First night in Madagascar

Maz outside our first
nights accommodation

I awoke to the soothing sounds of the rain forest, the melodic chirp of small insects and frogs and in the distance the call of a Lemur high up in the canopy. As I came to my senses however that idyllic dreamland vision was broken by the disconcerted thought that I'd gone totally blind such was the darkness that surrounded me. 

My mind was somewhat relieved as I caught the inconsistent blink of Maz' cell phone which I was aware of in my peripheral vision but even with that partial light I couldn't even make out the detail of the mosquito net that hung over our bed or my hand in front of my straining eyes.

Someone else who enjoys praying!

After what seemed like hours of stillness I decided to find out what time it was, I knew that my phone must be close at hand but then I remembered that I'd inadvertently dropped it onto the baked mud floor as I had drifted off to sleep in what felt hours ago. Once I'd located it I was shocked again as my eyes adjusted to the harsh light of the screen to discover it was only 11.46pm.

It was with mixed feelings that I turned over to find a comfortable position on the hard mattress, firstly I had the unexpected joy to be free to listen to this great crescendo of unfamiliar sounds for as long as I wanted such was the rest that my body had already found in those short hours of sleep but the thought of being so warm and slightly sweaty this early in the night caused my soul to long for the far off sunrise which would surely bring an even greater cacophony of noise!

our first night, in the rain forest

Our small single roomed abode with its palm reed thatched roof and adobe walls was heavy with the sweet smell of a spiral joss stick which we had lit a few hours before to ward off the attractions of the blood sucking mosquitoes that seem so abundant in the valleys and still places of the counties that sit along the equator, as I laid there as still as possible as not to wake Maz who was dreaming easily beside me my mind retraced the incredible journey that we'd been on since the last time we slept together on a cold winters night in rural England, was that really less than 48 hours ago, it felt like another world, in fact it was a whole world away from where we'll be serving for the next three months.......welcome to Madagascar!