Morning in the Lemur Park

School doesn’t begin until January. Needless to say, my colleagues and I have had a lot of time to explore Tana and become assimilated into the daily life of this very bustling and noisy city. Madagascar is a big place, about the same landmass as the state of Texas. But we’re not that comfortable traveling very far just yet. Our last excursion to Andasibe took us four-and-a-half hours east of the country’s capital. Even then, we only made it two-thirds of the way to the coastline. Mind you, the east coast is closer to Tana than the west coast. That should put some perspective in how big the island actually is and how central I am.

We will have a lot of time to travel in July and August when school is over and the weather is cooler. Because Madagascar lies in the southern hemisphere, our seasons are flipped, and there are only two seasons, wet and dry. Or I call them, hot dry summer and hotter wet summer. It is currently the rainy summer season. This means that there are occasional thunderstorms that batter away at Tana in the afternoons. Soon, cyclone season (from January to March) will sweep across the island. The other summer begins in April/May and goes all the way until October. The temperature will drop, there will be significantly less rain, and this happy Mainer will not feel like he’s sweating every inch of his skin off. That’s when we plan to travel to farther parts of the country where a guide and interpreter are necessary. French only gets us so far in Tana and is completely useless with the rural folk outside the major cities.

In the meantime, we’ve been using this free time more or less wisely. We’ve been practicing Malagasy, the local language, which is extremely difficult. I will write more about it in a later blog, like I will with every topic I touch upon, but suffice to say that since Malagasy is an Austronesian language and not at all related to the Indo-European languages I’m used to, it has been a challenge in trying to decipher tone, stressed syllables, passive tense, word order, and a variety of other language features. We’ve also been trying to visit as many local sites as we can that are around Tana, day trips really. One of our first stops was the Lemur Park about an hour west of the capital.

The lemur park is a privately owned nature reserve. It’s rather small. It would only take you about 25-30min to walk the entire thing if you didn’t stop. We spent well over an hour and a half with our guide. The park is open, which means the lemurs who live there can technically leave at any time. There are no cages or enclosures. The lemurs do what they want, when they want, how they want. Most of the lemur residents are rescued lemurs from hotels and private owners who kept them as pets, something which is extremely illegal. The lemurs are safe in the lemur park and regularly mate, meaning that lemur park can exchange lemurs with other reserves to avoid inbreeding or release them back into the wild in a process of increasing the lemur population across the island.

The park is very beautiful. Like I said, it’s not large. But the flowers, trees, bamboo, and other natural features are genuine, well-maintained, and elegantly laid out in a pattern that makes the place feel bigger than it actually is. There are seven species of lemurs that live in the park. And as the photos below will demonstrate, we sure got our 40,000 ariary ($12-ish) worth of lemurs.

All I will say about lemurs is that they are very funny animals. They are cute, for sure, but they’re also little crackheads. They have these eyes that just look at you like, “What?! You want something pal?? You think you’re so special huh?” It’s very entertaining.

The overall goal of the park is to promote environmental awareness and conservation, something desperately needed in Madagascar where tavy, slash and burn agricultural practices, of which, again, I know, I will share later in another blog, scar the landscape in more rural and desperate parts of the Red Island. That’s not to say that Tana doesn’t have its own environmental issues. It certainly does. Most of the time I wear a mask around the city not necessarily because of covid, but because the air pollution and water pollution are extremely potent. It’s the primary reason why I will not be able to run here and why I invested in a stationary bike for my apartment.

The lemur park is a spark of hope, a droplet of gratitude in a society that does not really value the natural gifts bestowed upon the island. Most people in Tana couldn’t care less about the environment. They’re just trying to live another day. Pollution at this point is simply another aspect of life for them, and the garbage stacked up high on the side of the streets, well… for some people that’s where they find their next meal, or worse, their only meal.

It makes me think of an ongoing debate in development economics. That is, environmentalism, particularly greenhouse gas emissions, is a strictly First World problem. For the rest of the world, the majority of humanity, I might add, surviving one more day is the only goal. Whether they are releasing emissions into the atmosphere is inconsequential in their eyes. And to make matters worse, all developed nations went through a period of mass-industrialization and pollution before they could engineer more eco-friendly technologies to produce our basic necessities. Many developing nations are just following the path we laid out for them. Or at least trying their darn best.

We are learning in the United States how to use our resources to their maximum potential. It’s not that way here. Here, survival takes priority over the environment. There’s no time or room to experiment with environmentally friendly ways of doing things. They find something that works, more or less, and stick to it because it ensures, in the short term at least, survival.

And so the question becomes, if economic development (in a traditional sense, which raises the standards of living) and environmental policies (which can actually be effective) are mutually exclusive options, which takes priority? Or in other words, which is more important, cutting emissions or allowing people to survive another day? To call them ignorant or that they simply don’t know any better is a combination of condescension but also truth. Condescension because we are prideful and arrogant to their situation thinking that we have it all figured out. The truth because they refuse to change, which can be attributed to the way Westerners have treated them for a long time. It appears that sin is still at the root of mankind’s problems.

I haven’t really figured the question out yet. And I keep praying that there is a solution that will fulfill both pressing needs, the planet’s and people’s. More importantly, I pray that when this solution is discovered, that people will put aside their tribal tendencies and fully invest in it.

There is an order to creation. And in the physical world, mankind sits on top. It means that God gave us this world to use, to tend, to cultivate, and to make flourish. It means that the natural world is subordinate to our will. Yet at the same time, it is not ours entirely. It is a gift, something which was prepared for us yet to which we do not fully have the rights, especially not to abuse. Like all things with order, there is a way of maintaining that order, one that fulfills the needs of not only the environment around us which gives us life, but also the needs of the creatures in that order, which includes mankind.

It takes a lot of power to take care of the whole world and all the things that live in it. Life has a cycle, a beginning and an end, both of which reside in God alone, Alpha and Omega. And just like Uncle Ben said, “Remember Peter, with great power comes great responsibility.” Mankind was given great power over the natural world and a corresponding responsibility to take care of it. I applaud the Lemur Park for making its contribution to caring for the God’s creation and for promoting ways to satisfy the needs of both Madagascar and its people.

Well anyways, lemurs are funny little creatures. I hope you enjoy our photos, all of which are credited to Megan and Basil who are excellent photographers. I’m spoiled because I don’t take photos regularly and I greedily reap the benefit of their talents. 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.