“We're here!” our energetic leader Summer Arrigo-Nelson exclaimed. I jumped out of the jeep and was hit by a wave of sounds from the Madagascar rainforest - the river, the birds, the frogs, and the rooster. The building that lay in front of me, Centre Valbio, would be my home for the next two weeks.
Just two weeks before my arrival in Madagascar, I ran into Summer at the annual Earthwatch Conference. She was eagerly looking for one more volunteer for her first Earthwatch team. I jumped at the opportunity, and two weeks later I left my fellow senior friends and teachers at my small-town high school in order to have the time of my life. I have always been interested in animal behavior and this was a perfect opportunity to get a deeper understanding of this field of science.
My team included Alistair, a student from Australia who had just finished high school; Nitin, a Qualcom worker from California; Peter, a doctor from Oregon; Sherry, a construction worker from Pennsylvania; and David, a chief council from the UK. Coming from many different places and backgrounds, we all had one thing in common right from the start - an interest in our planet and its conservation. From the 130 projects Earthwatch Institute offers, we all chose the Madagascar's Lemurs project due to the location and the interesting research that we would be helping with. As a non-profit organization, Earthwatch Institute has sent more than 72,941 volunteers on 2,900 projects in 118 countries and 36 states.
The training started right away. Summer gave us an interesting lecture on Madagascar, its flora and fauna, and the project we were going to work on. Then, together with Dr. Patricia Wright, we went on a hike through the forest to find our first lemurs. It was nearly dark, and we had been walking on the wet, slippery forest paths for about three hours when Alistair exclaimed, “There! There is one!” Eight eyes went up, and in the treetops was a group of four Greater Bamboo Lemurs. At dinner that night, we shared our first exciting story with the many experienced researches that were staying at Valbio, all working on their own projects.
The next day my whole team went out to the forest to practice doing observations. Together with the amazing guides, we found our first group of Milne-Edward Sifakas far off-trail in the middle of the rainforest. Two people were needed to do one observation: one person would look at the animal through binoculars, and the other would record date, group number, animal ID, start time, stop time, plant part, plant name, number of bites, animal height, trail, and the names of the recorder and observer. While Nitin and Sherry were practicing their first observation, I decided to sit down under a tree to rest after the rigorous off-trailing. Only a few seconds later, small pieces of fruit, called sandramy, were falling on top of my head. I looked up and could see the individual black and white hairs of a lemur's fur; he was positioned just a few meters up the tree. After a few hours of practice, we returned to Valbio to discuss and review our observations.
The next few days consisted of actual work. Our team split in two groups, one for the morning session and one for the afternoon session. I enjoyed going out early in the mornings and finding the lemurs drying out in the treetops after a good night's rain. As the days progressed, our observations got better in both quality and quantity. One morning it was just Nitin and I, and we got twelve observations. Our daily average thus far had been eight observations, and when we returned to Valbio, I excitedly showed Summer our observations. The afternoon session did even better; they came home with twenty observations. Summer was amazed at how well our work was going. We also started to recognize the individuals in the two groups that we were observing. Every time we made an observation, we had to try to get samples of what the lemurs ate, and, if possible, the exact branch they ate from. After lunch the morning session would do their labwork. Labwork consisted of recording date, animal ID (who ate it?), trail, plant name, plant part, measurements (length and width), and wet and dry weight. We got both the wet and dry weight in order to figure out how much nutrition each individual actually gets with each bite.
We worked on Monday through Friday, and weekends were our time off. On our first free Saturday we walked down to the town Ranamofana where we ate lunch at Hotel Manja. Some of us enjoyed a nice swim in the hot spring pools while others enjoyed watching an English class at the local school. We also visited the Tree Farm, a reforestation project that Valbio and the locals are working on. The following day we made a day hike to Vatu, a camp in the middle of the rainforest. We ate lunch on top of a waterfall and spent some time relaxing on large rocks in the middle of the river. During our walk we saw many birds, frogs, chameleons, snakes, and lemurs, including Milne-Edwards Sifakas, Black and White Ruffed Lemurs, Bamboo Lemurs, and Red-Bellied Lemurs, and many more. Our last free Saturday was once again spent in Ranamofana. The English class was giving special presentations to our team to practice their English. The students ranged in age from teenagers to seniors. The rest of the morning was spent shopping at the local market, swimming in the hot spring pools, and buying five kilos of litchis, a type of fruit, for $4 for the litchi-eating contest that was to occur later that day.
My team was lucky enough to experience four parties at Valbio. The first party was to celebrate Thanksgiving, which we did with a Malagasy-style Thanksgiving dinner. A few days later, one of the researchers had a party to celebrate their birthday. The third party was a goodbye party to a group of researchers from Finland. The last party was a special ceremony to celebrate three things at Valbio: the setting of the corner stone for the new dormitory, the exchanging of directors, and Dr. Patricia Wright receiving her second medal. The ceremony consisted of a traditional zebu (cow) killing and speeches given by many people of high status in Madagascar. The ceremony was followed by a formal ball in Ranamofana. At the parties we drank traditional Malagasy drinks and danced traditional Malagasy slow songs and line dances.
The two weeks raced by without much notice, and I soon found myself saying goodbye to my fellow team members with whom I had just shared an amazing experience. This trip not only reinforced my decision to study animal behavior in college, but it also left me with many memories that I will carry for the rest of my life. I often found myself just stopping for a few seconds to take in the beautiful landscape or smile as I looked at my new friends when I knew a snapshot wouldn't do the picture justice. The photograph would not be able to let people hear the sounds: the river, the birds, the frogs, and the rooster. It would not be able to describe the feeling one gets as they stand on a bridge in the middle of the rainforest, looking down at the river while hearing lemurs swing from treetop to treetop. The work itself gave me a feeling of responsibility and confidence. I had been able to hike through the forest at any time of day, take observations without much guidance, do the labwork with only the help of my team members, and still produce results that I know will, in the future, help with the conservation of these magnificent animals. As the car slowly passed all the familiar sites - Centre Valbio, the path that leads to the forest, and the waterfall - I couldn't help but smile as I remembered how only two weeks before I had been in such awe when I had entered this new landscape.
