New Year New Friends

Picture is of Fianarantsoa

My birthday started early this year with an unexpected visit on the 15th from my very good friend Melissa. She is a PCV almost 8 hours south of me and was passing though Ranomafana on her way up to Tana. She knew it was my birthday so she stopped at Matt’s old site and plundered it for presents. Matt left Peace Corps in February and his old house was still full of all the things he could not fit in his suitcase. Among other things, Melissa brought me:
A propane tank
7 rolls of toilet paper
Boric Acid (for bugs)
Hydrocortisone Cream
She also took me out for lunch in town and got me a beer. I was thrilled with all of this and so passed probably the only birthday I will ever have when I will be happy to get TP as a gift. Before she asked Melissa asked me a favor, she heard a guy named Peter was in the area and that he had some supplies that she could use down at her site. She left me his number.
On the big anniversary of my birth (the 18th) I met up in Ranomafana with my friend Jose. Jose is one of the guides in the National Park and he is opening a new shop and restaurant in town. He spends most of the time hanging around his shop, so he is a great person to sit and chat with for a few hours. He also spend five years living in Oregon so his English is pretty good. Jose got out some snacks and drinks, some more of his friends came over and he put in a movie (Planet Earth). It was an excellent and relaxing day.
I called Melissa’s contact Peter a few days later at about 11:30 after spending the morning in the tree nursery. By 12:15 I was sitting down to a lunch of pork chops and sautéed vegetables at one of the nicer hotels in Ranomafana with Peter, his driver, and two Malagasy marine biologists. Peter is the President and only employee of Friends of Madagascar, a non-profit that does education and environmental development all over Madagascar. Essentially Peter is a one man army crusading against poverty and environmental degradation. He brings in shipping containers full of donated materials and distributes them to people in need. Currently he is sitting on some 20,000 soccer uniforms as well as balls, shin guards, school supplies, and health materials. Peter is also working to start a project involving fruit trees and reforestation in the Ranomafana area, nearly identical to the one I am working on with SAF. Amazingly however, Peter and Dan have never spoken.
After lunch we drove down to Friends of Madagascar’s Ranomafana HQ. It is located about 7k from my house. Peter showed me through the facility. It includes three large bedrooms, a full kitchen with fridge, full bath, a small fruit and palm tree nursery and a litchi orchard. Peter told me that in June, a Duke University grad student would be living there for five months working with the fruit trees and doing reforestation. Although I should feel free to come down and use the facilities any time.
Peter left me with about 35 pounds of soccer equipment and health materials for Melissa and full of ideas about co-operating a project with SAF and Friends of Madagascar. This chance meeting was a truly amazing thing. The Duke student and I should be working very closely together in the coming months and I can not imagine a better set of people to work with.
The next day I had to go up to Fianarantsoa again to give Melissa all the stuff from Peter. We had only had an hour or so together in Ranomafana so we had much to catch up on. We spent a full day out on the town together and returned to the Peace Corps house and prepared ourselves a truly delicious meal of banana bread and burritos. A fitting end to an amazing birthday week.
Thank you all for the birthday wishes!