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Tag: madagascar research and conservation institute

Mamoudou – painting new classroom
BlogCommunity DevelopmentTeaching

Teacher Helps Community Development Volunteers Rebuild School

Author: Emily Borth
Teacher Helps Community Development Volunteers Rebuild SchoolEnglish Classes - Banana Village MRCI 2

Photo by Mark Thijssen

We are all Volunteers

Life in the village means living as part of a very inter-connected community. Everyone helps everyone; that is just part of life here. In the span of a few minutes, you can gather large groups of people to help pull boats out of the water when rough weather hits. Food is often shared. Childcare duties are shared. There is a general air of connectedness. It isn’t unusual for a passerby to ask to share your drinking water, whether they know you or not. People help one another when it’s needed. There never seems to be any shortage of people willing to help out whether it is carrying something heavy off a boat or helping a neighbor rebuild their house. When something needs doing, people just pitch in to get it done. It is one of the things I love about the place and the people here.

Mamoudou Tavandra Mohibo embodies this since of community. The 34-year-old grew up in Marodoka and now raises his 9-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter here. He keeps active within the community here and during his free time plays football on the local team. But for the last seven years, his main duties in the village come at the school. Mamoudou teachers primary school there at level three. For years now, he has watched the ebb and flow of EPP Ambanoro school district in Marodoka. He was there when the storm, cyclone Enawo destroyed a quarter of their school in March 2017.  The history of this village lives within his long-reaching memory and his love for the community is easy to see. He gentle kindness and giving nature have proven to be a powerful force in helping with the schools rebuild.

Teacher Helps Community Development Volunteers Rebuild SchoolEnglish Classes - Banana Village MRCI 2 copy 2

Photo by Mark Thijssen

Our construction team often brings a packed lunch since Marodoka is quite a distance from Turtle Cove, our base on Nosy Komba. Every morning, volunteers catch the 6:00am boat from Nosy Komba to the port in Hellville on the neighboring island of Nosy Be. They then catch a tuk tuk from Hellville to Marodoka. So, in order to make the most of their time there, they bring a packed lunch so they can work longer before returning to Komba. Often however, they do not bring plates. The glass plates are heavy and at high risk of breaking on the journey, so they just do without. Our forest team solves this problem by using large leaves as plates. But in the village, plate-sized leaves are not as easy to come by.

Mamoudou, seeing this predicament, didn’t hesitate to host the team at his house, just around the corner from the school. His children play outside as the volunteers settle in, his wife handing out plates to the group. This became a regular part of our routine as we rebuilt the school; lunch at Mamoudou’s house. One of our construction volunteers, Mark Thijssen, got to experience this tradition during his time with us. Inspired by Mamoudou’s kindness and his experiences in the village, Mark wanted to give the school a gift before he left. He spent some time taking photos of students at play outside the school and printed them out. With help from the teachers, he hung posters filled with these photos in each of the school’s classrooms.

Teacher Helps Community Development Volunteers Rebuild SchoolEnglish Classes - Banana Village MRCI 2 copy

Photo by Mark Thijssen

Beyond being a source of inspiration to our volunteers and providing plates and a place for lunch, Mamoudou’s support yields something even more tangible. He spends much of his free time at the schoolhelping with the actual construction process. He has been involved in work from the very beginning and just this week helped put the final coat of paint and finishing touches on the classroom. He stands viewing the almost finished classroom, a look of pure contentment on his face while the children play, running in circles around the building. This is what community means.

Check out our Community Development Program!

 

BlogTeaching

English Classes in Banana Village

Author: Emily Borth

English Classes - Banana Village MRCI 1

Building Friendships through English Classes

On the island of Nosy Komba, just a half-hour hike from the main village of Ampang sits Antitorona. A mix of wood and concrete buildings nestled right on the beach make up this picturesque village, with winding stone pathways leading up the mountain and into surrounding forest. Also known as ‘banana’ village, it is aptly nicknamed after the school there with its yellow uniforms and brightly painted buildings. The quiet beauty feels as if you’re inside a story book complete with a castle-like water tower near the tree-lined outer edge of the village. Working on MRCI’s teaching and construction programs, you get the chance to spend time in these small villages and get a glimpse into the lives of the people here.

Two artisans, wood sculptors named Cell and Ariss reside here on the Northeast side of Nosy Komba in this idyllic village. They have been friends for a couple of years now, bonded through their shared skillset. Ariss, the older of the two has two children he works hard to support. Originally from the neighboring island of Nosy Be, he serves as a de facto older brother figure for the younger Cell, born and raised here in Antitorona. They make a living mainly from the thriving tourism industry on Nosy Komba. On most pieces, they work together taking it in turns as they hone their craft. Each intricately carved work of art can take anywhere from half an hour to more than three hours depending on its size and complexity. They create beautiful carved wooden pieces and sell them in a few shops in the main village of Ampang.

We got to know them a few months ago when they began attending English classes in Antitorona held three times per week. MRCI teaches beginner and advanced English classes there for children, teens and adults. Thanks to donations from our generous volunteers, we stocked the classrooms with pens, notebooks and other school supplies and even provided a new whiteboard. Since many tourists to the area speak English, Cell and Ariss are hopeful that with a better grasp on the language, they can increase sales. They dream of one day expanding their business further and maybe even opening their own shop.

Just a few weeks ago, they created a beautiful wooden sign for MRCI’s newly built plant nursery, commissioned by volunteers on the forest program. In recognition of their hard work on the project, volunteers named the nursery after our Forest Officer, Menjah and former Forest Intern, Charles. The nursery will forever be known as Marles’s Nursery, denoted with a beautifully carved wooden sign (thanks to Ariss and Cell).

Ultimately, that’s what volunteering with MRCI is all about: becoming part of the community, living alongside the people here and learning from them. Conservation work helps ensure a healthy ecosystem for generations to come. No one understands that urgency better than those who live here and depend on what nature produces year after year. Together, with whole-hearted community support and cooperation, we progress.

 

Read More About Our Volunteer Teaching Program!

 

English Classes - Banana Village MRCI 2

Hiked into Paradise - Hiked in Sunset MRCI
BlogForest Conservation

Hiked into Paradise

Author: Roxanne Parker

Hiked into Paradise - HellVille MRCI copy

Welcome to Hell-Ville!

Welcome to Hell-Ville a crazy, chaotic cacophony of noise, colliding colours & cultures that is the capital of Nosy Be. The rainy season means the streets are a muddy maze as yellow Tuks-Tuks whizz by beeping at Vazaha’s (whites) offering them a lift & momentary reprise from the mud splattered roads.

Police whistles stretch as the traffic mounts outside Hell-Ville banana toned market where you can buy local spices, fruit, vegetables, pulses, live chickens & zebu meat from woman with faces masked with Maisonjoany, a vivid yellow face mask made from sandalwood that they paint in their face to protect their skin from the sun. As the 10th poorest country in the world Madagascar is where you see life stripped down to the basic bones.

Everything is reused & recycled, plastic bottles are reused for water, to sell bottled pickles & fermented cabbage at market & second-hand clothes are a valuable commodity with roads full of stalls selling old shirts for as little as €1.50. children pound cassava meal in groups using enormous pestle & mortars taking turns to grind the meal when their limbs tired.

Everyone seems to have a life chicken or duck under their arm as they move through the city preparing themselves for New years – the biggest holiday on the island. Personal space is non-existent as bodies push and press past one another in the crowded market space. On the boat, back to Nosy Komba you wade through the waters of Hell-Ville before sitting thigh to shoulder squeeze between villagers, like chickens and the occasional life goat!

There is every aspect of life unfolding before you, in its insane madness & bustle I find myself loving Madagascar & loving the energy that is Africa. The children are beautiful and although I’m stared at where ever I go a smile & my school French opens many doors & conversations.

 

Hiked into Paradise - Forest Conservationist MRCI

Being A Forest Conservationist

Being on the forest conservation project on Nosy Komba means we act like a courier service as there are no roads or cars and we are hiking through the villages every day. This is a local farmer who I brought glasses to that were donated by a volunteer who had left the island. They worked perfectly for him and he could see clearly for the 1st time in months.

 

Hiked into Paradise - Day Off MRCI

On Our Day Off

On our Day off for St Stephen’s day & the 27th we escaped to Nosy Iranja sailing past whales, visiting lemur Island, living with zero electricity, sleeping in straw huts, drawing water from a well and bringing it across a village to use, walking across miles of sand split to the next island and basically being happy & living off the grid with Shandi Di Virgilio, Sarah Sirois, Hannah McCarthy and Felicia Feeley.

Hiked into Paradise - Hiked in Sunset MRCI

Hiked Sunsets on Nosy Komba Island

Sunset on Nosy Komba. Having hiked all day we watch the sunset at the summit and with head torches hiked back through the jungle in the dark to a local hut in the middle of the rainforest where a local family cooked us dinner on long tables outside consisting of cassava leaves chopped & boiled that tasted like spinach, papaya salad which is savoury & dressed in vinegar. Chicken legs cooked in bone broth & jack fruit & pineapple which grow in abundance on the island for desert.

We hiked through the night spotting & documenting Chameleons, Geckos, frogs snakes & spiders before sleeping overnight on a Church floor in the middle of the forest with the skies heavy with stars at 5 am we hiked back to the summit for sunrise then headed back to base camp for breakfast & then back to the forest to hike to monitor bird species. I’ve passed my first exam & know all 43-bird species here – week one done & dusted.

 

Check out our Forest Conservation Program