Trials and tribulations

Leaving Madagascar was not as straight forward as I thought it would be! I left the hotel in what should have been plenty of time so that I could check in for my flight, pass through immigration and security and then have time to relax before boarding. The hour long road trip to the airport was fine but when I got to the check-in counter the queue was already really long. I joined the queue and for the next hour and a half inched my way towards to front behind one of the most irritating queuers ever! This guy didn't always move when the queue did and going forward in a straight line seemed to be a bit challenging. Eventually I got to the counter and handed over my suitcase in return for a boarding pass. Theoretically the queuing should have been done but no, that was not to be. Next stop was the immigration line. Here I made the mistake of choosing the slowest line. I should have moved lines but stupidly didn't. The official handing my lot was processing only one person for the four being done by the official next to him. So another 45 minutes wasted there. Next stop, the security check - the first of three! So each person was stopped and asked if they had any of the prohibited items in their carry-on luggage, then it was time to put the luggage through the x-ray. I even had to take my watch off, first time ever! Once the bags and the people were through the x-ray process there was another table with security officials who did a manual search through the bags. So another 45 minutes. By this time it was the scheduled boarding time. I walked through the departures hall to see what was going on and found that nothing was happening. So we all hung about waiting. After half an hour we were allowed through the boarding gate to go to the plane. Half way to the plane, on the tarmac, we were stopped for the third security check, another manual search through our bags. I have no idea why this search was done because it was pretty useless. Once we were on the plane we were told that the reason for our delay was because the airport could not handle the passengers from so many planes departing at the same time (TWO!). Finally though we were on our way.

The flight to Mauritius was okay. There was some interesting turbulence off the coast of Madagascar but once we were though that it was all fine. We landed in Mauritius in a heavy downpour but the landing was smooth. I managed to get off the plane very quickly and got though immigration easily without having to queue at all. After collecting my suitcase I made my way through Customs which was a brief questioning about if I was carrying alcohol, tobacco or prescription drugs. My transfer was waiting for me so we could get on the way to my guest lodge. The driver was really interesting. He is in the process of becoming a certified dive instructor so that he can get out of the taxi business and see the world. It made the journey across the island seem to be a bit shorter.

I selected a small guest lodge to stay at in the village of Albion. I have stayed here previously so I knew when I did the booking that it was very comfortable, reasonably priced and within walking distance of the offices were I was to work. When I arrived at Ti-Cabanon, the receptionist was waiting for me. I checked in and she took me to my room telling me that they had made me a sandwich and left me a small dessert in the fridge, and this was at no extra cost. I settled down quickly because it was by then quite late and I needed to get some rest.

 Very comfortable accommodation

After Antananarivo where the only sounds I woke up to were traffic and people, it was wonderful to wake up to birdsong. I got up and went for my first road run in ages. The 5 km route I chose was fairly flat and passed besides the mangroves, the ocean and then some lovely houses. At first I was a bit nervous about all the dogs wandering around on the road but I soon realised that they had their own agendas and were not interested in me at all. When I got back to the guest lodge I could finally appreciate the place in daylight.

The view from my room

So onto work! I very nearly cancelled this workshop before I even got here because there was a lack of response from the people involved. The contact I was given refused to make any decisions and passed me on to the boss who never responded to any of my emails. Eventually I resorted to phoning the man and discovered that I was expected to make all the decisions for them. So I determined where the workshop would be held and crossed my fingers that everything would be okay. Well when I arrived at this man's office he said hello and then launched into accusing me of publishing that Mauritius had a fishery for turtles and how dare I put out these incorrect facts. I was gobsmacked to say the least! I showed him the report from my project on the fisheries of Mauritius and showed him that turtles were not mentioned at all. I asked him if he had maybe confused me with someone else and he backed down about it and conceded that yes it possibly was not me. The next day quite irrationally he brought this up again, along with the fact that he didn't like South Africa at all and that people in Durban do not know how to make curry! Very strange man! He also had not oganised anything for the workshop execpt for two people for the first day's work. He never even mentioned to the two other department heads that I would be spending some time with their staff so they were also caught on the back foot. Thankfully for me there is a very organised young woman from the statistics department who stepped in and organised everything at the last minute. She went out of her way to make sure the work was completed and completed well. So after three interesting days, the work was completed. I went to say goodbye to the supposed local coordinator and politely thank him even though he did nothing and all I got was a grunt in response.

It was so good to relax at the pool with a beer after the work day

I am now looking forward to heading home for two days before moving on to Maputo, Mozambique - my last destination for this work.