June 21, 2004
"First impressions"
by Laurel Redding

After a two-hour long wait in the check-in line at Orly, a ten-hour long restless flight (no pillow or movies!), and a half-hour long wait for my baggage, I finally met Jodie and Pierrot at the airport and crawled into a cab towards Luke’s house in Tana. The drive into the city was pure eye-candy the entire way – the marshy rice paddies, the slow-plodding zebu-driven carts, the women balancing over a dozen bricks on their heads…

Tana itself, if you can survive breathing in fumes from cars that almost exclusively use diesel, is a fun place and the prices are ridiculously cheap: so much so, that I changed $200 and got Malagasy Franc bills of $2.5 denominations (quite a brick you can imagine!). My first few days have been amazing. The team is really great – I happen to be the youngest and the last one to arrive, but I have nevertheless been welcomed extremely warmly. I’m excited about being able to work with such a dynamic group!

My first few days in Tana have permitted me in some ways to foreshadow what awaits me ahead: I got to see all kinds of indigenous wildlife at the Croc farm (lemurs, crocodiles, a fossa, chameleons…), that I will probably encounter to some extent at the site. On the other hand, we have been fine dining to an extent I certainly don’t expect on the campsite – crocodile brochettes, zebu steaks, fine French pasteries…

While I’ve been enjoying Tana, I am looking forward to taxi-broussing it up to Ankarafantsika and getting started on the project.