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| Bringing the pirogues into shore |
Last week we visited a fishing village, to do practice field research/"focus groups" with a few of the fishermen. It's pretty incredible, Fort Dauphin is a hotspot for seafood, there's a lot of it. At the same time, almost all of the fishing here is still done in "pirogues" or canoes. The interviews we did were interesting, we sat in the sand surrounded by village children, and the conversation was facilitated between French and Malagasy by our instructors.
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| Us, the crazy vazaha in the pirogue on shore |
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| Part of the village's school |
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| Pirogues coming into shore |
The fishers get up at 2-3 in the morning to head out while the sea is more calm, and stay out there until 10 or noon. In the environmental sense it's also interesting, as there are fishing regulations about fishing, but there's no enforcement so they aren't followed. All in all the area was beautiful but the village seemed very poor. After the fishing village we visited a gorgeous beach called Lokaro, for lunch and then swimming after. It ended up being cloudy and windy, but the water was warm so we ended up swimming anyways.
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| Lokaro |
We also got a good perspective of Madagacar roads. It took us about 2 hours to go 30 kilometers, if that gives a good idea. A lot of roads are eroded, but also just not kept up. There's a lot of driving on any side of the road with less potholes, the drivers honk going around turns on one lane roads to give warning. So far we've experienced 2 very flat tires (one on the return trip from Lokaro) and given the state of the roads I guess that's not too suprising.
Also on the way back we stopped and checked out these carnivorous pitcher plants, which were growing along the side of the road on part of the trip. That's it for now, we just got back from visiting Andohahela National Park- I took over 100 pictures of the last few days, so it may take a while to sort through them. On Sunday we leave Fort Dauphin again to do our unit on lemur ecology, so I'm definitely looking forwards to that. To finish, here are some photos of the carnivorous plants, and one of the country side I took on the trip home from out visit to Hovahtra and Lokaro.
Also on the way back we stopped and checked out these carnivorous pitcher plants, which were growing along the side of the road on part of the trip. That's it for now, we just got back from visiting Andohahela National Park- I took over 100 pictures of the last few days, so it may take a while to sort through them. On Sunday we leave Fort Dauphin again to do our unit on lemur ecology, so I'm definitely looking forwards to that. To finish, here are some photos of the carnivorous plants, and one of the country side I took on the trip home from out visit to Hovahtra and Lokaro.
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| Roadside stop to check out the carnivorous plants |
More great photos, Karin. Reminds me of those across_the_globe adventure TV shows. First photo of you too - great to see you there! I wonder if fishing is still good at Port Dauphin due to the low-tech fishing methods which don't capture huge quantities of fish. The village school looks about to fall down - are kids actually inside the structure? I was amused by your description of the flat tires ('very flat').
ReplyDeleteHi
ReplyDeleteIt is Clare J again.
I like your photos! :)
Thanks Clare!
ReplyDeleteThere weren't kids in the school building when I saw it, as school doesn't generally start until October, but I'm assuming so once it does start. I've seen a fair few buildings that look as though they're about to fall down. I'll try and post a picture of the flat tire sometime.