World Challenge: Madagascar

'There are way too many things that I loved about the expedition but if I had to narrow it down to just a few then it would be laying under the stars at Anja and listening to the faint lemur calls...'

From July 13th to August the 5th 20 students, drawn from Year 11 and Year 12, accompanied by 2 members of Highcliffe School staff travelled to Madagascar to follow a World Challenge Expedition.  World Challenge Expeditions consist of three phases, trek, a project and rest and relaxation.  The principle of these expeditions are that the students who travel take responsibility for the fundraising, itinerary planning and all general, logistical, duties during their time in country.  Miss Swan and Mr Nicholls, who accompanied the trip and assisted with the preliminary planning, only intervene on the expedition when an issue of health or safety arises.  As you can imagine, not intervening proves as much of a challenge for the staff as planning and booking transport, etc, is for the students.  We were also accompanied by an expedition leader, Adam Evans, who took overall responsibility for the trip and was provided by World Challenge.  We were extremely lucky to have Adam as our leader as his background meant he was experienced with World Challenge expeditions.  He was also very well qualified for working near water and administering emergency first aid, fortunately not needed.

From the moment we left Highcliffe School on 13th July the students oversaw the booking of transport, checking in at the airport, ordering and cooking food etc, etc.  This obviously took some time for them to get their teeth into but was a fundamental part of the experience and all the students learned valuable lessons from this. 

The trip itself was a flat out tour around Madagascar.  We landed in Antananarivo (Tana) on July 14th and then spent the night in a local hotel.  The next day saw us travelling for 10 hours to Fianarantsoa where we camped in a hostel grounds over night.  The next day the cook team went shopping for provisions to feed the large team whilst on Trek.  No small feat in a country where they don’t speak English and there are no Tesco’s to be seen.

Trekking:  Our first trek took us through village communities and paddy fields to ancient rainforest.  We crossed rivers and saw Chameleons that looked just like the tree they were perched upon.  Further treks took us through families of Ring Tailed Lemurs and into National Parks and swimming in rivers.

Project:  On Project we re-painted the outside of a Maternity hospital in a small town called Anjoma.   The group camped in the village and took shifts in painting and generally sprucing up the outside of the most basic of medical facilities.  During this time they also had a great deal of contact with the locals, singing songs, dancing and playing a football match.  The locals proved too strong for our intrepid travellers but the pitch wasn’t flat and the referee was not on our side!!  (You find excuses where you can)

R&R:  Much deserved when we reached this phase.  The students adapted their itinerary to remove an expensive boat trip and travelled to Toliara on the west coast.  Here the group turned up unannounced at a beach front hotel.  After some top quality negotiating the students acquired beach front accommodation of about 4 star quality with swimming pool, tennis and crazy golf.  During this phase they ate and relaxed, you wouldn’t believe 20 people could eat so many chips.  They also travelled to the local town to purchase souvenirs and experience the west coast culture.

Every person who went on the trip returned a different person.  A couple of comments from students upon return are copied below:

Oliver Forrest:  What I got out of the trip: I discovered that my endurance is far higher than I thought it was before. I also learned to appreciate what I have at home. That said, it made me realise that, while we usually pity the people of the Third World, it may be us who should be pitied. They have so little, but they’re all happy.

Elaine Bell:  There are way too many things that I loved about the expedition but if I had to narrow it down to just a few then it would be laying under the stars at Anja and listening to the faint lemur calls, travelling in the buses because it was amazing to watch the different scenery go past (although the bumpy roads were sometimes uncomfortable) and finally when we were painting the maternity ward and the whole village turned up with a band and we had to dance with them.

An experience like World Challenge enriches the development of young people.  They develop better inter-personal relationships and gain a much better understanding of world differences.  They gain an insight into their own capabilities and experience taking full responsibility for their day to day living and taking calculated risks.  They appreciate porcelain toilets and a varied diet and also learn quite how fortunate they are to grow up in a developed country.

I would like to thank Adam and Miss Swan for assisting in planning and overseeing the trip and spreading the load.  I’d also like to thank every student who took on the challenge two years ago and stuck with the development process and travelled with us.  (Names copied below)  Over 3 ½ weeks of travel there wasn’t a single group fall out or a raised word, except for when Eleanor hogged the space inside a tent from Margaret!...tent walls are very thin!  I consider this a massive achievement and assisted in making the expedition as huge success.

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