ventures (BV) staff. As Independent Researchers, Gina and I are on different schedules than the other volunteers and will spend the next few days carving out what our exact schedule will look like while in the Southwest region. We are meeting with BV staff members Minnie and Annabel tonight to discuss details of using a translator to test our survey in the village, which fishery managers to interview, and the possibility of visiting other LMMAs that neighbor Velondriake.
In the two days we’ve had to settle and recuperate before diving into our research objectives, we’ve done our best to get a sense of life in Madagascar. Yesterday we awoke to a rising sun illuminating a sea already full of fishers. By 8AM, Gina and I joined them, along with another volunteer from Poland, Ana. The three us of sat snuggly between two other fishers in a wooden pirogue balanced with an outrigger and with its sail down. The two men paddled without tiring across an expanse of shallow clear water that appeared lifeless except for the bursts of red sea stars we passed over quickly. Once in about 50 feet of water, Bruno, the eldest fisher, lowered a green line baited with sardine overboard and quickly pulled it back to the boat with his hands. He had two lines going at a time. We were told that each fisher had their “spot” within the LMMA, and that day, we visited three. After five hours on the water, we had caught five fish: one sickeled barracuda, a triggerfish, an emperor fish, and two blue-striped jacks. Florian, the younger fisher who spoke some English and wore a unicorn shirt (!), taught us the Malagasy names for the fish and laughed whenever we did things like say goodbye to the fish that were killed. “Veloma fia,” we said as he squeezed the gills of the barracuda shut, a high pitched sucking sound coming from the fish as its tail beat rapidly against the wooden side of the boat. When the beating stopped, goodbye fish, we would say again. At some point along our journey our boat sprung a leak, and so I found myself bailing out the water from the boat as we sailed up onto the sandy shore greeted by the children that seemed to never leave. That night after regaling our comrades with our fishing stories at dinner, we enjoyed a “party night” that happens every Saturday. Our party mainly consisted of learning some local Malagasy dance moves, playing with the kids that peeked their heads above the window sill to watch us dance, and witnessing the most epic dance-off between a Malagasy fisher and British doctor to the tune of Michael Jackson. They both won.
In the next few days, we look forward to meeting our Malagasy translator, Goff, who grew up as a fisher in Andavadoaka and will help translate our survey questions and arrange interviews in the village. We hope to speak with the president of the Velondriake LMMA as soon as possible! He will be in town on Friday for a very exciting opening of an octopus reserve site that has been closed since June – we couldn’t be happier about the timing of our expedition. But for now, I am off to dip into the ocean with the sun. Veloma!
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