lundi 23 mai 2016

My Experience

This trip of volunteering really has opened my mind, It made me realise of how lucky I was in Europe, because some people in Madagascar do not have the same chances that we have in the occident countries. Doing actions that matters is very important for me, being in a solidarity and tolerance relationship with the local peoples is a really "healthy" thing. During this trip, I really crossed cultures, from Europe to Africa, and I really enjoyed more than when I went sightseeing in any country overseas. I also made a lot of new friends mostly issues from the volunteering program but not only, also from the local people, even tourists. At the moment as I set foot on Madagascar's ground, I started to feel concerned about people and pollution and the animal's extinction and right after I got involved in it.
I think this experience showed me that there is really a big problem with the environement. The government here prefere to build more hotel so more tourist can come so they have more money than protecting the fauna and flora of the island, almost every species here are in danger of extinction.
In the beginning, I just wanted to do this trip to discover the world, differents cultures and environment, but now that I saw what I saw, poverty, animal killing, pollution, I think I want to get involved even more, because I really want things to change, so I'm planninig to return to Madagascar or another country next year.

My Itirenary


First, I went to The National Park of Masoala, a huge rainforest in the middel of Madagascar, this forest began to be cut by the national government because they want to make hotels and an aquatic park. So I joined a group of volunteers and we fought against the trees, we made rounds around the trees who were attacked to prevent machines from cutting the trees, somes of us even climbed to the top of some trees. I passed two nights here, sleeping in a tent.
Then, I went to Mahajanga, this is of of the biggest cities in Madagascar, very toursistic but also very polluted. with the same group of volunteers, we cleaned up the beaches, there was soo much plastics bags, food, there was even water coming from the toilets and the sewer that flowed into the sea. So we cleaned everything and we started to ask the town hall to fix this water problem. But the dirty water wasn't the only problem, the biggest problem was the killing of turtles for theire shell and eggs,local people were killing them and selling their egg and shell to the tourist for money. So during 1 week, every night someone was keeping an eye on the beach and the turtles.

The last place I went is Marovoay, a little village lost in the moutains of Madagascar, it is very poor and the childrens there are mostly illiterate, with the money of the gifts, they could build a school but sadly, there is no teacher. So volunteers come to this village and teach to the childrens and adults sometimes what they now. So this is waht I did during 1 month, teaching to poor childrens. I mostly taught them about biology, because this is my area of knowledge, and because I made some studies about that.









First Impressions In Madagascar

The first things I noticed in Madagascar was the stunning heat, it's nearly 34 in summer, too hot for an European like me who is used to low temperatures. This country is so beautiful, when I arrived, one of the first thing y noticed was the beauty of the view, even of the city, with this gorgeous blue skie without clouds, and the hot wind. There was a smelt of vacation because of all the beaches and all the toursit who were there, waiting for a bus to bring them to the hotel. This was a contrast with the local population, which is very poor but very nice.
Antananarivo, the capital city of Madagascar