Lemurs and More

One quality of the Madagasy culture that I enjoy is Friendship before Function. Greetings both when arriving and leaving are important. With this in mind, all the physical therapist shared their story in about 15 minutes. One story per day allowed us all to see that we have more in common than we thought. After all, we are all humans living life with ups and downs. We invited the day crew to share if they wanted as well. God truly has blessed our team with friendship. We work hard but also laugh and play.

Another way to foster friendship is to go on adventures together. This weekend, the Rehab team went on an adventure to the Lemur Park. One of the goals of this park is to facilitate breeding of the lemurs. One of the day crew is a guide. We agreed to meet at a taxi station farther away from the ship than the one we found a couple weekends ago. We packed our lunch, cameras, sunscreen, and water to begin our trek at 7:15am. We walked out of the port. Usually just outside to port gate several pouse-pouses and tuk-tuks are waiting for customers. Due to the distance, a tuk-tuk was necessary. There was only one tuk-tuk in sight. Tuk-Tuks are considered full with three adults. We asked the driver if he had a friend he could call as we were a party of 5. He looked at us and said, "I can take all of you." Switched we were, but all in one tuk-tuk. Our party of 7 including the day crew joined another couple in a small hatchback car that had seen better days.

We got out of the car where a dirt road branched from the national paved road about 4km from the park entrance. Walking the road enabled us to see and hear the local happenings. We saw fisherman, bamboo spliters, basket weavers, rock spliters, chickens/roosters, zebu, children, adults, churches, lychee trees, unique trees and more. We turned into the jungle/forest where we had lychees fresh off the tree, enjoyed seeing and learning about trees and saw reflections in ponds. We arrived at the Lemur Zoo.

Immediately upon entering, we saw a constrictor snake in the grass. We continued on to the lemurs who to our surprise were awake. We had been told that the lemurs are usually sleeping after being fed around 9am. Despite seeing them in cages, it was neat to see them up close. They are pretty cute! Some even had babies. We also saw turtles native to southern Madagascar.

We saw at least three lemurs jumping in the trees. They had collars on. Because there were not too many people present, they gave us bananas to feed them. We held the bananas tightly to entice them to sit on our shoulders. After being passed around, they had the treat of the banana. We also enjoyed watching and interacting with a chameleon. He crawled/walked all over hands, arms, back, backpacks, and even started to go down my shirt.

After our picnic lunch, we hiked to a small waterfall. The cool water felt wonderful on hot feet. After resting by the waterfall, we continued our adventure up, up, up to a beautiful view of the trees around the lemur park and the Indian Ocean. We ended the our day at the park with time on a swing. We then hiked back to the agreed upon meeting place for our ride back. We arrived 30 minutes early fully expecting to wait for him. Surprisingly, he was already there. A wonderful day seeing new things in God's creation and strengthening friendships.