Antananarivo
by Becky Nichols
June 16, 2005

I just finished my first full day in Antananarivo, or Tana, which is much easier to spell, but not nearly as much fun to say! We arrived late last night, clearing customs at almost 11 pm, and came directly to the hotel. I tried my first Malagasy beer, which was surprisingly good (I don’t normally care much for beer), and went to bed. Oddly enough, the biggest culture shock seems to be the stray dog population. They begin to bark at dusk, and continue all night, and last night it did not feel like a lullaby!

Today was pretty busy. I was fortunate enough to arrive on the same flight as Luke, but that meant that I’ve met a ton of different people in the last 24 hours. I’m so bad with names – the only one I really remember is Pierrot! We went to the embassy to register with the warden system, went to the map store, walked down “jewelry lane” (a road with lots of jewelry stores), and went to Pierrot’s house to investigate his hidden room – a room used to store stuff from past field seasons. Luke’s going to have a lot of laundry to do when we finally get to the forest!

Tana itself is such a vibrant city: the people, the smells, the colors, even (to me) the animals. There’s even an old, burned-out castle on a hill! The hardest thing for me is the traffic. When you’re in a car, it’s fine – you just sit back and trust the driver. But as a pedestrian: well, you’re fine as long as you’re constantly vigilant. Unfortunately, there are simply too many other things to look at! I almost got creamed today – it was totally my fault. Thank goodness we’ll spend most of the summer in a peaceful forest far away from such wild traffic!