"'Cus even in Madagascar,

we'll find some shack below radar"

-Gogol Bordello

Back when things were beginning to turn sour in Madagascar, I remember being frustrated when Google news couldn't feed my information addiction regarding the pending coup. English-language articles that came up from a search of 'Madagascar' were mostly about the release of 'Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.' Though this would soon be hilariously ironic, I couldn't figure out why this was more news-worthy than a tempest of cyclones, looting and massacres. I still don't know why it didn't get covered as extensively as it might have, but I've been looking at Google trends, and it seems to validate that it was bad coverage, and not my information withdrawal, that sent me into such anxious fits at the internet cafe.

Here's the first plot, showing web traffic and news reports for Madagascar since 2004, to give you an idea of how coverage of the movies compares to the coup.

The first thing to notice is the relative size of the peaks in overall traffic, at 'A' and 'B,' to the average level of traffic and subsequent coup traffic. The next thing is that the news coverage, shown on the bottom line, was fairly responsible -- small peaks for the movies relative to the coup. Also notice that peak A is quite wide -- beginning around the 'Madagascar' release on May 27, 2005 and taking until mid-2006 to return to a normal traffic level. It also has a secondary peak corresponding to the DVD release on November 15, 2005. Since the release of the second film overlapped with the period of turmoil, we'll just have to assume that the traffic peak for the second movie at 'B' has similar traits. This means that when we look at traffic for 2009, the high baseline at the beginning of the year is mostly residual activity from the movie release on November 7, 2008.

Here we see some stranger behavior from the news publishers. There's a small hiccup in late January, when the looting and shootings took place. The greatest news activity only happened when the president peacefully stepped down on March 17.

So far, we've seen that web users care more about movies than Malagasy murders, regardless of how much noise the news makes. We also might hypothesize that the internet-based media mailed this one in. It missed all the real action and mostly covered an event that was pretty much a forgone conclusion in the minds of anyone paying attention. But is this true everywhere? How do other coups stack up?

Honduras suffered a coup in June 2009, just 3 months after Ravolomanana stepped down. I've graphed activity for Honduras and Madagascar in 2009 on the same chart so that we can see the relative intensity of the coverage.

All of a sudden, that huge spike on March 17 looks like a speed bump next to the Honduran Himalayas. This makes sense. To get to Madagascar from the east coast of the United States, you need 19 hours and $5000. And there are probably more American expats in Honduras and Honduran expats in America than is the case for Madagascar. You can't report what you don't see.

But come on - there were more articles written in Romanian than in English about the crisis in Madagascar. Romanian! I don't even want to think what that would look like in terms of articles per fluent capita!

Certainly, there's a lot this data can't account for. (Was the coup in Honduras more unexpected and sensational? Is there a disparity of the level of access to telecommunications in the two countries? What effect did World Cup qualifiers have on the traffic?) But I can't help but wonder if there's a certain amount of negligent laziness that determines the news we see and the news we don't. What do you think? And seriously, what's the deal with the Romanians?

Dear Stage of Love,

May everyone be enjoying this first stage of their new adventure! I am minutes away from being shuttled to the airport for my flight to Tanzania, and have that nervous, excited feeling all over again (did it ever go away?). And I'm thinking of you all and missing you. Please know that you are all loved so very much and more than invited for a visit to Tanzania. I'll be updating my blog soon with site info and such. And I would love it if we kept up this blog, even just to send notes to one another and share stories. You all are with me always...can't wait to see you again...state side, africa side, or elsewhere in the world. I love you!

Peace,

Tara Magnolia

So the 2008 Environment group blog experiment is over. As some of you may have heard, Madagascar has had some political turmoil lately. The Peace Corps program there, along with all other "non-essential" US Mission staff, have been evacuated. The service of the 2008 Environment stage is over, interrupted just before the half-way mark. So as we split up and go our separate ways, --traveling around the world, going home to eager families, transferring to other Peace Corps countries-- I'd like to look at where the blog succeeded and where it fell short. If your the kind of person who hates "meta" (blogging about blogging), don't bother with the rest of this post.

First off, I just recently discovered the peacecorpsjournals.com website, which is a great compilation by country of volunteer blogs from around the world. It's exactly the kind of ultimate outcome I envisioned (but did not know existed) when Brendan H. first came up with the idea of a group blog. That said, I still think group blogs by training class or country have a lot of potential, mainly because of more frequent updates.

Our own little blog generated 4 updates in November, 2 in December, and 2 in January. This may seem low, but compared to the update frequency on most individual volunteer blogs, it's actually pretty good. In addition, if more people started CROSS-POSTING stuff that they put up on personal sites, the update frequency would increase significantly. If you click around a little on Peace Corps Journals, you'll notice literally dozens of blogs for each country. Seriously, even with a fast connection, who has the time to add that many sites to their frequent reading role? A more centralized way of organizing PC blogs, either by training group or country, would make the site more accessible and interesting. It also might stimulate more discussion, because as much as I love you all, at 50AR-100AR/minute, I don't have time to visit each of your sites individually.

I also think that it is not a coincidence that updates pretty much ended the week before the political situation deteriorated. I think everyone (myself included) was hesitant to post given the sensitive nature of the topic, the potential security implications, and the chance that posts would lead to uncontrolled rumor and panic both back home and with other volunteers. I can't emphasize enough how legitimate I think those concerns are.

At the same time, I think that a situation like the one we just faced is where a centralized blog could prove most valuable. With good guidelines and maybe a PC group blog moderator (either similar to PCVL or even a staff-line), I think Peace Corps Journals could be the go-to spot for on-the-ground news for things like political events, natural disasters, or other newsworthy happenings. I definitely acknowledge that this is tricky terrain, but I think the upside is huge if PC invested some time and energy.

So those are my thoughts on this mini-project, the Dagu Diaries. I think I speak for many of us when I say how truly sad we are not to be able to finish our service in Madagascar, a place we were incredibly lucky to experience over the last year. I wish everyone the best of luck in their next endeavors, and hope to see you all again at the Stage of Love 5 year reunion. Maybe we can post here to set it up!

The sky was mostly clear with a few clouds spotting the horizon and our guide, Longhead’s Uncle (Zama’ny Lavaloha), uprooted a patch of grass, turned it up side down and stuffed it leafy part first into an unsuspecting termite mound. He said that this would stop the rain. Two hours later a huge storm cloud appeared out of nowhere and we were soaked to the bone. I thought, down one Fanafody Gasy.

The rain had stopped but the dense forest cover above was still dripping as we left the cave and headed back to camp. I was taking my time enjoying the quiet calm after the storm as I was stung by some sort of wasp that left two small vampire-fang-like dots on my forearm. It hurt. Even before I had a chance to look at the damage, our guide had pulled out a homemade cream and was applying it to the sting. The pain ceased and the sting never swelled. Fanafody Gasy was tied.

We returned to the village only to be summoned, along with all of the other villagers, to the cattle path heading south of town. There was some sort of curse in the middle of the path, half way to the watering hole. Apparently the chief of the village’s husband had buried some small sticks wrapped in black cloth, a deadly curse. All 50 or so of us stood huddled around a pool ball sized hole, staring at the three finger-sized sticks when my neighbor was overtaken by an ancestor’s spirit. She bent down, threw the sticks deep into the brush and started screaming, eyes rolled back into her head, in an incomprehensible mumble. Eventually the spirit quieted and the villagers went searching for the lost evidence; justice would still have to be served. Fanafody Gasy, I thought, is eerily similar to the Salem witch trails.

As the tin roof creaked under the strength of the Malagasy sun, my neighbors had forgotten the deadly curse and began to focus on relieving our friend of her ancestor’s spirit. Rum bottles were strewn around the room and the spirit had possession of my neighbor. The spirit was speaking through my neighbor’s body in broken Malagasy, giving new taboos to various people as I searched for recognition in her eyes. Rum was replaced with water and the water was being thrown around the room, when she finally broke her gaze and was freed of her ancestor. She would remember nothing.

Fanafody Gasy is more prevalent in our doctorless village than even the most common medicines in the States. It is rarely talked about and those that know how to administer it demand its weight in gold. As I struggle to understand even the most basic forms of it, it seems to grow, encompassing more of the Malagasy way of life than I could begin to imagine. I would like to call it ‘traditional medicine’, but it includes so many spiritual, medicinal, and ancestral aspects that ‘traditional medicine’ only manages to scratch the surface.

I’m left now, confused and curious, excitedly unsure. I can only settle, knowing that I will never know the whole story. No matter how many ceremonies I sit in on or how many medicinal treatments I take part in, I will always be on the outside, peering in; looking for some sort of recognition in the eyes of an ancestral way of life that will never be mine.

This is Africa...

-where most people live on a dollar (or less) a day.

-where houseguests include geckos, rats, and cockroaches the size of your index finger.

-where you eat cassava root to feel full, even though it contains new nutrients, because you can't afford anything else.

-where kids are perfectly happy playing with rocks.

-where you shouldn't drink the water but it's too hot not to.

-where the clothes people overseas thought they "donated" wind up for sale at the market.

-where mangoes are abundant, litchis are $0.25 a pound and bananas are the dessert of choice.

-where most people feel the effect of hungry season, yet everyone has cell phones.

-where the question "What church do you go to?" is as common as "What is your name?"

-where the roads are so bad in some places that you're better off walking.

-where a bucket & basin are essential for washing yourself and your clothes.

-where I currently call home.

This is it. Africa. And while many Malagasy prefer not to be called African (they take pride in their Asian and/or Polynesian descent), truth be told, Madagascar is part of Africa. All of the above statements come from my experiences the past year here in Madagascar. I frequently experience TIA (This is Africa) moments when I am riding my bike through rolling hills & rice paddies with the sun beating down on me.

Madagascar is one of the poorest African countries. I think that people sometimes forget about it since it is an island isolated in the Indian Ocean. But the facts are startling: it was one of 10 countries with the worst per capita growth rates from 1980-2002 (-1.9%). Madagascar is more poor than the continent of Africa (with the exceptions of Zimbabwe & Sudan). If Madagascar continues to experience a 6.3% economic growth rate, as it did last year, then by 2025 it will have only caught up to the rest of Africa. Sometimes it is hard not to wonder "How do Malagasy even begin the journey towards development?" But then I am encouraged by the motivation and strength of the people. Like the farmer/welder who rode his bike 80 kilometers to attend one of my trainings. Or the bicycle repairman who sought me out, wanting to expand his business to include selling spare parts, and subsequently completed a 4 page business plan in one day. These are people that know there are opportunities out there for them and they are willing to work just for a chance at those opportunities. People that will take the initiative rather than wait for handouts that may never come. So at the end of the day, when I contemplate returning back to the States before my 27 month service is finished-tempted by images of toilets, light bulbs, and ice cubes-the people are what keep me here. I know that I'm not going to change the world, or even Madagascar, but I hope to provide, even to just a few people, the opportunities that we, as Americans, are born with.

-Sasha

Most all of you know by now that rice is a cultural obsession here in Madagascar and that it is eaten by the heaping plateful at every meal. When I am invited to someone’s house, what acts as more of an indicator of how Gasy I have become than my level of fluency in the language is the amount of rice that I eat (“Well, he’s kind of dumb but at least he knows how to eat rice,” I can hear my hosts thinking). It occurred to me, however, that perhaps not all of you fully grasp what it means to eat rice so frequently here. Of course, you know that it’s not buying a big bag at Costco (or reusing your own at the bulk bins of the Co-op), popping it into the rice cooker, and sitting down to meal. But how involved a process is it? I’ll spare you the technical details, which us environment volunteers love so much, on this journey from field to table, but I hope you will nonetheless get a sense of why rice is more than a meal here, why its a way of life. First stop: tanim-bary, or rice paddy. In the Central Valley of California we have huge paddies - expansive, flat, mechanised operations, complete with aerial pest control – that contribute a large amount to world rice stores. Needless to say, that is a model not readily adopted here in Madagascar. Aside from not having the capital to purchase the inputs (tractors, pesticides, fertilizers, etc.), the topography is too rugged to permit such large-scale operations. There are a couple of areas, like near Lac Aloatra, the so-called bread basket of Madagascar, where tractors are in use, but by and large, what feeds people here are small-scale, organic, labour-intensive, family ‘farms’. We have all seen pictures of Burma and Thailand with the beautifully terraced hill slopes, neatly distributing water through all the level fields. That is pretty incredible technology and speaks to the power of cultural heritage to pass along and perfect an agricultural technique over thousands of years. We have paddies like those here, too, passed down from that same cultural heritage and thought to have been brought with the last wave of Indo-Polynesian settlers maybe 500 years ago. Their descendants, the Betsileo, live on the plateau and are known for their rice culture. They build terraces every bit as impressive as the Burmese. But many of the tribes, such as those near me in the South East, don’t possess this inherited knowledge and use different techniques. The people in my region have traditionally lived in relation to the forest. Aside from harvesting many products from the forest, they practice slash and burn agriculture. After clearing a tract of forest, they grow rice and manioc on the hillsides using the stored nutrients for a year or two, until they are depleted, and then repeating the process with a new tract. But now that the forest is nearly gone and slash and burn is illegal, they are having to learn how to build paddies and manage the land more sustainably. It is hard work, and rice is now grown mostly in valley bottoms here- not yet on hillside terraces. The stages of rice’s journey that take place in the tanim-bary will be recognizable to anyone who has spent some time on a farm. First, before rice even enters the story, the paddies need to be prepared. Here, that means men and cattle will be out tromping in the pudding like mud, mixing in manure, and flattening whatever weeds grew in the off season, until man and beast are equally unrecognisable under their sun-baked, grey plaster coats. It takes a few days and if there aren’t cattle, the work is all done by hand. Then for the next couple weeks women will be transplanting seedlings, one by one, throughout the valleys. They are bent over for hours and their work is punctuated by the sounds of conversation and laughter (at least every time that I walk by or help out). I find it to be a really pleasant activity, but were I to do it for as long as they, I am sure that I would awaken moaning from a sore back. After the planting comes the weeding of course - a couple times over the next month until the plants are big enough to shade the competition. The men use tools if they have them and the women use their hands. Rice takes about three months to grow so the next two months will then be turned to other tasks. My favourite part of the process is harvest, not solely because I get to indulge in the pleasure of playing with sharp things. The men work in a line, spread out shoulder to shoulder, cutting swaths with their razor sharp sickles, as the women follow behind bundling the severed stalks with a stray piece of straw. A morning spent harvesting is an incredibly rewarding experience. It is the climax of a story that we have been telling repeatedly for the last 12,000 years (not to mention the, what, 2 million? year old roots of playing with sharp things). A fair comparison is made in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, when he describes the exultation Levin feels while participating in the mowing of the meadows. I think most North Americans, including myself, have a hard time picturing what happens to the rice next, up until we see it on the shelf at the grocery store. Maybe it travelled across the world; but even if you live in California and are lucky enough to eat Lundberg’s organic basmati grown along the I5 it’s no less mystifying where that rice has travelled and what machines, factories and warehouses it has visited along the way to transform a petulant stalk of seed heads into those pearly white maggots in a bag. You’ll have to turn to other sources to solve that mystery. I do know, on the other hand, what happens every step of the way from the fields surrounding my town here in Madagascar to my plate. It may be laborious, but it is intelligible. Once it is taken from the field, and before being dried in the sun, the rice needs to be threshed. In my area, the women take a bundle of rice on a straw mat or tarp and knead it with their feet. The loose grains fall from the matted stalks, which when removed, leave a golden pile of unhulled rice. You can imagine how much time it takes to thresh a whole hectare worth of rice in this manner, which is how much one family can reasonably handle, provided they are lucky enough to have rights to that much land. I don’t know where the origins of the word ‘thresh,’ as I neglected to pack a good dictionary in my suitcase, but after participating in the use of another threshing technique I’m sure it must be related to the word thrash. In out training village on the plateau, a big rock or oil drum is laid out, again on a mat or cleared area, and a big bundle of stalks is taken in each hand and beat against the object repeatedly until all the grains have flown loose, showering the area with loose rice. If any of you enjoy beating a punching bag when you are stressed, you should try this. Another great thing is that the whole family gets to participate. After threshing, some poor girl gets suckered into watching rice dry on woven mats laid out in the sun for a couple days, fending off the voracious chickens, ducks, pigs, and whatever else attempts to gorge itself on the oh so tempting bounty. If it is for family consumption it will get stored in this state in large gunny sacks until needed. But if bound for market, it will need to be hulled. In wealthy areas it is taken to a hulling machine, but for most families (wives) this means pounding it in a giant mortar and pestle, sometimes in a rhythmic refrain with one or two other women. If you are be or another ‘city’ dweller, this is when you get to buy the rice. In my market there is a row of people from the country, all sitting with their baskets of rice and one of the ubiquitous kapaoka, or tin can measuring devices. All the rice is the same price but there will be different varieties and varying states of unhulledness and bug-filledness (very technical terms) and it is your job as a shopper to find the good stuff. Before cooking, it still must be winnowed and washed. For many families, this process is repeated before every meal. After being picked through for unhulled grains, bugs and stones, it is tossed in a sahafa to remove any light bits of hull that are left. It now looks like what you are used to eating, except that it is of a varying shade of red, a characteristic of our special Malagasy varieties. It remains paradoxical to me that for how much effort goes into the cultivation and preparation of this culturally defining foodstuff, there is next to zero effort in the actual cooking. Attention all good Persians: read no further – what follows may horrify you. In the absence of temperature control, the idea seems to be to get the flames as hot as possible, toss rice into a pot full of water, cover, and wait. Sometimes its too dry, usually its soggy and mushy, and always the rice on the sides and bottom are burnt. Turning this into a virtue, we re-boil water in the pot and drink this as a tea. Being that most Malagasy seem to drink nothing else, this has become the national drink. In fact, it is important enough that technologies introduced to help reduce fuel wood consumption (like solar cookers) have failed here because while they cook the rice just fine, they don’t get hot enough to burn the rice. The Malagasy obviously take pride in their rice culture and know more about the varieties and subtleties of the farming practices than us volunteers can ever hope to learn, even though we are busy teaching them new techniques (S.R.I. is cultivation process that has spread throughout the rice growing world. It has yet to catch on here, even though, ironically enough, it was originally developed in this country). Nevertheless, that pride has infected us volunteers, too. There was one volunteer who, while doing business in the capital for a few days, bought a bag of clean rice at the Malagasy Wal-mart because he was tired of winnowing it. When we saw what he bought it took a little while to register in our brains, but then we all burst out laughing at the novelty of it. Now if you see me in a couple years standing petrified in front of those bulk food bins, you’ll have some idea what might be going through my mind.

As Marshall and Charlie have already so richly described, the face of death is strikingly apparent and influential in the every day life of rural Madagascar. In a continuation on the funeral theme, I’d like to share the rather impressive 40 day Sakalava Muslim mourning tradition after a death in the community.

The day of the death, a chicken is killed at the mosque. Over the following three days, many people solemnly gather at the home of the deceased, spending many hours cooking and eating very large meals, paying their respects to the mourning family and praying. Over the next month money is collected and given to the family and smaller meals are shared periodically. On the 38th day of mourning, another chicken is killed at the hour of the death, and the final 2 days are filled with group cooking and eating again, but this time the air is light, celebratory and one of happy remembrance.

And this is also where everything devolves into chaos…a sort of entropy in which everything, remarkably, settles into the right place…eventually…

The Vary (Rice) Triathlon

Leg 1. A 60cm in diameter pot full to the brim, with rice. The art of measuring out exactly the right amount of dry rice and water to accomplish this is unknown to most Americans, and after completing my two year transplant here in M/car I still don’t think I’ll understand. And if the pot big enough for a child to go swimming in doesn’t impress you, then perhaps the 1meter long wooden spoon needed to scoop out the rice will. This device is aptly called the ‘spoon tree’ and requires 3 people to operate (or maybe just 2 if neither of them is me) – one to hold the pot in place (did I mention that this is all taking place over a still very hot, but dying fire?), one to hold the giant serving ‘tub’ in place as rice is scooped into it and to scoop sticky rice off the spoon with a plate, and one to do the actually scooping – this person is standing with the pot at about knee level and is remarkably strong yet agile.

Leg 2. Now, at least 2 people must carry the tub of rice to the ‘platter preparing station’ – this leg is a challenge for the following reasons: 1. The tub is heavy and full of steaming rice; 2. to get to the platter prep station, one must walk on what feels like the world’s hottest sand; and 3. the entrance to the station is blocked by a barely visible clothesline, approximately 5 other people carrying their own bowls/tubs of various food items, and a very low porch roof that even I (5’2”) find a struggle to duck under.

Leg 3. This leg of the vary triathalon is way too advanced for me – the platter prep station requires the ability to dish out the correct number of platters of rice, construct towering bowls of sidedishes (usually 3 – one meat, one mashed pumpkiny deliciousness, one coleslaw-like salad with mangoes) and dispense this food in the correct ‘respectful’ order to approximately 50 hungry men, women and children.

Now seems like a good time to point out that the vary triathlon is a female only event, and despite its physical and mental strenuousness, does not stop anyone from speaking their mind about how things should be done (or weren’t done correctly), eg. Your side dish is just too salty or Oh my god, are we out of rice?! I would also like to share that the women of Katsepy speak very expressively and emphatically, in other words lots of arm waving, finger pointing and hand slapping. This is their normal habit. Now imagine they are all slightly excited, agitated and armed with serving spoons dripping with sauce or sticky with rice. No middle school cafeteria has seen more food flung.

Finally, we all settle down on our straw mats, 5 or 6 people gathered in a circle around platters of steaming food, introducing strong and delightful smells to our nose. ‘Bismillah’, hands dig in and as the eating begins, memories and stories are shared, sadness over death is replaced by a celebration of lives current and past, and content bellies are filled with rice.

I have often thought that Madagascar may not be quite ready for the development coming its way. Parts of the country are certainly more progressive than others and I easily forget that there are many educated, hard-working Malagasy people outside of ambanivolo (a.k.a. the bush). Still, there is a sharp contrast between the technology of the developed world and the village life where people have nothing but a grass huts, a lot of livestock, and some fields of rice and corn. Nothing drives this point home for me more clearly than the development of cell service in my village. Yes, cell phones are blowing up all over the world—especially in developing countries that didn’t have any communication infrastructure before cell phones. It is an amazing opportunity for these countries and my neighbors are absolutely thrilled that for the first time they can call loved ones that are living in other villages, cities, or even other countries. We can call about materials in other towns without having to make the day-long journey there first. It is fantastic! Unless, of course, you are the only person that can read, the only person that knows how to operate a cell phone, and thus become the “house of FAQ about cell phones”. Cell-service came to my village about 3 months ago and the first 2 months were my own private hell of cell technology. Why? Here are the top 3 reasons:

1) People did not know how to use phones so I had to teach them—no problem! Except that they can’t read so they couldn’t even figure out who was in their contacts list for the first 3 weeks and they can not follow any of the self-explanatory instructions on the phone. This meant …

2) People came by my house several times per day to ask the same questions over and over. Specifically they hate when any icons show up at the top of the phone screen. So every time they missed a call or got a message I would have to show them how to remove it… of course they can’t read any messages so they didn’t care and just wanted it all to go away. Unfortunately, this meant opening the message which was a series of 8-10 pushes of buttons to memorize. Not easy.

3) Despite being unable to read and remove messages and set alarms (that was another big task of mine), my neighbors somehow learned how to scroll through their ringtones. All day I would hear various ringtones going off—chimes of misery in such a quiet and serene place!

I must say my patience was tested during that time. I tried to empathize and think about how exciting and frustrating it is for them. They would tell me how hard it is and they were so impressed that I knew the secrets of the phones. I am happy to say that I have not had any people come by my house in the past few weeks. My neighbors tell me they are “efa mahay” (already smart) phones now. So, perhaps despite the growing pains and major frustrations of development, Madagascar will learn to develop.

-Jules

Sometimes I get to thinking that everyone in Madagascar is just part of an entertainment directed solely towards me. Before explaining, I should point out that most, if not all, Malagasy view me as the same way, whether I am leaning out of a taxibrousse waving frantically at strangers or looking directly at strangers and belting out classic rock anthems at full volume. Much like myself, once they learn to laugh at me we all get along much better. But as for the constant entertainment for my viewing pleasure, I offer the example of taxibrousse travel itself. In my experience, particularly on my journeys from my site to my banking town and back, a 3 hour ride along a crummy mountainous road, the taxibrousse can provide moments of pure hilarity. I should note that this “road,” for which a better description might be “disappearing clay sliding off moutains interspersed by massive craters,” has once taken 10 hours to navigate by brousse. So that 3 hours is just what it should take. Anyways, on the taxibrousse there are always moments that I feel are aimed directly at me. Today we stopped in a mudpit to shovel in some solid dirt for traction. The driver’s helper takes one dig and stops and looks directly at me in the front seat – he cracked the shovel on the first scoop! It hung there at a right angle to the wood handle, making a humorous L. He then continued to somehow scoop enough dirt into the pit with the spade hanging on by a thread of metal. If not hilarious, at least impressive. Also, the brousses are usually performing an Iscapades act on the slick muddy road, sliding every possible way before at the last second before a bridge or tight pass straighteneing out. Another example comes from my site visit, when I was reading Hemingway’s description of artillery bombardment in “A Farewell to Arms,” that I felt a massive bump and looked up to see our ascent of a hill “paved” with rocks with huge holes in it. It too looked like it had been assaulted by World War I artillery. Oh, anytime we have to pull over to make way for an oxen-cart, that is always a classic (my first instance of this was during training, when we were stuck in massive Tana traffic only to find out the cause were some ombys). And of course, whenever we get a few km out of town and the brousse breaks down and we have to wait for a new one (one of the two times this has happened I just walked for a few hours until it showed up for the final 10km. Everyone had a good laugh AT me that time). So an important lesson I have learned here is that humor is all around us, always. And if none of these fun things happen to you, you can always take enjoyment from the ridiculous American music the brousses play (travel just isn’t the same without Justin Timberlake followed by 80’s hair classic “Carrie”). Of course, the humor that only I get to see may leave the Malagasy feeling a bit left out, but they all get their chances to laugh as well. Like when I laugh as a bag falls off the top of the brousse, and then they all laugh when we all realize it was my bag. D’oh!

-Chris Planicka, he of the oft-creepy facial hair (and who Hobi refers to as "The Creepster")

His name is Varisoa (Good Rice), he's 26. He called me over to have a look at a strange bump that had appeared on his arm and his concerned face looked to me for an answer. I bent down to take a look and a small vein was gently pulsing below his bicep, "It won't stop Marisely." I did my best to explain to him the workings of the heart and the veins throughout the body. I explained to him that it's his pulse and showed him where else he could find it. As I was measuring my pulse and feeling for his he looked to me and said "See Marisely, I told you God created us."

The church bell, the rim of an automobile tire, starting sounding at 7 as the Lutheran pastor fervently banged away. As the congregation started milling in around 10, Varisoa was the first to arrive. By 11 the one-room school house was filled with church-goers, most of whom were under the age of 15, 6 of whom were adults and all of us were wearing our best, the same clothes we wore to the ball the night before.

The history of churches in Belitsaka started in the late 90's when a lone Catholic priest built a one-room church on the edge of town. Every Sunday the priest convened over his congregation to preach God's word. His followers were apparently never more than 10, but the onlookers, people peering in the windows watching everyone pray, ran 50 deep. As most prayer watching goes, the same hymns lost their novelty and the prayer peepers stopped showing up. Within a few years even Christmas had lost its glimmer and the priest had a hard time getting his congregation to arrive. Increasingly fed up with his lack of followers the priest stripped the building of its tin roof and plank pews and moved to the next village over. Over the next few months the building was stripped of its salvageable building materials until nothing but the cement floor was left. Belitsaka had lost its first and only church.

This time it started with a quiet Lutheran pastor and his chance passing through town, realizing there is no church in Belitsaka. My neighbors welcomed him into their home, fed him and gave him a place to sleep. The elder looked to me and said "Marisely, there is someone in town that has come to make us pray." And shot me a quiet look of "isn't that cute…"

Nowadays the congregation's numbers seem to have risen, if even only with children and the prayer peepers rarely come. It seems clear to me that there are believers in Belitsaka even if Varisoa is the most dedicated, and given the pastor's subtle mixing of traditional customs and beliefs into his sermons, I think that this church may have more of a chance at success.

As for me, I'll go.

Here's a quick roundup of happenings and travels from around the island:

One-and-a-half thumbs up for this harrowing tale from Brendan W. Seriously though, be careful with your antsis.Brittany sound's busy with a ton of different projects, all while entertaining a guest.Sticking with the horrific sounding injury theme, Chris Planicka has some run-ins with the local fauna.

Katie marvels at the human capacity for and limits of cultural adaptation.Marshall beats me to the punch on funeral musings, and considers grief in the American context surround ing 9/11. Post on the group blog next time bun master.Maureen visits Madagascar's most famous national park, and discusses the causes of deforestation.Melanie considers what makes an effective PCV. Gotta say Mel, whatever it takes, I'm sure you got it.Dan and Corey dine with the President. Did they serve rice and meat?

Ryan celebrates his first birthday in Madagascar. Happy birthday Ryan!!!Sasha watches the election results in style at the swanky Ambassador's house. Take heart SED...I'm sure we'll get another business friendly Republican administration, well...sometime in our lifetime.Finally, last but not least, Tara fasts for Ramadan and learns some great cultural lessons.Great stuff everyone. Now for those of you who already posted or cross-posted from individual blogs, thank you. For the rest of you CROSS POST! This took a long time to do, so save me the trouble next time by doing a simple copy/paste. Hope you are all well and savoring having a leader who speaks coherent English as much as we are.

If your bus-driver died, would you go to his funeral? What about your hairdresser? How about your hairdresser's 3rd cousin? If you're in Madagascar, the answer to all of these questions (at least in our community) is a definite yes. Funerals are widely attended social occasions, and they are frequent enough to seriously interupt the flow of daily life on a regular basis. We've been to three in the last month alone, and for no one we could actually name, or even picture for that matter.

The Malagasy funeral is a solemn affair...except when it isn't. The fomba (tradition) is, you bring a small amount of money to the wake in an envelope labeled with your name. The gifts are carefully recorded in a notebook, to be repaid equally when death inevitably touches your own family. The presentation of the envelope takes place in a small homem usually single-roomed and crowded full with family and other well-wishers. The body lies in the room, usually wrapped in a shroud. When the envelope is presented, the presenter speaks in a barely whispered voice. I have yet to make out a single word of the presentation, and can get little of the response (also whispered) beyond thank-you. People in the room are quite sad, sometimes openly crying but usually just sniffling. We were disconcereted when the group we were with resumed joking and laughing as soon as we had stepped out of the wake, although no one else seemed phased.

After respects have been paid, the host family lines up hundreds of dishes, and fills them with rice and beef served from enormous pots and buckets. The line of plates is sometimes 50m long. (That's 150' for you back home.) People eat their fill, and then the body is picked up to move to the fasana (cemetery.) This is accompanied by ritual wailing from many women who start in unison and make a haunting sound.

At the grave site, men have the responsibility of digging the hole and lowering the corpse, and invariably a handful of them drink copius amounts of moonshine. This is when the solemnity of the affair really deteriorates. There is often a lot of shouting and laughing as the less sober among the attendees make various faux pas. After the body is lowered into the hole, people gather rocks of varing sizes to lay on top of the grave. People are buried with certain possessions to take with them to the after-life clothing, rice, some beauty products...just the essentials.

I should mention that this all takes several hours, often from 9 or 10am until well into the late afternoon. Once the burial is finished, a list of the money and rice given to the family is read aloud, and people disperse.

We often feel odd attending these events, but at the same time it does seem to be an important part of the culture and of integrating. I'm just struck by how much more central death is to life here, and how important it is to share in mourning with the community. I would be horrified if two foriegners I barely knew showed up to a family member's wake or funeral, but here it is appreciated.

I’m not exactly sure who it was that started the rumor that ‘vazaha’ (white people) eat babies, but some people do believe that here for whatever reason. I wish I was lying about this but I’m not. Have they seen this happen? In any case I had heard this and its true that babies do cry when they see white people if they aren’t used to them especially in the countryside and unfortunately still in my village. I’ve heard this is because the doctors who gave them their shots were white so they relate us to getting a shot. Sounds fair enough and I can understand that reasoning, no kid likes to get shots and even as you get older they still aren’t fun. For the record I think I’ve gotten around 20 shots since I’ve been here and none of them were fun. Anyhow, I had heard of this ‘baby eating’ theory before but thought that was more of a myth and that people didn’t actually believe it. I had never actually been accused of eating them before, that was until a few weeks ago. I was buying vegetables on the side of the road and trying to talking to people in Malagasy. They love it when white people can speak Malagasy and while I’m no expert I was able to communicate with them and explain that I was in the Peace Corps and lived in the countryside and showed them a picture of me in my village that I carry with me for times like this when people don’t believe me that I don’t have a lot of money and actually live like they do. It sounds far fetched to them and I understand that, so hence the picture. They love pictures here so when I pulled it out I had an even bigger crowd and they all had to hold it and look at it. I then started joking that I’m the ‘white Malagasy’ and I’m not a ‘vazaha’. They loved this and agreed that yes I was indeed Malagasy. That was all of them except one woman holding a small child. She still called me a vazaha and encouraged her child to do the same, so I thought if I talked to her that might change her mind. I thought wrong. Instead she told me that I would eat her baby. Really? I couldn’t believe it, so I showed her the vegetables that I had bought and said “Why would I eat your baby when I have food?” This still didn’t work and she told me I would eat her baby and that I should by her baby some cookies. I could tell that I wasn’t going to win this, so I left. I was in a bigger city when this happened and was heading back to my village the next day and who did I see the next morning at the taxi station? Yes, the women and her baby sitting by the taxi that I always take. Of course I was then called vazaha again and asked to buy them food again. She didn’t however tell me that I was going to eat her baby, so maybe our conversation the day before changed her mind?

Brittany

Here’s a fun story: About a week and a half ago, a group of international development workers and aid agencies arrived in a small town a few communes away from mine. They were visiting a SRI (rice planting under improved techniques) project run by the local farmers’ group. The farmers specialize in a particular variety of “pink rice,” which they are working with USAID and a group called Lotus Foods (I think) to export and market this rice in organic food stores in the United States. Well among the agencies represented was a philanthropic group called A Better You (again, I think that was the name… this story was related to me by the head of the USAID program in the area). A Better You is helmed by none other than comedian/actor Jim Carrey. He decided to come along, and Madagascar President Marc Ravalomanana caught wind of his arrival and offered Carrey the use of his private helicopter. So as the local farmers, villagers and some development folks gathered around the commune soccer field, the helicopter set down and out stepped Ace Ventura himself, along with the Lehibes (bigwigs) from his organization. Carrey visited with the farmers, saw the planting of the rice fields under SRI techniques, and even sampled some of the pink rice for the cameras. Then he was back on the chopper and heading out again. A bit of international celebrity, from a relatively random source, to the Madagascar scene.

Chris P

As I am traveling back to site after a month of training and meetings and fine dining (where else can you get an exquisite French meal for $10 except Tana?) and merrymaking, I am reminded about what havens gas stations are in this country. Its not that they are anything special from an American perspective - in fact they look just like gas stations back home - but that is what makes them amazing: they are like gas stations back home in a place where nothing is like back home. Not only is it comforting for the homesick, but also for the road weary traveler in Madagascar. Just like home, it is a few pumps with a convenience store and a bathroom. Imagine a convenience store in a land where nothing seems to be designed with convenience in mind. This is a tropical country, so its hot, and it is easy to get overheated or dehydrated. For many of us that is a constant struggle and the only thing to find is a warm coke or THB. But at the gas station they have refrigeration so I can get a cold drink or, heaven forbid, an ice cream! Many shops here don’t even have an electric lightbulb, let alone a refrigerator. Then there is the bakery. Not all of them heave this feature, just like not all gas stations back home have an Aztec Grill or some such. If you are fortunate enough to have one of this style in your area, it becomes like Mecca: If I had one I would know exactly which direction it is when I am surveying trees in the forest and would be constantly pulled by it’s energy. While the bread is twice as much as the stale baguette on the corner, it is warm and soft and ….oh so delicious. With the puff pastries and turnovers and other Frenchie thingies, it is hard not to come back multiple times a day when you are near one. Now, some places in this country are more sanitary then others. In my area, as in many, people don’t even use latrines – they just do their business in the woods or, after dark, wherever they please. You can imagine the stank around those places people pick as their favorite doodie spots. So when you have been traveling and have to use the kabone (latrine) it is amazing to come across a gas station where you can use an actual toilette that usually flushes. And the sink might even have soap. There are some differences from back home, however. Here, the ‘Gasy seem to know how amazing this Western convenience is and take pride in it. Gas stations are actually clean here – usually immaculately so. They are also quite conspicuous here, where most buildings are more like shacks or crumbly brick leftovers from colonial days. They are apparently such targets that they need to hire guards at night, armed with 50 year old rifles, to deter theft, though I guess maybe it is just that gasoline is so frickin’ expensive these days. Those of you that know me probably won’t understand how I can write such a post. While I may have avoided these cesspools of capitalist exploitation like the plague back home, I have learned to appreciate even the lowly gas station in a place where everything else makes me feel like I am on a different planet.

It's been a rough trip back to site... It wasn't the cancelled plane, the free hotel, or even the twenty chickens I brought back with me, it was the regiment of bum workouts every 3 hours that have been killing me. But I'm happy to report that I've reached the level of Native. I can now survive on any taxi-brousse, even those with seat cushions made of nails.

Just kidding.

But we've almost made it back to site. Our first flight was cancelled so Air Mad paid for our taxis, bought us a hotel room, and all our meals, it was nice to live in the lap of luxury, even for just a day. But before going to the airport I had picked up the 20 chickens I was bringing back to site... they were not as happy about being rerouted to the hotel; they did OK in the bathtub (I hung my bedside lamp from the ceiling so that they would stay warm). Now we're in Maintirano and it's somewhat strange to be back. I know everyone on the streets now and can't go for 5 minutes without stopping at least twice to talk to someone I've met; it's comforting. I thought it would be difficult coming back, potentially isolated from everyone for a long time. But it took leaving and coming back for things to really start feeling like home.

I hope that things are going well for everyone else and would like to say I enjoyed spending the last week or two with everyone. Best of luck.

Marshall

Oh the taxi-brousse. Makes me think of how far we've come since we got here. I remember it very clearly: we had arrived in country only a week or two, and it was time to go to church with our host family. Our host mother, Nanee, lit up when we told her we would come. We had been warned to expect a long service, but we were actually interested at the time, curious to learn how people in our new home worshipped, and hoping to witness some exotic blend of animism and Christianity. Instead, we learned our first, painful lesson in what is one of the hallmarks of adjusting to life in the developing world. I’m talking of course about ass endurance, and our unfortunate lack of it only a week into training. Since that marathon 4 hour church affair (possibly longer actually, as our family mercifully pulled us away before the conclusion), our ability to sit on hard, uncomfortable surfaces for seemingly interminable amounts of time has increased remarkably. Between taxi brousses, official speeches, local entertainment, even waiting for web pages to load, I’d say our ass endurance has increased tenfold. Of course, it still has quite a ways to go before it approaches that of a native sitter. Right now, we’re probably at the “Advanced-Low” stage of ass endurance, where we can navigate a wide range of uncomfortable seating, but still are thrown off by a particularly nasty situation, like getting the crack between seats on a 6+ hour brousse ride. Not to worry though, I’m sure that by year two we’ll be easily sitting in even the most unforgiving places with relative ease. Someone told me that Marshall has been having people break boards over his ass to more quickly reach the “Advanced-High” or even the “Superior” levels of ass endurance, which involve sharing a bicycle seat over rocky terrain. Stick with it Marshall…you’ll get there.

On the plane ride from Tana back up to Diego this week I met an American travelling along here in Madagascar. After talking to him I realized how many “oddities” I have gotten used to here. For example, the chicen that leys eggs in my kabone (I am always psyched when I have a fresh egg for breaky!) and the issue of “vazaha”. Yes, it is a loaded word, but somehow seems the easiest way to describe a non-Malagasy person. In fact there are people in my community that call me “madam vazaha”. I personally don’t mind the word, as it is obvious that I am a foreigner here. And I Have grown accustomed to being called vazaha and having people look at me, whipser vazaha then scream in amazemznt when I speak Gasy. However, when a child is screaming vazaha at me and pointing, I draw the line. I also hate the “Sali vazaha” comments. But more than the word “vazaha”, the fact that people stare open mouth in disbelief, follow me around the market, and point out everything I bought that day drives me NUTS!!! Ther is my 2 cents. And I will also add that I now confront people when they follow me or blatently stare and they agree it is not their fomba (culture) to do that to Gasy people; In America it is considered rude and borderline racist. If this country wznt to join the developed world, don’t e have a responsibility to educate them on what is acceptable or unacceptable in the rest of the world?

So after having talked to this American on my flight I realized that friends and family that read this blog are probably interested in everyday activities here that are so different from home. To that end I will touch on taxi-brousses, another inescapable reality of this country after the word “vazaha” and rice (every meal every day).

Taxi-brousses are the main, and sometimes only, form of transportation here in Madagascar. They take many different forms from decent mini-vans with DVD players on the visor, to trucks with planks in the bed and a cover over the top, to small cars loaded with people and livestock that are only inches from scraping the road. All taxi-brousses are characterized by an enormous pile of baggage, live animals, and food piled on top of the vehicle. Recently some routes have had to regulate the number of people they put in a brousse. But most routes do not abide by such regulations and I have had as many as 28 people in a mini-van, and 10 people in a small Honda-like car, always with children or adults on laps. Sometimes I have even had a child on each of my knees. One time I took a small car for a few km to my market town and my friend was stuck in the back with a chicken next to her head and an old woman on her lap. I was in the front seat with 3 other people plus the driver. A woman had to share the driver’s seat while he shifted over her lap. And no one batted an eyelash… I have literally seen the taxi-brousse workers shoving people into the vehicles like an over-stuffed suitcase. So now I will head back to site with the word "vazaha" and the taxi-brousse ride there to look forward to! Jules

Vazah is the Malagasy word for foreigner (think Gringo), and for many Peace Corps volunteers, it is a loaded term. At times it is used completely innocently, even in a friendly way, while at others, sneering contempt drips from the voice of the speaker, and it becomes a sort of racial slur. My wife Julia and I have been wrestling recently with how we feel about the word. On one level, it seems silly to let it get under your skin too much, since it’s not something you can realistically eliminate. (At site maybe, but you’ll still get it all the time when travelling.) And there is some value I think in learning what it feels like to be in the minority, which for our almost entirely lily-white stage is a completely new experience. Still, we drew the line when our neighbour had a guest the other day who determinedly held our neighbor’s baby up to our fence and pointed at us, teaching him over and over again “vazah, vazah, vazah.” He wasn’t particularly mean about it, but the concerted effort bothered us enough to tell him to stop, and to ask him to teach our names instead. I was almost surprised when he quickly complied, and it showed me that his actions were less malicious than I had first suspected. I know this is an issue with some varied viewpoints, so I’m curious about how other people see it. What’s the vazah perspective? What? We can call each other vazah right? Isn’t that how these things work?

Just wanted to point out that our PCV friends in Mauritania are riding out the political turmoil and are in good shape. Here's a press release from the director from a few days ago.

All 154 Volunteers and trainees are confirmed safe and are no longer on

stand-fast mode. Volunteers have also returned to their sites. Peace Corps staff in Mauritania remains in regular communication with Volunteers in the regions. Volunteers remain in good spirits and are maintaining a very professional attitude, and trainees are maintaining their training schedule.

Glad to see the system works when it needs to and everyone (read: Nick) is safe.

One of the most frustrating things we’ve encountered at site so far is learning first hand about how what is traditionally considered development can so easily go in the wrong direction. After only two months, we’ve learned of a bank in Mandritsara that closed, a hydro-electric generator in Marotandrano that had to be shut down because it interfered with rice farming, a grain storage building that is no longer operational due to mismanagement and embezzling, and a local clinic doctor who just moved away, leaving the population with reduced access to even the meagre healthcare previously available. Witnessing the decaying infrastructure of these failed projects is disheartening. We think a lot about sustainability with our work, but if such clear needs like financing/credit, electricity, and healthcare don’t have staying power, how are our potatoes and eucalyptus trees going to do any better? I hope that the answer is simply that you need to walk before you can run, and that the community just wasn’t ready for those institutions and services. Ideally, with the increased health, higher incomes, and labor saved from our projects, people will be able to support things like banking and municipal services. Still I’d like to hear from the group on this. Any other examples of development going backwards, and thoughts on how to keep things moving in the right direction?

Before I left for Madagascar, I spoke to one of my friends who had served in The Gambia. The Gambia is that awkward strip of land carved right through the middle of Senegal that always reminds me that national boundaries aren't decided by forces as natural as bubbles aggregating to reduce surface energy, or as strategic as board positions in a game of go. No, The Gambia was delineated by shot-put. A gunship, sailing inland from the Atlantic, fired cannons towards either wall of the gorge, and the range of the shot fixed the borders.

In any case, my friend told me how she and her fellow The Gambian volunteers would find sublime satisfaction in a mayonnaise sandwich. In my mind, mayonnaise was quite the team player, bringing synergy and cohesion to many a salad or sandwich. But it was never, under any circumstance, a soloist to be spooned from jar to mouth or suctioned directly from single-serving condiment packets. And only once had I auditioned it for a duet. This was a catastrophic event known as "smoker's cough" where a dollop is floated over an ounce and a half of Jaegermeister and passed over the back of the tongue as quickly as gravity and peristalsis will permit. So it was with some skepticism last week that I regarded the two-piece hybrid I'd created after succumbing to the fact that I was too hungry and lazy to hunt down and boil a couple eggs to balance the composition. But I ate it. And I liked it. And then I downed another.

And so it has been that I've grown strangely nostalgic about certain americana that I used to find somewhat distasteful. Cars rusting in parking lots with the AC on and the windows down. Beer drinking, pizza eating, lazy boying football saturdays. Even high fructose corn syrup, lighter fluid and special sauce seem almost quaint. As goes the mayonnaise sandwich, so goes the nation.

This isn't homesickness, culture shock, greener grasses, or any other term that describes an unhappy transplant. Indeed, I'm having a brilliant time. My commune seems to be quite mahay, and my partner NGO is already doing great things with them, letting me tag along as I like. I can't wait to get back and begin planning projects of my own. But if we insist upon using the grass and fence platitude, then let us say the fence is a short one. Then I can comfortably note the good humus under a foot planted on each side.

It is in this spirit which I raise a glass of warm THB, offer you a spot on the fence, and wish everyone a happy Independence Day - be it the fourth or the vignt-six.

Walking into in internet cafe after 8 weeks without plumbing or power feels a bit like emerging from underwater. You quickly gasp for air, but its sudden abudance can also overwhelm you, and the noise, previously muted by your isolation, quickly becomes a deafening roar. The Black Hole is named for the remoteness caused by the absence of North/South roads running through it and the name is fitting. At some points, the "route nationale" is nothing more than a dirt path, and at others it actually does go underwater. I'd upload a picture to illustrate this, but this being the Black Hole, that could take several hours. I have been able to upload a few pics from training onto flickr, viewable at www.flickr.com/photos/cmcnally. Good luck to my fellow volunteers getting those to load.

Anyway one of most interesting things I've noticed in the first two months at site is that despite the isolation from the outside world, the little town where I live is positively busy. Bustling is not a strong enough word. Everyday there is a cacophany of activity just beyond our door. Buildings going up, furniture being made, various festivals being celebrated and of course, the marketplace, with at least a dozen vendors each day who trek in carrying loads of produce to sell to us "city" folk. We barely have a second to ourselves, with visitors and business popping up at all daylight hours. This is not what I expected, as evidenced by the three Russian novels sitting on our bookshelf, still uncracked. Seems like Anna Karennena will have to wait until retirement.

I'll post more about work specifics later but I wanted to get things started with some observations, and add my thanks to Marshall for setting this up. I think group blogging for PCVs could produce some really interesting and unexpected results, so I really hope that people post whenever they have the chance and/or inspiration strikes. Remember, you don't have to be sitting in front of a computer to write a post. I hear Planicka will even post things for you if you dictate them to him via BLU radio. You just have to compliment his stache first.

-Charlie

I am sure we all have our own fun stories about our first week(s) at site. My first week was not actually spent at my site… why? Well, in true Malagasy fashion, things were running a bit behind schedule. I arrived to a house with no walls! This was a minor security issue-- though it did provide a beautiful view of the Tsingy (rock formation) on the other side. Needless to say I did not move in at first. I ended up going to Jennine’s site and helping her settle in then retuning a few days later to a house with walls…but no kabone (a.k.a. latrine) or shower. However, within a couple of days I had both a shower and a roofless kabone. I am happy to report that just the other day I received a roof on my kabone— ah, home sweet home. It makes the raining days more bearable :) Everything else is going well. I had to tell all of my neighbours that is not proper fomba (a.k.a. not OK) to sit in my door and watch me eat, cook, read, clean, live; and told the neighbour kids they can’t wander into my house- they need to knock 1st. But everyone caught on quickly. First month victories: buying eggs from my neighbours, finding the “market” on Wednesdays (true, there is usually no food there but I know where it is), and having people tell me that I am now “mahay Malagasy” (I was “tsy mahay”—not smart at the language-- until visitors from Canada that spoke no Malagasy came to our evolving eco-tourist site and I had to translate. So by comparison I can speak the language.) First month frustrations: I cried because I couldn’t understand the bread man my fist week, nobody can tell me and Christi (last volunteer at my site) apart, everyone’s favorite comment about me is that my feet are all cut up from the grass, and of course all the “Sali vazaha” comments—I don’t even know how to spell “sali” BECAUSE I AM NOT FRENCH (though I have been told many times that all foreigners are French). All frustrations with being mistaken as French daily aside, life is grand! I am staying busy with ongoing and new projects and I feel really positive about the whole situation. And the community is really motivated after our first guests this year. But ask me how it is again next month… or in an hour :) Hope evryone else is having great adventures, too!

Jules

I’d like to thank Marshall for setting up this group blog, and Brendan and Charlie and others for the idea behind it. I can’t wait to head everyone’s stories!

Now, allow me to introduce myself: My name is Chris, I am a Cancer who enjoys candlelit dinners and long walks on the beach… Er, wait, let’s try another style – (dim the lights, cue the music): Starting at small forward, at 6’2”, a Freshman PCV, hailing from Madison, Connecticut, by way of South Bend Indiana and Washington D.C…. Chris… Pllllaaaaaanicka! Wooo! Yea, so I am a Peace Corps Volunteer here in Madagascar, Envir08 training group. I have been at site for a little over a month now, and figured I’d offer a few brief observations to give you an idea of life here.

-Perceptions about foreigners’ work ethic- People here are always amazed to see me work. When I am working with farmers, they are shocked that I know how to use a shovel, and they think I will get tired after only a few minutes. I think this is similar to language: Malagasy people are surprised, but also happy, to see a foreigner sharing their work and speaking (or in my case, “attempting” to speak) their local language. Either that, or I am particularly awkward with a shovel.

-Rice- Often, the Malagasy are surprised that eating rice does not make my stomach sick. I always reassure them that we eat rice in the US also, but only a few times a week instead of thrice a day everyday like they do. Well, what else do you eat, they ask. I tell them veggies, pasta, fish, bread, meat, potatoes… they eat all of that too, they say, only in addition to rice. My first meal with a friend at site consisted of rice and a side of macaroni… mmm, carbs!

-Random American Music- It is played at random on Malagasy local radio stations. Sometimes it is fun to guess what made them choose a particular song, mostly pop songs from the 8-s thru today. I laugh to myself when I hear Lionel Ritchie or the Titanic song or Love Hurts… But the downside is getting an annoying American song stuck in your head (my example: YMCA) and then not hearing music the rest of the day. Singing the Village People in a rice field in Madagascar is an incredibly strange feeling (I mean, it WOULD be… this is strictly hypothetical, I swear!)

Well I hope you enjoyed this brief look into my so-called PCV Life thus far. You can check out my blog, cplanicka.blogspot.com , also for past tales. Thanks for reading, and Mazotoa!

-Chris Planicka

N.B. To other PCVs from my stage reading: mere months (weeks even!) til Stache Fest 08 (and of course Ridiculous TShirt Off 2008). Are you preparing? I know I am… EnviroSED IST 2008: Catch the Fever!

Welcome all. This is the first post to our collective blog, Diaries from Dāgu. Dāgu is the phonetic spelling for the native name of Madagascar. I hope that you all enjoy the blog, posting, commenting as well as enjoying our photos and other personal blogs.

We have decided to create a collective blog because the death of many Peace Corps Volunteers' blogs comes during the months with little to no access to the internet. We hope that with 20+ people updating this blog as well as adding photos, etc. that we can keep everyone interested in reading and staying up to date.

Be sure to stay in touch.

Marshall