je suis a tulear, madagascar.

bonjour, mes amis!

i made it to tulear, madagascar, about an hour and a half taxi ride away from ifaty, my destination. i flew from moshi to nairobi to johannesburg to antananarivo to fort dauphin to tulear. pas de probleme, but my luggage is currently somewhere between johannesburg and tana; i just hope it's not in the indian ocean. i've been wearing the same outfit for 4 days. i'm just getting comfortable.

i met a few intriguing people in transit. one was an afrikaan man from johannesburg who is a pilot for a company that has a contract with the united nations. he was returning from a 2 month job in southern sudan flying refugees and u.n. representatives around the country. i heard some unbelievable stories. in the tana airport, i met a zimbabwean with a phd in marine sciences and economics. he's the director of an organization similar to reef doctor that's based about 17 hours south of tulear. he taught me quite a bit about both his organization's and reef doctor's relations with the local tribes and government.

shawn, one of reef doctor's staff, met me at the tulear "airport," from which he and i, along with the zimbabwean and one other guy from paris, piled into a tres petit taxi and headed to a hotel. we ate at a local spot called top secret and were all able to order our third choice meal. they seemed to be a little short of...everything. t.i.a....this is africa.

shawn and the zimbabwean, garth, headed to a meeting this morning with some locals from 12 villages located up and down the coast. they have a 21 hour taxi ride ahead of them, all in the interest of setting up a rotational fishing schedule in and around the bay of ranobe. they agreed that the outlook was not yet too bright. they seemed most concerned with simply picking up the 40 villagers along the way. garth said successfully collecting all 40 would be a feat in itself.

i'm headed back to the airport pour trouver mes bagages. bon chance a moi!