Pickles Please
Believe me when I tell you that I really like dill pickles. In fact, I'd say I'm a bit of a conisseur. I like trying new dills, and each autumn we even fire up the stove and can several Mason jars to get us through the long Canadian winters. I was nearing the 7 week mark without seeing, smelling, or crunching a delicious dill when I spotted a small jar on the dining table at our Madagascar camp. Dill pickles were not on any menu in Nepal or Thailand. It was late Friday afternoon and we had plans to celebrate our first week and go for dinner down the beach with a few fellow volunteers. One little dill wouldn't ruin my appetite. I removed the lid and dove in to the half eaten jar. As I hoisted the gerkin sized gem to my lips, I could smell the savoury mix of vinegar, garlic, and dill. Bite. Crunch. Wow. It was just the right mix of salty and sour I'd been missing. I'm not proud of what happened next, but I may have downed three additional pickles. I did offer one to Paul, but he graciously refused. We continued on and had a lovely dinner. It wasn't until early the next morning that I awoke feeling "off". This feeling quickly amped up to intestinal cramps, followed by a very quick trip to the toilet. My diarrhea lasted just the morning, and Paul was A-OK. I guess pickles DO need to be refrigerated after opening. I haven't touched them since.
Bathing Suit Woes
Before leaving home for our 5 months of adventures, several people asked "How do you pack for this?" It wasn't easy, and did take careful planning. I myself decided on packing 3 swim suits - an athletic one piece, a sunsmart one piece with long sleeves, and a two piece. During each leg of the journey we paid close attention to what we were using, and what we were not. Item in the latter category often got turfed to make room for new finds or souvenirs. Although there was little swimming in New Zealand and Nepal, I was dissatisfied with my swimming costumes. The one piece sleeves was very uncomfortable, so it got left in Thailand. The other one piece made it to Madagascar, but was extremely tight, and with the high humidity was very difficult to squeeze and shimmy into. This left one usable suit for a lot of swimming. So during our second weekend, and time away from our little island camp, I was on the hunt for a new swimsuit in Hellville.
As we walked from the port towards our hotel, I was scanning all shops and street vendors. Perhaps a bikini was hiding behind that smelly table of fish or inside the hardware store. And then I saw it from across the street. A full wall of swimsuits. Surely I could find something that would work. I narrowed in on the wall and scanned. Colour, style, size - so much to consider. I took a step back to get a better overall view. I took a deep breath and reminded myself not to rush. I eventually settled on a purple top with black bottoms. I took them to the sales lady, who was probably all of 13 years old, and asked "How much? & Combien? in French. She looked away, looked back, squinted, and finally said "quatre mille", which is 4000 Ariary or $1.25 CAD. Sold.
After leaving the bathing suit wall, we did note that many shoes and clothes being sold on the street looked like either seconds or second hand. When we arrived back to our hotel, I inspected my new suit. For sure it was previously loved. I am a proud thrifter in Canada, but this is my first second hand bathing suit bought on the street in Africa.
Unnecessarily Latin
We were in a “restaurant” in Hell-ville and a small gecko fell from the ceiling onto the floor beside us. I recognized it from our recent studies. “That’s a frenatus”, I exclaimed as we had not seen one of those yet. Gayle’s response, “Hemidactylus frenatus?” (This is known to most people as a “Common House Gecko”.) We have clearly moved up one on the “nerd” scale. We both grabbed for our phones to get a photo!
Lost Job
Volunteer work shuts down for the weekend at Turtle Cove with most of us scattering to participate in a variety of “field trips”. During our first weekend we took a day trip to snorkel on Sunday, while others were diving or quad biking. Leading up to the second weekend, a trip ideas were floating around and Paul, one of the staffers, launched a plan to take people to the main land to stay at the other MRCI facility and visit some key conservation sites there. This trip was of interest to at least 10 volunteers who anted up $250000 MGA ($90 CAD) each.
On Thursday, Paul announced that the MRCI facility wasn’t available, but that he’d find other accommodation or they could sleep a tent. The trip crew all seemed fine with this and they were promised good snorkeling, so spirits remained high.
During the day on Friday, I overheard Paul on the phone in a heated and animate conversation, that was clearly not going well. It was all in Malagasy, but I gathered that the trip plans were coming apart.
The trip was planned to start on Friday afternoon with a boat ride from camp to Helle-ville. Just before the boat was to load, Paul announced that the trip was cancelled! This left many people disappointed and scrambling for a back up plan. This also left all of them with $90 fewer dollars in their pockets because Paul was not able to make a refund.
Everyone still made their way to Helle-ville and later that night Paul was out with them and he revealed that he’d been fired!
The details are unclear, but it seems that he didn’t have permission to organize this trip and he’d made some other mis-steps in the past. When we left camp, he still hadn’t fulfilled his promise to repay the volunteers. (This photo is just a few minutes before this all unfolded. Paul is on the left.)
What’s truly remarkable is the number of volunteers who felt sorry for him and rallied to get him his job back.
