My week in Ft. Dauphin

I’ve been in Ft. Dauphin (south-east coast) the past week working as a consultant for CARE. It’s been a quick week. This phase of my life seems punctuated by alternating periods of under- and over-employment, where each period quickly fills me with a longing for the period I just left.

Anyway, here are some of the week’s highlights—good, bad, bizarre:

1. Climbed Pic St. Louis; from that height you can’t see how dilapidated the town is.
2. Twice, drunks chased me: the first time was scary, the other funny.
3. Made it out to the countryside; appreciated how friendly people are outside of Fianar.
4. An unsolicited prostitute knocked on my door at 3:30am, offering bargain-basement rates. (No, I didn’t take her up on her offer.)
5. During a run, was mistaken for the winner of a 160-kilometer ultramarathon that had begun 16 hours earlier. Did not accept the cash prize; accepted bragging rights.
6. “Misplaced” 150,000 Dijeridoos somewhere.
7. KP and I celebrated 5 years of marriage (yeah)—by SMS (boo).

What's your guess?

Here are some teasers from recent travels around the island. I hope to post something soon on the travels. Enjoy.

"A [Madagascar] Late One"

Bracing Pep

I’m not entirely sure, but I may have been the first person ever to drink an ALE8 in Madagascar. CC gets a great big HOWDY for sending TWO bottles of Eastern Kentucky Ambrosia our way. (CA and HL get a HOWDY too for transporting said ALES in their luggage from the US to Mg.) One bottle has already been drunk, and I’m going to hide the other in a safe place away from KP, who’s also rather fond of an ALE8 every now and again.

Friend, if you’ve never had the privilege of tasting the glorifying power contained in an ALE8, I urge you to do so now. Like cocaine or heroin, that first taste of ALE8 is powerful, heady stuff—a soul-shaking event that’ll rock your world. And try as you might to relive that first sensation, your search will be in vain; it’s never the same.

The Madagascar ALE8 was evocative of that first sip, which is about as close as you can hope to come. It transported me back 14 years to sophomore year at UK. I was with the Burch and he wanted my first ALE8 to be special, so we drove in his old, red Toyota pickup out to the ALE8 machine, near Grater’s Ice Cream Shoppe. The machine was twice special: it dispensed long-neck bottles of ALE8—the kind of old-fashioned bottles that you paid a deposit on—and, given the right climatic conditions, it served iced ALEs. You won’t know if you’ve got an iced ALE until you crack open the bottle cap and take that first swig. If you’re lucky and conditions are right, after the first pull the temperature equilibrium achieved inside the machine is broken and the liquid undergoes a spontaneous phase change, becoming an instant slushy. My first ALE8 iced, and was pure magic.

So magical was it that afterwards I began to bestow the drink with mystical powers. Nights before chemistry exams I would wrap my class notes around an ALE8 (always a long-neck, of course) and let it sit in the fridge over night so the information might become infused in the liquid. Then, on the way to the exam, I would sip the ALE8 and literally internalize the material. The results were always good, so I took this as a positive sign and looked for other areas of my life where I could apply the powers of ALE8. My convictions were strong. How else can I explain after having my wisdom teeth extracted, and still under the effects of anesthesia, telling the dental assistant that I wouldn’t need any pain medication as long as I had a six-pack of ALE8 waiting for me at home. True story, I swear. Oh, those were the days.

I wasn’t alone in my ALE8 mania (for better or worse). A tight band of brothers formed around the power and lore of ALE8 that year, and we sure had some good times together. We made late-night runs to convenience stores combing their stock of ALEs for vintage deposit bottles from years gone by. We made a pilgrimage to the factory in Winchester to pay homage to the source. We held meetings and initiated fellow believers, and stood in solidarity against the ALE8-haters. One brother even spent a night in jail defending the honor of ALE8 against the haters: Nobody calls ALE8 "Eastern Kentucky Swamp Water” without paying a heavy toll, that’s for damn sure.

Those were good times and good friends. To my ALE brothers wherever you are: To each their own, but to all an ALE8.

South Africa Travels

Avenue of camphor trees, Stellenbosch

I only drove around the Durban airport once before I found the right intersection that led us out of the airport and on to the highway. Kristen patiently endured the tour, but I could tell she wasn’t in the mood for a second lap, so I think we were both relieved when we were finally under way. Considering we could have missed our connecting flight from Jo’burg because Kristen forgot she had her Swiss-Army knife—the one she’s had since middle school—in her carry-on bag and airport security made us go back and check it through, I knew I had some leeway. Thankfully I didn’t have to burn too much of this valuable capital so soon after earning it.

I counted Kristen not realizing that cars in South Africa drive on the opposite side as we’re accustomed to in Madagascar (and the US) until just before we left Tana a blessing. The rental car, a budget Corsa-LITE, came thoughtfully equipped with a sticker in the upper right-hand corner reminding me to “KEEP LEFT!” This I faithfully did, and also, for at least that first day driving up to Hluhluwe Backpackers Lodge in the Kwa-Zulu Natal, Kristen let me know when I would wander out of my designated lane. All in all, I’m glad the switch over came more quickly this go-round than the last time I was driving in South Africa, twelve years ago.

For years Kristen has been fond of saying occasionally, “I want you to show me South Africa.” Somehow she was convinced that the six-months I spent there so many years ago made me uniquely qualified to fulfill such a request. Two weeks is hardly any time to spend in South Africa, you’ll barely scratch the surface; so as a compromise, we agreed to squeeze in a bit of the old (Sodwana Bay and Cape Town) with some new (St Lucia, Hluhluwe Game Reserve, and the Drakensberg Mountains).

I think even as early as landing in Jo’burg, I felt my memory begin to betray me. Granted South Africa has boomed since I left in 1994, but even so, I think there’s more to this feeling. I believe I was a very young and hedonistic 19 years old when I first set foot in South Africa and never got curious beyond whatever was happening immediately around me. Much of my memories are suspect and lacking in detail, and now that makes me a bit sad. I like to think I’m more clued in these days, so, in some ways I was seeing everything as fresh, and with as much awe, as Kristen.

We spent the first part of the trip in the Kwa-Zulu Natal region of the north-east. From Hluhluwe we organized trips into the Greater St. Lucia Wetlands, which is designated as a World Heritage site, and contains a Living Lake in Lake St. Lucia. Our rangers were two Afrikaner brothers, who were fun. Like most of the Afrikaner folks we encountered, these guys were BIG and they ate (and talked about eating) a lot of MEAT. They recommended a restaurant in Jo’burg called The Carnivore, and to hear them talk about it this must their idea of paradise.

The older brother had spent 6 months in the US a few years back playing rugby and killing turkeys in South Dakota. Apparently a group of 15 South African boys went over en masse and spent their time playing exhibition matches with different College or club teams on the weekends. Then during the week, they’d return to South Dakota and the turkeys. He estimated proudly that he’d killed on order of 1.6 million turkeys during his tenure at the processing plant.

From Hluhluwe, we made our way farther north towards Sodwana Bay, but not before taking a game drive through Hluhluwe’s eponymous park. We didn’t see all of the Big Five, but Kristen’s bright eyes led us to see 3 out of 5: rhino, Cape buffalo, and elephant. We’ll have to go back and look for lions and leopards another time. Kristen was particularly taken with the impala, which were plentiful and lively.

Here are some pics from:

1) Champagne Castle in the Drakensberg Mts.

San rock painting

Champagne Peak

Walking in the Bergs

Champagne Castle Hotel

2) Hluhluwe and St. Lucia Wetlands

Hungry hippos

Hluhluwe giraffe

3) Cape Town

Prisoners on Robben Island

Ships in Cape Town

Jackass penguins

KP and Me at Cape Point

One thing we found amusing about South Africans was their rigid sense of order. They seem to be very particular about how most things get done. At one place in the Drakensberg Mts. if you’re going on an organized group hike you need to be present at exactly 9:15 am and you will hike for exactly 5 hours with a 20-minute break for lunch and be back at the parking lot at exactly 2:35 pm. In our hotel rooms signs posted in the bathroom reminded us that we were not to fiddle with the settings for the water heater and that the candle and matches were not to be taken outside of the room. I think the coup de grâce came at the cinema in Cape Town: after purchasing our tickets we were asked to choose our seats. This we found totally hilarious and completely over the top.

When we were planning our trip, we left Cape Town for the end, as a kind of treat, and it didn’t disappoint. Cape Town must be unique among cities, framed by two very different oceans and tall, spectacular mountain peaks. Add to this the ability to shop at malls, eat at fancy restaurants, and take in movies, and you have all the elements for having a very good time. And that is exactly what we had during our four days at Cape Town.

Our time wouldn’t have been half as nice had we not met up with Bertha, a friend from my first trip to South Africa. Bertha is one of those people with boundless amounts of energy and generosity. She opened her home to me and Hewett for more than a month and made sure we did everything we wanted. This time around was no different. With little advanced planning, she cleared a weekend and drove Kristen and me around the Cape. She crammed into one morning and afternoon a weekend’s worth of sight-seeing. We blitzed Kirstenbosch botanical gardens and saw, among other things, the avenue of camphor trees planted by Cecil Rhodes for the Queen of England. At a small fishing village en route to Cape Point we ate the most divine fish and chips. The fish was so fresh that it must have been swimming around, happy as Larry, earlier that morning before becoming our lunch. We made a quick stop and saw penguins swimming in the ocean and socializing on the beach. Cape Point, the southern-most point (well, not technically the most southern point, but effectively so), was fogged in, cutting down visibility dramatically, but we still got our pictures taken at the sign, for posterity. And if that weren’t enough, we caught the last gondola up to Table Mountain before the sun set. All the while Bertha kept a running commentary on the history of the area and sharing with us her opinions about what the new South Africa is and where it’s going. And, at the end, Bertha drove us to the airport to catch our flight back to Jo’burg. I told her I hope it’s not another twelve years before we see one another again; she’s a gem.

In Jo’burg, we spent a really bad night at an airport hotel. The food was revolting and until around 10 o’clock it sounded like a plane was taking off or landing in the parking lot about every 20 minutes. I suppose it was a small price to pay for having an otherwise good vacation.

Corridor Crayfish--The Other White Meat

These little beauties were a tasty addition to the Javanese peanut dish we make occasionally. I expected to have some latent revulsion to handling the animals after all the exposure from Zoology 102 dissections, but I guess I’m made of stronger stuff. The scuttlebutt on crayfish here in Fianar is that they are good indirect indicators of forest corridor health: The more crayfish coming to market, the healthier the forest. I’m sure I was sufficiently ripped-off at the market today buying these (although, I’m not sure how angry I can be; I still only paid the equivalent to 50 cents per pound) to keep the incentive for protecting the watershed up. What a small price to pay.