Day Eighteen - litchi fever

I was very ill during the night and didn’t get much sleep. I sat quietly at the back of the room for the morning session of the meeting and although I felt below par I still found the presentations really interesting. Christian gave a great overview of the Model Station, which is the project the IOW Zoo sponsors.

By tea break I think I must have looked pretty drained because Britt and Andrea both said I should go and take a rest. I didn’t argue and went to lie on my bunk. The next thing I knew it was two hours later and Britt was softly tapping on my door to see if I was OK. I did feel a little better so joined the others for a stroll down to the lake. Maya handed out picnic lunches in lovely individual locally-made baskets and I did manage to eat a little. Three of the other delegates were also unwell so I think it may have been something we ate or drank yesterday.

In the afternoon Christian led a tour of the Model Station, explaining all the trials being conducted there. He showed us several different agroforestry methods and showed how he was using sweet potatoes as nitrogen-fixing ground cover to stabilise the soil. Sostene and Jaqui demonstrated how rice is harvested and Christian explained how training farmers in effective ecoagriculture techniques contributes to conserving biodiversity while ensuring food security.

Jean-Francois told us about his work propagating native hardwood trees for forest restoration projects.

 

 

The meeting was closed back at the buvette, where the catering staff had prepared a buffet.

MFG chairman Eric thanked everyone for attending and commended the MFG staff for their hard work.

Next year’s meeting is to be jointly hosted by St. Louis Zoo and Missouri Botanical Gardens. Ingrid suggested that the IOW Zoo might like to apply to be hosts in 2015 - I’ll have to see what Charlotte says when I get back!

By the end of the afternoon I felt much better so joined Britt and Christof for the drive into Tamatave for dinner. The traffic was horrendous. There were truck bottlenecks at each litchi processing plant, with queues backing up and blocking the road. We had to stop frequently and a journey that should have taken half an hour took more than double that time. I crossed my fingers that it would have cleared a bit by the time we returned.

It hadn’t.
Our journey back was quite an adventure and had we realised the situation we would probably have stayed home that night. However the call of a cold beer and a pizza had been strong and we were now paying the price. We got about three miles outside Tamatave, then the road was totally blocked. Trucks were parked along both sides of the road leaving barely enough room for a single line of cars. Vehicles were trying to travel in both directions and gridlock was inevitable. We sat with our engine turned off for ages. Eventually a large group of excitable people started organising all the vehicles trying to travel from Tamatave (including us) to reverse back and try to fit into gaps between the trucks at the roadside. Those facing Tamatave then started to move slowly forwards. Any wide trucks got stuck frequently and there was much shuffling backwards and forwards. We honestly thought we were going to spend the night in the vehicle at the side of the road. It was not a happy thought. Thankfully, more than two and a half hours later, our line started to move at last and we eventually got back to the sanctuary of Ivoloina in the early hours of the morning.
Britt, Charlie, Eric and Nerinda were supposed to be going on up to Betampona the following day. The others were due to come through from Tamatave and pick Britt up early in the morning. We all hoped the road would clear during the night.