Abingdonian 2018

73 www.abingdon.org.uk Summer Term lemur, though we did spot the Coquerel’s Sifaka, the Brown Lemur, the Mouse Lemur and the Fat Tailed Dwarf Lemur. Half way through that week, we went on a hike, wading through rivers to a satellite campsite called Matsedroy. Here we learnt how to catch frogs with our bare hands (Louis Heard and Ben Wilson being by far the best at this), locate tiny scorpions using ultra violet light torches. Shockingly, Mrs McRae’s group were stalked by an alligator! We also visited a local school, playing a very aggressive game of football and dancing with the children. As white people aren’t common in the rural villages, often people would stare at us and the children would scream ‘vasar vasar’, meaning ‘white people, white people’! Another new experience for everyone was the food of the Madagascan jungle. Long gone were the steaks and meats of the capital city. Here every meal involved rice and beans, much to some people’s dislike, meaning lots of food being purchased from the kiosks to snack on, and heavy use of condiments to make the rice and beans seem more appealing. In the second half of the trip, joined by the girls from Plymouth Grammar, we drove up north towards Nosy Be. The focus now was marine conservation. Madagascar has some of the most undisturbed coral reefs in the world. Here many of us gained our PADI open water diving qualifications, diving up to 18 metres in depth and seeing huge and colourful fish, manta rays, 1.5 metre long turtles, jellyfish, sea urchins, lionfish and eels. Once we had gained our diving qualifications, we assisted the scientists by carrying out underwater surveys, such as measuring coral bleaching. To do this we had to employ all the skills we learnt in the lectures, and by doing so, many of us gained further PADI Marine Eco Surveyor Qualifications. After lectures and dives we relaxed in the sea, ate zebu steak and calamari from local restaurants, spent thousands of Ariary thanks to very persistent street vendors and learnt many different card games to pass the time. We were all very sad to leave the diving site and start our three day drive back to the airport. Once back in the capital city, where we were greeted by the locals, we bought weird snacks and other food from the street vendors to keep us going, (I even ate two chicken heads, much to the disgust of everyone else in my van). I am truly happy that I went on this trip and I cannot wait to travel to another exotic place. Colm Lambert, 6JFB