Last few days in Andavadoaka

On Friday, I will depart my beach hut for the foreseeable future. It has
been a good last few weeks. Despite the rocky situation with the data
quality, I think we are on track. In all, I think the hiccups helped me
reevaluate my internally applied pressure to see results on what I
deemed a reasonable timeline. I've let up on the pressure and am more
fatalistic about the timing of when things will happen. Hopefully we
will have quality data by the end of October, an initial biological
paper drafted by the end of the year, and then move forward with other
papers once I am back in-country. I am glad that I have other projects
to work on in the meantime, and once I decided to focus mainly on those
this fall while back in California, my attitude changed completely. I
need to work on doing these reevaluations without the stressful,
unhealthy meltdowns, however. I am taking my team to Tulear at the end
of this week to work together for a week, sans distractions and avec
electricity and internet, to plan the next phases of the project. I head
out to London on the 26th, then directly to Rome to meet Eline. I am
very ready for a vacation!!

I am going to sign on as the official Master's advisor of my RA, Haj. He
is using this project as his thesis, and there is no one at his
university to advise him. It will be challenging to adjust my advising
mentality to the Andavadoaka world; but I am hopeful that I won't drive
the boy too hard now that my research mentality has adjusted.

This morning, a pregnant zebu was sacrificed in the village. (Just as I
write this, Thomas walked in to the staff hut with half the mom's
ribcage. Delightful.) The slaughter was to ask the ancestors to help
make the new permanent reserve a success. The designation of a permanent
reserve is a major step forward for the MPA -- it is the first one, an
area called "Recruitment" by BV due to its high coral cover. It is very
exciting that the villages have agreed to permanently close a key
fishing site to any sort of fishing. For now, diving at the site is also
forbidden, until the village leaders come to an agreement with the dive
operators on an entry fee. That will probably be resolved soon, but not
soon enough to allow me to dive there. We had planned a recreational
dive today as my last dive :( Next year...

I am really looking forward to getting in touch with everyone. Perhaps
even more than that, I'm looking forward to salads. (Sorry dear friends,
you are lower on my list than leafy greens! I realize that sounds
harsh...forgive me!) I plan on eating salads every meal for weeks.
Except during my 2 weeks in Italy, when I plan on eating pizza and pasta
non-stop.