Free Pink Boots and a Machete by Mireya Mayor Page B

mark the first time this village had seen a white woman.
    I was a hit. Or so I thought.
    Malagasy in remote areas learn from their folktales that white-skinned vazas, or foreigners—also called mpakafo, meaning “heart-takers”—come to the island to kill them and eat their vital organs, especially those of women and children. I thought perhaps I should eat my granola bar and try to ease their fears.
    I would learn that night that despite their poverty and fear of whites, there is no more generous people. We feasted on an authentic Malagasy meal, a sakafo, consisting of ravitoto, a pork stew with ground cassava leaves, and the ubiquitous rice and washed it all down with ranon ’apango, a watery drink made from burned rice. The latter is an acquired taste. Over the next weeks I would also learn that trekking was only part of the challenge of an expedition. Every visit to a village required a rum-soaked meeting with tribal elders that lasted through the night, occasionally for days. The rum, a home-brewed jungle concoction, burns the throat like jet fuel. So not only was I hiking under a scorching sun for hours on end in my lemur search, I was doing it sporting a king-size hangover.
    From this village we added members to our expedition. Zaralahy was the village elder, with more than 20 grandchildren. A sweet, soft-spoken man weighing no more than 90pounds, Zara seemed to have more energy than a Duracell bunny. He was also nimble and had a fantastic, toothless grin. He uttered the words we so needed to hear, “I know where those sifakas are,” and, with an elfish laugh, jumped up to gather a few belongings.
    The villagers helped us gather food to take on our journey, and Zara offered his son Bendanalana’s services as camp cook and guard, an offer we happily accepted. Trying to make up for lost time, we rented a zebu cart to help transport our gear and waved goodbye to a group of new folks who had trekked out to see the crazy white people. Seven hours into the forest and not a single animal later, I considered us crazy white people, too.
    My feet were swollen, sore, and close to quitting. I jumped on the back of the zebu cart to give them a break but jumped quickly off; with no suspension, the ride was too hard on the rear end. While my body kept urging me to quit and call off this failing expedition, my stubborn Cuban genes told it to shut up. I asked Zara how far we were from our destination. He pointed to a small clearing on the map between two even smaller forest patches. “Antobiratsy,” he said. I looked up the meaning in the Malagasy dictionary. My heart sank. We were headed, if literal translation was to be believed, to “bad camp.”
    Several hours later, Zara gestured to us to drop our packs, as we had finally arrived at the clearing. No sooner had our bags hit the ground, putting them at the same level as our morale, than little black faces peered through the branches and stared at us like the villagers a day before. Here at last were Perrier’s sifakas!Immediately, I whipped out my camera, before they could disappear into the forest. But they were in no hurry to go; the photo session went on so long, I actually started to get bored.
    I couldn’t understand it. How was it that there were no photographs of these animals, when they were quite clearly not camera shy? Amid beaming smiles around the campfire, I asked Zara how this marvelous place could have been given the name “bad camp.” He explained that villagers came here to mourn the death of a family member. It was considered a holy ground, and many local people believed their ancestors were there in the form of my beloved lemurs. This reincarnation had been the lemurs’ saving grace, as locals deemed it tavy, or taboo, to hunt them. After experiencing generations of mourners, the lemurs in this spot had become habituated to human presence. “Bad camp” was the best camp ever. That night my