The Great Escape!: October 2013

They say that change is as good as a holiday, but our holiday in SA and moms holiday here brought a lot of change to life on Nosy Be.
Not only have the roads on the island been repaired, meaning no more potholes and cars slamming on breaks or swerving maniacally to avoid them, but we even had hot water in our shower for 3 weeks, and Serge ran a line and put a tap in for the well water, so no more hauling buckets out the well, we merely turned a tap. Its getting way too advanced here for us!

With the arrival of Allen and Casey, our little village was filling up, and a day later Lin and Malcolm arrived. The only Capetonions, but we welcomed them into the fold! Young David had met Lin in the supermarket and her and Malcolm are friends who do yacht delivieries, and had just come off a yacht that had come from Maritius via the Seychelles. Tough, I know. So they moved in and filled the final of the four bungalows we have here. Its been absolutely great! We all cook and eat together, the boys drink plenty of beers together, we pick up things from the markets for each other ..... Its just been a totally different place with a completely different vibe.

The boys have also done plenty spear fishing, so the little Kitching will be a genius of course with all those Omega-3s! Yay! David will write a dedicated blog to the 3 weeks of spearing they had the pleasure of!

Whats been great with knowing more people and having a group is that we have explored more too. We did a trip with Edith, Lin, young David and I around the island in an afternoon, and we stopped off at the Sacred tree. This tree has over 1 hectare of underground roots and the tree has cable stay roots from the ground up, so its just huge. Before we went in we were dressed up in local traditional dress as a sign of respect, so I got to learn how to tie the malagash saraong. We also had to enter and leave with our right foot first.

It was interestng hearing the story of the Sakalava people - that they wanted a sacred place and so named this tree the sacred tree (its not even indiginous but comes from India!!!). People come and pray here, and they believe that their spirits come to 'work' here once someone has passed away. But the spirits only work during the day, and only for four days a week - Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday (still, its more than when the person was alive!!!). They aren't there on a Tuesday, Thursday or Sunday, so make sure you don't take your wishes and prayers on those days. If you pray for something, like some good materials for a new house, and you get them, you have to bring a gift, maybe some food or a beer for the spirits. If its something big you get like a car or a whole house, then you have to bring a Zebu that you have sacraficed for this celebration, well you just bring its skull and some blood to leave for the spirits in thanks.
It was rather amusing to get this deeper understanding of the mentality of the poeple here - kind of makes a lot of things make sense!!!

They also don't frown upon extra marital relationships. Children born from the married parents are the higher up on the food chain so to speak, but all others born to non married women or not from a husband and wife, are still considered to be the children of God and are not shunned from society, as in most cultures. Also makes a lot of things make more sense!

The tree has red and white 'ribbons' wrapped around it symbolising the two tribes, the red and the white blood of the Royals .... this bit all got a bit confusing and political so we tried not to pay too much attention to it!!

So with time tick tocking on, we have been frantically trying to sell the boat and quad, to no avail as yet. We have sanded the boat down and painted it again, so it now sparkles and looks fantastic! It was hot work, with the temps ever increasing, we certainly felt it in the hot sun!

We've also been trying to do some shopping - finally! We want to bring things back to fill our new home with and keep to our memories of our awesome time here in Mada alive!

I'm trying to sort the container out, but as with things here, change is the only constant - dates of departure change, fees change blah blah! I'd forgotten how mundane admin and dealing with other people could get! But hopefully it will be done and dusted this week so we can load it and wish it on its way as we leave on the 19th of October.

We decided that we didn't want to miss our 18 week scan, and our friends had told us that the Italian hospital has pretty good equipment and you can go for free, just make sure you have an appointment, and they had the golden ticket of the name and number of the Head Nurse there, Yasmine - wohoo!

So I called and made an appointment and off we went. We arrived and luckily she was waiting for us. In the doorway was a little registration table where I had my blood pressure taken and was weighed. It was here that I started to doubt the equipment as their scale read 2kg's lighter than mine! And mine is rubbish! But it was clean and the staff friendly, as Yasmine linked her arm thorugh mine and lead us to the ultra sound room. The sonographer was there and expecting us - which was a good sign. I'm at the stage where I have one skirt (thats covered in paint from painting the boat) and my shorts and trousers don't do up, so I was in a dress for the scan, so whip it up over my belly and they get to work. Granted they could see what was going on and we saw a double arm wave from baby Kitching which was cool, the rest was pretty grainy and blurry, but we got the reassurance that everything is good - and that we're having a GIRL!

Once the sonographer was done, Yasmine who is standing at the foot of the bed, turns and leans with her arms onto my legs and starts having a fat chat about nothing much - like we've been best friends for years! It was hilarious, David and I are just looking at each other trying not to giggle as I sit there in my pants, dress up to my chest trying to understand what exactly we're chatting about! It ended with her saying I should bring her a souvenier sometime, and that she'll ring us to get together next Sunday .... erm... ok then! So we gave her a little tip for the freebie scan and were on our way!

We had heard that the annual Nosy Be regatta was on one Saturday, so the community jumped on scooters and quad and headed own to La Marina in Crater Bay. We arrived to find we had pretty much ... mised the boat! We found Edith walking up the road on our way there and she said it was all over, but it was Lukes birthday (he only remembered that morning) and the boys were already a few beers down, so Edith jumped on the quad with us and returned to La Marina. The boys turned up with their own beers plus a bottle of rum. We ordered a bunch of soft drinks and ice and proceeded to drink our own booze - well soft drinks for me! No one blinked or commented, brilliant. What the boys didn't realise at the time was that David had picked up the 52 proof bottle of rum, not the 40 proof, so the party ramped up rather quickly but fizzled out just as quick as they drank the whole bottle between 3 in less than an hour and once home the boys passed out hahahaha! The girls were stoked as it meant an early night without too much drunken madness! Oh how having a baby changes one!

Another couple have also joined the community, a young French couple Nathalie and Khoen. They've only ben married for 3 months and Nathalie was keen to pick up a teaching post somewhere different. So Serge put them in the big house while the bungalows were full, but now they've moved into one of the bungalows. Khoen has picked up some temporary work cooking in a Gargote owned by one of the teachers from Nathalie's school and her Malagash Rasta husband. So on Sunday we headed over to Madirokely, and we sat in this gorgeous, simple restaurant on the beach and had lunch cooked by Khoen. We knew he was a good cook as him and Nathalie had already had all 8 of us over for dinner and had put on a spectacular meal with home made samoosas - chicken and fruit, sushi, cantonese style rice and delicious chicken and veg kebabs! All cooked on one gas ring!

On the Sunday there was frog on the menu! We didn't go for it but Nathalie did and we tried it - seriously, it tastes just like chicken and was pretty good!
The bonus to the day was that Serge drove us there and back, so it was a super lazy Sunday!

We've had a couple of evenings out this week with us and Lin. Its such a rareity that we felt pretty strange being out at night! The first was our young friend Pierrot invited us to watch his dance performance at Nosy Lodge. He had organised to put on a mini Michael Jackson dance show for the hotel guests. Eric, the owner has been the one buying all the fish the boys have caught, and he is smoking it to perfection - truly delicious. Anyway, he's not only bought the fish but also given us some of the smoked fish to try. So David took him over a jar of his home made sweet chilly sauce. Its divine but pretty HOT. You can only get birds eye and scotch bonnet chillies here!
So when we arrived for Pierrots dance spectacular, Eric said he had something for us to try - he is a chef by training - but for all his guests that evening he was serving a little shot glass of a creamy fish he bought from us and spinach with a drop of Davids magic sauce! Needless to say it was amazing, and Eric also gave us complementary mocktails! Pierrot was great - he has such potential this kid - he is relentless at trying to be something and make a good life for himself through acting, not asking. Its truly not the Malagash culture to be like that and he is a gem! It was very sweet watching the guests make a big deal of him during and after his performance!

Our next night out was with Ross, his colleague Sarah and some clients of theirs who have just arrived. Ross is showing Sarah the ropes here in Madagascar, so this time David and I were out numbered with all the Capetonions with just us being from Durbs! We had sunset drinks at La Residence and then went to a local restaurant, Papa Babeto, in Ambataloaka - I had calamari which was absolutely delicious! After dinner the others all went for another drink, but Lin and I hopped on the quad and headed home, David would come later on Lins scooter - so another nice thing with having new friends in our community!

The next morning at 9 we all went snorkelling - no wet suits this time! Its finally warmed up again - but also my wet suit doesn't fit over my bump anymore, so thats worked out well!

The last 3 Saturdays saw the community gradually getting smaller, the first leavers were Allen and Malcolm, then it was Luke and Casey and young David, and lastly this morning was Lin. We've done nice farewell dinners with everyone and for Lin's, we did a vegetarian extravaganza! It was pretty cool and we did pretty well with lots of different tasty treats - Khoen and Nathalie did veggie sushi, David made a rice noodle salad with mango, red onions and peanuts, I made bean and potatoe cakes with a salsa and Lin made her now famous lentil salad!

It is strange though, as now that we don't have any projects besides to pack and go, which we can't start yet, we kind of wake up each morning and ask, hey brain, what we gonna do today? The days seem to stretch out in front of us like they never did before. I guess a part of us keeps saying - make the most of it, with baby on the way, we will never know peace and boredom again! And its not such a bad place to be bored - sunshine, sea and simplicity.

To releive some of our boredom, we went with Lin for a last snorkel yesterday afternoon. As is with every afternoon, the wind was up and boy was it rough! More like adventure snorkeling and not the calm serene conditions you'd expect. Made it a bit more of a challenge and fun at least!

So now, with just two weeks to go, its all about admin and chores and ticking things off the list - selling the quad and boat being first priorities, get the container sorted, pack and go! We've sorted Injas travel back, so will miss him as he will be a month behind us ... but at least it means he's coming home too!

I guess the last and final Nosy Be adventure blog will be written from our next destination, Kloof, South Africa!

Like and Malcolm enjoying the island

The two Davids off to sell some fish

Our village! Plus Loic who'd come to join for the festivities

The location of the sacred tree

In my traditional dress for the sacred tree

Edith, me, David, Lin and some other tourists

Walking through the cable stay root system of the tree

Where we had the explanation given to us

The cute little Lemurs there

Eating chocolate biscuits David gave them!

The original journey by pirogue by the Indonesians who first settled here. The journey was done again by some westerners a few years ago in a similar boat. It took more than 90 days - hectic!