Veloma Turtle Cove

My final days on Nosy Komba were almost like the first days in that I couldn’t help but feel awe at the beauty of my surroundings, trying to soak in each moment and appreciate all the details.  The difference is that this time I knew it would be the last time I’d be here, at least for a while, so I wanted to imprint each moment into a distinct memory. I was fortunate in that so many of my last days were exactly the kind of reminders one would hope for in such a magical place. I made sure to visit the kittens one more time before I left. I couldn’t believe how much they had grown and how noisy they could be - I can hear them all the way in my hut when they are screaming for their momma cat. The funny thing is that the two kittens which are mostly white are much calmer than the two that are black and white. The black and white ones are already little terrors, yelling all the time and trying to scamper even though their back legs don’t fully work yet. I hope someone at camp posts pictures in the future so I can see them grow!

On Thursday morning I went for a final snorkel in perfectly calm, pristine waters; I tagged along with some of the marine volunteers who were doing a fish identification practice but when we saw a sea turtle I couldn’t help follow it. For the first time it didn’t swim off rapidly but let me dive down and get fairly close and shadow it from above. I probably swam with it for about five minutes and it was so beautiful and peaceful, I only wish I had pictures.

Every day we took the boat back to camp after our adult class I spent a few minutes sitting on the beach petting Bob the dog. I wanted so badly to bring him back with me, if not to Portland, at least to camp. He is such a sweet dog and it makes me so tremendously sad that there are still people in the village who are cruel to him. No wonder he hangs around all of the volunteers when we are there; we treat pets so differently in our culture and give him a love I doubt he gets from any of the Malagasy people. We all try to teach the children to be kind to him but unfortunately, every now and again, when a child runs on the beach he runs after them to play and they get scared and it perpetuates the whole cycle.

Remember that puppy I mentioned who lived nearby camp and we were supposed to shoo off? Well I no longer feel bad for it since it killed seven of the camp chicken’s chicks! In fact I’m glad I didn’t see the dog all week because I was really upset about the whole incident and every time I saw the chicken and her remaining chicks I felt terrible. She only has three left and she watches them like a hawk and even though I know it’s just part of the circle of life I can’t help being angry at that dog. After the staff class Friday morning the hen and her chicks were way too interested in the pots on the stove so I went to chase them off from the kitchen area when I noticed that one of the chicks wasn’t able to keep up with the others. It had something stuck to it’s legs, binding them slightly so it could still hop, but not quite keep up with mom and its siblings. I tried to catch it so I could remove the string myself but my chicken catching skills are not very advanced. I was so relieved when two of our Malagasy staff worked together to corner it and then one scooped it up and went to work removing the string. It was quite tangled and took a while and I was surprised at how gentle and thorough he was to remove the debris. I felt bad for the hen who was clearly distraught when one of her three remaining chicks was squawking up a storm but it was clear that she wasn’t going to sacrifice the other two for the one. She stayed close enough to keep an eye on it but not close enough to put herself or the other chicks in danger. Seeing it reunited with it’s family and witnessing the kindness of the man who carefully cut away all of the tangled string knotted around the little chick’s legs warmed my heart.

On Friday, my last commute from adult class to camp was like a dream. The sun was setting as it always does during our evening commute so it was already magic hour. Then someone saw a whale blow! A few people had seen humpback whales over the last few weeks but I hadn’t seen them yet. We saw two whales in the distance and our skipper turned the boat to follow them for a bit. They didn’t breach but we saw them come up to breathe a few times and it definitely made that last ride perfection. When we landed at the camp beach a few volunteers were running down the steps to find buried treasure which made our arrival even more entertaining.

Every Friday night there was a theme at camp and my last Friday was a pirate theme, inspired by “Talk like a Pirate” Day. Although the teachers couldn’t participate because of a scheduling conflict, there was a treasure hunt Friday afternoon. I heard the details over dinner and have to say it was incredibly well planned; the booty was a bottle of rum and there were a number of clues throughout camp in order to find the buried “treasure”. The sight of four guys counting their strides, skips and somersaults across the beach and then digging like dogs in the sand was pretty hilarious.

In the end, I had to pass up pirate night for a chance to go to a celebration in the village. For once I felt like my costume was really up to par with a piratey shirt, bandana on my head and a bird puppet on my shoulder, but I just wasn’t feeling it, especially when the opportunity to do something different and unique presented itself. There was a Malagasy celebration starting on Friday night and continuing through Saturday morning in the village. The woman who owned our regular lunch hangout had been hyping it all week and I had witnessed the first part earlier that afternoon. Apparently when a family has a wish for something and it comes to fruition, this is the type of celebration that occurs to give thanks for the good fortune. The first night (in this case Friday) is a party where the village celebrates with food, drinking and dancing. A zebu is slaughtered and shared as an act of appreciation as well as a sign of the good fortune for the family. The following morning a second zebu was to be slaughtered in a more formal ceremony and again cooked and shared with the village.

At lunchtime we saw the two zebu tied up near a neighboring shack from our lunch spot. A few other volunteers were very upset to see them standing there, knowing their fate was sealed. Honestly, I find the rope that goes through their nostrils more upsetting than seeing them tied up with their fate so closely at hand. None of those poor beasts has a good life; some pull carts on Nosy Be, some graze the grasses until they are sold for slaughter, none are native to the island of Nosy Komba so seeing them there is no different from seeing them in the village - they are brought to the island for one purpose alone. Perhaps it’s the anthropologist in me, perhaps it’s the former vegetarian who returned to eating meat, but I find it hypocritical for people who eat meat to get so upset seeing an animal destined for the plate. Sure, it’s easier to buy your meat all wrapped up in plastic and styrofoam, neatly packaged and looking nothing like the animal it came from. But in the end, if you’re going to eat meat I feel you have a responsibility to accept where it comes from. That doesn’t make factory farming OK and I’m not going to make this an argument for eating meat. I will say that as a visitor in a different culture, part of being a polite and respectful visitor is understanding and being tolerant of the beliefs of others. Within reason of course. I did not see the first zebu slaughtered; I came back later in the afternoon to use the bathroom and the first zebu was laid out on the beach in the midst of being butchered for the feast. There was a small crowd gathered around the zebu - a few men working on it and a larger group of boys watching from a distance. I’ve never seen anything like that myself. I didn’t stay to watch but I hoped that it’s death was quick and know that none of it would go to waste.

Morbidness aside, there was a good amount of debate about going to the village Friday night - there were only a few people interested in going and not all of them were willing to make the walk to the village in the dark. I have a pretty awesome headlamp and now that my scrambling skills are equally awesome, I was feeling pretty confident about making the trek. Luckily we were able to score a boat so everyone was pretty pleased. The moon was waning so the sky had been exceptionally dark, making the stars a hypnotic display. I tried playing with my camera settings earlier in the week but my camera is definitely not sophisticated enough to be able to capture the stars. They are mesmerizing - I doubt I’ve ever been anywhere with such little light pollution and as we waited for the boat on the dark beach and discussed the vastness of the universe, I saw a shooting star. It was all so incredible I completely forgot to make a wish. If I had remembered it would have been to come back to Nosy Komba again with Russ.

The boat ride was pretty impressive as well - even with my eyes adjusted to the darkness I couldn't quite fathom how our skipper was able to navigate us. When we glided into the beach near the village it was like being in that section of Pirates of the Caribbean at Disney World, where the shapes glide out of the dark. We slipped past pirogues and other boats, barely visible at night, and so close you could practically reach out and touch them as we passed. I had never been to the village at night and even though I had a headlamp with me I navigated through the dark until we reached the center of the celebration. Here and there children would greet us from the darkness, recognizing the white “vazahas” from a distance. Their greetings were reassuring, the village feels spooky at night, the dilapidated shacks seemed more foreboding with the shops closed and dark figures here and there. We came closer to the party and spotted a few of our adult students; they were not as friendly as usual and I couldn't tell if it was the glaze of alcohol or that we were not entirely welcome. We reached the center of the festivities where the music and dancing were located - there were many people I didn’t recognize and there were certainly more people in traditional attire than we would normally see. We watched the dancing for a while - the traditional Malagasy women have a dance movement that is somewhere between hula and twerking, without being quite as crass as that sounds. It’s pretty incredible to watch but I have nowhere close to the rhythm required to even attempt it. We partook in the food and drinks but lacked the fortitude to party like a Malagasy (which pretty much means all night) and caught a boat back to camp around midnight. It was much easier going to the village with lights in the distance to guide us; how the skipper found our darkened beach with no lights to guide us on our return trip I have to chalk up to knowing every nook and cranny of the island.

Most of the camp had cleared out early Saturday morning to head off to the beach town of Ambatiloka on Nosy Be, but I had arranged for a midday boat so I wouldn’t be scrambling to pack in time for a 6:30am boat. It was strange being at camp with so few people around. Peaceful but strange. If I had been there for a longer time I would have liked to stay on camp for a quiet weekend, it was always hard to find that kind of tranquility during the week. I was sad to pack up, and while I was excited for the rest of my journey, I felt a little nervous about the unknown ahead. As we approached Hellville on my final boat ride we saw dolphins in the distance - blowing and tail slapping, swimming from the port towards the open water. I decided it was both a perfect farewell and a good omen for my journey.