Hello again everyone! Another news update from the Southern Hemisphere

(Brittany says, NOT the Southern Cross…apparently not a place)! Here’s

another piece of the first draft of my extremely short, neglected

book…this is about my best local friend and her family, mazotoa!

(enjoy!)

“Aia ny masaka e!” What’s cookin’? She called out from the path running

North to South between our houses. The sounds of tiny, squeaky voices

and tinkling seed pods as the dry weeds were parted got closer and

closer.

“Karibo e!” Come on in! I’d yell back from my place on my couch-bed,

hurriedly folding down the corner of the page in my book. I’d stick my

head out the door just in time to see the last of the weeds opening

like a gate and her family streaming out into the dirt clearing around

my house. Bory first, with her baby on her back, then her oldest, Lory

(12), Joby, her Nephew-turned-son (10) and finally Zaranay (3)

straggling behind still fighting the weeds. She would sit on the

ground outside my house as we exchange the usual, “What’s going on?

Nothing much, you? Nothing much.” I’d sit leaning against my door

frame, half in, half out of the house, facing her…the door’s curtain

blowing around me like a wild mane of hair.

Bory smiled at me, the upper corners of her grin growing wider and

wider, revealing her overbite and the dark place where she was missing

one tooth exactly in the center. I’d try to replace the tooth in my

mind imagine her with it there. I could never figure out which front

tooth she was missing; it looked like her teeth had just slid over to

one side so the missing notch was neither right nor left, but

perfectly, beautifully centered. As she jumped into a story concerning

our neighbor, I held her friendly gaze. Bory always looked me in the

eye when she talked to me. When I first met her, I remembered being

slightly taken aback by the bugginess of her large, round eyes. Now

familiar with her face, I let myself study her features, the high

cheekbones, the full lips, the sharp jawbones held up by an impossibly

thin neck. She had an un-obvious beauty that made me glad to have the

time to appreciate.

Still chattering on, the endless stream of words spewed out of her

tiny self and just as fast, my mind tried to compute them. Some words

stubbornly seemed to hang in the air, dancing around in front of my

face, waiting for recognition that would not come. If I focused my

attention on them, I would lose all that came after. It was like

having to squint at those magic eye posters to be able to see the

image. If you just focus on all the squiggly little lines, you miss

it. She was talking about how our neighbor had picked a fight with her

yesterday while I was out. A cow had wandered into Bory’s family’s

manioc fields and destroyed a lot of plants, so her and her

sister-in-law, Denise took it by the rope and led it back to its

owner, Maman’I Zafy. Apparently this led to a shouting match and ended

with ‘Antandroy’(dialect of ethnic group in Southern Madagascar)

insults hurled at Bory. A beggar. A dirt poor bitch. As far as I could

see, neither of them was more dirt poor than the other, and I’d never

seen Bory beg at Maman’I Zafy’s door, which I can see from my house.

It embarrasses me still to admit my naiveté in those weeks before I

came to Madagascar, when I’d lie in bed at night, eyes squeezed shut,

trying to picture my future home. I’d conjure up a golden plain

surrounded by rolling green hills, dotted with mango trees as the

backdrop. There would be a clearing with a few little huts built in a

circle. Women would cook outside their houses on fires and chat. Men

would walk around in the center, saying whatever was the equivalent of

“Hidey ho Neighbor!” in the local language. All wide smiles, laughing

children, bright clothes, bare feet. In this utopian image of the

village I held onto, African-print sarongs might as well be tie-dye,

their wearers whispering “Peace, man.” into the warm breeze.

This drama did not fit into my scene. I understand now more clearly

than ever the saying, the world is a village and each village, the

entire world.

Bory was still going strong, lifting her eyebrows and pausing from

time to time, for effect. I grunted and made noises to show I

understood and was listening, which I was, but I couldn’t honestly say

I was riveted. By this time, Lory and Joby had gotten restless and

started chasing each other around and around my house, screaming “No

you’re a dog penis!.” Zaranay had been restless from the start, but

now just

wanted attention. She picked a pinching fight with the 6 month old on

Bory’s lap. This of course, was completely one-sided. The baby

screamed and a clump of dirt he’d been munching on fell from his

mouth. Bory whipped out a breast to quiet him. Zaranay kept pinching.

Bory’s eyes never left mine.She holds Zaranay back from the baby, her

slender forearms stuck out separating them, all the while, spitting

the words quick like butterflies that I tried desperately to catch

before they fluttered away. By the time they go home, I am exhausted

though all I’d been doing was sitting.

Until next time, take care everyone! Corie

We talked to Corie last night. She has a few more days in Tana, then will fly to Diego and from there make the 5 hour trip back to her village. She said the training sessions with the new PC volunteers went well. She was in great spirits and seemed very happy as she was also able to post 10 new photos, which you can view by clicking here:

http://corieinmadagascar.shutterfly.com/33?eid=112

(email from Corie on 4/16/10)

So…one day I guess I decided to try and write a book. Here’s a preview…(just the beginning…I had to make it blog-y!) During college, I worked part time at an old family-run coffee shop in Laguna Beach California. It was a good job; I learned to master the art of steaming milk and maintaining an exceptionally perky outlook for any human being at 5am, and consequently, always had tip money for the bus ride home. Between handing a colorful regular named Sean one of his twice daily 16-oz dark roasts and serving the next customer, he would usually leave me with brief, witty pearls of wisdom. These ranged from “You guys should change the music in here, sappy love songs don’t sit well with people before breakfast” to, “Don’t you even think about working for a cruise line, Corie, You’d be much better off on an Alaskan fishing boat!” We became fast friends. We found common ground somewhere (though don’t ask me an exact location) He, the 50-something Scottish ex-pat locksmith and I, the 20 year old art student/barista. Sean took me a couple of times to a sweatlodge ceremony in the dusty hills of Orange County. People from all walks of O.C. life would come to claim their own piece of “inner tranquility”. I liked that everyone was welcomed, the aging hippies, the trial lawyers, the soccer moms, the Jews, the Christian conservatives, the gays…all sweating together in a tiny buckskin tent in the middle of a dark nowhere. “Safe, happy, healthy to everyone I care about”, I thought…and often left up a few points in “tranquility” myself (and down quite a few more in water content). On the way home one of those evenings, rattling around in the co-pilot’s seat of Sean’s big lock-picking-gadget-filled van, he said to me, “Corie, always remember it is a good thing to be changing up your experiences in life.”

I remembered. In a rare moment of concise, relevant advice-giving, Sean unknowingly taught me the lesson of a lifetime. His words inspired me to keep living for those diverse, serendipitously “out-of the norm” moments in life. They would find me there, in a tent full of strangers under the stars, to where I was last week, celebrating Easter 2010 by eating fish I caught with my Malagasy family under a cashew tree, and today, wandering the Diego markets in search of some lady who would sell me “magic” shells and nuts to bring back to my friend to string around her kids’ necks to protect them from evil. Just in case anyone needs to hear it at this moment, life is full of interesting moments waiting to be lived, and you can find them wherever you already are, if you look. Take a different route or talk to someone new on your way to school, work, or the corner shop for a diet coke and go get your own slice of weird! My own weird as of late: * I saved a hedgehog (Tenrec, to be exact) from drowning in my well. I almost didn’t even try because I thought it was a rat, and hate them. They eat everything and make too much noise at night with their fighting and tending to their babies in my walls…I digress. I fished him out with a rake. I didn’t tell my friends though, because people eat them here! * I almost got attacked by a rabid dog. It’s dead now, no worries. Plus, I have my shots. * I led a young French whippersnapper around the village (intern of the hotel owner down the road) He wanted me to translate his way overkill idea of good flirting to my friends. I didn’t. * March 8th, International Women’s Day, was a bust. My village is too small to host a big party, so we were supposed to go to the one down the road. In the end I was not allowed to go because “too many people do sorcery in that town.” Such is life. * I’ve been really into fishing lately! It’s one of the few most awesome pastimes here. Stopped being fun when someone told me after the fact that there are crocodiles in the water and they are hungriest at this exact time of year. Oops. * I was hanging with my counterpart the other day while he was thatching a roof and he was telling me, with a straight face, about the “2 foot high little people that live in the woods” (Malagasy leprechauns?) and the 6-times-woken-from-the-dead woman that supposedly walks the town. Can’t wait to meet her! Until next time, wishing you all safe, happy healthy….and weird…times!

Corie posted these from Diego, her banking town, where she'll catch a flight to Tana, the capital to begin training the new PC Environmental volunteers.

At 5am this morning when I woke up, it was only 75 degrees...the start to a great week. Thought preparing myself for cold, cold Tana. I'm flying there tomorrow to train the newbies again! Also, someone told me yesterday with a straight face, there is a 6-times-back-from-the-dead zombie woman living in my village. I can't wait to meet her!

"Live everyday like you might be evacuated tomorrow"

-- the wise words of Beth Tofte.

Have a good day everyone!

Hi Mom & Dad, How are you guys? I've been checking into a new cell phone plan where you can talk all you want with anyone in Madagascar for a cheap fixed price. My PC friend has it and she says its great to be able to keep updated with other volunteers about things and laugh about things only people here think are funny or whatever. This PC friend and I are planning some projects that we could possibly do together...maybe taking kids to the forest and I helped her design an AIDS mural for the school in her village. I can't wait for the rainy season to be over so I can start making clay stoves and hopefully have some tourism customers at our village campsite. Plus, after they fix the washed out roads, I'll be able to actually go places and meet more people.

Yesterday I went to Ambilobe with the hotel's car (bigger town 4 kilometers away) to pick up some more gas for my cooking stove. I have been cooking over fires the last two days. It was fun to get out and I got some good food at the market (avocados!!) I also made friends with the hotel's driver. He lives nearby and we talked a long time about life and stuff here and it felt good to have a great conversation.

Only 8 more months here. How is it going so fast? Crazy! I miss you guys a lot and jaime too. It will be nice to have her closer in San Francisco. I can't wait to visit her there. She sounds great too. We'll talk again soon. Love, Corie

A short phone call with Corie tonight...short because her phone battery was running out. She has a cough and a cold, but otherwise seems ok. She's anxious as her eco-tourism project is lagging a bit and tourist are due to start later this month. The hotel told her they are booked full thru June. She's also been given another award....honorary soccer team captain! It seems that there are many boys on the poor side of town (where Corie also lives) that don't go school for a variety of reasons: not enough money, flunked the 3rd grade, need to watch the cattle or otherwise help out the household during the day. So the last time she was in the PC office in Tana, the capital, she noticed a box full of soccer jerseys and a ball, so she arranged to bring those back to her village. Needless to say the boys were thrilled and immediately started making a field and want her to come to every game! That's it for now.

Hello again friends, family and anonymous readers! (if there are any of you… feel free to say hello),

Well, for this blog installment, I bring you adventures of a different kind: adventures in parenting! Yes, I did say parenting. (Now don’t be getting excited people, I haven’t signed any adoption papers and am definitely not pregnant.)

Last week, my Bff (that’s best-friend-forever for those of you un-hip to 13-year-old-girl lingo) in the village, told me that she’d be leaving town for a couple of days to help her family transplant rice in the neighboring village about 5 Kilometers away. She also informed me that her 10 year old daughter would be staying with me until she was going to come back home, 3 days later. “Ok.” I said (not like she was asking me anyways…), “it will be fun!” I thought. Me and Lori did indeed have loads of fun traipsing around the village in those 3 days. We played cards (I recently taught the kids how to play “war”, which has become the favorite neighborhood pastime, and the fact that I can shuffle “bridge” style has made me a local hero). We fished with bamboo fishing poles for the little gold and silver fish in the lake. We had running races (I hate running, but get a perhaps sick pleasure out of the fact I can beat a 10 year old). We made “bread” out of mud. We planted cucumbers and flowers. She told me stories at night under the mosquito net. We had some epic pillow fights. I did parent-y things too, like help her study her lessons, had rice waiting when she came back from school, made her tell me where she was going when she ran off to play with her friends.

I like kids. It would be difficult to be a Peace Corps Volunteer and not like kids. But when my Bff and the rest of her family failed to show up on the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th day, I began to appreciate the cultural divides in new ways through my new role as “Mama” (which is exactly what Lori called me. “mama” it seems, translates over in a lot of languages). Lori is cute and helpful, but she definitely has a mischievous side to her. It’s hard to scold properly in a foreign language…the result is sometimes the opposite of your intention: lots of laughter (making me laugh too, at myself). While I am at the point with Malagasy language where I can understand (eventually) and be understood (eventually) with most things, my words will never have the effect they would out her mothers mouth! In the end, my week of babysitting turned out to be both exhausting and a lot of fun. It was flattering actually that Bff trusted me and thought me capable enough to leave her child with me. One of those “ultimate cultural exchange” experiences that highlight a good Peace Corps service.

….Mom’s question to me: “Did that make you want kids?” (aka…grandbabies on the horizon?) Answer: Give me a few years...geez!

In other news, we started having town meetings for the 2 men who went with me to the rice training and I, to teach the rest of the village what we learned. It’s going well, and even though we are probably too late to get that new technique going this year, I’m confident…well, hopeful…that there is enough motivation and enthusiasm for at least a few of them to get it going for next year’s season, even though I won’t be there. That’s the whole point anyways, that they do it themselves.

Potential projects on the horizon:

-Dry season means I can start building stoves with people again! For that reason, among others, looking forward to drier weather the next couple of months.

-Getting the Diego farmer/trainer guy to come out to my site to teach about vegetable planting and help start a potato farm, which can be sold to the hotels around us and eaten in the village.

-Trying to write a grant with another volunteer to bring group of schoolkids to nearby national park for some good ol hands on environmental ed!

We shall see!

Other news: My chicken, "Dumber" in an unfortunate fighting accident, has presumably died (he hasn't been seen in the 5 days since the incident). RIP little house-chicken friend. He used to sleep on my feet when I was sitting at my table. He grew on me. I'm on the lookout now for a big egg laying hen!!

In 3 weeks I’ll be back here in Diego again for a conference for the 11 volunteers still in the country who re-instated service in November. It will be a week of question-answer sessions with staff and information sharing between us volunteers. It will be great to see everyone again and hear what everyone’s up to! I’ll check back in again then. Until then, take care everyone.

Hello!! Well it’s been a ridiculous, crazy, fun, bizarre week....here’s why:

Thing #1: Mini-vacation!!!

Dorothy, an education volunteer to the South of me was about to celebrate her 25th birthday…quite a milestone!!! So a few of us met at her site and then went from there to one of the most beautiful places I think I’ve ever been. We stayed one night at a little hotel and spent the day at the completely deserted beach. I’m not going to describe it because I’m sure you can all conjure up some image of tropical paradise…so there you go, that’s what it was. Oh snap, Ill try to post a picture with this too! Watched a gorgeous sunset and fell asleep to the sound of the waves right outside the door. Am I really in the Peace Corps right now?!

Thing #2 reminded me that yes, in fact, I am. The next day we went up north to Brittany’s site for the rice training. We got there a day earlier than the rest of the people so we spent the day hanging out with Brittany’s “family”. The mom took us to see a “Tromba” ceremony. And this is hard to describe, not because it’s as cliché as tropical paradise, but because it is in fact the complete opposite: one of the most bizarre few hours I may have ever experienced in my life. It was among my strangest dreams, but the kicker was that it was reality. It went like this: The 3 of us volunteers walked the 7k to the neighboring village with “Mama” and were led in the direction of the music. We went and sat in a tiny “Gasy” house (thatched roof, reed walls, all made of wood-ish stuff) and were hearded into a corner. We sat on the floor with our chins to our knees, crammed in like sardines with everyone else who was there to watch. Traditional Gasy music was going on in the other corner of the room, a guy playing cans of beans (for you marimba folks, its like a make-shift version of hosho) and the other guy playing the accordion. Yes, the accordion. It was this hypnotizing rhythm that didn’t really have any distinguishable words when people sang to it, and no beginning or end…totally entrancing. By this time our butts were already falling asleep and our legs were cramping up, but they were just beginning. There were a few people who started to apply this white clay paint to their forearms foreheads and jawbones, and changed into white clothes behind makeshift curtains. Then they put on sunglasses and hats (one of them was a safari hat that looked like it belonged in a prop closet of some high school’s drama department). They began to smoke cigarettes and drink moonshine. Then the woman began to cry…then sob, then sob violently. No one seemed too shocked and one woman jumped up and threw a sheet over her head, which made the woman sobbing start to have a serious fit and shake and dance and flail under the sheet. Then she just stopped…as quickly as she started and acted as if everything was totally normal. Then the dude next to her did it. Then of course, the people who seemed to be assisting the ceremony, brought out some cheap perfume and sprayed all the people who were dressed in white with it….not forgetting to put a dab of it under their noses. This went on for a good long while....more and more people started throwing fits and thrashing around on those next to them…then they too would get face-painted and changed into white clothes and perfumed. They seemed to infect their closest neighbors, until there were maybe around 10 people with the “Tromba”. Finally they seemed to break for lunch, and we followed Mama to her friend’s house, where we ate rice. Then…we went back and sat some more. One of the people had on a marriage veil and white gloves. Also, once the person throwing the fit was calmed, they would greet everyone in the “audience” with a handshake and 3 kisses. Here in Madagascar, we’re used to the 3 kiss thing…it’s one of the things the Malagasy seemed to have adopted from Europeans…kiss each cheek then back again, to say hello. Well apparently at Trombas, its one kiss on each cheek and then why not finish it off with the real thing, right on the lips. Awkward! More sitting and watching this ridiculous, surreal scene unfold, and when our bodies could no longer handle the sitting and the cigarette smoke, we asked Brittany what time it was…almost 3pm. It was being in another dimension where time and space and anything that made any sort of sense was non-existent. Finally we left and made the trek home, where we were able to bombard Mama with questions. We found out that:

- A “Tromba” is a spirit of a dead person who chooses someone alive to go live inside of. The Tromba will never leave and what we saw was not in any way, an exorcism, but more just a celebration of people’s Trombas…a way to bring them out to dance for a second.

- A person can have multiple Trombas…Mama’s mother in law has 8.

- The marriage outfit was because that person had a “Marriage Tromba”; The goodness or badness of the Tromba depends on the personality of the Tromba when it was a living person.

- The way a Tromba died can determine how it protects the person it lives in after death. For example, if a person dies of drowning, then when it turns into a Tromba, it will protect the person it lives in whenever they go into the water.

- All the white symbolizes cleanliness so that the Tromba will want to show itself.

- At the ceremony, if a person is downing moonshine and cigarettes, it’s like, totally no biggie because it’s just the Tromba that’s smoking and drinking, not the person. So a dude can drink as much as he wants and not get drunk and walk a straight line after because it was just the Tromba who got drunk. (no, we never saw them get up, so we don’t know!)

- After a Tromba ceremony, the people with the Trombas can do medicine. People in the village will start to come to them to have them heal their ailments. Apparently these people with Trombas actually make quite a lot of money by doing this.

Weirdest day EVER. Me and the other 2 volunteers just kept saying, thank god we were all there to witness that so we can know it really happened someday down the road.

Thing #3: RICE TRAINING! It went so well! We brought in a Malagasy man from Diego to do it. He was going to do a training at my site too, but the road is so washed out at this point and no vehicles are going in and out, so since he is older, we decided just to do it at Brittany’s site. I brought 2 men who could read and write and were really interested in learning up with me. It was 3 days of going into the rice field in the mornings, and lectures at the school in the afternoons. The guys was GOOD… it warmed my heart to see people from my village frantically taking notes and asking questions. Though me and Brittany have both been trained and have some experience doing this way of rice farming, it is complex and having a native Malagasy speaker there to explain in detail and answer questions was KEY. My 2 representatives were already excitedly plotting forming a group to teach and do this technique with back in the Ampotsehy. (Basically, this is just a very regimented way of transplanting rice so that the yields are 2 times, 4 times, even up to 10 times the amount of rice they would get from traditional methods). Stoked too because we might get this funded through an association that deals with spreading the technique around in 3rd world rice farming countries all over the world (Jim Carrey is involved somehow too…its like his thing…he was in 'Gascar awhile ago, since the technique started here!). So that was all totally warm and fuzzy.

Still safe, healthy and extremely happy and at peace here. I understand now when people talk about the 2nd year of Peace Corps as being “the good part”. I mean yeah, I have my moments, but this is where I need to be right now and I’m so glad to be here. I’ll try to post more pictures soon as I can. Take care everyone!

Hello again!

First off, I successfully posted pictures of my new site!!!! Just look here:

http://corieinmadagascar.shutterfly.com/26

Well, here I am back in Diego! The past couple weeks of welcoming the 36 trainee transfers into the country from Niger overall went really well. Shockingly, none of them chose to go home after all they’ve been through: 2 weeks of training and staying with Nigerian families, then trouble causing them to go into 2 weeks of “consolidation” (if

you remember from my previous blogs…this is Peace-Corp-speak for “wait around and see if you’ll get evacuated”), then being sent to Madagascar and doing it all over again. New culture, new language, new climate, new trainers, etc etc. Their spirits were surprisingly high despite all of that….they seemed to have bonded over it. The Peace

Corps staff, given less than a week to prepare all of the logistics for this new group, was exhausted but in good spirits also. Just imagine if you can, arranging to find good homes for 36 new volunteers all over the country for the next 2 years, 36 temporary “homes” for their home-stays for training, processing visas, shots and new medical

files, buying medications, hiring language trainers for many different dialects, etc. etc…..all in less than a week. On top of that, it was a bigger group than Peace Corps is used to handling at one time, and there were 4 kinds of them; Small Enterprise Development, Environment, Health and Education… also more at one time than Peace Corps can usually handle. It was amazing, but everyone came together to get it

done so that this group could stay together and not get handed 36plane tickets back home to the U.S. with a “better luck next time”.

Brittany and I flew in from Diego to train the Environment group, and were later joined by another Health volunteer and another Environment also. We trained on cookstove construction (you can watch an instructional video starring yours truly on my blog), PACA (a long acronym basically meaning tools for assessing community needs),

environmental education, insulated cooker construction, and transplanting improved system of rice. In short though, we taught them some techniques for doing and teaching stuff, and passed along our infinite wisdom of peace corps volunteerism…haha.

So I’ve gotten some questions from one of my adoring fans…haha. Thanks Uncle Dick Beltramini for asking! Question : How do you begin to measure your impact as a volunteer and how do you go about setting goals for your service? (or something like that…)

Well that’s a mighty big question! Setting goals for service should start with the community; seeing what they really want or need and working towards small, realistic goals within that. There are a number of different PACA tools we learn to use (ex; having community members draw a map of their community to see what kinds of things are important to them, by what they put on the map first/at all). Sometimes you can hold bigger more formal meetings with different groups (young, old, women, men, students, etc) and talk about what things are going well and where they see themselves in the future.

Once you’ve identified some key problems, there’s a good system for having them rank these in order of priority. This all can take months to get a good handle on. I did a lot of this in my previous site because I didn’t really have a direction to go from in my service. Now though, I’ve walked right into a site where PACA was already done by

the previous volunteer which I have the results from. I’ve been doing more informal surveying and also have a clearer vision to work towards with the community. There is already the community group that is working on their eco-tourism site, so I’m trying to help them get that to where it can stand on its own two feet without a Peace Corps

Volunteer constantly looking over their shoulders.

As far as measuring progress, well that is an area I think Peace Corps as an organization really needs to work on. As Volunteers, we turn in detailed reports on our activities every 3 months that go through the Country Director then are sent to Washington DC where they are filed away. No one ever formally goes back to these villages months or years later to see how they’re doing and if anything the Volunteer started actually caught on and was sustainable in the end. Some volunteers go

back to their villages years later and I’ve heard stories about them being pleasantly surprised by what was now happening maybe because of what they started during their service, but I’m sure it varies widely. I personally feel successful when I see a Malagasy teaching another Malagasy some new technique or concept I’ve introduced. In the end,

it’s really hard to say what difference we make in our communities. I know though that it changes a person…it’s changed me for good. One of Peace Corps’ main goals is that when its over, the volunteer bring their knowledge of the experience in the host country back to the U.S. so that other Americans can benefit too. I think one of the main ways Peace Corps is successful is changing the hearts and minds of its

volunteers for life; so many Returned Peace Corps Volunteers live a life that includes service of some kind when they get home… a lot of the time, it only begins with Peace Corps.

What it comes down to for me, is working with the community to do the best we can with the resources we have in the time period we have. The idea is to start some sparks and then sit back and watch them turn into fires all on their own. Here is a story I like to remind myself of often:

A man goes out on the beach and sees that it is covered with starfish that have washed up in the tide. A little boy is walking along, picking them up and throwing them back in the water. “What are you doing, son?” The man asks. “You see how many starfish there are? You’ll never make a difference.” The boy paused thoughtfully, and

picked up another starfish and threw it into the ocean. “It sure made a difference to that one.” he said.

So there you go. That story is pretty much my personal mission statement for while I’m here. Being here only a year, I have to be realistic about what I can accomplish….and I know that what I’m bringing home in my heart will be of just as much value somehow.

Love from Madagasikara,

--Cor

For the last week or so, Corie's been at the PC training center near Tana, where she was asked to help train the 12 new environmental volunteers from Niger that were evacuated and moved to Mad. She said they were a good group and thinks they will do well. Tomorrow she's doing rice planting training with them. She's had fun doing that and hanging out with the PC training staff and other 3 trainers in the evenings. Yesterday they went canoeing and had lots of fun. Weather has been colder and somewhat rainy compared to her village, as the training center is located near the center of the island and on a high plateau. She's not able to leave the Training center much as to the daily demonstrations still taking place in Tana, the capital. There's another group of brand new PC vols coming in March and she thinks she'll be asked to return to help train this group as well. But for now, she's anxious to return to her site and start her own rice field and of course see her 2 chickens, which she has named 'Dumb' and 'Dumber'. She's raising them for eggs and possibly meat when Mad celebrates Independence Day on June 26th. She says her chickens are weird and wander into her hut and sit on her lap or on her desk like cats while she writes in her journal. During this training session she also learned more about raising chickens and gardening.

So in a few days she'll fly back to Diego where she'll be at the PC house there and then make the 5 hour taxi brousse journey back to her village where she has to be careful not to do these things: no planting beans. (eating them is ok....just don't plant & raise them). no wearing shoes in caves and no rice field working on Tuesdays. These are all 'fady' and forbidden in her village. each village has its own set of 'fadys'. She misses everybody and tells us not to worry as her health has been just fine this time. No nasty parasites and no sickness at all other than one day of a stomach ache. Thanks for all of your letters, emails and support! -- Jim & Cindy

Working on getting back to you all, thanks for the emails, it brightens my day!

I’m in Diego again, on my way to Tana. We’re staying here a couple days to uh…do some “business”. No, we actually did go to the bank yesterday, but today we’re gonna paaaaaarrrtay! One of my favorite Malagasy singers ever, Wawa (yep, that’s really what he calls himself...) is having a show today! Perfect timing. Tomorrow me and Brittany will fly to Tana and then go to the training center on Monday. Chris and Katie have been there a couple weeks now, and we’ll be taking over for them as trainers for the new Niger group. We heard they are “a good group”. We’re training on how to build some things…cookstoves and stuff, and environmental education and cultural

adjustment, and basically just be there to answer their questions...“OMG how will I get my mail? How do you shower from a bucket? But what will my JOB be??” Oh how the tables have turned.

Well, to recap, the holidays were good to me. Christmas was up here in Diego with other volunteers… full of eating lots and lots of good food, sunny warm weather, trips to the pool and one to the ocean, and we even watched “a Christmas story” and the Christmas episode of “Friends” on the tv here. But it still didn’t really feel like Christmas. Everyone was calling their folks and hearing about “white Christmases”.

I rolled into the village on the 29th and could feel the New Year’s excitement. I think I mentioned before that New Years is one of the 2 biggest parties of the year here in Madagascar (the other being Independence day on June 26th). A lot of people don’t have birth certificates or know what day or month or sometimes even year they were born in, so New Years sort of acts as a big huge birthday party for everyone too. “Well, it’s 2010, guess I’m 25 now!!!” It’s great. So the nights of the 30th, 31st, 1st, and 2nd there was Malagasy music bumping from across the field (not really all that far from my

house…actually, quite close) literally until the sun came up. The 31st was less of a big deal, but bright and early on the 1st, I went over to where my best friend and her family had set up camp in the forest for their party, and braided the little girls’ hair (I'm learning to cornrow!) while I watched them slaughter a goat. They gave me a huge hunk of the meat to take home, which I cooked right away. I got picked up by my

counterpart at 8am and we went into the village and sat down to a table set outside under mango trees. They brought out the tablecloths and the nice dishes (where does this stuff come from?! It was crazy to see that in the village) and we had breakfast of spaghetti Bolognese, basically. Then of course, we started drinking! Nothing says happy New Years like a little moonshine and Three Horses Beer (I’ll refer to it as THB from now on. Imagine Coors Light, if it were inconsistent in flavor and alcohol content from bottle to bottle). Being the new person in town, my glass was literally never empty all day (the polite thing to do apparently), and if any of you have ever gone drinking

with me, you know that I’m umm….a very cheap date. We sat around all of us, talking and telling stories of our respective countries and waiting for it to be lunch time. Then the women started cooking, and taught me how to gut a chicken (which I add, was still warm from being alive only moments ago). It was an interesting experience. We had a

huge feast for lunch and afterwards sat around holding our bellies and talking some more.

Then my counterpart announced that he had finally thought of what my Malagasy name should be, “Soa Vanona!” I was like, oh wow, I’m so honored, uh, so like, what does that mean? (If you read my last entry, Brittany’s village had already named me Soa, but my village added the Vanona part, which I can’t say I remember hearing, ever). They said it means “ to be successful/ dependable”. We hung out there until the sun started to go down, and then everyone went home and changed into their nicest clothes (again, where does this stuffcome from?!) and we went down to my end of town, to the source of the blasting music. We danced and drank more beer until it was dark, and I went home and ate my goat meat dinner and fell asleep with a very full

stomach and heart. I’m starting to feel really comfortable and as we say “tamana” (it means well-settled in a place) here.

OH! And I have 2 chickens now so far!! The first one was a present. He’s little and SO UGLY! He’s oddly really comfortable in my house too, it’s kind of obnoxious. The second one I bought, it’s way cuter and bigger. I’m excited, they’re fun!!

Hope everyone is doing good! Miss and love you all.

Corie / Soa Vanona

Hi everyone! Well it’s true what you heard, after being evacuated and spending 7 months home in Eugene, I really did make it back to Madagascar! It was hard and all I could see at the time was a big fat door closing in my face, but that old cliché about new doors …so true! In the end I’m so glad it worked out this way. But how awesome now, to be back on this big crazy red island! I’ll try to take it from the beginning: Last March, about 140 peace corps volunteers were evacuated from Madagascar. After 7 months, the plans to re-open the program were finally realized, and now 14 of us are back here in action, with a minimum contract of one year.

Some ice on the wings of our plane out of Eugene, a delay of about 20 minutes, made me miss all my connecting flights, so I arrived here by myself a day late. Looking out the window, touching down in Madagascar, I could hardly contain myself. I bounded off the plane and shouted hellos in Malagasy to every airport employee I saw. One French man who was sitting near me on the plane politely asked me, “do you live here?”

Since all those who returned to re-open the program had already been volunteers for at least a few months, some people much longer, we all had just a short week of training in the training center outside the capital. Training was mostly a re-cap on techniques, personal medical care and safety issues. Most of us were not going back to our old villages, so had to learn a different dialect of Malagasy, so there were some language classes too. We had some people come in from the US Embassy and the US mission in Madagascar, to brief us on what is happening in this country politically. To be honest, that’s still pretty murky to me. It changes all the time though and right now I couldn’t tell you with a straight face what is happening, but I hope to find out more soon. I can tell you though that it doesn’t affect the rural villages much, and I am probably safer there than I would be in a city at home, so no worrying about that! Training was mostly just a good opportunity for all of us to see each other again, catch up and hang out before we all left for our sites.

I now live in a tiny village in the North of Madagascar, about 15-20 kilometers from a town called Ambilobe…the closest big town you can find on a map. I bank in a town called Diego Suarez (Antsiranana is the Malagasy name), which is where I am right now! There is a Peace Corps flop house here, where all volunteers in the region can meet about once a month. Diego is big and beautiful and developed. There are restaurants that serve pizza, internet cafes and a pool with a swim-up bar. Hard to believe I’ve only gone like 110 kilometers up the road!

My village is the polar opposite, except that it is absolutely gorgeous too, but in a totally different way. If you google “Tsingy Ankarana”, you can see the big national park that is now literally, my back yard. These huge rock spires with lines of trees weaving in and out of them form a backdrop to one side of the village and every so often I stop and think, “I live here!”. The first couple of days I was there, I spent organizing my little house and walking around. (I took a bunch of pictures and a video but forgot to bring the memory card it was on…oops! Next time I’ll post it all!!) One of the people in the village offered to take me to see the caves right near my house. He told me this elaborate story about the war between different Malagasy tribes a long time ago, and about the king and prince that hid in the caves to escape the war. They were too scared to go out and look for food, so they starved to death. And he tells me “and their bones are still in this cave!” And I’m thinking, yeah sure, uh-huh. So we go in and it’s all glittering stalagtites and stalagmites and bats… so awesome! And then sure enough, he leads me to this pile of bones and I can see a human skull peeking out of the dirt. This place has crazy history. It’s all nothing short of magnificent…. or “mahafinaritra”; a Malagasy catch-all adjective I use all the time and roughly translate as: “AWESOME!”.

That awesomeness attracts a lot of tourists to the area. There’s a nice luxury resort only 1 kilometer down the road from my house, and a villager-run campground right next to my house. Both groups are trying to build a program together, that’s supposed to begin in April. The plan is to have tourists stay 1 night in the village, see the caves, eat traditional Malagasy food prepared by villagers, tour around and see what rural Malagasy life is like, then finish with 2 nights at the resort place. It’s trying to get the villagers to benefit as much as possible by the presence of tourists in their backyard. Where I seem to come in, is as sort of a go-between for the 2 groups, and to help the villagers build and get the program running on its own.

Right now though, we’ve just gone into the rainy season, which will last for another few months. So basically from now until March, everyone is going to be really really busy working in their fields so they can get as much food as they can for the year. This makes it really hard to plan and get anyone to come to any meetings, so I’m changing my plans accordingly….I’ll just farm for awhile like them! I already have a corn field and am going to get a rice one hopefully…been planting other food and flowers around my house like crazy. It feels really good to work in the dirt everyday! That connection to the earth is so strong here. Also, I’ve got my mind set on getting some chickens to raise! Niger evacuated its new training class and is sending fresh volunteers to us here in Madagascar! (It’s been a bad year for Peace Corps Africa…Mauritania, Madagascar, Guinea, now Niger… geez!) So in a couple weeks, a few of use were asked to come in and help train them. They were only in Niger for a couple of weeks when things started to get crazy over there, so we’re going over to help teach techniques, answer their questions and offer support. So it looks like I’ll be in Tana January 11th -23rd. Before we came up here to Diego, I stopped at another environment volunteer, Brittany’s site for a few days. It was fun meeting all her village peeps and seeing a new place! Some highlights: Teaching people how to make a compost pile, eating lychees under a mango tree looking out over her soon-to-be corn field while chatting up some locals, teaching English to 5-50 year-olds all at once, spending the morning shoveling cow shit (ha ha…I took a “play with kids” break half way through!), riding on a tractor (crazy to see actual farm equipment like that here!!!) and being given a Malagasy name by her villagers. Just call me “Soa” (means good or well) from now on. Haha. Now we’re here in Diego (there are 5 of us volunteers) together for a hot, hot Christmas!

Well if you actually got all the way through that long entry, I applaud you. I’ll try to update again soon, when I’m in Tana. Happy Holidays everyone and here is the most important part of this whole thing: My address:

Corie Hinton 6 Rue Commandant Marchand Place Kabary Antsiranana 201 Madagascar Write me!!!

ATTENTION TEACHERS: If you’re wondering how you can get your students involved in helping students in my village, have them do this: make flash cards and have them draw a picture of something on one side, and write the word for it in English on the other, and send them to me. That would help a lot and kids here would love just knowing that kids in America made them just to help them out. Any other ideas, email me.

Always remember that someone loves you in Madagascar!

Corie / Soa

Just received this letter today:

Hi Mom & Dad! Well, I've been here about 5 days now and I told you I'd write often so...ha ha. Training was good! Lots of info but mostly just an opportunity to re-adjust. I have to say though that I could NOT wipe the smile off my face in the Tana airport, driving through the streets, getting to the training center, seeing staff and other PCV friends...it felt like a homecoming at least to a degree. I know my culture shock is probably yet to come, but it will at least be a lot less intense, so it seems. My site sounds really amazing. The staff keeps telling me how beautiful it is with the tsingy right outside my door, the small size of the village, the privacy, the supportive community, the way people take care of one another. I've heard a lot of good things and can't wait to see it! I am of course nervous though! I'm really excited to be able to get a garden going and set up my new house.

Tomorrow we are all going back to Tana to shop (buy a phone!), hang out and do last-minute paperwork and stuff, then we swear-in at the U.S. ambassador's house on Tuesday, then we fly/drive out to site on Wednesday. There are 10 regular PCV's and 4 PC Response people (they are on 6-month contracts with NGO's). Seems to be a good group. Hope you guys are doing well! Happy Thanksgiving! Love you! -- Cor

We had a short call with Corie before her cell battery died. (She had just talked with her sister Jaime prior to our call.) Corie is busy making lesson plans to teach environmental classes in the elementary school after the new year begins. She'll be meeting with the principal sometime this week about her ideas. She's busy putting in her garden and has planted lettuce, corn, cantalope, pumpkin, zucchini and beans. She's been meeting new people and they have been very friendly. She told us she's learned a lot from her last experience and is not as concerned with all the drama that can happen in a small village. She just wants to do her work, stay active in the community and not worry about the inevitable gossip or whether people like her or not. She'll soon be visiting another PC volunteer in her village and helping to plant rice on her way up north to Diego to spend the holidays with other PC folks. That's it for now...happy holidays everyone!

Dad here, with update from a call last night: Corie talked to the elementary school principle and they agreed that Corie will start teaching an environmental class once a week in the school. She also said that this school has no toilet and Corie wants to help procure the funds (under $200) to build one. She'll start working w/ PC to get funding and said it shouldn't take too long because under $200 gets funded automatically. She says that the villagers are motivated and she see lots of potential here. That could be because of the extra time villagers have due to the short rice season on this side of the island. It starts to rain in December and weather allows a 3-month growing season, then the harvest. Very different than her previous village where they grew rice the entire year. She's also involved with the village's Eco-Tourism group that meets every Tuesday. They have built two primitive bungalows about 100 yards from Corie's house. They hope to do more, add signage and develop a brochure which Corie is excited about helping them create it. She has met with the Cuban and French man who are developing the upscale resort about 2km from her village. Eventually they hope to do a tour that will allow guests 2 nites in the posh resort and 2 nites in her village bungalows. They also want to buy a cart and a cow to pull it and set up tours in the village, seeing the women's craft work and generally experience the village life. They told Corie that European tourists are very interested in this aspect. Corie is acting as the liason between these 2 guys and the village to get some projects started. She is meeting lots of people and went to church last week which helped her meet even more. People are generally friendly, more used to having foreigners around and less skeptical of white people than she's experienced in the past. Probably because of the adjacent Ankarana Reserve Park and the foriegn tourists that it draws. It seems to her like there are many more varieties of people and tribes represented in her village. She's taking lots of pictures and will try to post them when she goes to Diego (banking town) over Christmas. The PC house that she will stay in Diego has a dvd player and computer, but no Internet so she'll find a web cafe to post photos. We asked her about her food and said she's been eating dried shrimp, tomatoes, beans, onions and of course...rice. She's not sure if she'll be called to Tana, the capital to assist in training for the 35 Environment PCV's that were recently evacuated from Niger and placed in Mad. To sum up her experience so far, she said she feels INSPIRED. "It seems like the Feb. Mad PC evacuation was almost supposed to happen so that I could get relocated in a place that I could do more with the people."

Cindy says: We had a long conversation with Corie this evening. She sounds wonderful.....happy and healthy. Her solo entry to a new village has been much easier than what she had anticipated. The dialect is quite different from her last village, but she is able to effectively communicate and understand. Her Malagasy community has been much more welcoming than what she experienced upon her arrival last year. Since the village is only 2km from a "developing resort area" built by the French, the Malagasy are accustomed to seeing "white people," which makes her less of a spectacle and allows more room for privacy. The view from her village is awesome and reminds her of Smith Rocks in Central Oregon. Her words were "insane natural beauty."

Corie loves her new home, "so cute" she says. Two rooms, each 7x7, with concrete floors and a tin roof over her head. From what she has described, I imagine that she has enough space in one room for her bed, and for a table, propane stove and a few shelves in her "kitchen." Her treasured possession from home is her pillow, which she gravely missed last time. Her friends the rats are back in her house, but of little concern to Corie. Such a strange child! Her bathroom and shower are much nicer than the ones in her last home (not really IN her home). Still a hole in the ground, but walled in much better, and the shower "room" has "really cool" bricks on the floor.

I suspect that Corie will soon be losing some of the weight she put back on while in Eugene. She says she hasn't been able to find much to eat besides rice, beans and leaves. No wonder that Cafe Yum and Burrito Boy seem like gourmet meals to her! She promised me that she is filtering her water, which comes from a well close to her home. If any of you happen to write to Corie, feel free to nag her about filtering her water. You could even remind her about her susceptibility to giardia and intestinal worms.

The village is small, about 400 people, very poor. The homes are scattered and far apart from each other. The climate is less wet than her last site, so the rice harvest comes only once a year. Rainy season there is Dec. thru March. We failed to ask what people do the rest of the year.

Corie said the natural landscape is indescribably beautiful. She said she was awestruck when she arrived. Tall limestone spires (Tsingy) surround the village and provide a home to the lemurs. It is no surprise that the area is under development as an eco-tourism destination. Corie's work in the next year will be to assist in this development of the tourist campsite adjacent to her village. She has met many of the people she will be working with from other NGOs and says they seem to be energetic and committed.

Corie was taken on a tour of some of the caves below the Tsingy that the tourists visit. She relayed this long story about a king and his people who hid in the caves during a tribal conflict that took place in the 1800's. I assumed that her French guide had told her this story in English, only to find out that he had spoken Malagasy to her. The ability to quickly acquire a new language when there is no other means for communication is amazing. Anyway, as Corie listened to the story, she assumed it was just that....a story. When she entered the caves, she saw bones laying on the ground positioned as they probably have been for well over a hundred years. The bones were not in piles, but laying in the forms of full body skeletons. She saw the king that she had learned about and his son. The guide explained how they were able to determine gender, age, and identity....just like a National Geographic story.

Corie's return to Madagascar, though difficult for some of us who like to worry, is exactly what needed to happen for her. I have no question that she is in store for an unforgettable and life-changing experience that will undoubtedly forever shape who she is.....and she is a beautiful person.

The best news.....Corie has cell service. She can leave her phone on all the time and she doesn't have to put it on the roof, or stand on a table to talk to us.

More later......a somewhat relieved mom, Cindy

Got a surprise call from Corie on her own phone! Best part of that news is her new phone will work with her Solio solar charger that she used last time in Mad, and she is supposed to have reliable cell phone service in her new village! That was one of the conditions of PC site selection this time around...better and quicker communication with all PC volunteers. She called from Diego Suarez, her banking town (a 5 hour bike+bus trip from her village). She described Diego as a huge town with large hotels and lots of tourists. More white people than she's seen since in Tana, the capital. I've heard one of the hotels has a swim-up bar which I imagine Corie will discover at some point. There could be as many as 5 vols all banking in this town. PC has a house where they all stay on their 2-3 day trips to town. She hopes to get a PO box in Ambilobe, a large town only 2 hours by bike from her village, so she can get mail more frequently. She will be installed in her village, Ampotsehy, on Friday. She's very excited about her new village, yet a little nervous as well..new job, people, responsibilities. She managed to learn the new Malagasy dialect pretty well and thinks she will be able to understand them, but maybe it will take a little longer for them to understand her due to the dialect. She enjoyed her swearing in ceremony and the press and TV stations were covering it and had their pictures in the newspaper. The 14 retuning volunteers have been eating lots of American food while training and enjoying hot dogs, tacos and a great turkey dinner. Due to safety problems in other African countries, she said Madagascar could be gaining as many as 37 more volunteers. Guinea PC vols have already been evacuated and Niger might be next, so she might be called back to Tana soon to assist in training the new volunteers. She said they are all in Environment assignments, like her, which is why she might be needed to help. All her luggage arrived safely and she will be heading to her village with at least 60 pounds of toothbrushes, toothpaste, eyeglasses, books and art supplies! She thanks everybody who gave her these items! She said the Madagascar political situation is slowly evolving. The 4 current & former leaders are still trying to form a transitional government that will last until the elections are held in June, 2010. Things are moving very slowly on this front. The weather is hot and muggy. That's all for now!

Corie found a computer and posted this on her facebook on Tuesday on her last day of training:

Corie is done with her week of training, ate awesome thanksgiving food, (kolokoloko...that's malagasy for turkey. needless to say, my favorite word in the entire language.), swore in as an official peace corps volunteer today, and is flying to Diego tomorrow morning!!! off to year #2 of service, wahooo!!! Still no address but my number: 261-327409750 if you want to text ;)

Another call from Corie! She's doing great and all healthy now. Her last day of training is tomorrow. Had 2 language classes and thinks the new Malagasy dialect in her region will be hard but not nearly as hard as starting from scratch like before. She's been eating mostly American food that the staff has been preparing while in training. They are having a bbq tonite, Thanksgiving dinner with the Country Director next week, then there will be a swearing-in cermonony and dinner at the Ambassador's home, then she'll be transported to her site. People tell her that her village is right across the road from the Ankarana National Park and the view from her house will be spectacular! Weather has been hot and rainy. She hopes to buy a phone in the next few days so folks can skype her (it's the cheapest way we've discovered...just check the time in Mad on this blog prior to calling). She said we probably won't hear from her until she is situated in her village sometime at the end of next week.

Hi everybody. Dad again with a cool video I just found done by a former PC volunteer in Madagascar. Check it out at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5d9KvnMBXk

Also a few more details...Corie will be on the other side of the island this time. In a small village called Ampotsehy. Go ahead...Google it and you'll only find 5 entries and no pics. My best friend and I searched online for about 3 hours a month ago and couldn't find it on any maps. It's very close to the national park called Ankarana. Across from her village, there are weird rock formations called 'Tsingy'. Corie's really excited to see this park and all the animals (lemurs, crocodiles and more!) I found a youtube video that has some French campers exploring this park, including video of Tsingy. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcG_6XAl76E

and one more showing Mad wildlife

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxz3foPr-Qk

Got a call from Corie this morning to tell me she arrived in Mad just fine, although a day later than everybody else, she said it was pretty easy to catch up. She was using a friend's Nokia phone and said she was hoping to buy her own maybe next Tuesday. The flight was fine and all her baggage arrived OK. She was also feeling much better and I guess the extra sleep did her good. She's very excited about her site as one of the supervisors told her she was placed at that site for her artistic abilities. They are developing some eco-tourism cabins at that site and would like her help with developing brochures and signage. She also said that she was a little concerned about culture-shock due to her 8 months in the USA, but as soon as she landed in Mad, she felt as if she were 'home'. She also said the PC doctor gave her some meds and also an H1N1 vaccine. It was great talking to her and finding out she was healthier than when she left. Hopefully she can call again next week.

Hi everyone. This is Corie's dad, back in the blogging seat. I'll be updating frequently when we hear from her. Flight left Eugene late on Saturday due to ice on the wings. So she missed her Sunday flight from Washington DC to Johannesburg, South Africa. Had to reschedule and leave DC on Sunday instead. Here's an email she wrote Sunday, and we got from South Africa today:

So I just got into South Africa, no idea what time it is there, or what day or anything I'm so out of it, hahaha. Just wanted to let you know I got here ok and should have no problems getting into Madagascar tomorrow. PCorp is picking me up and we're gonna go to training when I'll be basically exactly 24 hours (fashionably) late. No worries, glad I got to sleep in DC hotel, it was much needed. Probably won't have time to pick up a phone in the airport like I was hoping, so it might be a little while till you hear from me...but know I'm safe and most likely happy.

The flight to SAfrica was good, lots of movies, sleeping, food was actually good...overall its been an easy trip. People were really nice to me and helpful when I landed too...good welcome to Africa :)

I hope you guys are doing good! I'm sad I won't see you for a long time, but I know that this is where I need to be right now, the time will go by quicker than I expect, and you guys will be there when I get back. Love you sooo much! I'll talk to you again when I can.--Corie

Corie's last Madagascar email update 3/14/09 from Tana, the capital, where

she'll leave to fly out of the country on Sunday:

Hey everyone...

Well, just wanted to send you my last update from Madagascar. Got some very sad news. I'm not sure if you all have been following the news here (not like Madagascar's news probably makes it a lot of places). So... Peace Corps Madagascar has decided, along with the US Embassy here, to suspend the program due to political turmoil. All Americans, except essential embassy employees are being told to evacuate the country. There are two parties battling for power right now, and many people have already died in riots and protests. The president is corrupt and the mayor of the capital city is trying to overthrow him. Neither seems to be stepping down, and neither wants to negotiate as of now. So... we leave, and pray that when it is safe, we will be sent back. I am going to South Africa tomorrow to be "processed" which basically means to be retired into an official "returned peace corps volunteer" do a bunch of paperwork and go through a physical and stuff. Then I should be home, maybe in about a week. A shocker and very very sad news....heartbreaking. It is so hard to believe this is happening...it all happened so quickly. It's hard to explain it all, but I'm just letting you all know I'll be home a year earlier than I thought. Thank you everyone so much for reading, and for your continued support and for taking the time to respond sometimes. I have appreciated it a lot. It's been the wildest ride of my life and I will never forget my time here, and I would do it again in a heartbeat, even if I knew I'd be evacuated. I'm looking forward to seeing you all, and hearing what you all have been up to. Take care...

See you soon,

Corie

Corie called about 6:30am (PST) on Christmas day because she wanted to be the first to wish us Merry Christmas. Cindy told her it was the best gift she could ever give us, especially since she is also feeling much better--her leg infection and coughing bouts are much better now. She sounds very happy and told us she'd had two holiday lunches at friends houses and Christmas dinner the night before. She had, in her words, 'cow', veggies and potatoes. She had stayed up most of the night on the 24th after attending church with her adopted family. Her village did a live nativity scene and hung decorations of coconut palm fronds everywhere. She said it was very pretty. She was calling surrounded by group of friends and handed her phone to one named Oscar who wished up Merry Christmas and said Corie was a good friend --in pretty good English! Her 26-yr. old 'sister' has braided Corie's hair in very tight little 'corn-rows' and said it only took her about an hour. She then described what New Year's celebration would be like in her village...a 5 day party, both day and night. Everyone starts with church on the 31st, then parties from 1pm to 5, then more praying and dancing all nite 'till morning. Lots of bottled rum is available. After sunrise, everyone sleeps a little bit, then they start all over again in the early afternoon. People are now buying 'cow' in preparation for the festivities. We also asked about her tattoo and wondered if anyone commented on it. She said they thought it was cool, and that it wasn't unusual there except that women and girls don't get tattoos. They are not supposed to do this. All-in-all, she really sounded in great spirits, and was planning to bike the 2.5 hours North to Marantosetra, her banking town, to pick up her last dose of PC antibiotics, get her paycheck and visit the post office. The post office visits usually take half of the day. Lots of waiting in line. If she gets a package, it's further complicated as then she rides all across town to pick it up at the Customs office, sign all the forms, pay the duty, then ride back to the post office to deliver the paperwork! **whew** She also has been playing music for her friends on her ipod. So far, the favorites seem to be any kind of Marimba, Paul Simon's live album from Central Park and James Taylor's 'Mexico' hit.

Skype is working pretty well. She calls us when her phone is on and charged. We talk for one minute, plug in our earphones (one ear for Cindy, the other for me) then we call her back on Skype with our computer. While she was doing her in-service training in Tana in early August, she met the U.S. Ambassador in the capital. After the IST (PC loves those acronyms) where she learned about grant-writing and solidified her project ideas, she went on a mini-vacation with friends to Isle St. Marie. Some pics are shown on the right. When she got back to her village she went to a concert & fair in her banking town, Maroantsetra. Then back in her village to lead her Environmental Club (5 high school kids) on a short camping trip to a small nearby island, Nosy Mangabe. (see the map)

They took a short boat ride to the island, hiked around all day in the rain, all made notes in their notebooks, saw lemurs & their babies, special rare frogs and lizards including one that looks like a leaf (see pic) and stayed overnight in the island shelter and pitched their tents. She said it was really fun, but raining much too hard at night to do their planned night hike. hen the boat ride back to her banking town they decided to all stay overnight at Cories rented house in Maroantsetra ( she chips in rent with other PCV's and it acts like a base camp they share in the banking town). We might stay there when we visit her this summer. It has electricity!

Projects she is now working on include:

> teaching how to raise chickens for profit and building their coops

> building efficient clay stoves for better heat and using much less wood (see flyer)

> leading the Environmental Club

> teaching a higher yield rice planting method

> painting murals

> re-stocking the village library with better books, organizing a library open house and getting more folks to start library cards

She finished another mural on the side of a friend's house/store in her village. They sell coffee, beer and bread. the subject matter was 2 friends sitting at a table drinking coffee. The liked the mural so much they named the store after Corie! Translated from Malagasy language, the name means "makes you feel all settled." That's it for now!

Corie's adopted village family is very sweet. Corie is also not a vegetarian anymore. She's been adding fish and shrimp to her rice on a regular basis now. Although summer in her village brings very stormy seas, so not much fish is available now. Fruit is also rather scarce now, but in different times, lots of starfruit and bananas are available. She's been working hard outside in the rice fields, which is turning her skin brown and developing her muscles. This also brings the usual comparisons ...Corie works hard every day. Her neighbors have warmed up to her now. A typical day finds Corie roaming the streets and gets her many invites to sit on neighbors porches and talk. This is part of her job as she learns the customs, more of the language and also what's important in their daily life. She's learned how to weave mats, more about Malagasy humor and feels like she's turned some people around who were previously a little scared of Corie. Villagers are very superstitious and belief in ghosts & witches is very common. They all have sayings and proverbs that they live by. The mayor of her village wants her to paint another mural on the commune building. When I called Corie this summer in response to a cell phone text that her phone was charged and she wanted to talk, I called early and woke her up. She answered in Malagasy and continued to talk in Malagasy even after I told her it was dad on the line. She laughed and told me she sometimes dreams in Malagasy language now. After her trip to Tana, she learned how to write grants and work with NGO's in Mad. In prep for this trip the mayor called in all the surrounding communal village reps and 15 presidents of the councils to meet with Corie and present their ideas. These are some of them: a group wants to hike into the forest and plant a tree nursery to develop a firewood source, another group of 15 farmers want to learn how to plant a higher yield of rice, a women's group wants to learn how to make the more efficient clay cookstoves, (see the instruction sheet Corie illustrated) another... how to raise more chickens. Most days sees her up at 6am, 6:30 at the latest. If it's past then before she opens her door friends are knocking wondering if she's sick. She's in bed by 8 or 8:30pm...exhausted after working in the fields or riding her bike to neighboring villages. There are roosters everywhere, in fact a big rooster fight took place on her porch the other day. Rats are also around. A rat ate part of her shirt recently. She also found a large scorpion in one of her file folders and called in the kids to get rid of it. The kids don't know how to swim and are very afraid of the water. She also was asked to teach English in the middle school. She's excited to do this and her teaching methods differ greatly that the very formal 'French' way: copying word-for-word what the teacher writes on the board. The kids took her to a party the other night and they had several DJs and brought in generators from other villages.

**whew** Corie's dad again after a long 'blackout' period. I FINALLY got into her blog after Google changed stuff and her password didn't work. Now I have about 4 months worth of notes from phone calls to transcribe. So this is from my notes back in August. Lots has happened since then. Here goes: after this training she's back to Tana then back to her village. All is quiet as no family has any money. It's between the rice harvests so prices are up and the weather is bad. Corie is gaining some level of respect in her village. She is also designating her OWN rice field and planting using the double-yield method she was taught by PC. Some in the village think she's a witch because she does things differently than they have done for thousands of years. Her pet cat (unnamed as of yet) is not really happy at home. The rats in her hut are bigger than this kitten so its not much of a deterrent, and the kittie doesn't like it when Corie leaves for the day. Corie's legs were infected with the common microbes and pretty swollen, so she was forbidden to go into the rice fields and urged to keep her legs dry. she's taking antibiotics prescribed by the PC doctor, so they are finally starting to work.

She attended a friends 're-burial' ceremony. A big deal over there. On a five-year anniversary of a death the body is exhumed with a ritual and then the bones are cleaned and re-wrapped with much ceremony. The body is then placed in a coffin in a cement box above ground with a thatch roof. This ceremony took all day and it rained the entire time. The family brought huge buckets of cooked rice and large banana leaves for plates and spoons. After the ceremony, they fed hundreds of people this way.

Back to the village on monday!

So my in-service training conference was good. Bullets because I'm lazy.

* The food situation was awesome....I ate pizza....yes, pizza. Awesome. Last night was delicious too, a lot of people had left already, but there were still about 20 people in the volunteer house because there were health and education volunteers travelling through town too, so we decided to make a big family dinner of enchiladas, salad, and of course, rice (but it was just a side-dish, imagine that!!!!) So yes, food. One of the main reasons I was looking forward to coming here. Maybe next time though, I should remember that it's not always worth the stomach issues to go overboard on things like ice cream.

* Seeing my training group was beyond awesome. We went out on the town, danced, partied, oh....and learned some stuff too, haha! Now but great times were had, and got some good information too. But yeah, between the big picture sharing night and just talking about all of our experiences, it really showed how incredibly diverse this island is. Some people (like me) have not seen a completely clear sunny day in maybe months, some people haven't seen rain since they got to their sites. Some people have abundant (though that term is relevent here) food, some have very little variety available. Some have rainforest, some have desert. That, and also hearing about the cultural differences...the differences in "fady"s here (things that are taboo) was interesting too. Overall I think people are doing well. We all seem to have gone through similar feelings at some point, even though our sites and situations are so different. I feel really lucky to be in the group I'm in. We get along really well and I feel like no matter who I hang out with at any given time, I'm totally happy no matter who is there because each and every one of them are awesome. Really...it's like having a family here...we have each other's backs. One guy even dug out the parasy I found under my toenail yesterday while we were all hanging out on the lawn. Now if that's not friendship, I don't know what is! (thanks Brenden!) haha.

* Got re-inspired for work in my village. I learned some new technical things I can try out there (like grafting lychee trees, building water filters out of buckets, more about AIDS and environmental education, a crazy-amazing tree that produces leaves that are basically multi-vitamins, etc. etc.) I also talked to the boss-man about some project ideas, and also the people at WCS (wildlife conservation society) and felt like things became clearer by becoming more open-ended. Hah, that doesn't sound like it makes much sense, but basically my peace corps boss told me that whatever I choose to do with my time here will probably be fine with him, as long as I'm doing something the community wants and is appropriate for an environment volunteer. He said that if I did nothing but environmental education in the schools and with my environment club for the next 2 years, it would be fine with him. Then I talked to WCS, and they said they'd be fine with it if I just became almost like an employee for them and went out researching with them for months at a time, or worked on traditional peace corps work only (the PC boss agrees with that too). Basically, I am a Peace Corps Volunteer that works with a conservation NGO, but depending on what I want to do and where I want to spend most of my time (in my village or the forest/banking town), I can choose my own balance. I'm happy to have so much freedom, but it's so open-ended and dependent on me to make my own job, that self- discipline and motivation are going to be so key. It's good practice for me I think, since those are basically the same skills I'll need to try and make it as a freelance illustrator/muralist when I go home too. On top of all that, we also had some rousing discussions on what it is to be a peace corps volunteer versus a development worker for a different organization. The difference is, we actually live with the people, live like the people (for the most part), speak the language of the people, and overall become attatched personally to the people we are trying to help. The goal of starting sustainable community development projects is only one of the 3 goals of peace corps, and I think we came to the consensus that the other 2 goals of cultural exchange are just as important. As one volunteer put it, "the fact that I blast Led Zepplin from my porch is still doing my job because I am bringing the awesome music of the U.S. to my village". A friend told me that being an "ambassador of the heart" is something I should keep in mind. I've remembered that and I can see that even if my projects flop, still the fact that I try to smile all the time even if I'm feeling less than cheerful, say hello to everyone and/or stop and chat, be a friendly and overall optomistic and bright spirit when people are going through rough times (especially right now when it's the hungry season), work hard in their fields with them, and on everything no matter what, still makes this whole thing worthwhile and helpful. A guest speaker in training told us that if we can majorly influence just a few people's life trajectories by just being a cheerleader and encouraging their dreams, we have done enough as volunteers. It's this thought that comforts me when I look back on my last 3 months and don't see enough "stuff" I've done, or brought to them. I guess it's not all about bringing in money and building "stuff"... the un-tangible things seem like they'll be just as important too. I think I've organized it in my mind like this:

My overall goals for service:

* To do something to help my community and their environment in the long-run after I'm gone. (by doing environmental and english education. English is important because it helps people get better jobs sometimes...they can become park guides, etc. Environmental education will pay off later when the kids grow up and respect their environment and understand a little better why it's important to try and keep it healthy...then tell other people about it)

* To do something to help in the short term. (i.e. projects like building a tree nursery for re-forestation/food/cash crop production and making a chicken house.)

* To dig down as deep as I can within myself to learn from them, immerse myself as deeply as I can in their culture, learn to love them, and be as bright and happy and optomistic a spirit as I possibly can while I'm there.

Anyways, I'm armed with more technical info/ideas for projects, resources for bringing money to those projects, and a better sense of what it is I'm supposed to be doing. Feels good. I'm a little nervous about going back, since I've been speaking english for 2 weeks straight...haha. I don't exactly know where to start.... I don't have any plans for when I get back, except I'm teaching cookstove making on the 26th to a mom's group. But I think with the nature of this, you can't and probably shouldn't plan too much. One thing will lead to another, ideas will come, I'll get some things going, and will hopefully find myself busy and "in a job" soon...haha.

O.K, enough for now...... last post for awhile. May possibly be going to a AIDS awareness bike racein Tamatave in October, and if I find internet there, I'll update. (me and my PC friend might try to actually bike there!!! haha good times) Love from Mad-a-who-ha! Samy Matanjaka e! (we'll both go and be strong at the same time. wow... that sounds silly in english. You get the idea though. ) LOVE!

Corie

Greetings freinds and family! It's been awhile! Well, here's my update.... yes, I realize it's a novel, but it's been 3 months, ok? haha

So I have been in a world so cut off from everything for quite awhile now....the village is like a bubble. When it was new and I was lonely in the beginning, it was pretty hard to be in that bubble. But now that I like what's inside the bubble, it's been weird to leave it. Even going to my banking town has been strange. (I remember being in my friend's house there, trying to read a letter as the sun was going down and it was getting dark,and actually jumping a little when my friend turned on the lights for me. woah. electricity.) But the capital today...being in a big city. Seeing alot of other white faces. Seeing all kinds of fruits and vegetables for sale. Taking my first hot shower in 3 months. Switching my greetings back to official malagasy. Speaking a lot of english too. Eating cheese. Wearing socks for maybe the second time in 3 months. Anyways, it all doesn't sound like much maybe, but I'm feeling overstimulated, and already sort of miss being in the flow of the village life.

So yeah....the village life. Where to even begin. Maybe you heard that I was having a hard time for awhile from my parents, or maybe I wrote you aletter, trying desperately to feel connected to something familiar. Anyways, it was hard, and admittedly, still is not easy. But life is about 10,000 times better. Here's why:

~ #1 I got better at Malagasy. When you have no one to speak english with,the language comes quickly. Though there's still whole conversations between people that are lost on me, and I still probably speak like a little kid, but I'm good enough now to: explain how I'm feeling about something. Argue about some things. Make jokes that people laugh at. Stand up for myself. Overall, I get by...and I can speak well enough to show some personality. So that was the basis of everything to follow!

~ #2 I made friends! Let me introduce them: First of all, I sort of adopted a family, or they adopted me...not sure how it happened. They are a 20-30 something couple with 2 kids, a boy and a girl. (the girl is the one in the video I posted). They are completely awesome, and I drop by their house usually twice a day. The mom has a laugh like Beavis from "Beavis and Butthead" (remember that show?), and she laughs a lot at her own jokes like my own mom... cracks me up. They take care of me as if I was their blood. Hired a babysitter for their kids so they could do the 20k bikeride at 5am in the pouring rain with me to the town where I caught the plane to come here, just to see me off and say goodbye, then rode back. They tell me they're there if I ever have a problem, and when something comes up, they seem to give me advice that could have come straight from my parent's mouths (if they too, spoke Gasy, haha). Then I have my gang of teenage boys. A couple of them are in the environment club I inherited from the last volunteer. I thought they were so abnoxious at first, doing this stupid voice all the time that was their joke. It became a "if you can't beat em', join 'em" situation, and one day, I started doing the voice. They slapped me high fives and I became one of the clan. That, and I am really probably a teenage boy at heart, so I crack jokes with them, and laugh at theirs (if I understand them). One of them, without fail, comes by every night after dinner, just to talk, listen to the radio or play cards with me. He brings over his friends who are scared of me sometimes... one by one they've started getting used to me. He's even started doing what some of the women do: cook food for me to make me "tamana" (well-settled and comfortable in a new place). He'll ask me if I like a certain food, I'll say yes, then the next night he comes over with the stuff and we cook it together. Also, he somehow knows how to fix everything that breaks in my house. He's my best friend in the village. Also, I definitely do the "imposing my friendship on people" thing I talked about in my last blog. Sometimes it can take half a day toget from one end of the village to the other, since I just sit down with new people on their porches or whatever and hang out. Not exactly completely comfortable all the time, but I'm becoming more outgoing. Or if I pass by and someone says hi and yells "mondrosoa!!" (come on in/over!) then I go and chat/do what they're doing for awhile. (p.s. my dad must havemisunderstood...not rude to leave if someone's doing a chore.) Anyways, got some good people I feel like I can trust. Still imposing friendship on people, looking for more...haha.

~ #3 I started working the land with the people. When I first got there, people were harvesting rice, I did that a couple times with people. Then took a break from going to the rice fields when my feet got infected (they're fine now, a call to the doctor and a dose of amoxicillin from my med kit....plus there were little leeches on them in the forest and bug-parasite-things laying their egg sacks in my toes, and I lost 2 toenails to the rice paddies....my feet are ugly...haha. p.s. but don't worry it's really not as gross as it sounds!), and by then it was time to plant new rice. So I started going with different families on the days they went. It's a great way to kill time, make friends, gain people's respect and learn more about rice farming in general. It's gotten people talking about how I'm not afraid to work hard and get muddy (mud literally up to my hips sometimes...and I'm tall. I feel bad for them...they're pretty short.) So yeah, I love it actually, it's fun, I've gotten faster and better at it, andI'm looking for a little plot of my own, so next time I can work the improved rice technique and do trainings for people with it (plus don't have to buy rice if I grow it myself!)

~#4 I should also mention I'm used to eating rice 3 times a day, and can almost, aaaalmost eat as much rice as them. hahah. I actually gained the nickname "kamo mahandro" with some people, which means lazy cooking... haha. Yeah I cook rice and some type of boiled greens usually, sometimes fish and sometimes beans, but that takes too long. I've never even opened the cookbook peace corps gave us, haha. There's actually not a ton of food to choose from anyways, I eat what they do. But actually there's stuff that's really delicious and I crave it now...it's called soaba: boiled manioc, sugar and coconut milk, made into this porrige stuff. Amazing. Also this huuuuge potato thing that grows underground and is as big as a log. Weird food, but I like it.

~#5 The music and dance. There's so much reggae it's not even funny. If you know me pretty well, you know how into that I am... lucky dube and bob marley are always on the radio in my part of the country. And the Betsimisaraka (the group of people in the area) have awesome awesome music....can't really explain it...loud, fast, acordian, guitar, keyboard, reggae beats too...just really good. I had my friends write out lyrics to my favorite song here, and can kind of sing along to it. They love that...whenever it's on the radio they're like, "corie it's your song!" haha. Also, there's been a few dances, and it's like the one time I stay up past 9pm in the village. They love that I go dancing with them, it's really really really a good time. Wish they had them more often... when they do, these people know how to party.

~#6 I have a sense of purpose here. Remember that stuff about learning whatthe people want before starting projects? Well there's techniques and activities we can do to figure it out. I held a huge meeting a couple weeks ago for basically all the important people in the commune (community of all the little villages around mine, the commune head). So only about 5 of the10 villages showed up, but it was the presidents of the different associations around, so I got a lot of good info, but still should probably hold another meeting. I've also been going around to the different associations and asking them to all get together so we can meet each other and talk, so there's been a lot of those too. So far, I've gotten more ideas for projects than I can possibly do in 2 years I think, but that's good. NowI just need to sort through them and figure out #1 who the most mazoto(ambitious/diligent/with the most follow-through) ones are probably going to be, #2 what's the most directly effective in helping the environment here, and #3 what I can actually get done with a peace corps budget and time frame. So far, I know for sure that once school starts in september, I'll be working with the environmental club in the middle/high school more and teaching them environmental curriculum once in awhile, taking them on week-long camp-type things through the forest to teach stuff at the little villages that are waaaaaaaay out in the boondocks, and doing projects together (we've already built a fuel-efficient cookstove as an example, so now we can do more....maybe sell them to make money for the club's trips, and already planted a ton of trees in the schoolyard out of the tree nursery started by the last volunteer). Also, I want to work with these two associations in the neighboring village that wants to work on reforestationin their rainforest and also learning the improved rice farming. I just took a giant hike with them through the territory they are supposed to "save" according to a certain NGO I won't name, that signed the territory over to this group of villagers, but it's been 4 years and the've gotten absolutely no help or money to do any of this "saving" business, and were brushed off when they asked. They told me they've been waiting for 4 years, and they thanked God that I came. Yikes. Also I need to write a grant to get this other association money to buy a chicken house and bring in a chicken raising technician because #1 there's not enough protein, and food in general, and #2 if they don't get enough domestic meat, they eat lemurs. not joking. So starting with that. Here in the capital, we'll learn about grant-writing and getting projects off the ground and all that, so that's cool. Oh also I painted a big mural about health in the hospital, in the room where the moms rest after they give birth. It's a lady holding a baby, in front of the Malagasy flag, and pictures of the 3 food groups people should be eating everyday, with a message about it in Malagasy too. People seem to like it...at least it brightens up the dingy place. Sure felt good to paint again too! I also got the "go-ahead" to paint like 3 more...haha. One in the middle/high school with the environment club, one on the commune building (where the mayor and stuff works), and one on the preschool. Sweet!

~#7 I live 5-10 minutes from the beach, and a 2 hour hike from the most beautiful place Ive ever seen. That place is a waterfall so powerful and magical it would take any and all other thoughts out of anyone's head, surrounded by rainforest. I hiked there with a bunch of people, and climbed a ton of crazy rocks to get to this one beautiful lookout point with only acouple of them. Sitting on those rocks with the one person I was saying is my best friend in the village, just looking out at it, is probably one of my best memories so far in madagascar. Overall, the beauty of this place is unexplainable...you'll just have to come visit and see for yourself!!

ok...so now for the bad, haha.

- Still living with people in poverty. Yep, now used to not having the comforts of back home, but I know I still can always go back, and still will never have to worry about not having enough money to get by. Even on the small peace corps salary, I bet I still have more money than the mayor. And I always have the option of going home. No matter how comfortable I am here, no matter how good of friends I have, I will always always have more than them. I will always stick out. I will always live in a fishbowl. I will always have to think about who is really my friend because of who they are and who I am as people, or if they just want something from me. And I always have it in the back of my mind, that eventually, I'll have to leave them. A lot of things separate me from totally fitting in. The other day my friend who is in the environmental club told his mom that I was "already Malagasy"and his mom said "no, corie is white. she is a vazaha, and when you are a vazaha, you will always be a vazaha." Though the moments I forget that, and they forget that...the moments I am just another person, just Corie, joking with her friends, not Corie the vazaha, are the moments I cherish here.

- People here can be judgemental. It's sort of the culture to talk about people behind their backs, or even in front of their faces as if they're not there, and to compare everyone to everyone else. It gets more than a little aggravating. I try to ignore it. Also, people here just like their gossip...and they like talking about the vazaha (me,the white one)...it gets old. I just try to ignore it and as my family here says "just do good work, make friends with people who you like, don't worry about the others and what they say".

- Not going to go into a whole "it's not fair, the poor people are suffering" bit, but it's not fair, and they are suffering.....just for the record, and it makes me sad. Now, it's personal.

Anyways, life is good, I'm doing well and feeling like this is where I want to be. Take care everybody, and send me letters! haha

Love you all!!! Tsara mandry mifoaha e! (let's all sleep and then wake up! literally....but it basically is like sleep good)

Well, I’m finally here in my village. It’s been about 3 weeks here and 3 months in Madagascar. Let’s just say, it’s been one hell of a rollercoaster ride since I’ve arrived at my site. Imagine this… You’re a bigshot from L.A. and you move across the country to some tiny town in Georgia. You don’t really have the same customs, but the moment you arrive, the town makes you their city council man-woman….without knowing what’s really going on in the town. And, you look completely different from everyone else. Oh, and you can barely speak the language. And, it’s not Georgia, it’s Africa. It’s like that.

It’s been rough and it’s been awesome, and it’s not consistently either. It definitely gets better every day. I’m still trying to figure out how everything works here: the politics of the town, people’s relationships, what’s taboo, when people are hungriest throughout the year, what natural resources are most endangered here, and what my place in this community is going to be. Also…trying to figure out who my friends are. I’ve gone around and introduced myself to a lot of people so far, random villagers and the “lehibes” (the VIPs like the principals, the doctors, the heads of the women’s and men’s groups, etc.) Some people seem to like me already, some don’t want anything to do with me until I’m fluent in Malagasy. Some don’t understand what I’m doing here, some think I’m a godsend because I’m white, some don’t want me here because I’m white, etc. But it’s the ones who welcome me with open arms and don’t seem to expect anything from me in return, that make me feel like this whole thing will be worth doing and that I can handle it emotionally. I can’t tell you how many people come over to give me food, or how many of the zaza madinikas (little kids) help me get water, do my dishes, cook food, sweep the floor, and most helpful of all, learn Malagasy.

So far, that’s what I’m supposed to be doing right now; learning how to live here and learning the language. I think what’s been the hardest for me is not having a schedule really, though I’m starting to get busier. Being an American, I’m used to a faster pace of life, it’s hard to slow way down and to just be glad if I get a couple of things done in a day. But, I’ve taken my parents’ advice and started trying to fill my days, and do something that makes me happy each day. We’re so focused on results and getting things done as quickly as possible. It’s a shock to be thrown into a life where people kill time by braiding each other’s hair. But, that means you begin to take the time to appreciate the present.

Anyways, I’ve got a lot of ideas for projects, but the key word in my life right now is PATIENCE! In August, I go back to Tana to learn about writing proposals and grants. They don’t want us doing that just yet, as I said before. Then, after that, we’ll all start our projects. People have already expressed serious interest in a basketball court for the middle school (already have a budget written up!) Also, I’d like to help them raise chickens. The chicken situation is this: they obviously know more about raising chickens than me, since I’ve never done it in my life. But these “Gasy Chickens” just roam free, they don’t really put them anywhere at night, and I can’t always tell whose chickens are whose. How they ever can astounds me! People steal the eggs and the chickens and they feed them when they feel like it with rice hulls (not enough nutrients), so the chickens are scrawny and lay very few eggs, so people either don’t get enough protein or they get it in other ways, i.e. bushmeat (Lemurs, no joke, ….Tenrecs too…so cute….. it would be sad if they went extinct),

They already have a society together, but need me to help write a proposal to get money to bring in technicians to teach them a better way to raise chickens and ducks and to send someone to Tana to bring back the eggs of the improve “vazaha chickens” and to have enough money for vaccinations and building chicken coops. Then we’ll teach their friends. That’s the plan so far. Also, people want to build the improved cookstoves we learned to make in training…fun to make, cheap (you can build one for about $1.00 or $1.50) and it really helps families because firewood isn’t super easy to come by. Either it’s expensive because they use so much of it, or they have to walk a ways to harvest it from the rainforest. The stoves use way less wood than what they use now. And, being an environmental volunteer, I sort of think anything to slow deforestation is awesome.

Also, I got the go ahead to paint a mural on the hospital wall, one of the four rooms, one of the maybe 3 or 4 buildings that aren’t wood/thatch/bamboo that I could paint on. It’s going to be about nutrition…an idea other develop agencies here had: the M’car flag is red, green and white (look it up) the red is protein, the green is vegetables and fruit, and the white is staple foods (rice, lots of rice)….an easy way to understand balancing your diet. Also, some farmers want to learn about SRI, system of rice intensification…..again, feeds people, while cutting back on forest degradation (lots of food in a small space). And, we’ve been planting trees every Wednesday at the middle school with the environmental club there. Also, I want to teach art… I sort of just let them draw now. My walls are covered in their pictures! When I get better at the language, I’ll be able to do more. All just in the idea stages, so we’ll see what actually happens….but it’s really nice to have ideas coming to me already…..all have been theirs, other than teaching art, so it goes along with the sustainability philosophy. If they want it first, it’s good.

As far as daily life goes….I wake up, make rice for the day, do household stuff, go talk to people (I’m getting better everyday I think…it happens fast when you don’t have the option of speaking English), go on a walk/explore stuff, go to the beach with the kids, come back and read or draw, talk some more with kids until I tell them to go home ‘cuz I want to eat or sleep. I sort of just go and see what people are up to, (working in rice fields, weaving mats or hats, etc.) , or they come to me. It’s hard to describe what it’s like here, but I’ll leave you with some examples from the assignment my college English teacher gave me for my time here. The assignment: describe one image or moment from each day in 10 words or less. I’ve been pretty good about doing it consistently.

• rocking in warm sea water at dusk

•Tenrec fianakaviana (family) crosses my path

• kids sleeping on mats in church while parents sing. (I went to church to see what it’s like….fun/long! But they dance!)

• mom chameleon laying eggs in the rainforest

• rainbow through clouds on early morning bike ride

• Franklen yelling AZAFADY in her little girl voice. (She’s the cutest 5 yr. old ever….and say “azafady”,excuse me, all the time when she’s pushing around the older kids.

I’m trying to focus on the positive and remember that with time I’ll feel more comfortable and start to carve out a life for myself here, even if I never fully understand what’s going on. In the meantime, I take it moment by moment, day by day… learning to slow down and look at the view because it’s BEAUTIFUL here. Trying to remember why I came here. I’m experiencing life in an intense way. That Third Eye Blind lyric comes to mind. “ I’ve never been so alone, and I’ve never felt so alive.”….also the Queen one: “It’s the terror of knowing what this world is about, watching some good friends screaming, “get me out!” It’s a lot….Every emotion is intensified here, and can change in an instant…..sure I get bored on the lazy days, but my brain always seems to be taking in so much new information and I’m just trying to process it all. By the end of each day, I’m exhausted mentally and physically. Harvesting rice while trying to make conversation in Malagasy = mahreraka be! (makes me so tired), Anyways, more soon.

Love to you all,

Corie

Just a few days after Father's Day, Corie called and we called her right back using 'Skype' (computer to cell phone at 35 cents per minute. She can only call when she charges her cell, which happens when she visits her banking town, about 2.5 hrs via her mountain bike. It had been over 3 weeks since we'd last heard from her so it was great to learn the adjustment /transition to village life was better than her first week in the village. She decided to focus on the positives and she's also starting to learn this dialect of Malagasy. It's totally different than what she learned in training. The language uses lots of metaphors and for example, she now knows like 5 different words for 'cat'. She's made good friends with members of the Environmental Club started by the previous PCV. In fact, several teens come to her hut every nite to talk, play checkers and cards and keep her company until about 9pm. They say they feel sorry for her because she lives alone. She has a 2-burner propane cook stove in her hut and is able to cook meals more easier than most every other villager. Health wise, she's doing OK except for small sores covering her lower legs. Some sort of microbes or chiggers they say that all PCVs get. The villagers wouldn't let her go into the rice paddies anymore because her legs needed to stay dry to heal. They were on the verge of infection when she called the PC doctor and he put her on anti-b, and also gave her some allergy meds, even though she's not having any allergy problems now. She then described a...

TYPICAL "Mad-a-who-ha" DAY:

Up at 6:30, cook rice then open the hut door prior to 7 otherwise people knock on her door to see if she's sick! Then go down the street to visit her adopted 'mom' who fixes her good coffee and more breakfast rice. The walk across the village (takes about 30 minutes) visits with folks then back to the hut for lunch (more rice) then a siesta like the rest of the village. After nap, time to write or draw because afternoons are pretty rainy now. Not much time spent at the beach because of rain this time of year. Village life is mostly centered around rice. Talking with folks and helping them harvest or process rice takes most of the afternoon. She said it's 'Eat to Live' and 'Live to Eat'. Most of their existence is centered around planting, raising, chopping and harvesting their rice crop...all by hand. Drying the rice means spreading it all out on a mat after it's chopped and literally watching it dry all afternoon and shooing away the chickens and birds, who will eat it in a minute. If she visits with a family while they are working, it's considered very rude not to stay and help them until their chore is finished. It might take her the entire day just to visit one or two households. At night she is entertained by the teens who visit, eats dinner and lights a candle if she stays up past dark. At 9pm, the end of the day, she's pretty exhausted emotionally and physically.

It's been a real adjustment for her but after 2 months 'in-village' she's finally learned to relax and go with the flow and not get so uptight about not having an exact daily schedule of accomplishments. She got a little kitten (all the cats are named 'Mimi' to help get rid of the rats in her hut, but Mimi needs to grow a bit. The rats are bigger than the kitten right now!

On June 26th, Madagascar celebrates independence with a huge 5-day party. All the smaller villages around hers come and visit. They set up a big stage and sound system with generators brought in for the occasion. Corie was asked to give a speech and introduce herself to all the villages. She practiced and did it. Her friends said she appeared a bit nervous but did OK, but others said she did great for a white. The party starts every day around 10am, stops at noon when everybody goes home to cook rice for lunch and a short nap then back at 2 when the party and dancing starts again, breaks for dinner then starts up again. Corie asked to go to the late nite party and her teen friends tried to talk her out of it. Too much bad liquor there and too late. She persevered and learned the dances and said it was a great time. The teen boys protected her and were pleased that she went after all.

She recently took several teens to Rantabe, about 3 hours away by bus, and attended a large 2-day meeting of Environmental clubs hosted by Wildlife Conservation Society. She stayed at the school and enjoyed the trip. That's the news from the phone calls. We expect the next call in mid August when she'll visit the capital city for a large PC meeting. She should also have Web access then for a few days.

The mayor has given her the OK to start a mural on the clinic exterior wall. She was going to much earlier but the head nurse died unexpectedly and Corie attended her funeral and was told there was a mourning period when it would be disrespectful to start a project at her clinic.

bolatsara!Faly be zaho satria vita Fiofanana sy handeha Voloina!!! (Im so stoked because training’s over and I'm going to Voloina! Well… stoked may not directly translate…but that’s the idea. haha) As of yesterday, I’m an official Peace Corps Volunteer and development worker representing the US government!! That sounds way too important. This is going to be a long one….but it will be the last email for probably 3 or 4 months! But you can still snail-mail me and I would love it more than you even know. Please? And If you want to send me mixes of your favorite music, or any new stuff coming out in the US that I'm oblivious of, I would love that too, since I’m buying a discman today!) I promise I’ll write you back!! My new address is: Corie Hinton, C/O Wildlife Conservation Society

B.P. 106 Maroantsetra 512 Madagascar And if you want to call me, my cell phone number is: country code for madagascar

(261) + 325509535. You may have to dial 011 first just to get out of the US also, but I'm not sure. Ive heard Skype is the best way to go, (only 28¢ per minute) or find a calling card online can be good.I’m excited and nervous….those always go hand in hand when life is about to change a lot all at once. New village: scary/awesome. New house with no one else in it: good to have privacy again, bad because Ill be alone when the creepy rats munch stuff at night and run over my legs….haha…I need to get a cat, both for company and for rat security measures…STAT! Maybe I’ll just borrow one from someone for 2 years. Good thing we bought those flea collars Dad! (Maybe I should wear one too at this point….Oh my god, the fleas in this country!) New people: also scary/awesome. They aren’t just new though, they’re new only-Malagasy-speaking-people! But I’m excited to make friends with these incredibly warm people. Am I ready yet? Training has flown by, and as scary as it is to jump right into this, I want to just jump right into this! So, what will I be doing when I get there, you ask? Good question! For the environment sector of PC, it’s very grass-roots and un-structured. A lot of us have different NGO’s around the country that we’ll be partnering with, but primarily, we work with our communities. For example, the education or health volunteers have more scheduled 9-5 type jobs, and we are kind of just out in the boonies, figuring out what’s most needed for the people and the conservation of their environment, and figuring out how to make it happen. Some pretty classic examples: chicken raising for money and protein, tree nurseries for firewood, environment clubs in high schools, improved rice farming techniques to take pressure off the forests, water sanitation projects, reforestation projects, solar energy projects, family planning education, handicrafts for income generation, etc, etc. All of it is so interconnected though, and the sectors bleed into each other all over. So, for the first 3 months, Peace Corps doesn’t want us to start any big projects, because their whole idea of sustainable development relies on giving volunteers enough time in the beginning to just hang out and get to know the people and the local politics, and figure out what’s actually needed and wanted most. I need to do a lot of PACA (Participatory Analysis for Community Action…it’s basically a series of activities that PCVs can do with groups in the community to get information from them about what needs improvement. Once we figure it out together, then we take action and the community is involved and motivated to help themselves along with me. That’s key. (For example, some NGOs will just go into a community and build a water pump or something, without sticking around long enough to teach people how to fix it when it breaks, or without taking the time in the beginning to make sure that the community actually really needed and wanted the water pump in the first place. That’s the type of situation that PC tries to avoid.) I’ll act as the networker/facilitator; the one who has the hook ups with the NGOs and with people who are really mahay (skilled and knowlegable) and can be brought in for trainings in the village; the one who can speak and write English; the one with a cell phone; the one who has the hook ups for funding back in the US and here; the one who has white skin (which sadly but truly, sometimes gets me taken seriously faster); the one who has access to a library full of books and an office full of people to help. So I’m not here to be an expert on anything like rice farming or chicken raising: I’m here to find the people here who are experts, and bring their knowledge to my village. I’m here to bring in funding for projects that I’ll try to make as sustainable as possible. I’m also here to share what knowledge I have to offer as an individual. Here’s what I want to accomplish in the first few months: - Start a garden and compost pile by my house: I will need food, and also it’s good to experiment with growing foods that the village doesn’t grow yet. Oftentimes people won’t try to grow new crops because they don’t have the money to spend on seeds that may or may not grow. But I do! Then I’ll let them know how my experimenting goes. - Build stuff! Play around with making a solar oven/food drying system and random other stuff I learned how to make during training. Same concept as above…if it works, info sharing! - They want me to do a mural on the wall of the hospital….in the room that the new moms hang out in after they’ve just given birth. Definitely will be educational as well as calming and pretty and all that….fetsy-fetsy (sneaky). - Make friends. That seems like it’s going to be the number one priority. Not just because Ill be lonely, but because without friends I won’t learn the language, and without the language I can't do PACA well, and without the information I get from PACA, I wont be able to really responsibly start projects. SO, friends are key. Very key. I can see myself just walking around and plopping down next to some lady selling bananas or something, and imposing my friendship on her. And the kids already want to help me and be my friends from what I can tell. I’m really weird here, and kids tend to like really weird.

So... random recent notes of interest (maybe): - Had a huuuge fety (party!) for all the host families, which made it like a 200ish person event. It was a mad feast (haha get it, mad as in cool, mad as in -agascar. not funny? oh…) No but it was a great time, and my family kept saying they were sad and my little sis kept saying I couldn’t leave yet. I gotta say, my family here rocks and I’ll miss them. Towards the end we were pretty comfortable around each other and it was a lot of laughs all the time. - More fety-ing since we’ve been in Tana. We gotta say goodbye in style right?!! Who knew this country had nightlife? I really really really love my stage (training group), they are an awesome bunch of people and are all new good friends that I can’t wait to hang with over the next 2 years! - SAW THE RAINFOREST!!! We took a trip to see Andasibe reserve near Tana. It was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever experienced. One part of it was primary rainforest (like old growth….huuuuge-ass gorgeous trees) Yes, I saw lemurs. It was amazing to see them just jumping around in their natural habitat, and they look like moving teddybears…..but they are little sheisters! They peed on my friend from 30 feet above her head, and stole my other friend’s shoe while she was sleeping in her tent. We found it the next morning, maybe 100 yards away. What else could it have been? - I met the head of the environmental education sector of Wildlife Conservation Society (which I will refer to as WCS from here on out. What can I say, peace corps and their affinity for acronyms…it’s growing on me). He was nice, and will visit me in June when we have a big meeting for all the environment clubs up on the northeast coast. Also Greenpeace is coming, and they want to meet all the PCVs in the area! - After 3 re-occuring nightmares 3 nights in a row, I’m officially off Mefloquine and on a new malaria med. Nice! Oh, and while we’re on the medical subject, I’m no longer scared of needles!! …thanks to having shots pretty much weekly since I’ve been here. And my health is just fine. - I have not stopped talking about a bean and cheese burrito with green sauce from Burrito Boy since I’ve gotten here. And I don’t think I’ll ever stop craving it. Someone look into DHL-ing me one. ASAP. Hahaha - I passed my final language test!!! I’m “intermediate-high” at speaking Malagasy! It’s coming along, and I’m trying. With some understanding and patience from the people I’m conversing with, and a lot of “mora mora azafady!” (slowly please!), I think I’ll be able to get by.

Well I guess that about sums it up. My life here is definitely not without its challenges, but overall I’m very happy, healthy and excited to start the next chapter of this journey. Goodbye everyone for a few months! I’ll leave you with this: Tsy miasa loha, mitziky sy mazotoa ny fiainana! (means don’t worry, smile and enjoy life!.... “Don’t worry, be happy” never sounded so cool!)

Peace!

Corie

Mbalatsara!!! (OK, apparently there is a dialect within the dialect of betsimisaraka, within the language of Malagasy....thats the third greeting Ive learned, but now its the right one!)

So I'm stuck back in Tana (the capital city) on my way back to training from my site!!! I don't have much time, but here's the breakdown. folks:

- I flew from Tana to M......setra, a cute little beach town that sort of, kind of, sees tourism, but mostly they are either the high rollers who roll through on five star prepaid tours around the bay and the small islands around it, or they are hardcore trekkers who managed to make it all the way up to the town by boat or taxi-brousse on a ridiculous road. But its great!!! So then the group of us split up and went to our separate villages surrounding M.......setra (3 of us). Me and the volunteer (Rachel) I'm replacing biked the 24km there on a beautiful road that sometimes runs along the beach!!!

- Stayed at her house that night and the next, which will soon be my house. Its got 2 little rooms, one she keeps as a public place and one is just hers. Its made of wood boards for the basic framework, with a tin roof and siding made of grass-ish stuff. (see photo) So cute!

- The weather was very warm and humid, and it didn't rain in the 3 days I was there!! ...That was apparently very unusual.

- It was a whirlwind tour of the village and surrounding village. I met the heads of the womens group and men's farming group, the environmental club that the volunteer runs with high school aged kids, the principal of the middle/high school, and a ton of random neighbors and of course, was always followed by a pack of children varying in age. Overall, the people seem very very warm and welcoming. I think I may have already inherited a grandmother! There are kids who already began helping me with language and were already all smiley and cute and not scared because I'm white. Thats definitely an advantage of replacing someone who is already posted in a village, rather than starting new.

- Culture shock again...the village is in a completely different part of the country. The people are more in-your-face and loud, its kind of great. They're subsistance farmers, and don't have much, but when a kids gets a piece of bread or something, they break it into as many pieces as they have siblings, and put it into their pocket to give to them later. Seems to be even harder times than the village I live in now. They're such cuties though, and seem smart.... some of them know their Lemur species like nobody's business!!! I'll have some big shoes to fill with this environmental club they've got going. I've already gotten some ideas for projects that people talked to me about while I was there. YAY...a jumping-off point! Peace Corps is only ever in a village for about 6 years ( 3 volunteers), and I'm the last one in mine. I'll have to kind of tie up the loose ends of other people's projects, and make sure the most important new projects get done first. It's like a relay-race!

- Oh my god... I'm going to live by a tropical beach! It's incredibly beautiful & I can't wait to go see the undisturbed rainforest. It's definitely got a ton of vegetation around the village, but the rainforest that's barely been touched is about a day's hike away. I'm so so so excited!!

Gotta go, but I hope everything's good there. Love!!!

Manahona! (Hello!)

Wow...I can't believe it's true, but I am writing from M...(city), Madagascar by candlelight! I am on a stimulation overload right now, but I'll do my best to describe the past week-ish of my life:

STAGING; Somewhat silly and leadership, motivational-speaker cheezeball, but also had some good info in there too. Mostly it was just good to finally meet everyone else in my stage-group. There are 32 of us, ranging in age from 22-34, from real estate brokers to lawyers to engineering majors to art majors (ha) to of course the Enviro people...the ones who actually study this stuff alot. Everyone, and I really mean everyone is so nice. Amazing how quickly you bond & make friends when no one has any around and you're all in the same boat with everything.

SOUTH AFRICA; Literally, THE best hotel I've ever stayed in. They greet you with wine & sushi in the lobby...this is Africa?? It felt amazing to walk off that plane though...um...how long have I wanted to go to Africa? Since second grade? I've literally dreamed & daydreamed about the day I would set foot on this continent for years, & schemed different ways of doing that. It's an indescribable feeling...I was tearing up a little. So S.Africa was cool from what little I saw...nice people, cool accents. Oh, and the 15-hour from D.C. was totally do-able with 4 movies, late night & morning being in that plane was like being in a time-warp. Conversations & some good/bad joke-telling! The flight attendants came over

more than a couple times to tell us to be quiet. Those damn Peace Corps people again

...the little troublemakers!

TANA; Anyways, we flew out of Johannesburg an hour late,

and got to Tana around 3am. I don't even want to think about

whether or not I would have been awake then in Eugene. DC,

Jo-burg...traveling this far really messed with my body clock!

Madagascar from the plane was breathtaking...green and red: rice patties & red dirt, both are bright!...it's gorgeous. We were greeted in the airport with welcome banners and smiley, enthusiastic, ridiculously tanned current PCV's (um Peace Corps seems to have a thing for acronyms...kind of obnoxious...that one is Peace Corps Volunteer) From there, we drove into Tana (Antanarivo, the capital) to the PC house there and got some shots (Rabies! Cool! Bring on the Lemurs!) and we learned how to pee in a bucket/shower out of a bucket--no, not the same one. Then we were off to M---(city) our training town, 2.5 hours east on Tana. So, I knew Madagascar would be poor, but I didn't realize how much so. For the 'Lord of the Rings' nerds out there...picture the Shire, but tropical. If you've ever thought the Shire would be a cool place to live...come to Madagascar! Little hills and the cutest houses you've ever seen, streams & waterfalls & brightly colored paint on a lot of the buildings. It's hard to describe, but I'll take some pictures and try to post them. Oh, and every inch of space not taken up by rice patties, houses and roads is covered by this incredible vegetation. I've never seen anything like it, and we're not even in thee super-rainforesty part yet!

I already love this country. I feel like I'm in a fairy tale or in some author's made-up land inside their head. It doesn't seem real. The people are incredibly beautiful. Most I've seen have big hands and feet, which sounds gawky, but it's nice on them. Straight-ish hair and high, pronounced cheekbones. In Tana, they varied a bit more in features and skin tones. Diversity here is surprising and nice. So anyways, when we get to the training town, we pull up and I'll never forget when the headlights suddenly shined on 100 smiling Malagasy faces! PC staff called out our names and one by one the host families ran up hugging their volunteer and kissing their cheeks before grabbing their arm to pull them off into the jungle towards their home. My host mom was immediately just that...motherly. And my 15 year-old sister immediately started Malagasy vocab words and continued the whole way home as my mom held my hand.

Their house kind of reminds me of a tree fort: two stories, a ladder with a trap door at the top! cool! They weren't kidding when they talked about Madagascar's poverty being one of the worst. My family has more than many Malagasy. They live in a 3-room house: kitchen (a big open fireplace and a few buckets and pots with a table to eat from (about a foot off the ground..I'm too tall for this country).

and two sleeping rooms, one of which they cleared out for me (guilt...but I know that PC gives them a generous stipend) and the other room where the mom, dad, 2 brothers and a sister (all teenagers) share a bed!

We eat rice 3 times a day (so far, the food's good!) and we shower outside from a bucket and also do our business in a shack with a hole in the ground. First time I waled in there I'm like uh...no TP? That's a cultural difference I'm not willing to compromise! luckily, PC gave us a roll! I wish you could all see how little these people have. Its quite shocking.

They are eager to teach me and they smile & laugh a lot. My sister's going to be my new best friend! Haha...she's the only one that knows any english. She's a bright curious girl. PC itself has mostly been shots (10 more to go) & interviews for our site assignments, where we'll all be placed after training ends in early May, and a little bit of language. Overall, I am already in love with Madagascar and this new life. Nothing like showering outside at 5:30am and the weather's already the perfect temperature and the baby chicks are clucking outside the stall (little stick fence). Oh...the kids are incredibly cute! I might come home with one. Or five. (Just kidding, mom). Basically that sums it up...so much beauty...so much poverty. It's hard to get my head around it. Mostly though, the happy spirits of everyone I've run into makes it hard to feel sad for them and at the same time, for barely being able to make ends meet. I love this...I know I'm in the right place. I'm not worried about much...I'm doing fine health-wise. I can't wait for you to come see this place. It is other-worldly. I know I've never been out of the country, but it's seriously that beautiful. Even the people who have traveled alot seem to think so too. I hope you guys are doing good. I'm thinking about you alot & love you so much. I've literally traded in everything from my old life for a new one...I know that...but now I just feel such a relief that I am happy with what that is. I know there will be bad days, but right now, I'm basking in the new-nesss and wonder of it all. You guys are gonna love this place! I'll take lots of pictures & show you soon, hopefully. I love and miss you all. (it's past my bedtime at 9:30pm...what???) Veloma (bye)--Corie

So hello from Madagascar! This is a French keyboard..... I apologize in advance! So where to even start... I'm sitting here in Tana, the capital of Madagascar with about 10 or 15 other trainees. I sent a letter to my parents (yes... snail mail) so when they get that, they can let you know more, but for now, lets just say life is challenging in so many ways, and absolutely incredible at the same time. Some highlights/interesting info about my life here:

* Yes, Ive seen a lemur... but it was literally tied to another one with a string around its waist... in a little park about an hours walk from my little village. It was way cute, but also sad. BUT I SAW A CHAMELEON ON THE WAY THERE!!!! So rad.

* I live with a Malagasy family that is also awesome. Mom, dad, 2 teenage brothers and a teenage sister.... a houseful for a tiny 3 room house. I'm slowly learning to communicate without using 99 percent hand gestures and:or receiving lots of laughs or blank stares. I taught them to play war with cards and now me and the other kids play by candlelight almost every night after dinner. My host mom reminds me to dress warm whenever it rains, and heats my shower water (bucket shower outside) for me: They are caring and super good people. My siblings and I laugh a lot... (a lot of the time its because I did/said something funny/embarassing/totally ridiculous to them... but I'm all about laughing at myself here) We have an inside joke. Once I called a pineapple 'manasasy'; when it's really called 'mananasy'. So now I call it the wrong thing on purpose everytime and it cracks them up. Everytime. I'm a lot funnier in Madagascar than I could ever hope to be in the USA. I'll take what I can get.

* the other trainees ROCK. I've gotten close to 2 girls especially.... people refer to us as the 3 stooges or just 'trouble'. It's good to have support/people to laugh with and be sarcastic and joke around with/talk about stuff with. But the whole training group (32 of us) is really really awesome... we get along well and have a lot of fun..... such good times. We're staying at this huuuuge house right now while were in the capital... so much like a huge frat house, but for Peace Corps. These people are great..... laid back, funny, and like-minded. So good.

* Peace Corps training is language classes (I'm learning Betsimisarika dialect of Malagasy) and technical training, where we learn stuff like how to make good compost or how to improve rice farming...I'm constantly muddy... no joke, but I'm kind of alright with that. Its information overload though.... pretty challenging.

* I found out my site( where I'll be the 2 years after training)... it could not be more amazing sounding.... the area in the North Eastern coast of the island. I'll be on the beach, near the most bio-diverse rainforest in the country.... I've been told I hit the site jackpot, but will probably have some weird jungle illnesses (minor, mom!). It rains like 9 months out of the year, but its hot, and I'm an Oregonian.... I can deal with rain. I'm sooooo stoked. We get to visit our sites in about 2 weeks. YAY!!

* I wake up at 5:30 or 6am everyday and go to bed around 9pm. I haven't used an alarm clock yet. A little different from my old sleeping schedule!

* Rice: its whats for dinner. and lunch, and breakfast. Everyday. No joke.... but its pretty good stuff with beans and veggies, and the fruit here is out of this world. It's easy to be a vegetarian here... I might as well be a vegan actually. My host mom is a good cook. (How am I going to learn to cook well on a fire???)

* Life is simple in some ways (no electricity, no running water, no tv or computers in the village or cars besides the P.C.Land Rovers and taxis in Tana) but I kind of love it. Life is also really really busy and full with training. My brain is constantly filling up with language (plus my host family speaks a different dialect from the one I'm learning in class....brain...explode!!!) and farming/environment/education info. It's a lot to take in, but I'm super-inspired and I'm sooo excited to start service when I 'swear in' on April 30th.

* This place is SO beautiful, its impossible to explain. Theres like 50 different plant species in a square inch it seems like. Amazing.... I can't wait to go see the rainforesty parts of the country!!!

* Poverty: ridiculous. In my tiny village and here in Tana.... too much to explain but it's shocking. I went to an orphanage today and Im not even really done processing it. I had to hold back the tears at one point, and if you know me, I'm not really a crier. I held some babies, watched the older kids dance for us, and practiced my Malagasy with them while painting and drawing with them. Amazing kids.... their stories break my heart, but the Malagasy people/

Ex pats working to preserve their safety/ improve their lives tenfold are super-inspiring. Amazing day.

Well I guess thats it for now, I miss you all!!! Life is great and insanely different and I'm having an incredible time here and can't wait to start doing some good work in this amazing country!!! LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!!

Veloma! (bye!)

p.s. dad, feel free to copy/paste this into my blog... internet is too slow here. Thanks!!

Dear friends and families of the new Peace Corps Trainees,

We have just completed our first full week of training! One down, nine to go. The Environment and SED trainees have requested that we send you an e-mail to say that they have arrived safe and all is well. Aside from sun-burns and a few stomachs adjusting to the new microbes, everyone is doing great. They will have access to email and the internet within 2 or 3 weeks, so you may hear from them soon. In between technical sessions they learn language (18 different dialects here), and about the Malagasy culture. This photo was shot after a gardening session.

Best regards, Barry Duncil

US Peace Corps Volunteer/Technical Trainer

.

On Monday, we were instructed to call the PC Mad desk in Washington. We learned that all 32 new volunteers had arrived in-country safely. Corie at 22, and and one other girl are the youngest of the group. The oldest is early 30's. They were all safely at the training center in the high plateau area, which is good because 3 days earlier if you read the news, they had a severe typhoon hit Madagascar on the southern coast. It caused damage and 13 people died. The desk told me all the PC staff in that area were also safe and accounted for. **whew** Corie has applied for a home-stay for the 3 months in training, where she will live with a Malagasy family, eat breakfast with them and then attend classes until lunch which is typically a 2-hour break back at the home with the family. Afternoon means back to classes at the training center, a total of 6 hours daily language instructions and more classes 'til about 6pm. This happens 6 days a week for three months. She'll be frequently tested on Malagasy language and must pass proficiency tests before being sworn-in as an official Volunteer (rather than a trainee). Toward the end, she'll be interviewed repeatedly, then posted to an assignment! More as we hear word.

Corie called Tuesday, Feb. 19th, the night before she departed for Johannesburg, S. Africa. She was really excited about her time in DC. She arrived Sunday, 2/17 about 5pm, met a PC pal from Wash state at baggage claim, and they shared a taxi to their staging site, a Holiday Inn in Georgetown. They met up with a few more e-mail PC pals and wandered Georgetown shops and restaurants, then hit the sack early as they planned to spend Monday am (Prez Day) on the Capitol mall before their first meeting at 2pm. They had a blast visiting the Natural History Museum, African Museum and a few monuments. She enjoyed the staging meetings and said it was great being with cool like-minded 'Nature Nerds' (her words) as they did many team-building and leadership touchy-feely type sessions. Unfortunately, she was also coming down with a cough and slight fever. They had sessions on policies, safety and even had a massage circle session. On Wednesday the plan was to get up at 5am, a few more meetings, then leave for Dulles airport at noon for a 5pm depart for a 15-hour non-stop flight to Johannesburg. Spending Thursday night at a hotel near the J. airport where they were advised not to leave the premises. So PC folks were bringing in beer and food for a big 'welcome to Africa' party in the hotel. On Friday morning, they boarded another 4 hour flight to arrive in Madagascar.

Hi everybody...I'm Jim, Corie's dad. It's 5:30am on Sunday 2/17 and we just got back from the airport. Corie leaves at 6:30 to Seattle, then from Sea-Tac to Reagan airport in DC, where she'll gather with the other 30 PC Madagascar Trainees for three days of 'staging' at a hotel in Georgetown. She's meeting another PC Trainee from Utah who arrives at about the same time. They'll travel to the hotel together. They get a night of free time in Georgetown, then dive into the staging on Monday morning. 3 days of that then depart on Thursday, 2/21 for a 15 hour direct flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. They will go thru customs, stay overnight in Jo and then a 3-4 hour flight to Tana, Madagascar. *whew* jet-lag supreme! Cindy & I are so very proud of her. --more when we hear an update. stay tuned!

Yes, I did just quote a David Bowie song. (Extra points if you can tell me which one...love it!)

T-minus 15 days and counting. I'm ridiculously excited, but there are a couple minor things that make me slightly scared:

- Never been out of the country, and I'm going to the 4th most poverty-stricken nation in the world (so I've heard), and literally, about as far away from home as I could possibly go, without coming back around the other side of the globe (unless you count space travel)...can someone say, culture shock EXTREME! But that's kind of what I was going for anyways.

- I keep reading about these infamous madagascar bugs that lay eggs in your feet.

- I don't know any French, besides like, "bonjour" (is that even how it's spelled?), much less Malagasy...and I'm not particularly good at learning languages.

I was talking to a friend last night about life (so dramatic), and we were talking about how you can have long-term goals, but you can really only PLAN your next move because you never know what that step will change in your life. All I know is that right now, joining the peace corps and going to madagascar is my next move. Who knows what doors it will open, and what I'll want to be doing after that. (But note to self: you like art. Do not forget that it makes you ridiculously happy).

When I talk about Peace Corps, people ask me if I'm scared. Sure, I'm scared... no one in their right mind wouldn't be scared in some way I think. Another thing people say very often is something along the lines of: "OH I wanted to do that too when I was your age, I wish I had done it." So yeah, I am scared, but I'm not going to let that stop me. (Another note to self...that last sentence....live by it maybe? haha).

Ahhh! packing is driving me nutters. one pair of jeans for 27 months? I have to start wearing skirts a lot? really?

Here is my address till May. Write to me! Trust me, I'm sure anything you have to talk about, even if it's just britney gossip , will be more than welcomed simply because of the fact it'll be in english.

Corie Hinton

Bureau du Corps de la Paix

B.P. 12091

Post Zoom Ankorondrano

Antananarivo 101

Madagascar

Peace out homeskillets.

Obama:

"To restore America's standing, I will call on our greatest resource - not our bombs, guns, or dollars - I will call upon our people. We will grow the Foreign Service to renew our commitment to diplomacy. We will double the size of the Peace Corps by its 50th anniversary in 2011. And we'll reach out to other nations to engage their young people in similar programs, so that we work side by side to take on the common challenges that confront all humanity...."

word.

I was looking through old paper journals today to find a blank one to take with me, and I saw this in one of the old ones:

Part of a journal entry from October 29th, 2003:

"Life list: ...Get BFA, join the peace corps, go to africa, study/observe/live in a rainforest, skydive, go to madagascar.... (etc. etc.)"

I basically can't believe how lucky I got. I've wanted to go there for a long time...something about it grabbed my attention at some point, and it became so important to me that it got on a life-long "to do" list. I literally could not ask for a better assignment from Peace Corps. Seeing as I didn't have ANY say in my work assignment, and only a request (which may or may not have been granted) for somewhere in the continent of Africa for my placement, I'd say I got pretty darn lucky in the end. Helping to protect one of the most bio-diverse places left on the planet? Living in Africa for 2 years for free? Please somebody pinch me... Thanks life... !!!