My job

On Tuesday, I had my first ‘field visit’. Most of the office is in Antananarivo for a USAID ‘stocktaking’, so it was just me and 2 field agents. They took me to Ambatovaky, which is a village very near the start of the Ranomofana-Andringitra forrest corridor (the one ERI Fianarantsoa is trying to protect). A farmer federation called the Koloharena has a very developed following/prescence in Ambatovaky, so we visited 6 different sites :
A maison Koloharena – which is a meeting room, small library, and center for trainings.
A Centre d’Approvisionnement – small store, run by the coopérative Koloharena that has seeds and farming tools.
A Farmer Field School – plot of land near the village where farmers can practice techniques they’ve learned at the maison koloharena
The forgerie – where villagers are forging farming tools
4 new vaches laitières – newly procured dairy cows, one of which is producing 14 litres of milk a day.
La Décortiquerie – an example of micro-credit in action – The Koloharena bought it at least partially on crédit, and can now sell rice at a higher price because it becomes a value added good – my translation of décortiquerie is – unshucking machine.

While all of this was very informative and interesting, it sort of seemed as though the field agents, and 3 or 4 Koloharena members who were helping show me around saw me almost as a consultant. They were very welcoming in showing me how their association works in Ambatovaky, and told me all about the various pieces that come together there. However, I really don’t know much yet, so it felt unclear as to whether I was supposed to be taking notes just for my own education, or if my notes were to then become the success story* of this region.

*In case I hadn’t explained yet, my job as an intern for ERI will be editing and formatting ‘success stories’. The field agents are supposed to do the initial write-ups, and I’m to add any perspectives I might have gotten from field visits, photos (that I take on the field visits as well), and edit the French and make it look pretty.*

We had lunch with a woman that Modeste (field agent) must have known, for less than a dollar each. A traditional Malagasy meal consists of rice and something that can go with rice. They also save the water from cooking the rice to drink, calling it ranopongo (I’m quite sure I don’t have that quite right…). After our afternoon visits I felt a little overwhelmed and very ready to go home. When the truck (which had taken another agent farther down the road) came back to get the three of us, the agents loaded a whole bunch of wood into the back. Fifteen minutes later we stopped, and Bruno started hauling it up a road just a little ways into a village. The driver, Modeste and I were just filling some bags with the remaining wood and letting Bruno carry all of it. When there were only 2 left, I took one and followed him to where it was going. I think they all got a kick out of the vaza doing grunt work. The wood is to build some new bee hives.

Wednesday and Thursday will consist of more background reading and putting my notes from Tuesday into some semblance of order, and then Friday I’m off to Ranamofana ! Christian (the driver who took me to Fianar from Tana, and who drove for our trip to Manakara) took me to the taxi-gare to make a taxi-brousse reservation to get there Friday morning. That means I’ll have all day Friday and Saturday, coming home on Sunday. I’m hoping to do a night hike to see a mouse lemur, and during the day will hopefully see a golden bamboo lemur, a chameleon, and maybe some colorful frogs and orchids. Hopefully no centipedes… It’s supposed to rain, but hey, it’s a rainforest right ?