Antipode – Chapter 16

Antipode is a true account of my experiences while doing research in Madagascar from 1993 – 1999; it was published by St. Martin’s Press in 2001. Here is where we started—with the Introduction. And here are all of the chapters posted thus far.

To work in Madagascar, every vazaha researcher must help train a Malagasy student. This enforces a moral obligation to give something back to the country—in this case, an enhancement of the knowledge base. The Wildlife Conservation Society, as the administrators for the protected lands of northeastern Madagascar, had a student they wanted trained, and they were sending her to me. I didn’t know if they wanted her to learn particular skills, but I doubted it, as they themselves didn’t know what field skills I possessed. Jessica and I had both heard horror stories about researchers who had been stuck with uninterested “trainees” who learned nothing and, worse, required constant supervision, so kept the research from getting done. Rosalie Razafindrasoa was due to arrive for the final three weeks of my field season, when I was finishing my experiments and tying up various loose ends. I feared that her presence would compromise my ability to finish my research. Before her arrival, Jessica and I knew nothing of her, except that she was a graduate student at the University of Tana. We worked ourselves up by fabricating atrocious personas for her, such that we could only refer to her as the dread Rosalie.

At dinner a few nights before Rosalie was due to arrive, we asked the conservation agents when the boat would come next. We were both hoping for mail, and though getting letters to Maroantsetra from the States took several weeks, and many just disappeared into the system, if they did arrive in town, Projet Masoala sent them out to us with the boat. Uncharacteristically, Lebon was in a bad mood.

“I don’t know the schedule,” he said, glowering into his plate of rice. Then he added, “Probably sometime next week. Fortune and I are leaving to be trained.”

“Trained—has this happened before?” Jessica asked.

“Every year, two or three times a year.” He seemed proud of this.

“And will someone be coming to take your place here on Nosy Mangabe while you’re gone?” we prodded, curious as to our fate.

“Someone from Eaux et Forets, yes.” Ah, a bureaucrat from the department of water ...