Misaotra Betsaka: Fantastic News from Madagascar

In my last post three weeks ago, The Power of Pencils, I told you about my spontaneous, scientific drawing classes in the rainforest, and I asked for your help. My goal was to raise $1,200 for Madaworks, enough to fund one year of high school for two Malagasy girls.

This week in Torotosy, I brought scientifically accurate coloring sheets of local lemur species to a new group of kids and teenagers. Several of the adolescent girls brought their babies with them, deftly switching off between the tasks of learning, coloring, and soothing crying infants.

The coloration of the lemurs was... less than scientifically accurate, but highly creative!

Once the lemurs were colored, we got to the good part: designing an ecosystem in the background. This boy included trees, leaves, fruits, and even an endemic Vasa Parrot, or kevaka in the local parlance.

 

Team, I have fantastic news: we've done it, and we've done better! Here's the breakdown.

Donations through PayPal: 1

Donations through Venmo: 3

Donations directly to Madaworks: 7

Total donations (for those of you who aren't into math): 11

Total amount raised: $1805!!! (Enough for three years of school!)

Amazingly, the donors include two women I've never met, but who found my blog though mutual friends and were moved to help. Thank you to everyone---friends, family, strangers---who invested in this small dream of mine, whether by donating money or simply reading along and feeling a connection to this story.

This girl's blooming background steals the show from her purple-and-red lemur family.

Our local guide, "Miandry" Ramiandrisoa, joined in happily on the coloring. The next day, he took me for a botanical tour of the area, naming every single leaf we encountered. He hopes to put his local plant knowledge to use for my researchers in the future, and I hope so, too.

This artist added a second lemur baby to his drawing. Twins of this species are uncommon but not unheard-of.

If you zoom in, you'll see the artist's caption, written in pencil and totally unprompted: "Tiako Madagaskara Hasoaviko Tanindrazako." It translates roughly to, "I love Madagascar. I want to do good for the home of my ancestors." When I read this, I laughed and told him I love Madagascar too, so he added the word "Nina" for good measure.

Diane Powers, president and founder of Madaworks, has been in touch with me many times to express her gratitude. She has extended a challenge to all of us:

"It's so wonderful that you were able to raise the first year costs to add 2 more girls. Thank you again! Having said that, we still need to raise an additional $1200 per girl to complete the three years of high school - it's $600 per year per girl." (High school is only three years in Madagascar.)

So here it is, my new goal: to raise $3,600 to fund two Malagasy girls through an entire high-school education. 

It sounds like an ambitious goal, but we're more than halfway there already. A month ago, I wouldn't have thought it possible. Now, after being shocked and inspired by the generosity of all you Natural Selections readers, I think it just might be.

The big kids (around my age) had a great time drawing habitats for lemurs colored by the younger artists.

Here's the Torotosy bunch from one of our afternoon sessions.

The next day, we moved on to a more difficult task: collecting spiders, crickets, flies and pillbugs into a wide yellow bucket and sketching them from life. It was a success, and I was delighted to see that these kids, who are terrified of non-venomous snakes, were not the least bit squeamish about picking up spiders in their bare hands (a feat I am leery of myself.)

If you are moved and able, please consider helping get these girls to school. Here's how:

PayPal: ninafinley176@gmail.com

Venmo: @Nina-Finley

Madaworks website: https://www.madaworks.org/donate/

This Christmas, I'll be on a plane from Madagascar to Indonesia. I won't be asking for any gifts. Instead, I'm suggesting that my family consider making a donation to Madaworks. If you're looking for a way to celebrate the holidays while consuming a little less, feel free to steal this idea and ask your community of gift-givers to do the same. :)

The following week, I met Josia, a young woman just a few years older than me in the village of Ambodiaviavy. She found me on the path one day, asked for my notebook through gestures, and stopped right there to sketch me the legume tree we were standing next to. "Rapitso, sivy!" she said through her beaming smile. "Tomorrow, nine!" Sure enough, there she was at camp the next morning, ready to draw. She became our camp cook, and she passionately hopes to work for Centre ValBio as a guide. Here we are holding the drawings we made for each other. She drew the ubiquitous secondary-growth plant, longoza, and a passion-fruit vine with a diagram of how to make it into medicine against sand-fleas. (A zoonotic disease, she already knows what gets me excited!) I drew her favorite bird, the blue coua.

Here's the Torotosy bunch taking a break from coloring to inhale a few bowls of vary sy tsaramaso, rice and beans. I had to get my camera out fast because those beans didn't last thirty seconds! 

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The Power of Pencils: Will You Help Me Send Two Malagasy Girls to School?

This past week, I camped in a fragment of forest near a village called Bevoahazo, and I nurtured a dream. As my colored pencils wore down to nubs, this dream grew stronger. I want to raise $1,200 and send two Malagasy girls to high-school for a year. Will you help me?

The kids of Bevoahazo show off one of our collaborative ecosystem drawings, complete with stream, frog, trees, a domestic duck, and a wild parrot labeled in English and Malagasy. 

Living in Madagascar has meant living amid poverty at a level I have never before experienced. At times, it has been a lesson in humility and gratitude. At other times, I feel shame because I don't deserve the resources I have while others lack shoes, food, medicine, and the chance to send their children to school. And there is part of me that feels paralysis, because I do not deserve this power to pity and donate. My capacity to be generous, raise money, and be thanked -- all these are just more privileges associated with my undeserved economic status. Yet, to do nothing is not a reasonable solution. As it happens, I have an undeserved amount of resources. What to do?

A close-up of our ecosystem drawing.

The answer came to me when I learned of a scrappy, young charity called Madaworks. It was founded right here in Ranomafana two years ago, in November 2015, by a Long Islander named Diane Powers. I read about Madaworks while flipping through VaoVao ValBio, the newsletter of the rainforest research station where I'm currently living. An excerpt:

"Madaworks is improving development in the Ranomafana region through: access to secondary education for girls from rural villages and economic empowerment of women. ... To date we have graduated one student (Julie Rakotozafy) from Sahavondronona. Her achieving her high school diploma inspired her to begin university studies in nursing. In the fall of 2016 Madaworks funded two girls (Avontrinaina Louise Sarah and Ravosolo Paquerette) on the path to a fully funded three-year high school education. Two more students will be selected to receive scholarships September 2017. Next year we hope to support at least 10 more girls. Centre ValBio staff provide support and logistical assistance in distribution of scholarship applications and disbursement of funds to the schools and the students."

For every $600 Madaworks receives, it can fund one year of high-school education. Unlike too many charities in Madagascar, Madaworks is accountable to their students for the long-term. They only take on as many students as they can fund for an entire secondary education. Best of all, Madaworks checks in on their scholars regularly, providing guidance and mentorship.

They've been featured by Mongabay and Women Deliver for their dual benefit to people and biodiversity through empowering girls.

There are more needs in this region that I could ever hope to meet as an individual. Everything I offer is accepted into grateful hands: extra band-aids, a bottle of ibuprofen, a sewing needle, sunscreen, pens, leftover soggy rice. The shoes off my feet would be put to use here if I could spare them. So how did I decide to support girls' education?

Two moments clarified this mission for me.

1. When I spoke with my wonderful guides, Menja and Zaka, both explained how their lives revolve around the unreachable goal of funding their children's education. I have met smart, ambitious girls who want to go to school. No matter what sacrifices their parents make, no matter how badly their village wants to support them, no matter how ingenious they may be, these girls flat-out cannot afford it. Even public school costs money here, and most rural children must drop out after fifth grade. To attend high-school, students have to live in rented housing in the city, away from their families, and pay tuition. Menja and Zaka work hard, and they earn less than $2 a day. Free public education is something we take for granted in the United States, and here it is an unthinkable luxury. It shouldn't be. 

2. On my first day at camp this week, after lunch, three children appeared at the edges of our tarp. They were hoping for leftover food. Silent, still, they made themselves nearly invisible, not wanting to intrude on our privacy. Our team cook, Mana, handed them a bowl of soggy rice and salty beans with three spoons. The food disappeared in seconds. The children hovered, intrigued, tentative. I pulled a notebook and a bundle of colored pencils from my backpack.

"Inona no biby tianao?" I asked. "Sahy?" What's your favorite animal? Draw?

Quickly they took the invitation. All three replied with the same animal: varika, lemur. So we drew lemurs. More children appeared up the slick clay path through the forest. They didn't mind that we had no more rice to offer. They circled around and accepted one piece of precious paper each, with outstretched hands and soft thank-yous. We traded vocabulary, they writing the Malagasy and me adding the English. House, trano. Butterfly, tataro. Duck, giroka. Tree, hazo. Mosquito, moka. Parrot, kevaka. Vine, vahy. We graduated from organisms to ecosystems, swapping papers back and forth, weaving together vines and lemurs and frogs and streams and trees.

More children arrived every day, and I had to get creative to find hard surfaces for everyone to draw on. An upside-down bucket for 12-year-old Fano. My bird book for 6-year-old Vonona. A plate for 11-year-old Lalao. Then I had to get creative about subjects, the usual lemurs and parrots having lost interest. I sketched my study organism, a mouse lemur, tsitsidy, and held it up as an example. A dozen kids drew their own unique tsitsidy in response.

My first mouse lemur, labeled in Malagasy, English, and Latin. A dozen more were offered by the kids. Take a look at each one below. They're all different and they're all awesome, like their artists.

One afternoon, we did an exercise in scientific illustration. I asked each kid to gather one leaf -- "ravina iray" -- and bring it back. We each drew our leaves in realistic detail, not a cartoon idea of a leaf but the thing itself. How many spines? How many veins? What shade of green? We investigated weeds, compared ferns. I learned the names of a dozen trees in Malagasy.

Lemurs, trees, and humans coexist in this paper forest just like the real one around us.

Then we moved on to animals. We gathered frogs -- sahona -- and tadpoles -- boboka -- and even a swimming spider -- hala -- from the stream and drew those. When the kids proudly showed me their drawings of the spider, I told them they did a great job -- miatsa tsara -- but challenged them to count the legs of our arachnid friend.

"Tongotra hala firy?" I asked. How many legs does the spider have?

The kids leaned in over the bucket, jostling for position. They counted. "Valo!" yelled the first confident voice. "Valo! Valo!" agreed a chorus. Eight legs. They amended their drawings.

Then we moved on to the giant pair of twig-themed stick-bugs on a nearby plant.

"Tongotra biby-hazo firy?" How many legs does the stick-bug have?

"Enina!" Six.

"Tongotra vorona firy?" How many legs does the bird have?

"Roa!" Two.

"Tongotra varika firy?" How many legs does the lemur have?

"Efatra!" Four.

Then, just for fun: "Tongotra hazo firy?" How many legs does the tree have?

A small voice answered. It came from the seven-year-old named Vitatsara, with twin dimples in her cheeks and a quiet firmness to her presence.

"Iray." One.

"Eka," I laughed. Yes. I believe she was right. I'd noticed her the day before when an older boy had ripped her colored pencil from her hand, and she'd let it happen without a fight. I'd worried that she was too passive, allowing herself to be bullied. I realized now that she was simply too wise to engage in a petty fight. Today, she sat in front of the crowd, pencil firmly in hand, eyes focused on me.

Vitatsara and a few of her organisms.

When I brought the stick-bugs down off their leaf for show-and-tell, most of the girls recoiled in terror. Vitatsara watched me carefully, noting my calm handling of the harmless insect. She slowly extended one hand, offering a platform for its six legs. For the next half-hour, she and I passed the insect back and forth. It would crawl slowly up her arm, and just as it began to tickle her neck, I'd rescue it onto my own palm. When it reached my neck, she'd rescue it from me. The older children watched in fascination, and one by one they offered their hands to the tickling sensation of a six-legged stick.

Vitatsara shows off her new friend, the biby-hazo or stick-bug.

Biby-hazo namana, stick-bug friend!

What did I accomplish these afternoons? I had fun, and I passed my hours while the lemurs slept. All evidence suggests the kids had fun, too. Maybe a few of them learned English words, as I learned a few in Malagasy. I hope I helped cultivate biophilia: a love of nature, a curiosity about ecosystems and a compassion for organisms that nourishes my own life. Above all, I was filled with a desire to help these focused, curious kids continue to attend school for as long as they wish. I want them to have paper and colored pencils to sketch spider-webs after I leave. I want them to read books about the environment, about national politics, about anything and everything they please.

The bird and mammal field-guides I had provided as tables turned into the main attraction. The kids were fascinated to look at color photos of their neighborhood wildlife.

This desire means asking for help. I want to raise $1,200 for Madaworks. That's enough to send two girls to high-school for one year each. I hope that Vitatsara and the others girls who sketched leaves and lemurs will apply. I hope, by then, Madaworks will have enough funds to support them all the way to college. Will you hope with me?

Here are three native animals I sketched for the kids as gifts: a blue coua, a red-fronted brown lemur, and a greater vasa parrot.

I considered making Go-Fund-Me page, but those things keep a percentage of the money, so I decided I will ask for donations directly. If you are inspired and able to help, please send a donation of any amount to my PayPal, my Venmo, or the Madaworks website.

PayPal: ninafinley176@gmail.com

Venmo: @Nina-Finley

Madaworks website: https://www.madaworks.org/donate/

If you send the money to me, I will donate it to Madaworks. If you send money to Madaworks, please post a comment or send me a message letting me know so I can add it to the total for my $1,200 goal. I'll post regular updates to the blog so you can watch our progress as we work together to send girls to school.

Rasôna thanks me for a sketch I drew her of her favorite animal, varika, a male red-fronted brown lemur. Help me give her more than a drawing. Help me give her the chance to keep going to school.

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Mindo, Land of Butterflies and Chocolate

Tuesday, February 18

This morning, I accomplished the real task which drew me to Quito: I submitted the paperwork to apply for my Ecuadorian visa! I woke up before sunrise and hired a taxi to the Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Movilidad Humana. I was so anxious to be on time that I arrived almost an hour early. It was like magic when Gaby, the assistant to the lawyer with whom I have been e-mailing for months, showed up with my paperwork. I wanted to give her a bear hug! The transaction was uneventful, and Gaby advised me to meet her at the same place on Friday afternoon. Smoother sailing than expected. Now I was free from Quito for two days. The question was, what to do?

First off, a huge $2.00 lunch of yapingacho and a $0.50 coconut smoothie with my British friends at the Mercado Central. Then, soccer and frisbee in the park. I was happy, tired, grassy, and soaking wet by the time I returned to the hostel that evening. It was an afternoon of happy freedom. With that mindset, I decided how I will spend tomorrow. I’m hopping a bus to Mindo, the bird-watcher’s heaven in the cloud forest!

The more I research Mindo, the more giddy I become. There’s even a nine-day luxury bird tour put on my a Mindo birding company. Not in my time-frame or budget now, but it’s something to dream about for the future. Maybe I can take my mom on that tour for her 60^th birthday!

For tonight, I will contain my thoughts to the next two days I plan to spend in the steamy, rainy, high-altitude forest of Mindo. I’m all packed and paid up. The only thing left to do it read my Birds of Ecuador book and dream of toucans, motmots, flycatchers and trogons. Goodnight!

Wednesday, February 19

Welcome to Mindo, land of butterflies and chocolate! And, of course, birds. I just learned that Mindo is the third best birding hot-spot in South America. How lucky am I?

I took the 9:00am bus from Quito’s northern bus station to Mindo for a whopping $2.00. The bus system charges roughly a dollar an hour. If only Seattle’s public transit was that cheap! When I got off the bus on a sleepy dirt road, I noticed two other foreigners putting on their backpacks and looking around uncertainly.

“What hostel are you looking for?” asked a middle-aged woman with thick brown bangs.

“Hostal Cecilia?” I replied, having read good reviews of it last night.

“That’s where I’m going!” both of the other travelers said at once. I guess it’s a good place!

We all walked a few blocks through the misty fog to a clean, simple, cheap hostel on the river. The second traveler, a young Dutch guy named Daan, and I headed up the ladder to the open-air dormitory. As we unpacked, Daan asked what I had planned. “I think I’ll join you on everything you do for the next couple days,” he proclaimed. It’s the luck of the backpacker – you meet perfect travel companions everywhere you go.

So I wrote up a list of all the sites I hoped to explore, and we set off immediately to La Mariposeria, the butterfly house. The walk took longer than expected, especially because we would come across one sign that said “1 km” and then a while later, the next sign would say “2.7 km.” We were never sure if the distances were listed to the actual destination, or just until the next sign.

The trek was well worth it, because the butterflies were spectacular. I tried to match my photos with the informational signs around the butterfly house, but they weren't all easy to tell. So here are my pictures and possible names for the butterflies in them!

Heliconius cydno 

Metona grandiosa 

Siproeta epaphus

Heliconius ismenius 

Morpho elenor 

The same species with its wings closed!

Papilio something... amazing placement!

Heliconius erato 

Heliconius sara 

Heliconius athis 

Heliconius melpomene

I didn't catch the name of the gorgeous orange insect.

My favorite parts were allowing the giant brown Caligo memnon butterflies to lap up rotten banana while standing on my finger and examining the diverse chrysalis collection.

You just had to prompt them a little bit and they hopped right on.

Those stripey gel eyes...

The chrysalises tend to be camouflaged based on where that species lays its eggs. These look like flower buds.

I couldn't find any chrysalises within this display of dried leaves.

Butterflies that lay their eggs near water often have metallic pupae like these.

It's hard to imagine this golden jewel blending in anywhere!

I'm not sure what these pupae are trying to mimic.

Outside the Mariposaria, a couple hummingbird feeders attracted the glittering, hovering, buzzing birds. I could have sat and watched the white-necked jacobins, green-crowned woodnypmphs, and white-whiskered hermits all day, but our 4:00pm appointment for the Mindo Chocolate Factory tour was approaching.

A green-crowned woodnymph.

We hurried back through a torrential rainstorm to the small, artisan chocolate factory in the forest.

The tour began with a walk through the factory's garden, where many of the additives are grown.

I never knew what ginger looked like in the ground!

CACAO!!!! (Any Portlandia fans out there?)

Lemongrass after a haircut -- I mean harvest.

Drying racks of cacao beans.

Add caption

A fermenting cacao bean is bright purple inside! Purple chocolate, anyone?

The low-tech blower machine which separates the nib from the husk.

Overall, the tour was interesting, but I was really just looking forward to samples. We each got a little cup of bitter chocolate sauce and added sugar, ginger, sour honey "barbecue" sauce, and other flavorings to our own taste. It was delicious, but definitely not enough! Daan and I had to buy some chocolate bars to try as well. It was interesting to compare this factory to Theo, the chocolate factory in my neighborhood of Seattle. A lot of the concepts were the same -- pure dark unadulterated chocolate, fair-trade ingredients, handmade products, crazy new flavor combinations -- but the main difference was scale. Theo is turning into a national favorite, whereas I don't see Mindo Chocolate Factory venturing out of the clouds anytime soon.

We were supposed to attend a third tourist event tonight, the Frog Concert night walk, but the heavy drizzle and our tired bodies prompted us to spend the night in.

My first night under the princess-canopy of a mosquito net.

My awesome spontaneous traveling companion, Daan the Dutchman.

Before bed, I found myself in pajamas at 8:00pm with nothing to do. I hadn’t brought my computer or any novels to read. Sometimes I love that uncertainty of what to do with my time, a feeling that reminds me of childhood days before homework and internship applications and Facebook. It forces you to be creative.

I pulled out my bird book, my journal, and my red plastic case of colored pencils. I started sketching Mindo’s myriad hummingbird species in hopes that I might learn to identify a few.

I only got through six before the consistent dripping of rain on the aluminum roof put me to sleep.

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