Dispatches From The Field

27 June, 2003 -- Rosemary Rae

Earthwatch Team One, Day One-27th June 2003

Many of us were able to arrive in Antananarivo in time to leave together on Wednesday, June 25, on the minibus for Majunga. Plagued by fatigue and jet lag, we met for breakfast within the Hotel Piscine, posed for a group photo and loaded the bus. The drive out of Majunga was our first view of this portion of Madagascar as the last leg of our trip the night before was make in darkness. The two-hour drive took us past vast savannah stretches-often we could look in every direction, as far as the eye could see, without a trace of another human being.

Punctuated here and there with increasing frequency, villages, clusters of small houses framed of wood and plastered mud, unlike the brick-formed huts closer to Antananarivo. We passed women carrying bundles on their heads, boys 5-6 years, herding cattle, families on ox-driven carts. The vegetation changed dramatically as we neared the park where we were to camp. A slow turn off the main road brought us back to a large field, carefully constructed structures of wooden poles supporting thatched roofs under which our domes tents rested. Coming to rest under a 60-food mango tree after months of frantic preparation- a fleeting thought: “at last, we’re here!”.