Who am I?

Ever since I first started to to travel, I've wanted to do more, and what an opportunity it is to go half way around the world than to participate in studies with the World Wide Fund for Nature Youth Volunteer Program. This was one reason why I went on to study Geography in the first place - to learn more about our planet and the strange and beautiful about it. During my undergraduate studies I had taken classes that had briefly touched on the environmental situation in developing countries, some more specifically on Madagascar. From those brief moments of power point slides, short video clips, and a glance over some facts in my textbooks, I realized that there was a great importance to environmental work in developing countries.

I wanted to know more about Madagascar specifically. I went to do research (through my not yet expired university access card…shhh) at the campus library and found that the situation was much worse that I had anticipated in Madagascar. The endemic nature of the land has been pitted up against aggressive development and was losing the battle. But there were and are organizations, companies and locals taking action to help prevent, and reverse the environmental degradation of one of the worlds most surreal landscapes. One of those was the WWF; the global conservation network. Looking a little deeper I found the Youth Volunteer Program, and being urged by my professors to pursue international experience I applied. Heading off to a land that I had only seen through photographs, academic text, and the words of my professors to gain a first hand experience that would help me gain a much better understanding of the true issues facing the protection of the environment in a global context and in a developing country.

I was placed in the Energy and Environment Synergy program in the South West of Madagascar, Toliara Province, in the village of Andranohinaly. I knew little to nothing about the region coming into the placement because most of the available writings were about the Eastern Rain forests on the island. I tried to find out the most I could before departure, but prepared myself that everything would be new, and shocking. It was. Coming from Canada; yes it's cold here in the winter and departing in early February is arguably the coldest time of year. When I left Toronto, there was a good three feet of snow on the ground, the wind cutting though our clothes walking into the airport and the snow still coming down sideways. I knew it was going to be hot, being a tropical climate, close to the equator, but the catch was that I had never been to a tropical climate in my life. The transition, needless to say, of acclimatization went slower than anticipated and resulted in many saying " Ian ne supporte pas la chaleur, c'est un grand problème!" An overreaction on their part, but it showed me that the people that I was to be working with, were there just like a family to support us if we had any issues, be it the climate or program based.