AiE in Madagascar IV: Centre ValBio & Night Walking with Mouse Lemurs

See previous post III, and III in this series, or related posts to this month-long trip here and here.

Note in our previous episode that I wasn’t sure if I had meetings set up, with who, or about what when I arrived at Ranomafana. I received a message from Dustin that I had a 10AM appointment, but he had not been able to confirm, so I should just ask for Maya Moore or Pascal Rabeson. When I arrived at Centre ValBio (CVB), Maya had left for Tana and Pascal was in another village until later in the day. Nevertheless, I was able to get an appointment for later in the day with him.

In the meantime, I explored the village, taking photos. I came across one of the silk making coops. I couldn’t afford to buy a scarf but was given permission to take photos. However, I overstayed my welcome, taking so many photos of every corner of the room that the coop president (How do I know she was president? I took photos of all the photos and lists of offers and deduced who she was) asked me to pay them 5000 ari for the photos.

I went down to the bridge to the town’s thermal baths and took photos of the bridge they were replacing. It had been knocked out in a big cyclone that hit Madagascar 20 days earlier.

I’m glad I took so many photos. Later, when I was meeting with Pascal, it turned out he was lab mates at the University of Georgia with our close family friend Jon Benstead. Jon had done his dissertation research in Ranomafana when CVB was just a shack in the woods.

The shacks in the woods that used the be the Centre ValBio facilities are still there but unused.

The shacks in the woods that used the be the Centre ValBio facilities are still there but unused.

CVB had the best wifi in the village so I shot Jon an email while I was there, and he asked me to take lots of photos of the Centre and village for him, since he hadn’t been there in 18 years.

I ended up meeting with Lova Razafindravony and Pascal. Lova runs the My Rainforest My World project, and Pascal and Maya are co-directors of outreach.

But let me back up. Because I walked in here rather cold. CVB is a rather famous world class facility for conservation and education. It was started by primatologist Patricia Wright from Stony Brook University (SUNY). I have been meaning to invite Pat Wright for an ALLELE lecture ever since hearing what a great talk she gave at SUNY New Paltz. I have even more incentive now.

Dr. Wright discovered a new lemur species at Ranomafana, the golden bamboo lemur, and established the park to protect it. One of the amazing thing about bamboo lemurs is that they eat young bamboo, which contains toxic amounts of cyanide. So they process it somehow because they don’t die (at least not from cyanide—humans, on the other hand…). The current buildings of CVB were built later. They are a facility that hosts researchers, conducts study abroad, houses both, and provides lab and lecture facilities. They work with the local community to provide vocational training for Malagasy to work in or with the Centre and facilitate and develop cooperatives to promote economic and cultural sustainability, such as the aforementioned silk cooperative. My nature guide Rodan said, “Pat Wright is like a mother to us all, to the whole village of Ranomafana.”

Lova told me abut the MRMW project and the education efforts more generally. Those involve efforts to train teachers to provide conservation and science-related education in remote village and at “road” schools, or those reachable without too much difficulty by car and the main road.

By the next meeting with Pascal, I had a thought on how we could collaborate. I told them about our project and we arranged for them to send us their lessons which we will curate and share on our website. Their programs were developed in conjunction with American educators but are only being implemented in limited schools around the park. We will put them in a format that can be used by our teachers in the US, Greg’s class in Costa Rica (more on that later), and Eagles Wings in Tana, and other schools around Madagascar and the world (maybe yours?). We will link the material back to CVB to ensure credit but hopefully extend their reach of the material.

On the surface, these things don’t seem so complex they could not have been done by email. But it’s easy to send an email and just as easy to ignore. It’s equally easy to say yes in an email and not follow through. There are no stakes to an email. But taking the trip to Madagascar, to go to see how a partner is doing what they do means a lot, I hope. I intend it as a strong signal of commitment. It enables us all to vet each other using our senses and guts and to establish a rapport and trust.

Let me reiterate: There is nothing out there to give guidance for teaching 4-field anthropology at the primary school levels. There are things here and there, but what we are creating is a unique resource and testament to the value of and excitement for doing it.

Lova gave me a tour of CVB after my meetings. Then I rendezvoused with my guide for a night walk. I was pleased to be able to see and photograph several mouse lemurs and chameleons.

The chameleons were very very cooler—cooler than I expected—but LEMURS!


Anthropology is Elemental is currently funded by a grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation.

Repost from April 2017 on Bama Anthro Blog Network, where missing photos can be found: https://wp.me/p2SN82-hX

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Christopher Lynn

About Christopher Lynn

Christopher Dana Lynn is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Alabama, where he founded the Evolutionary Studies program.  Chris teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in biological anthropology, human sexuality, evolution, biocultural medical anthropology, and neuroanthropology.  He received his Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology in 2009 from the University at Albany, SUNY, where his doctoral focus was on the influence of speaking in tongues on stress response among Pentecostals.  Chris runs a human behavioral ecology research group where the objectives include studying fun gimmicky things like trance, religious behavior, tattooing, and sex as a way of introducing students to the rigors of evolutionary science.  In all his “free” time, he breaks up fights among his triplet sons, enjoys marriage to the other Loretta Lynn, strokes his mustache, and has learned to be passionate about Alabama football (Roll Tide!).  Follow Chris on Twitter: @Chris_Ly
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