Hello from Nosy Komba, Madagascar!
So begins my first of six weekly entries documenting my Leadership in Action project, assisting the Madagascar Research and Conservation Institute in their wildlife survey and conservation efforts, focusing on the coral reefs on Nosy Komba and the surrounding islands. It’s been a year since I last uploaded here for my research summer, so I’m afraid I am quite out of practice writing these things. Bearing this in mind, dear reader, I hope that you will forgive me if my writing is a little stilted to begin with. With any luck, by the end of six weeks I will be a regular Michael Palin!
At time of writing, I have been in away from home for nine days, and on Nosy Komba for seven. While it feels there is so much to tell of the past week, I think it best suits my purpose to begin several weeks before, with the packing and preparations. Between the risk assessments, vaccinations, and hours of PADI e-learning detailing all the ways I could meet a watery end, my main feeling surrounding the trip was apprehension, of an imminent peril. I fancied myself an astronaut, or a transatlantic yachtsman, my survival guaranteed only by steely, self-contained self-sufficiency.
That reptilian self-interest stayed with me on the journey to Madagascar. Throughout my three-hour layover in Addis Ababa, I spoke to nobody and fought the urge to sleep, jealously guarding my belongings as I might a clutch of eggs. The lizard skin began to shed, however, as I arrived on Nosy Komba and, realised I was not alone on the far side of the world, but part of an interdependent village. I hadn’t anticipated how much of a relief it would be to be able to lean on my fellow volunteers, and how light and easy it would feel to allow them to lean on me in return. This shared sense of community is not a luxury, however, but critical to the safety and wellbeing of everyone in the camp, from helping each other set up mosquito nets, to sharing air with my dive buddy while three storeys underwater, even to keeping each other calm while our boat ran out of fuel two miles from shore. I take heart in thinking that through this shared responsibility, we will be able to support not only each other but the flourishing of the island as a whole, with echoes that sound long after I am home once again.