I find it humorous that on my flight home to the US, that I watched a cartoon titled: "Madagascar 2: Escape to Africa" because that is in essence what I did!

I spent about a week in a very lovely hotel in Joberg, South Africa going through the process of closing my service with my fellow Mada volunteers. I don't want to dwell in this place, just note that it was an overall enjoyable last few days with my many good friends of paperwork, writing, sitting in lines, doctors exams, contemplations, french fries, wine, beer, more french fries, more contemplations, etc. I officially closed my service with Peace Corps Madagascar on March 20th, found out that Direct Transfer was not in my future, and decided I was not in the mindset to begin a travel expedition of Africa, Asia, Europe, etc, as many fellow volunteers did. Instead, I opted for the free ticket home that PC arranged for me including my transport to the airport and a little per diem money too.

And so here I am. I am officially a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer with all of it's rights and privileges and I have decided that my taste of volunteer life in Mada was not enough. After about 2 months being home, I am on my way to ECUADOR! I will be working in Youth Development and couldn't be more excited. :D

My time away from PC service has not all been in vain. I have spent some good time at home with my family, including my giant cats! I have visited my dear best friends from Seattle all the way down to Phoenix, and it was all lovely. :D It also has given me some time to process what happened to me in Madagascar - what I saw, what I learned, who I have become. You can't live for 10 months in a place so different from where you are from that you can't even begin to find the words to explain it to someone who has never been. Madagascar is Madagaskara. That is the only way I can explain it. It is unlike any place I have ever seen, smelled, and experienced, and I don't believe that anything will ever quite compare to it again, nor can I explain it with the justice it deserves in words or pictures. It just is - it is a place that I will take with me forever.

The things I did in Madagaskara are amazing:

I learned a spoken, repeated sound language in a few months!

I became a teacher.

I lived alone and adapted in a new place.

I made friends.

I ate mangoes from a tree in my backyard.

I picked litchis and ate them directly.

I navigated public transportation in a new place with limited language and knowledge.

I learned to carry water in buckets on my head!

I shopped at an open air market daily.

I survived with no refrigeration!

I lived quite well and comfortably on $170 USD a month!

I swam in the Mozambique Channel and the Indian Ocean.

I ate from communal dishes served on the floor.

I gained an awesome sense of patience.

I can occupy myself for days on end...

I learned that life in the developing world is beautiful and simple, challenging but manageable.

(I will keep adding to this list...this is just what comes off the top of my head at the moment!)

I hate to be cliche and end my blog this way, but I feel the lyrics of this song appropriately convey a lot of my emotion in processing my experience in Madagaskara.

3x5 by John Mayer

I'm writing you to

Catch you up on places I've been

And you have this letter

You probably got excited, but there's nothing else inside it

Didn't have a camera by my side this time

Hoping I would see the world through both my eyes

Maybe I will tell you all about it

When I'm in the mood to lose my way with words

Today skies are painted colors of a cowboy cliche'

And its strange how clouds that look like mountains in the sky

Are next to mountains anyway

Didn't have a camera by my side this time

Hoping I would see the world through both my eyes

Maybe I will tell you all about it when

I'm in the mood to lose my way

But let me say

You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes

It brought me back to life

You'll be with me next time I go outside

No more 3x5's

Guess you had to be there

Guess you had to be with me

Today I finally overcame

Tryin' to fit the world inside a picture frame

Maybe I will tell you all about it when I'm in the mood to

Lose my way but let me say

You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes

It brought me back to life

You'll be with me next time I go outside

No more 3x5's

Just no more 3x5's

I hope that those of you who followed me in my trials and tribulations, my joys, sorrows and frustrations on this blog realize the magnitude of this experience for me. I didn't know how much I loved Madagascar until I left it. On days, and sometimes weeks, it was hard to sort through the good and bad and see that where I was, what I was doing, and what I was learning was exactly what I needed. I have grown so much as an individual, as a human, as a teacher, and as a development worker in the 10 short months I spent in Madagascar. Not a moment was wasted. And every memory brings a smile to my face and some warmth to my heart. I thank the Peace Corps staff in Madagascar for all of the hard work and support they lent to all of us; for so warmly welcoming us and honestly sharing their lives with us volunteers, so that we could be as successful as possible in our service. What an amazing gift they all gave us. I wish I could thank all the kind of people of my community who welcomed me into their homes and lives. I will remember their faces forever and cherish their friendships even longer.

...with that said, here are some links to my facebook albums of photos from Madagascar, Mazatoa! (enjoy!)

Photos from Training:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029244&id=27500865&l=faf9f00dbf

Photos from Training and Installation at site:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037873&id=27500865&l=d9bc711792

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2038851&id=27500865&l=61adb30dba

Photos from my Service and Town:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2039072&id=27500865&l=97f59ac215

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2039078&id=27500865&l=b8709d2952

Photos from my winter break with my friend Laila at her site:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2039518&id=27500865&l=30586863d3

Returning to site was a bittersweet morsel of wonder.

I arrived back to Marovoay just in time for the second exam session of the year. I delved into preparing a kick-ass review for my students and writing a test, that although challenging, was well within their abilities and showed mastery of what I had focused them on: comparatives and superlatives, the simple past tense, reading and comprehending simple texts, and writing descriptions using the verbs to be and to have. I knew this wasn't the most exciting way to spend what I knew, in the back of my mind, would be a precious few remaining weeks at site. But, it kept my mind occupied on a task: prepare my students for an exam, proctor exams, grade my exams, and get my "notes" into the office before my countdown clock runs out! I am proud to say that my students achieved an average of 76% on their exams, which in a system where 50% is passing, that is AWESOME! I couldn't be more proud of the way my students performed on the exam! (let's not consider the handful of students that got less than 10/40 on my exam...it just ruins it for me!)

Since I wasn't preparing and reworking lessons and exercises for the three weeks I was back at site, I was able to spend some precious time with the people I love in Marovoay. I spent almost every morning with my dear friend Nazira, sitting with her in her shop, sipping coffee or tea and nibbling on the wonderful Indian treats she made, and enjoying what a wonderful, intelligent, strong woman she is. She and I had made many plans...and she and her husband were the only people who really understood the gravity of the situation in Tana, and why I might not be in Madagascar for much longer - but we chose to ignore that piece. I passed by Madame Iarlalaina's humble house almost daily to check in with her and her newborn baby, Zezedidiah, since she was no longer working down at the market. I sat with Holy, the director's daughter - home from college in Tamatave - while she sold homemade breads and snacks, and laughed for hours in her shady spot. I drew in the sand and played the games of the neighborhood kids whenever I was near. I visited Tiana and her family often to dance and sing to the Westlife videos they loved and grab just a few more hugs from her precious children. And for my two best friends at site, Silvia age 2 and a 1/2, and Angela age 4, I couldn't get enough time with them. They were my laundry buddies, my sweeping buddies, my dancing buddies and of course my snack-time buddies. I miss those precious little faces, personalities and hugs more than words can convey.

But in spite of these gems of moments I was able to experience in my last three weeks, my cell phone seemed to dictate my life. Everyday about 5pm, I would get a text message from the PC office and the news was seldom good; often that would be followed by a phone call from Lucy with some additional bad news specific to our region. It all seemed hopeless for me and my Madagascar. Protests continued in Tana daily and tear gas was now a normal participant, and Mahajunga had recently sucummed to the activities as well. Protesters in Mahajunga had gathered near the taxi brousse station one day and attacked incoming public transit. All brousses from my town stopped transit for a day or so, and then resumed dropping passengers on the outskirts of town to find city buses or taxis into the city center. I was low on funds and needed to get to Mahajunga soon, but PC was not pleased with the situation. Lucy and I had planned a tentative trip - arrive Thursday night, do our business Friday and get out that evening or early Saturday before protests started.

Wednesday morning I had written my first actual lesson since returning from consolidation - it was about local jobs using relative clauses as the grammar point. It was evening and I was just returning home from my English Club at the Lycee...my friend Mampihava was preparing carp for dinner and I sat in her yard and chatted with her and my fave Lycee student Elzira (who I just called El). His phone would not stop ringing! And I loved to tease him about girls since he was just such a cutie! Then my phone beeped - text message:

“Decision made to suspend PC Madagascar. Very sad. Process of leaving will be lengthy. Prepare tonight for consolidation and onward as flights are confirmed. STAY IN SITE. For now we must be able to find you.”

I read it. I read it again. and again. and again. and then, I threw my phone across the yard in a most mature fashion. El dutifully went to retrieve it and asked what was wrong. "Handeha hody za..."(I'm going home...); he an Mampihava looked at me hard, it was dark out, I should be on my way home soon. No, I clarified. I am going home to "Etazonia" (the United States). I spoke with Lucy on the phone, she was so calm, whereas I ranted and raved.

When I stepped foot in my home in Madagascar, I broke down, realizing that I would have to tell Bonne, my counterpart. With tears in my eyes I walked out of my gate and up to their porch. The family was at the table, getting ready for a meal of rice with green beans and beef. Madam Soa rushed me to a chair, and everyone gathered around to find out why I was crying. They were in total disbelief, just like myself. After the initial news of evacuation went out, it was followed up with an instruction to leave quietly, to ensure volunteer safety as we were all traveling independently by public transport. I wouldn't be able to tell my students or many people I was leaving; Bonne understood. But the director's son, Cami, who was one of my students was present, and I doubted his ability to keep the secret. But he did.

As I prepared frantically to leave my house in just under 36 hours, Cami sent his sister and my good friend, Holy, over without telling her why, just that I was upset. She and I cried together while I divided my stuff into what I wanted to take and what I could leave, and she stayed until my bag to take was zipped and closed at about 12am. I gladly sent her away with clothes, shoes, jewelry and other womanly things that are treasures in Madagascar. The next day, the whole CEG family, had lunch together and we all shared that none of us slept, worried and pensive about what was happening.

Wednesday night, I had asked Lucy on the phone, "how am I supposed to teach class tomorrow and not say goodbye to my students?" She told me, "give them a great lesson." I chucked my lesson about local jobs and relative clauses aside, and filled my hour class with some tongue twisters (which I made them copy down, in an effort to make them believe that it was important) and taught them a silly song that involved some even sillier motions. And I took pictures of them...precious. I stood at the door on their way out and gave them all high fives in a effort to convey to them how much I loved each and everyone of them.

The next day, I heard the song I taught being sung as I walked through the CEG, one last time...it should have elated me, but rather it just made me bitter that this whole experience was ending without closure and a proper goodbye. To complicate feelings further, Bonne had called Xavier, the Edu Program Director for the PC in Mada. The PC was stringent on this secrecy issue and had told Bonne that it was just consolidation and that if all was calm through the weekend, I would be back at site. When Bonne reported this to me it just messed with my head and emotions. I called Lucy frantic, "are we leaving or not!? I can't live my life and pack and say goodbye on a 'maybe' basis!" She assured me, we ARE leaving. And that was my worst part of leaving - Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, I said my goodbyes to the people I couldn't leave without closure (including my JICA site mate Kinue, who is still working and helping educate the children of Marovoay!!!!! Bless her!) I had to make these special trips to my close friends to say goodbye, it was the right thing to do, and I would have felt awful leaving things undone; these people were my family in Marovoay and they had shared so much of themselves with me, a stranger!But when the Director, Jean Yves, loaded my stuff into his rickety car and drove me to Nazira's home for one last visit and meal with her, Bonne's family wouldn't give me a real goodbye. They internalized what Xavier had said, and I regret so much that my goodbye was rushed over the phone to him from Tana before I left the country for good.

Friday Evening, March 13th, Lucy and I met at Hotel Kanto in Mahajunga. My cab driver, Buron, was a friend of a past volunteer, and he joyfully drove me to the hotel to unload my stuff and to pick up Lucy who was waiting for me, past the bank to grab some much needed cash, and then to Marco's for one last delicious "Takis" pizza in Mahajunga. We gave him a generous fair for his trouble, our money no longer meant so much to us...I slept for the first night since Wednesday, and we woke up to a cool morning in Mahajunga...the view of the bay from our room was extra beautiful because I knew it was my last. Buron had agreed to pick us up at 6:30am, vazaha time, so Lucy and I stole away for one last Mokary (Sakalava sweet, rice bread made only in the Northwest) and coffee for breakfast; and I got to sit next to a beautiful little Malagasy child and chat for one last time.

We made the 12 hour journey from Mahajunga to Antananarivo one last time, and arrived to a BBQ at the house of our PC Country Director. Talk about culture shock! I ate my meal and tried to enjoy the gathering of PC and Embassy folk which was extraordinarily fun, but really would have preferred my Friday staple of popcorn, seasonal fruit and a movie in my quiet, simple and sturdy house.

I spent the next few days being shuttled to and fro, as I was scheduled to depart Mada in the last group of volunteers. Highlights included one last Montasoa breakfast, a muddy walk into town, a few last "vazaha" calls from locals, and an impromptu goodbye Serenade from Montasoa staff and PC drivers one night. It brought a number of us to tears as we realized that we were the last volunteers in country, and this was really the end for us.

On March 16th, a group of us volunteers ventured not far from the Peace Corps Meva, where we stay in Tana, for dinner. While we dined on some sub-par pizza, the opposition, with the military stormed, the Palace - not 20 minutes from where we were. Peace Corps called to check on us, we were safe, if not shaken, but truly somber. By the time we returned home to the Meva, the BBC had posted pictures and video of the events. It was real. The coup d'etat had occurred.

Our flight was scheduled to leave at about 2pm which meant we would normally leave for the airport at 11:30am. At 9am, the PC drivers showed up and asked us not to venture out too far. There was word that the coup d'etat was planned as a 48 hour offensive, and PC didn't want to take chances with our safety or ability to get out. As soon as there was a report that the plane had left South Africa we were loading up and leaving immediately; if it didn't leave we would be chartering a plane to evacuate us. (talk about privilege!)At about 10am we were loaded and headed out to Ivato, I grabbed the front seat next to Doda, my fave PC diver, for one last ride with him. I loaded my phone with some extra credit, and made some final good-bye calls.

And that was how it all ended for me in Madagascar.

I can only describe consolidation as a crazy and turbulent roller coaster encompassing some of my best and worst moments in Madagascar.

I had only just left the Peace Corps Training Center at Montasoa six weeks earlier after attending In-Service Training before the Christmas holiday. Montasoa is a serene and kind of surreal place for Peace Corps volunteers. It's like being at summer camp; we stay in dorms, and enjoy the luxuries of indoor plumbing, warm showers, and 3 delicious meals plus a tasty sweet snack prepared for us daily, we don't even have to do any dishes or laundry! At the center there are plenty of cozy places to tuck into to read or write, and ample time is spent watching movies and cozying up by the fireplaces to chat with friends.

During my Montasoa stay for IST, I had longed for just one free day to hangout and relax, like we had had on occasion during training. The immediate reality upon arriving for consolidation was that I would now have an undetermined stay at the center with really nothing to do. This seemed like a wonderful, terrible, and daunting task all at once. In my heart, I was thinking, I'll just be here a few days, but my brain was telling my otherwise.

Initially, about 40ish of us were brought to the training center: all the Tana area volunteers, Mahajunga area volunteers and Tamatave area volunteers. Most of the gathered volunteers fell into the usual Montasoa scene immediately: bonfires, binge drinking, and crazy antics all set to an eclectic, yet enjoyable, soundtrack. For the first week, I had a hard time understanding all of this merry making, and wasn't interested in partaking in the festivities. I spent my evenings chatting with friends and watching movies and knitting. :D It felt wrong to me that people were acting as if they were on a special “free” vacation. It felt wrong to be blowing our generally precious Ariary (local currency) on alcohol and living it up when so many peoples' lives and livelihoods were becoming more uncertain with everyday of the conflict, people who had become our neighbors, co-workers, and friends. Not that I wasn't enjoying the comforts of Montasoa, but this stay wasn't part of my Peace Corps plan. I would have rather been with my friends and students in Marovaoy, sweating up and down the hill I lived on, eating rice, showering out of a bucket, and enjoying my simple life.

Each day, during consolidation, two Peace Corps Staff members drove out to the center to check in with us and give an update on the political situation: the events of the previous day, the results of their communication with D.C., and what the PC Mad Office was thinking about the future of our program...these became frustrating only because of the nature of the situation. In cooperation with the US Embassy, the Peace Corps was monitoring the events of the conflict and attempting to set up a rubric to determine if it was safe for volunteers to continue living and working in Madagascar. During the first week of consolidation, the then-Mayor of Tana, Andry, nicknamed TGV, announced himself as the new president of the Republic, and with the exception of a few small gathering and protests, their was no significant activity in the capital. As a general rule, the PC has no problem with regime change as long as it is orderly and adheres to the constitution of the nation; so the announcement was made and we awaited the outcome of a possible change in leadership. But it became clear quickly that we engaged in long-term waiting game, stuck directly in the middle of two opposing senarios: return to site or evacuate. The PC wasn't in a place to determine the likelihood of either of them.

During the first week of consolidation, we organized ourselves into sector-like groups and searched for “projects” around the center to keep us busy. Some of these were necessary, if not overdue projects: organizing/purging the library, erecting fences, working on the garden, moving and organized storage spaces, volunteering in the community, but they divulged into more fanciful projects, paintings and the “Dahline Stairway,” etc. Within the first week, it felt like this was going to be an endless situation. Nothing major was occurring, but their wasn't enough information about the past events or any insight into possible future events for the Peace Corps or Ambassador to confidently send us back to site, nor did the situation seem extreme enough to warrant evacuation. It was all so “uncertain.” So we waited, slowly going insane in our captivity and lacking productivity. Friday Night, we held a “dance for peace” to will peace onto the people of Madagascar and to celebrate Dorothy's 24th birthday. And then...

The first Saturday of February, Andry and his supporters stormed the Presidential Palace with the intention to overthrow the government. President Ravelomanana ordered his personal security team to fire on the crowd as they entered the place gates. Many civilians were killed and many more wounded in an event that the press deemed “Bloody Saturday.” We at the PCTC were devastated, first for the loss of lives and continual breakdown of the conflict into violence against civilians, and secondly because it was obvious that we wouldn't be returning to site in the next week as we had hoped. We received the news of the bloody showdown between government and opposition at about 3:15pm that day; the next three hours until dinner were the slowest, quietest hours of consolidation as we awaited word from the PC office, wondering if this was the final straw in the situation.

In the next few days, more volunteers were brought into consolidation at the training center until we reached capacity at about 80 volunteers, about two-thirds the volunteers in country.

Sporadic occurrences of violence, looting, and arson were taking place around the island, but it seemed random and disconnected to the events in Tana, forshadowing the possible future of the conflicts nature. At this point we all felt pretty helpless in the situation and resorted to a lifestyle of sleeping endlessly, reading methodically, staring into space, ritualistic volleyball games, and the oddest improvement projects to Montasoa...oh and more binge drinking. It seemed about everyday we were making a massive run to the tiny community of Montasoa, carting back crates of beer, boxes of rums and the likes, and all the mixers to go with. In the course of about 3 weeks, we cleaned the town out of beer, liquor, all coke products and most of their snacks (the conflict ushered in a breakdown of efficient transport, it might have got desperate if we had stayed any longer as town supplies were running low)...and you should have seen the piles and stacks of empties! We have some great nights of dancing and sing-alongs.

In the case of unrest, Peace Corps has a general, yet somewhat flexible, rule of a two week consolidation. If things are still not certain and safe, then it is most efficient for us to return to the US or be transferred to new posts, rather than doing nothing really in consolidation. As the two weeks came and went, we knew a decision was immanent. There had been up crops of regional violence, but the PC had decided that is was not directly related to the conflict in Tana so we would proceed with de-consolidation within the week. Tuesday was the decided day; Wednesday we held one last epic dance party to celebrate the “end!” At about 10pm, we receive an ominous text: “DO NOT DEPART FOR SITE. TANA IS ACTIVE TONIGHT. AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.” We all felt doomed and defeated. Breakfast was a quiet meal and their was no detail from Peace Corps as to when we would be/if we would be departing.

Alas, by 9am the first group was on the road toward Fianar and by 11am the six of us headed west were loaded into our PC car. We made a stop by the Peace Corps office and the last words I heard from the Regional Security Officer for western Africa were, “don't be surprised if we call you back here in a few days...” The reality was, the political situation in Madagascar was still unstable and uncertain, but the office in-country decided that is was safe enough for us to go back to post and continue work, for the present.

And so we went...By noon the next day I was home in Marovoay, greeted by the final day of the annual school celebration, where I watched the CEG students perform choreographed dances and was fed a lovely and balanced meal of cold spaghetti salad, bread, and fresh limeade by my 5emeIV class. It was good to be back and terrible to be back all at once...

When “trouble” erupted in Madagascar, I was completely naïve to it, like most of the country's population who live in quiet rural communities, I would say. On Jan 24th, I skimmed a string of emails regarding student protests in the capital of Antananarivo, sent by our safety and security officer. In all honesty, I didn't really absorb any of the information. All I could think of was a month worth of internet “to-do's,” and how the rise in per minute internet costs in Mahajunga were going to make this particular day at the internet cafe even more stressful to get done quickly. Plus – as I skimmed all I could think was, the capital, Tana, felt like a million miles away to me (or a least a 12 hour, all-night taxi brousse ride) and I had no plans to be anywhere near the Analakely (downtown Tana) anytime soon. I thought, whatever was happening there, really didn't affect my life out west in my quiet town of Marovoay and generally disregarded the entire warning.

January 26th; widespread looting takes over the capital, the National Radio was burned and no longer broadcasting, along with the Malagasy TV station, TVM. Violence and chaos seem to be the general themes of the day. Like most nights in Madagascar, I called my friend Laila living on the Southeast coast of the island to chat. Her first words to me were along the lines of: “Wow, can you believe this? This is all so crazy! Eugene and I are talking about what happened today in Tana...” to which I respond, “ummm...What?! what's happening in Tana?” I spent all day in class, with students, and clearly there was no “maresaka” (talk) in my town. So Laila laid out the framework of the conflict and what had taken place during the first “real” day of protests, or the day things stopped being peaceful.

January 27th; I set out on a morning mission to find out what my community was saying about the conflict. The general response seemed to be a lot of rolling eyes at the historical mess of Malagasy politics, with everyone saying, “tsy mahay manao politique i Malagasy!” (Malagasy people don't know how to do politics!) There was a lot of talk about the issues in contention, like Mr. President purchasing an AirForceOne-type jet for millions of dollars amongst a land of humble farmers, and his obvious monopoly on manufactured dairy products, oil, and soap, and the distribution of imported goods, just to name a few. In a nutshell, people were pissed. They seemed to think the Ravelomanana got what was coming to him...but they weren't so easy to endorse the fighting and violence. They agreed change was necessary, but they sure wouldn't be taking up arms, and they seemed rather indifferent to what a resolution would entail. Nevertheless, the ladies told me to stock up on soap and oil the next day at the market - products that become scarce when politics heat up in Madagascar.

When classes ended, I called Laila to discuss the events of day and tell her what I heard in Marovoay. From her I find out that Peace Corps had been sending out texts all day which I had not received! The situation had gone from bad to worse. Protesters had sacked Jumbo, the foreign supermarket, looted it completely and burnt it out. Then they moved over to Magro, kind-of like the Malagasy Costco, owned by the President, and hit a variety of other Tana businesses. That day the sacking of Magro took place nationwide, including in my dear Mahajunga. The worst, the death toll was rising, 33 were burned to death in Tana and 3 in Mahajunga. Rumors started to swirl - all food reserves had been destroyed...all food and cooking oil manufacturing plants had been burned...this is the work of the exiled President Ratsirika...Mahajunga was a smoldering town in chaos...PC is going to call for evacuation in the AM...etc. I spent the majority of the night on a 4-way phone call between Laila, Rachel and Jeff. I spoke with the PC Security Officer that evening about the safety of my town, and as we spoke for the first time, my town was not quiet at night. I could hear shouting and clanking in the distance; people were looting two large stores/warehouses in my town. I was scared and so, I painted my toenails because I couldn't sleep.

January 28th; I walked into my 8am class and burst into tears. I turned my back to the class and started to write their lesson on the blackboard, trying to pull myself together. All I could think about was that heinous rumor of evacuation. I had committed to two years of life and work in this town. If I left there was no teacher to replace me, my students relied on me to teach them the curriculum to prepare them for their entrance exams for high school. Additionally, I felt guilty about my easy out in this situation. If times got hard, my government would send me home where soap and oil were plentiful, where trade and transport don't break down on a whim, and while no government is perfect, I could rely that through thick or thin, even in the worst of times and economies, my government would do its best to ensure my welfare. These are luxuries the Malagasy people can't depend on. What would happen to my students and their families, who are literally scraping a life together daily from the soil around them?

At my High School English club, I gave my dutiful students a vocabulary set for them to talk about the conflict, wrote some open-ended questions on the board to guide their thought processes, and asked them to spend 30 minutes exploring and writing about their opinions of the current conflict, its orgins, the impact in our community, and what they thought would be the ideal outcome. I was overwhelmed by their sharp analysis of the situation, and was shocked to find out not a single teacher had brought up the current events of the nation in 3 school days! I led our discussion to address the non-violence movement, remembering that I had seen books in French about Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. in the town library, and encouraged them to investigate and learn more and of course I was always available to talk.

For the nation, Wednesday was a day of tense calm. The first two days of the week had brought so much destruction and disarray to the country, it was an eerie calm. It was another sleepless night for me, our status had been moved to “standfast” which meant have a bag packed for emergency evacuation and be ready to leave at a moments notice. Needless to say, I didn't sleep much for another night.

Rumors continued to swirl between the plateau and the coastal areas. With the break down in the national radio broadcasting system, concrete events were hard to come by and as the capital was dividing into pro- and con- government groups, it was hard to sift through all the hazy reports and get the facts about the situation. But it seemed certain that the conflict had not yet come to a head, and “uncertain” became the name of the game in Madagascar.

Thursday January, 29th; the Peace Corps made the decision to move into the next phase of the emergency action plan, Consolidation. In the next few hours, volunteers started to move together into groups where the Peace Corps would be able to better manage the crisis, and connect with groups of volunteers by a single phone call instead of calling each of us individually. Peace Corps cars would be able to retrieve groups of volunteers with one stop on a main road. I received the call for consolidation just as I had returned home from my morning classes about noon (although Laila had already informed me via text message.) I was told that I would be moving to the Peace Corps training center in Montasoa because Mahajunga had been unstable throughout the week, there were concerns about holding us in a conflict hot spot, obviously. I knew there wasn't enough time to catch the afternoon brousse to Tana that day, which was nice, as I had a chance to do some packing, prioritizing, and well, laundry and cleaning.

I prepared silently. I knew there was a chance that I would not be returning to my home, I was told to relay the message to my counterpart that I was attending a security conference in Tana for the weekend, and didn't know exactly when I would be returning. I couldn't bring myself to tell my counterpart Bonne that I was going on Thursday. At noon on Friday, I got my courage up and told him I would be leaving in the afternoon, as if I had just found out myself. He looked sad and worried as I told him I was leaving for the “meeting.” He kept saying, “the kids. the kids. they are just getting used to you. they like you. it would be so sad for you to leave them. they would be so sad.” To which I wanted to scream: “what about me!? I'll be sad if I have to leave them! I love them! This is my life here too!”

To my friends, I gave them all big hugs (er...handshakes, Gasy people are big into the handshakes) and told them I would see them soon. They all looked at me like I was CRAZY. There was a BIG protest planned for Saturday in Tana. Why was I going TO the conflict? Everything was perfectly safe in the quite metropolis of Marovoay, why would the Peace Corps have me leave my town to be in possible danger? But it was the question that reverberated all the way down the hill that haunted me: “handeha hody ianao?” (are you going home?) To which I responded: “of course NOT! just to a meeting in Tana...see you in a few days!”

And so I left my town, house, friends, students, and life for almost three weeks of consolidation in Montasoa...

I can't speak as an authority onthe subject, but truthfully, the entire world watched Tuesday's inaugurationof President Obama. At 8pm, TV M, the only cable station here in Madagascar, switched off it's usual programming to broadcast the inauguration. the best part for me, it was BBC World, no french translation to fight with! I spent the evening at a friends house, because she told me it would beon the radio. Sowe satwiththeradio tunedin andwaited. At about 8:03, a man came running down the hill calling, "miss whitney, miss whitney! aiza i miss whitney?" he finds me,"your president is on tv! hurry!" So he mandrosoas himself into Mampihava's house as she unplugs things and replugs in the TV. The reception was fuzzy and sound difficult, but I saw the speech. It was amazing. In fact, it seems like EVERYONE with a TV watched the speech. they didn't understand it, but they watched it.

It is interesting to be here in this moment. people interested in Obama here and they are excited mainly for that fact that he is black. for the first time the malagasy, are looking at america and seeing a face that doesn't remind them of colonialism and oppression. There are a lot of confused responses. "are you upset? I mean he's black? you have to be angry right?" I tell them, I love all people! I love black people! I gave up 2 years of my life in America to live and learn with black people here in Madagascar, right? (they are unsure of my work. I'm getting rich right? why else would i come here? volunteerism and national service are not really part of the culture here, yet.) But it has been a great avenue to discuss diversity in America and to push home that goal 2 of Peace Corps, increasing the understanding of Americans abroad.

Everyday I am asked "inona no mireseka?" (what's the talk? what's the noise?) And even in little Marovoay, a rice growing capital of a poor, underdeveloped nation: Barack Obama no miresaka be! (he is the big topic!) I hear lots of things like, is your new president going to buy us new desks? Is he going to end the wars of the world? to both of these questions, I have to respond, well, no, but think he will do great things for all the world, we just might not see them all immediately. But I just hear his name everywhere! people are talking about him here! cool is that!? Theophile, one of my students on thursday just couldn'tkeep the words from slipping out ofhis mouth. I had finished teaching the lesson material for theday and giving students time to copy. Theophile sat at his desk, diligently copying, and chanting quietly, "Barack Obama, Barack Obama, Barack..." It was distracting to the class, but it hurt me to tell him to stop saying that, because it felt like I was saying, "stop being interested in the world!"

I think this is one of the first times the people of Madagascar have actually been interested in who is the president of the US, things are changing for sure. I was really sad to be away from the states last tuesday. I love politics, I love policy, I love civics! But it is really cool to be here, right now, watching this change take place. How cool?! I get educate and inform my community, friends, and students about the world outside of Madagascar. Because this is a island nation, sometimes people people seem to believe Madagascar is the whole world at times. I love that I am here to help people break through those walls of misunderstanding, mistreatment, and lies that exist between the 1st and 3rd world. And I am so proud to be doing it behind a man who has such passion and vision for what the United States should be. The next 4 years should be interesting. The next 1.5 years for me, no doubt will be interesting and I continue working and learning here.

Weather here is ominous. There is no other word for it. OMINOUS. I have never seen clouds like the ones that sweep off the Indian Ocean, pile over the Mozambique Channel and make their way across western Madagascar. It took me almost 2 months of living at site to figure out that you can't look in any specific direction to predict the weather of the day. Growing up in Central Oregon, I always looked west to the Cascades. If you woke up to a clear Central Oregon day and saw no clouds looming over the mountains you could expect a clear, sunny, lovely Central Oregon day. In Marovoay, it seemed like weather came from all directions, and converges onto the hill I live on. Impossible, I thought! So I started asking people, "what direction does the weather come from?" to this, I usually got a confused look and people just said, "weather comes." Clearly, I am not asking this question correctly, so I checked my vocabulary, put in some intensifier words, and used cardinal directions, the response: "Whitney, the weather just comes here! It doesn't come from a certain place. It just comes!" hmmm, I see. I was not really satisfied with this response. But it is true, weather patterns just converge all over the island at any given place, at any given time. I forget that about living on an island roughly the size of Texas...clealy the weather just comes.

But let's talk about the weather that comes. First, I have never felt heat like this before. The sun here is SOOOO very intense. During the really hot months, Oct-Dec, it actually hurts to be in the sun. I go to the market, at about 7:30 everymorning, wearing my big floppy hat and slathered in sunscreen. I come home everyday a little burnt. Even the Gasy people, won't leave their houses without their lambas to keep the sun off and their hats, proclaiming "may be!" (it's really burning!)

This brings me to a story: the week I got sun-poisioning. My 2nd day back from vacay, I noticed some little white bumps on my arms. Hmm, odd, I thought. By the end of the day, I was covered in little tiny blisters, arms, chest, back, only where the sun touchs me. Dutifully, I call the Drs. in Tana to tell them what's up, they report sun poisioning and lecture about suncreen and hats. thanks, I say, I wear them everyday. I'm just "vazaha fotsy be" (a really white foriegner.) The perscription, apply lotion and stay out of the sun. Cool, I live in Madagascar, almost impossible. I did manage to stay home most of the week, i live where I work, so that reduces sun exposure, and I sent kids to the market for me, (they love being entrusted with responsiblity and helping.) So I healed. The best part was the Gasy response to me being covered in little white blisters. These are a people to never let something slip by with out beating the subject into the ground. And of course they all have an opinion of how this happened to me and how to prevent it. My two favorites: my friend Richard told me it's because I bathed while I was still sweating. You see, you have to let the sweat dry and go back into your skin. If you wash your skin while you are still sweating you depleat it of something, he didn't know what exactly, and that is why I got those little blisters all over me. cool. thanks. the second, an old woman, who hates white people proclaimed it was god's way of telling me to go back to my own country, clearly the sun makes vazaha sick and there is no way of escaping the sun, GO HOME. at this point the crazed old woman was drug away from me in the market, and people assured me that they liked me and wanted me there...oh Madagascar. But mainly people would just look at my skin amess with blisters, make a face and say "don't you have some special vazaha medicine for that? it looks really bad!" again, thanks for the compassion, Madagascar.

Moving on from the heat comes the thunderstorms. Growing up in Central Oregon, I was always kind of scared of thunder and lightening. But in comparisson, the storms of my childhood were just light rumbles compared to what I experience here. Here, you can hear the the storms approaching hours before they actually arrive. From a hundred kilometers away, you can feel the earth shake with the thunder. And when the thunderheads build they are like towers of white marshmellow fluff reacing up to the heavens, they are beautiful. I never knew that clouds could be so BIG! In November and December we had dry thunder storms that would last all night long, never loud cracks, but long, slow, rumbles that made the earth tremble. The storms have changed a bit. The rainy season is upon us, and the storms I get are usually the spin out of cyclone action taking place in the region. Many a night, I study, prepare or read in my house with a beautiful, purple and blue light show outside my house. The storms are up in the clouds, not under them. And I have experienced a few energy charged storms that have passed right over my house, and make me so glad that the tallest object up in Tsara Rivotra, my commune, are the 3 cell towers! I can't even explain the light and crack here. It is deafening, terrifying, and thankfully passes quickly.

And lastly, there is the RAIN! oh the rain! when it rains it pours! a cool yet still very tropical rain. It's not cold but coolm with a warm breeze, bizarre and beautiful. The entire land becomes a river, just rushing by my front door. No leaks in the house yet! the plus to the rain: passive collection of CLEAN water. the water in Marovoay is anything but clean, I have big containers to let water settle out and I filter all the water I drink and cook with. Also, the pumps up on Tsara Rivotra are famous for being shut off for days or weeks at a time. With the rain, I just put my buckets under the eves and catch my delicious, clear water. glorious! the negatives, flooded, muddy, slippery roads and pathways. I have yet to fall down in the mud. But the day is approaching, I can feel it in my bones! I have however fallen into a sink hole...ha ha. avoiding walking through the dirty puddle collected in the road, I was trying to balance and jump like an acrobat...I missed. My shoe was swallowed by the muddy sink hole, i winced, grimaced, and kept searching with no luck. This was a chaco...you can't leave it behind. A stranger came and helped me fish it out of the muck eventually and a lady brought me a bucket of water to wash up with. Of course, I was still covered in mud, and the collection of people who had stopped to watch the vazaha struggle in the mud made sure to point out every speck of mud on me as I went along my way. And, I still had to walk through the market and do my shopping. There was a lot of tongue clucking in disapproval of my muddiness...when i got home, the pump wasn't working. oh the life here! I've also started sleeping without the fan, which is basically a miracle. No longer do I sweat 24 hours a day, now just a few...it's blissful. I am definately welcoming the change. I never thought I would say this, but I was a little tired of a hot, perfect, beautiful sunny day everyday. And the rainy days make me think of home, makes me appreciate a cup of tea so much, and makes me crave soup!

Saturday, I made a mistake. I went downtown Antananarivo mid-day. Friday afternoon, some friends and I had caught a cab from the other side of the city and passing through downtown, Michelle, a New Yorker, commented: “Wow, downtown Tana and downtown Long Island aren’t much different the weekend before Christmas. Frantic shoppers crowding the street!” However, the shopping culture looks a little different…Mall don’t really exist here. And most people here do most of their shopping in the open air markets…food, clothes, toys, house wares, electronics, everything you could imagine!

So downtown Tana is a hectic place any day of the week, add Christmas shoppers and it is kind of like the nightmare on Analakely Blvd. Rachel and I needed to get some pictures developed for friends at site, so we naively walked into the mess of downtown. It was like a raging river of frantic shoppers. Sometimes Rachel and I were going with the current, weaving through people, gripping each others’ hands so we wouldn’t be lost; other times we were going against the current, trying to find a pathway to keep moving foreword.

I have never been so happy to actually arrive on the Analakely, which is like the tourist center of town. Usually, Analakely is pick-pocket and beggar central, but it was one-forth as crowded as the streets surrounding! And therefore a haven of comfort. Rachel and I found the Fuji film place ordered our pics…and went back through the mess to get some lunch and hang out at “The Cookie Shop,” also know as PCV heaven. We had Bagel Pizzas for lunch followed by a snack of delicious, creamy chai tea, and she a brownie, me an apple crumb delicious thing. It kind of made us forget that we were in Madagascar for a few hours! After reading for a few hours and chatting with friend that passed through the café, we went BACK to Analakely to get out pics. It was worse…we took a taxi be (like a bus…) and have never been so happy to be squished into those child sized seats!

As much as I loathed that trip to Analakely, it did make it feel a little like Christmas! Until arriving in Tana I hadn’t seen a single holiday decoration…except at the Chef CISCO’s house. It is interesting, in Tana to see a “middle class” of people with extra money to spend, but not in excess. Two weekends ago I had a conversation with Madame Noro, the Chef CISCO’s wife, and she was spelling out the differences between “the have nothings” and “the have excessivelys” in the majority of Madagascar. I have to say it is a refreshing year, to not be surrounded by purchasing excess and the need and expectation to purchase and receive. With that said, Merry Christmas and Happy Channakah to everyone at home! I miss you all dearly and hope that the season is joyous and memorable for you all!

This is my friend Clarisse. She sells some delicious Tilapia...mmm.

Mangos! Mangos! and more mangos! Each of those piles of mangos is about 10 cents! Delicious!

I thought this woman and her daughter were strong, beautiful people. She was really into her product placement for the photo! She was selling kida (bananas), mahabibo (cashews), and ravitoto (ground cassava leaves that make a sauce out of here, I'm not a big fan of it...)

This is Madame Iarlalaina and her husband. Probably two of my most favorite friends that I have made. She serves fresh coffee, tea, mokary (the bigger bread) and ramanonaka (the smaller bread) all day from this little stand. I eat breakfast and chat with her three or four mornings a week. I have learned so much vocabulary from her! and She is pregnant and due in February!

Early December, I had the awesome opportunity to experience a FAMADIHANA as a family member. A famadihana is a 3 day celebration of the deceased here in Madagascar. It is not practiced by all of the tribes on the island, but by many, and each tribe has their own special take on the “fomba” (culture) of the event. My friend Tina, invited me to be a part of her family and attend, and of course I was thrilled and honored to attend. (Sakalava famadihanas are known to be exclusive at times…)

Step one of the event: get your outfit! The day after I was invited, Tina came to my house with 2 meters of fabric and we went to the Mpanjitra (tailor) to have a dress made. For about $9 dollars, fabric and sewing, I had a new dress that I would match the rest of the family and it was ready in about 4 days. I joked with Tina and said that had she picked blue instead of pink fabric, I wouldn’t have gone. She laughed.

Day one of the fety: Dine and dance everyone you know. Tina’s family invited 800 people to dinner at her sister’s house…so at 2pm we walked down to the house, tied on our salovanas (big pieces of fabric women wear) and got to work cooking rice and beef, traditional famadihana food. My favorite part of the cooking venture was where we put the rice once it was cooked…it was shoveled into huge gunny sacks to wait until dinner time! I had a good time, cooking and chatting with the women. One thing I really love about Tina is that she doesn’t treat me like a “vazaha.” She has no issue telling me to wash something or get some water, whatever. She just treats me like a friend.

Once everything was cooked, and people started arriving I just sat back, and played with kids mostly. Of course the two terribly drunk men couldn’t stay away from me and I didn’t end up staying for the “Ball.” My patience was low…and I decided to rest up for the days to come.

Day two of fety: Dancing, dancing and more dancing. My sort of event but I didn’t actually make it. Very sadly, one of my friends, Mampihava, lost her mother the week of the famadihana. Friday, they held the funeral in Marovoay, and I really wanted to go and support her through her loss. It was heart wrenching. Needless to say, when it was over and I had cried my eyes out for my friend’s loss, and I wasn’t in the mood to party all night long. So I conserved my energy for the final day of the fety.

Day three of the fety: I met Tina’s family at her house at 6 am to trek out to Antanimora, a little village about 12 k from Marovoay. We hopped in the back of a pick-up that provides local transport in the area and were there shortly. The morning involved more cooking and eating. By 7am when we arrived, the cow had already been killed, slaughtered and was cooking…of course so was the rice. I spend most of the day lounging around and eating copious amounts of rice and beef. It was all very gasy. After everyone was voky be (very full) around mid-day, we changed into our “complete,” matching pink outfits, to prepare for the real party to begin. The DJ started up, and the dancing commenced. (well, actually it started again, a band had arrived at about 10am and played until about 2…the people never stopped dancing!)We danced and danced…and then we took the show on the road!

For the actually famadihana, everyone dances all the way out to the fasana (tombs), we left the town, went down various dirt roads and hiked across numerous fields to arrived at the family tombs. Seven bodies we exhumed, remembered and celebrated. People here are buried with just cloth wrapped around their bodies, so they decompose quickly. Every seven years, or so, family’s exhume the bodies and re-wrap the bones in new clean lambas (large clothes). I attended a famadihana during training, and there they just placed new lambas over the old ones. In my region however, they unwrap the bodies and separate and sift out the bones. Some of the “newer” bodies were just transferred to new lambas as there were still clothes and the bones we not “ready.” But another body, which was buried in 1960, was just a few chards of bones. Everyone watches the process of separation, and when the body is finished and re-wrapped, it is hoisted above everyone’s head and the whole family dances and rejoices before it is reburied.

The famadihana is a really fascinating custom. “Fady” or taboos, are a huge thing here. There are many and they change between regions and sometimes cities. Moving bodies in my culture is extremely “fady;” we very much believe in letting the dead rest in peace, undisturbed forever. Whereas here, the famadihana is another chance to get the whole family together again! Everyone comes, eats, and enjoys each other for 3 days and then they visit the rest of the family, and celebrate together again. I was really surprised how unaffected I was by seeing the bodies and bones so close up. I had worried that I would be bothered or upset by it, but the mood of the event is so light and joyous. People view the bones as what they are, they are not scary or gross, they are natural and they are family. The attitude was definitely transferred to me. I really enjoyed myself. It was an amazing view into Malagasy culture and I feel so honored to have been welcomed so openly by the whole family! After that weekend, I have gained a truly large Malagasy family here, and they a vazaha…

I'm in Tana with fast internet so check out all the pics of the event below!

All the ladies, dressed in salovanas and ready for some serious rice and beef cooking!

This pic sums up a lot of Malagasy life: rice, lambas (the skirts the women are wearing) and beautiful smiling women. The woman in the red is Clarisse, a good friend of mine. :D

Over the course of the fety, three cows are killed and eaten; one for each day. Why a full cow? I have no idea, and no one knew the orgin of the tradition either...but every scrap of meat was prepared, cooked and consumed. The most suprising part...the tail. It became the most sought after toy of the day. Eww.

Rice cooking in epic porportions!

Rice!!!!!!!

With my friend Tina and her daughter Francia, and my gasy meal, rice and meat in broth...very typical.

Lounging and staying "cool" with the Gasy family...

The whole fam, in matching "complete." It's kind of a big deal to have the matching outfits for "fety" (celebrations).

The opening dance to every Malagasy fety...

Communal Breakfast and Lunch! Grab a spoon and dig into the heaping bowls of rice, beef and broth! Men first of course...

Seven family members were exhumed and honored for the Famadihana. This is a really joyous and happy event where families remember and celebrate the lives of their realative.

After the body is cleaned, they wrap it in a new, clean lamba before putting it back into the tomb. And all the men from this family were buried with hats! People were wearing the hats while at the tombs, I found this a little odd...

The trek out to the tomb was "lavitra be!" (very far) But we did have the accompaniment of the Gasy band to dance to!

Men spent all day digging up the fasana (tombs) by hand!

"The Dancing of the Bones," that is the remants of

a body being joyfully hoisted into the air!

The Sakalava people sort through their loved

one's remains seperating out the bones to keep.

Other tribes wrap new lamba (clothes) on top of

the body each time a famadihana is held. This

person was buried in 1960.

One of the more recently deceased couples.

(Generally husband and wife share a single tomb

in the Sakalava culture.)

Enjoying myself with friends. :D

The fabulous female quad of the west met up for an early Thanksgiving...and it was perfect! That's Tara, me, Lauren, and Lucy with our feast!!! We all brought stuff and had a suprisingly traditional meal: Lauren brought, killed, and cooked the chicken (a turkey was too expensive and too much!) and the mashed potatoes, Lucy brought stuffing mix, cranberry sauce, gravy mix, and pumpkin pie mix from the states. Tara provided us with shelter, kitchen, veggies from her garden, and I brought all the rest of the vazaha needs from Majunga on my way through. And! we even were able to share our meal with a vahiny (visitor), a tour guide for Holland that was in Katsepy waiting for a car headed further south. It was really a fabulous, tender and special day.

Just like at home, although the meal was amazing and delicious, the best part was spending time with "family." Lucy and I met up in Mahajunga Thursday evening, stayed the nite at the worst hotel...cause our fave was booked...ran around getting stuff Friday morning in time to catch the Ferry across the bay to Katsepy. When we arrived, we settled into the twin bungalow across from Tara's (the charge gifted to us, because her counterpart said that we were "family" and family doesn't pay to stay...nice!). Then we walked to the market, which is tiny! Had a snack and chatted with people. Katsepy has the most amazing little sweet breads!!!!! Oh my goodness! Mokary, Gudru gudru, Fleurs, Mofo bolls...oh my gosh! ahhhhh!!!! I want it all in my mouth right now! (I would not have lost 10 lbs if I were living in Katsepy...) We made coconut fish with coconut rice for dinner along with chips and salsa! (which means we made tortillas and then we made them into chips...eating well is so much work here!)

Saturday, we work up to a cool rainy day. WHAT!? It was actually a really nice change because when I say cool I mean like 75. But for once in a very long day I spent my day not dripping sweat! So nice! We spent the morning and afternoon wandering around, and working with Tara. First to her tree nursury, a project with the students of the town, reforestation, yay! Second, we met her counterpart, the Senator-Farmer. He is an amazing man...so incredible brillant. someone in PC said if there were more people like him here, Madagascar would be a completely different country. Anyway, we checked out Tara's rice paddy, wow. We checked out her garden, not so hot. It flooded with the rain so we picked all the produce we could salvage and transplanted her young plants. The best part was being with the people she farms with everyday. Seeing how much they love her is something I can't describle. Her life and work here is beautiful. Environmental education and conservation is so important in Madagascar...and I wish you could see the way people respond to her and her dedication to her community and work. It is beautiful. USAID and other NGOs mass edu projects are never really going to affect these peoples lives, but dedicated Peace Corps volunteers can...one rice paddy, one village at a time. wow.

Third, we went to Tara's EEP English Club. We taught them, It's sunny, It's rainy, It's windy, It's cold, It's hot! It was fun. And then we taught them "rain rain go away..." So much more fun than my classes...cause it was just fun! Mostly...you can tell the kids just love Tara and it is an hour every week that they know Tara will play with them. Then we returned home to start cooking our feast! It took about 2 hours altogether and we all agreed it was the least stressful Thanksgiving we have ever experienced. And it was clearly the best meal we have had in country...and do worry, we were all ridiculously full when we finished eating! Lovely. that is how I will describe the weekend. everything was perfectly lovely!

As of now, I am going to grab some lunch here in Majunga and then head home to Marovoay. Of course last week was exam week...so I have boookaaa work to do! 300 exams to grade...and I only got through about 30 this weekend so far. Ugh...not to mention still planning the weeks lessons and exercises. Hmmm. I see a few late nights ahead of me! But that is all part of life. :D

I have about 3 weeks at site before I head out again...We have our In-Service Training in Montasoa (aka PC summer camp) the 3rd week in December and then I am headed up North to Antalaha for Xmas time with friend. They call the road the "trail of tears." It will be an adventure for sure! I am sure there will be an epic blog post about it in January...so stay tuned! In the meantime, I am hoping this cooler weather sticks around for a few days...it is such a nice change! Next weekend I have plans to go to the national forest near me, Ankarafansika, and see the lemurs, tourtiouse, crocodiles!? and other animals and plants! Also, I am going to bake cookies and make some candies to give to people for xmas...to share my traditions of sugar-overload with them! I have a long list of people I want to give stuff to, but we'll see how motivated I am after an hour or two with the peace corps oven....ha ha ha.

I am happy to report that I had an amazing birthday. In fact, I can’t actually remember when I have had such a fun birthday in recent years…maybe it is because when you are living abroad in the third world having expectations for anything can just lead to serious disappointment, but my day was amazing. 1st of all: I am in Mahajunga which is such a cool city! 2nd: I’m here with Peace Corps people…sometimes I wonder how so many very different people can get along, but shared experience accounts for A LOT! 3rd: PRESIDENT OBAMA!!!! Wow. Amazing. Seriously the best beginning to my birthday ever. We all got up at 5:30 and went down to the Hotel Baobab. It’s a super nice hotel, with a plasma (what!?) screen TV in their lobby and we drank overpriced coffee and ate Magnums at 6000AR a pop! (whoa! That’s like what I spend in 2 days at site…) But it was so amazing and great! 4th: I’m basically on vacation right now…so I spent my day wandering around Mahajunga visiting all of the cute little tourist shops that PCVs can’t afford…but it doesn’t hurt to look right!? I had an espresso and palmier and not a single person bothered me while I enjoyed it, which is basically a miracle! 5th: PIZZA, ICE CREAM AND WINE! We splurged for my birthday and it was delicious! Thanks to all of you who sent me messages! It just added to the great day I had here! Love you all!

My Malagasy Vacation.

Work? what is that?! I sure don't know! I walked home the other day from my students seemingly never ending “kilalao” (game) with my neighbors joking about how little work the teachers of the CEG have been doing since the school year started. Me included. The President, Marc Ravelomanana, came to Marovoay this week and instead of studying every afternoon the past two months, the students have been preparing a show for him. I wonder how the president would feel to know that students, who he came to recognize, have only been in class sometimes since the school year commenced preparing for his visit...

When the practice first started, I was informed (by my students, not the administration, surprise surprise) that there were no 4 pm classes. Students were to report to the stadium to practice their “show.” Cool! I thought. I'm all about the performing arts, what a great activity, even though it was taking class time away from half of my classes! Initially, I was told the show was planned for the 10th of October, but no one would tell me what the show was exactly about. So the week of the tenth arrived, I ask students, teachers, administrators, friends: what is going on the 10th? what time is the show? No one knows...surprise, surprise. So like almost everything here, I never have all the necessary information...over the course of all this, sometimes there actually were afternoon classes, other times not with no rhyme or reason to it. I asked Bonne to keep me posted about when the “show” was and when we had class and when we didn't. The afternoon of the 9th, I had given up that anything was happening the 10th, and then the Surriviant came to class announcing that students were to arrive at 7am dressed in clean, pressed uniforms, the Ministry of Education was coming. Bonne told me there would be Kibary (Malagasy speech) and more talking. It will be boring, don't bother coming. Awesome.

But, after the 10th the kids continued missing afternoon classes to practice the “ballet.” I was provided with new information: the President is visiting Marovoay! (I thought to myself: I'll believe it when I see it!)

...It happened. I went for the big day. The big HOT day of the President's arrival. All dressed up = not cool, and I mean temp wise. Oh man...and crammed into a stadium with too many people too. I wore super-suncreen, carried an umbrella (the fashion for women here...oh la la), and sat in the shade the entire time and I still got sunburned from the reflection off the ground, that is how INTENSE the sun is here. Madame Soa and I arrive at about 9:30 and of course the government caravan didn't arrive until about 12:30! Ela-be! (very late!) and of course I forgot my book...so i was hot and bored!

But the kids were great. They performed about a 20 minute routine. Choreographically, it was not a wonder, but 1) it was choreographed by 7 male PE teachers and 2) they had to be able to teach it to a few hundred kids. I actually think that in 6 weeks time, it was pretty impressive. (It would have been hard to get that many American kids to do so much running and arm movements with the right beat!) So all the kids run out and they are wearing red, green, or white and they form the Malagasy flag. Then they move formations and make the island of Madagascar with students as the waves in the Indian Ocean and Mozambique Channel, and then the group of girls wearing short little skirts who do a lot of hip swiveling through the whole show run out to be all the regional capitals on the map...it was pretty cute. The rountine moves on and 8 different groups rotate around, and each do a sampling of the dances to the music from each region. It was really great and definitely the highlight of the “fety” (celebration), certainly not the kibary from each of the Ministers and President...it is really unnecessary for 12 people to all give basically the same speech when it is 100 degrees out and past lunch time (and let me tell you the Malagasy take meal time seriously!) I didn't actually make it the end of the fety, at 3pm I was too hot and hungry to stay any longer. I went home, wrapped myself in my lamba, and ate and read on my lamaka(straw mat) outside of my house.

So here is the state of my work life here: Six weeks of school have passed and I have taught about 2.5 weeks of lesson material. And I have had to fight for it! I've been making students study on Saturday,(I'm so mean, I know!) trying to keep the class sections on the same lesson, since there is usually class at 2 but not at 4. Saturday classes mean that lots of students don't show up and therefore don't learn the material and there are no classrooms available during the week to hold classes...I'm at this crossroads of needing to stick with the national curriculum, which is huge! and of needing to actually teach in a way that students understand and can actually learn. By biggest issue: two hour classes, once a week. It's almost a joke. Who can learn anything really in 2 hours, once a week without textbooks and materials to aide students outside of class... and right, that certainly doesn't exist in this country! The only resource to learn and study must be copied from the blackboard into a notebook that usually is wrought with copying mistakes and errors...so what is a Peace Corps volunteer to do, but role with the punches...

So that's where I'm at. I'm on my first official school “vacation” - Vacance Touissant – but hardly feel like I've worked enough or taught enough for the first bimester to be done...but alas, it is. I am reworking my whole “scheme du clase” figuring out how to get though all the required material when I am essentially 4 weeks behind right now! Arg! My favorite part of this situation...I seem to be the only teacher who is annoyed and upset about six weeks of missed classes. My co-workers have been enjoying their afternoons off, relaxing at home and not stressing about covering the curriculum material like me! Clearly, I am not “tamana” (adjusted) to the “fomba ny asa” (the culture of work) here in Madagascar. Which is work when there is work and relax when there isn't....I feel like I've spent the last 2 months at site relaxing and I'm ready to get down to business! My frustrations are met with a big “mazoto anao!” (You are motivated!) And for a woman, unless this refers to housework, it is kind of an insult. I'm trying to strike a balance between finding projects that are 1) useful and necessary to my community, and 2) move at a crawl (which drives me crazy, but doesn't threaten the way things work here and alienate people from working with me; cause “it's not development work if you are working alone.”)

Entonces, sigo luchando...(I continue struggling...in Spanish. *I really do enjoy the people and culture here, but honestly I do really miss Latin culture and it makes me sad that my Spanish is getting pushed behind Malagasy which I will never use again once I leave here! frustrations, frustrations.)

**Peace Corps has a project connecting volunteers with American students and I write to my best friend Carolyn's class in the Phx area about my life and work as a Peace Corps volunteer in Madagascar. I thought it might make an interesting post...a little taste of the challenges of education here. **

October 31, 2008

Dear Ms. Burns and Class,

Salama Dahoalo! (Hello All! – sa-la-ma da-hoo-loo)

I am just finishing my sixth week of school here in Madagascar. It is hard to believe that so many weeks have already gone by and yet, I feel like I have not taught near enough of the curriculum material that I am supposed to cover for the cinq-eme grade level! In the letters that you all sent me in August, many of you asked about the differences between school in the United States and in Madagascar. The answer is: they are very, very different! The challenges of education here start way up in the highest part of the government. Madagascar is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. The current President here, Marc Ravelomanana, has great and far reaching plans for developing the nation and making it a world trading partner, increasing industry and trade, as well as for improving education. But the issue in the developing world where money is so scarce, is that more energy is put into making money, like trade, and less into education which takes a lot of money. And honestly, there just isn't enough money here to things well.

At home, in the US, we all pay taxes to the government to ensure the workings of our country, states, counties, and cities. This money goes to everything from building and maintaining roads, ensuring clean water, sewer systems, efficient mail services, quality public education for all, the operations of government offices, as well as various social services provided by local, state, and federal government to help people. With exceptions, the United States is a very efficient and prosperous nation. Here in Madagascar, it's a fact of life that most people live without the amenities we consider as basic and necessary. Almost no one has water inside of their house, but carry it from pumps wells, rivers or lakes around their neighborhoods. Many people still live with no electricity, this means they have no refrigeration for food, they cook their meals on fires or with charcoal, and students must study by candlelight each night. There are not government resources for the poor or the hungry because that is how you would classify the majority of the population. However, I would have to say that that daily life is not a struggle for the Malagasy people, because they have been living this way for many years. They are used to it, it is normal. But life is certainly not easy.

For me, I still live a very privileged life. I have plenty of money and food to live well, electricity, medical care, a job, etc. But I spend a lot of time thinking about the “world” I will return home to the United States in a few short years, and to all the amenities that I took for granted there: my indoor plumbing and running water, electricity 24 hours a day, full kitchen, paved roads, public transit, grocery stores, and countless other things.

What I am getting at, is that education is fundamentally different because the governments and countries that the school systems operate in are so fundamentally different. I have no doubt that the government here in Madagascar is doing good work to improve the lives of the Malagasy, but there is just so much to be done that every step of development seems too little too late. In many ways it seems that the structure and way of life here is maybe 70 to 100 years behind our way of life in the United States. As a consequence, education is unfortunately not at the highest priority. Here there just isn't enough money and resources to do it right, yet.

For example at my school, there are just enough teachers to teach all the required classes, but each class has 60+ students in it! Also, there simply are not enough classrooms at my school! Every classroom is full from 6am til noon and then from 2pm until 6pm. And even with that there isn't enough classroom time to comply with the national cirriculum. For example, students need 3 hours per week to complete the annual English curriculum, ideally a two hour class to focus on lesson material and a one hour class to focus on exercises. I see each section of cinq-eme for only two hours once a week. NOT ENOUGH! It is really challenging to spend enough time teaching material and still leave time for students to get to practice the material and do activities.

Aside from not enough space and time for classes, there are literally no resources for students and teachers to utilize. Text books do not exist here. This is how students learn: for each class, students have two notebooks, an exercise cahier and a lesson cahier. Teachers write on the blackboard, the entire lesson and students copy it. Teachers write out exercises on the blackboard and students copy them and then do them. Not only is there not enough time in the week to teach with the limited classrooms available, but students are basically handwriting their own textbook which is incredibly time consuming! There is no copy machine or computer at my school. To type out additional resources and make copies for students to have is just not feasible. For me to give my students a one page copied resource it would cost me 37,000 Ariary out of my personal money, which is about 9,000 Ariary more than I spend a week on my living expenses!

Needless to say, teaching and educating students is challenging here. Also, students have been trained that when they come to class they sit, copy, do exercises and make corrections. The speak quietly when called on because it is not okay to make a mistake and many teachers will publicly ridicule a student for a mistake, with the rational that the student will never make that mistake again, remembering the humiliation. (Rule #6 of my classroom: Mistakes are okay. Everyone makes them, they are how we learn new things.) Also, these students have never been asked to do group work and activities as a way to learn, and trying to teach these tools for the first time to 12 to 16 year olds is a challenge all in itself.

The American education model is very much about creativity, problem solving and thinking skills. The Malagasy education model is unfortunately not. The Ministry of Education is supposedly changing the model of education to a more American and European model of problem solving in 2010. I think this is amazing and a right step for the Malagasy, but there are bigger problems to address before sending out the new curriculum books. Like training teachers. Very few teachers here, aside from Lycee (high school) teachers have a college education. How can the already untrained teachers of Madagascar teach a problem solving approach to learning when they themselves don't possess the skills and are not going to be given the opportunity to learn? But reprinting a curriculum and sending it to schools is more economical than prioritizing having enough classrooms, books and materials for students to reference and learn with! I whole heartedly know that the government wants to educate the students of Madagascar well, but right now it's like trying fill a bucket with a teaspoon. It's possible, but it takes a lot more work and time than it could if you could just get a cup or moved the bucket under the pump. It is the sad fact that things will continue to progress slowly in this nation because education is not given the adequate resources.

To these ends, I am trying to be positive with other teachers and talk about what we can do, like be positive and excited about education for our students. To be the best teachers we can be, prepare lessons to the best of our ability, and try to reach every student.

Keep up the good work with your studies at home!

Veloma! (Goodbye!)

Miss Whitney

This being the 5th week of school here, I have still not received an official attendance form for any of my classes. There is not a single computer at my school so everything is still typed out on a type writer, what a long and tedious process!So last week I went to the office sat down with the book for each class and hand wrote out the names of all 356 of my students! It took 3 hours because people have names a mile long here! All of my life, people have commented what a long name I HAVE: Whitney Michelle Swander. That doesn't hold a candle to the names here! Let me tell you my hand was tired when I finished!

After I finished the last class, I was literally dizzy from reading the tiny cursive print of all those r's, z, m's, and k's...and because it's hot and despite my best efforts to continually guzzle water here, I'm always a little dehydrated. lol. Then, Bonne explained to me, that each Malagasy name is a saying and tells about the order of birth, the state of the family at the time of birth, hopes and desires for the person, etc. It's a really cool part of the culture and kind of hard for Westerners to wrap their minds around completely. Of course “vazaha” names have also infiltrated the culture here.

As an outsider looking in, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to how names are put together and there aren't “family” names like we have. I explained that my name is Whitney Michelle Swander, my parents choose the first two, but the final name is passed from the father. Women traditionally take their husbands last name when they marry, so my mother is Jan Swander. But some times both spouses use their own last names and they themselves or just their kids have hyphenated names...so simple. Here every family member has a completely unique “nom” (last name) and some have 1-5 “prenom” (first and middle, but that really isn't how they are classified here), and then some people just have a “nom.” Here is a sampling of students namesL

RANOMENJANAHARY Sitrakinianiania Jean Zuetienne (he goes by Sitrika)

RAZANAKOTO Sendraviavaka Pirisoa Fandeferana (she goes by Miavaka)

RAFARA Malala Fetra Nemenjanohary Yvette (goes by Nekena)

RAKOTOMAMPIONONJANAHARX Romuladon Jean Patri (he goes by Romulado)

RANDRIANA Goulam Aly Amine Florida Gildas (he goes by Gildas)

KOTO Rufin Robert (he goes by Ruphin)

Rahelisoa Olive (he goes by Alive)

ANISOA Miaraly (she goes by Anisoa)

VELONJARA (that's it)

Names are basically like “where's waldo!” and honestly a little daugnting to me. And proununciation, even with my best effort I still suck. I'm trying so hard, but the Malagasy names just have so many consonants or repeated sounds...but I am getting better. I love the student's with “French” names: Angela, Synthia, Jean Serge...I can do that! Some names are just amazingly creative and I wish we had parent conferences to ask the inspirations of names like: Baldy, Bienvenue, Boga, Bosco, Frankenstinos, Jhons, La LaHonore, Sebastien, Willy, T Van Lendel, Vanilla, Zoachin, Zozo, just to name a few...

Here are some of the names I'm still struggling with pronouncing, there is emphasis in unnatural places too: Nambinina, Tsiory, Miasason, Mihevitsoa (this is like 4 out of 150 names I suck at saying. but I'm trying so hard. I practice before class, honestly!)

About a month ago, delicious, juicy fruit began falling almost, i dare say, like a nuisance, from the trees of Marovoay. Now that mango season is deep upon us I look around and see that almost every tree in this town is a mango tree! First came the manga manta (unripe mangos). They were everywhere in the market and kept thinking, leave them on the trees so get sweet and delicious! Are you crazy! (I generally call someone crazy in my internal monologue here daily.) But then I soon learned the joy of the manga manta. 1st you can just eat the manga manta as it is. Peel it, slice it up; tt's not sour, but not super sweet yet and it's crisp. Yum. the closest thing I have to an apple since I left the states! (I really miss apples!) 2nd, manga manta lasary. Grate the mango with a little onion, sakay (fresh chile), vinegar, salt and pepper. Amazing. I love it with fish!

Then the mangoes started to ripen...I learned that mangoes I've been eating unripe are called, Manga Yes, they are the first to ripen and not the best of all the mangoes here. But they are here in plenty so eat up! Next came the Manga Diego. I really liked these guys. Their smaller, and bright orange with one pink tip and one green tip, they taste a little different, and their not so fiberous. Then just this last week the Manga Rano started to ripen. These are officially my favorite (so far, apparently these mangoes are just beginning! and they last through February, lucky me!). They are small, about the size of a lemon, and range from yellow to green in color. There is not a lot of fruit to them, but they have a “tutti-frutti” taste. I can't quite pinpoint what they taste like, but I really like it! Even better, there is a tree in my back yard, you I've been collecting a few each day! I'm told they are especially good in January when the rain starts, that's when they really get ripe. Rano means water, so I'll have to see how the rain changes them! But right now I love them cause they are a perfect little snack.

In the mean time I've been trying slowing up my consumption slightly...I found out just this week that the mangoes last through February. I have been eating mangoes like it's going out of style thinking that it would all be done in the blink of an eye and I'd be back to just bananas. My digestive system thanks me for this. I was kind of on fruit overload if you know what I mean...oh and did I mention guavas are in season too. wow. These are like little seedy pieces of heaven in your mouth. I buy them for about a penny a piece when i can find them in the market; and when they are in my house I have to put a daily limit on myself cause I could eat about 10 in a sitting and then there would be trouble in the tummy!

I've also been cooking with mangoes a lot. Peace Corps says you can eat well and live cheaply is you eat whats in season. We all wondered, well how do you know what's in season? Isn't there a chart or something you could give us? I learned quickly you go to the market and look around and see what EVERYONE, and their mother, sister, and aunts are selling. Recently, that's been a lot of mangos, eggplants, tomatoes, green peppers, and sweet potatoes. My current favorite meals: mango curry shrimp sauce over rice. mango eggplant masala, mashed sweet potatoes with a little cinnamon and nutmeg, left over rice heated up with mangos, cinammon, and a little vanilla, and sweet and spicy mango salsa with fresh made (by me!) tortillas.

Don't you worry I'm not starving in Africa! However, some of my neighbors did notice that I have lost a little weight and we had to talk about what I eat. Basically they told me I don't eat enough rice, and that if I want to be matanzaka (strong) I need to eat more rice. I told them, I ate too much rice during training and it didn't make me strong, just made me fat. To this they say, how great it is to be fat! This is a continual conversation in my life here. When I leave my house and go to the market everyone asks: “Miantsena?” (going to the market?) I reply yes, and they respond “Handeha matavy!” (get fat!) They say it like a benediction, like “get well!” “drive safe” or here, “get fat!” Being overweight here, and for most people were talking a few pounds over, is a sign of being well fed and comfortable financially. If I told people I eat the way I do to maintain my weight, they would just be confused. Why would you want to stay thin when you have the means to be fatter? Oh dear.

Next cultural note...being called fat, EVERYDAY. I generally get called “vazaha be,” (big white person, it could refer to height...but people think I'm fat, so I'm going to say the “be” refers to weight) or “geza” (just, fat). I asked around and there is no word for curvy or voluptuous women in Malagasy. You are just fat or skinny. I've tried to explain that in my culture there are many women who are not fat, but curvy and that this is desirable and sexy. I am met mainly with stares asking, why if you are fat would you not want to be called fat? It's complimenting the lifestyle you work hard for! And of course “fat” women are more desirable, it means they come from families with money and they are well suited to carry children. Ha ha ha. Oh cultural differences. I've asked people not to call me fat, because I am not. My close friends and neighbors generally get it, but most people just seem confused that a word, like fat, which is good here, can make me upset. I've added another phrase to the daily conversation on the way to the market. When people say “handeha matavy!” I respond, “ungamba...”(maybe) and I wink at them. They laugh...it makes me feel better about the situation.

Malagasy Partay! Famadihana! celebrating and remembering dead family members

My solar cooker, cooking chickpeas this day. Drying rack making manga pitika, dried mangos!

Question: how many malagasy men does it take to change a flat tire? 8 when the jack is broken! they lifted the van onto the jack...oh developing nations!

more pics: me with the lovely valley of rice paddies behind my house, the beach in Katsepy, Me on the ferry ride headed home to Marovoay, how dirty my feet are at the end of the day here. gross!

A few pics of my Malagasy life since the internet is kind of fast today...the PC car taking Lauren and I out west, Brochettes!, the road into my town,

Sept 22, 2008

Today was the “1st day of school” here in Madagascar, and what should have been the most exciting and fulfilling day for my service thus far, was anti-climactic to say the least.

I had been badgering Bonne, the director adjoint of the CEG, for my schedule for the past week and a half. Friday he told me that when it was done he would bring it to my house (remember he is also my neighbor and we all live and work at the CEG). Sunday evening still no schedule and he had been in his office all weekend working, I was afraid to ask. I went to bed thinking, is there school tomorrow, or is there not? hmmm.

School starts at 6am here in Marovoay. So got up at 5:30am (I'm usually already awake, just laying in bed waiting for the sun to come up a bit more. oh how my life has changed.) None of my neighbors are stirring at this point...maybe no school? ugh. I go about my morning business, sweeping, straightening up, making breakfast, and see Bonne, he has news: meeting with the students at 8am. HAZAH! Education will begin today for Malagasy students in Marovoay. I get dressed, do my hair, even put a little mascara on. Whoa! Big day! And at 8am (its Gasy time so I know we won't actually start until almost 9) I gather my lesson plans, notebooks, my activity supplies, h2o, a snack, camera, and a pen and pencil in my new basket that I bought in mahajunga and head out to the courtyard. There is a gaggle of students dressed in their blue uniform blouses, and some teachers standing around. At about 8:45, the assistant principle gets the kids into formation, and they raise the flag, do some military-like drills to commands, and sing the national anthem. After that, Bonne introduced all the new teachers, including myself. I stood up on half a steel, barrel drum thing and the kids cheered. It's chessey, but was a really happy moment for me and felt really included in the school culture.

And then it all went wrong...the PC gives a book called “the First Days of School,” and it is about how to be a professional educator; approaching teaching through attitudes and empowerment to be successful. Most of the rhetoric of the book is putting the burden on the teachers outlook, saying students are only as prepared and motivated as their teacher; also fostering positive behavior and learning through a positive, cohesive classroom structure; it all makes a lot of sense. Any way, the next part of the day's proceeding involve Bonne climbing onto the 'pedestal' and saying that “today we begin studying, the EPP (elementary) and Lycee (HS) are “kamo” (lazy) and not prepared to being classes today.” The students cheer at this point. and then, he goes into a speech berating the students for their poor performance on the BEPC (HS entrance exam) in July. Keep in mind the only students present who took the test of the 2000 kids there are the 3eme students are are repeating the grade. And then tells them to study, study, study. Not the positive perspective on education that the “first days of school” talks about...

From here, students are assigned to classrooms to clean and organize themselves and the teachers file into another classroom. The director speaks for about 15 minutes... 1) I can't hear what he is saying over all the student chatter, and 2) I never really understand when he talks... I sit and watch him politely. Next, Bonne talkes for another 20, and he passes out each sections schedules and the teachers pass them around frantically, jotting down what days and what hours they are teaching. Then they head off to classrooms to give students their weekly schedules...At this point, my head is spinning and I have no idea what is happening. Luckly, Bonne hands me my own hand-written schedule, I teach 6 sections of 5eme, like 7th grade which is the PC max for our first year. Ah. relief. I stand around awaiting further instructions, like classroom #s...then he tells me we are done for the day.

What!? It's just past 10am I am done for the day!? No. I've got a basket full of educational goodies and a schedule that says I teach on mondays! I'm ready. Let's go. I was basically shooed away. So that was that. I walked across the schoolyard and to my house, changed and thought, I might as well go to the market...so I did. ugh. FRUSTRATING!

I forgot to post my new personal address here!

Miss Whitney Swander

Peace Corps

BP 3523

Marovoay, Madagascar 416

letters take about 2 weeks and packages about a month...love you all!

September 9th, 2008

Today has been kind of a rough day. I spent most of the day being upset about things that in the long run don't matter, but today they mattered.

Beef #1: Bats.

I was awoken at 5am by fluttering in my house. I listened. definitely wings flapping and bouncing off my walls. But it was still pretty dark, too early for a baby bird to be awake (which I would have actually welcomed given the alternative...) Good thing my cellphone has a flashlight so I could see what was going on...oh woops, put on the glasses, yup confirmed: bat in trano (house). Naturally, I have no idea what you do about bats in houses...so I try ignore the problem and go back to sleep, but who the heck can sleep once you know there is a bat flying around your house?! Not me! So I'm laying in my bed, afraid to leave the confines and security of my mosquito net, when I vaguely remember one of Dr. Alain's omniscience sessions and something about bat being a big problem in houses.

I text him: “There's a bat in my house. what do I do? Whitney in Marovoay”

he responds: “hi. get out now. ask someone 2 take it outside n c how did it get in. Alain.”

1st. thanks for easing my fears Dr. Alain. get out now? really? so blunt. 2nd: nice use of txting abbrev! Mahay! (what you say to anyone who is good at anything or knows something, everyone says I'm “efa mahay malagasay” -already good at malagasy- I say I'm “mahay kely, mianatra foana” - a little good, always learning-...anyway I've digressed.)

So the bat has stopped flying around at this point; with Dr. Alain's encouragement, I muster up my courage and get out of bed throwing open my windows on my way to the door. It's like 5:45 at this point. I grab my keys to go to the bathroom and see Madame Soa, my neighbor and counterpart's wife. I don't know the word for bat in Malagasy, so I tell her there is a “biby kely amin'ny alina any tranoko” (small animal of the night in my house) and make a flapping motion with with my arms. She laughs. and says: “tsy maninona. Misy maro foana foana. tsy maninona. matory foana, indrindra any clase.” (it doesn't matter. there are lots, always. It doesn't matter, they are always sleeping. especially in the classrooms.) this is clearly not the response I'm looking for. So I go back to my house. it has moved. I get out my flashlight and search. no where to be found. maybe it flew out? i wish.

So I usually go for a walk about 5:30pm, get something I forgot for dinner or that needed to be refrigerated, chat with people, or just get out of the house since it's a little cooler; an hour later its dark, and I'm home. I turn on the light and the bat is there flying around in circles. Bonne chased the little thing around my house for a half and hour...and it wouldn't leave. so unfortunately it had to die. He and Soa had different ideas about the bat...he said, yes, let's get it out, their bad and bite people sometimes...Madame Soa kept saying, they are fine, and just sleep all the time. I told her I couldn't live with a bat. If I wanted a roommate I would find one I liked, most likely a cat, not a bat! I hope this isn't a usual problem...

Beef #2: Post Office.

You think the post office is inefficient in the US? you have no idea...I had a letter to mail today and needed it weighed to know the postage cost, so I went to the post office with my friend Mamphiava (Mom-pee-ave-a). When we arrived the man at the desk also said a package had arrived for me, have a seat. Yay! I put my basket down and gave him my letter to be weighed. He weighed it, calculated the price and handed it back to me with out putting the stamps on it. So I handed it back to him and said, “yes, please, I want to mail this.” We wait. Then there comes another man with a paper showing the calculated taxes to be paid for my package. I take it, look at it, fine. I calculate the cost of the letter and the taxes both and get my money out - efficiency is important to me. Then 2 other men come out, one holding the package, the other with a book. The man with the book comes to the window, pushes the book to me mumbles what needs to be filled out – it's very unclear; when I ask for clarification he mumbles some more and pads the book. I figure it out and realize like most things here it's a formality and no one really cares if its done right, just as long as something was done. Then the man wants the tax form back, which says customer copy on it. He reads it, mumbles, and then tells me to sign it, “where?” I ask. mumble mumble. I sign the bottom; then he takes it, looks at it for 10 seconds, then he gives it back. what? the other man is still standing there just holding my package, like he's holding it for ransom. I'm still holding my money, and I realize there is no window big enough to push my package through. it's been a good 30 minutes at this point and I have been the only customer in the Post Office. The first man wants me to pay for the letter, so I pay him the 1900ar, but now I have to wait for the manager of the office to get to his office, he is always away some where, so I can get my package. He mandrosoas us, he mipetraprahas us (come in, have a seat formalities), and acts like we just stopped by to chat about the weather. I'm clearly annoyed at this point. Its hot, i was woken up at 5am by a bat that may or may not still be in my house at this point, and I have been dealing with the pinnacle of inefficiency for over 30 minutes now and I am still the only customer to have entered the post office! (It's like this is the first freaking time there has ever been a package received here...which is not true! I saw that the Japanese volunteers have received many recently!) I tell him, as politely as I can at this point, that I am here, in his office, right now, because I would like to pay the taxes on my package so that I can go to the market and go home. goodness, gracious. He obliged me and didn't keep my much longer. Moral of the story. the Post Office will likely be my most loathed chore here...but the things inside my package made it all worth while! thanks mom! :D love you!

***update on the ridiculousness of the post office...

The next day at about noon, one of the men from the post office comes to my house accompanied by my neighbor Mampihava. She says that he is here to collect his “kado.”(gift) For the first 2 minutes I am honestly confused. She is telling me that I need to give him some $$ because he is the guy that makes sure people don't steal out of my packages. I play dumb because I am just so awe struck that this man has the audacity to arrive at my house, as I'm cooking lunch, to collect money under the table and call it a “gift.” I went a good 10 minutes pretending not to understand because I was just so pissed that this was actually happening. I kept saying, but I already payed the taxes at the office to the manager, you should get the $$ from him. “no, but you need to give him a gift.” why do I need to pay him as well. “no no no, its a gift.” She told me to give him like 1000ar, which is not much, but its the principle that a) its not a gift when you arrive at my house demanding a gift b) that i have to pay extra under the table to get all of the stuff people send me! (if some one had told me, you should give Mr. X 1000ar when you get your packages to make sure they arrive safely and completely I would have, but it was the circumstance of an uninvited stranger in my house demanding money that really pissed me off.)

So when I finally “understood” the situation, and it was clear that I was angry. I apologized and smiled really sweet and told him that in my country it was illegal for government workers to ask for, let alone just receive monetary gifts for the work the government pays them to do. And that is why I am upset that he is in my house, but I now understand the culture here and I appreciate him watching out for my packages. He apologized with the big apology phrase “miala tsiny” and not to be afraid...

Mainly he ruined my lunch, and most of my afternoon, and made me cry for the second time since getting to Madagascar. But getting over it...

Beef #3 (and final for the day): Ants.

Dear Ants,

Remember when I arrived I told you I didn't like you in my house? especially in my kitchen area? well I have maintained the white powdery boarder of ant killer in the places I could see you entering my house, yet you are finding new undetected ways to get in. Stop! find some one else to bother! I know that honey comb you broke into was delicious, but it was a gift from Kami! For me, not you! Additionally, I just find you annoying. I think you are gone, and then one slice into the pineapple and it's like you arrive in a line out of thin air. Stop! you are gross. and I have no issues you in drowning you and smashing you - so in an effort of self preservation, you should go elsewhere. Some volunteers even like their ants, just not me. Go live with Tara, she'll let you clean her jam jars and do clean up duty on other bugs she kills...

But as a warning dear ants, while I'm away in Mahajunga, I'll be dousing my house in ant killer hoping you'll be gone when I return...or least that I'll be able to sweep you out of my life!

fitiavana (love),

Whitney

Sept 5, 2008

Today I have officially been in my house in Marovoay for ONE WHOLE WEEK and I am exhausted! I arrived last Thursday, early evening, and have spent the last 8 days figuring out how things operate here. And I can confidently say, I'm still not exactly sure, but I've survived the first week and I'm enjoying it, so it can only get easier...right? heee...

But first things first. Installation...

Early Saturday morning after swearing-in and after the crazy fun night we had in Tana, Lauren and I loaded up the PC Land Crusier and headed out west. Our driver, Doda, is quite possibly the hippest, chillest, most down Malagasy man, EVER. The man just smacks of cool. He's got the spikey hair, knock-off Gucci shades, some sweet driving gloves, and just a really cool aura. And of course our installer, the Chocolate Man himself, Robert, who is also the PC Training Director. (We call him Chocolate because the best chocolate here in Madagascar is called Robert...naturally.) So we drove all day Saturday. ALL DAY. It was an 11 hour drive and Doda is a professional! The PC tells us to double the travel time in a PC car versus the Brousse during the rainy season...that means when I head to Tana in December for In-service Training it might take 20 hours...ugh. I'll deal with that when the time comes...as for now, the National Route out to Mahajunga is one of the best - it's paved and well maintained the whole way. So I've got that going for me. We take a night brousse out west usually because its such a long trip you might as well sleep through it, so it was really amazing to actually get to see the landscape on the way at least once. All in all it's a lot of beautiful nothing, reminiscent of parts of southern California; huges dry mountains, with valleys below, some scattered farmland and a few sparse villages.

When we finally got to Mahajunga, we checked in to the 2nd choice PCV hotel, Kanto, because Chez Chaubad was full. (Kanto is 14,000AR = $8.75 a night...and you get what you pay for...our bed was a frame with random slates of wood and about 4 inches of foam, the shared showers, just a faucet about 2m up with cold water...the toilet, not pretty.) That night we decided to test the strength and health of our digestive systems with a meal of brochettes and beer, the Mahajunga specialty. Down on the boardwalk women set up shop each night, cooking delicious beef brochettes on a charcoal grill. The brochettes are always served with lasary (grated veggies and green mango in vinaigrette), and then there are platters of samosas, cutlus (mashed potatoes with garlic, ginger and onion and fried into patties), mangahazo (cassava, the root tapioca is made of), and pakopako, (tortilla like things); you just tell the lady how many of what and she heats it up, and for dessert coconut crepes and super sweet fried bananas. And of course it wouldn't be a true experience without the national beer, THB, to wash it all down. Clearly a healthy meal (ha!) but it is amazingly delicious and very Malagasy.

Sunday was “vacation day.” Robert, Doda, Lauren and I went to the plague (beach) and oh was it sweet. We spent the day laying on lamaka (straw mats) under umbrellas, relaxing, laughing and eating fried fishes, fried breads, more brochette, and drinking beer. The ocean felt amazing and it was the most perfect transition day after the frustrations of training and before the unknowns of settling in at site. Also, Lucy, a 3rd year edu volunteer out west came to help us shop, and Tara the environment volunteer across the bay came too! Our whole banking crew minus Dave was together!

Monday was the shopping day, and it was such a terrible, painful experience that I think my mind is already starting to repress the memories. ha ha! Imagine, 2 American women each with a list of things to purchase for their new homes, 2 Malagasy men, and a Malagasy city where there is no such thing as a Home Depot, Target, or Fred Meyers. In fact the concept of a specialized store is really non-existent here. So you just wander the streets looking at the market, street stands and random little shops, and of course we as American women want to know our options, just imagine the events that occurred...also, people here see foreigners and they naturally think tourist and $$$$! So prices are higher naturally, that's why we have our Malagasy PC escorts to help us out...but Robert seemed to always piss off the vendors on the street and then they wanted to charge us even more. The highlight of my day was when Lauren snook away with Lucy to actually buy the stuff she needed and Robert took me into some little general store and said, “you need food, right? go buy it.” Everything there I had at my site...I wanted things like spices, kitchenwares, etc! anyway, frustrating, but we did it. It took ALLDAY - it was exhausting.

Lauren has a brand new site, with an empty house, so I tried to let her take the shopping lead and prioritized buying the big things (mattress, table, etc) for myself and grabbing other things in the places she needed to be. Likewise, I got spend a good amount of time with Doda and when I thanked him for driving us around all day and being so patient, he said there was no reason to thank him because he loved helping volunteers and so naturally he loved his job. He was one of the original PC drivers when PC came to Madagascar in 1993...this man knows almost every town in the country and seems to have a friend on every block of every town, no matter how big or small. he's amazing.

Tuesday we came to Marovoay – set up my house, met the local authorities, did the health and security checks on my house and Wedneday we went to Lauren's site, Mitsinjo. She lives across the Mahajunga bay, and about 3 hours down a bumpy dirt road. Her town is about 1/30 the size of mine, but it seems really great. She lives in the old Red Cross house that has been vacant for quite sometime. At site visit it needed a lot of work, and needless to say it wasn't quite finished when we arrived. But Doda got right to work as soon as we arrived making sure that all the windows and doors were to PC security standards, prioritized the work of the community members helping out, and us ladies got to work killing spiders and sweeping out cobwebs! yuck! When we left Thursday mid-morning it seemed like she was in a good place...furniture to be delivered that afternoon, working stove, and a list of things she wanted to get done. As for me, after we got off the ferry, Doda and Robert dropped me off at the taxi brousse station... and immediately it struck me: I actually live here now.

Something about the west...

We spend most of training talking about the indirectness and reservedness of the Malagasy people. That doesn't apply here in the west. People here always talk at a slight yell and sometimes the tone they use is a little abrasive. After 3 months of plateau life, this can be a little overwhelming at times.

Getting on the taxi brousse to get back home immediately made me wonder what the hell I was doing here in Madagascar! Five guys were all yelling at me to get in the car and trying to charge me twice the fare. After I informed them that I was a volunteer and that I know how much the ride costs they let me be, for a minute. But then when it was time to go because no one had filled the extra seat next to me they said I had to pay it. I said, “are you crazy! I'm a vazaha , but I'm not stupid!” They got very quiet. This was also like the 5th time they had told me I had to pay for the 2 seats upfront and the 5th time I told them no deal.

Likewise, in the market, people are always grabbing my arms, poking me, yelling at me. It's a little much at times. I always try to go to the morning market with someone because there are so many people, and they push and there is no such thing as a line here, and I don't really know where I fit into this system yet. The stores are the same way. Here you don't go into a store, browse, select your items and pay the cashier on the way out. Instead, you go to the store and all the items are behind the counter, so you do your best to see what there is, what you want, and then you tell the store owner, they get it and you pay. It seems silly, but it is kind of intimidating. I'm still learning what there is here, and it seems awkward to just go in and look and not buy anything...and the store owners always seem to have a scowl of their faces so it doesn't make the experience any easier or more pleasant! But I have made a few friends at the epiceries (that's what the stores are called) so I can go in and chat and and look with a little more ease.

As for where I'm I've living...

I feel really lucky to be living where I am. To you all back home, my town would probably look pretty miserable and bleak, but for here in Madagascar I live in a pretty sizable community, I'd say around 20,000, which means there is a decent market everyday with Tuesday and Saturday being the biggest. I can buy almost anything I want here in reason, given growing seasons and what is actually available here in Madagascar (however, I can only buy butter by the pre-cut pat. I tried to see if the store owner would save a chunk the next time butter came in, she seemed unenthusiastic...but I've got two years! one day we'll strike a butter deal, I know it.)

I would say that Marovoay is about the size of Sisters maybe a little bigger, but including all the little neighborhoods, not the just tourist strip on the highway. Bigger towns here in Madagascar are broken up into smaller communities. I live at the top of the hill in which the city is situated around. To an outsider there is one way to get to my house/the CEG...the road, and it is a long, slow, gradual climb. But there are about 6 different lalana kely (foot paths) which are quite dusty, but make the trip into the town center more manageable. The village at the top of the hill is called, Tsara Rivotra, (Good Wind) and it is really the best part of where I live. It's incredible hot, but there is generally at least a light breeze. the worst part of the house...wooden shutters. It is culturally not acceptable to leave a windows open at night for breeze and my house has thick wooden shutters. So whenever, I leave and when I sleep, I have to close my house all up...and needless to say it can be a little stuffy. Clearly I'll survive. :D

August 23, 2008

It finally happened! After 10 weeks of miserable weather, rice three times a day, and endless miscommunication between myself and my host family, I AM A VOLUNTEER! and the last week has been CRAZY! We left the training site last Saturday, but not without a goodbye party. Peace Corps Madagascar rolled out the red carpet (well at least for Madagascar...) with white linens, serving an amazing lunch of rice (of course), fried chicken, roast pork, new potatoes, salads, and piles of brownies, cakes, and cookies for about 200 people...and let me say no one was shy about eating! I can't even describe the piles of food people ate...WOW! Xavier, the edu director, Steve, the country director, Robert, the training director, Vola, the mayor, and one of our amazing trainees, Derek, all gave great traditional Kibary (Malagasy speeches) and each of the families was awarded a really nice plaque thanking them for their efforts as hosts. But the highlight of the event was really the conclusion, not because we were finally leaving training, but because of the events that ensued...while most of the moms had already loaded their purses full of cookies and brownies, Robert announced to please take the leftovers home and the next few minutes were a flash and frenzy of plastic sacks being stuffed with food. However, my personal favorite was Natalie's host mom. She pulled out a garbage bag sized sachet and started asking all the tables for their left over food scraps and bones to feed to the pigs. ha ha ha.

From the party, we loaded into the PC vans and headed off to Montasoa, the PC Training Center aka summer camp. We had a good day and a half to relax, process the end of training, spend some last quality time with each other (including bonfires and singing by the lake!) and also to start preparing for the next legs of our journeys. Monday it was off to Tana for one day and then back again to Montasoa, why we did this I'm still unsure. But! we did make it to then alleged “Cookie Shop” and it was just as good as everyone had said it would be...My latte was not all I had hoped for, but my tuna melt bagel is still haunting me with deliciousness and the brownie might be better than any brownie i have ever eaten in my life. I know that is saying a lot, but seriously I am in a place to be making these sorts of statements!

And today, today was the big day. Swearing in. Going to the event, I really thought that it would be a formality. Get dressed up, meet the ambassador, listen to some speeches, repeat the oath and vola, title goes from PCT to PCV – something to check it off the to do list on the way to getting to my site and starting work. I was surprised at how emotional I got! Both Steve and the Ambassador, also both former PCVs, gave really touching speeches about the process of personal growth through service abroad and the impact that one volunteer really does make on a community. whether that be the actual projects that they completed or just the friendships and understanding between people of different cultures. They both made reference that both of these accomplishments are valid and neither is more or less important than the other. And as they are both professional development workers they thanked us for the doing the hard work out in the field and how much they thanked us personally as well as extending from the US Govt. Cheesy I know, but let me tell you, tears flowed. At times I still ponder how important the work i will be doing here...teaching english in one of the 10 poorest countries in the world...but i think that over the course of the next two years my perception of what I am actually do here will change. My job may be teaching, but my work will likely be something related but different...who knows, right?

A funny side note. Laila, my fellow crazy, curly-haired girl, asked if I wanted to go get my hair straightened with her the day before swearing-in. Of course! So about 4pm, we make the 30 minute trek into the little town of Montasoa to find the Coiffure. We ask around, we arrive, we struggle through our lack of necessary vocabulary (come on PC, lets add a style section to the language curriculum!) and finally it is clear what we want done. The woman decides I am first. I sit down in a plastic lawn chair, she gets out the blow dryer – and no electricity. Oh Madagascar! So we ask what time the electricity comes...she doesn't know. But she says just hang out and we'll wait for the electricity. We wait. She brings us her family photo albums, Laila goes out for snacks, and about 10 pictures in I realize these are all pics from funerals. no thanks. After about an hour and 3 runs for snacks (it was rough day...) Laila convinces the woman to let us borrow her dryer and brushes for 3000AR (about $1.75) to do it ourselves at the training center. she agreed. Oh Madagascar!

I digress...tonight we have plans to go over to a volunteer's house here in Tana for a little swearing-in celebration and then we are going out dancing! But not before going to the Hotel du France - from what people tell me they brew their own beer and it is supposedly good. I'm intrigued.

Tomorrow, at 8am we begin Installation. Over the next few days, all 25 of us are scattering about the country accompanied by various PC staff. Lauren and I are going with Robert (aka Chocolate) and Doda out West to Mahajunga first: to shop and get ready to move into our new homes this coming week. eeeee! Then to my site, and then across the bay and down the road to Lauren's site!

Saturday I official left the training site in Alarobia and am on the final leg of the journey to becoming a PC Volunteer! Of course, we didn't leave without a party...and oh was it grand. The PC kitchen crew catered a meal for over 200 people, complete with fried chicken, rice galore, and piles of cookies and cake. Really it was impressive. The best part however was when Robert told the host families that they were welcome to take food with them home...tin foil and plastic bags exploded into the room and this didn't account for the piles of cookies already jammed into most womens purses. Amusing to say the least.

Sunday we enjoyed a leisurely day of relaxing and recouping in Montasoa. We built a bon fire down by the lake both nights and stayed out late chatting and laughing. Star led a great meditation workshop and we all got sun burnt sitting out in the sun for 2 hours. But the showers were amazing and rejuvenating and I gave myself an honest to goodness pedicure. Best feeling ever!

Then early Monday morning, at 7am, we all loaded up the vans to Tana once again. The past two days have been strictly business. Meeting with various educational groups and institutions to see how teachers, especially English teachers, are trained here and what resources are available to those who want to continue learning English post high school. I continue to realize how much we in the states take for granted the accessibility of our educations. Even students who don't want to learn get a basic education in our culture; here students are competing for the chance to be educated and only the brightest, most diligent students are allowed to continue on...it will be interesting once I am teaching and working within the school system to learn and piece together more of the educational puzzle here. Today has been a lot of $$$. We talked about it a lot. and then we went to the bank and got A LOT! It's a little overwhelming, but will be spent well on my house. :D Tonight we are going out for Ronda's Bday. it's a surprise! and then tomorrow back to Montasoa until we return to Tana to Swear in as Volunteers Friday morning!!!! Oh my goodness! and then Saturday, Robert, Doda, Lauren and I are off to Mahajunga for shopping before installation. hazah!

I'll work on updating my blog again in the next few days. but I have been missing you all dearly and hope that all is well! I would love to hear from you all!

check out the link to a few of my photos. They are taking forever to load, so there are just a few...I'll work on adding more!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029244&l=8efaf&id=27500865

enjoy!