New update!

Nutrition Research??! Nutrition research has its challenges as all fields of research do. Not until this research project however did I associate nutrition research with mud, sweat, stains, physical exhaustion, bloody toes and legs….oops and now infected bloody toes and legs. The hill we climbed to get to Betampona that was muddy, had 11 river crossings, and was mostly up, up, up? That hill was our road for the majority of our 3 weeks in Betampona. If you research people – you’ve got to get to where the people are. When I first realized this, I must admit I kind of panicked. I knew things would be difficult and (I thought) had adequately prepared my students for what to expect. This was much more difficult than I had imagined, and much more strenuous than I was expecting. The students were (again) fantastic though. Never complaining, only embracing the challenge and ready to go again the next day (well, on most days we were ready to go again the next day…some days were harder than others!). My entire team is/was fantastic and we would be NOWHERE without our translators Claudien and Jumelle. We couldn’t have accomplished ANYTHING without them. We also had Sylla, who was our guide to the villages. He is from the area and became incredibly helpful to us as well. Travel was hard on us all (even Sylla) – and everyone did great with the challenge.

For instance, our first village we visited was the hardest to get to (Ambodiriana).

Down the mountain – where we slip and slide most of it for an hour to an hour and a half, then another 2 hour walk on at least a flat road. That’s a long time right? And we need to return to Betampona every night…. So, in order to make the most of our time – we leave at 6:00am – hoping to be there by 9:00am. Why 6? Because that is when the sun rises and no one wants to go down the mountain in the dark! Then we need to leave to come back by 2:00pm because – again, 3 hours – and the sun is down by 5:30!

A few things you need to know about the Malagasy people. One – they are wonderful. I just want to always clarify that. Two – they are extremely polite in all things. Three – they are very official and proper. Each village has a fokotany who is like the presiding person over the village (think mayor…but with differences). In each village we meet the fokotany and obtain permission to do the study before we can start. We introduce

ourselves, there are a ton of thank-you’s that go back and forth (thank you for allowing us to be here….thank you for coming, thank you for seeing us today…thank you for wanting to do research in our village, I really respect you and this village….we are happy that you have come to our village). It’s always really positive to which I am surprised every time (definitely not how we would respond in U.S.)! Then he or she types something up on the typewriter (which is super official), stamps it with three separate stamps, and we are good to go.

In the bigger villages, we did market surveys of food available along with prices as well as our 15 surveys with mothers and children. We returned for as many days as it took to collect the data, and then moved on to the next village. Obviously for the farthest villages, we were quite motivated to move as quickly as possible! Bucket showering in the dark is a challenge unto itself which no one really wants to experience many times! Plus – dinner is usually ready around 5:30-6:00pm….and you are starving after a day like that.

Speaking of food, we had an amazing cook, Francios (and Charlotte sometimes). Bless these amazing women who cooked for so many people 3 meals a day. And forget what you know about cooking

because it is not the same. Boiling beans all day on firewood, sifting and cleaning the rice, making deliciousness out of so few ingredients and such little to work with! They were our favorite people by far and such warm kind souls. They started cooking at 5:00am every morning and left in the evening at 7:00pm. And we ate a lot! 3 meals a day of rice, beans, and vegetables. Vegetables! Oh what a luxury. Since my team went to villages….we brought back provisions when we ran out. You need to really “want” to eat it to be willing to carry it on your back, up the mountain, for who knows how long. But we definitely did. And not small amounts – we’re feeding 14 people breakfast, lunch, and dinner! Everyone on the team really pitched in, bringing backpacks daily to carry not only our equipment up and down the mountain, but any provisions we were out of as well. A common day was 5 bunches of bananas, 2 kg of potatoes, 2 kg of carrots, 3 heads of cabbage, and 3 kg of beans. If you want to eat it….you gotta bring it up.

Next time – more details on the different villages and all the wonderful moms and kids we met!