Anja Community Park and Camp Catta

Going to mass in Madagascar is always an interesting experience for me. The people at my church are pretty used to me now. In fact, I can say that I am now a full member of the community. Like all Christian churches, there is a collection for the church. Many places have designated ushers to do the collection. Smaller churches, like mine in Madagascar, randomly hands the baskets to two poor souls before mass starts. The weekend after I returned from vacation, the head of the church handed me a basket without hesitation. I looked at it and thought to myself, “Awww, I’m one of them now.”

Going to mass in the provinces is even more interesting. I’ve done it a few times, but it’s always a scene. Not many vazaha get out to church unless they’re missionaries. So when I roll up to the church that is literally packed to the doors and overflowing with people as a tall, white man with long hair, there are always a few dozen pairs of eyes watching me, and sometimes there’s a kid or two who bursts out in total shock, “Misy Jesosy.” It’s Jesus! Sorry, my boy, I’m way too white to be Jesus, no matter how tan I get.

The mass in Ambalavao was no different. I snuck into the back of the church and got into an empty pew that was soon filled with other churchgoers. Mind you, the language of the mass doesn’t much matter to me. As I told one of the nuns at the cathedral, “Français, anglais, malgache, Jésus est Jésus.” French, English, Malgasy, Jesus is Jesus. One of the immense benefits of being a Roman Catholic is that the mass formula is virtually the same across the world. Therefore, I know exactly what is happening at all times during the mass, regardless of the language being used. Mind you, this doesn’t help me with the readings which I look at before mass, or during the sermon, which I don’t really listen to. So I always bring my devotional book and read from it during these parts. Some of my friends have asked me why I don’t use the time to practice my Malagasy. It’s possible to do that, yes. But I’m not going to mass to practice Malagasy. I’m going to church to pray, something I can’t do if I’m trying to listen to understand what is being said. Mass in Ambalavao was no different, and as I brought out my devotional book, the boy next to me looked at my book and was trying to read a few of the words. When I finished the devotions and moved to another booklet, I offered it to him. He refused, but I still thought it was funny.

Anyways, after the 2.5 hour mass (yes, you read that correctly), which is pretty normal for mass in rural Madagascar, Omega (my driver) and I headed off to Anja community park where I was going to meet another Fulbrighter, Sydney, and a few of her friends from CVB Ranomafana, a biological research center in the rainforest north of Ambalavao. Sydney and her friends were doing a day trip to Anja and Ambalavao, and it just so happened to coincide with my own vacation.

Anja community park is a cute place. There isn’t much there. The community park is a dry forest at the foot of a few mountains that aren’t really reachable by hiking. The draw of Anja is the enormous number of ringtail lemurs they have there. When the park started in the 90s, they had about 50 lemurs in the park’s boundaries. After three decades of well-maintained park limits and funding from day visitors like us, the population of ringtail lemurs in the park has increased to nearly 750, an incredible feat.

Community parks are a lot different than the big national parks. First of all, they’re locally maintained and funded. This means that everything in the park is provided for by the local villages and the people who live there. For this reason, community parks are tiny in comparison and typically not well advertised as they don’t receive the benefit of the tourist propaganda from the ministry of tourism. In addition, all the proceeds and profits from the community parks go directly to the local villages. Unlike the national parks that send most of their profits to the questionably run national park service branch of the government, all the funds from the community parks finance the local public works, education, and other things in the village. There is an immense benefit for villages to build and maintain community parks, especially if they’re along the main roads, because it encourages the communities to preserve the land that, historically, is burned using tavy, a slash and burn type of farming. Instead, villages with community parks continue to grow their rice and raise their zebu but also keep the park area safe and secure from those who would continue the tavy practice or even from themselves. If the park is successful, the income flow from day-tourists like me and my friend provide a strong argument in defense of land preservation.

Anyways, the park was cute. We saw lots of lemurs, not that they’re interesting to me anymore. But we got to walk around and climb a few rocks and see some great views of the valley immediately surrounding Ambalavao. After our short tour of the community park, Sydney, her friends, and I got lunch in town before Omega and I darted off with Manal, my Amabalavao guide, along RN7 before reaching the turnoff point that would lead us down a terrible 2-hour drive on what could be considered a destroyed road through the Tsaranoro valley. After that miserable drive of crossing broken bridges, skidding down slippery and muddy hills, and passing herds of zebu, all of which was made only worse by the sudden rainstorm, we reached Camp Catta and the safety of a dry bungalow where I would stay for the next 4 nights.

Camp Catta is a neat place. It’s right at the foot of the Tsaranoro, which I will tell you about soon. As I said a while ago, Jean Be told me that tourists aren’t really interested in Tsaranoro because there aren’t many lemurs there. By that, he means there aren’t a lot of lemur “species” there. There are plenty of ringtail lemurs. In fact, the camp is in the forest and the lemurs happen to live in the forest. So the entire week there were lemurs walking around the camp, hanging out on the roofs of bungalows, and terribly loud shouts of lemurs communicating to one another echoing through the valley.

There is no cell reception in the Tsaranoro valley, and honestly it’s the edge of accessible Madagascar. Tsaranoro valley has a population of about 4,500 scattered throughout dozens of tiny villages of no more than 50 or 100 people. They’re all farmers and zebu herders. They grow rice and raise zebu, selling them to taxi-brousses that pass along the main highway, which requires getting their goods to the end of the road that took Omega, Manal, and I 2 terrible hours to drive along in a 4x4 car. This isn’t even the remote part of Madagascar. The valley next to us, Tanarivokely, has a population of 2,500 scattered across similar villages. The difference is that there is no road into that valley. Not even a terrible one like the one in Tsaranoro valley. In fact, the people there have to carry the rice bags on their heads and hike it 4-hours over the mountains to sell it to the people in Tsaranoro valley, who then sell it on the main highway. Moreover, Camp Catta’s bungalows don’t have electricity until 5:30pm and there’s no wifi except from 6pm-8pm during dinner. I had truly reached the part of Madagascar I’ve always wanted to stay in.

After a nice dinner at the camp’s communal building, I returned to my bungalow where I discovered an ant infestation in my bathroom. I debated whether I would tell you about this. And I decided it is a good example of the side of me that not many have the unfortunate opportunity to see. There was a tiny hole in the corner of the room from which ants were pouring out like goblins from “The Lord of the Rings”. They had swarmed my toilet for some reason and were congregating around the edges of the floor and wall. I grabbed the bug spray I had brought and sprayed the toilet seat with a single squirt of the deadly chemical. After a few moments, I confirmed that the bug pray contained enough toxins to kill, although painfully, the ants.

My dear reader, there’s something you should know about me. I’m a bit crazy. Not only am I just a bit crazy, I’m also good at war. Like I love war. War is my thing, and I’m really good at it. I’m really good at it. What proceed next was an ant genocide like I have never committed before. I am not beneath using chemical weapons of mass destruction against life forms I deem lesser than man. And you should know that in the order of physical creation, man stands on top. Likewise, I laid waste to the infestation in my bathroom by committing what can only be considered horrific war crimes of brutally dowsing the swarm of little invaders with a cloud of toxic gas. It worked. I never saw another ant in my bungalow the rest of my time there. I estimate that I massacred between 400 and 500 ants on my warpath. The downside to chemical warfare is that my bathroom was now filled with chemical fumes. Consequently, I had to leave my screenless windows open, risking the entry of mosquitos into my bungalow as to not sleep with the fumes wafting into my bedroom. Thankfully I had a very good bug net. While I was opening my bathroom windows, I found a 7inch lizard hanging out on the wall. “Hello my friend,” I said. “You can stay and eat any mosquitos you’d like.” He was gone the next morning, so I assume he left.

But that’s Camp Catta, my HQ for my three full days of activities in the Tsarnoro valley. The next morning would be the beginning of my actual adventures in the mountains.

As always, know that you are in my prayers each morning. All I ask is that you do the same for me.

May God be praised.