Dispatches From The Field

3 June 2003 -- Ted Gilliland

Today we spent our first full day in Tamatave, which lies on the east coast of Madagascar and serves as the major port city for the country. In Tamatave (also called Toamasina) we met up with Charlie Welch and Andrea Katz who are the technical advisors at a park called Ivoloina (Iva-lo-weena). After meeting them at their Madagascar Fauna Group office, Charlie offered to give us a tour of Ivoloina. The great educational facility and zoological park contained several species of lemur, endangered tortoise, chameleons, and other Madagascar wildlife. The facilities and affiliation with Duke would make Ivoloina an opportune place for Duke students to go for an adventurous educational experience. The opportunity for building projects on their established infrastructure is boundless and their work in the Tamatave area is an encouraging ray of hope that conservation in Madagascar is not an unobtainable feat.

Our visit to Tamatave is far from torturous. In fact, our hotel is right on the Indian Ocean. The thick old concrete building actually vibrates slightly with the crashing of each thunderous wave. Sitting at the hotel’s restaurant for breakfast, we could watch the sun rise over the ocean and spread its orange morning glow across the water like the butter that I spread across my toast. This was the first time I had seen the Indian Ocean. At sunrise, a comfortable place in its sands served as a more than adequate place to record the previous days happenings in my journal. The past days have been filled with activities. Tomorrow will be mostly devoted to driving back to the Duke house in the capital city, Antananarivo.

Ted Gilliland