I’ve been living in a rice field. I thought that I’ve been working pretty hard and it is nice to get the positive feedback from all of my friends and people who know me. I’m constantly being asked, “Where have you been?”A lot of people thought that I left or went on vacation because [...]

Okay, so here’s the deal. The bulleted part of this blog entry I wrote about two weeks ago and it is decidedly more lighthearted and amusing than the lone paragraph which follows. That last paragraph was written just a few days ago and it tells a rather somber tale with absolutely no witty remarks or [...]

February 9, 2011  (…well, a little before the 9th…) My mother has grown through the years into one of my closest friends, the person who will tell me the searing truth, who laughs with me & cries with me, and who shows me a bright future for myself when I’m too rundown and broken to recognize it. She is the woman who gave me applesauce and toast when I was sick, who drove me to endless tennis lessons, and who took a video of me when I was drugged up after my wisdom teeth were pulled. My mom is the person I share a Mrs. Fields cookie with whenever we go to the mall.  She is the one who humored me when I said I wanted to join the Peace Corps…and she is one of two people who sobbed at the airport when I left. (I was the other one.) She taught me how to treat people with respect.  She’s the person who showed me the importance of being a strong, self-assured young woman.  Hell, she taught me how to tweeze my eyebrows! So. On this birthday, the first one in 20 years I won’t be able to say “Happy Birthday” in person - those first few years of my life don’t count, I couldn’t even talk! - this will have to do. I’m not sure I’ve ever fully articulated just how thankful I am to have the mom that I do. To have a mom that I love, and trust, and miss terribly when we aren’t in the same place.  But I am - so very thankful - and I just wanted to say: Happy Birthday Mom. I love you so much. T

I’ve been super bad about doing regular blogs lately, I’m sorry.  The next time I have some internet, I promise you at least 3 blog entries, 2 ukulele videos, and some super important information on a new tree nursery you all can help sponsor.  :) In the meantime, these talking animal videos are my freaking favorite!  Too bad they don’t have any clips with lemurs…still hella funny though. Enjoy! (My favorite parts?  ”Night time…day time!  Night time…day time!  Night time…”  ”John, I don’t think we’re allowed to wee here.” hahahahaha!!!)

My studies in international development are progressing nicely, and I like all of my courses this semester. In addition, I am involved in some excellent student groups and research projects. But beyond the heavy workload, I have been feeling very... distant. I think it is because I have been in school long enough now to feel very disconnected from the very issues I am studying. This feeling has reminded me how important it is to stay in touch in development. Extreme poverty, inequitable trade policies, famine, deforestation, oppressive governments... these are more than just words in academic papers. They all have real effects on people in real places. As do words like: innovation, activism, self-sufficiency, protest, and participation. The longer we stay away from the faces behind these issues, the more detached we become. I am in need of a reminder of why I am here and studying to become a development practitioner. I am working on that, trying to get back "into the field" soon. In the meantime, I can already tell that this will be a continuing concern throughout my career. And a concern for any practitioner or academic. Let us all endeavor to stay connected in a real way.

On a lighter development studies note, I totally agree with BlattBlog on this one.

My studies in international development are progressing nicely, and I like all of my courses this semester. In addition, I am involved in some excellent student groups and research projects. But beyond the heavy workload, I have been feeling very... distant. I think it is because I have been in school long enough now to feel very disconnected from the very issues I am studying. This feeling has reminded me how important it is to stay in touch in development. Extreme poverty, inequitable trade policies, famine, deforestation, oppressive governments... these are more than just words in academic papers. They all have real effects on people in real places. As do words like: innovation, activism, self-sufficiency, protest, and participation. The longer we stay away from the faces behind these issues, the more detached we become. I am in need of a reminder of why I am here and studying to become a development practitioner. I am working on that, trying to get back "into the field" soon. In the meantime, I can already tell that this will be a continuing concern throughout my career. And a concern for any practitioner or academic. Let us all endeavor to stay connected in a real way.

On a lighter development studies note, I totally agree with BlattBlog on this one.

(For those of you who missed it, click here for my fat ass part one; here for my fat ass part two.)

Over the last few months, I’ve lost some weight. Not a lotof weight, maybe ten pounds or so, but enough that people in my village havebegun to take notice. Well, they notice everything anyway, especially mynot-so-fat-anymore ass. They’re worried.

To most Americans, losing weight is seen as good thing,which is understandable in a culture where the skinny are coveted and thechunky are seen as lesser beings. What’s fascinating is actually how hard it can be to havea healthy weight in America. We are inundated day in and day out with absurdfood choices, oversized portions, easy lifestyles (admit it, not many of us areout there slaving away in the fields) and very little time in our hectic livesfor moving our bodies.

We all know it’s become a problem: an epidemic of obesity.More than 30% of Americans are now obese and 50% are overweight. Childhoodobesity and diabetes rates are at an all-time high.

Life is just not the same in Madagascar. People here workvery, very hard their entire lives, with often little more to go on than ameasly bowl of rice and nothing else until they catch or gather it. Childrenhere have some of the highest stunted growth rates of any developing nation.Think your six-pack abs are hot in America? Well, they’re a dime a dozen inMadagascar.

So it should come as no surprise that having some heft toyou is seen as a good thing here. The bigger you are, the wealthier you mustbe; the bigger your booty, the more you must be sitting around raking in thecash. The biggest people I’ve seen in Madagascar are the ones with likely themost desirable job: taxi-brousse drivers. These guys sit on their buttsall day driving around, collecting money and eating roadside foods. Thinklong-haul truck drivers, beer bellies and all.

In any case, I wouldn’t have considered myself in the broussedriver category, but I definitely put on some pounds my first year inMadagascar. I was used to living a very active and healthy lifestyle in theU.S. and suddenly, there was all that sitting around wondering what to do in myvillage, coupled with the heat-induced laziness… and all those endless bowls ofwhite rice… and deep-fried bananas… and deep-fried cassava… and deep-friedbread… and deep-fried dough… and deep-fried fish… well, it all started to addup. To my fat ass.

And boy was my village happy! Everyone was always talkingabout my weight amongst themselves, because there’s no shame in it here. WhileI silently suffered every comment, they rejoiced in my ever-growing ass.

Except now those days are over. I stopped eating fried foods(no easy task in a place where there is often literally no other food optionavailable), exercise daily (the heat is my friend!) and feel almost like mynormal self (and weight) with the exception of a daily dose of sorely missedfresh vegetables and salad. Plus, I think I’ve just plain gotten used to beinghungry. All the time.

This has got my villagers very worried indeed. It’s the highseason in Ambolobozokely: winds are calm and the seas are fruitful. Everyone’seating their fish fill and raking in the Ariary with every kilo of fish sold. Iate at my girlfriend Sophia’s house last week; she couldn’t even zip up theskirt that six months ago was too big for her. She laughed merrily about hergut spilling out of her shirt, while I took note of my negative thoughts aboutit.

Suffice to say, every time I walk past a group of womenthese days, I hear them quietly whisper under their breaths, “Mahia eeee!”(Skinny!) They usually say it when I’m far enough away that they think I can’thear them. Sometimes they cluck their tongues, as if I’m been struck with someterrible disease. Some have a more direct approach, like the local shopkeeper(an exceptionally large woman): she just asked, “What is wrong with you?”

Some conjecture I must be sick (I did lose some weight whenI had Dysentery) while others exclaim “Ngoma!” (Missing someone!) Manyof them insist I don’t eat enough rice while neighbors have started bringingover food, such as coconut-stewed bananas or crab sauce. I just keep pointingout that my big ol’ booty is right there behind me just as it always has been.They laugh.

Recently a friend came to my village that I hadn’t seen fora long time. The first thing she said when she saw me was “Mahia eeeee!”When I told her I wasn’t skinny, just enjoying getting exercise, she had aninteresting reply. She told me that she knew it was a compliment for whitepeople to be told their skinny, but she couldn’t understand why. I shrugged. Somethings are better lost in translation.

What a funny world we live in. Americans are tryingdesperately to get skinny (and failing at that) while the rest of thedeveloping world struggles for just a tiny piece of the pie.

In Antsohihy, people sat on their stoops and peered at the sky, wondering why the rains had not come. It was late November and the clouds should have rolled in weeks ago, heavy with rain to settle the dust and quench the soil desperate for moisture. But there were few clouds, and the days persisted, achingly hot and dry. All the population of Antsohihy could do was sit, and wait, and watch the sky with a quiet, nervous tension: for rice does not grow in dry ground.

Walking the streets of this ramshackle city, it is not difficult to understand how the rains here are invested with a certain anthropomorphic quality; they are exasperating but intransigent; like anyone else in this country, they arrive when they feel like it.

On the second floor of the Antsohihy commune building, in a meeting room with broken shutters and rusty file cabinets, I stood before a group of local guides and environmentalists, asking: “What do you think global warming is?” There was a long pause and many blank looks, until at last someone stood: “Well,” he began hesitantly, “we all see there are many big fires here. The big fires are making the earth hot. And then where there were fires, the earth is bare, so it soaks up all the heat from the sun, and that makes the earth hot too.” There was a long pause, then another man rose: “It is like when there are a lot of people crowded in one room and that room gets really hot. The earth is just too crowded and we are heating it up.”

There is something to be said for the latter of these two theories: it could be either right on or wildly off. And the participants of this seminar were not be blamed for such localized world-views. Madagascar is a country where the immediately surrounding elements can be, and often are, thought to comprise the world entire, where the forest is not born of the rain, but is rather the very thing that draws it in from the sea. It is a peculiar relationship of cause and effect, but it generally prevails.

Thus, climate change is a challenging topic to approach, not only for its complexity, but also for its demanding acceptance of the interconnectedness of this world. Malagasy people- many of whom have never traveled further than the rim of their horizon- can have a difficult time accepting that what happens on the other, incomprehensible side of this globe can powerfully affect what they have always known right here. I do my best to explain that in developed countries we are driving too many cars, burning too many fossil fuels, using too much electricity, filling the sky with planes; that the world over we are cutting down the forests that could trap all this extra carbon and methane; that this means the heat from sunlight is not escaping the atmosphere (in my Malagasy, global warming is translated as “mampafana tany” or, “making the earth hot”); that the ramifications of this are profound, from changing global weather patterns to rising sea levels. And as we add each link in the chain, I think, really think, that they are getting it.

It is difficult to move with great speed though, as we are routinely hung up on smaller, but no less bewildering concepts. Lands of only ice and snow; ice cores; glaciers. We are stuck on a picture of a polar bear for nearly twenty minutes. Countries where everyone drives their own car, and people keep the lights on all night. Satellites. Deserts, where there is only sand, sand like waves, but no ocean. I, inadvertently, oh so carelessly, use a diagram of Sugar Maple growth in North America. What is a Sugar Maple? What is special about your Sugar Maple? Wait, wait, are you telling us that you Americans eat tree blood? (Think about it, then tell me how you would explain maple syrup in Malagasy).

By the end of the second day though, after pages and pages of hastily drawn diagrams, after countless tangential explanations, we were there. One man threw up his hands, “there are no solutions.” He then mimed picking up the phone, “I am calling God.” Another participant rose to leave: “I am going to pray now; I am going to talk to God about our planet.” The training organizer glanced at me: “We took a little bit of their innocence today.”

There is validity to that statement. For these local guides and environmentalists, acknowledging the interconnection of incomprehensible worlds- of ice and snow, of six-lane highways and city grids- with their own fragile life on the coast, a life of rice-agriculture, mangrove-fishing and cow-herding, is a difficult task. And do not for a second be mistaken about the resentment they feel for this discovery. As one woman said in a long, impassioned speech: “In the wealthy world, they created most of these problems. And here, in the developing world, we could suffer for them. And yet they want to tell us that we cannot develop like them, and worse, they want to tell us to stop doing what we have always done.”

Just before we left our ramshackle classroom, a guide raised his hand. Looking out the window at yet another dry, dusty day in Antsohihy, he asked: “You have spoken about global warming and changing weather patterns. Do you think that could be why the rains still have not come?”

The pics from here on out (including the last post) are from other volunteers because my camera is dead dead dead. But this is the inside of a taxi brousse as it's filling up, complete with fabulous and goofy PCVs in the foreground!

Well, it's been brought to my attention again that I've been a horrible blogger. And seeing as my last entry was...almost half a year ago (!?) I can't really argue. But I will anyways, because as anyone who knows me is aware, I'm always up for a good argument.

Somewhere around being in country for a year, the feeling of “living in Africa” sort of ceased. The weird things became less weird, the scary things less scary, and the novel things downright tedious. The feeling of waking up everyday slightly nervous about what strange, madcap things might happen lessened, and eventually I settled into what could more or less be called a routine. I know that when I wake up now I'll immediately go outside to fetch water, come in and make coffee (and oatmeal if I have it), eat breakfast, and chat online for a little bit. Then I'll get ready for work and go to the CSB to do prenatal consultations, vaccines, or malaria tests depending on the day. At lunch I head over to the middle school to run while the kids are at home for lunch, and afterwards, I'll follow suit. I can usually set my lunch to cooking while I heat a little water to take a shower, and then I come back and eat. Afternoons are a little less structured, but typically involve some combination of reading, studying for the MCAT, watching a movie, or hanging out with my site mate, Travis. After that it's dinner time, so another round of cooking, or maybe going to the hotely for soup, then cleaning, and then it's practically time to go to bed, most often to the sounds of mice and lizards scurrying around my house.

To summarize, “living in Africa” became simply “living,” and most of it seemed too mundane to really even mention to people back home. At least, that's what I thought until I went home last month.

As Peace Corps volunteers, we build up what America is like in our heads, because for many of us, it's been several months (or even years) since we've been there. Obviously I hadn't forgotten America in the year and a half since I had left home, but I was overconfident in my thinking that reverse culture shock wouldn't be a problem. On the one hand, when my plane landed in Paris I was ready to get on the next return flight to Madagascar because holy crap, there are a million cars, and buildings, and roads, and it's FREEZING. On the other, by the time my tired and delirious feet hit Chicago and had my first bite of deep-dish pizza, I was ready to stow my suitcases for good and never look back.

America was all kinds of wonderful- spending time with family and friends, eating food I'd been craving for so long, going places and not having everyone pointing at me, and actually, having places to go in general was simply amazing. But there were constant reminders to me of how I've changed since leaving, and how different my life in Madagascar really is. Though I can't honestly say I missed Madagascar while I was home, there was a part of me that was happy to be back to my simple life for a while more.

Being in America was a reality check, and I don't think I would have been ready to stay there for good when I was home for the holidays. People have jobs and bills and schedules, and while I do miss a faster pace of life, it's kind of nice to only worry about buying rice (or usually ramen in my case) and rat hunting in a day. But, it was a wake up call. My stage of PCVs has less than 7 months left here, and then it's back to “real life”. It's created kind of a weird dichotomy of feeling like I need to be planning for when I'm home but at the same time, trying to really make the most of my time here. The usual challenge of “being present” I suppose.

In any case, my trip home was a reminder that the weird things ARE still weird here, or cool, or different, or whatever your interpretation of them is if you live in America. And I remember reading blogs before I left and thinking how interesting everything about Peace Corps seemed, and being excited about having that life. So, I'll try to keep that in mind over the next several months and do a better job of blogging. Because hey, rat hunting might seem normal to me, but there is really nothing normal about 3 grown-ass adults chasing rats around a room with broom sticks and wiffle-ball bats (combined, we have a .5 “batting” average).

What's next for me and the blog? My photography project with girls from the Girls Club is scheduled to start next week, so I'll be updating about that as much as I can, hopefully with pictures! And also, if you've seen the news (CNN, Al Jazeera), you know that Madagascar is in a bit of a tenuous state, politically speaking. One of the exiled presidents has been trying to come back to country, which is being met with opposition from the current regime. So, everyone here has been closely monitoring that situation and waiting to see how it plays out, myself included.

Other than that, not much big news on the island! Till next update, take care.

It's been quite a while since we updated the blog mostly because it's a bit of a challenge to think of what to write. Our lives here, though generally pleasant and comfortable, aren't particularly interesting. I do not really feel like I have much insight into life in Kinshasa beyond what I read in the news online or the general observations that just about any outsider would make about this place. So I have been holding back from writing. I cannot think of anything I feel like is worth sharing. My brother Thom says I should write about teaching, and another teacher expressed similar sentiments to me recently when I explained my trepidation about writing about my life here. He said that writing about the elite students that we work with could be a fascinating blog in and of itself. Yet, I shy away from writing anything too personal on the internet about people whose permission I don't have, and I don't really want my students searching out this blog so I'd never ask for permission. Plus, I seem incapable of focusing my attention on the uniqueness of my students' experiences as I am always getting wrapped up in their inability to use commas appropriately.

So should we just put this blog to rest? I don't think I'm quite ready for that just yet, but I'm still not sure what my goal should be in writing. I have been thinking about this issue lately as I have been reading quite a lot and questioning my own lack of inspiration for writing. I know that I can write, but why is it that I have nothing that I want to write about? And why is it that I seem to have an almost moral opposition to the romanticization and fictionalization of reality. My nitpickiness which probably comes from my grandfather makes me wary beyond belief of writing anything that is not 100% accurate. I also take this out on James as I have quite a proclivity for correcting and clarifying. So, I am still trying to figure out how it is possible to write about my experiences in a captivating way while preserving accuracy.

As I continue to try to sort these issues out, I will attempt to update more, but who knows how it will all work out. For now, I will look out my window and ponder the jungle in my backyard, one part of Kinshasa that I know rather well.

Up until now, I seriously questioned whether my town would ever stop defecating in the woods and start using latrines. I had spoken with tons of adults about the dangers of unsafe drinking water caused by open defecation. People understood the message, but they never saw the point to change their behavior. They rarely get sick and after working in the field all day, building a latrine isn't the most appealing afternoon or weekend activity.   The problem is that even though THEY don't get sick from drinking the water here after years of built up immunity, THEIR CHILDREN do get sick. It is heartbreaking living here sometimes. Countless children under 5 years old have died in our area from preventable dehydration due to diarrhea most likely caused by drinking non-potable water.   These deaths will be much less frequent in the years to come, thanks, in part, to a very bright and inquisitive 4-year-old. My neighbor, Harina, likes to hang around and ask me "What's this?" or "What are you doing?". So, when I finished building my latrine, she was very interested.   "What is that?" "It's a latrine. That's where I go to the bathroom." "You don't go to the bathroom in the woods over there." "No. It's so far. I'm lazy. Plus, I don't want people walking in my poop. Also, pooping on the ground makes the water around it dirty." "Oh." "You should use a latrine too. You're a big kid now."   Over the next month, she became more interested, asking me questions about how to use a latrine. I even caught her peeping in on me while I was in the latrine once. The ensuing conversation about privacy and nudity fell on deaf ears. In this culture, kids run around naked and being asked the contents of your bag is a daily occurrence. Anyways, one day, I was eating a hard candy and Harina asked me for one. I told her that I'd only give her one if she started using the latrine. She then went over later in the day, used the latrine, and asked for the candy again. After I made her wash her hands, I paid up.   A few more successful days of the latrine-usage incentive program (read: shamelessly bribing a child with candy), using the latrine became habit for her. Then, she got to work making fun of her friends for being like animals pooping on the ground. Of course, peer pressure is an extremely powerful motivator and her friends started using the latrine too. Ashamed of being called cows by their own children, some parents have begun to trickle in too. It's a snowball effect, led by the smallest catalyst. In related news, my friend, Jao, and I are putting the final touches on his latrine this week. After it is complete, my hope is that his family will use it regularly and that their friends will want to build latrines as well. With Jao's family and Harina as examples to the town, I think, given time, Siranana will be "open defecation free."

Ever not bought something because it cost a dollar too much?  We have:   "How much for those sunglasses?" "$5." "What! $5? That's too expensive.  $1.50." "$2.50." "No, my friend bought the same pair for $1.50 in Tana." "Maybe, but this is Ambanja.  $2.50." "No way, how about $2?" "OK, fine."   It seems pretty stupid when you put it in American dollars, right?  But, since meat costs $1/pound and an orange is 5 cents, it is a big deal for the people who live here.  Not us really, the Peace Corps gives us enough money; we just don't like to be ripped off because we're white.   Updates: rains have started to come down really hard here in Madagascar, we are partnering with new health workers in Ambanja to advocate family planning, and I am looking into teaching my community about food crop diversity with assistance from local NGOs.

As the days wind down on my time here in Mada, I find myself reflecting more and more on my life here. Walking out to have dinner with Jonathan and Mandy, two fellow Alaskans living here in Mahajanga, I took the long route that follows the coastline (and gives me a view across the bay to my old stomping grounds). I have tried to explain many a time to Gasy friends that in America you need to have money to live on the ocean. Not just a little money, but a lot of money. Here, you just need to get your hands on a bit of land. Luckily, there are still plenty of spots available, and it’s warm enough that you can build a house of minimal materials and stay comfortable. In most of the places in the bay area you are going to be surrounded by mango, guava or konikoni fruits. You can sit in your yard and wait for sellers of fish, shrimp or crab to wander by. In the non-rainy season you can catch free concerts put on by big name artists down on the ocean front. If you’re going to pick a place to make a little money go a long way, this place works.

Food for thought today:

“There is no act of faith more beautiful than the generosity of the very poor.”

From Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts

A fabulous read if you’re in the market for a book.

The first rule of fight club is that you do not talk about fight club. Apparently the rats didn’t get that message cause they threw a rat fight club in my ceiling my 2nd week back at site from Christmas vacation (more on that later). It was loud, annoying and there might have been a casualty, though I have no way of knowing. In the run-up to the WWE main event, there were rats scurrying all over my ceiling (this all happened in my attic space), causing me a few days of little shut-eye just from the noise of their nails click, click, clicking on the wood above my head. Not to mention I think entrance to my attic is right above my head. On the night of the fight, my friend Katie happened to be at my site for a site exchange (again, more on that later) and she and I both listened in mild terror (at least it was mild terror for me, since I thought they were going to come to come crashing through my ceiling) at the fight over our heads. At one point it even woke us up, since during their intermission we had fallen asleep. I was really glad she was there. It helped keep me more sane then I would have has I been by myself. I knew the rats couldn’t get into my house, since there are no holes in my ceiling, but you know what the night can do to you. Makes you think about all the what ifs. Thankfully, I think they are gone. I marched over to my guards house the next day and asked him very politely if he wouldn’t mind plugging the hole that lead into my house. He did, they got in again, though I think only one, he fixed it again (I think. At least I asked him too again) and now I hope they are really gone. I keep thinking I hear a rat, walking along, but I think I am just having flashbacks.

So let’s back up to December and 2011. The big news was I WENT HOME FOR CHRISTMAS! It was so exciting. My dad planned it as a surprise for my mom and we managed to keep it from her, which I think is pretty impressive considering we booked the ticket in late August. Since we wanted to surprise my mom, I didn’t tell any of my friends that I was coming home either. The only people who knew were Eric, his girlfriend (at least I’m assuming Becca knew), Brian and my dad. Any more people and someone would have cracked. I got into Seattle, via Atlanta and Paris, at 12:30am on December 22nd. Eric came and got me at the airport and then we had to be really quiet when we got home. My dad work us up at 6:45am to surprise my mom. And boy was she surprised! Especially since I had lied (sorry Mom!) about my Christmas plans and she thought I was on the east coast of MADA. I hung out at home all day, since I didn’t want anyone to see me (though I did crack and take my dog for a walk around Greenlake, a inner city lake that’s real close to my house. I didn’t think I would see anyone since it was super cold and early in the morning). We then surprised my godfather at dinner that night and then a few of my friends that night at their apartment. It was a great first day back.

The whole trip home was a success. Brian came out for like 6 days over New Year’s, which was amazing. We did a lot of wedding planning stuff, which still isn’t finalized yet, but will be soon, and watched a lot of football (it was college bowl week and I love college bowl week). I also hung out with my family a lot, did some damage at Banana Republic (I felt like I was one of the Bakers, especially since I ended up buy the same trench coat as Katie), had lots of wine and one AMAZING steak (thanks baby!), and overall eat my way through the 2 week trip. I had to stock up on cheese, since there is only one brand of cheese here and it leaves something to be desired. I had a lot of time to just sit and chill, which was nice. I mean I do that a lot at site, but it was nice to do it in front of a TV with dozens of channels. and to be able to get up, grab a diet coke (which they don't have here and it always makes me sad) and sit or lay right back down. I headed back to MADA on Jan 5th and went back to site on Jan 8th.

I came back to MADA at the beginning of a cyclone so my first Tuesday back I didn’t have to teach since school was closed. Monday I managed to make it to school, maybe the eye of the storm was over us or something, cause Sunday and Tuesday were awful. Then Katie showed up! Katie is my friend in Peace Corps who lives in the north of MADA, by a town called Ambanja, which I think you can find on a map. She came to my site to help me paint a giant work map at my CEG. We worked real hard too. We spent all day Saturday and Sunday at my CEG, gridding, painting, drawing, painting again, drawing again. We did have some assistants, in the form of my site mate's next door neighbors, who are 8, 6 and 4, but the two youngest did get bored after awhile with all the blue painting being done and went off and did something. We were exhausted on Sunday night. Katie also taught in my high school classes and work at the health center one day with my site mate. It was a very successful site exchange. We got a lot done and my school loves the map. I see kids looking at it all the time. We also had a lot of fun too. We watched a lot of movies and cooked a lot of food. We can work and play hard. What what!

Katie left last week, so I’ve just been teaching. Nothing too exciting going on. I weird to think that I leave MADA this year. Less than a year left. Less than 8 months left. It’s weird to think about. I will come back to America and have to find a real job and be a real grown-up. My after Peace Corps plans involve coming back to the US as soon as I finished, but I am not sure where I will be for a while. Ultimately I will end up in DC with Brian, but my friend Rachel is engaged and may be getting married in the fall, so if she does, I will have to be in Seattle for the wedding, which I wouldn’t miss for anything since she’s the first HS friend getting married and the first of my friends weddings I can go to since my friend Jenn got married Labor Day weekend after I left for PC (Sorry Jenn! I Hope you got my really, really late wedding present! And I hope you liked it! It reminded me so much of you). I also want to be in DC for Brians bday, which is Sept 16th. Well actually I just want to be with him, so if Rachels wedding is that weekend we will be in Seattle together. I also want to go to the UW-CU game in November that’s at CU and I am going to move mountains to be able to go. I hope Brian can come with me, but we won’t know that until closer to November. I also want to spend a good chunk of time in Seattle, since I have to pack up my life for the move out east. See, I have so many plans, but no real idea what is really happening! I just know that if I want all this to happen I can’t really get a job until January 2013, but I will temp or do something during the fall. I can’t not make money in the fall. I have a wedding to save for!

I don’t have much else to say. I won’t have a book list this time, because I left my journal in the States and my mom is mailing it to me, so the next one will be really long. I mean I could write down most of the books, but I don’t want to get confused. Oh request for all my blog fans: Please feel free to send me CDs with new, current music. Even older music from the last few months would be appreciated. Especially Pitbulls “give me everything tonight”. I love that song and I don’t have it. Thanks everyone!

Last weekend was a wild one in Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar. Former President Marc Ravalomanana tried to return to his homeland to meet 30,000 supporters at the airport, but his flight was turned back before it could enter Malagasy airspace by current "transitional" President Andry Rajoelina. Here is my favorite recap of that day so far, which includes the line "The ride had been rockier than Def Leppard in their crotch-guitaring prime."

Now allAfrica has a report directly criticizing France for colluding with Rajoelina's government to keep Ravalomanana out of Madagascar, thereby undermining the SADC's roadmap and overall attempts to end the almost-three-year-long political crisis that started with a coup. Here is the biggest claim in the article:

Security services in the region say they are aware of a 6-point strategy devised by Paris and Antananarivo to prevent Ravalomanana from returning. According to these sources, Rajoelina, his heads of security and France decided to:

Deploy security forces loyal to Rajoelina inside the Ivato International Airport in Antananarivo.

Deploy Rajoelina supporters outside the airport to antagonise and destabilise the estimated 100 000 Ravalomanana supported expected at the airport to welcome him home.

Issue statements threatening the Ravalomanana supporters with arrest.

Threaten to arrest Ravalomanana on arrival.

Lobby the international community to persuade SADC not to allow Ravalomanana back.

As a last resort, issue a Notice to All Airmen (NOTAM) to deny landing rights to all airlines. This effectively closed down the country's airspace.The link between France and Rajoelina has been alluded to for a long time, especially in Madagascar where Ravalomanana supporters (and even some of his opponents but supporters of democracy) claimed France was behind Rajoelina's power grab. The claim at the time was that Ravalomanana had shifted business focus from France to regional neighbors, China, US, etc... While the facts suggested a connection, there was no real evidence of French involvement. Now allAfrica is claiming there is. This is very interesting times for followers of Malagasy politics and sovereignty and conflict resolution...

Last weekend was a wild one in Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar. Former President Marc Ravalomanana tried to return to his homeland to meet 30,000 supporters at the airport, but his flight was turned back before it could enter Malagasy airspace by current "transitional" President Andry Rajoelina. Here is my favorite recap of that day so far, which includes the line "The ride had been rockier than Def Leppard in their crotch-guitaring prime."

Now allAfrica has a report directly criticizing France for colluding with Rajoelina's government to keep Ravalomanana out of Madagascar, thereby undermining the SADC's roadmap and overall attempts to end the almost-three-year-long political crisis that started with a coup. Here is the biggest claim in the article:

Security services in the region say they are aware of a 6-point strategy devised by Paris and Antananarivo to prevent Ravalomanana from returning. According to these sources, Rajoelina, his heads of security and France decided to:

Deploy security forces loyal to Rajoelina inside the Ivato International Airport in Antananarivo.

Deploy Rajoelina supporters outside the airport to antagonise and destabilise the estimated 100 000 Ravalomanana supported expected at the airport to welcome him home.

Issue statements threatening the Ravalomanana supporters with arrest.

Threaten to arrest Ravalomanana on arrival.

Lobby the international community to persuade SADC not to allow Ravalomanana back.

As a last resort, issue a Notice to All Airmen (NOTAM) to deny landing rights to all airlines. This effectively closed down the country's airspace.The link between France and Rajoelina has been alluded to for a long time, especially in Madagascar where Ravalomanana supporters (and even some of his opponents but supporters of democracy) claimed France was behind Rajoelina's power grab. The claim at the time was that Ravalomanana had shifted business focus from France to regional neighbors, China, US, etc... While the facts suggested a connection, there was no real evidence of French involvement. Now allAfrica is claiming there is. This is very interesting times for followers of Malagasy politics and sovereignty and conflict resolution...

The Peace Corps Volunteer who was in Amparafaravola with me, Teena, has launched a Peace Corps Partnership project with the local NGO "ONG Zahatra" to build a community center. Teena describes the project:

ZAHATRA plans to construct a center equipped with proper dining and lavatory facilities which will allow it to expand its services to 30 children and their families. This crucial intervention will not only restore the health of the children and give them the education they need to break the cycle of poverty, it will restore the dignity of their guardians by providing them with the vocational training, skills and materials they need to earn a living and provide for their children.You can see her full post here. You can also go directly to the Peace Corps site to contribute here.

Longtime readers of this blog may recall my brief work with ONG Zahatra (about half way down, second paragraph under If a Coup happens and no one cares...). As a reminder, I spent some time playing with the kids and talking a bit about nutrition, brought them some educational posters and books, and trained the staff on moringa trees. Here are a few photos:

Henri teaching about nutrition

The kids teaching themselves

ONG Zahatra planting Moringa seeds

The Moringa trees starting to grow The kids eating their healthy meals This organization is pretty special, driven by dedicated Malagasy who want to improve their own community. So take a look at the project and help out if you can!

A few other follow-up links from previous posts:

-Here is a link to the video from the Sudan talk I mentioned a few months ago.

-In case you are interested in the rice experiment I mentioned, here is a nice video showing the researcher using an Android tablet to determine fertilizer amounts:

-Nice write-up on Zimbabwe here, a good piece after my conflicted feelings from Mugabe and the White African.

The Peace Corps Volunteer who was in Amparafaravola with me, Teena, has launched a Peace Corps Partnership project with the local NGO "ONG Zahatra" to build a community center. Teena describes the project:

ZAHATRA plans to construct a center equipped with proper dining and lavatory facilities which will allow it to expand its services to 30 children and their families. This crucial intervention will not only restore the health of the children and give them the education they need to break the cycle of poverty, it will restore the dignity of their guardians by providing them with the vocational training, skills and materials they need to earn a living and provide for their children.You can see her full post here. You can also go directly to the Peace Corps site to contribute here.

Longtime readers of this blog may recall my brief work with ONG Zahatra (about half way down, second paragraph under If a Coup happens and no one cares...). As a reminder, I spent some time playing with the kids and talking a bit about nutrition, brought them some educational posters and books, and trained the staff on moringa trees. Here are a few photos:

Henri teaching about nutrition

The kids teaching themselves

ONG Zahatra planting Moringa seeds

The Moringa trees starting to grow The kids eating their healthy meals This organization is pretty special, driven by dedicated Malagasy who want to improve their own community. So take a look at the project and help out if you can!

A few other follow-up links from previous posts:

-Here is a link to the video from the Sudan talk I mentioned a few months ago.

-In case you are interested in the rice experiment I mentioned, here is a nice video showing the researcher using an Android tablet to determine fertilizer amounts:

-Nice write-up on Zimbabwe here, a good piece after my conflicted feelings from Mugabe and the White African.

Well hello there. I have been back in the US now for about 6weeks and haven’t put up a final blog post. So here I go. My last couple months at site were great. It was very difficult saying good bye to all the people that had not only become my new friends but family as well. I made a painting where I had all my kids come into my house, after washing their hands, and trace their handprint on a piece of plywood that I had written the hand-washing song on. They then painted their handprint with one of the many colors I had. I am so happy I got this finished. It will be something that will be in my village and they can remember me by. It was hard saying good bye to my friends in the cities that I would visit to buy all my food and other necessities. Lots of tears were shed and lots of final laughs were had. I am so grateful for my two years spent in my village and all the people whose lives have touched mine and hopefully whose lives were touched by my two year stay. I had two PCVs, Raff and Brian, come stay at my house the last couple nights to help me get all my stuff together and just help keep my sanity. It was very stressful and sad and they did a fabulous job at keeping me as calm as possible and always laffing. I am forever grateful and thankful for everything they did those last few days. On my final day, MBG had their yearly celebration of the coming of the organization to Mahabo and I tied in a farewell for myself as well. There were a bunch of speeches including one by yours truly and dancing and music along with food and beverages all day long. I had 12 of my closest PCVs come down to help support me which was clearly necessary. I would go out and mingle with everyone and have to go back to the hut and cry and repeat all day. The PCVs helped with all the hugs, tears, and laffs that were provided for me all day long. One of my favorite memories from this day was one PCV bought a bunch of cookies and had myself and 2 other PCVs hand them out. The kids go WILD for these and were all grabbing for them and kept asking for more and more and more. But in the middle of handing out a package I looked up to see one of the other PCVs running from all the children that just attacked her for the cookies. I couldn’t stop laffing as she was running from one side of the compound to the other. It was so fun and so sad but exactly what I pictured and needed for closure. I left my village with the kids saying “bye bye” and felt so great about the last two years of my life spent there in that village. I will miss them dearly but no one can ever take away those memories that were formed while there and I will carry them with me in my daily life. I was lucky enough and able to fly back with 2 other PCVs…Sara Tolliver and Aaron Acosta. We flew to Paris then to Chicago, where we all went our separate ways. Of course, to be expected, all 6 of our checked bags were left in Paris, which for me was no biggie becuz that meant less to carry and nothing to go thru customs with and I got mine the day after and Sara and Aaron ended up getting theirs as well, eventually. I had been doing ok with no crying when I left the Peace Corps house where I said good bye to fellow PCVs and made it all the way to Chicago. Well Aaron’s family came to meet him there and as soon as I saw him hug his dad, the tears were a flowing. It was very emotional to see him see his family for the first time in 2 years. We all hugged and parted for I had a gate to find. I found it and had time to spare so I went to exchange some Euros that I had acquired and stopped to get a good beer. I sat down and this woman asked me where I was coming from. She said people with their hair like mine, it was all braided, were usually coming from some far away place. I smiled and told her Madagascar. She was very kind and we talked about traveling, she herself was well traveled. It was a nice conversation and good company. Well the hour long flight from Chicago to LaCrosse went by so fast. It was some of the first sleep I had gotten out of the 21hr flight. I think I slept the whole way. Getting off the plane, I knew it was going to be emotional to see my family. I walked off the plane and had to step aside before entering the airport to take a few deep breaths. I could see my cousins and aunts holding “Welcome Home” signs and cheering and clapping. Oh man before I was even thru those doors I was crying. My sister came running over and hugged me with tears and then my mom and dad and everyone else. It still brings tears to my eyes thinking of that moment. Even though it went by fast it felt like a lifetime since I had been hugged by my family and it felt great. Who knew but American Airlines fed me so much I couldn’t go get the nachos that I had wanted becuz I was still so full but we did make a stop and had the best bloodies in LaCrosse at Del’s bar. Don’t worry we picked up my older sister from the train station the next day and had them for lunch. I was pretty jet lagged for the first couple weeks and stressed with the holidays but it was so great to see all my family and I’ve been able to visit with many of my friends already including a great afternoon spent with my bffs Colleen and Dave who were in the area from Oregon and Texas. Mainly life has been uneventful but it’s just what I needed to readjust. I’ve kept in contact with some of the other RPCVs from my group and talked to my close PCVs that are still in Mada over the holidays. We had a conference call last night that I like to call “comfort call” with 5 other RPCVs from my group all on the line at the same time. It was great. But yes I think this may be my last entry. But thank you for being a friend and coming along for the ride. Take care!

As we approach the “year in country” mark (holy cow), I realized I’ve never told you guys the typical day’s schedule in the “ambanivohitra/countryside”. Well, it goes a little something like this:

5:30am alarm goes off. Open windows.

5:45am stumble my way to light switch to see if this day includes electricity.

5:50am take last night’s trash to burn pit and empty “po”. (TMI, yes)

6:00am get two buckets of water from pump.

6:10am wash yesterday’s dishes.

6:30am make bed, coco brousse floors, and sweep house.

6:45am make breakfast: tea, fruit, sometimes eggs.

7:00am begrudgingly go for a run.

8:00am make self presentable. (usually consists of brushing teeth only)

8:30am off to work! Depending on the day this means keyboarding lessons, silk

federation meetings, or trips to my NGO’s office in the capital city.

12:30pm home to cook lunch: whatever vegetables haven’t gone bad from

Tuesday’s market trip.

1:30pm nap/read.

2:00pm study language, write letters, or figure out exporting in sweet potato field

of choice.

4:00pm play with village children. (usually jumping over a string)

5:00pm make dinner: tea. Watch Top Chef if electricity is cooperating.

6:00pm over think the contents of my planner.

6:30pm prepare for bed/read until calling it quits.

Repeat.

Here’s to another year.

January 17, 2012 I just spent ten solid minutes trying to figure out how to spell “apocalypse.”  My pride wouldn’t let me google it.  I got there eventually. {Right?  That IS how you spell it…right??} Aaaaaaanyhoo.  What was I saying?  Oh right…rain. So. Much. Rain. Today, ladies & gents, is day FIVE of this constant torrential downpour.  DAY FREAKING FIVE! My phone has been dead for two and a half days because there has not been a hint of sun to solar-charge it on.  I’m going crazy.  This blog entry is being typed out on my iPod, which has approximately 10% battery left…but the need to talk to myself right now is very, very urgent.  Is this what happens before you go crazy?? Is this what Tom Hanks felt like in Castaway when he started talking to Wilson, his volleyball BFF??? It is not only rainy season here in Madagascar, but cyclone season.  This is my very first cyclone - it’s being called “Tropical Depression Chanda.”  Wait, does this mean it’s not a full-blown cyclone yet?  ANYWAY!  Still a constant downpour that never lets up.  No one wants to do any work, they just sit in their house and watch the rain. Which is what I do.  Which is why I’m going crazy. {Author’s note on January 26th: second cyclone has hit the Mozambique Channel - Funso, is what they’re calling this one - mmmmmooooorrrrrrreeeeee rain.  Joy.} The one good thing about all this rain is that I have a few rain catch pipes outside my house, so I just stick my water bucket underneath & voila!  I don’t have to make my daily trip to the village well! One bad thing is that my laundry never quite gets dry.  It’s all just…kind of damp. Another good thing is that I can sing to my music at the top of my lungs inside my house, and no one knows, because the rain is pounding down so hard outside! Another bad thing is that I’m very worried my kabone is going to overflow.  I think this is actually my number one worry right now.  Maybe, possibly, most definitely too much information for you, but: I know the “waste matter level” in there is rising based off of the fall time of my pee.  There.  I said it.  Get over it.  I talk about pee/poop at least once a day over here.  The important thing to talk away from this is that MY KABONE MIGHT OVERFLOW. Okay.  That’s it for now I guess. Hey, guess what?  It’s still raining. Until next time, T

January 14, 2012 Strange, random things can trigger deja vu for me.  Well, not deja vu…I never get that feeling, strangely enough.  (I know, right?!)  But certain things trigger memories for me, at the weirdest times. And today, for instance, I’m faced with a flood of memories of nights out at ASU: Walking through the parking garage on Mill Avenue with my girls. Fawning over clothes at Urban Outfitters, but never buying anything because we were always broke. Eating pizza at UNOs. Fro-yo at Mojo at the north end of Mill Ave, right next to the light rail stop and across from the old mill. Rula Bula. Reading magazines at the corner Borders for hours and hours. You see, for me and my friends, Mill Avenue was the place to be.  Monday through Sunday.  Where we had the most fun.  Got into the most trouble.  Got, quite possibly, the most inebriated any of us have ever been. (Just kidding Mom & Dad, I have never imbibed in alcoholic beverages of extraordinary proportions ever…never ever.) It’s where a lot of my memories happened during those years before Peace Corps. And today, walking down the center of my village, with different groups of women sitting around gossiping, laughing, yanking kids out of the way of oncoming cars…I was reminded of some of the best years of my life. So to Madeline, Jackie, Maris, Heather, Kim, Susan, Liz, Katie, Olivia, Rachel, Lindsey, Maxine and ALL my girls back home…head out to Mill Ave and get in to some trouble for me, will you? {photo credit: Tara Prindiville…this documents the crew after a certain girl got us kicked out of a certain club…and this description can describe many, maaaaany different nights out muahaha!} Until next time! T

January 12, 2012 Being in the Peace Corps is almost like being caught in a time warp.  Or a time freeze, I suppose. I’ve lived the last ten months of 2011 still stuck in 2010. With many things, but in particular with music.  Case in point: I still think “Teach Me How To Dougie” is the hip thing in all the clubs.  And yes,  I just used the phrase “the hip thing.” IS K$SHA EVEN COOL ANYMORE??? I just spent the last few hours going through iTunes “Top Charts” list and YouTube’s Music page to find new music to download.  To stay current.  To stay hip. At 23 years old I am worried about staying hip. I won’t even MENTION how 2010 my clothes are.  But the point of my clothes at this point in my life is not to look cute, but to cover all necessary parts of my body that need to be covered.  Only when I get back to the States, will I add the necessity to be “cute” to the reason for my clothes. Anyway.  Back to the music thing.  Now that it’s already 2012, I suppose I most definitely need to keep on top of this current music thing.  Or else when I come home, there’s going to be one hell of a rude awakening when I turn on a radio. I have a Dropbox account.  Y’all can send music to my Dropbox.  And should!!  Just shoot me a message here on Tumblr if you want my Dropbox info! [My dear, dear friend Katie sent me some Christmas music a little while back.  It was a little bit of a Glee Christmas this past year.  :)] Until next time! T

Sometimes I run out of books to read.  So I play Solitaire.  By myself at night by candlelight. Sometimes Solitaire gets boring.  And my iPod also happens to be dead.  And I’m not tired yet.  So I build card towers.  By myself at night by candlelight. Sometimes card towers fall down.  And I realize I don’t have the patience to build card towers.  So I lay my chin on the table & stare into space for about an hour, until I get tired.  By myself at night by candlelight. Oh, the nightlife of a Peace Corps volunteer!

I want cream cheese wontons from Panda Express. I want bacon bit cheesy fries with ranch from Outback Steakhouse. I want a cheesy gordita crunch from Taco Bell. And I want unlimited salad & breadsticks from Olive Garden. RIGHT NOW.  IN MY STOMACH. (And yes.  I DO realize that 3 of those 4 food items have “cheese” or “cheesy” in the title.) (Second side note: there’s more food I’m craving.  Much, much more.  But I picked my top four at the moment.  Didn’t want to scare you all off with a big long food list.)

  It didn’t rain enough in November; people didn’t plant rice. It didn’t rain enough in December; only a few people could plant rice. So, when the torrential downpours came they were a blessing at first. However, when the river started to rise, then flooded rice fields, surrounded my house with a six inch deep [...]

Sitting on the side of the road, waiting for a passing taxi-brousse* to grace me with a seat, or at least a fraction of one, I started to think about...waiting. That morning alone I had already lost two unrecoverable hours of my youth baking in the hot sun waiting for a passing car, and it could be as many more until I even saw a brousse, let alone one heading in the right direction. How many combined hours had I spent this way? How many days of my life had slipped away in a taxi-brousse station, or on the side of the road, watching as cars passed me by, buses filled up with a seemingly impossible number of passengers, and chickens, mattresses, suitcases, and bikes were loaded onto the top? As I started to do the math, I realized that this was not even counting the number of uncomfortable hours I had racked up actually sitting in a taxi-brousse, traveling to and from nearby villages and distant cities. My thoughts drifted…

How much time had I spent waiting in general? Waiting for students to show up to a class I was teaching, waiting for the restaurant to finally bring my food (“What, did they have to kill the cow tonight?”), waiting for a village official to get back to me about approval for a project, or waiting for the postman to tell me that a package I had been expecting for months had finally arrived.

And then I looked around me, and for the first time saw what should have been obvious months earlier—Madagascar is a country in a near constant state of waiting. Next to me on the side of the road were other people squinting, looking up and down the road in anticipation of the long-awaited arrival of a car, to pick them up, drop off relatives, bring the mail, or just provide a few brief moments of distraction in an otherwise fairly dull village. Like these people, who almost seemed to enjoy sitting around doing nothing, I had become so used to waiting that I had stopped noticing it. It no longer seemed like a burden to sit for three hours waiting for a brousse to drive by so I could hand them a letter, addressed “Vazaha, Maromandia” (“White person, Town south of me”…it got there, eventually). Of course it would take months for a package to get to Ambanja from America; why would it be any other way? When will the taxi-brousse finally leave? When it is full, duh.

In some ways, I think Americans could learn a lot from the Malagasy outlook on waiting. We tend to view idleness with an attitude that borders on compulsion towards business and productivity. Time spent waiting is time wasted. A ten minute wait for the bus is spent getting work done on a smart phone; a flight delayed by an hour is met with an angry outcry by passengers; food can be ordered and delivered in minutes, all without the onerous delay of parking and getting out of a car.

But, as I have learned in Madagascar, not all idleness is necessarily negative, and the ability to wait patiently can be a remarkably advantageous trait. The time spent waiting for my food in a restaurant makes me enjoy my food more (I may not want them to actually need to kill the cow when I order my steak, but do I really want my food pre-made and churned out in seconds?). Time spent waiting for brousses is spent getting to know the people at the brousse station, the vendors on the side of the road, or fellow travelers. Time spent waiting at the pump for buckets to fill with water is time spent bonding with the women in town, fostering a sense of community. Time spent waiting for village officials to help with projects is time spent wrinkling out the flaws in what appeared to be a perfect plan. The lack of the constant, stressful urgency to be accomplishing something or getting somewhere is profoundly refreshing and, ultimately, rewarding. I am proud of my newfound ability to wait patiently like a Malagasy person, to find contentment passing the time doing absolutely nothing. Scratch that: it is not time spent doing nothing. It is time spent waiting, which is an entirely different thing.

However, in other ways, this waiting that often seems to define life in Madagascar is perhaps less of a positive attribute than it is a manifestation of a certain passiveness that permeates the culture; a passiveness that is reflected, arguably, in the country’s rampant underdevelopment. This is not to say that Malagasy people are lazy, or unmotivated. Certainly, there are many Malagasy people, some of whom I have the pleasure of working with in Peace Corps and in my village, who have taken their country’s development into their own hands, who are not passively waiting for development to happen but are working hard to realize it every day. But, most Malagasy people, it often seems, have settled into an apparently indifferent limbo. And they wait.

People don’t just spend hours waiting for a taxi-brousse, they spend years, even decades, waiting for someone else to come along and build a much-needed road. They don’t just wait for food at a restaurant, they wait to get through the trying hungry season during which families must cut back drastically on caloric intake; they wait for government subsidies to kick into effect so that they can afford rice. They don’t just wait a few weeks for village officials to get back to them about projects, they wait for years for the government to follow through on its promises to build schools, power plants, and wells. And, like me on the side of the road waiting for a brousse, they have stopped noticing that perhaps they have been waiting too long.

While to an outsider, watching as Madagascar continues to fail to develop, this passiveness may seem inexcusable, after living here for over a year, it is certainly hard to blame people for this attitude. Most Malagasy people, even decades after decolonization, continue to find themselves in a position of relative powerlessness, without an outlet through which to effect changes they want to see or even express an opinion about what path the country should be following. Foreign run NGOs come into a community, assess what they think the problems are, apply their well-intentioned but often misguided solutions, ask people to thank them, and then abandon the community to fend for itself yet again. The government isn’t much better: it is either some abstract, distant entity that has little or nothing to do with a villager’s daily life (once, when I asked a group of my friends in my village who the president of Madagascar was, they readily admitted that they didn’t know), or a limited, powerless, and often corrupt group of local elites that can, in reality, accomplish very little.

And so Malagasy people keep waiting. Where does this leave them? Well, probably next to me, on the side of the road somewhere, patiently waiting for a brousse to pick them up and take them where they want to go. I guess we’ll all get where we want to be sooner or later, and at least in the meanwhile, we’ll have a good time waiting.

*A taxi-brousse is the main means of transportation in Madagascar. The “buses” are usually old vans that travel from town to town, or take longer, often overnight trips, from city to city. On local brousses, people are sometimes squeezed five or even six to a row, with plenty of extra children, chickens, and random baskets thrown in for good measure.

One night, after a particularly unsatisfying meal of beans and rice, feeling a little bored and a little hungry, I texted my friend Katie B. and asked, “So, tell me, what is it like to eat a chicken biscuit?”

I should take a moment to point out that Katie is slightly obsessed with Chick-Fil-A’s chicken biscuits. She has talked about them enough that, even though I have never eaten one, I too am now slightly obsessed.* I get intense cravings for them. “How much would you pay for a chicken biscuit right now” is a common game, and I regularly offer up hundreds of dollars. I have a Chick-Fil-A business card hanging on my wall and I have never even entered one of their very fine (I'm sure...) establishments.

And so on that fateful, boring, hunger-filled night, I asked Katie what I thought was an innocuous, albeit silly, question. The response I got was neither innocuous nor silly (um, maybe a little silly):

“Order chicken biscuit (that’ll be $1.99). Even though it is breakfast, you should probably get a coke with it. Ideal combination of flavors. Unwrap biscuit from tin foil. Pause to wallow in the delicious aroma. Observe the golden flakiness of the biscuit. See how the succulent, deep-fried chicken patty peeks around the edges. Take an anticipatory sip of Coke. Praise Gawd. Take your first bite. A big bite. Feel the biscuit crumble, buttery, and the chicken, salty. They combine, perfect notes of flavor playing on your palette. The salt from the tears of joy you are spontaneously weeping add to reach a perfect heart-stopping sodium level. At the center of the biscuit, the ratio of crunchiness, softness, and juiciness becomes overwhelming. You pass out.

After you are revived (someone threw a coke on your face), you complete your chicken biscuit voyage. You say, Katie, you were right, I could never eat just one. You order another. You notice they sell hash browns. You order one of those too. The hash browns change everything. Your second chicken biscuit, hot on the heels of the first, is even better. You understand why Chick-Fil-A is closed on Sundays. That biscuit made you believe in God.”

Needless to say, I went to bed a little bit hungrier, and even more unsatisfied with eating beans and rice day after day.

*When I first wrote this blog, I had never tried a chicken biscuit. Upon my return to America, I made my way to a Chick-Fil-A and enjoyed my first one. It was even better than Katie had made it out to be.

It’s been a hard couple months in some ways. I had this idea in my head that when I returned from America at the end of Oct., I would have 2 full months to finish up work, see friends, and prepare to transition to, yet another, completely different life. One with normal workday hours, in an actual city, at an office, with (gasp!) no 3 hour siesta in the middle of the day.

And while I’ve had those 2 months (well almost) they were nothing like I expected. I have been on the go essentially since I returned, with VAC, a training at Mantasoa, a conference in Tana, trips out of town to help with projects and a couple last minute necessary trips for my PCVL duties; I’ve hardly spent any time in Diego at all. When I have been in town, the only real time I’ve found to spend at PSI has been when the power cuts out, my computer dies and I literally cannot continue working.

With all the last minute changes, and the very large change looming ahead, I had been feeling a little bit overwhelmed with things. At some point I realized that most of my support network for the last two years, had decided to end their service (like normal volunteers) and would, in fact, be leaving the country (despite my repeated attempts to get them to live in my spare room). And the ones who would remain would not be as accessible to me as they currently are. I got a bit emotional about it. I may have even cried.

And then I found myself in Anketrakabe with Kelly, talking at night while listening to her town practice their Christmas songs (clearly they don’t know the day after Thanksgiving rule). We got to talking about how unimaginable it would be to have a life where practicing Christmas songs is an event significant enough in your life every year that you would start in November, staying up into midnight, in the dark, because of the excitement of it.

And it was at this moment that I made the switch. I realized how grateful I am for change in my life. (and this was my ‘thankful’ comment for thanksgiving dinner) It really is amazing to have had a life where I am constantly being challenged by dramatic change. And not to belittle life in Anketrakabe, but I am so glad that my world is so much larger than that. And perhaps more importantly, even more than being grateful for change, I am grateful for how hard making the change is. I have had amazing people become a part of my life over the course of the last 2 years of Peace Corps and here in Diego I have become especially tamana, and have found very fulfilling relationships. The fact that I am so reluctant and sad to leave them is testament to that.

The northern crew on New years eve. Going to miss this bunch!

My Peace Corps Partnership Project has finally been posted.

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=684-125

ZAHATRA is a local non-governmental organization operating in Madagascar, a nation that suffers from some of the highest rates of poverty and childhood malnutrition in the world. ZAHATRA means "raft" in Malagasy, and the metaphor is intentional: these families are waiting to cross the river to a better life, they just don't have any way to get there, ZAHATRA is their raft.

ZAHATRA's mission is to ensure that all children have the right to food, education, health and the opportunity for a better life. With support from local government and churches, ZAHATRA's dedicated Malagasy volunteers provide food and school supplies to vulnerable children and offer vocational training and social support to their parents or guardians.

20 children and their families are currently supported by ZAHATRA and are fed in the small home of the director. However there are many more families who are unable to adequately feed their children or send them to school. The organization is unable to assist other families due to a lack of space.

ZAHATRA plans to construct a center equipped with proper dining and lavatory facilities which will allow it to expand its services to 30 children and their families. This crucial intervention will not only restore the health of the children and give them the education they need to break the cycle of poverty, it will restore the dignity of their guardians by providing them with the vocational training, skills and materials they need to earn a living and provide for their children.

Please help this non-profit in my town build this community center.

To make an online tax deductible donation to this project, copy and paste this web address into a new browser

(https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=684-125)

Running yesterday my Ipod shuffled "Morning Glory" by Oasis. The opening verse into the chorus was spot on, "Tomorrow never knows what it doesn't know too soon, Need a little time to wake up...Need a little time to rest your mind, You know you should so I guess you might as well...".

Why yes, 27 months please.

One of the most appealing aspects to Peace Corps service for me, among the many, is the way in which it will change me. Every hardship I've incurred to this point in life has shaped me dramatically for the better. I feel like this season will "wake me up" in a lot of ways - to the reality of life I preach to others but have yet to live myself. So often we seek but don't anticipate the way in which actually finding will affect us. The reality is in approximately 38 days, I'll be on my way to living in another country - not vacationing BUT living. I will be supported by people I've never met instead of family and friends. I feel like I'm preparing for a massive camping adventure but don't actually know the campsite with two bags full of random items - from duct tape to a bottle opener to solar flashlights to a hammock to loads of music/movies to vintage owls (my flock brings me joy :).

But the best things in life are always bittersweet. There is no reward to be had in taking the comfortable path so I suppose I'll take the path 9,676 miles away.

This morning, I had two errands to run in my banking town of Diego. Such small errands that, if I lived in the United States, would not even require me to leave my home, or if so, would be rather painless: pick up a package at the post office (these are usually delivered right to your door in the U.S!), and buy a plane ticket (normally this can be done on-line).

I set out as early as possible to do these two simple errands since the heat and humidity these days steadily climbs and becomes unbearable by 10 o'clock in the morning. Unfortunately the post office and Air Madagascar don't open until 8:30.

First stop, the post office. But please, don't picture a post office. Picture in your mind instead, a dilapidated, abandoned building, complete with broken glass doors, crumbling concrete steps, empty office stalls filled with broken machinery, computer monitors from the early age of computers so covered in dust they look like an artifacts, stacks of phone directories from the 1980's, busted brooms and all manner of boxes, piles of yellowed paper and trash blown into corners. This is where I go to retrieve my packages... where one solitary man sits behind a wooden desk day after day, writing up dozens of package slips by hand in leather-bound books that look straight out of the19th century. Each slip must, of course, be stamped with several official stamps in order for every transaction to be complete.

But I digress. Already pouring with sweat in the stuffy building, I hurriedly give the man my package slip, wondering why it costs an astonishing 10,000 Ariary less than usual. He looks at me sheepishly as he turns the corner to retrieve the package; I sense something is wrong. Normally he will pull out an ancient set of keys that opens a dusty storage room; this time he simply picks up what I think is a large envelope on his desk. As he comes around the corner I see that what looks to be an envelope was once a good-sized cardboard box, now squished (perhaps under the wheels of a truck?) and bundled together with twine. One corner is open, and the whole box is soggy and smelling of decay. This is the package I've been waiting two months for.

I can't help but instantly show my frustration, by swearing (in English) under my breath. He starts rattling off some story about a problem with the truck, and rain, and bad roads, and in response, trying not to be overly confrontational, I don't look him in the eye. I understand most of what he says; his Malagasy is a dialect with which I'm not too familiar. He suggests if I would rather come back in the afternoon, I can file a formal complaint. (This really is just a formality, nothing would come out of it other than losing several more pints of sweat and sitting for several more hours in a stuffy office building.) I say no thank you, I'll take what's left of the package now. He tells me not to be mad at him, he didn't ruin the package. I know this, but still, the sweat, the heat, the two years of dealing with nothing that works in Madagascar... this one moment is just the straw that broke the already-broken-long-ago camel's back.

I pay the money with crumpled, dirty bills and move on to my second errand of the day, which holds much more promise of going smoothly; when I'd gone to the Air Madagascar office earlier in the week, there was actually a waiting area with comfortable chairs, fans that worked (though the electricity was out in half the office), and fairly competent staff who spoke an comprehensible mixture of French, Malagasy and a few English words.

The office is a good distance from the post so by the time I arrive I am once again dripping with sweat. Much to my delight, there is no wait! I make my way to the pleasant woman I'd dealt with on Monday. After securing the reservation (all the while fanning myself with a piece of plastic), we go together to the payment desk, which is where the trouble begins. My credit card won't process through their fairly-modern looking machine. She tries again, and again, and again. Several other workers gather around, trying the card. "Do you have another card?" they ask. No. Of course not.

We sit back down at the desk and she looks at me impassively. "Madame? Can I help you?" she asks, dismissing me and looking around for the next customer. I'm kinda -okay, really- pissed off. She tells me I'll have to go to the bank to get cash, then come back. Alright, fine. It's no one's fault, it's just life in Madagascar. Out in the street, back in the sun, I storm off to the closest ATM. As I approach the door, the guard stops me, calling out in Malagasy, "It's not working! You'll have to go downtown." Of course.

I get the fat stack of Ariary, return to the office and finally make the reservation with a new clerk, who is actually a 60-someodd year old man, who is in training and possibly discovering computers for the first time. He politely asks, "Would you like to pay now or at the airport?" Haha! I almost laugh. This whole time, I discover, I didn't even need to pay at the time of the reservation. I could have paid on the day of the flight, at the airport. Sigh.

I need a beer.

Sure, best management practices sound great in theory, but do they work in reality? Often times, experts preach certain techniques or methods without any first-hand knowledge of their success rates. Well over the next few months, two experts from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) want to change that. They have embarked on the IRRI Agronomy Challenge, an attempt by two experts to grow a high-yielding rice crop themselves at the IRRI research center in the Philippines. Specifically, they are aiming for a 7 ton yield. Their approach:

We have chosen a single field of 0.25 ha size (25 x 100 m), which is quite typical for Asian rice farming. The soil is a deep, heavy clay. The location is in the humid tropics. In the dry season rice needs to be grown with irrigation.

We will obtain all information on recommended Best Management Practices (BMPs) from publicly available IRRI sources, particularly the Rice Knowledge Bank. We will do most field operations ourselves, to experience on the ground what works and what doesn’t. We’ll adjust as we go, just as a farmer would do while learning.

We will explain and document what we’re doing and we’ll share our experiences with you.

One of the experts, Achim Dobermann, described his motivation to take on this challenge as follows: "As a scientist and research leader I have been involved in rice research for 25 years, in many countries. My own research background is in soil science and agronomy, areas in which I have published numerous scientific articles and also a few books. But there is something that I keep wondering about: why is it that many of the research findings and technologies developed by scientists don’t seem to be used by rice farmers?"

This sort of practice, and the accompanying transparency in the results (the two are blogging weekly and recording short youtube videos at each stage of the crop's progression), is very refreshing. Granted, they are using some heavy machinery, so it is not identical to the implementation of rural farmers. But it is a step in the right direction, and hopefully other experts will work to implement their techniques before propagating them! You can follow along at the blog here to see if they succeed or fail!

Sure, best management practices sound great in theory, but do they work in reality? Often times, experts preach certain techniques or methods without any first-hand knowledge of their success rates. Well over the next few months, two experts from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) want to change that. They have embarked on the IRRI Agronomy Challenge, an attempt by two experts to grow a high-yielding rice crop themselves at the IRRI research center in the Philippines. Specifically, they are aiming for a 7 ton yield. Their approach:

We have chosen a single field of 0.25 ha size (25 x 100 m), which is quite typical for Asian rice farming. The soil is a deep, heavy clay. The location is in the humid tropics. In the dry season rice needs to be grown with irrigation.

We will obtain all information on recommended Best Management Practices (BMPs) from publicly available IRRI sources, particularly the Rice Knowledge Bank. We will do most field operations ourselves, to experience on the ground what works and what doesn’t. We’ll adjust as we go, just as a farmer would do while learning.

We will explain and document what we’re doing and we’ll share our experiences with you.

One of the experts, Achim Dobermann, described his motivation to take on this challenge as follows: "As a scientist and research leader I have been involved in rice research for 25 years, in many countries. My own research background is in soil science and agronomy, areas in which I have published numerous scientific articles and also a few books. But there is something that I keep wondering about: why is it that many of the research findings and technologies developed by scientists don’t seem to be used by rice farmers?"

This sort of practice, and the accompanying transparency in the results (the two are blogging weekly and recording short youtube videos at each stage of the crop's progression), is very refreshing. Granted, they are using some heavy machinery, so it is not identical to the implementation of rural farmers. But it is a step in the right direction, and hopefully other experts will work to implement their techniques before propagating them! You can follow along at the blog here to see if they succeed or fail!

Here is a post I wrote for Columbia SIPA's New Media Task Force blog, focusing on the work of Eric Couper, the ICT and Agriculture Coordinator for the Africa Soil Information Service, leading an ICT4Ag Pilot Survey. His survey was conducted with Android devices running Open Data Kit. Click here for the full article.

Here is a post I wrote for Columbia SIPA's New Media Task Force blog, focusing on the work of Eric Couper, the ICT and Agriculture Coordinator for the Africa Soil Information Service, leading an ICT4Ag Pilot Survey. His survey was conducted with Android devices running Open Data Kit. Click here for the full article.

I've scheduled my appointment to get the yellow fever vaccine (next Thursday) so that I can have the medical hold taken off of my PC account. That's supposed to be done 4 weeks before departing the US so that'll easily be within that time frame.

For all you other Madagascar folk who will be reporting for staging next month, we're at 41 days (!) till we go to wherever our staging site is. Anyone received that info yet?

It's been interesting letting people know that I'm leaving and where I'm going. The questions people ask are amusing. Is Madagascar like the movie they made for kids with lions and penguins and zebras and stuff? Everyone speaks English there, right? So where exactly on the West Coast of Africa is Madagascar? Why are they MAD AT NASCAR?! (being from North Carolina, that's my personal favorite)

Though I've answered those questions a thousand times, I've gotten good at explaining the answers without sounding like I've answered them a hundred times. One of the questions that I've had a more difficult time answering is the "What EXACTLY will you be doing for 2 years?". A simple "I don't EXACTLY know" doesn't satisfy people's curiosity about my service. But my having to explain to other people that I don't know the specifics has helped me embrace the idea that I MYSELF don't even know. It tends to go something like this: I'm in the environmental program as an "Agriculture and Forestry Extension Advisor" which means I can teach about conservation, help to maybe develop ecotourism, work with farmers in the rice fields (I know nothing about growing rice but I'm willing to learn). I usually end the explanation with some form of "I'll letcha know in 2 years what EXACTLY I did". To me though, as the PC and other volunteers on PC Journals have said, it's useless to have some kind of grandiose idea of what you're going to do in service. It seems that the first 8 months or so are used more as cultural integration and for building relationships and trust with one's community, rather than diving headfirst into a million different projects. One of the things I constantly remind myself of is that this is not the Environment Corps, the Agriculture Corps, the Educations Corps, the Development Corps, or even the Health Corps. Yes, all of those things fall under the Peace Corps, but I think they're more of a means to an end. It's the "Peace" Corps for a reason. Not necessarily the peace we think of when we would like people to stop blowing each other to hell around the world (Peace Corps isn't really in countries prone to daily warfare). But the peace (call it respect, understanding, love) that develops between someone and another person or group of people who are so VERY different. THAT is one thing I can tell people I want to EXACTLY try to experience while in Madagascar.

I don't know who all's flipping through these Madagascar blogs. But if you're currently serving in Madagascar with PC or you're an RPCV from there, feel free to throw me some words of wisdom from your experiences. I'd love to hear from you and to learn as much as I can before I leave.

Madagascar: "Is that some kind of hybrid vehicle?"

Rice. It’s what’s for dinner. And lunch. And breakfast. Everyday.

If you don’t have enough money, you might not eat rice 3 times a day, and that is not good. It varies from region to region, with some eating other root crops more often, but rice is the Malagasy “white food,” and in my area people like to eat it for all meals. It is not an easy concept to convey that Americans eat a different food for every meal, and there is no single base for all meals, or no “white food”. Sometimes they will alternate with corn or boiled cassava root for lunch; it depends on the kind of work they are doing. Rice is the main dish, and the side dish is called a loaka. The ratio of rice-to-loaka is the reverse of what you might see in the US. A few spoonfuls of loakais sufficient for a heaping plate of rice. And I mean HEAPING; enough rice for our whole family at home might be enough for two people here, maybe one if they have been working hard. And my neighbors are always working hard.

SRI SRI (System de RizicultureIntensif in French) is a new technique that I’m trying with my neighbors. It was developed in the 1980s here in Madagascar, and has taken off in a lot of other rice-producing countries, but has yet to be widely adopted here where it started. It does not require different seeds or other inputs. Instead, it changes the way that you plant and maintain the rice. The yields can be exponentially greater for the same amount of land AND less rice is used to plant and therefore more can be eaten!There are a lot of NGOs working with it, and Peace Corps also tries to work with it a lot. The base idea is this: transplant young seedlings (8-10 days only) one-by-one in a grid pattern and with enough space for them to grow well; weed the rice often (the grid pattern allows for using a push-weeder); keep little-to-no water for the majority of the growing period to allow enough air to get to the roots. Traditionally it goes like this: transplant seedlings after a month or two (30-60 days!) in clumps of 3 or more; transplant them fairly close and without a pattern; keep water on the field at all times; weed occasionally. There are a lot of advantages to the SRI method, but it is scary to change things when their ancestors have done it a different way for the last 2000 years, and the initial labor is higher. The labor should exponentially pay off in the long-term, but for planning the here-and-now, it seems like an awful lot of work. To compound that, when learning a new method, things take longer until you get the hang of it so it seems like double the work. I’m really optimistic about this method because I think it makes sense for the growth of the plant, but it’s hard to put theory to practice. People in my area have expressed interest in it, but it’s also hard to convert that enthusiasm into time, fields, and labor set aside to actually do it. So far I have worked with one family to plant about 800m2 of SRI. It’s going, but there were some hiccups so it’s not as spectacular as I had hoped. Luckily they are very enterprising and not easily discouraged, so they say that they are already pleased with the results and think that next year it will be even better. Hooray for them! There are two other families that will be transplanting within the next week. Their fields are already muddied (hoed, weeded, and trampled into the right consistency of mud) and the rice has been sowed in the seedbed. I’m hopeful for these next two fields, since we have already learned a few lessons from the first batch. These are all close neighbors, and I think for this year that will have to be enough, and next year hopefully the results from these fields combined with showing the SRI films a few more times will make it easier for me to work with people in other villages in my area.

My last month at site has been quite a roller coaster. While I’m not yet leaving the country, I have had to say goodbye to the community with whom I’ve lived and worked for the past two years. I will admit, there are some things I’ll be glad to say goodbye to and many new adventures I’m excited to move on to. However I’ve made so many close connections—both professional and personal—with Malagasies and Peace Corps volunteers in my region, which has made the moving process difficult.

Even though I chose not to end my two years before the holiday season so I could be with family back home, like most other volunteers in my “stage” (training group), I still had a wonderful Christmas here in Madagascar. A few of us in our region of the northeast corner decided to get together at a volunteer’s house in one of the larger towns and celebrate with close approximations to American traditions and a little Malagasy twist. Instead of mulled wine or cider we had tropical sangria with leechies, pineapples and mangoes. Instead of turkey and mashed potatoes we had a big tropical seafood feast at a fancy hotel on the waterfront. Instead of Christmas special marathons on T.V we watched a few Christmas movies that someone had on their laptop. Instead of large extravagant gift-giving, we had a “Secret Santa” exchange. Instead of tons of baked goods we had chocolate fondue with dark chocolate from Madagascar, coconut rum and fresh fruit to dip in it. We even had a tiny little artificial Christmas tree that we decorated with tinsel and plastic sparkly balls all imported from China. And we played twister. It was quite a memorable event, and I’m so grateful for all the awesome fellow Peace Corps volunteers I got to share it with.

I chose to spend New Years, or “Bonne Anne” in my village, as it was my last big “hurrah” before leaving my site, and as New Years is a huge holiday for Malagasies. During the few nights leading up to New Years, we had “Podium,” the Malagasy equivalent of a talent show. My counterpart had me practice dance routines with his wife and children and our neighbors, which we then performed on stage in front of the community. It was a blast, and I also enjoyed watching all the other acts. One of the teenage boys requested me to dance a few reggae songs with him and his buddy, too, which the audience enjoyed thoroughly.

New Years Eve brought the first big rains that we had seen in many months, which was certainly something to celebrate. After the epic semi-final soccer match between two neighborhoods in our town, which ended in a draw and then a dramatic shoot-off, the rains finally came. Everyone ran out into the main path through town and paraded around chanting and singing, welcoming the life-giving precipitation. Many had planted their rice a month before, assuming that the rains would have already come to water their crops, but it has been unusually dry this season so there were quite a few initial plantings lost to the drought.

On New Years Day, my counterpart invited me to his house to eat with his family. We shared a few beers, had a nice chat about American versus Malagasy traditions for celebrating New Years and then had a delicious feast with his family, which surprisingly didn’t consist of mounds and mounds of rice. The day after New Years is also still a “fety” for Malagasies, unlike Americans who either go back to work or use it as an extra day to recover from hangovers. My counterpart and I headed to Antsirabe Nord (my old site) to have a farewell lunch with the women’s group president, the nurse from Antsirabe Nord and their spouses. It was a joyful affair with good food and good drink and a wonderful chance for me to say goodbye to my friends and co-workers from my old site.

The following weekend was also filled with fetys, though of a much more emotional kind. On Saturday all of us Peace Corps volunteers in the area headed to Sambava to say goodbye to the two of us who were leaving the region. It was especially hard to say goodbye to our friend Caroline, as she is leaving the country for good, whereas I’ll still be around for a few more months. Again, there was lots of good Malagasy and American food, ample amount of drink and wonderful parting words shared between all of us volunteers who have shared some great triumphs and some rough times together. There were lots of laughs and lots of tears, and I will miss all of my fellow American co-workers and friends dearly. No one else can truly understand the unique experience we have shared in this beautiful yet sometimes harsh country.

While Caroline headed to the tarmac to take off for Tana on Sunday, I headed back to my site for a goodbye fety with my community. I had already set aside all of my belongings I was going to sell off in an auction as a fundraiser for my solar panel project. As soon as I got back and changed, the women’s group came to my door in a singing and dancing procession to gather all of my stuff and take me to the “bazary be” (central meeting place) for the ceremony and auction to follow.

As we made our way to the ceremony, tears started streaming down my face. I think it had finally hit me that I was leaving all of these wonderful, caring people for good, and was not sure if I’d ever have the means to return in the future (or if so, only after a very long time). It was so touching that all the women in the community had gathered together and donned their women’s group uniforms to celebrate and see me off. After raising the flag and singing the national anthem we took our places at the “bazary” and my counterpart started off the program.

In succession, the president of the village, the women’s group president, the president of the clinic, my counterpart (the nurse and head of the clinic), I and then the doctor from Antsirabe Nord all spoke. When the president of the women’s group gave her speech, she started crying, which in turn made me start crying again. Luckily I was able to compose myself before I gave my speech, and, even though after two years my Malagasy still isn’t quite up to par for orating, the community seemed to enjoy listening to me (or at least they laughed and clapped at all the right parts). There were lots of thank-yous and promises to keep in touch, and I left the community with parting words of encouragement that even if they don’t get another volunteer to replace me, they will still be able to do good work and continue on the path of development. There is such a strong sense of community and good leadership in their village.

After the speeches, the auction of all of my belongings that I couldn’t take with me on the airplane ensued. I was a little nervous, as I didn’t have a lot of stuff to offer, and there were many friends, co-workers and community members who wanted a chance and getting a “souvenir” from me. Thankfully, the women’s group and community leaders did a good job of running the auction fairly and keeping everyone under control. Some of the items (like bookshelves and chairs) went fairly expensive, but others were cheap, which gave more people the chance at buying items. Overall, we ended up raising a lot of money for the solar panel fund, which will go towards replacing the battery after a few years or making any other necessary repairs that come up after the one year warranty. Part of the money also went towards helping the pharmacy purchase extra medicines for poor patients who come to the clinic and can’t afford the necessary treatments.

The day after my big going-away fety in the village was mostly quiet, as it was a Monday and everyone was out in the fields working. I was busy packing up my life, but managed to take a break to have lunch with my counterpart and then sat on a neighbor’s porch to catch a little bit of a breeze. All of a sudden, I heard clapping and singing coming from the other end of town. Three folks who were still in town that day were walking hand in hand down the main path. As they got closer, I realized the song they were singing in beautiful yet raucous harmony was about me! They had made up a goodbye song for me and came over to where I was sitting on the porch to sing and dance. Pretty soon the few people that were hanging around the village came over to watch and join in the song and dance party. It was quite a touching moment.

That evening, the nurse and I brought over my belongings that I planned to donate to the clinic, which included a small table for the birthing room, shelves for the office, a hammer and a new broom. As he turned on the lights powered by the new solar panel, put all the papers that were piled all over the table and floor in the office onto the shelves and placed the table for newborn babies in the delivery room, I realized how much better the clinic looked. It’s amazing how a few small additions to the clinic could facilitate a significant improvement in the nurse’s ability to carry out his work.

On Tuesday, I headed to Sambava to get ready for my flight to the capital on Wednesday. That morning, the nurse helped me pack up, and we did the final accounting for the money from the auction to be donated to the clinic and solar panel fund. Some of my friends saw me off at the road and one of them even rode with me in the bush taxi to Sambava. It was a nice way to say goodbye, as I treated myself to a stay at a quiet bungalow on the beach and had a chance to see some fellow volunteers again before I flew out on Wednesday.

My next adventure will take me to the east coast near a town called Manompana (near the small port where the boats go over to Ile St. Marie). I’ll be working with a Malagasy NGO, training their field staff in community mobilization, behavior change methods and community analysis relating to clean water, sanitation and hygiene projects. I’ll update again when I move out there and work actually starts up.

January 8, 2012 You know when you see the street vendors put out their rain ponchos and galoshes that rainy season is coming. Or, you should know.  If you have any brains at all. Which apparently, I do not. Because literally the day after I notice all the vendors getting out their rain gear, it rains hardcore. And continues to rain on and off at least once a day for the next few days. Was I prepared?  No.  Because I didn’t pay attention to the damn street vendors.  You can bet your ass that I carry my rain jacket, umbrella and scarf with me everywhere now.  I’m even hoping to get some use out of my striped rainboots I brought with me! So welcome Mr. Rainy Season!  Please be kind to me.  Don’t be too cruel, ok? Until next time, T

January 7, 2012 When I got back to site, I came bearing gifts.  As is the Malagasy custom: when you go off on vacation, you are supposed to bring back a “voandalana” (gift) for eeeeeeeeeeeeeveryone. In reality, what happens is I bring back a large quantity of something - in this case I brought back plums & grapes - and when I’m out, I’m out.  My villagers always take this phrase - azafady indrindra fa efa lany ny voandalana! - relatively well, so I’ve never felt bad about bringing back a limited quantity of fruit, or whatever.  {Besides, there are over 2,000 people in my village!  How in the world would I have managed that one??} Usually I don’t bring anything back for the kids.  I have coloring books and crayons and toys that I let them play with on a daily basis, so I never feel like “child voandalanas” are needed. This time was different.  I’ve had a ton of people include toys for kids in their packages (mainly my mom haha), and I’ve been holding on to them for awhile, so I figured that after this vacation, I’d also give gifts to my favorite kids. In Anja Park, the kids (18 and under) make up approximately HALF of the population.  Needless to say, there are a crap ton of kiddos running around.  And if I was being honest, I would say that only about 10-15 are kids that I like and don’t find annoying.  The rest are…trying.  They try my patience.  Let’s leave it at that. So.  The day after I get back to site, I accumulate all of these toys in a “grab bag” of sorts, while setting aside specific gifts for my absolute favorite kids.  Whenever a kid drops by my house, I give them a gift - a sheet of stickers or a bracelet or a bouncy ball…one small toy per kid.  By the time 10 AM rolled around, I was having WAVES of kids show up to my door, in the tens and twenties.  No. Freaking. Joke. My gifts are rapidly disappearing.  But the steady stream of kids doesn’t let up. At noon I head out into my garden to talk to my friend (I get the best reception in the garden area).  I talk for less than 20 minutes.  I head back toward my front door, round the corner onto the patio and see… NO LESS THAN 50 KIDS SITTING IN FRONT OF MY DOOR.  WAITING FOR THEIR GIFTS. At this point, a mob scene ensues.  I make them wait at my front door while I get the bag of goodies, and they start shoving each other.  Then they literally scramble over each other to get to the front of the pack to get their gifts before the others. Kids start crying. Babies in the arms of their 8-year-old siblings start screaming. It’s absolute chaos. I ended up just mildly freaking out & essentially throwing the remaining gifts into the crowd of kids, slamming my door shut, curling up into a ball on my bed and rocking myself back & forth.  Okay, not really…but it was really not fun. Three days later, I still have parents coming to my front door, saying that “their kid didn’t get a gift, where is it?”  It’s absurd.  And THIS time when I say I’m out, they don’t believe me.  They keep asking.  I’ve even had a few moms literally get upset at me because their kid didn’t get a tiny bouncy ball. SO.  The point of this blog entry is this: I know that all of you have amazing intentions in sending me stuff for the kids.  And I’m incredibly thankful for everything you’ve already sent over.  However…please, I’m begging you, stop. I’m not kidding. Not only is this creating problems for me with the kids, but it’s making things incredibly awkward and difficult for me with the parents themselves.  I still have a crazy backlog of coloring books and crayons, so even those aren’t needed.  I also think that should Anja Park get another Peace Corps volunteer in the future, when I’m gone, that the precedent I’m setting with these kids is only going to make life more difficult for him or her. Consider this a desperate plea for my own sanity.  No.More.Toys.  Thank you so, so much.  I love you all.  By no means does this mean that packages from you all aren’t welcome - just replace the spot that would have been taken up by kids toys with, I dunno, some yummy snack for me or something.  :) Until next time! T

The last 365 days have been a weird mix of days.   At times, the year has absolutely flown by, and looking back, I hardly know where a month here or there went.  At other times, I can recall with agonizing clarity just how snail-like the pace was.  However, I can undoubtedly say that the past year has brought many changes and a crazy amount of personal growth that even I didn’t quite expect from 2011. I think the first two months of 2011 went by the quickest.  January and February were filled with frantic late-night runs to Target with Mom, marathon packing sessions where I packed & re-packed two bags with my entire life stuffed into it, and endless goodbye parties & tears where I bid farewell to everyone who makes my life worth living.  Oh, I also tried to learn how to play my uke…unsuccessfully, but hey, at least I was trying: I also took a bomb-ass trip to Tombstone, Arizona with two of my best friends in the whole wide world and hung out with cowboys for a day.  Awesome: Then, suddenly, abruptly, rudely…March hit.  After all my prepping, in no way was I actually prepared for it.  With it, a whole new wave of crazy.  Flying to Madagascar with 38 other trainees.  Landing in Tana, living in Anjozoro with a host family, learning Malagasy.   We even painted a world map: Oh right, and there was that time I killed a chicken: March & April flew by, and before I knew it, it was May 9th, 2011, and I was being left by the Peace Corps car in Anja Park, Madagascar. Holy shit was that terrifying. For the entirety of May, June, July, and August (plus most of September), I dealt with the extreme highs and extreme lows of being a new volunteer at site.  Making friends, re-learning my dialect, trying to get any semblance of work done, making my house into a home…you all know how hard those first 5 or 6 months were for me.  I mean, goodNESS. Then, like a blessing sent from the Big Man himself, it was the end of September, and I was able to see all of my stagemates again in the capitol for our In-Service Training.  Thank the Lord: Which was followed by an awesome vacation in Mahajunga for a week or so, where a big group of us laid on the beach, drank from coconuts, ate fish and shrimp tacos, and soaked up the last of our “relaxation time” before heading back to our respective sites: A few of us took one final detour before heading home and helped start a little pepiniere, which was pretty fun: Before I knew it, October and November were already gone!  Seriously, I blinked and those two months just disappeared!  Halloween was spent in Fianar, with myself dressed up as a ring-tailed lemur, and November was spent actually getting work done at site and celebrating Thanksgiving with some really awesome people from my region.  11 months down, what??? Christmas was, as you all know, in the southeast of Mcar, in the company of some pretty amazing people that I’m blessed to call my friends.  It was just a perfect way to start wrapping up 2011.  A few days later, we all got together with even more volunteers in Tana to celebrate NYE, and with that, 2011 was brought to a close: To try and sum up the past 365 days is, quite literally, impossible. There’s absolutely no way I can even put into words how this past year has treated me.  And I know it’s the tradition of “New Year” posts to get all sappy and emotional, so instead, (even though I really want to get all weepy on you guys), I’ll just leave y’all with a little poem that I think sums things up quite nicely: “What can be said in New Year rhymes,That’s not been said a thousand times?The new years come, the old years go,We know we dream, we dream we know.We rise up laughing with the light,We lie down weeping with the night.We hug the world until it stings,We curse it then and sigh for wings.We live, we love, we woo, we wed,We wreathe our prides, we sheet our dead.We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,And that’s the burden of a year.” - Ella Wheeler Wilcox Thanks so much for following my blog this past year you guys.  Thanks for putting up with my sad, depressing posts…my crazy, maniacal ones…and all the ones in between.  I hope that you have all had a 2011 to remember, because I know I have. Now, let’s get 2012 off to a bang, shall we?!! Until next time…faithfully yours…and still crazy as ever, T

What do you guys think of this as a future tattoo?  It says “sambatra” in cursive, which means “blessed” in Malagasy.  Except I would get it maybe a fourth of this size…and, you know, straight…it’s hard to do with marker,  ok?! [Mom & Dad, I’m just kidding, I would never get a tattoo…never ever…ever…]

December 31, 2011

Last day of a big year!

Well 2011 is almost over (and by the time I post this it will already be 2012) and boy what a year it was! Some of the highlights of my 2011 include: Directing Oklahoma! at SLHSBesties Em & Nicki graduating from college!!Learning that I would be spending my Peace Corps service in Madagascar.Going to Madagascar, 15-hour flight from the states… not the most fun part of the year. Learning a new language, well at least trying to JSaying goodbye to my best friends in the states and making new ones hereBecoming an English teacherSpending Thanksgiving alone but having a great dinner complete with candlelightSpending Christmas away from my family but with 5 of my good friends here in Mcar.

What a year!!Here is to 2012 and that it is filled with as much adventure, love and fun as 2011 has been.

Peace, Love and 2012, it’s going to be an even BIGGER year!

December 31, 2011…Part 2

So I’m sure all you blog readers (all 4 of you lol) are wondering what I have been up to since I haven’t written in a LONG time. Well let me fill you all in!

Since last time I have finished my first trimester as an English teacher! I have flown to the big island, seen all my friends, sat through some more training at the PCTC, had a water balloon fight (thanks James), bought a dress and a sweet shirt that says “let’s dance” and has a high top shoe on it from a street vendor (it sounds really lame but it is actually kinda cool) took a taxi ride to Moramanga and saw some lemurs with Carolyn & Steph, spent Christmas with my friends, made spaghetti for xmas eve and soup for xmas day, played the card game Hearts a few times, watched movies and TV shows ( my fav being the episode of The Office where one of them, maybe Andy?, is in Sweeny Todd ) and finally flying back to Sainte Marie. Whew! And all of that happened in the course of about 20 days!

Being away from my family on Christmas was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. But, I think the reason for that is because it didn’t really feel like Christmas. It was hot, I was in a strange house, I didn’t open any presents and there was no Xmas feast, or not one that included all the trimmings like at home. However, with that all being said I do think it was one of my favorite Christmases! I got to spend it with some of my good friends that I made during training, Steph, John, Kim, Carolyn and James. On Xmas eve day we went shopping in the downtown, which was very scary to say the least. Tons of people in very little space. After downtown shopping we went to one the few grocery stores and bought stuff to make spaghetti. After getting back to the PC house all us girls decided to go get changed into our pretty Xmas outfits and get all spiffed up for dinner. After pretty up time we made dinner and then sat down to a wonderful feast of spaghetti, garlic bread, salad, egg drop soup and homemade egg nogg! Really good! Waking up Christmas morning was like any other day. All Christmas day the 5 of us (John had to leave early in the morning on the 25th) sat around and talked, laughed and just had a really chill day. Later in the afternoon we ventured out to buy stuff (mostly veggies for soup and booze, it wouldn’t be Xmas with out some cheap Malgasy Rum lol) We made a stew soup thing for dinner and right as we were sitting down to eat (at 8 o’clock because it took longer to cook then we thought. oops) one of my all time favorite quotes was said by James, an excellent observation of “ none of us are wearing sleeves” which in fact none of us were, we were all in tank tops, a Christmas first for me being used to Christmas in MI with snow and sweaters! The rest of the night was filled with more laughter and good times. If I had to have a Christmas away from my family I am glad that I was able to spend it was the people that I did. J

Peace, Love and a Christmas I will never forget <3

January 10, 2012

Observations from a girl with a lot of time on her hands!

Yesterday I saw a little girl with a backpack that said BATMAN! And it had a picture of spiderman. You know those t shirts people make for events like “ Sarah’s Super Sweet Sixteen” or “ Homecoming 2000… the best ever” well I have seen where those end up when people don’t want them anymore… here in Madagascar where they have NO IDEA what they say. Haha ps Bridget think of some of our shirts we wanted to make… or better yet the shorts LOLBecause of they way my hair is growing out after my self hair cut, if I were to stick it straight up in the air I would look like a treasure troll. You know with the pointy hair? HahaI don’t know if I have mentioned this on here before but there are roosters here that are the size of small dogs, no joke. But they do run away when you walk toward them so that is kind of comforting. My windows here are the same height as me, if I stand on the ledge I can exactly fit in the window. I really like even numbers and in my classes when I give exercises they always have to have an even number of questions. Today I did a dialogue with my 4eme class complete with props. A hat and sunglasses have never caused this much laughter and never have my students wanted to volunteer this much! Score another point for my theatre major!My house is starting to look like a home. I have put all my cards on my wall over my desk and I put up some pictures that Em sent me. SO… if you send me a letter or pictures, or both, I will put them on my pink walls and look at them all the time <3I can tell what kind of day I am going to have based on how I write the date in my classes. If it is curly and super squiggely then it will be a good day!Some of the funniest things I have seen here in Mcar are baby suits, that is tiny suit coats, vests and pants for babies. If you have seen one you know what I mean if you haven’t, you should they are awesome. It makes me want a baby butler. Lol I figured out that I can wear my hair anyway I want and people will just think that that is what is in fashion in the states. Side ponytails… welcome back!There is a tiny little lizard that lives in my room and he was sitting on my leg the other day. I felt some thing and sat up and there he was just chillin on my leg. He is about a inch long and pink… super cute!

Well that is all for now, I hope this list was informative and made you smile a bit J

Peace Love and Random thoughts from Mada.

10 months is long enough to make the moon home, let aloneMadagascar, however different it may be from the life I’ve known mostly inKentucky. Events transpire all the time that initially shocked or at the veryleast caught my attention. Now I would be appalled to live otherwise.

At the market for instance, bargaining is a sport and whenvendors new to me see a vazaha (foreigner/white person) coming, watch out, itis game on! It’s gotten to the point that I do indeed feel ripped off whencharged a dime higher that the going rate for an item. But then again, apineapple costs 50cents and a mango a nickel. To be fair, fruit is much cheaperon the coast and veggies are cheaper in the highlands. So right now when a kiloof potatoes costs 200 AR (5cents) near Tana, it’s about 2400 AR ($1.20) here.

Sticking with food for a minute, I’ve come to expect sand instreet food and occasionally hotely (restaurant) food. Then again, I expectsand everywhere. Everyday I can sweep out a small pile of sand from my house.Good thing there’s no carpet here!

This one has taken much longer to adapt to and will probablybe difficult to reverse (Future-returned-to-the-States-Maria apologizes), thenotion of time. I personally moved pretty slowly to begin with, but when itcomes to meetings, taxi-brousses, or schedules of any sort, they will neverbegin or leave on time. When a meeting starts at 2 PM, I show up around 2:15 togather the participants, shoot the shit for about a half an hour, then finallyget around to business. Brousses leave only once they’re full, though make thesame trips everyday so there is some routine. But when the guy at the stationsays the brousse is leaving at 2PM that really means show up by 2:30 or 3:00 soyou stuff gets packed on top and you should actually leave between 3-4. Andthat could be for a 45 min OR 12 hr drive.

Children under the age of 4 are either utterly enthralled,but more likely terrified of me, the white girl. I’ve lost count of the numberof children I’ve made cry based solely on my looks. And the best way to tellwith a 3-5 year old frozen on the fence because they haven’t decided how toreact to me is to smile as big as possible, say the local greeting and waveemphatically. 2 and only 2 reactions will occur. Either the child runs away,preferably to the hidden comfort behind their mother, OR instantly returns anequally emphatic wave and a smile big enough to lift them right off the ground.

To some degree or another, we’re all creatures of habit andit only takes time to adjust to most regular, however odd at first, occurrences.

Just got a big envelope from my dear friend Susan today…with baby wipes!!  She knows just what to do for my potential-ringworm problems. {Thanks a bil Suze!  Next package though, throw in some delicious snack or something that’ll make me shit a ton, then I’ll REALLY put those baby wipes to good use.  :) }

It was a peaceful early morning in my tiny coastal village.Coconut trees sparkled with dew against a dark gray backdrop of last night’srain clouds as they moved westward away from the sea. Ripe mangoes drop fromtheir branches constantly during these languid days; often their kerplunk!on my rooftop startles me out of a sound sleep. Since I’d woken earlier thanmost of the village I was able to enjoy a moment of precious solitude as Istood in the sandy path I walk every morning to a nearby coffee shack.

As I approached the seaside shanty, smoke wafting from thesmall woodfires burning under the blackened pots of coffee, tea and soup, Iturned to gaze once more at the brilliant sky, where the sun was rising overthe glass-like sea and lighting up each raindrop on every branch and flower.

Suddenly I noticed a glorious rainbow stretching across theentire sky; just as I took note of it, a couple children walked past me.

“Look at that!” I implored them, pointing to the rainbow andasking what it’s called in Malagasy, since it’s one of the many words I cannever seem to remember. “Isn’t that nice?” I asked, altogether forgetting whatI’ve heard before about Malagasy people: they do NOT like rainbows. At all.

The older of the children looked at me as if I had threeheads, which is actually a look I’ve become quite used to; my presence is anendless source of amazement and often horror in children (and adults) whereverI go.

“No… it’s not nice… rainbows kill people!” the poor childretorted.

“Really? How do theydo that?” I asked, half smiling. Malagasy aren’t too good at answering “how”questions- something either is or it isn’t and that’s all there is to it.

“When a rainbow goes down to the ground, it kills,” thechild said matter-of-factly, and taking hold of her little sister’s hand, movedon down the path.

Moments later, I sat drinking coffee in the smoky shack,staring out at the same seascape I’ve watched most mornings for almost twoyears, wondering if it’s true: do rainbows really kill people?

Well, why not? We go around saying there’s a miniature Irishman in green pants dancing around a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow.I’d like to know what a Malagasy person thinks of our folktale about rainbows.Maybe it’s true… the leprechaun kills whoever gets too close to his pot ofgold.

This story is long overdue. You may remember that I once rode in a

hollowed out tree-trunk in an effort go to the beach during my first

week at site. We never made it last October (2010). Out of lack of

interest and fear of another "canoe ride," I hadn't tried to return to

try my luck until…December (2011).I had recently visited the village of Ankovana in October with my

counterparts to administer vaccinations, distribute vitamins, and

dispense de-worming pills to children. While we were there, I spent

time with the new head of the village, the Chef Fokontany. Gaston was

a former big-shot in Mahajunga (a tourist town in the West) and was

clearly well off, manambola izy. He then came to our clinic in

Siranana at the end of November to visit and asked when I was going to

return to Ankovana again. I jokingly told him that I would come back

only if he took me to the beach I had never made it to. He said,

"Sure. When? We'll take 'Le Coq'." Now, I had been wary of accepting

invitations for excursions due to some poorly planned past

experiences, but "Le Coq" means the rooster and usually refers to a

speedboat here in Madagascar. Since this guy had money, I figured that

he actually had a speedboat. So, under the pretense of going to "the

beach" in a "speedboat," I scheduled a beach day for Friday.I arrived in Ankovana with my buddy, Ludovic, after biking two hours.

We then met Gaston and he brought us to his boathouse. When he untied

the wooden panels that covered the door, he did not reveal a

speedboat. The best way I can describe it was that it was a cross

between a bath tub and a kiddie pool. It was small and its

sea-worthiness was questionable. My next assumption was that even

though the boat was small, surely he still had a motor to attach to

it. Wrong again. We would be paddling this makeshift vessel. All I

could think was that this seemed a lot like what I imagined the

journey from Cuba to the United States would be. He dragged the tub

into the mangroves and told me to get in. Wisely, I left my camera on

shore.Shortly after pushing off, we started taking in water. Not wanting to

make Americans look like wimps, I laughed it off at first and starting

bailing it by the cupful. Yet, soon enough the water was coming in

faster than I could bail. So, I asked if maybe we should head back. Of

course, Gaston and Ludovic laughed, made fun of foreigners for being

scared of everything, and told me it was fine. Now, for your

information, there are sharp roots and all sorts of crazy creatures

that live in the water of the mangroves. One of the guys in town

recently got bit by something in the water and hasn't been able to

walk on his left foot for the past month. Suppressing my fear of the

boat sinking in the mangroves, we slowly made it to the ocean.

But…where was the beach they promised? No beach. I made the journey

only to find out there was no beach. No sand. Just ocean.We then got out of the boat for a break, but as stories go, my shorts

got caught on the side of the boat and the whole right side ripped

off. We were now shipwrecked on the coast of the Mozambique Channel

without phones, without drinking water, and without shade. Not the

best situation I've ever been in. If a boat didn't pass by, we'd have

to swim back two miles in shallow, creature-filled water.Luckily, after waiting for what seemed like hours, a canoe pulled into

the channel with the catch of the day and rescued us. I was sun-burnt,

smelled like fish, and decently dehydrated by the time we reached

shore again, but all I could feel was relief. Just another crazy day

in Madagascar. We then grilled a couple chickens, ate, had an

interesting discussion about sea turtles (that's another story), and

returned to my village.I will not get in another "boat" in this country. Bottom line.