In which I reiterate the fact that I'm a graceless bobo

Once again, I'm making a post to cover several days' worth of stuff.  Everyone is out on a night hike right now (except me - you'll read why in a moment) so I have a better shot at getting a post up.  The power went out in the middle of my trying to post this - second time it's gone out this evening - so this is probably a futile effort, but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.  Sorry about irregular spacing, don't know why it's doing that nor how to fix it.

9/27/13

Well, I clearly jinxed myself with my previous post about how I broke my nose falling down stairs at home, as I have now had an incident on the stairs here, too.  My back spasmed when I was going down the stairs and I nearly fell because of it.  I saved it, but only by landing on my foot in a weird way, leading to a disturbing “snap” sound and a lot of pain.  It swelled and bruised right away, but I gave it a day wrapped up to see if that would help it.  The swelling went down, but the bruising didn’t, and it was getting progressively more painful, so today I made the journey to Fianarantosa to get an x-ray.  It’s about a 2 hour trip, so I missed out on the entire day of lecture and hikes.

The good news: my foot is not badly broken.

The bad news: I tore a ligament off the bone and am in a plaster cast (they don't have fiberglass in Madagascar) and on crutches until we go on our cross country trip in a few weeks.  This means I can’t go on any of the hikes.  I actually wasn’t sure if this meant that I would be going home or not, and we’ll have to see how my back tolerates my being on crutches and not walking normally – it may be beyond what I’m physically capable of at this point, in which case, I’ll have to really think about heading back to New York.  But if I can manage to take it easy for the next 2 weeks, I might be okay for the rest of the trip.  Unfortunately, the majority of our remaining hikes (and camping trips) are during these 2 weeks, so I’m not sure what I will be doing.

Now, the difference between hospitals in America and hospitals in Madagascar:

Both hospitals have a good long wait and a lot of people.  In the US, generally treatment can be provided immediately.  Not so in Madagascar – first we had to walk to a different building for x-ray (not that unusual), but then after that, we had to buy the materials for my cast before it could be put on.  Additionally, they only had one crutch, so that is all I am using, with the result that I am walking on the cast (which hasn’t dried even after about 5 hours – it’s really humid down here).  Not the most comfortable situation.  These two weeks can’t be over soon enough!!

9/30/13

There is nothing quite so sobering as seeing tavy, or slash and burn agriculture, when you’re within a national park.  Tavy is the main cause of habitat loss in Madagascar, in fact, it is responsible for the barren hills that make up the landscape on the drive from Tana to Ranomafana (as well as across much of the country).  A few nights ago, a bunch of us were on our way over to the dining hall for dinner when we saw a fire burning on the hillside across the road.  There was a huge amount of smoke and the glow from the fire immediately captured everyone’s attention.  Although that side of the road is not part of the national park, it is immediately across from it, and to see tavy occurring so close to the margins of the forest (as well as that close to our place of dwelling) was both a bit alarming and very saddening.  I think all of us just stood silently and watched for a significant time.  I was there for probably 20 minutes watching, and I don’t know how to describe the emotion that was washing over me.  It was a numbness, knowing that this destruction is occurring and not knowing how to prevent it from happening without taking measures that would be detrimental to the people who live here.

Madagascar has one of the highest per-capita rice consumption rates in the world, and slash & burn agriculture is done so that people can grow rice to feed their families.  Many people in Madagascar are subsistence farmers – there are very few 9-to-5 jobs here – and what they are able to grow is the vast majority of what they are able to feed their families.  So, again, we come back to the question of how to protect the forest and the amazing biodiversity in this entire country without worsening the economic situation and without making [more] people starve.  There is a lot about this country that makes an outsider like me feel helpless, like I’m just a bystander watching this amazing place being quickly destroyed and I don’t have the tools to make it stop.  I’m not sure that this falls under culture shock or if it is more environmental (or both).  There is so much about Madagascar that is completely heartbreaking to see.  The rainforest cannot regrow once the land has been burned, so all of the land that has already succumbed to tavy will never have primary forest there again.  More than 90% of Madagascar’s primary forest is gone.  Humans have only been on this island for about 2,000 years.  That’s an enormous amount of destruction in a very short period of time…

On a more personal note, I don’t know at this point whether I will be finishing this trip or if I will be sent home.  My foot is still bothering me, despite being in the cast, and being on one crutch/walking strangely is just killing my back.  I had pain in my back before, but now I’ve returned to having radiating pins-and-needles and pain going down my legs, which suggests that the disc fragments are pressing on the spinal cord.  This is a situation that I need to take seriously and I’m really considering my options.  I’m going to give myself until Thursday or Friday in the hope that my back will settle down, but if it doesn’t have a fairly dramatic recovery, I need to strongly consider going home.  I’m risking permanent nerve damage if I screw around with a ruptured disc, and I don’t want to end up disabled because I was too focused on the short-term and stayed down here when I shouldn’t have.  I’m really hoping that I am okay and can stay for the remaining 7 weeks of the trip…