Storms and Snakes

During a workshop on the importance of clean water and coral reefs for a class of 4^th-grade Malagasy students, a wave of cold wind enters the dusty classroom and forces us to shut all of the windows. Closing the door takes more of an effort – we are all nearly blown away. No more light enters the building.

All we see is black. All we hear are the violent winds on the roof. All we smell is a cyclone.

Israel, a fellow volunteer, helps me calm the students, but the storm ends as suddenly as it began and the sun shines as bright as ever. ‘That’s the tropics, my dear,” Israel says, and once the class is over we take our tsangatsanga (walk) back through the village.

Today is a good day for meetings. As the storm passes over the land and sea, the fishermen must stay on shore for their safety. We search for the representatives of different committees to set a meeting for three o’clock at ‘the tree.’ The representatives found, we turn back home to produce posters and to cook.

Cooking here is an art. It is an art of keeping inventory as there are no vegetables, no milk, no chocolate, no cheese. The meat is scarce and chicken eggs are a treasure. But there is a lot of very fresh fish, octopus and squid and you always know who caught them.

Upon arriving home, we find a fallen tree and a devastated roof. The thatching is inverted with large branches lying loose on top of it. There are big holes in our ceiling, and it rains more inside onto our sandy floor than it did before.  Though the wind is still strong, five men begin repairing the roof, unasked. The people of Beheloke are generous.

After our meal, we see an animal new to our home (unlike the common rats, mice, falcons, wasps, giant moths, cockroaches and Zoë the chicken, hired to eat the ants).

It is a tiny boa.

We are lucky that at least the zebu (cattle) stay outside. As we try to capture the little snake, it suddenly disappears into the sand; no one knows where it is. Someone yells, “If this is the child, the mother won’t be far.” Soon, the boa rises above the sand, and Gregg – a fellow volunteer – heroically catches it, putting it outside. Its departure saddens me; it could have eaten the rats.

At three o’clock, we don’t meet at the tree as planned; instead, we are led by the villagers along the narrow paths between wood and straw houses to a stronger building with a corrugated tin roof. Soon, representatives from the women’s association, the water committee and other community agents arrive and we begin an intense, yet excited, discussion on the plans for the upcoming “Open Day for the Environment.”

At times, we take little pauses when the sound of the rain on the roof drowns out all of our voices. We take these pauses to listen to nature’s force.

Cyclones mean rain and are an important part of life in this semi-desert, providing the water essential for survival. While heading home, we encounter a girl drinking rainwater from a precariously-attached gutter.

This image will stay with me forever: every little drop counts.