Every week CNN's African Voices highlights Africa's most engaging personalities, exploring the lives and passions of people who rarely open themselves up to the camera. This week the show profiles scientist Hanta Rasamimanana, known as Madagascar's 'Lemur Lady' for her campaign to save the country's endangered lemur and their natural habitat
Watch the show on Saturdays at 1130 and 1830 GMT and Sundays at 1700 GMT.
Berenti, Southern Madagascar (CNN) -- Thirty years ago, a young Hanta Rasamimanana was dispatched by the Madagascan government to spy on a delegation of American scientists in the country's Berenti reserve.
The scientist was fresh out of her university course studying animal husbandry in the Soviet Union and working at the national zoo in Madagascar when she was sent to join the group.
"I said, for what?" she recalled. "Who are they?" She was told that she'll be watching leading primatologist Alison Jolly and her group.
"They said... you don't have to teach her anything. You just have to follow ... see what they are doing, and report to us".
However she soon forgot about her secret assignment once she encountered lemurs, which the Americans were studying. For Rasamimanana, it was love at first sight, she told CNN.
CNN
