Hey party people... it's my last day in Madagascar.

Everyone is asking me what it feels like and and how I'm doing. They should know better. I don't actually have emotions, so there's not much to discuss.

Let's just say that since Jan 12th I've been on 23 different taxi brousses and been to 13 different cities. The Grand Farewell Tour has been a magical journey of epic proportions (highlights include my bag falling off the top of the brousse at full speed on one of the busiest roads in the country, gouging my foot open on a dirty stick at the taxi brousse station before a 9 hour brousse ride and bleeding all over, the taxi brousse industry on the East coast striking yesterday which stranded me in Mahanoro and crushed my plans to go to the rainforest... wait, those aren't the highlights... and if we're going to talk about highlights, let's do it for the entire shabang anyways...)

So here it is, Peace Corps Madagascar, my Greatest Hits (in no particular order):

Teaching the girls club in Anjozorobe Irish step dancing

Christmas Day 2008 with my stagemates in the Emerald Sea

Returning to Madagascar for reinstatement (We have to go back to the island!!)

Realizing that I can speak Malagasy after a half hour conversation with my friend about my feelings about Islam

Watching Lost in my University of Antsiranana English classes to foster cultural and linguistic discussions

Close of Service conference with my Rainstatement stagemates at Mantasoa

Lovely days at the Ankify beach with fellow PCVs and Malagasy friends

It's been everything I could have ever hoped it would be! Even with unsuspected issues like, oh, you know, being evacuated, having three different sites, etc, I am so lucky to have been able to live in Madagascar.

Stay tuned for adventures from Peace Corps Morocco

(Don't freak out, I'm just visiting)

Ok, now things that I WILL miss about living in Madagascar as a Peace Corps volunteer...

1.) This country is so beautiful, I can't even stand it. I don't think it's physically possible to fit more kinds of beautiful landscapes into one country: white sand beaches with crystal clear water, mountains, waterfalls, rain forests, spiny deserts, tsingys, baobabs, rice paddy excitement, etc. While a lot of the land is now scorched to uselessness, there is still a huge portion of the country that is breath taking.

Ohatras:

Morondava

Emerald Sea

Red Tsingy

2.) Tropical fruit. I mean, we have tropical fruit in America... but here it's not sent over oceans and continents to get to us at our constant beck and call and out of season. Here it is as it is supposed to be. You're not supposed to have mangoes all year. You're supposed to have them when they're in season, and you're supposed to get them yourself by throwing rocks up into the mango tree. That's how nature intended it... PINEAPPLES.

3.) Voanjobory.

Enough said.

4.) My wonderful students, both at Lycee Mixte Ambanja and in the English Department at the University of Antsiranana. They are the future leaders of this wonderful place, and I truly enjoyed my time attempting to expand their minds and amuse them. Not to mention the wonderful staff in the English Department and the principal at the Lycee Ambanja.

5.) The pace of life. Growing up in America, I'm used to working nonstop, always trying to make money (even if for things I don't actually need), taking as many classes as possible, working as many hours as possible, spending as many hours a day as possible striving forward. Is that really good? I don't think so. The pace of life here is more easy going... sometimes it's a little TOO easy going, but there's never a reason to stress out - if you can't do it today, you can do it tomorrow, and that's ok. Life should be fun sometimes; we should take more time to smell the proverbial roses (though I'd rather take more time to smell PINEAPPLES). (I wish I had a picture of someone laying in a hammock for this...)

6.) My wonderful friends, both fellow PCVs and Malagasy. They've made my life here amazing, fun, and interesting. They've listened to me complain and helped me when in need. I've become friends with many different kinds of people (especially Americans) that I never would have thought I could have been friends with before Peace Corps. Though I suppose I won't "miss" my friends, as we will remain friends, right? Right?! I mean, half of my friends from Peace Corps I haven't seen since evacuation... let's work on some reunion tours. I love you guys!

7.) The fantastic Peace Corps Madagascar medical team. Dr. A, Tahina, Dr. Chad, Tina, and other interns. While I was never gravely ill and hardly ever had to contact the doctors for assistance, every time I have interacted with the medical team it has been stress-free and productive. They are always organized and knowledgeable. They have provided the best medical care I will ever likely receive.

Things I won't miss about Madagascar:

First and foremost, Wawa. I Hate, absolutely HATE Wawa. I'll tell ya what, Wawa doesn't make Zaho Ngoma for leaving Madagascar. If you hate yourself or feel the need to punish yourself for some unspeakable deed, I suggest watching this. (Dear future Madagascar PCVs - If you are reading this blog to learn more about Peace Corps Madagascar before you leave, please don't let this music video inspire you to call Washington and call the whole thing off... It's terrible, I know, but what doesn't kill us only makes us stronger.)

Secondly, I won't miss everyone trying to rip me off, charge me more for things, get me to buy things, etc, because I'm white. Sometimes when I try to bargain for a taxi fare, or food that I feel I'm being overcharged, they say "But you're white, white people have money" and it's just... it... I don't like it. I'm speaking Malagasy, a regional dialect, even; I'm not a normal foreign visitor. I work here and make a very small amount of money. Granted, I still make more than most Malagasy people, but I live here, I speak the language, and I know how much things should cost. For example, the taxi brousse from Diego to Ambanja is 12,000ariary. They always try to charge me 14,000. I know that it's 12,000. I tell them that I know that it's really only 12 and that they're charging me more just because I'm not Malagasy. It makes me sad. It's only 2000ariary more, but why? I lived in Ambanja and Diego- I know how much it costs! It just makes me feel like some people (taxi brousse drivers, taxi drivers, shop keepers)see $$$$ when they look at me, and not a human being. That makes me sound more sensitive than I am, but I don't know how else to put it.

Thirdly, bugs. That's right, even after all this time, bugs still make the list. I can honestly say that I'm not in the slightest bit scared of rats or mice. Spiders, no problem, unless they're significantly big/brightly colored. Ants, whatever, I mean, I was never scared of ants, but they did annoy me; now I don't care about them. But roaches and centipedes... yeah... I can handle them better than I used to. They don't make me scream. I have full motor control over my limbs in their presence. But seriously, knowing that when I'm laying in bed in America, there are no roaches or centipedes about to crawl on me, it makes me not so sad to leave. I mean, not to be a wimp, but this is what we're talking about...

http://www.itsnature.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/centipede1.jpg

http://cockroach.com/cockroach/sites/default/files/images/ap_hissing_roach_080410_ssh1.jpg

http://www.fashion-police.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/heather-banana-spider-300x267.jpg

http://www.bugman123.com/Bugs/Centipede.jpg

Seriously, why are these people putting these things on their hands? The only reasonable thing to do with them is to destroy them!

Good riddance.

Lastly, the combination of being hot, sweaty and itchy. I know that "hot and sweaty" seem repetitive, but I don't think so, not anymore. I was just sweaty here in Tana, the capital, but I wasn't really hot. On the coast it's like you're soaking wet with sweat- and what is sweat supposed to do? Cool you off... but it doesn't seem like it works on the coast. Here in Tana it does the trick. And itchy with heat rash, bug bites, etc... And it's sunny (and hot) so you have on sunscreen, itch cream for your bug bites, and bug spray to prevent more. At any given time there is a cocktail of ingrediants coating your skin. Here in Tana, I don't have anything on, and I feel more human.

So, those are the 4 things I won't miss about Madagascar- though they seem to be pretty specific to the coast.

Stay tuned for the more positive and uplifting, Things I WILL Miss.

Go to icanhascheezeburger.com to lower your blood pressure.

see more dog and puppy pictures

I moved out of my house today in preparation to Close of Service (COS). Me and my mountain of crap are now at the Peace Corps Diego house. On Wednesday, me and only some of my crap are going to Ambanja (and then Nosy Be- google image search that if you want to be jealous) for my going away party. That's right, GOING AWAY. Because I'm friggin out of here. I don't mean to sound like I want to leave. I don't want to go home and be unemployed in a country where politicians put targets over other politicians districts and then people shoot the targeted politician. Yeah. I love it here in Diego (and in Madagascar for that matter), but it does seem like it's time to move on (maybe it's just the heat). Leaving my house is sad. It's probably the one and only time I will be living somewhere with a waterfront view and 8 or more friendly dogs that I have no responsibility for but that I can play with a talk to. Bye guys.

Speaking of the dogs (they aren't *mine*, they just live in my yard; I don't feed them much, and when I do, it's usually just my favorite one), they sometimes follow me when I leave... at least for a little while, and then they go back. But one night, a few days ago, they were feeling a little adventurous, or bored, or desperate... and 8 of them followed me all the way out of my neighborhood. When we got to a main road, I told them to go back as I didn't want to compromise their safety just for the entertainment of all of the Malagasy people who were laughing at the white girl with a parade of dogs behind her. Two of them carried on their pursuit. I got to downtown (like 2.5 miles from home) and went into shop to browse. The two dogs waited in the doorway (much to the shopkeepers dismay). When I left, they followed me. I was meeting up with 14 British/Scottish/Welsh/Irish people at an outdoor pizza place. The dogs sat with me the whole time, and I had to explain to everyone that they followed me from home. (For the record, I didn't feed them anything; I didn't want to encourage them to follow me to town all the time). I took a taxi home (without them, obviously) and they were both sitting wagging their tails on my porch when I opened the door in the morning. Man, those are some happy goodtime having dogs.

This last week I worked with a health NGO called Population Services International (PSI)( http://www.psi.org/ )( http://www.psi.org/madagascar ). They have the most logical and effective program on the ground of any NGO working in Madagascar that I know of. Their mission is to increase family planning and decrease the spread of STIs through education and outreach, and having products (birth control, condoms) widely available at realistically affordable prices. I (along with 2 other PCVs who have never taught before, so I offered my assistance / I stole the class from them) did a few English classes with the PSI staff (they're all Malagasy). The staff includes doctors and professionals in their fields (read: they are fancy). Their motivation, curiosity and desire to learn is palpable (are you reading that, Evan?). It was fun teaching a lesson on the fly, and they had fun too. We did again later in the week.

On Saturday, I went with two health PCVs to observe a PSI peer-educator session. What they do is recruit prostitutes (Diego is a popular place for sexual tourism, and prostitution is everywhere anyways, even without that added dimension) and work with them to educate them on health issues affecting prostitutes (avoiding unwanted pregnancy, spread of STIs, you know) and then they educate the other prostitutes. They get beverages and snacks for coming to sessions (win). I've observed them working before, and it's always very interesting. This time we went to an information session in someones backyard. The woman asked the other women questions like "how long after you are infected with HIV will it take to show in a positive test" and "how can you become infected" etc, etc, and they would argue about the answer and come to a conclusion and she would give them the real answer. They use a very good education technique which requires the participants to debate and discuss, question what they know, see what they think they know that is wrong, and correct it. They made the women do condom demonstrations. They talked about where you can get them, how much they cost. They talked about getting tested for STIs, where you can do it, how much it costs, and gave them waivers for discounts at the doctors. The women seemed very interested in all of the information and participated in all aspects of the session. Since PSI recruits peer leaders, the information seems genuine. And if they think that their peers are using condoms and getting tested, they'll be more likely to jump on board. Go PSI, woo!

So there's that... Now I have to go through all of my stuff and organize and reorganize until I give up because it's all unorganizable.

As is well known, Peace Corps Volunteers have a lot of time to read. I didn't keep good track of my pre-evacuation reading (though I can assure you, it was more than will be represented here as I was much less stimulated at my first site), but I've kept track of every book I read since returning to Madagascar in November 2009.

November - 0

I didn't read any books in November. Oops. I was busy with the reinstatement conference, site installation, etc. I can't believe I didn't even read anything on the plane. Maybe I did, and I just didn't write it down.

December - 7

Twilight - Stephine Meyer

New Moon - Stephine Meyer

Eclipse - Stephine Meyer

Breaking Dawn - Stephine Meyer

The Lost Continent - Bill Bryson

Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex

Pigs in Heaven - Barbra Kingslover

January - 12

The Bean Trees - Barbra Kingslover

This Is Not Civilization - Robert Rosenberg

Into the Wild - John Kracaur

The Bottom Billion - Collier

The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

July's People - Nadine Gordimer

Bitter Fruit - Achamat Dangor

Giving Up America - Pearl Abraham

High Tide in Tuscon - Barbra Kingslover

Harry Potter 1 - J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter 2 - J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter 5 - J.K. Rowling

February - 7

A Farewell To Arms - Hemingway

Twilight - Stephine Meyer

Hard Times - Charles Dickens

Piratittude - Pirate Guys

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue - John

A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving

The Stranger - Albert Camus

March - 6

The Electric Kool-Aide Acid Test - Tom Wolfe

Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding

Beloved - Toni Morrison

Death Comes for the Archbishop - Willa Cather

Last Chance to See - Douglas Adams

Harry Potter 6 - J.K. Rowling

April - 9

Harry Potter 7 - J.K. Rowling

In a Sunburned Country - Bill Bryson

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim - David Sedaris

Native Tongue - Carl Hiaasen

What Uncle Sam Really Wants - Noam Chomsky

A Handful of Dust - Evelyn Waugh

The Winter of Our Discontent - John Steinbeck

On the Road - Jack Keroauc

The Bonesetter's Daughter - Amy Tan

May - 8

Perloo the Bold - Avi

A Million Little Pieces - James Frey

Hotel New Hampshire - John Irving

The Memory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards

Tender is the Night - F Scott Fitzgerald

Sick Puppy - Carl Hiaasen

A Rose Without a Thorn - Jean Plaidy

Suite Francaise - Irene Nemirovsky

June - 7

The Constant Princess - Philippa Greggory

A Hope in the Unseen - Ron Suskind

All Creatures Great and Small - James Herroit

A History of the World in 10.5 Chapters - Julian Barnes

A Chronicle of a Death Foretold - Garcia Marquez

The Bridge Over the River Kwai - Pierre Boulle

East of Eden - John Steinbeck

July - 4

The Red Pony - John Steinbeck

Outliers - Malcom Gladwell

Coyote Blue - Christopher Moore

Getting Stoned with Savages - Maarten Troost

August - 2

The Bitch - Jackie Collins

Dark Star Safari - Paul Theroux

September - 1

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner - Stephine Meyer

October - 3

Appointment in Samarra - John O'hara

The Islamist - Ed Husain

Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koestler

November - 5

Animal Dreams - Barbra Kingslover

The World According to Garp - John Irving

Island of the Sequined Love Nun - Christopher Moore

The Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

The No1 Ladies Detective Agency - Alexander Macall Smith

December - 5

The Beauty Myth - Naomi Wolf

The Other Boleyn Girl - Phillipa Greggory

Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes

The Sixth Wife - Suzannah Dunn

Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut

January - 1 (so far)

As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner

Let us analyze the data.

You'll notice a sharp decrease in quantity of books after June. I moved to Diego on July 3rd. There is a connection there. The antapex of reading was September. I was in Tana for the first half of the month training the new volunteers and spending a lot of time with my PCV friends. When I returned to Diego I was busy, busy, busy, teaching, and then I returned to Tana at the end of the month for COS conference. It is still strange that I only read one book (at a novella by Stephine Meyer at that) the whole month. I read more books than that in America as a full time student with multiple jobs.

While the number of books goes up and down from month to month, I'd say the density of the reading evens it out. Take January, the most readingest month indeed at 12 books; however, 3 of them are Harry Potter and some very short. Compare it to March with only a total of 6 books, but some of them quite dense and lengthy.

Of course, living is a big town like Diego, busy teaching at the university, living with Kinsey, and hanging out with other PCVs whenever they come through, I read a lot less than when I was in Ambanja.

So what are the best books I read?

If I Had to pick a few, I'd go with:

The Electric Kool-Aide Acid Test - Tom Wolfe (So good)

A Handful of Dust - Evelyn Waugh (Amazing, not what you'd expect when you start)

Suite Francaise - Irene Nemirovsky (beautiful)

East of Eden - John Steinbeck (One of my favorite books that I've ever read)

Getting Stoned with Savages - Maarten Troost (Funny, interesting, good read)

Dark Star Safari - Paul Theroux (Good read)

Animal Dreams - Barbra Kingslover (Typical Kingslover - very good)

A Million Little Pieces - James Frey (He's a liar, but it's good)

I really enjoyed all of the John Irving books that I read. I would not, however, suggest reading more than two Irving books in a single year. Dude is crazy.

So what books are not so great?

The Sixth Wife - Suzannah Dunn (seriously? give me a break)

On the Road - Jack Keroauc (oh poor rich beatnik, why don't you wire some money from your family so you can keep loafing around and doing nothing)

Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Feilding (awful crap, I only managed to finish the rubbish because I was sick a fever at the time)

I didn't finish two books because I... couldn't

What Maisie Knew - Henry James (zzzz....)

White Man's Burden - ? (same old crap... zzz...)

I should have waited and done this in a few weeks since I will read a few more before I COS on the 24th (woo!), but I have a lot to do, and it's going to keep piling up, so I wanted to get this blog done (while my house packs itself?) I still have to read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce, When the Emperor Was Divine - Julie Otsuka, and No Exit and Other Plays - John-Paul Sartre. I need to find something good but not too dense, but not too light as that I can read it in a few hours to get me through all of the time I will be spending in airports in the nearing future.

So, I hope that my list will inspire you to turn off the TV and pick up a good book. And inspire me to remember that reading is better than TV when I get back to America.

Thanks to everyone who sent me books (Francis, Mom, Shannon)!

P.S. There was some debate here in the Peace Corps house over my use of the word "antapex." I asked a couple of other PCVs what the opposite of apex is, and no one knew, so I looked it up. They said that I shouldn't use this word because no one knows what it is, but it is the correct word, so I'm sticking with it.

P.P.S. Yes, I read Twilight twice. Shut up.

P.P.P.S. Blogger spellcheck said that "antapex" isn't a word.

Here in Diego I take taxis quite frequently. Whenever I head home from downtown after dark, I take a taxi home, and also when I don't want to arrive to my destination all sweaty. So that's a lot. But this is the conversation that I have basically everytime I take a taxi (please note that a taxi will have as many passengers as possible across town. They are always letting someone off or picking someone up, so in the course of one ride you can be riding with 5 or so different people):

Me: I need to go to the university.

Driver: Ok. Let's go.

Me: *crack some corny circumstansial joke (usually weather or pace of taxi business related)*

Other passenger: Wow, you can speak Malagasy well.

Me: Oh yes, I have lived here for a long time.

Other passenger: Really? How long?

Me: Two years.

Other passenger: Yes, that's a long time. Where are you from?

Me: I am from the United States.

Driver: Everyone from the United States is good at speaking Malagasy, and they learn it very quickly.

Me: Yes, Americans study hard.

Other passenger: French people don't speak Malagasy.

Me: I know, French people don't speak Malagasy.

Driver: French people are lazy. Americans are hardworking.

Other passenger: I like Americans. I don't like French people.

Me: Hahaha.

Other passenger: When will you go home to America.

Me: Very soon.

Other passenger: Why? Madagascar is good. You should stay.

Me: I can't, my mom and boyfriend miss me.

Driver / Other passenger: hahhahaha.

Driver / Other passenger: Will you marry me?

Me: No.

Pretty much everyday.

Happy New Years!

Holiday greetings and all that jazz. This was my third Christmas in Diego. If you had told me the first time that I'd be here for the following two Christmases, I'd have told you that you were crazy. Oh well, Diego-Suarez, Madagascar- not a terrible place to spend three sequential Jesus's birthday celebrations.

This year a few other volunteers came up for vacation. Just staycation for me. But then I didn't have to have a horrible brousse-ride across the country. The four of us had a great week here in the DieGo... eating seafood, lounging by the pool, riding out to the beach, cooking American foods, watching a lot of Modern Family and bootleg movies, etc. But on one very special day, we took a boat to Emerald Isle. Which normally looks like this:

But on this day it looked like this:

The weather wasn't ideal. It was the only day that it wasn't perfectly sunny since the others arrived, go figure). The way out was pretty rough. Not scary rough... but almost scary rough... rough enough to be exciting without being perilous.

Due to either some sort of miscommunication or laziness or straight up fetsiness (what's the english word... shady/dishonest/cheating) the boat guys didn't bring any food for us. Normally they bring food and cook an amazing meal of fish and coconut rice and cucumber salad. It's normally amazing. Normally. (Wait, sorry, maybe I should back up. You have to take a boat from Diego to Emerald Isle. It's one of the most popular outings for tourists in Diego. The boat ride takes about two hours one way. It's a beautiful ride. The water is emerald and you can see straight to the bottom. Breathtaking. There are no stores or anything there, just groups of tourists and their boats.) So our boat guys were cooking, and then I saw them eating rice, but we were still waiting for lunch. I've done this trip a few times now, and I've never had to ask for them to cook or order food or anything. I went over to ask about the food, and they shrugged and said there wasn't any. Well, I ask them, why don't we have food since they always cook and we're paying the normal price and everything was the same as it had always been. They just shrug.

I go back to my friends and tell them that there is no food for us. So, since the weather wasn't that great anyways, we decided we should just go back and order pizza (because we can do that here). So we ask the boat guys to take us back, and they say fine. I asked them about the tide, since normally you have to go in the morning and come back in the afternoon because that's when the tide allows travel. They said it would be ok.

Now the sea was more rough. (No worries, we wearing life vests and all of those good safety procedures were in line). Still not scary, only hilarious. We kept getting nailed by waves. Every few seconds it was as if someone was pouring buckets of warm beautiful sea water on us. Luckily we were all in lovely moods (albeit hungry) and found the proceedings to be amusing rather than upsetting. The boat guys covered themselves with tarps. They're no fun.

Well it turns out they were liars about lunch and liars about the tide. The water was too shallow to allow us passage. They got out and started pushing the boat. Then they made us get out and help push the boat. Then it was clear that we weren't going anywhere, so the boat guys got back in the boat and went to sleep. They went to sleep. We were just standing in the bay (the water was about to our calves and warmer than the air). We were happy to stand around and laugh and had a good time, shared some secrets, got to know each other. Then the other boats who had been out on Emerald Isle started to appear on the horizon. We had been standing there for over an hour. We tried to rouse our sleeping boatmen to let them know that the other boats are going; therefore, we should also be able to go. All of the other boats passed us. We left first, sat out in the low tide for almost two hours, and then were passed by the other groups of tourists. Maddening. And they had also eaten. We needed rice (or pizza, whatever, rice = food).

Finally, upon our return to dry land, we insisted that we get a discount on our trip since we didn't get lunch and that we left first, had to push the boat, the boatmen napped, and we still arrived last. Well, the fetsy boat guys would have none of this. After arguing and being man-handled by these boat guys (who denied sleeping in the boat to their boss), it was clear that we could either pay, or be beaten by scrawny lying men (I exaggerate, but you know what I mean). So, we paid. But I made it clear that they will never have business from Peace Corps volunteers again. There are other boats and other boat guys.

Then we ordered pizza and went out to karaoke... a good end to a good day.

All and all, it was a hilarious day of fun on the sea... though we totally got ripped off. Another lesson learned... even if you have a system with people where you get the same deal for the same price, you must always go over the details. No casual planning. I love it here, but sometimes people rip you off because they know that you'd rather throw money at the problem instead of fighting with them. We were worn down by hunger. My need for rice supersedes my need for justice.

Down to my last weeks here in wonderful, beautiful Diego. I love it here, but I'm somehow ready to move on.

Here is a map of the bay if you're interested. It's the second biggest bay in the world. http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/islands_oceans_poles/diego-suarez_76.jpg

Also here is this picture of the market (aka the mall) in Diego. Woo! Diego! Ya! (Sorry, I just drank coffee which I rarely do here.

Happy New Year! Here's hoping that 2011 is half as awesome as 2010!!

There are a lot of crazy people who call Diego home. Everytime you hit the streets, you never know what could happen. Sure, there were crazy people in Ambanja too, but they were altogether subdued compared to who roams the streets here. It's as if someone goes around Ambanja distributing mental health drugs to all of the crazies. I don't mean to make fun of crazy people. I understand that it's a social/health care issue here. There aren't services for mental health. A lot of these people are quite sick and their conditions could be easily controlled with simple medications. But they aren't. So sometimes walking around town can be interesting.

Here is what to look out for if you find yourself wandering around Diego-Suarez / Antsiranana, Madagascar:

There's this dude who stands or sits on the sidewalk on the main street with his arms slightly open at his sides. He stares up into space with his eyes half open. I see him in different locations around the main street, but I've never seen him in motion. It's curious. But he is harmless, so no worries. I'm told that he over uses a drug called "cot"... Cot is a leaf that people chew. It supposedly has effects that are similar to cocaine. (I tried it once. I started chewing a few leaves... they taste like leaves... and then I spit them out. You have to chew A LOT of them and for a long time. It's gross. A lot of guys walk around with their mouths full of it... but I digress).

There's a guy who walks around wearing very dirty and tattered clothes. He sometimes yells absuses, but not necessarily at you or any specific person, but it can be startling.

But there's one who takes the proverbial cake. Previous volunteers referred to her as "Bottle Lady" but I haven't really ever seen her with bottles, but I will continue to use the name for continuity's sake. She's quite frightening. Her regular haunt is the food market, which makes a venture to the "grocery store" potentially perilous. According to my students, she doesn't like white people, and she can small fear. When I was talking about how I'm afraid of her with my class, some of them were laughing so hard that they were crying; not funny. If you are white and you are scared, she will target you. And if you're white, you SHOULD be scared because she punches white people. She's punched me, wiped stuff on me, pinched me, all to varying degrees of severity. But sometimes when she punches you (usually in the arm) it really hurts! She's also often seen running through the streets. Other Malagasy people know she's crazy and yell at her or chase her away. I've seen her running fullspeed down the street being chased by someone with a stick. I assume that she commited some sin against him. She looks like she should live under a bridge and control the passage of billygoats. The last time I went to the market, though, she was apparently in a good mood, and she merely patted my arm as I went by. All the Malagasy people who live here know that she's crazy, and they laugh when she "acts out". She changes her clothes and is quite fat; someone must be clothing and feeding her. Does she go home to a family at night who feeds and cares for her after she terrorizes the streets all day? I'm very curious about all things Bottle Lady, but I am very afraid of her.

There she is. I didn't take this picture. I am far too fearful of her to purposefully get close enough for photographs. I found this picture on the volunteer computer at the Diego transit house. She's gained a lot of weight since this picture was taken.

There are a lot of other crazy people too. If you're looking out for crazy people, keep these guidelines in mind:

Crazy people don't wear shoes. Not everyone who isn't wearing shoes is crazy, but no one who IS wearing shoes is crazy. Note: plastic bags tied around your feet aren't shoes.

Crazy people don't walk in straight lines. Drunk people don't walk in straight lines. Sometimes a suspected crazy person is just drunk. But some crazy people are also drunk. It's best to avoid anyone isn't walking in a striaght line.

Crazy people yell. Drunk people yell. Sometimes a crazy person is drunk and then they yell a lot. It's best to avoid anyone who yells.

Crazy people are sometimes nice. Bottle Lady is not nice.

*Disclaimer* I don't find mental illness funny. I understand that it's a serious issue. I'm not trying to make fun of people who have mental illnesses. I just wanted to share some of what makes Diego an unpredictable place to live.

Just passed the "three-months-til-I'm-home" date. CrAzY!

I would be more sad, but it's bloody hot here in Diego, but not nearly as hot as it is in Ambanja, were I spent last week.

I moved to Diego from Ambanja at the beginning of July, and having no structured work left here in Diego, I thought it prudent to head back to Ambanja finally. I spent a few days visiting classes with another English teacher who I collaborated with before. I went with him to all of his classes, and his students asked me questions to practice speaking English with a native speaker. (Read: they stared at me and murmured to themselves for 20 minutes until someone was brave enough to volunteer to ask me how old I am and if I am married. Those are always the first two questions. Who cares?! Ask me if I like to eat rice! Ask me what Malagasy music I like! Something interesting!) They were so strangely shy after they yelled harassments at me while I was waiting outside for the teacher to arrive. Seriously, I'm standing outside and there are ten boys yelling abuses at me from the second floor. As soon as I arrive in the classroom, no one has anything to say. Teenagers. Repeat this process several times over the course of a few days. Oh boy.

Visiting with my old classes, however, was lovely. While I was walking to school, they all greeted me (i.e. "Good morning Miss Dorothy!" "Good afternoon Felix!"). They were very nice and welcoming and on their best behavoir for my visit. Then all of the students knew I was in Ambanja, so they passed by my old house and wanted to chat. It was nice.

You know what else is nice? Fine French cuisine for Thanksgiving dinner, that's nice. We (myself and 6 other volunteers) went out to eat at the nice restaurant in Ambanja for Thanksgiving. We went around the table and cheered to what we were thankful for and had a jolly good time. It was my third Thanksgiving in Madagascar, and I like shrimp better than turkey anyways.

We also went to the beach. We ordered a private taxi-brousse and went to the beach that's outside Ambanja. We brought along some of out Malagasy pals, including my friend who is 8 and a half months pregnant! One can't ask for more than a beautiful day at Ankify with good friends and sun. (Maybe a little too much sun).

I stayed with "Momma Peace Corps" who you should remember from tales over the last year. She's always there and ready to provide whatever volunteers need. From a lunch for 10 of rice and beans to a mosquito netted bed to sleep in, she's got you covered.

There are a lot of volunteers around Ambanja now that PC Madagascar has been reopened for a year. Back in my day it was just me, and then eventually Katie, and we had to walk 4k uphill both ways. But now there are Americans all over the place! My replacement in Ambanja, Josh, is carrying on all the keeping of realness. It was werid though to not only be the only person there from my orginal group of volunteers, but now that Brittany and Corie are gone, I was the only one who reinstated too. Time flies when you're sweating your flesh off. Man I miss Brittany and Corie (and all my stagemates). The new people are rad as hell, but I really miss the Tamatave crew, my stage, and all the other reinstaters!

I really like Ambanja, I've missed parts of it here from Diego, but what I didn't miss the most is the heat. It's only 237k South of here, but it's much more tropical (read: humid) and doesn't have the bay breeze. I had my good old friend Heat Rash back after being there for a couple of days.

Now I'm here in Diego, working on graduate school paperwork, being crafty (making a purse from frippe clothes that I don't want to take home, PBN, coloring book) until I can find some teachers who will let their students ask me how old I am and if I'm married.

For all of your Madagascar chocolate needs, check this out. It's a chocolate company run by two RPCVs from Madagascar. Everything is organic and fair trade and all that hippy stuff, so eat chocolate and feel good about supporting the cocoa growers of Ambanja. http://www.madecasse.com/

For having two weeks of nothing to do, I've been pretty busy. Today is the first day that I am uncomfortably bored (hence I am writing a blog), though one should note that my tolerance for boredom is impressively high.

After the last day of teaching, Kinsey, Corie, Brittany, Katie and I set out on a day trip to explore the wonders of The North, guided by our very own Superman (that's what we call Kamar, the Chef de Diego). We went to the tsingy rouge which is about 40k south of Diego. I've discussed tsingy rocks before, eloquently lamented against them at length, spit on their name and spirit, cursed them as the most vile of all geological phenomenon, and the like; however, I have different feelings about the red tsingy. Why? Well, their virtue lies simply in their redness. They're not just 'stupid pointy rocks'; they're stupid pointy RED rocks. Red makes all the difference. The drive was lovely, as was the company, and the private car far superior to traveling by taxi brousse. Here are some pictures:

Then we headed to the sacred lake of Anivorano. The legend goes that a traveler was making his way through the village of Anivorano, and he stopped to ask for water from the villagers. They all rejected his pleas, which goes against most cultures' tendency to care for visitors. Thus the parched nomad cursed the people, and transformed them into crocodiles. The ancestors of these crocodiles still call the lake home. Every so often (there's a schedule, I just don't know it), the people sacrifice cows for the crocodiles of the lake. This makes it quite easy to coax the crocodiles out of the water. Simply clap your hands and sing like they do when there's a sacrificial dead cow waiting on shore, and they come creeping out of the water like pavolves dog. What we were wondering, though, was how they would react when they come out of the water expecting a free dead cow, and found only delicious humans standing idly by with their cameras ready. Unfortunately, we didn't exactly get to find out. One crocodile came up to the edge of the water, but apparently didn't smell bleeding cow and wasn't fooled. We also saw a little baby chilling under the reeds at the edge of the lake.

That night, there was a party for Kinsey and I with the English since we had finished working with them. We sang karaoke, gave speeches, and it was really nice. They even gave up sweet presents.

The next morning Kinsey headed out of the town at dawn to go back to her site and left me to fend for myself. I had really grown accustomed to her multi-ingredients cooking, and all the other nice things that come with having Kinsey around (cooking being the most concrete).

Fret not, I was not alone. It was the weekend of the quarterly regional volunteer meeting. We took the opportunity to dominate the Grand Hotel pool (which is the nicest pool I've ever been to) with our loud American tendencies. For lunch, you can take a break from the cool water to eat fantastically amazing wonderful multiple course French cuisine. Life is calling, how far will you go?

That night, all of the volunteers headed over to the university for the English department's Halloween party. The 4th year students organized and threw the party. They had asked me about how to decorate and dress up for a Halloween party since it would be their first attempt at celebrating the holiday. They did an amazing job, including carving a jack-o-lantern out of a watermelon. For Halloween, I, as usual, dressed up as something convenient (i.e. something warm if it's cold out, something simple if I'm busy), and went as a tourist, equipped with a camera bag around my neck to capture all of the memories and light breathable hiking clothes (“performance gear”) which is good for going out dancing. It was a heck of a night.

The next day, we lost one of our own, as Corie flew to Tana to begin the process of Close of Service (COS), and is, as I type, in Chicago probably enjoying some food product which is slathered in delicious melty cheese. I'm next.

Fast forward a week or so (it was good and fun, just nothing interesting to report to the masses) (the masses being the 5 people who read this).

Last Tuesday, I headed down to Brittany's site, Anketrakabe, to enjoy some time in the countryside. Anketrakabe was lovely and welcoming as always. We completed the world map mural on the wall of the elementary school that Brittany started with her mom when her mom came to visit. It kept sprinkling for twenty minutes every other twenty minutes, which complicated matters a bit, but we were successful after all (even though I did take a nasty spill off the bench while trying to stencil out “Carte du Monde” on the wall... my leg is still swollen and it hurts to put pressure on it, but hey, anything is worth the hilarity of someone falling down).

As usual, we took all of our meals with Brittany's “family” which consists of her “mom”, two “sisters”, and two “brothers.” The older brother is now living in Diego so he can go to middle school thanks to funding provided by Brittany's sister's sorority. The other brother is adorably cute, and coming from me, that's saying something. The youngest girl is 2 and provides endless entertainment as most two year olds do when they aren't yours. Brittany's “mom” made us cookies, which was no small feat considering what we're working with. The eggs we got were too small to make the batter moist enough, so she added two additional goose eggs, which made the batter bright orange. Anketrakabe is a normal Malagasy village. There is no running water or electricity, so it's not like we're baking in an oven or nothing. We baked the cookies in a homemade oven on an open fire (let's go camping and I'll show you that trick). The first round came out as a shapeless mound of cookieness. It was delicious. There weren't even chocolate chips, just plain cookies. Seriously, some of the best cookies I've ever had in my life. Brittany's Malagasy family was welcoming and funny. They even dressed my falling wounds (I still had bruises from a falling incident the week prior) with ground curry root. My knee is still a little yellow.

I also taught an English lesson at Anketrakabe's new middle school. There's only one classroom / class. There are only 37 students (you know I've been here too long when I say “only 37”), and they were all behaved like perfect angels. We studied apologizing and sang “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” (which is still stuck in my head, by the way). It had been a while since I had worked with little ones (they're about 12), and it was a lovely, refreshing experience.

So here I am, back in Diego, with nothing much structured to do. I'm making a purse out of all of the clothes I've accumulated that I don't want to carry across two oceans, a continent, around Morocco and Paris, etc. It's a good project. I've made myself available to the students at the English department, but most of them are gone for the summer or completing their job shadowing projects. When they're done with those I'll have plenty of work helping them with their reports.

So it's almost 3 months until I'm home. Don't forget about me. I have regular and good internet access... You can email me... don't be shy. I like to have breaks from working on my grad school applications. Oy.

I write to you now as I should be in class teaching my last class with the third year students at the university. Unfortunately, none of them showed up for class. In keeping with always demonstrating the best of American culture, the last week of classes was devoted to fun, games, music, and movies (of course), and I was looking forward to it. As the minutes ticked by, I sat alone in front of the locked classroom philosophically contemplating all of the minutes I've spent in this country waiting in front of locked doors. Man am I good at waiting. I sent a few text messages, watched some cows while pondering the significance of truancy, and passed a half an hour without even realizing it. After 45 minutes I indignantly retired to my room.

If I wasn't flexible and easy going enough already, Madagascar entered new realms of requiring patience this week as the university is on strike. As a true and blue union girl, I didn't fancy “crossing the line” to teach, but my students had projects due and presentations to give, and I have nothing to do with the political cause at hand. Most of my students weren't interested in joining the strikers. (No, I can not explain who exactly is striking, and why exactly they are striking. The students have tried to explain it to me. The students in one department are on strike because some of the teachers are on strike because they didn't get paid? I think I am culturally unable to understand striking like this because it's such an alien idea to me. Could you imagine if all of the students at a university in the states decided to strike? Refused to attend classes and stood outside demonstrating? It just wouldn't happen – at least not these days.) So my classes went on as planned (sort of) in the beginning of the week. In one of my classes, the students didn't want to have class in the regular classroom because they didn't want the students who were striking to see them studying. We went to the English library, which wasn't open that early, so they gave their presentations in the hall outside the library. (Also can't imagine that happening in the states).

Don't get me wrong, I have loved teaching here at the university. The students have been great. The administration and other teachers have been great. I really can't complain. I'm just very disappointed to not have some of my final classes. I was saving up my best fun stuff for the end. And this is the end to my structured work in Madagascar. I will still be “working,” but this is my last week teaching in a classroom and having a schedule. I suppose it's a fitting end to two years of adapting to a very flexible work environment. I should have learned by now.

While we're on a down note... let's talk about some recent teaching failures.

Big fail: explaining “cooties.” Part of the last week fun included reading some Calvin and Hobbes, which was enjoyable for both me and the students, but also quite challenging. There was one where Hobbes was explaining to Calvin what it felt like to fall in love (which includes a lot of sweat and eventual brain failure), and Calvin says that that's happened to him before but that he thought it was cooties, not love. Boy it's really hard to explain an imaginary disease which can sound a lot like an STD... I'm pretty sure they thought I was talking about chlamydia or something.

I gave up before I could fail: explaining the difference between “like,” “as,” “as such,” and “as...as”. Man, that is really hard. I was using the internet to help make a worksheet/guide to the differences (they use all of them as if they always mean “for example”). The internet wasn't even able to provide the answers (look up the definition for 'as' and think about how you can explain it... jeez!). After over an hour of working and reworking the explanation, I got really confused, and decided that it's not something that can be explained. Please let me know if you can shine a light on this mystery. At first it seems like you can use them interchangeably (besides 'as...as'), but you can't. Why is English so hard?

Even though English is really hard (success: explaining the difference between “even though,” “even if,” and “even”), teaching ESL is one of the most fun (funnest?) things I could think of teaching. No matter what you do, as long as it's in English, it's educational. For example, if you like Alicia Keys, and you think that your students will like Alicia Keys, give them the lyrics, talk about the lyrics, listen to the music and watch the music videos- there's a lesson! While teaching here at the university, I've used articles from Newsweek, Time, Rolling Stone, BBC, and CNN on a variety of topics from Obamacare to that chick who pulled the girl down by her ponytail in a college soccer game last year. We've read/translated/interpreted/listened to songs of Bob Marley, Alicia Keys, and Rihanna. We've watched Friends, Lost, Bowling for Columbine, Planet Earth. We've read Calvin and Hobbes, the poetry of Robert Frost, American documents like the “Bill of Rights”, and much much more (in addition to contextualized grammar/vocabulary/phonetics lessons). You can use literature, art, current events, popular culture, really anything, as classroom content. It sure beats teaching how to factor, solve for x, prove geometric theorems, etc as far as I'm concerned. I love the freedom and creativity it allows. A lot of my inspiration for what I do with my classes comes from my French teacher from Wright State. She would have whole class sessions where we watched funny popular videos on You Tube. As long as it's in the target language, it's good practice, and has value; even if it's something that would be a waste of time if you were doing it in your native language (again, You Tube). I'm glad I found something that I find challenging and rewarding and something I'm passionate about to do as a career so early in life. And here I get to do it with a beautiful white sand beach and lemurs down the street. I can gaze out of my classroom window to the distant mountains and the deeply blue bay (that is if you look past all of the mess of the dorms).

On a final note... This week I was watching Lost with one of my classes. The episode ended just as the class was over. I was just joking when I said, “so do you want to stay and watch the next episode? I don't have anything to do.” But none of them moved. They just sat there very quietly and seriously. So I asked again, serious this time, “Do you want to stay and watch the next episode?” And they nodded their heads gravely. I said “Ok, well, class is over, so you can go, but I don't mind to stay and watch another episode, so you can stay if you want.” Not one of them left. They all stayed for another episode after class was over. Lost is the best show ever.

Please excuse my prolonged absence from blog posting... I've been so delightfully busy these last... uh... 2 months?

First, let me recount a brief tale of my vacation. At the beginning of August, I went South of Tana (the capital) for the first time in my 20 months here. Finally. We (me and some friends from my original stage who came back together) enjoyed brief stays in Antsirabe and Miandrivazo before embarking on an 3 day canoe trip floating West of the ________ river. We camped 3 nights on the river bank on the way. It's not very far, but there's a pathetically weak current, and the boatmen can't be troubled to paddle any more than absolutely necessary.

After finishing the butt-numbing but otherwise pleasant floatacular, we stayed in some more quiet villages inthemiddleofnowhere (really, I've never felt so inthemiddleofnowhere in my life) on the way to the legendary tsingy park, Bemahara. For those of you who don't know (and why would you), tsingy (or what I like to call “stupid pointy rocks”) are sharp limestone rocks which resemble stalagmites that aren't in a cave... if you are, for some reason, interested in the science behind this geological phenomenon, direct your search elsewhere... rocks... you know how I feel about them. We hiked in the “grand tsingy” first and then hit up the “petite tsingy” later, decidedly making the latter outing quiet undramatic. I'll grudgingly admit that the park is pretty cool when you're not gripping onto impossibly sharp chunks of pointy limestone for dear life. Please see photos on Facebook.

After the river and rock portion of our adventure we finally arrived to the Tree Portion, the much anticipated pilgrimage to the baobab trees outside of Morondava. The image that you picture when you imagine Madagascar (if you ever find yourself doing such) is probably from this area. Rocks, blah; but trees, yes please. It was everything that I thought it could be since getting my invitation to Peace Corps Madagascar in March 2008. We watched the sunset and the sky turn purple in the forest of >500 year old water hoarding trees. Magical.

Finally, we returned to city life in Morondava, which is my favorite city that I've been to in Madagascar. It's right on the beach, there's amazing and affordable food (read: shrimp), and it's small enough to be enjoyed by foot. I seriously loved Morondava. Though I wouldn't want to be anywhere near there during the hot season.

Then we ventured to a private nature reserve, Kirindy, outside Morondava. It's home to lemurs galore, and the infamous singular carnivore of Madagascar, the fosa. According to guide books, fosa are allegedly very allusive, and a few days stay are recommended to get a chance to see one. We wanted to camp at the park, but were cautioned against it due to the possibility of “miattack” by fosa. We took a nap before heading out on our hike, and Kinsey woke us up claiming to have seen a fosa as she was fetching water from the pump. No one believed her, and we told her such, but she persisted, so we got out of bed. It was not a sun/hike induced hallucination; the fosa was snacking out of the garbage can. That night we saw another one (or the same one?) on our night hike in a more authentic setting. We also saw all kinds of lemurs being all adorable all over the place. I loved Kirindy!

What a fantastic vacation, river, rocks, trees, beach, fosa, lemurs... pretty much the iconic Madagascar experience. If you want to come and do it to, I will be your guide if you pay my way... haha.

The best way to end a vacation? Micommanding a taxi brousse back to the capital, 14 hours of excitement!

For the 3 weeks following vacation, my colleagues and I helped train the newly arrived volunteers in a training village outside the capital. By day we watched them practice teaching and lead sessions on how to survive teaching here for two years. By night we played Cranium and read to each other from a trashy novel around the fire. Meeting the new people was great, and strengthening the bonds of our 2+ year friendships was ever better (sorry new people). One of the new people is replacing me in Ambanja which is exciting. It's good to have the number of volunteers in country back to where it was before we were evacuated a year and a half ago.

Since then, I've been back enjoying life working at the university in Diego. It's really a dream come true. I'm getting a good preview of what I'm planning to do with the rest of my life, and loving it. It sure is windy here, and there are a lot more critters in my house than I'd prefer (no more rats though). The wind is so strong that it whips the dirt around, smacking into your face/eyes/any exposed flesh. It hurts dude. But aside from that, I love being in Diego and seeing other Peace Corps Volunteers all the time, speaking English in class, and tackling interesting topics (we spent a good hour talking about health care reform and Sarah Palin in one of my classes... I know, I'm a little late...). I asked my students what they thought Americans should do about the cost of health care and insurance, and they suggested that we strike, how French of them. I have an amazing amount of freedom with my course content, and having resources like the internet and a small library leave me free to be creative. We've been covering elementary but intensive topics like the difference between analzying and summarizing, and citing sources. I actually teach about 30 hours a week; it's like being a real teacher! I love it.

This week I'm headed back to the capital for Close of Service Conference, and it's the first time I've ever been not happy about leaving site to go to Tana.

Tsara velona.

Ok, guys, here we go.

First, let's start with the big problems and get them out of the way...

In the season 5 finale, which I can't claim to know like I know seasons 1-3, but still, I watched The Incident many times to discuss its horribleness, Ilana says that Frank may be a candidate. Frank hears this, and asks what he's a candidate for, they don't answer him, and he never brings it up again in season 6. Frank's name was never in the cave or on the lighthouse dial. How could Ilana not know at that point who is and who is not a candidate? All through season 6 she seems quite certain (except for the Kwons). Not a huge snafu, but can only be interpreted as the writers didn't know who the candidates were at the end of season 5: Dislike.

I know this sounds picky, but it really bothers me. Why is the plane in the premiere a completely different plane from the pilot? It has different style of seats; it doesn't have that big Oceanic glass circle. Why not use the same kind plane? (Was this supposed to be a hint that it all wasn't "real"?...)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Naveen Andrews, who plays Sayid, is of Indian decent. Every other person who plays an Iraqi is Iraqi, including his brother. This looks ridiculous. The actors have obviously different ethnicity, but they are playing brothers. They could have at least found a half Indian, half Arab to play his brother so they might look something alike.

The Black Rock vs The Four Toed Statue: I really think that Taweret would have won that battle. The Black Rock is washed ashore on a big wave, hits that statue breaking it to pieces, but the ship goes on to land untainted in the jungle, far from the statue? There are way cooler ways to explain how the Black Rock got to the jungle and how the statue broke... I guess at that point they needed to hit two birds with one stone.

This brings me to another issue: Island geography. They laugh in the face of previously established geography rules all throughout season 6. They make journeys that previously took days in a matter of hours.

For 5 seasons, they adhered to a strict subtitling rule: if the people in the scene don't understand the language that's being spoken, we as the audience don't get subtitles. For example, if Sun and Jin are speaking to each other alone in Korean, we get subtitles, but if there are other people who don't speak Korean standing by, we don't. When Sun flips out at Richard for wanting to blow up the plane, suddenly we have subtitles, even though we shouldn't because no one understands what she's saying. Not only did they break the rule, they did it for no good reason. You don't need subtitles to understand the gist of it. Why would they throw out a rule with a 5 season long precedence so late in the game?

This also seems picky, but in the premiere, Kate's bathroom door is on backwards so that she can kick it open and knock out Edward Mars. Ok, that's fine, but you can see that the door has been turned around (all of the hinges are on the outside), but they are normal on all the other bathroom doors.

In "Across the Sea" we finally find out who Adam and Eve are, but then they cheapen it by flashing back to season 1 to show flight 815ers finding the bodies. Did we really need that? They never flash back to remind you why something is important. If you're a real Lost fan, you know about Adam and Eve.

Personally, I hated the temple and everything that happened there. It didn't have anything to do with anything, and it didn't explain anything. Feel free to contradict me because I'd like to like it, but I don't.

No one ever freaking told Claire that her mom was alive and well and taking care of Aaron.

Richard joins the ranks of Matthew Abaddon as someone who is better in mystery than in reality. He doesn't arrive on the island until 1867, which appeases those who had qualms with the dynamite on the Black Rock, but I thought we got over that 4 seasons ago. His back story just isn't that cool.

Everything with Libby was crap. She messed up Hurley's episode. I thought she was supposed to be gone for good. Stupid Libby.

In the second to last scene when all the people are in the church to "move on" it's really a Hodge podge group of people. There are a lot of 815ers absent and Penny is there even though she'd never been on the island. I just wonder the logic behind who is there and who isn't there.

Lastly, I am not satisfied with how the man in black became the smoke monster. While I concede that I don't know any proper way to make a black smoke monster, throwing a dude down a cave waterfall into light seems like one of the least cool ways.

Now, unanswered questions & things that should have happened, but didn't...

Food Drops! I know they touched on this in the Sri Lanka video, but they never explained why they are still getting food drops in 2004 and presumably after (Rose and Bernard have dharama food even in the finale.)

Nothing ever happened with Annie. She was introduced in Ben's first centric episode and it seemed like she had a big impact in his life... then she was never heard or discussed again. They really should have brought her back to help explain why Ben is the way that he is. They should have shown Annie being put into mortal peril by the wrongdoings of the Dharama Initiative thus inspiring Ben's contempt and later destruction of the DI people. I thought maybe they were holding off on this to let the actors become older so that when they did do the scene they'd be teenagers. I was wrong.

What's with the ash ring that stops the black smoke monster?

What's about Walt and his powers. This was such an interesting aspect of seasons 1&2. They never explained anything about it. What happened to Walt? How is he? I'm worried! There was so much drama behind getting him off the island, but then he's basically off the show. Was he too busy doing KFC commericals to make an appearance in the final season? I don't even remember them even mentioning him at all.

Sayid never discovered that Kelvin Inman, who made him a torcherer, was on the island and pressed the button for years. Why not have a 2 minute scene where he finds this out and understands that his whole life has been leading him to the island and that everything is connected?

We never saw Juliet with her sister off the island. They dedicate a lot of time and emotion to their relationship in previous seasons, and this relationship is always at the root of Juliet's motivation. They could have easily just thrown her in the concert scene (then David would have been with his aunts on both sides).

I'm sure people are tired of me harping about this... but Locke should have been Boone's dad. There was so much foreshadowing of this connection in season 1 (Locke sacrifices his son for the island, at one point he even calls him "son"). Boone's dad is never mentioned. They could have easily made that connection in season 6, and then they could have been together as father and son in the last scene of them moving on.

Who the hell is Jacob's mom? Seriously.

Who built the lighthouse, statue, and light plug thingie?

What exactly is the loop hole that allowed the man in black as Locke to kill Jocab?

What rules was Widmore breaking when he had Alex killed?

What's with Ethan? He's introduced as Ethan Rom in season 1. In season 5 we find out that he is the son of Horrace Goodspeed and in the Dharma Imitative (at least as a baby), but then he's with Ben when they take Alex from Danielle. Then in the flash sideways he's Ethan Goodspeed (which makes sense, but why throw that in at all if it's never explained?). Oh Ethan, you're so mysterious.

Lastly, I was really waiting for a line of dialogue between Jack and Sawyer in the finale about bygones being bygones.

Things that seemed important at the time, but never went anywhere:

Claire's baby's daddy, Thomas. Whatever happened with him? His painting is in the wall of Widmore's office, yet he never returned. I always thought he'd play a role in how things worked out.

The monk at Desmond's monastery has a picture of Eloise on his desk... I was waiting for him to come back and be a major player with Eloise.

Nothing ever comes of Aaron. He's such a big part of the characters motivations. I was always waiting for him to matter to the island, but I guess he's just a normal baby. Same with Clementine. While I'm glad they didn't do a second generation thing where all of the original survivors kids go back to the island, I wish they would have mentioned her.

Ok! Now- Stuff that I liked! (in no particular order)

I love all of the irony in the flash sideways (i.e. Ben gives his father oxygen instead of gassing him to death, Desmond finds Penny running in the stadium, Locke cripples his father, etc).

In the flash sideways, it seems like everything is either the same or opposite as it was before, but everyone still has the same problems. I like that. It's like either your the evil lying leader of "the others" or a high school history teacher, but your emotional problems are still the same.

I love that it's Desmond who figures it all out (with the help of Charlie and Daniel) and brings everyone together.

Hurley is the new Jacob. Thank goodness. He is also the only candidate who has never killed anyone (except in pure defense). He is "good."

Elosie is wearing pins that are like "the mark" that Juliet gets for killing Pickett. She has one for everyone that we've seen her kill.

Juliet is Jack's son's mom. Called it the second they showed that Jack had a son. I love being right.

Great casting for the Jacob/MIB flashback... the boys looked just like the adults and were good actors, and Allison Janney was great and creeptastic. I liked the boy in black's intrigue with the game on the beach.

I love the little things like Richard reading Luke 14 in his jail cell.

Desmond talks Sayid out of killing him. Desmond is that shit.

I love Sayid, Jin & Sun's death. It was well done. I like that Sayid died saving the others and that Jin & Sun died together after they reunite. (Is Kate going to raise Ji Yeon now? ha.)

I liked the freighter peoples role on the periphery. They didn't take up too much focus, but we got to see them again.

There were a lot of parallels in the finale to other important episodes (there were a lot of allusions to Man of Science, Man of Faith, Through the Lookings Glass, and the pilot of course.)

The Jack and "Locke" fight at the cliffs was pretty bad ass.

Jack and "Locke" ultimately end up working together to end everything, but they are expecting different outcomes. It was an interesting dichotomy to watch enemies working together to achieve a common goal while thinking that the other is dooming them self in the process.

When Jack fixes Locke in the flash sideways (which was... whatever) was the first time that Jack ever cared for Locke medically. Locke never went to Jack for medical help on the island, but in the flash sideways he fixes him. I like irony.

All and all, I liked season 6. Nothing can beat seasons 1, 2 & 3, but season 6 kicks seasons 4 & 5's asses. I could keep going and going with this, but I have a feeling that no one even made it this far.

There are a lot of issues here that need further analysis and discussion when I return.

Also, there should be a spin off sitcom of Hurley and Ben running the island.

Stay tuned for an epic vacation blog!

The last week went by really fast... maybe because I was sucked into a Lost watching time warp...

Teaching at the university has been fantastic! The students are great, there are so many resources and I get to pretty much do whatever I want (like have them watch and analyze the language and cultural issues in the Lost pilot parts 1&2). On Friday night, we went to a birthday party for one of Kinsey's students. It was a good time. Everything about living in Diego and working at the university is amazing.

Now I'm in Tana and about to head out on an epic adventure of baobab trees and tsingy forests, floating down a river, and traveling across some of the worst national roads in country. It should be a grand time. I wish you were all here to go with us!

You'll have to wait for my Lost review... next time...

If you don't hear from me in the next two weeks, I was eaten by a crocodile.

Whoa, it's been a while, hasn't it? I've been all over the island and back in the past few weeks and haven't been without serious stimulation of some kind or another since the beginning of July. I will breifly chronical my passage.

I spent a few lovely days in Diego with some other PCVs who came up North for vacation. You may have seen photographic evidence of the ensuing fun on Facebook.

Then I hit the road out to Mahajunga to meet up with my long-lost stagemates, Beth and Brain, who showed me the town pcv style (that means we ate the best food in town).

After that, our Education 2008 trio left the toasty coastal excitement for the blustering cloudiness of the highlands, specifically the capital, Tana. A few days in Tana can do a body good (or bad... but either way, it's worth it). We hit up the best food spots and used the crap out of the internet.

Then on to everyone's favorite Winter Camp- Mantasoa, for a training of trainers (that's right, TOT) conference. It was fun to be really cold and shiver after moaning and moaning about the heat for the last 7 months. It was also great to reconnect with my stagemates. I haven't seen enough of them since returning here; I saw some of them more often when we were in America than I do now.

After a few more days enjoying the cuisine of Tana, Kinsey and I set sail (via airplane) to Diego to start teaching at the university.

Life in Diego... It's good.

We're living in the visiting teacher housing at the Univeristy of Antsiranana, which offers a breathtaking view of the Bay of Diego (the 2nd biggest bay in the world) and Sugar Loaf (see facebook). But in exchange for this, we have to endure constant high winds from the Indian Ocean that come across the bay. There will never be a good hair day in Diego. We each have our own bedroom and bathroom and a shared kitchen. Kinsey has been learning me up on Malagasy cooking. We also have little patios that have great views- but you can only sit there and read so long before your eyes are dried out from the constant wind.

I started teaching on Wednesday. I'm teaching 3rd and 4th year Academic Writing and 4th year Applied Linguistics and Teaching Methods. I'm teaching 28 hours/week not including movie club and conversation club hosted by the English department. It's nice to be busy and intellectually stimulated. I have a ton of resources (I can even make copies from time to time!). The students' English levels are great- they can understand controversial conversations and have extensive lexicons. At the end of my first class, I opened up discussion time for any questions they have. A student raised his hand without hesitation and asked "When can you use 'douchebag' and what is the difference between 'douchebag' and 'douche'?" They're fun.

Conversation club last night was... interesting. The topic was: Men in skirts. I don't know where they got this topic. A pair of students gave a presentation on the history of men wearing skirts/dresses, and then we discussed it. There's only so much that can be said, and two hours later, it definitely felt like we were beating a dead thing with a very big stick.

Our house also came with dogs. There must have been a long line of friendly foreigners who have fed these dogs. There are about 3 female dogs who keep close to the house and are very friendly and passive towards us. One of them runs over to us and lays down with her belly sticking up everytime she sees us.... I will feed and adore her, but I ain't touching that belly.

ANNOUNCEMENT!

Thanks so much to everyone who has sent me a package! (Specifically: Mom, Matt, Shannon, Fran, Peggy, Jane, Nina, Abbie, Fraser, Ben and Ronda). They are so great to get and mean a lot to me! However, the tax on them here in Diego is super expensive (of course it's worth it, but it's still expensive), so if you still want to send a package, send it to Tana:

Dorothy Mayne

Corps de la Paix

B.P. 12091

Poste Zoom Ankorondrano

101 Antananarivo

Madagascar

Here is me and my Malagasy family. "Mohammad," Liza, Momma Peace Corps, and Tsiky (hiding behind me in an uncharacteristic moment of shyness)

Quite an eventful week or so... how do I condense it into a readable, chronological, whimsical tale?

First of all, most of last week Momma Peace Corps was out of town, leaving her son, Tsiky, the dude whose name I have no idea how to spell (Mamoshad? Let's call him Mohammad), and me the run of the place. All of the neighbors were complaining about our loud rap music (Momma PC gots a nice sound system, and Tsiky and Mohammad like Snoop Dog and Dr Dre) and we sat around watching TV most of the time. Without a woman around (I don't count), we resorted to eating cold rice and papaya for dinner. On the eve before Independence day, we watched the celebration on TV instead of going to a celebration ourselves; we were being very American. First they showed a fireworks/laser light show in London, but Mohammad didn't realize that it wasn't Madagascar because he's never been to the capital. When they started the show in Madagascar, it was an obvious attempt to emulate the London version (and they showed that first to give you an idea of what it was supposed to be like?) But when they cut to the capital and started that show, Mohammad was like, “What?! This is Madagascar? Where was that before?” And I told him it was London. After thinking the London one was Madagascar, he was very disappointed in the actual show. I thought it was jolly good attempt, but the TV coverage of it was like a high school news project (the camera was set up behind a tree, so the fire works and laser light show were seen from behind the tree).

The next day, Independence Day, I was supposed to be in another freaking parade... I've already been in the School Days parade and the Women's Day parade, which make sense because I'm a teacher at the school and a woman, but why would I, as an installation of neocolonialism (that's right, I said it), be in the Independence Day parade? Plus I hate being in parades. Instead, I hung out at Momma Peace Corps house (she was back) and watched TV and cooked and ate like someone who is representing America should. When I arrived, Mohammad was just finishing killing the chicken, and Liza (my best friend in Ambanja) poured boiling water on its body ease the process of feather removal. She and I were pulling out feathers as I heard a distinct chicken chatter and jumped back from the lifeless, almost bald dead bird. Everyone laughed at me. There was another chicken under the table that was still alive that I didn’t realize was there.

Independence Day night was a drunken mess. Excuse me for generalizing, but when Malagasy people drink, they get DrUnK. Independence Day in Madagascar is renowned among volunteers as a day of avoiding drunken crowds and laying low after lunch. Not that Malagasy people are generally big drinkers, but if you drink one day of the year, it will be Independence Day. I spent the evening watching Malagasy music videos (look up “Chila” on youtube if you want to feel some of my suffering for yourself- Malagasy music is... uh... Thumper wouldn't say anything about it), dancing, and drinking. Everyone was getting good and hydrated, and I was thinking about heading home before it was “too late” but decided to stick around and gather some fodder for you fine people. Well, let me tell you, drunk dialing exists across cultures... Momma PC's boyfriend pulled me aside so that we could have a heart to heart, and he told me that he loves Momma PC but that she lies to him and it makes him sad. Then, in English, he says, “Ok, give me five,” and we continued our revelry. I did my part (goal 2) to teach them about American culture. When Momma PC's boyfriend passed out with his shoes on, I told them about how if someone passes out with their shoes on that gives everyone free license to mess with them. The next morning I taught them an English phrase: “the hair of the dog that bit me.” Cheers to 50 years Madagascar!

After having completed my grades, I was free to run about town and do as I please with no schedule or commitments. I spent all my evenings at Momma PC's house, where Tsiky pretended to cry whenever I walked into the room since I am finished working in Ambanja. I caught almost all of the World Cup games, even though I'm not happy with their outcomes in general. I had money (figuratively) on Brazil man.

It's sad to leave Ambanja, but how can I be sad to move to Diego? Everyone keeps telling me that they know I am not sad because I will live in Diego instead of Ambanja. They're right... here are a few things I won't miss about Ambanja:

Crossing the street. The big main road that goes from the capital to Diego runs through the middle of town, and crossing it can be perilous. I stand and wait for the rickshaws, bikes, cars, cabs, tractors, and taxi brousses to pass, so I can safely cross, but everyone slows down to stare at me or stops to try to pick me up.

Trying to get a room of 75 16-19 year olds to be quiet enough for me to talk.

Living in between the elementary school playground and the school board offices- loud adults and loud children. (Soon my backyard will be the bay of Diego... quite an improvement from a playground).

Things I will miss about Ambanja:

Momma Peace Corps and family, including Tsiky, Liza, Mohammad, Rosy, Momma PC's boyfriend, and all their neighbors. They are all wonderful people who have been largely responsible for my enjoyment of my time in Ambanja. She makes me pizza :)

(some of) My students. A bunch came by my house to pick up their tests and say goodbye. I got a French-English dictionary for one girl who comes by and constantly asks me to translate single words. I wrote in the inside cover “Study hard. Remember that nothing is impossible!” and she drew me a picture and wrote “Nothing that you desire in your heart is impossible” across the top. Weird. I've given them all of the magazines that y'all fine people have been kind enough to provide.

English club. I heart English club.

English Club... this turned in to quite the photo shoot. Everyone wanted to sit with me and make sure they looked good in every picture. Eventually I had to use the good old trusty "oh, look at that, the battery died" line. These kids are the future of this country, seriously.

On my last night in Ambanja, I had some unexpected guests at my going away party. A crew of PCVs (some of the coolest people on the island, possibly the world) I hadn’t seen since we were evacuated stayed in Ambanja on their way North to Diego. We all stayed at Momma Peace Corps house, and it was a fine time (even though was had to watch Brazil and Ghana lose!).

Now, in Diego, I just returned home from a Jerry Marcos concert. He’s my favorite Malagasy singer (which isn’t saying much, but whatever). It was intense. There was a huge crowd and a good time was had by all. I normally dread and despise Malagasy concerts (or any event with a crowd, to be honest), but this one was an awesome exception. We rolled 8 vazaha deep, and it was a blast.

Happy 4th of July stateside!

Huzzah! I got a picture to load! This is me with my favorite class, as mentioned in the previous post. I'm going to miss the tabataba loatra little bastards.

I've had a great time watching the World Cup here. There are always people to watch the games with, and it makes for easy conversation. My Malagasy sports commentary skills are improving daily. I don't know if you guys get the same commericals as me, but I love the "say no to racism" commerical! And the "Let's go Africa" one.

On Wednesday, all of the students at the high school took their English exams. The exam time was scheduled too close to the USA game for comfort. I told the room I was proctoring that they needed to hurry because I wanted to watch the game. Only 3 of them laughed, and all three of them got a 100% on their tests (not because they laughed, but because they're smart, and they actually listen when I talk).

Anyways, the game. What a great game! I don't profess to know squat about sports, but I know those guys were playing their hearts out. USA kept getting the ball down to the goal and just barely missing. Algeria could barely get the ball down to their goal, but their keeper was keeping the game tied 0-0. The game was so tense and the players were playing as hard as they could (much better than against England). It was still 0-0 when they gave the game 4 additional minutes. In the last two minutes, Donovan got in there and won us the game. I jumped up and verbally expressed my approval of Donovan's command of the game of football, and everyone laughed at me. The American team exploded with the air of victory.

Earlier that same day, a rat was making its way down from the ceiling (normally they stay up in the ceiling, and I bear no grudge against them besides their incessant noise making, but once they figure out how to descend, we have issues) in the broad daylight as I was sitting there reading. Idiot. I told it what I thought of it when I chased it back up. So, I had a pretty good feeling there would be a rat waiting for me when I returned home from watching the game. I opened the door and saw all of the evidence of amateur rat exploration (knocked over things, things pushed around) and then spotted it across the room, chewing on a picture. I grabbed my big stick (which I keep around for just such encounters) and made to chase it up to the ceiling. The dumb thing didn't know what to do or where to go, and it took off across the room. I big stick in hand, and USA victory in my heart, took a valiant strike at the vermin, and clocked the little bastard on the first hit. I was so surprised that I actually made contact, but not only did I make contact, but I demobilized it enough to inflict another, this time fatal, blow. I ran over to my neighbors house to tell them that I killed a rat with my stick. They were less impressed with me than I was with myself. Really, I am a BAMF, and killing rats with sticks is just how I roll. There was more than one American victory on Wednesday. I posthumously named the rat Algeria.

This Saturday is Madagascar's independence day, so there will be lots of partying to be done. Things will be... why can I not think of the word in English, only in French and Malagasy... good work, English teacher...

Ah the last week of school. It was... well...... On Thursday I had my last session with my worst class. They're uncontrollable, and I usually kick out a student every class (yes, I realize that this is a futile effort as it has not resulted in any long term change in behavior, but it makes me feel better, and sometimes I just can't look at them anymore). They were in a particularly rancid form (or as Beth would put it “more like monsters than human”) for their last class. I was reviewing for their final, and felt like a broken record of my former and all teachers before them as I said “You know, I'm not doing this for my health. I already know this; I'm just trying to help you.” I told them that if they didn't want to review they were free to go, but no one accepted my invitation and all remained, perhaps in an epic final game of Lets Try To Make the Teacher Cry. I'm not going to pretend I've never participated in such a game (Mr Tra.... whatever his name was... he only lasted 4 months at Stivers... and he and his little bell had it coming). My afternoon class was with my favorite section, and they were a joy as always. I don't know how two classes of students can be in basically the same room and with the same amount of students and in practice be so completely different. They aren't exactly quiet, but they make a lot of noise talking to each other in English (I heard a rousing argument over whether or not you can say “I Amn't” or “I'mn't”) and asking me questions. We had already completed all of my review tasks since they're always on the ball and listen to me the first time, so we did tongue twisters. It was a rumbustious task and very fun. I was trying to end class, when they started asking me a bunch of questions, like if I can stay and teach them next year, if I was going to come back to Ambanja to visit, if they could come home to America with me... I told them that the only ones who could come home with me are the twins (they both have earned a perfect 100% for all three trimesters), but that I would only take one, and they had to decide which. Then, as I said “Goodbye!” to dismiss them as usual, they stood up and serenaded me (spontaneously?) with “Hello, Goodbye” by the Beatles. If I had a heart, I might have shed a tear.

I also had my last English club this week. I showed them pictures of little Alex, who they declared to be the “strongest” baby they've ever seen, and asked when he would be visiting me in Madagascar. I will miss English club.

I love spending the World Cup in a country that cares about the World Cup. All three games are broadcast everyday on the one national channel. It beefs up my small talk to have a sporting event to recall. I've been watching a lot of the games at my friend's house. I'm cheering for Nigeria (which hasn't been easy). It seems like most people here are rooting for France or whatever African team is playing. If anyone needs a Brazil “RONALD 9” jersey for 2 dollars, I've got you covered.

My future here in Madagascar is still uncertain (i.e. I don't know where I will be living a month from now, or what they next months have in store for me) but I'm really good at going with the flow at this point, and not knowing barely even bothers me anymore. (but it would be nice to know...)

Oh yeah, and thanks to everyone who texted me with the news of touchdown jesus... Im glad that giant jesus statues burning the ground made so many of you at home think of me :) I got more texts about it than I got happy birthday texts! haha!

Here’s a list of random weird things that have happened recently:

I caused a fender bender… I was standing on my porch, drying my hands, and guy who was driving his car down the street in front of my house was staring at me hard, like I have 6 purple heads and such… well he was so busy gawking at my whiteness that he hit an oncoming car.

I tripped over a chameleon while I was fetching water and spilled my bucket all over. The chameleon looked back at me with its crazy little eyes as if I was an idiot until I reminded it that it’s very clever at blending in with its environment.

I am a master snail hunter and destroyer.

My house is apparently the cool place to be on Sunday afternoons. All the girls come over and wash their hair in my shower before they get it braided, and everyone watches Friends while we wait. Some of the girls have started coming over and requesting to watch Friends at other times too.

I went to a traditional Malagasy boxing event with my Rasta friend. There was a huge muscular boxer in an obviously women’s cut t-shirt that read “Silicone Free” across the chest. I couldn’t explain why I was laughing so hard.

I went with another English teacher to another school to have question and answer sessions with his high school students. I was in each class for 2 hours, and both classes asked me only the exact same questions: How old am I? Where do I live? If I am married? And what’s my phone number? Each class took two hours to ask these questions. If I wasn’t already so used to feeling awkward all the time, it would have been really awkward.

In my English club, I did the critical thinking puzzle with the triangle with triangles inside, and you have to count how many triangles there are. The education system here is completely devoid of critical thinking, interpreting, and analyzing skills, so I thought I’d try to get them thinking. No one got it right, but as I showed them all of the additional triangles beyond the obvious ones, it was as if I was showing them an amazing magic trick.

An owner of an Indian restaurant, who is friendly with all of the Northern PCVs, set up a World Cup party for us at his restaurant in Diego. We were sitting on a couch, watching the big screen, as the couch collapsed beneath us. We all agreed that it’s Katie’s fault.

I’m currently having quite perilous stomach issues… though that is neither random nor weird…

And finally, last week I gave all of my classes an exam. They, with a partner, had to write a dialogue about giving advice. They had full use of the notebooks, dictionaries, and any other resource, including me to answer any questions. About a third of them copied a dialogue word for word from their books, all of whom received a zero. About a third of them wrote something that was completely incomprehensible. But a third of them produced amazing gems like this:

Maria: Hi Tamia!

Tamia: Hi Maria! You know, I have a problem, because my boyfriend is left yesterday.

Maria: Why?

Tamia: I don’t know, but I think that he doesn’t love me.

Maria: Oh my god! You could go on vacation for sometimes?

Tamia: I won’t go on vacation.

Maria: Why you won’t go on vacation during sometimes?

Tamia: No, I can’t go because I am sad.

Maria: Then, you should seek a another boy.

Tamia: No!! I meant be with him forever!!

Maria: It’s difficult, love, I believe that you should reflect.

Tamia: Okay, I should reflect a long time, because my heart is so sick.

Maria: Yes, Good luck and good afternoon.

Tamia: Bye

Maria: See you

Amazing! Some of the errors make a lot of sense if you think about translating it directly from French. It has all of the grammatical aspects that I required, and follows a logical line of discourse. Also, I love that the advice for a sick heart is to go on vacation. Most of the exams left me banging my head on the table, but ones like this make me feel like my time in teaching high school in Ambanja hasn’t been completely wasted.

In other news, Im an aunt. Baby Alex was born during the USA England match... tonga soa vie namanako! Congrats to Shannon, Dan, and Grandma (haha)

And now for a little insight into the Malagasy education culture...

My school received a massive shipment of math textbooks donated from Sweden. My principal (who speaks English) was telling me about it. He mentioned several times that “there are enough books for each student to have one book. There are as many books as there are students!” The teachers' lounge was abuzz with wonderment over this development. The principal went on to express their confusion over the matter of what to do when the teacher has a book and the students have a book- what are they supposed to do during class? Normally here, most of class time is taken up with the teacher writing the lesson on the board and the students copying it into their notebooks (in essence writing their own textbooks)- not very dynamic or mentally demanding on anyones part. I explained that in the United States you have a book for most subjects, and you read it as a class and discuss it, and the teacher goes further into depth. And for math in particular, you don't have to waste time copying problems, and the teachers don't have to make all the problems up. Everyone has the problem in front of them already, and you can do it together on the board. The teachers thought this to all be quite strange. They didn't know what to do in the classroom when there's a book. During Peace Corps training (going on 2 years ago now!), when we were told that the students and teachers had no books, we were aghast with what to do without one. Additionally, the principal told me that some of the answers to the math problems were in the back of the book. He announced this to me as if it was a scandal, or some kind of obvious oversight on part of the textbook publishers. I told him that that was typical of math and science books I used in school, and that the purpose was to check your answer to see if you had done all of the steps correctly. He asked if students just copied the answer without attempting the problem, which I was able to answer from personal experience; but the teachers just have to see if the students completed all of the steps to see if they had only copied answers from the back. (Of course if you're like me and can set up a math problem but it always falls apart at some point, the answers in the back are perfect!) I thought it was interesting how they didn't know how to proceed with a textbook, when most Americans can't imagine a classroom without one. Moreover, that while the donation from Sweden will certainly have a positive impact, that our western ideas for improving things don't always work within the context of other cultures.

Also on the education front, this week I'm teaching my favorite English grammar point: referential do (when “to do” is used to show tense when negating and forming questions in present and past simple tenses... still not with me? For example, to negate the sentence “I like cookies” you have to add “do” before the “not” even though nothing is being done (“I do not like cookies.”). And to ask if you like cookies, I start with “do” unless I'm asking about when you were young in which case I'd use “did”... don't worry, my lesson was a lot more clear than that.) But this rampant unclear use of “do/does/did & don't/doesn't/didn't” throws ESL learners off since they're trying to translate it, but it doesn't translate to anything, it just functions as a tense marker. There were multiple points during the lesson in each class when I heard students hit with understanding (“OOOOohh!”), and it warmed my icy heart.

This week at English club we learned “The Sweetest Thing” by Akon, Wyclef, and Lil Wayne. It was pretty complicated to explain, but everyone understood eventually. The song is pretty popular here, but the lyrics are too colloquial and full of slang for them to understand when they hear it on the radio. The chorus is “Dollar dollar bills, y'all, where my money at?” so I showed them the 5 dollar bill that's in my wallet ready to buy me a fast food lunch at whatever airport I fly into upon my return to the US. They wanted to know if it still works because Obama isn't on it, adorable. We also did “If I Was President” by Wyclef Jean, which is appropriate for the political situation here. The song mentions Christopher Columbus, so asked them if they knew who he was, and one kid shouted out “1492!” in French. Apparently that number has been pounded into their heads. It also mentions Martin Luther King, who they thought they knew, but they were talking about Martin Luther. And lastly it mentions JFK. I asked them if they knew who JFK is and one said “John Fitzgerald Kennedy, president of the United States” which was awesome. They totally understood the lyrics and were able to see how they are applicable both the Madagascar and the United States. It was a good English club.

I have captured a second disgusting long, fat tailed rat. It has been charged with larceny and disturbing the peace, and was hastily sentenced to death bypassing the formality of trial. I told it, “life's not fair and then you die...” really die. My friend came over, and I proudly showed him my new prize. He asked me if I was going to keep it in the cage on my bookshelf so I have something to be my friend and talk to. I told him, no thankyouverymuch, but that I would keep it at least for the morning to taunt and laugh at which provided more stress relief than you would think.

The next time I post a blog I will probably be an aunt! Good luck Shannon (and Dan!)!

Warning: this blog may be upsetting to those who are into animals rights and have no experience with the annoying animals they get upset about.

I had finally had enough of the rat. My attempts at peaceful cohabitations were thwarted when it started messing about in my laundry... eat my peanuts, chew on containers in my trash can, fine, but mess with the clothes and we're done. It was also getting too familiar for my tastes and was no longer scared enough to always run away when I tried to scare it back up into the ceiling after waking me up. Monday morning I woke up to the insolent creature climbing up my mosquito net- the straw that broke the camel's back. That's my territory. No rodents in the bed. I had already tried poisoning it, to no avail. My friend took me to the vet to buy some sort of fumigation spray that would put me out of my house for a few days but was a sure thing, alas, they were out. I decided to get a snap trap and spend the night at my friend's house and hopefully return home in the morning to a minimal mess... but when I was at the market I also found the kind of traps where you put the bait inside, and the rat can get in but can't get out. A genius invention, to whoever came up with it, the faint of heart rodentphoics of the world thank you. I decided on this method. I baited the trap with its favorite, peanuts.

That night it was running around all crazy across my tarp ceiling making quite a ruckus as usual. Around 2am it descended from the ceiling to see what was new with me... I tried not to move too much, so I could see what would happen next without scaring it back into the ceiling. The trap worked like a charm. It was down here no more than a minute before it was inside. I enjoyed a high of triumph over this creature which is inferior to me in all (ok, most) ways. I felt good, in control of my life, and accomplished. I enjoyed an exultant slumber of a warrior having won a battle, and I left it there to deal with later. (I dreamed I killed it by pouring boiling chicken noodle soup on it) It made no more noise than usual when left to have the run of the place. In the morning I had no time to deal with it, so I just left it there. I got home quite late, and moved it to the bathroom, so I could get a full nights sleep. The next morning I still didn't have time to do anything about it, and still hadn't decided what I was going to do at that. Today I finally had time. My plan was to take it to my friends' house and ask them what to do... not that I couldn't handle it on my own, but that I knew they'd get a kick out of my showing up at their house happily carrying a rat in a cage like I had won the lottery. Before I got a chance, My friend, Liza, came over, so I told her and consulted her on the next course of action. I suggested drowning it- putting it (still inside the cage) into a bucket of water. Liza informed me that that would not work because rats can breathe underwater. Instead of arguing on that point (who knows, the special abilities of the creatures here never cease to amaze), I just went with it. She said (for my mahay teny gasy readers) “Mila mampiasa vato” and mimed a violent motion. She picked up my bamboo stick, holding it like a baseball bat, and told me to get the vermin. Not to be terribly anticlimactic, but let's leave it at that.

So what on earth was I so busy with this week? On Wednesday, my new banking partner (another PCV who lives close to Ambanja and will come here for shopping/banking/internet/good food), arrived at my house. I had no idea when he was coming (as far as I knew he was supposed to be here during the first week of May) and was not at all prepared for hosting a guest. In fact, when he arrived, I was asleep, and woke up to him and Kamar (the Peace Corps driver and regional officer in the Northern region) calling for me from my porch. I came outside and was completely confused as to why Kamar was here and didn't even notice that he was with a white guy. After recovering from my stupor, we went to lunch. Kamar speaks Malagasy and French and a little English, and Jonathan, the new guy, doesn't speak French and is has only been in Madagascar for 10 weeks. My assistance was needed to get business efficiently completed. I was surprised at how sufficient my translating experience proved to be. Living immersed in the language, you don't realize how much you're learning, you just start understanding more and more and having more interesting conversations- there are no tests or grades to monitor your growth.

I spent all day Thursday with them getting business done around Ambanja, and Friday was “the big day” for Jonathan, going to his home for the next two years for the first time. His town is only 35k(21miles) away from Ambanja, but on a really, really bad road. It took 3 hours to get there- but not even all the way there. The road doesn't go all the way to his site. We got to about 8k away, unloaded his stuff into carts that are carried by cows, and walked the remainder of the journey. I can't resist resorting to a Lost allusion... Walking through the forest on these little paths, lead by a few Malagasy people, I couldn't help but feel like they were the others and that we were taking Jonathan to the Temple to see if he is a candidate. It really looked like The Island.

We arrived at the town, and I couldn't help but feel more site-envy. It is gorgeous- surrounded by mountains, big but not too big. Obviously, not many foreigners make it there, so we were quite the to do. They had a welcome lunch, and Kamar brought avocadoes to makes guacamole. Brittany taught him how to make it, and now he’s obsessed with it and can not say guacamole, hilarious! The people were very friendly and the children very curious. There was a big audience as Kamar and others were working on making the house meet security standards, and I entertained the children with a routine perfected over the 16 months I've endured crowds of children awkwardly staring at me. Finally, we had to take off, and I bade Jonathan farewell, leaving him standing in the doorway of his house, a crowd of people watching him from behind the stick-fence, and all kinds of crazy emotions going through his mind that I know very well. Me, Kamar and a few Others (oops, I mean Malagasy people) walked back to the blue VW van (oops, I mean Land Rover) to return to the beach camp (oops, I mean my house).

As beautiful as his site was, I was happy, as always, to return to Ambanja, take a real shower, and watch an episode of Lost before bed

What from my recent exploits shall I regale you with this week?

In I-Love-Teaching-English news:

I wrote an exercise on the board and was occupying myself as the students worked (or as more likely the case, did not work) on it. We're studying future tense, which is very easy, so I made the exercise more interesting by using more complicated subjects (i.e. a sentence with the subjects “The first week of May” instead of a sentence with “I/he/she/they”). One of the sentences had the subject “My friends and I” so I could gauge whether or not they can make the jump from that to “we” or if they would conjugate the verb with 'I'. The students upfront were arguing over whether it should be “My friends and I AM going to play” or “My friends and I ARE going to play.” It went a little something like this: “Should it be 'am' or 'are'?” “'Am.' 'I am,' of course.” “No, I think it might be 'are' because it's plural.” “No, there's no way it could be are, 'I are' sounds wrong.” “In French it would be 'mes amis et moi sont' sont (are) because it's plural”... I was so proud! I stopped their discussion and brought the issue to the whole class for a vote. It was almost completely 50/50 on the controversial am/are issue, as if they had voted down party lines. They were yelling at each other across the classroom, and the debate was getting highly heated. The last time I've seen a discussion about grammar so intense was during my 400 level grammar class where most of the students were at the grad level. I announced that the correct answer is “are” and they reacted very strongly: the ones who were right were all “in your face!” and the ones who were wrong looked as if I had offended their mothers. Then someone asked if I could be “My friends and ME are going to play” which I hoped they would. What a fantastic question! I love that class!

Here are the vocabulary questions that stumped me this week (not that I don't know the words, but that I don't know how to explain them in mutually understood words): soothsayer, clairvoyance, placebo (and a bunch of other words found in a pharmaceutical ad), insurmountable (which I explained as really really hard/impossible), incapability (which took a while to break down).

In weird phenomenon news:

I woke up around 4:30 Wednesday morning (as everyone in EST was enjoying Tuesday night's new Lost) and saw a strange mass on my wall as I turned over in bed. (You might be wondering how I would be able to see anything on my wall at 4:30 in the morning... well, sometimes I sleep with the light on. I have my reasons.) At first it looked like a big patch of black mold that had inexplicably appeared overnight, but as my eyes focused and I looked closely, I realized that it was ants. Thousands of ants, about two feet from where I was in bed. With a rational understanding that they can do no harm to me, I laid there and watched them. Most of them weren't moving. They were more closely packed together in some areas than others, and the whole patch of them covered about a 2 square foot area. Upon further surveillance of their territory, I realized that this was just one small weird part of a huge weirdness. At the top of my wall, where the wall meets the ceiling, there were thousands and thousands more. It looked like the wall was moving in waves. They were all dutifully making their way up into the ceiling, acting on a divine calling that I couldn't possibly comprehend. I watched things play out from the perceived safety of my mosquito net shielded bed. My alarm went off at 5, and I used my customary 20 minutes of hitting sleep to continue my private Nat Geo ant special. By the time I had to get up for school, the waves of ants marching into the ceiling had completed their journey as far as I could see it, and the patch of stationary ants that I first spotted was slowly marching off to join the party. When I returned from class about 3 hours later, all irregular ant activity had subsided, and I have not witnessed such a migration since. After a few days reflection on this event, I have no more insight than I did at the time.

In sharing my knowledge of America news:

My mom sent me a post card from the San Diego zoo which featured a group of adorable meerkats. When I went to the post office to collect my mail, the post office woman (who I am convinced is an idiot-- she always tries to give me other peoples' mail, in addition to other incidents of questionable intelligence) was looking at the post card very curiously. She gave it to me and asked if the animals eat people. Assuming this was another of her lapses in normal human intelligence, I assumed she meant to be asking if people eat meerkats. I immediately called Kinsey to tell her about how dumb the post office lady is (a recurring conversation we have, on both our post offices' parts). Later, my friend came over and saw the post card on my table and asked the same question. After clarifying that she was indeed asking if meerkats eat people, I asked her why she would ask that. She explained that it was because they were sitting on their butts with their legs in front of them (like people) and were fat and full and looked like they were (what best translates to) “good at eating”... why these observations would lead her to think that their pudgy bellies were full of humans, I don't know. In both her and the post office lady's defense, there is no size reference in the picture.

In things that annoy me news:

My neighbor children (if you've sent me mail, I've probably written to you about these annoying brats who pound my metal door like a drum and walk into my house, pick up my stuff, and walk out without ever speaking to me, all in full view of their parents who don't find this behavior worthy of comment) watch this cartoon all the time. The same cartoon, over and over. It's so loud I can hear it. Sometimes they watch it more than once in a day. I'm so familiar with it that I know when they're about to transition into a song and can hum along. Maybe I should buy them a new movie?

It was the first week of my final trimester as a public school teacher in Madagascar. A lovely feeling. Attendance during the first week of the term has been predictably terrible. I've had attendance rates as low as 33%... It's another one of those mysteries of life here. Often the teachers don't start teaching until the 2nd week of the term. Are so many students truant because they anticipate the teachers to be amiss, or are the teachers AWOL because attendance is sometimes 33%?... mystery status: unsolved.

Some of my more curious students took advantage of the time away from school to find hilariously random English to ask me about. For example: “Tumble dry on low,” “hand wash,” “air dry,” (presumably all found on clothing labels) “know your roots,” “lag behind,” “the odds are low,” “my love is slipping away,” and some interesting vocabulary words: abandon, admonish, arisen (I didn't realize until just now that those are all A words, and the inquires were made by all different students). I love this stuff... explaining “tumble dry on low” to someone who has never seen a washing machine or dryer is somewhat daunting; although “hand wash” and “air dry” are quite easy to explain as there are no other options available.

Speaking of my students and randomness, here's a little ditty: I am currently addicted to having clothes (particularly dresses) tailored. My friend's neighbor is a tailor, and I've been a consistent and loyal customer. I just draw up a little sketch, give her fabric, and she makes it exactly like I want it and exactly measured to fit me. It's amazing and quite cheap. So I'm at her house trying on a recently finished dress and twirling in the mirror to express my delight, and one of my students walks in the room- awkward! Apparently my tailor is his mom. Someone could have mentioned that at some earlier point... haha. I must remember not to childishly twirl in new dresses at her house.

This week was more exciting than your average week because I finally got a site visit! (This is when someone from Peace Corps comes to your site and sees how everything is, helps you with anything, and takes you out to eat... everything is fine, and I don't need help with anything, so really I was just excited to go out to eat and speak English.) The head of the education sector came on Wednesday, and he had some work to do developing new sites in the area. I accompanied him to a proposed health site that's 45k away from Ambanja. Wow, let's get serious here for a moment, if that was my site, and I was being dropped off there for two years, upon seeing it for the first time I would cry at least a solitary tear of joy. It was the kind of place that should have flowery gates and with butterflies released upon passing through while someone throws flower petals before you as you walk to the serene sounds of a trio of harps. The name of the town translates to “on the long beach” which was no exaggeration... white sand, palm trees, clear blue water, mountainous islands in the distance, this is the stuff dreams are made on. Not only that, but the village itself was a good size, and everyone we met was incredibly nice, and no one stared at me. We ate lunch at the beach-side hotel. There's something so eternally satisfying about eating a fish that you pick off a boat as it comes ashore to deliver its spoils from a morning at sea. The fish was grilled whole with citrus marinade. Usually everyone fries fish here, but I requested grilled. It's funny how much it still looks alive when it's grilled as opposed to when it's fried. The eyes were still whole and glossy. I'm fully sufficient in eating whole fish now. The entire time we were there, there was a group of kids playing soccer in the surf of the low tide as happy as could be. The air smelled of salt brought in from the cool breeze off the water. It's a Peace Corps Volunteers dream.

Once we returned to Ambanja (I still love the place, but was feeling a bit raw about it after cheating on it with this other magical village), we had steak, french fries and ice cream for dinner. I bet that dumb beachy site doesn't have ice cream... points for Ambanja.

Plans are coming together for the Spelling Bee that I'm planning at the high school. I know, I know, Dorothy throwing a Spelling Bee, hahaha, etc. Anyways, I wanted to give my advanced students an opportunity to have fun and compete for Englishy prizes in a way that could be appealing for spectators, thus the idea for a Spelling Bee presented itself. I know what you're thinking if you're an RPCV... first, a Spelling Bee? That's going to be a horrible mess and crash and burn in the most horrible way that you can't even foresee, and second, that's not sustainable at all & what's the point? Ok, I give you that the first is certainly a concern, but allow me to persuade you on the second... I agree, it's not particularly sustainable, but it allows the students to do something active with their English skills and will hopefully generate interest in English. In between rounds there will be musical performances (I'm pushing for some skits, but everyone just wants to sing. So, if they want to sing, I say let them sing). There will be PCV and Malagasy judges, I will MC and announce, any student at the high school will be given an opportunity to participate, and everyone is welcome to watch. I hope to get some parents in the audience. My principal has been more than supportive and wants teachers to be able to compete too! I'm still thinking that one over. The biggest departure from a traditional Spelling Bee is that the students will write the word instead of spelling it out loud (their accents will interfere too much and it is their 3rd language after all) and I will implement a time limit for their response. The prizes will be dictionaries, English grammar workbooks, school supplies, and for the top 3 winners, a pizza party with me, haha! Anyways, the point of me explaining all of this is to get some fresh input (particularly from RPCVs). What do you think of this idea? Any ideas of how to make it better? I welcome any input on the matter.

All right folks, that's all for this week.

I've been reading a lot this Easter break. More specifically, I've read 5 books in the last 11 days. Even more specifically, I've read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country, Carl Hiaasen's Native Toungue, David Sedaris's Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and Richard Russo's Straight Man. Certainly not the most esteemed reading credentials, but all thoroughly entertaining, and it is spring break after all. I've been reading so much that I've begun to narrate my activities to myself in the styles of the authors I've been reading. Allow me to illustrate: “Having completed yet another chapter, Dorothy places her book down gently to preserve her place and stands up for the first time in several hours. She has no specific task in mind, but needs an alternate activity to reading, at least for a small sliver of the hour. She wanders the few steps over to her book shelves and looks for an item that is out of place that needs to be wrangled up. Is there a loose band-aid that needs to be corralled into the medical kit? Is there a soiled dish that needs sanitized? Any small task that can be completed and ceremoniously added to the list of things accomplished today? Alas, she surrenders her whim of productivity, replaces herself on the corner of the bed, and continues living someone else life, a life that does so closely resemble a zoo animal's.”

My house is very, very clean.

I'm also making solid progress on my 3rd paint-by-number, a non challenging dolphin/beach/coral reef composition. According to the box, it's for ages 8-88. I'm giving it to a friend when it's complete, but no one is getting my fairy & unicorn masterpiece.

All last week my friends were abuzz with a big party on Saturday. There was to be a popular DJ performing at the discotheque, which was all anyone was wont to talk about. I agreed to accompany my friends, not because I wanted to, but because I had nothing better to do, and it might be an interesting time; I'd at least get a story out of it. Of course, going to a Malagasy discotheque on a Saturday night in my town (where I would be sure to run into my teenage students) is on the short list of things I'd rather do than lose my big toe nail in a surgical procedure in a 3rd world country (like Brittany), but I deluded myself into thinking I would actually go. My friends said they'd be over to my house around 8:30 and we'd go around 9. 9 o'clock, wow, that's late; I am always definitely in bed, if not asleep, by 9. By noon I was decidedly determined to go for the purposes of socialization, but the voice in the back of my head was all “yeah right, you aren't going, I don't know who you think you're kidding.” When they came over (at more like 9:30) they weren't even ready and wanted to use my shower. I went with the good ol' trusty “I have a stomach ache” which is more often true than not anyway. They didn't give me a hard time about it either. The next morning I inquired about the condition of the discotheque (that's roughly how it would translate from Malagasy), and they informed me that they also didn't go. I asked why, to which they responded “misy problem” (there was a problem)... They have a pretty good grasp of how much Malagasy I am capable of comprehending, and when a subject lies beyond this realm, they are apt to sum it up with a sentence like “misy problem” and we leave it at that. They're awesome.

Many schools celebrate sports week during the second week of Easter break. I don't know what it means to celebrate sports week, but the festivities are in large part taking place right next to my house. As far as I can discern based on my almost constant uncomfortably close proximity to the proceedings, celebrating sports week is comprised mostly of teenage boys yelling and laughing in very irritating manners. It is further evidence to my conviction that all teenagers are the same all over the world. While I can't exactly make out everything that they are saying, it's clear that it's mostly insults, and laughter in response to insults. I also pick up a lot of singing of the most popular songs of Madagascar at the moment. These are two of the most common things you'll find coming out of American teenagers mouths, too, though at least in America the most popular songs are just as horrible but mercifully change more often. I've been back in Madagascar for 5 months, and the “new hits” in November are still the “new hits” of April. These teenage boys have made my week a little less pleasant than it might have been. They begin around 5am, which is not particularly early here, but I've woken up every morning this week to one of the two aforementioned teen subjects before the sun is up. Why are they so loud and annoying at the same time? Can't they be silently annoying and loudly unannoying? I could go on...

I've spent most of my late afternoon/early evenings hanging out on my friends' porch. It's definitely cooling down now, and the evening temperature is ideal for porch sitting. It's orange season, and they sell oranges from their porch. So we sit there making comments about passersby, they feed me endless stocks of oranges (which are green, by the way), and occasionally sell an orange to a neighbor. It's a relaxing time.

Let's do some mail shout-outs, shall we? First, package props go out to Nina, Matt and my mom (who has a supernatural ability to find exactly what I need sitting around the house going unused). Letter props to Shannon, Andrew, Mom, Rachael, and my RIS stage! Thanks for sending out those magazines so fast Jane! And most importantly,Lost props to Jen!

Last week, all the of volunteers who reinstated (returned after evacuation), got together for a Cross-Sector HIV/AIDS training... a fancy IST... in Diego. It was the first time I'd seen any of my orginal stagemates since November before we were installed at our new sites! That was way too long! I saw most of them more than that in America. Well, of course, good times ensued.

One of the days was spent at Brittany's site, Anketrakabe, doing HIV/AIDS education. Her community organized most of it because they are amazing! The elementrary school students sang orginal songs, as did the women's microcredit borrowers group. I've had the good fourtune to spend time with these women on a few occasions, including the Saturday before. They were attending a New Years party (that's right, a new years party, deal with it) in Diego and Brittany, Corie, and I were invited/crashed it. There was a lot of food and a lot of dancing, and a lot of heat, which eventually drove us away from the good times. Anyways, the wonderful people of Anketrakabe were outgoing and receptive to our presentation, participated in games, and readily answered questions. A Peace Corps funding program provided paint to paint the wall of the elementary school like the Malagasy flag. It was a lovely day of singing, dancing, education, and a little nationalism for good measure.

We also spent an afternoon at Amber Mountain National Park, which was lovely, though we were all exhausted and some of us had been there before. We didn't get to spy on much wildlife, but did see some fine cascading water and a tiny neon praying mantis.

It was amazing to spend time with all of my stagemates (both my education 08 and reinstatement stagemates). We cooked dinner at the Peace Corps house a few nights... it's amazing what kind of meals PCVs will come up with as a group and how wildly excited we get about it... strange versions of the things you miss from home made the best you can with what you have. We had "breakfast for dinner" the first night, and it was so good, we did it again. Another night we had grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. There were also rice crispy treats. Good work guys.

I'm trying to upload photos here and on facebook, but it's not cooperating... check back for more photos soon! (I hope!) ok, after one hour, i got one up... sigh.

This is me in my outfit for Women's Day... it would have been a more effective picture if the other women who were wearing it were in the picture but they were being shy... still not sure why I had to be so thoroughly measured for such a shapeless outfit!

He's so cute!

Paint by numbers!

My friends cornrowed (is that a verb?) my hair and it was awesome. Id have them all the time if it didnt make me lose so much hair!

this is the chameleon that lives on my fence.

I'm all kinds of sick... rash, fever, stomach, cough, you name it, it's keeping me down, raining on my Women's Day parade (literally)

so here's a picture...

I thought this week I might try to interest you in some questions I get about America. In general, what Malagasy people know about America, they learned from a movie, so you can imagine why they would have a lot of questions. I have a friend whose house I hang around a lot, and there are always other people there visiting her and hanging out. It's seems to be the neighborhood chill spot. This is where I often encounter conversations of the “How is America different from Madagascar?” nature. I tell people that I can't answer that question- that they can ask specific questions, because otherwise I'd have no idea where to begin. Invariably they want to know about the climate, the environment, and the food. These questions are hard to answer too, and the “How is American different from Madagascar?” conversation always begins with me explaining how big America is and the fact that there's basically everything you can think of in America (mountains, beaches, rivers, lakes, deserts, paradise, frozen tundra, etc) and that it's always hot somewhere and always cold somewhere. Basically the main idea is that you can't make general statements about America besides that you can't make general statements about America.

My friend was asking me about the weather in Dayton. I came into the house drenched in sweat and fanning myself (my normal state of being) and threw myself onto the couch muttering about the heat. He asked me if it was hot like this in Dayton right now, and I told him that not only is it not hot like this in Dayton right now, but that there was a foot of snow on the ground. He was flabbergasted, and exclaimed with concern “But what about the vegetables?! Do they die?!” Thus I explained that they've been dead for months and that we import or food from all over creation to where nothing is ever “out of season.” What a crazy concept, if you really think about it.

One of my classes has a tendency to get me off topic by always asking me “America” questions whenever there's inspiration on the board. I don't mind this; I'm sure they learn more from these 'off-subject distractions' than from the actual lesson. This was a tactic I often employed in French class- anytime you can get the conversation moving away from grammar and towards culture, it's a bonus. Anyways, I had the sentences “Do you have some milk?” “No, I don't have any milk.” on the board, so they wanted to know if I like milk. This line of questioning went from me explaining that I like milk in America, but that I don't drink milk here, all the way to the fact that I've never milked a cow (which they found hilarious) and that there aren't cows walking through the streets of Dayton. I explained to them the different grades of milk and how you can buy it from the store cold and already pasteurized, and that I don't drink milk here because the idea of drinking warm whole milk is altogether nauseating to me. They think I'm so weird!

I was relaxing in the teachers lounge between classes (yes, we have a teachers lounge! if only it had a vending machine!) and the geography teacher had an intensely interesting line of questioning for me. I usually get interesting questions in the teachers lounge. He wanted to know about the geography of the United States, which I explained has everything he could think of. He asked me to explain the “culture of consumption” in the US (yeah, this conversation was in French, I definitely don't have the vocabulary to handle that in Malagasy), so I explained that Americans throw away broken things and buy a replacement instead of getting it fixed. He was fascinated by this. Here nothing goes to waste- I even saw a guy taking apart the metal bars of broken umbrellas to make jewelry- amazing. He also wanted to know about Native Americans. I get questions about Native Americans more than I would have ever thought, and they always inspire a complicated conversation. He asked about their culture and history- something which is altogether impossible to summarize in any language. I try though. I wish “the trail of tears” was in my French dictionary.

There's this other guy who comes by once a week for English lessons. He always asks the strangest questions and never believes my answers, which is really frustrating. He asked me if I went to Ohio University, which I found odd; what does this guy know about Athens? It turns out that he was under the impression that there are 50 universities in America, one for each state (Alabama University – Wyoming University). I explained that there are state universities but also lots and lots of other universities, and he absolutely refused to believe me. Then he wanted to know how many football players there are in America- and was frustrated that I didn't know. I'm like NFL players? I have no clue whatsoever.

Invariably, people want to know how much money Americans make. This is a tough question. Some people live on $8000/year, some people make a million dollars in one day! The salaries are as diverse as the geography! So they want to know how much a teacher makes, which is still impossible to answer because it depends on the state, the district, years of experience, etc etc etc. When I throw a ballpark salary at them (and I don't even know!) they are astounded by how much money that is. And then rolls in the explanation of how while $8000 is a hell of a lot of ariary, it ain't gonna afford you any kind of lifestyle in America. Explaining America is a tough job, and all of my answers are completely different than the answers another American would give. That's what America is all about, I guess.

It's incredibly hot, by the way. The sun rays shoot down from the sky and stab my flesh as I make my way to and from school twice a day. It's like I'm living a sunny sauna.

Time for mail shout outs! Major package shout outs to Francis, Peggy and Matt! Thanks a million. Letter shout outs to my stage mates Derek, Fraser, Beth, Lorna! Thanks! I will reply to every letter I get!

Now that I have retrieved my computer from Diego, you will be sure to find more frequent, longer, and more elegantly worded blogs because I can type them on my computer for free and then upload them at the cyber cafe. Now I won't have to pay 100ariary a minute to feverishly type a hasty blog on the French keyboards. Look out world!

This week has been interesting... I have been administering my oral quizzes in all of my classes. The quiz has four questions: 1) What is your name? 2) What do you like to do? 3) What do you hate to do? 4) I write a number (perhaps 5611) and they have to read it out loud. I told them all of the questions in advance, did demonstration quizzes with some brave students, wrote model correct answers on the board and all that jazz. They should all be able to get #1 (right? please?) and #4 is a matter of really knowing the numbers because you don't know what you're going to get, so it's the only one that genuinely assesses their English skills. #2 & #3 you can simply memorize two sentences, and you're golden; and I said (possibly a hundred times) that 2 & 3 must have a gerund (we've been working on gerunds for 2 weeks). Still I got a lot of “I hate is banana” or “I like is music” (sigh). But thankfully some of them pulled out some gems like: “I hate washing all of my family's dishes everyday.” “I like studying English as a pupil in Miss Dorothy's class.” “I hate smoking cigarettes because they are unhealthy.” “I hate talking in class, but many people like it.” I wished I had created some sort of bonus point system! Of course most students said something along the lines of “I like playing basketball” and “I hate swimming.” Still correct, just not as flashy as the previous examples. I really do have a lot of smart students. I have been grading them too easily for their level, but some of them step up and beyond every time. Some are bored and tired of reviewing things they've known for four years now. But I'm trying to appeal to everyone. Next week, however, is for the advanced students. I'm doing a lesson called “talking like a young American” and I'm going to teach them vocabulary like “dude” “hey guys” “what's going on?” “whatever” “gonna” “y'all” “I don’t care”... most of the students will have no idea what's going on, but this will be a lesson for the kids who have been bored with the American teacher so far.

English club has been fun, as anticipated. They're really all just in it for the music. I do a different song every week, and then some sort of game or activity which confounds them (no matter how smart they are or how much English they know, you can't teach creativity in an hour). I've been thinking about doing a really challenging song, challenging for them and me. For example, how about Kayne West “Jesus Walks”... there's a lot of cultural stuff there that has to be explained and a lot of slang and colloquial vocabulary (and lines like “I need Jesus the way that Kathy Lee needed Regis”), but I think it might be possible. Another challenge would be Erikah Badu “Bag Lady”... I'll try these and update you- I'm also open for other suggestions. (A related aside- When I first began my search for a difficult but possible song, I was listening to my music with this in mind. I decided that the most ridiculously difficult -and completely inappropriate- musician would be Eminem. Ha. The next time you listen to Eminem -for most of you that's probably never- try and think about how you would try to explain any of it to English as foreign language learners in the 3rd world – wow.)

Ok, enough teachery stuff, no one cares about that crap anyway, right. I know what you want to hear about...

So I've got this skin fungus... I had it last time too; it's no crisis situation. It just leaves little white dots on your skin (think negative freckles) that stay even after the fungus is dead. The thing of it is, the white dots are NOT lighter than my natural skin color, so I can only see them where I'm “tan” i.e. my arms and shoulders. So I anti fungal creme the bastards, no problem, and then I have these negative freckles to complement my standard freckles and only when I'm tan which is never in America... but I could have it all over my back and would never know until I tanned my back, which is not likely. It's kinda funny, but also kinda gross. Most of the people here have it, and much worse than me. I think it comes from the water (perhaps it's actually better to not shower daily?).

Also, speaking of showers. I've got these little leeches that occasionally invade the floor of my shower. It's unpleasant. I wear flip flops in the shower regardless (it's not like what you picture when you imagine 'shower'). Sweeping them down the drain doesn't work; they just slither back up. I pour bleach on them (sur'eau suckas!) and that kills them... but new ones take their place after a week or so of imagined victory. I am open to suggestions on dealing with this problem.

To end on a more pleasant note: It's apple season! I'm going to feast on apples everyday until they're gone! The apples grow in the highlands, and I wasn't expecting them to make it up here to the North. I was pleasantly surprised to see them, and even found myself an “apple lady.” I'll be “keeping the doctor away” for a few weeks. Apples!

13 February 2010

I’m writing to you now from the wonderful city of Diego. We made Gatorade, and mine is chilling in the freezer (yes!). I arrived to Diego Thursday night and proceeded to make delicious processed soup and watch trashy tv on dvd at the Peace Corps house. Yesterday was a lot of shopping and eating. Life is good.

Speaking of life being good… My 25th birthday was AmAzInG. My Malagasy friends had a party for me. They are so good to me and help me with everything and are always there if I need anything. They made me pizza and mashed potatoes for dinner. I was hesitant about the pizza when they said they were going to make it. Usually when Malagasy people make “vazaha” food it always ends up being a weird version that only makes you crave the real thing more. (But they make Malagasy food great, so you’d just rather have that!) The pizza actually was amazing. They are always friends with the volunteers and somewhere along the way someone taught them how to make a darn good pizza. The mashed potatoes were my influence though, haha.

The next day, the day of my birthday (insert fanfare here), a few fellow vazaha and I made the short trip to Ankify, the beach 20k away from Ambanja. It is from Ankify that you can travel to Nosy Be, one of the top tourist destinations in Madagascar (look up Nosy Be on google images if you want to know why). I think that Ankify is more than sufficient, though… I mean, how much more beautiful can Nosy Be be? Ankify’s beach is a white sand, palm tree wonderland. I know I’ve written about it before, but its tropical paradisiness (spell check says that’s not a word- add to dictionary- it is now) can’t be overstated. We saw a fisherman dock his canoe on the beach in front of the hotel/restaurant and sell them a huge grouper fish. They asked us if was wanted fish for lunch, and we said yes, and we ate it. That’s as fresh as it gets. We spent hours in the water and lounging on the beach, feasting from a 42oz bag of m&ms (thanks Amy’s mom!!) and listening to Bob Marley (it’s his birthday too). This was the first year I spent any time on my birthday outside doing anything besides shivering in the chill of the wind or making my way through snow and ice. For everyone who was at consolidation last year for my birthday, while that was… fun… this was a much more ideal “Madagascar” birthday. I couldn’t have lucked out more on the weather, and we even got to watch the sunset over the Mozambique Channel as a rainbow arched across the sky in the distance.

Things are going well at site. This week is “School Days” (a celebration for all the schools and students that usually involves yard work, soccer games, dance performances, parties, and apparently parades.) I was told to be at the elementary school on Wednesday morning, but with no more specific instructions as to where exactly to go and why my attendance was requested. Sure I could have inquired more deeply, but you learn to go with the flow here; everything always works out, and sometimes knowing what’s going on before hand makes it worse. I got to the Elementary school and saw that all of the students from all of the schools in Ambanja were there (there are about 20 schools). I had no idea where to go and knew that my wandering around would be very conspicuous (being the only vazaha around). Luckily I spotted one of my students and found our group with him. There were lots of banners around with different school and club names, and I was beginning to have the sneaking suspicion that I was about to be in a parade. When I got to my school’s group, the students clapped with excitement that I was to lead there section of the parade (news to me). We (all of the students and most of the teachers from every school in the city) paraded around town, drumming and chanting. After the parade there were some musical performances (my school has a choir and they are excellent, the best, actually, if I may say so). It was a strange morning, and I was not expecting any of it (to demonstrate an oft used Peace Corp Volunteer phrase: “I never have any idea what’s going on!”).

I’m loving Ambanja, but excited to head back to the highlands for “In Service Training” in March and be “cold” for a week. (Grammar check is insisting that “I’m loving” be changed from present progressive tense to present tense. How interesting. A particularly intelligent and motivated student asked about this rule -how you can’t use “to like” “to dream” “to hope” etc in the present progressive because they aren’t temporary emotions. Oops, I just lost most of my readers. I however, think that’s rubbish… I’m loving Ambanja, right now! That’s doesn’t mean I will be loving it next week with the emotional roller coaster of Peace Corps life). (Come of to think of it - wow, I’m really going off on a tangent - the McDonalds catch phrase “I’m loving it” is present progressive, and if McDonalds uses it, it’s can’t be wrong, take that, grammar check!) The people in Ambanja have been very nice and welcoming. I have some good friends that I can socialize with. My best friend there is a 23 year old woman who is single and doesn’t have kids- that doesn’t happen often here. It’s so nice to spend time with someone my age and gender. There are some really nice teachers who are interested in practicing English with me. I have a lot of great students who are advanced enough to have a decent conversation and love asking me hilarious questions (i.e. “what is ‘country’?” -I translated it to French- “hmmm… what does it mean ‘she’s gone country’?” ha hahaha). I could write pages and pages just on questions from this one girl… and probably will at some point.

Next week I’m giving an oral exam… the resulting blog should be interesting!

Thanks for all the birthday wishes! Quarter Century! I’m loving it!

I had big plans to put up lots of pictures today and write something insightful and interesting, but the internet is maddening today. There's one picture... it took 20 minutes to load. I give up, it's barely even typing....

happy lost watching tonight!

This is me and Brittany about to eat a small child.

hey party people... what's going on?

i'm here at the fine internet cafe with the "new girl"... She's from the group that transfered from Niger after four weeks of training. She will be living about an hour South of me (and is therefore my new best friend). She's great- I'm usually blessed with good neighbors, because, well, most PCVs have a lot in common anyway (read: we're all a little crazy).

This week was a little slow, again. School was canceled for a few days for different completely ridiculous reasons (in my opinion) so I ended up doing a lot of reading and was very exciting to have another American dropped off at my door last night! Had another 6am class today... only 6 students were on time... sigh.

My ceiling rat friend has been MIA lately, but not missed.

I had curry coco agnou (fish) for dinner at the "fancy" restaurant last night. They were playing Bob Marley. The new girl (henceforth known as Katie) was impressed. It's really fun showing a new person around after being the new person for so long.

That's all for now. Birthday week is going to be great, I know it.

ok... so... nothing exciting... life has been pretty slow...

My health is not in despair, the weather is hot, classes are going... there has been no event of interest to report.

so I will complain...

What is it with these kids and being on time?!?! I had a 6am class this morning (I know that sounds dreadfully early in America, but here that's a normal time to be up and going, since it's still cool and everyone goes to bed around 9 anyway!) I got to class at 6am on the dot, and there were only 5 (of 76) students there. By 6:15 their numbers grew to about 20. The thing about them being late is that they have this absurd (i think) routine. When students are late from class, they are supposed to knock on the door, wait for the teacher to tell them to come in, and then they walk to the teacher and greet them. How disruptive! I'd rather they quietly sneak in and sit down and try not be noticed! It's their culture to do this, and to them it is polite, I understand that. But to me it's a huge disruption, especially when 90% of the class is late. It's almost a constant parade of tardy students. I shut the door at 6:30 (a half an hour in to a two hour class, I think that's more than generous) and didn't allow anyone who arrived after then to enter. This was a fuitile attempt to stop distruptions, because telling them they can't come in is more of a disruption, but they've got to learn they can't come to my class late. Another aspect of this daily trouble is that the teachers are late. The students are late because the teachers are late and the teachers are late because the students are late. Part of me is like, well, if no one shows up on time, why don't I just show up a half an hour late that way I don't have to deal with it. None of the other teachers show up before 6:15. Are the students late because the teachers are always late or are the teachers late because the students are always late? (what came first, the chicken or the egg?). ok, end rant.

Things are generally good. I get a new banking partner next week (thank goodness!). The other two girls from the North who reinstated (Brittany and Corie) are coming down for my birthday in a couple of weeks. Things have been slow this month, but I have a lot that I'm looking forward to.

Happy 2010!

My holiday adventures were fairly low key after the trip to Ankarana National Park. Ankarana was amazing- we saw lemurs, all manners of reptiles and birds, tsingy rocks, all of the things that you are tempted with when you open a Madagascar tour book but never see in “regular life” here. The lemurs were obviously used to interacting with humans (aka humans feeding them) so they came right over to us expectantly, posing for photos in exchange for an expected treat… but good Peace Corps Volunteers don’t feed the wildlife! One of these days I’ll get some pictures uploaded. Ankarana = awesome.

After that, we headed up to Diego and stayed the Peace Corps house. It was a very relaxed holiday. We played a lot of scrabble and monopoly and watched a lot of dvds whilst lounging on couches and drinking cold water from the refrigerator… The simple pleasures… We spent a couple of days at the pool with the swim-up bar, which is always a confusing pleasure (confusing because it’s so nice and luxurious- you’re like, is this Peace Corps? Is this Madagascar? But you go with it and order another cocktail.) We enjoyed the culinary offering of Diego (shrimp, and shrimp, with shrimp please), but didn’t do too much in the ways of adventuring. No one really had much money because of the way our pay dates fell. Oh well.

On Christmas day we took a walk to the rocky coast (there isn’t really a beach in Diego, you have to take a boat across the bay to get to sand) and enjoyed the fine breeze and huge chameleon sightings and played an epic game of monopoly and enjoyed pineapple dipped in melted chocolate. The next day we went to the market to get food to prepare a meal and found a big grouper fish (it was big and awesome). Chris-heijn filleted it and we had beer battered fish tacos with black beans and rice- amazing.

The next leg of my holiday adventure took me to Brittany’s site, Anketrakabe. She’s an environment volunteers, and it’s a long running “joke” that environment volunteers are “real” peace corps volunteers, whereas education volunteers are “posh” corps volunteers. When comparing our sites, it’s easy to see where this idea came from. She lives in a small village that doesn’t have electricity where she has to carry water from a pump to her bamboo hut, all the things that I pictured doing when I daydreamed about life in Peace Corps from the window in the back drive-thru at McDonalds. Don’t get me wrong, I love that I have running water, electricity, a toilet, etc, but it’s definitely not what I was expecting when I “signed up.” I spent New Years at Brittany’s site, spending most of the days playing with the little kids in the village and teaching them funny things in English (there are videos). We actually managed to stay up until midnight on New Years Eve, and spend New Years Day at a family’s party where they set up a TV outside playing Malagasy music videos powered from a generator. They cooked an insane amount of food and we ate and danced. There was a makeshift “discothèque” with a live band that they set up in the market. It was hot, crowded, and full of drunken men and staring children, in other words, my personal hell. I think we stayed there exactly 4 minutes before escaping to Brittany’s house (which is about 20 yards from the “discotheque”). It was so loud, and the band played from 3pm-6pm and 8pm-5am… that band had some stamina. All and all it was a very strange but very fun welcome to 2010.

I voyaged back to site on Sunday in the front seat of a brousse that had a dvd player in the sun visor that played American music videos and a Leonardo Dicapro movie- yes!

As soon as I got back to site, however, my health dive bombed into a perilous state. I was so sick Sunday-Tuesday- I leave the house, much less teach. I read and gripped my stomach in pain and shivered with fever. Being sick is never fun, but I’d say it’s worse here. When you’re sick, you just want to be as comfortable as possible in whatever way you can. I lay across my horridly uncomfortable bed for hours at a time, feeling my body made an ever deeper indentation in the mattress, making it increasingly uncomfortable. I will spare you the exact details of my peril, but know that it was not pretty. I am doing much better, though.

I am now in Diego, even though I was just here two weeks ago. The other two PCVs in my region are heading to Tana to train the Niger transfer group, and it’s my last chance to get out of site and socialize with fellow PCVs for a while. I’m loving site and everything, don’t get me wrong, but it’s important to soak up as much time like this with them as possible. I barely taught this week, so I’m actually looking forward to going back to site and teaching a full week next week.

Mail shout-outs to Nina, Derek, Jen and Mom! Thanks for sending me mail! (and to everyone who has sent stuff that I haven't gotten, whoever you are)

It's been over a month since my return to Madagascar, and I've been at my new site, Ambanja, for three weeks now. Going from the highlands to the Northwest coast has been a big change. The most prevelant difference is the heat. I hardly ever left the house without a jacket in Anjozorobe, but in Ambanja, turning over in bed is enough to trigger a new sweat down pour. Other differences include increased insect size (particularly roaches), increased insects with ablity to fly (particularly roaches), exellent proximity to the beach, flora and fauna are more tropical, less catholics and more muslims, my site is a big city instead of a village, etc. It might as well be another country.

This time I am teaching 10th grade English instead of first year English to 10 year olds. This is a huge positive for me. My students can ask questions and speak good french. It's amazing how much more you can accomplish when you can understand each other. Also, in my opinion, it's much more meaningful to have a native speaking teacher at this level. The principal speaks almost fluent English, and he is hilarious. This eliminates a lot of the stress that I had in Anjozorobe. Overall, Ambanja is wildly superior to Anjozorobe... at least to me, every site has its pros and cons.

After less than three weeks at site, I've taught two weeks, given and graded 375 tests, and gone to the beach twice. It's a 20 minute drive in a taxi. It's a tropical paradise with white sand, crystal clear blue water in the middle of the moutainous rain forest. (Google image search: Ankify Madagascar) Last weekend, Amy and Chris-heijn (the married couple who transfered here after their evacuation from Guinea this fall) came to Ambanja (it's their banking town). They are an amazing couple, and I feel lucky to live in their banking town! We went to Ankify for the day, ate fresh crab and shrimp on a balcony that overlooks the beach, and swam in the warm calm waters of the Mozambique channel. The possiblity of a day trip to this picturesque beach is a hughlight of my new site.

If you google Ambanja, you'll get a lot of entries about the pqnther chamelion. Theyre pretty rad... the other morning I spotted a big one outside my window on my fence. My house is next to the elementary school, and the school yard was full of kids, but I decided to stick my head out the window to take pictures anyway. I caught it using its long sticky tounge to eat a bug on video! All the kids noticed me and ran over to see me and then realized what I was doing. Malagasy people are terrified of chamelions, so the kids started freaking out. I inadvertantly drew attention to the creature, so I felt responsible for its well being (people tend to kill things that scare them). I stayed and watch it (they're so cool!) until class started and all the kids were safely inside. I moved it to a tree it could climb and be safely out of reach. While it was on my fence it was as brown as the sticks, but as soon as it was on the tree in the sun, it turned all kinds of greens and blues. (It should be noted, however, that according to Malagasy stories, I'm going to die as a result of touching it. I tried not to let anyone see me move it to avoid them thinking I'm insane).

Later, my friend Carlos came over. He's pretty good at English, and I've been helping him prepare for university study. We discuessed the chamelion issue. He says that Malagasy people are afraid of them because of their "form." I don't understand being so afraid of anything that's so slow. I explained to him that I thought roaches, spiders, and rats are scary, but I'm not afraid of chamelions -even saying "chamelions" to Carlos made him recoil and gasp- but he laughed at me when I made a face with the word "roaches"... oh cultural exchange. Speaking of cultural exchange... he wanted me to transcribe the lyrics to the Akon song "Beautiful"... look up the lyrics if you want to imagine how funny that was.

I spend a lot of time with a Malagasy family that lives down the street. It's a mom, and her daughters (17, 19 and 22 years old I think). They have been amazingly helpful and are good at speaking slow, clear Malagasy with me. I eat dinner with them a lot. They are so nice!

I got my first letter this week (thanks JEN!) It only took 2 weeks!

It's Christmas vacation time now! grades are done and turned it, and I'm waiting for a taxi brousse to Ankarana national park- we are determined to see some freaking lemurs. Then Amy, Chris-heijn and I are meeting up with two other volunteers in Diego. It will be amazing.

please excuse the rampant spelling errors... the computer only wants to spell check them to french...

Happy holidays!!

Please check back soon to hear about my adventures in my second round as a Peace Corps volunteer in Madagascar!

So... I suppose I ought to write a blog explaining the political situation and the Peace Corps 'consolidation' experience. Firstly, the people here have a serious problem with the president (Marc -last name a long unnecessary detail, has been president since the disputed election of 2002). He is the 'richest person in Madagascar' and it often seems that his policy making is geared more towards increasing his wealth than improving the country. So there is already general discontent with the president. Enter Andry, the mayor of Tana. He declared himself president and fanned the fires of anti-Marc sentiment. At the end of January, there were angry mobs in Tana and in other cities around the country who looted and burned the stores and distribution centers of the president's company, Magro. The death toll in these events are disputed (20-80? I've read lots of conflicting reports). Andry doesn't seem to have a whole lot of support, and most people outside of Tana have never heard of him. He's relying on people disliking Marc. Events have continued, but the most notable one was a few Saturdays ago when Andry's supporters marched to the presidential palace for a takeover and 20ish people were shot and killed by the soldiers/guards/mercenaries (no one really knows who). This insighted a lot of anger among the people. Things haven't “gotten better” but it's not been very violent. Ok, so that's a very watered down simplistic version. So, where was I for all of this? The Peace Corps called me to have me 'consolidated' on the 30th of January after all of the looting and burning and expressions of violence. Banks were short on money and it was impossible to buy phone credit thus making me unable to contact them in an emergency. I went to Tana on the 31st where 30 other people were already consolidated. There were too many people to stay at the Peace Corps house in Tana, so were all moved to the training center at Lake Mantasoa (equipped for about 100 people). Other groups from different regions met us there. At first there were 46 PCVs there but by the end there were 80 something. It was intense. Think about what would happen if you took that many Americans who live out in isolated villages and rarely speak English and rarely socialize with one (let alone 80) other Americans. Mantasoa has room with 2-6 beds. We are served 3 meals a day in a dining room. There are volleyball and basketball courts, canoing, and board games. It could have been really fun, but we were all going insane wondering if and when we'd be evacuated or go back to site. The tension of uncertainty was palpable. I could really go on and on about the atmosphere, events, nonevents, and parties of those 17 excruciating days, but I won't. Except to say that my birthday was a weird day... it was consolidation day 7 and everyone was getting pretty stir crazy and social tension was high. We had my Birthday Dance Party for Peace (whoever dances the longest cares about peace the most... I think I won). I watched a lot of Lost season 4. They made me a birthday cake. It was probably the weirdest birthday of my life.So, instead of rambling on trying to explain something that doesn't make sense in the first place, I'll leave you with my favorite quote from consolidation. (I'm keeping a book of quotes that people say that make everyone laugh so we can read them later and laugh again)"Live everyday like you'll be evacuated tomorrow!" -Beth

So... I dont have time to post all the details of what's going on here (also, we dont exactly know all the details of what's going on here), so I'll just explain what's going on with me and you can do your own research if you're interested in the politics of a somewhat obscure Indian Ocean island nation.

I'm in Tana today... I'll be here for less than 24 hours. In a few hours they will be sending us to Lake Mantasoa (yes!) where we will be spending time having no clue what's going on, but enjoying volley games, Gaby's cooking, canoing, fooseball, and the like.

We don't know how long we will be there. It depends on what happens with the scheduled demonstrations today and how long it takes for the government to change over or relegitimize, because, again, we really have no clue what will happen or how long it will take. It's driving some people mad, but I'm just hanging out and relaxing. Apparently I'm quite good at just waiting...

So, I'm safe, I'm with friends, but we ain't got a clue what's going on.

This is a pied crow. They have a nest on my roof and the babies sound like squeaky toys starting at about 5am. These guys are noisy in general, and I see them all the time.

These spiders are all over my yard and porch (and the rest of the town). They make huge webs, usually high up. They are gianormous. They aren't scary because they don't come inside and I've never seen one not on its web, but if I ever saw one in my house, I would have to get assistance. Sorry there's no size reference, but they are about the size of my whole hand. I watched one catch a dragonfly the other day. Sometimes my yard feels like an episode of wild kingdom. There are spiders, frogs, (BIG) grasshoppers, geckos, and all different kinds of bug life. I watch them hunt eachother. It's more interesting than staring at the wall... Ok... I'll have to add the rest later... the internet is being painfully slow.

So...

It was a busy and fun December. In Service Training was utterly pointless on a 'training' level, but it was really nice to get together with all my stagemates and catch up. Mantasoa was lovely as usual. We had bonfires, played (drinking) games, watched movies, ate free food, complained about our lives, etc. We managed to make it downtown to Hotel de France most days we were in Tana to enjoy the giant delicious draft beers that aren't THB.

But the real story is of my travels...

Let us begin the sordid tale of the 'death brousse'... We (more specifically Kinsey, Brian, Megan, Lauren, Sarah, Lucy and I) went to the brousse station to begin our 2 and a half day journey to Antalaha... As usual, the brousse left 4 hours after it was 'scheduled' to leave. We were crammed in to our unbearably close row. Hey, don't get me wrong, I love these kids, but it was way too hot to cozy up like that for >2.5 days straight. There was so little room that we all couldn't rest with our backs against the back of the seat at the same time. 'Sleeping' was an interesting procedure. The first leg of the trip (which is all on a paved road and usually takes 17 hours) took over 24. the second leg of the trip is on a dirt (aka mud) road (or road road if you speak Malagasy- warning to friends and family at home, we will continue to do this... i have dreams I'm back at home speaking Malagasy and no one understands me and I don't understand why). Some know this stretch of road as 'the trail of tears'. We stopped for gas in Ambanja, which is Sarah's site. It was pouring rain, and had been for hours, which made the prospects of the trail of tears ever more frightening (they make you get out and walk if the brousse gets stuck in the mud... i've seen pictures). We asked the drivers how much longer they expected the trip to be; one said we'd arrive in the morning (ha) and the other said maybe 2 or 3 days. We consulted our fellow passengers and none of them expected it to take less than 2 or 3 days. We started talking about jumping ship and staying in Ambanja and going North to Diego instead (Diego was plan B anyway, and we'd have a free place to stay in Ambanja). Mad props to Brian for decisiveness and getting us the hell off that brousse. It was raining as they got our bags from the top of the brousse... but we were missing Sarah's bag. After looking for over an hour, they called the station in Tana who informed us that the bag was left there. Poor Sarah! Worst brousse company ever.

We stayed in Ambanja for 2 nights. It's a pretty big town and very different from Anjozorobe. Sarah's Gasy friend let some of us stay at her house and even cooked up crab dinner and hosted a dance party, ha ha.

Then we set off to Diego! It was only a few hours from Sarah's site and there were some other Peace Corps Volunteers (John, Travis, and Adam, who were some of our trainers back in the day, and Adam's girlfriend, Erin). Diego is very touristy. It was weird to walk down the street and see more vazahs than gasys, but it was a magical play land on resturants and nightclubs. It was expensive, but worth every penny. We stayed in 3 different hotels over the week we were there, and ate a lot of delicious vazah food.

On our first full day, we set out to swim in Sugar Loaf, a little mountain in the bay. It looked a lot closer than it was. We started out pretty late, and I hadn't had lunch. Only Travis and John actually made it to Sugar Loaf, but they didn't make it back to shore until dark.

This is Sugar Loaf from as seen from our boat to Emerald Isle

The next day was Christmas, which was probably one of my favorite days here so far...

We took a fishing boat to Emerald Isle for the day. Our guides caught our lunch on the way. It was a beautiful ride. The water is a magical Emerald color and you could see to the bottom most of the way. The water was luxuriously warm, and there were no waves, so it made for very comfortable swimming. (You can stand up to your chest and still have a beer without the waves making you spill, nice). For lunch we feasted on coco rice and fish and did not wait 30 minutes before returning to the water. We did a bit of snorkeling in the reefs. I was swimming towards a dark area in the water which I thought was a reef until I slammed headfirst into the boat that was creating the shadow. That's right, I hit a boat while snorkeling. It took me half a second to figure out what the hell happened (I wasn't immediately sure, ha ha), but when I looked up and started laughing, my friends realized what I did and started laughing at/with me. I bruised my head, ha ha. Our Gasy guides told us it was time to leave, but we protested until they relented and allowed us more time to play in the wonderful water of the Emerald Sea.

Arriving at Emerald Isle

After all the hard work we did on Christmas, we decided that we should spend the next day relaxing at the pool with a swim up bar. Peace Corps, the hardest job you'll ever love. We felt really out of place at this pool because it was mostly patronized by fancy, rich tourists and we're a bunch of dirty, loud American kids. The bar had Sex on the Beaches, which I was delighted to discover. They also served cold red wine here, which is strange because they don't usually serve cold beverages that you think should be cold, like water or soda (sometimes they ever serve it with a straw, “did i just drink cold red wine through a straw?” ha ha).

The next day we went to Amber Mountain National Park. It was really nice and rainy, cloudy and not hot = good, even if it means getting wet. The first trail we took was also a road, which was off putting. Every time a car came we had to get out of the way and gave up hopes of seeing any animals for a while. The trail/road was very muddy and our guide was painfully slow. It was a successful trip overall, though. We saw a group of wild lemurs, some sweet geckos and chameleons (including the smallest), and a giant millipede and rolly polly. We hiked to some waterfalls and enjoyed the cool rain. Our return cab ride turned interesting after we hit a dog (it was ok) and later fishtailed back and forth across the road and finally coming to a stop in the brush on the side of the road... oh madagascar, mampiwonky.

We were supposed to leave the next day, but the prospects of another day spent at the pool and swimming up to a bar were too tempting, so we extended the Diego portion of our travels. Some of us even got lunch at the hotel restaurant, which was delicious, even if not completely identifiable.

The trip back to Tana wasn't too bad (after the death brousse for sure). We all had enough room to rest our back on the back of the seat at the same time. We made it from Diego to Tana in less time than it took to go from Tana to Ambanja (sorry, that doesn't sound meaningful without consulting a map, does it?)

By this time we were down to me, Kinsey, Brian and Megan as the others left earlier or were headed other places. We just stayed in Tana for the night, but that's the longest normal people can bare Tana.

New Years Eve day, Brian, Megan and I headed to Tamatave on the East coast. We stayed in a hostel and met up with a few other friends who were passing through (including Mika of Mika and Davis... that's right, PCVs roll with pop stars). After pregaming for New Years with THBs on the beach, we went to an air conditioned Chinese restaurant. We were all beat, and we didn't think we were going to make it to midnight, but somehow we managed to stay awake long enough to go to a bar and have a beer as the year changed over. The bar was weird... it was almost completely empty, but was playing Nelly Furtado, decorated and painted nicely, and the bartender was wearing a James Cavaliers jersey. It seemed more like Ohio than Madagascar (except if we were in Ohio, I would have been drinking Red Stripe instead of THB). We finished our drink (we didn't even have our own, we shared one, we're so lame) and were back at the hostel by 12:20. That's the latest I've stayed up in a long, long time.

New Years day was awful. We went to the amazing vary sasoa place, but it was closed! I'd been sick (like, stomach sick) off and on for... oh, about 6 months, but I felt worse than normal. Also, Tamatave is freaking hot! I was suffering from mild heat stroke and bacterial diarrhea. I took a long nap, but still wanted to have fun. There was a big party down by the beach and I really wanted to go. I didn't manage to stay long and returned to the hostel. On my return trip, I was attacked by 6 puppies (don't laugh, it was scary and I didn't know how to defend myself from puppies. I had to kick them. It was awful!) Brian, Megan and I went to a nice restaurant for dinner, but I couldn't force myself to eat (so i had ice cream for dinner, which was also what i had to breakfast).

My travel companions left the next day, but I wasn't feeling good enough to try an 8 hour brousse, so I stayed in Tamatave an extra day. It turns out I could have gone (I started my cipro treatment the night before... cipro is my new favorite medicine). I felt fine all day, but staying worked out because I had a good time with Michelle and Jordan from my stage. They were passing through on their way home from their vacation, so we got to share our adventure stories; plus who doesn't love Jordan and Michelle? I even got to have that wonderful vary sasoa since it was closed everyday until the day I left, score!

I traveled from Tamatave to Anjozorobe in one day which seemed trivial compared to our other treks of vacation.

It was a great trip. I'd never be able to afford that vacation were I not a volunteer (that doesn't make sense, but it does). We got dirty, sweaty and gross; we got tipsy at the pool bar; we ate great food; we saw beautiful beaches and rain forest; we laughed. Life is good. (6 weeks until next vacation...!)

Tsara ny vacanes, fa mbola mampawonky i madigaskara!

(January 5th)

Now I'm back in Anjozorobe. My house made it ok without me for the 22 days I was gone. All of the buckets I left out to collect water from the leaky roof were full, and the spiders had some serious parties. I have a renewed appreciation for my site, though. I've seen 8 other sites, all of which I like better than mine, but I think my site it good for me. The others are good to visit and mine is a good place for me to live. The climate is good, it's close enough to Tana that I can travel around easily, everything is cheap. Sure, I can't buy ice cream and there are no restaurants or stores, but maybe that's a good thing.

... and saved it on my computer...

now my office program isn't working...

it was like 4 pages long and i don't feel like rewriting it while im paying for internet, so you'll have to wait for my vacation stories until im in tana on the 20th to celebrate our new president :)

here is the 4 pages in three words: vacation was great.

that's us... pretty white, i know... we're all in our "meet ministry officials" clothes, so this might not be exactly what you're expecting a group of peace corps volunteers to look like.

I'm writing now from the air port in South Africa (that's right, south africa!)... Our 17 hour flight wasn't bad at all. There were on demand movies. I watched Juno and some cartoons. I was able to sleep much better than i thought i would (but i'm sure that utter and complete exhaustion helped with that.) When we arrived in SA there was some confusion as to what hotel we were staying in and how to get there (and some shady people wanting to “help” for tips.) (Even though I don't have a lot of travel experience, I do have common sense, so it was easy it tell what is legit and what isn't.) Everyone in my group is really great. There are 26 of us from all over the country. I'm one of the least traveled, and I think I am one of two who haven't studied abroad. I can certainly see the difference in our economic levels... I can easily tell that I am of more humble means than others (that's an observation and not a complaint, by the way), but, hey, we're going to a 3rd world country and I'm already used to living without luxuries they've probably enjoyed all their lives (i.e air conditioning, fancy toiletry products, general fancy things that i don't even know about.) In terms of preparation for Peace Corps life style, I think I'm ahead, even if I don't have as much fancy equipment to help me along the way. We're supposed to be immersed in the Malagasy lifestyle, so I know I will be able to do that on a very genuine level. Who knew being from the East side of Dayton would leave me better prepared for Peace Corps service... I think I brought the least amount of 'stuff'... I don't know if other people have started to form 'cliques' yet... I know I'm not in one (for better or worse, right?)... I've had dinner with different people every night so far. I think I'm just going to go with the flow socially... well, that's what i always do (ha, for better or worse, right?) We will arrive in Madagascar on Thursday and stay in the capitol for shots and information. i will be with my host family on Friday night (yay and yikes at the same time!). I wont have access to phone or internet until late August. I might find a chance to update this between then and now, but if i find myself able to use the internet, I will probably use my limited time to send a few emails instead! (actually, i will be likely to use myspace messages over email because a lot of emails accounts dump emails from Africa into the spam box... I have a rich uncle who left me all his money, all i need is 3,000 american dollars and your bank informations...) I will find out about my site for the next 2 years, including where ill be living and electricity, etc) in about a month. I will most likely be sharing that information via snail mail, tough. The hotel we're at is very fancy. It seems almost cruel to put us up here right before shipping us off to pit toilets and bucket showers. I will be sure to take a long shower in the morning. It's so fancy that I had an 'uh oh' moment when it came to which fork to use at dinner... ha ha... I really don't know what to expect out of the next week, let alone next ten weeks of training, but I am eager and excited to figure it all out and share it with everyone! My luggage has not been stolen or lost yet... yay... knock on some wood... I will finish training and swear in as an official volunteer on August 22nd... I can't think of any other relevant information I should pass along while I still have the chance. I'm writing this in my hotel room on wednesday night, and will hopefully get to post it via wifi tomorrow at the airport while waiting to go to Mcar. (well, i suppose that if you're reading this, then i was successful.) I want to put up some group pictures, too, so you can see who i'm spending my time with... we'll see!

ha ha! got a connection in the air port!! let me try these pictures... if there's a picture, then it worked!

Greetings from South Africa!

We all made it here safely with all of our belongings... we are flying to Madagascar today at 3.

I just took my last hot awesome shower for the next ??? days/weeks/months... ha ha... and had my last glass of good wine...

If i have more time at the airport later I will upload the blog I wrote on my computer... but if not, check out the links to other blogs that's on the side... some of them are people from my group and some even have pictures...

I miss everyone, but I'm having a lot of fun.

As far as candy :)... I do enjoy most, so almost anything is a safe bet... but some ideas include: laffy taffy, sprees, skittles, starburst, reeses pieces, m&ms (peanut better is the best!)... but really anything will be great! Thanks!!

Ok... I had plans to write a thoughtful and careful departure post... but... hey, i ran out of time... there's a lot to do... cut me some slack.

Here's the important part: my address

Dorothy Mayne, PCV

Bureau du Corps de la Paix

B.P. 12091

Post Zoom Ankorondrano

Antananarivo 101

Madagascar

This is my address until August. I will have a new one in a few weeks, but anything you send to that address will be forwarded.

Send me stuff. Please. I like stuff. Especially candy.

Also, if you want to just send me a letter (I hear it costs about 90 cents) and are too lazy to go to the post office, you can send it to my mom and she will forward it to me.

Dorothy Mayne

2430 Periwinkle Dr

Bellbrook, OH 45305

Please send me mail.

Please.

I'm heading out tomorrow morning. I should be able to make another one of these posts before I leave since I'll likely have WiFi in the hotel where we are staying for Staging in Philadelphia until Tuesday.

A note on sending mail:

Padded envelopes are the best. I sent myself a one pound package in one (1lbs was a lot more stuff than I thought. I sent myself a shirt and some candy and some plastic toys... just like you should do). It cost 10 bucks. You'll have to fill out a customes form. If you can describe anything as used that will be good. You have to give an estimated value. Estimate down :)

Thanks to everyone for all their support and help.

thanks to andrew for the dvds and being my awesome friend

thanks to jacklyn for not keeping my prisioner in her fairborn basement to prevent my departure

thanks to jen for wanting to watch lots of lost and hopefully finding a way to get me dvds

(wow, two of my thanks so far have regarded dvds...)

thanks to Katie for cleaning up the house and moving without me

thanks to everyone who came to my party and had fun with me before I left

thanks to Craig for being super awesome

thanks to shannon for the luggage logistics and ordering me my entire amazon wish list

thanks to matt for being matt

thanks to mom for throwing me the awesome party and cooking really good food for me before i left (and all the time, but whatever) and not conspiring with Jacklyn to kidnap me and the knife and the raincoat etc etc and giving birth to me and all that kind of stuff. and teaching me how to pack really well.

For cereal, thanks! I can't wait to share all my stories! Posting will be slow at first, but stick around, there's good stuff coming.

Peace Out!

*edit*

I'm at staging in Philadelphia now... There are a lot of cool people (generic, i know) and it's nice to be surrounded by people who are feeling some version of how I'm feeling. The staging director guy is from Dayton and that's cool. yay dayton! We just had a big group conversation about how we're going to miss our family dogs. I like peace corps people.

Dear Mr. President Bush,

First I'm inclined to thank you for your kind words in my Peace Corps invitation kit. I know you're really busy, so it means a lot. Especially since you planned so far ahead and wrote it while I was still a junior in high school...

I should also make a point to give my thanks for acknowledging the "difficult times" we're dealing with economically in your news conference today. And super-big thanks for signing that (too little too late) economic stimulus plan. (I'll be sure to invest it the Madagascan economy while it only produces misleading and very temporary results at home.)

I have to say, however, that I found your suggestions on improving our economy laughable. The solution to our gas prices woes is drilling ANWR? Even if I thought it was a good idea (I don't), it's not going to happen. Fight as hard as you want; there's too much opposition. But to suggest it on the pretense that you care about how hard gas prices are hitting middle America and not because drilling ANWR is the long-time goal of the people who got you where you are today is an affront. (Not to mention that this proposed drilling wouldn't benefit American gas prices for years, all the while the oil companies would be, excuse my cliche, laughing all the way to the bank.) We need both a short term and a long term solution. Drilling ANWR is neither. (Besides, those poor polar bears have enough troubles as it is!)

I understand and sympathize with (in a way) your assertions that congress won't work with you. Oh that pesky democracy thing you're spreading can be annoying, can't it. Checks and Balances... what a stupid idea.

But my biggest complaint about your news conference today was your tone. You talk like you're burdened by trying to explain something to a child for the third time. (My boss suggested that you talk like that because that's how it had to be explained to you... and he voted for you... both times...) As if one of the grandest aspects of democracy isn't transparency and accountability of the leaders to its people. You have the audacity to actually say "If there was a magic want to wave, I'd be waving it of course." (Insert your own Harry Potter joke here. I'll go with: oh, well then why didn't you get Dumbledore as a running mate?) Magic wand references? Seriously?

I know this doesn't have much to do with Madagascar. But it does. If I weren't leaving the country for 27 months, I would have all different worries about managing to pay back loans, to pay for health care (yeah, I had to go there), on top of rising gas and food costs while seeking a post-college 'real' job. Now I can put those inevitable troubles off for a while.

Don't get me wrong; I understand that there are far worse problems in Madagascar. Their problems make paying $3.59/gallon a trivial annoyance. (In many cases, they don't have roads to drive on even if they did have cars, anways). America is one of the greatest countries in the world (but it's no Norway). It's very American of me to complain about the state of things, after all. I know I am lucky to have the right to do so, and I try to not take that for granted.

But, Mr. President, I will feel a whole lot better about it on January 20th, 2009.

Sincerely,

a little liberal PCV

I'm still recovering from the excitement of opening my invitation and reading "Madagascar."

So I've taken a break from doing my visa, passport, writing my aspiration statement, etc to start one of these fangled blogging things. I suppose it would be customary to describe my application process. I think I started it probably a year ago. The initial online application is a bit overwhelming, but if you can't handle it, you probably wouldn't make a good volunteer. I didn't actually submit my application for a while (I spent a few months not working on my essays, all the while having intentions to revise them to be THE GREATEST PEACE CORPS APPLICATION ESSAYS EVER). I finally decided to take the plunge and submit everything the way it was last October when I heard there would be a Peace Corps representative in my city, so I could easily do my interview. My interview was actually really fun. Shortly after (2 weeks??) my interview 'guy' (I forget his title) called me to let me know that he was nominating me to a Francophone African country for English Education leaving in June. (Pretty much a perfect fit; I 'speak' French, have a TESOL certificate, and wanted to leave in June. Good call.) Then began the legal/medical/dental clearance. I'll spare you a rant on the medical and instead do a list of all the fun things I got to do: 3 vaccinations, TB testing, girlie stuff, teeth cleaning, wisdom teeth removal, & lots of vials of blood drawn. I submitted everything in early January. After a brief (and boring) speed bump, I finally got my medical clearance (*med clearance dance*) at the end of February. Dental clearance was much faster. I still have a legal hold because of student loan excitement. I got the fateful update that my invitation on March 1st. After a week spent stalking the mail carrier and rushing home in between work and school, it arrived (along with the biggest snow storm of the year) on March 7th (but I had to let it thaw as it was frozen by the snow covering it on my front porch). (Getting snowed in the weekend you get your invite is a good excuse to spend 12 hours straight reading about your country!) I knew Madagascar was a Francophone country with an English program leaving in June, but I kept myself from getting my hopes up. I was so excited that I had to read the word Madagascar a few times before it sank in.

Overall the application process can seem pretty daunting, but it does serve as a good 'gate keeper.' It prevents people who aren't serious about becoming a Peace Corps volunteer from getting through.

A few things about my writing style (that you probably already realized):

I'm excessively long winded

I overuse parentheses

My spelling is artoshious

In three months I'll be arriving on the red island / eighth continent / Madagascar.

Until then I will be working as much as I can so that I might have funds with which to travel around and maybe have some sort of future upon my return.

(A now a legal message brought to you to cover the Peace Corps and consiquently the US government in case I say anything crazy: This Web site is maintained by Dorothy Mayne, a Peace Corps volunteer. Its content is the opinion of the volunteer and reflects the positions of neither the U.S. government nor the Peace Corps.)