I'm MAD about this country (lame pun)

The new Centre Valbio building (to be finished on 07/03/2012)

 Life in Ranomafana

 Ecotourism in Ranomafana National Park (people taking pictures of lemurs)

 A giant comet moth

View of the river from the cafeteria here

Hey!

So everything here is going really well!  Every day is just packed full of adventure here.  Today we went to Ambatolahy, a nearby village and did structured observations of domestic animals.  We basically just followed around livestock all day and watched and recorded how they interacted with humans. I saw a child throw a kitten on top of a goose!  It was pretty funny but I also felt pretty bad for the cat.

I recently went on an hike to a waterfall near here, claimed to be the "Niagara Falls" of Madagascar, it was really beautiful.  On my way home, I saw a double rainbow (for the first time in my life).

There was a group of study abroad kids staying at the place where I do, but they all left recently so now the centre is pretty empty.  Apparently there are new researchers coming tomorrow, which should bring some excitement.

Hopefully I will be going to Fianaratsoa (often just called Fi-uh-nar), where rumor has it that they have really good pizza and also icecream!  I have not seen icecream in 3 weeks now.  

Food here is fairly repetitive, but fortunately good quality.  We eat rice anywhere from 1-3 times per day, whether it's rice-cereal or rice and beef or rice and beans or rice and peas.  So far, all the people that we have interviewed in the villages report that they eat rice 3 meals per day!

Although I have been learning a lot about Malagasy culture (from locals, researchers, tour guides, etc), I have found that I have learned suprisingly little Malagasy.  I have been told that the grammar is not too difficult to master but have found that the vocabulary is especially hard to remember.

Fortunately I am still getting along really well with my research partners (although I did give them the link to the blog...so I won't say anything mean)

Okay, I'm off to bed, tomorrow is going to be another 6am day (yesterday was 4:30...) so I 've been going to bed at around 9:30 or ten.