It’s difficult to know how I feel about leaving Madagascar after one year. My excitement to see my family and Aussie friends is at the cost of saying goodbye to my new Malagasy friends (more like family at this point really). To not be stared at for being a vazaha will be nice, but will be replaced by quizzical stares when I say hello to everyone on the street, even if I don’t know them. One of the favourite past-times of volunteers at KAFS is to discuss food, and I can’t wait to eat my mums home-cooked food and have access to various cuisines but where in Australia can I get Christine’s ravitoto (pork with cassava leaves) or Nadia’s peanut brittle, and where can I buy a basket of litchi for $2?
If my year at KAFS had consisted of nothing other than following the greater bamboo lemur (Prolemur simus) doing behavioural research, that would have been an amazing year; but that wasn’t all I did. There were opportunities to participate in the various other lemur projects and help with reforestation. I was given the opportunity to go on two expeditions to visit other MBP field sites and see the work they were doing there. And then in our spare time doing personal travel seeing some of this amazing country and perhaps most rewarding, becoming closer friends with some people than I ever thought possible in one year. I will miss the forest, I will miss the lemurs, and I will miss KAFS!
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