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Tag: volunteer

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!

 

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

 

 

Marine Conservation Monthly Report_Turtle Cove_JAN 2018_1
BlogMarine Conservation

Marine Conservation Monthly Report

Author: Ethan Getz, Marine Science Manager
January 2018

Over the past few months, the marine conservation staff have worked to continue long-term reef monitoring projects while developing new methods to measure the health of our home reef and the surrounding reefs on Nosy Komba. Robust datasets have been collected from reef transect surveys, turtle watch, and nudibranch surveys. These long-term surveys will provide valuable information on the health of our MPA and some of the indicator species that inhabit it. In the coming months, efforts will be made to analyze these data in depth to decipher developing trends. While long-term data collection from existing surveys remains the primary goal, staff have also recently developed new reef survey methods.

Marine Conservation Monthly Report_Turtle Cove_JAN 2018_Coral Bleaching_1

Baseline surveys using the Spirit of Malala were developed in November to assess the health of reefs all around Nosy Komba. To date, three baseline surveys have been conducted (at xmas tree hotel, greenhouse and pyramids) and data have now been analyzed. Results suggest that the south and west sides of Nosy Komba have healthy coral reefs while reefs are more sparse on the eastern side. Results from the sessile surveys indicate that no coral bleaching is currently happening and that the reef appears to be in a period of recovery. The presence of rock, sand and silt indicate that there have been damaging events in the past, but currently the reefs are rebuilding.

Marine Conservation Monthly Report_Turtle Cove_JAN 2018_Coral Bleaching_2

Marine Conservation Monthly Report January 2018

Active swimmer surveys were used to determine the number of fish species at each site and which functional group they belong to (i.e. piscivores, herbivores, ect.). Results suggest that there is a good distribution of fish from each functional group on each reef, but the relatively low abundance of piscivores indicates that overfishing may be a problem on Nosy Komba.

Marine Conservation Monthly Report_Turtle Cove_JAN 2018_Coral Bleaching_3

Marine Conservation Monthly Report January 2018

These species are generally the first ones to be fished out and their relatively low numbers point to fishing pressure in the area. Benthic surveys also provided data on invertebrate diversity around Nosy Komba and suggest that there is a healthy reef community.

In addition to baseline surveys, artificial reef surveys on the pyramids at Stonehenge and Madhatter have produced meaningful data. On average, each pyramid provides habitat for 115 fish, 39 bivalves and a variety of sessile species. In addition, many species of fish such as the Malabar snapper and red emperor snapper are routinely found on the artificial structures, but only occasionally on the natural reef. The high abundance of juvenile fish on the pyramids is also an encouraging sign that the structures are acting as a nursery for fish larvae settling out of the water column. Overall, the pyramids seem to be increasing both abundance and diversity of many reef species making them well worth the investment to construct them.

Marine Conservation Monthly Report_Turtle Cove_JAN 2018_Coral Bleaching_4

Other ongoing projects include the coral bleaching surveys, invasive species surveys and turtle monitoring. Since coral bleaching and invasive species surveys have only just started, preliminary results will be analyzed in the coming months. Results from active turtle surveys, turtle walks and turtle watch are still being analyzed, but preliminary results suggest that there is a healthy population of resident turtles on our reef. Turtle walks have been less productive with only one hatched nest having been found, but it is clear that at least some turtles nest on Nosy Komba. In summary, the reefs around Nosy Komba appear to be showing the signs of human activities, but overall it is still a healthy reef system with strong community structure.

Marine Conservation Monthly Report_Turtle Cove_JAN 2018_Coral Bleaching_5

 

Find out more about our Marine Conservation Program Here

 

Blog

PADI Top Instructor in the Country

Kyle PADI Top Instructor

Congratulations are due to our Director of Diving Operations and Health & Safety Kyle Devine for placing as one of the top PADI instructors in the country!

Kyle has been living in Madagascar for over 6 years. He has a love for the ocean and has been diving for nine years. He is a qualified PADI OWSI Instructor (Open Water Scuba Instructor) and holds a Coastal Yacht Master Skipper’s ticket with the Royal Yachting Association (RYA) as well as a power boat level 2 certificate.

To date of this year, 2017, he has already taught more students that all of last year. He was placed amongst the top 5 of highest certifying instructors in all of South Africa. There are over a thousand individual instructors registered in South Africa, but very few were able to come close to what Kyle achieved in 2017.

MRCI PADI Diving School

Learn More about our dive school in Madagascar

A PADI certification is the worlds most respected and sought after dive credentials. This means wherever your dive travels take you, you can be confident that the local dive community will recognize your dive qualification. MRCI’s PADI diving courses apply the concept of performance based learning.  Performance based learning means that our students’ progress to the next level on the basis that they meet specific performance requirements.

Contact Us For More Information or Sign Up Now

Madagascar Taxi Brousse 1
BlogIsland Life

Taxi-Brousse: Antananarivo to Ankify

As you might have noticed yourself, if you have done some research, you can find plenty of horrible stories from people about taking a taxi-brousse in Madagascar. It is not always like that! For us taking the taxi-brousse from Antananarivo (Tana), up north, to Ankify turned out to be a unique, unforgettable experience.

Not knowing what to expect when we were planning our journey from Tana to camp, we decided to take on the adventure of travelling by taxi-brousse, instead of by plane or private car. Fortunately we got the help of the Director of Operations of MRCI (Lucy Prescott)  in organising the trip. She put us in touch with Christian, a local staff member of the organisation in Tana. All we had to do was send him our arrival details and the name of our hotel in Tana so that he could arrange a taxi to take us to the bus station.

When we arrived there, we were slightly overwhelmed by the chaos on site. Fortunately the drivers of our taxi-brousse were already waiting for us to guide us to the right bus. As they did not speak English, nor French very well, our taxi driver was the perfect translator. He arranged us two seats each. We highly recommend doing this to make you more comfortable during the 18-hour drive. We paid 120 000 Ar each (which comes down to about €35). Compared to the airplane or the private taxi, this is really cheap! The taxi-brousse we took was a national one from Tana to Ambanja which is a village about 20 km or a 30 minute drive (2 000 Ar/seat) from the port of Ankify where you take the boat to Hell Ville, Nosy Be.

The drive is a great way to see parts of mainland Madagascar before you head to the islands of Nosy Be and Nosy Komba which are very different in scenery. During daylight, we loved looking at the variation in the landscapes and views. Sunset and sunrise were definitely the highlights of the drive. At night we saw the most beautiful star-filled sky through the window of our bus. This all makes the 18-hour drive more exciting.

Our taxi-brousse had 3 drivers that switched places every 4 hours. During these stops we had a quick leg-stretch and pee-break before we hit the road again. Contrary to our expectations, we did not waste a lot of time on breaks like these. During the night there were some police stops to make sure everything was legal and safe, because of all this we never felt unsafe during the journey.

We had a great experience, but there are a few thing you have to keep in mind when taking the taxi-brousse. First of all: food & water! Bring food for lunch, dinner and breakfast as the bus only stops in a local ‘highway restaurant’ for dinner. We ordered sandwiches in our hotel and bought water and snacks in a shop near the hotel.
Secondly you will want to take a sleeping bag/blanket with you on the bus as it gets chilly at night.
Our drivers loved their up-beat music, even at night, so we were very happy we brought earbuds with us on the bus. Having toilet paper and hand sanitiser in your backpack will come in very handy as well!
And last but not least: get used to the Malagasy time which means that the bus might leave later as they always wait until all the seats are sold. So do not worry about that, get comfortable and enjoy the mora mora lifestyle!

– Margot Lootens and Marlouk Van Es

 

Madagascar Taxi-Brousse 1 Madagascar Taxi-Brousse 2