Field notes #10

Text by Jessica Stubbs

Even in my initial meeting with Onja and first time entering the scientific arena of the Razafindratsima Lab, I was dreaming of Madagascar. The lab’s fluorescent lights transformed to a warm forest glow, the office chairs into exalted Rahiaka trees, and coffee mugs into prodigal epiphytes. I knew the Razafindtratsima Lab would soon become my ecological haven, a space of immense scientific curiosity and professional cultivation. Propelled by the unparalleled guidance of Jade Tonos and galvanized by the extensive data accumulated by the lab, I conducted my Honors Senior Thesis. With every data point I analyzed, scientific article I consumed, and ArcGIS visualization I inscribed, the magnetism of Madagascar intensified. My burgeoning zeal to experience the ecosystems I had studied through the corridors of academia and investigated through the glow of my computer had fortified into an urgent scientific ambition. 

Jessica holding a rufous mouse lemur in Ranomafana National Park

Thus, when the lab offered me the opportunity to become a Field Technician in Madagascar, I felt as if I was finally able to realize my ecological decree and ameliorate the dissonance between my most profound academic passion and personal experience.

​Armed with robust rubber boots, a plethora of ambiguous antibiotics, and an inexplicable sense of loyalty to the ecosystems and lemurs I was yet to meet, I was ready for anything. The first week in Antananarivo was a vibrant and kinetic rush of unfamiliarity and culture. Scouring the teeming markets for field supplies, absorbing my first words of Malagasy, and ambling along the restless streets was exhilarating. Most exuberant, was having the momentous privilege to experience lab member Vero’s wedding. Dancing in effervescent swirls of Malagasy family members, consuming heaps of aromatic ravitoto, and reveling in the cultural exuberance of the wedding traditions was a singular experience of exceptional joy. The entangled vibrance of Antananarivo was a sensorial introduction to Madagascar and only a nascent glance into the incredible country I was soon to explore. 

Landscape on the way to Ranomafana (photo by Onja R.)

While driving to Ranomafana, the boisterous contours of the city melted into expansive verdant hills, imbricating agricultural fields, and meandering brown streams. The landscape was punctuated by lines of laboring zebus, rich piles of fresh bricks, intimate huddles of market sellers, opinionated discourses among geese, and clusters of enthralled children. 

After ten turbulent hours drinking in the amorphous scenery from the car window, we arrived at the ValBio Research Station perched in the hills of the Ranomafana village. Settling into Valbio felt akin to reuniting with distant relatives. I ostensibly felt a powerful undertow of deep kinship while meeting the fellow researchers as we all seemed to vibrate with a similar reverence for the ecosystem and space we were occupying. Science innovators, field technicians, international students, and Malagasy conservation practitioners created a space infused with passion.

View of Ranomafana rainforest (photo by Onja R.)

After a few days gathering our supplies and coordinating our research objectives, we set off through banana fields and up arboraceous mountains to our campsite to begin the real work embedded within the forest. 

our campsite in Ranomafana (photo by Kat Culbertson 2022)

Our campsite was tucked into a high forest, adorned with misty condensation and opaque with fragrant smoke from the kitchen. After warm introductions with camp members and satiating piles of rice and beans gilded with spicy Malagasy sakay, I settled into my tent and felt an inexplicable sense of belonging in this novel environment with my newfound family. Daily life at camp distilled down to a very simple equation, one that soon revealed its agency to sharpen intellectual focus, foster scientific curiosity, and promote ontological reflection. 

Meals consisted of rice and beans, showers were taken in the river's embrace, purpose was found in the lemurs, and community thrived among the people and biota around us. The endless onslaught of news cycles, inundation of messages and emails, and perennial duty of academic and professional tasks faded into the immediacy and immensity of the forest. The profound reduction in external stimulus honed my abilities as a conservation practitioner and allowed my somatic and cerebral capabilities to unify in the research, questions, and wildlife that enveloped me. ​

Every morning we transformed into tactical lemur detection machines. During daily eight-hour lemur follows we traversed every path the lemur journeyed, measured every tree they nibbled, collected every fecal deposit they generously left behind, and recorded every behavior they displayed. Wading through rivers, ascending ridges, and scaling peaks, our team became unwavering instruments of observation and scientific crusaders of conservation. We quickly fused to the habitual cadence of the lemurs and the pulse of the ecosystem. When the lemurs flew through the forest, we raced behind them and when they napped in the canopy, we rested on the forest floor. Becoming embedded within Madagascar’s natural vivacity was truly an enveloping practice in ecocentrism, one filled with deep intrigue and profound joy. 

Everyday was met with a multitude of novel lessons, inspiring curiosities, interminable giggles, scientific inquiries, lemur connections, persistent leeches, and legions of rice and beans. Never before had I possessed so few material effects and external comforts, and yet felt so fulfilled. My mind was kinetic with research ideas, empirical conquests, and experimental propositions. After lemur follows, we would march to the lab (a makeshift arrangement of tarp and sticks) and dive into preparing fecal samples with multiple treatments to delineate how the lemur microbiome affects seed germination rates. Conducting innovative science in the middle of the forest truly instilled the importance of embracing constant agility, improvement, and adaptation in an environmental arena of finite resources and unlimited stochasticity. As an emerging conservation practitioner, these experiences fortified my scientific problem-solving dexterity and imprinted an enduring zeal for advancing research on the front lines of conservation.

Beyond catalyzing the counters of my intellectual prowess, the endogenous connections and palpable kingship that developed with the lemurs and fellow field technicians were transformative. Camp members and field technicians became an instant troop of unwavering loyalty. Hundreds of hours spent in the forest welded us together interminably. Picking leeches off each other, sharing meals under the canopy, teaching plant varieties, exchanging languages, and collectively immersing in the centripetal intrigue of the lemurs infused every lemur follow with an immensity of supportive reciprocity. Back at camp, the enveloping sense of community transcended challenging conditions and crystallized into interrelational wisdoms, connections, and understandings. Playing dominos with fierce determination, boldly pioneering novel food concoctions, piling around the fire, and passing jugs of steaming burnt rice water around the table were liminal moments of enduring warmth.

Punctuating our time at camp were both restful and exuberant sojourns at the ValBIo Research Station. There, we extracted DNA by processing our fecal samples utilizing advanced laboratory techniques. In the lab, I sharped my pipetting precision, gained confidence mixing fragile chemicals, and advanced my ability to curate immaculate lab playlists to foster the ideal musical feng shui for science. Spending afternoons in the lab, meals with impassioned researchers, and evenings organizing supplies and trading lemur stories with volunteers further reinforced my avidity and esteem for the imperative research we were conducting. From skillfully collecting lemur fecal deposits from the forest floor to methodically purifying and extracting genetic information from samples in the lab, I was developing a comprehensive understanding of advancing conservation research. 

​By the time I boarded my flight back to Berkeley, my planetary ambitions and personal pursuits had been perennially fortified in the forests of Madagascar. Every connection and curiosity inscribed by Madagascar underscored my resolve and urgency to effectuate critical conservation action. I was overcome by an immensity of gratitude and a profound sense of obligation. The last three months had imbued a steadfast faithfulness and a fierce loyalty to the ecosystem in which we had surrounded our lives for the last three months. Every lemur became kin, every team member an ally, every lab mate a teacher. Each moment in the forest and lab was saturated with a profound sense of meaning and duty. Every lemur follow and data entry carried the weight of the whole species. Living and operating with such thoughtfulness and allegiance is the paramount lesson I will imprint into the futurity of my professional ambitions and personal crusades.