Fort Dauphin

I'm now in Fort Dauphin, a town of 60,000. This town might have some of the most beautiful landscapes I've even seen. Jagged mountains meet pristine beaches, and the coastline boasts waves that would meet the standards of any professional surfer. while Fort Dauphin is quite aesthetically complex, life here is very simple and very poor. My group of 8 volunteers consists of 2 Germans, 2 British people, 1 Canadian, and 2 Americans, almost  all in their early twenties. There are 4 men and 4 women. We have a British group leader and a few Malagasy guides who are awesome guys. The group gets along great, and we are becoming close. Our living conditions are basic. We sleep in tents, go to bed at 9 pm, wake up at 5 am--which is actually very nice--have breakfast, and get on with the day. There is no warm water, but there is electricity and there are western-style toilets. This will change when we are in the bush, where living conditions become even more basic--a couple of years ago Azafady did work in an area where the European and American volunteers were the first "vazahy," or foreigners, that some of the indigenous Malagasies had ever seen. But for the next few weeks we will be in the same campsite. Breakfast is bread and butter, lunch is rice and either beans or vegetables, and dinner is rice and either beans or meat. Although the selection is limited, I do eat a lot, so I've managed to avoid becoming overwhelmingly hungry so far. Today we took a trip to the national park and saw some lemurs. They are incredible creatures! Then we went for a swim in the ocean when we got back to town. We've also gotten a tour of Fort Dauphin, had a party for the opening of the new Azafady office, and been briefed on our upcoming project work. Also today I joined in on a game of basketball with some locals, which was a lot of fun. I was a good foot and a half taller than everyone else, and I could tell from their laughter that they were thoroughly entertained. But I think I also made them reconsider the age-old saying "White men can't jump."