As of this moment, I am cut loose. Independent study has begun, stipends have been given, last warnings offered, and now nobody is responsible for feeding me but myself. Haven’t missed many meals yet. So far, living in Madagascar without supervision has been a breeze, mostly because I’m not really on my own. The plane I took to Fort Dauphin was also being taken by five other students and one of our professors, so there wasn’t much to fear. Even so, when I got off the plane and everyone started taking taxis in different directions it really sunk in that I was on my own now. I’d arranged to stay with my host family again, and my host father came to pick me up in a quad. Then I spent anafternoon arranging a translator for my trip and buying supplies. My meals for the next few days are going to be rice and beans and cucumbers and pasta. Which is exactly what they’ve been for the past few months, but this time I decided on amounts and I spent the money. Next on the list is taking a taxi-brousse into the wild and fending for myself for the next month. For those who might be worried, I’ll be camping in a village and have already arranged to be accommodated by the Chef du Fokontany there, so there will be no spear wielding villagers wondering what I'm doing there. 

I have my research plan more or less decided, though the amount of second guessing going on over here is truly alarming. for the most part I think the doubts are all in my head, but it's hard not to keep thinking of other things I should or should not be bringing, and to waffle over all my decisions when it's only me making them. 

Tana was a really strange experience for all of us. It really was a combination of hilly san francisco and french style buildings, and for every fruit peddler on the street there might be almost as many more 'conventional' super stores selling exotic produce like marshmallows and grapes and apple juice. The markets were like anywhere else, eclectic and confusing, except that they were twice the size and twice the people and five times the noise. Things were a lot cheaper, and there were a lot more of them. The most surprising items creep into the country. You can buy shaving razors or showercaps from almost any peddler on the street, but you have to take a taxi nearly out of town to find a store that sells duct tape. I didn't even buy it, then, because it was so expensive. In Malagasy terms it was 22000 Ar, about 11 dollars for half a roll. When you consider that a nice restaurant meal should be between 7-10000, and that clothes can be bought for 2-3000, that's a lot. Tana also had real streets, real cars, it even had roundabouts and street signs! No stoplights or stop signs of course, but hey, what do you want. There were even designated parking spaces. In the south, if you have a car, you stop it wherever you want to. Nobody is going to get in your way.

In Tana we had a lot more free time to float around and practice buying our own meals. A lot of it got wasted attempting to find our way around the city and figure out what things were closed when, but we also got to see a lot of interesting parts of the city too. We saw the Queen's palace and Anosy Lake, the artisanal market and the first Malagasy printing shop. We also had the best Thai food that I have ever, ever experienced, and I have to say, all the Americans who think they like Thai because they've had Pad Thai have absolutely no idea what they are missing. I may never eat Thai again, to show proper respect for that meal. Malagasy cooking in Tana was just as bad as Malagasy cooking in the south, except there were better odds of the restaurant having ketchup. 

We have also, since I last posted here, traveled to Andasibe and seen the Indri, the largest (or tied to largest) lemur species in Madagascar. They're beautiful, with impossibly long arms and black and white coloring and gold eyes. They came so close to us, and the way they moved was jsut too impossible. One moment they were crouched against a tree, looking so very human, and the next they had launched themselves 8 meters or so directly behind themselves, and yet still landed facing forward, having executed perfect half-twists in the air. They sing as well. Please imagine. All this trip, we have been told by people everywhere that the Indri songs are one of the wonders of Madagascar, that they are like the calls of humpbacks, that we must hear them. There were four students who carried tape recorders with them the entire journey just for our single day at Andasibe. When we saw the Indri the entire wood was filled with chatty french and british tourists, but they all went silent the moment the first Indri opened its mouth, threw its head back, and belted out a sound like a three toned fire alarm. whaaeeEEEEET! WAHHHHHHT! WOOOOOooooo! whaaeeEEEEET! WAHHHHHHT! WOOOOOooooo!All the Indri began crying out this incredibly loud descending scale of hoots, and we all began to silently shake with mirth. From a distance, this call rings  eerily through the forest. From up close, it makes you want to file towards the exits. Well, we spent the rest of the week making Indri calls to each other; one of us would be  in our hotel room and want something, and we'd just start hooting out the window until somebody next door heard and came to see. Nothing like the call of wound up, overstressed SIT students (we had papers due right before our departure for ISP's) late at night. 

Well, it's time for me to finish up here and go pack my things for tomorrow! Buy some phone credit and maybe take a nap. 

Until the end of November,

whaaeeEEEEET! WAHHHHHHT! WOOOOOooooo!