So in the last two years I've been using a Voltaic Systems "Generator" which is essentially a laptop bag that also is a solar panel and can power a laptop. It got me through Niger and then 2 full years living without electricity in Madagascar. Anyways, 2 cyclone seasons later and now its coming with me to mainland Africa. The company has had continuously great customer service so I want to give them a shout out and my thanks.

Tence Mena Concert

As one of the last major events that I will attend in Madagascar, I went to a concert for the artist known as Tence Mena. She has been referred to by many a PCV as the Malagasy version of Rhianna. She even emulates her hair styles. My friend Ryan and I went to the concert which was to start at 2:30pm. Knowing that everything starts late, we arrived at 3:30pm and then waited in the longest line I’ve ever seen in Madagascar. It went a couple blocks down the street. We eventually made it into the concert, after several Malagasy cut in line in front of us. The concert was interesting, Tence Mena and the dancers all changed costumes after each song. This meant that they had a backup singer working the crowd every few minutes so she could change. Too fill some of the time, they had a booty shaking competition in which a child won a lot of money. All of this while my friend and I keep glancing down at the dirty diaper on the ground in our vicinity, trying to maintain eye contact so that it didn’t manage to migrate underfoot.

As the sun set on the concert and the heat of the day faded, the emotions of the crowd gradually changed. A mosh pit formed and the dancing intensified. Eventually everyone was being shoved around and the men started picking up and throwing sand. We headed for the gates. All of the wary Malagasy, especially those with children were trying to leave with us. Unfortunately, since many people refused to pay the $1.50 to enter the concert, they were instead trying to rush the police and force their way in. Since the venue was chosen for its limited number of entryways (Catholic school), our only options were to shove our way out and risk being caught in a fight between police and a crowd, or stay in a crowd that was already disintegrating into madness. I squeezed out while trying to protect a mother and infant also working her way toward safety. My friend had his sunglasses broken in his attempt to escape.

After all the stress of trying to leave the concert, dinner was in order. We went into a nice little restaurant, Salon de le Maharajah. Upon ordering, a fight broke out on the street in front of the restaurant. Our server rushed out and closed the security doors to the restaurant and with near perfect timing, the power went out. We sat in darkness listening to the brawl on the street. The power eventually clicked back on and the street quieted. We had a lovely meal and I made sure that the server got a nice tip for looking out for our safety.

On the walk back, a motorcyclist went down right before our eyes for no apparent reason. Since there were hundreds of people walking back he was embarrassed but apparently unharmed. All in all it was the craziest concert experience I’ve ever had.

You people all look the same

While walking alone to the taxi station in Fianarantsoa, a Malagasy man yelled, “MIKE!” at me repeatedly. Since Mike is not my name and I’m not a tall blond guy, I didn’t respond. The guy then called me rude names and stuck up for not responding. Now I’m aware that sometimes it is difficult to identify people with similar features from a foreign facial type. That still doesn’t make it okay to yell at me for not responding to a name that isn’t mine and is of a person who looks absolutely nothing like me.

Pills, pills, pills

Something has to be said for Malagasy doctors and pharmacies. Beyond the fact that very few doctors in this country are approved to treat PCVs, its amazing that the vast majority of doctors in the countryside are highly uneducated. A lot of what nurses and doctors practice here is the equivalent to what would be taken care of at home in the US. Most high school students in the states have a better understanding of health and the human body than some of the doctors here. The most common solutions is prescribing tetracycline as a cure all. If a Malagasy person walks into a pharmacy with the name of a medicine, it is presumed that it was prescribed because the names of medicines are not something accessible to laypeople. There aren’t drug seekers other than foreigners.

While doctors visits remain free, the cost of any medicines is left for families to bear. Even with simple and cheap solutions available for many wounds and illnesses, its frustrating to see many issues go on for years. I recently heard of an ear infection that went on until a little girl became deaf. Instead of getting a few drops or pills to fix the issue, they waited until it abscessed. This is the same idea as the family next to me who let their child become so malnourished at age seven, the boy could no longer walk. He needed deworming and nutrition information for his mother. Instead, they waited years and he was near dead. Having learned the very basics of health and first aid, most Americans know when to go to the doctor. This is one of many reasons why health volunteers here have a lot to do.

The last few weeks I've been working on editing some videos during the time that I have at internet. The editing program liked to freeze up on me every 20 minutes or so and the whole process got really annoying. Anyways, I've finished 2 videos and put them up on Youtube for you all to enjoy.

This one is of our HIV/AIDS bike trip last year:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW5yi7S1vJI

This is from the Ranomafana Visitor's center painting project in May:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3-CyL_rMUw

Hope you enjoy!

Famadihana

Went to a famadihana, also known as a turning of the bones ceremony. The usual is that a family opens their tomb every several years to celebrate the loved ones in their family who died in the past years. The body is removed from the tomb and another layer of cloth is added as an extra shroud. The family places the body on a woven mat and dances while each carrying part of the weight. The local alcohol is consumed and a portion is used to bless the tomb and celebration.

Usually the body is returned to the same tomb which is shared with many families. In my case, the famadihana was a bit different. The family that was having the celebration had finished construction on a new tomb and so instead of honoring one person and returning them to their place, many bodies were removed and carried to the new tomb down the road. This meant that many people participated and the bodies had groups of people carrying them all down the road in a very happy procession. Dancing with a body means that there is a drummer and a few other musicians making up songs and the corpse is carried forward several feet, and then back as the mob tries to figure out which way they are moving at the moment.

Older bodies are lighter and require less people to carry them. Some of the shrouds appear to have a lump. If a child and mother die, the child is wrapped on the chest of the mother, whether or not they die at the same time. If a persons spouse dies, the wife is laid on the husband’s chest and they are also wrapped together. In this way, they can be together for eternity.

The whole thing has a bit of a weird smell. Being around that many corpses of varied levels of decay isn’t exactly pleasant. The tombs are kept closed for the majority of the year and if it isn’t famadihana season (July and August), tombs are not allowed to be opened unless the owners gain special permission. If a person dies outside of these months, they may be buried until the tomb can be reopened and they are then moved to their place in the tomb.

While the entire process is very strange, it also is a very happy time. This can be the biggest celebration a family has in a decade and they get to celebrate the lives of those who were closest to them. A woman we were with was happy to be able to visit her deceased mother. Instead of a feeling of loss and suffering, the entire family remembers the value of life and honors their dead.

Earth Watch Institute

I went out with Earth Watch in July to work as one of their project coordinators. In the span of just a couple weeks we made 7 Madagascar maps (showing forest distribution and regions) and a world map. We also provided paint for the schools themselves to be repained. It’s amazing what can be accomplished with many motivated people. The other projects that the Earth Watch team was working on including trapping fosa and other carnivores in Ankarafantsika National Park, monitoring road kill in an effort to reduce the number of vertebrates killed by introducing speed bumps, pulling the invasive water hyacinth out of the lake as it has only appeared in the last 2 years, and starting construction on a new elementary school. The other staff and volunteers were amazing and a noticeable changes were made in the villages around the park.

Nosy Be, Diego, and Parents!

So my parents arrived at the end of July and after a day of Tana we flew up to Nosy Be. There we relaxed, tanned, snorkeled, saw a lot of wildlife and ate delicious food. One of the days we went out to Nosy Tany Kely and got to see a sea turtle and a lot of sea life. After that we went to Ankarana National Park and met a British guy in our taxi brousse. Seeing my parents was great and going in a taxi brousse was an interesting experience for both of us. I’m used to having my knees bruised after a 10 hour ride and after just a couple hours most Americans (my parents included) get tired of being crammed in a hot, smelly bush taxi. Thankfully, the drive was worth it several times over. We got to see a huge bat cave, several versions of Tsingy (limestone rock formations), lemurs in the wild, a scops owl awake, chameleons, and….A FOSA!!! On our second hike in the park we saw a fosa run across our path and into the forest! My first fosa sighting in the wild! It was amazing.

After Ankarana we made our way (again by bush taxi) to Diego-Suarez. We went out to the Emerald Sea, snorkeled, soaked up the sun, and ate an amazing meal. Diego was in peaceful and (though crawling with prostitutes like Nosy Be) relaxing. My parents and I flew back to Tana and in our last couple hours went to the Croc Farm. Who knew crocodile meat is delicious??? So tasty. It was sad to see my parents leave but at the airport I got to see some Earth Watch volunteer friends and see them off as well. Only a few more months until I’m home!

Vacation Plans

The plan is to go on vacation after I finish Peace Corps in December and head to South Africa. Then I hope to see parts of Mozambique, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, and Uganda. If you have friends/contacts in any of these countries let me know as I’ll be traveling with friends for the most part but I am unfamiliar with that part of Africa and can always use a friendly face.

*Oregon Trail tune*

So at the end of July I was wiped out for a few days with dysentery. I was pretty sure that the last case of an American having dysentery was on the Oregon trail (computer or real version). I don’t think that anyone needs details of the symptoms but suffice it to say that they were severe. Since I was at the time sharing a room with some American teens, they of course had to thrown in their medical advice. This would be a good time to put a disclaimer that you should probably not take any medical advice given by teenagers in general. So the first thing they said was that I should take azythromycin (a strong antibiotic used for respiratory infections like pneumonia or STDs). Next they tried to give me Imodium multiple times. Where there are a time and place for both of these medicines, neither are advisable treatments for dysentery.

The day after I started treatment (as recommended by my doctor and unrelated to what the teenagers suggested) I was feeling much better! I went to meet up with some friends who are working on a Infectious Disease research team. Their first thought was to obtain samples to prove what caused all my symptoms. When I mentioned the teenagers’ advice they also went on a rant against Imodium. Apparently it works very well for preventing the colon from clearing itself out. The problem comes in with two different problems. The first is that most things that cause diarrhea need to be removed from the body and diarrhea is a natural reaction to do this quickly. The next is that with dysentery, the volume excreted can be more than most other cases. If you take Imodium with a case of dysentery, it still works in blocking you up, but this does nothing for the cause of the illness. This means that your colon fills up instead of being able to empty itself. This keeps the infection in your body and allows it to multiply. It also means that with a very large volume that there is a slight chance of the colon actually rupturing…on the inside…which here would be a death sentence. Basically, talk to a doctor when you are sick and ignore what unqualified people tell you.

In the many months that I haven't lived in American society, my discussion of such topics becomes more and more frequent and less delicate. Comments about the state of our digestive system are normal in most conversations and a topic during meals. I'm not sure how the transition back into a more sensitive society will go but I can ensure that I will cause some raised eyebrows for quite a while after returning. 5 more months and I'll be able to see some of your eyebrows go up!

Electricity

Ah, the joys of being able to type up a blog entry over lunch. Electricity! My new house is near Ranomafana which has this huge waterfall. They have set it up so that they get most of the electricity from hydroelectric power and it is enough that it powers the entire region around it. My new place is surrounded by electricity and the power lines run right above the house. Unfortunately, the transformer to pull it off of the main line is REALLY expensive and not an option. Think 100 years of a Malagasy person’s pay. Working every day and buying food or anything. Not gonna happen.

In the mean time I can type in peace after finishing my lunch and I don’t even get charged extra for sitting here using their power. Same idea happens at the internet place, I can sit and type up things on my computer before I use the internet, hop on for 10 minutes and send out my emails without racking up much of a fee. This transformation in accessibility and cost of internet will probably mean more entries. Pictures are still hard unless I go into my banking town but I posted some on Facebook for those of you who have access to it.

Work! Hey…I do that!

Since moving I’ve talked to several people and already had a meeting with one of the local farmer associations. This one is all younger people (15-25 or so) who want to do a fruit tree planting project. Most of them have not done large scale plantings nor had to raise young fruit trees. To ensure that any trees that are donated to them (through Friends of Madagascar) are put to good use, we are holding several trainings. This week is the independence day festival so we are waiting until next week to really start. The first in a series of trainings will be to go over all of the basics. This means deciding what land is well suited for fruit trees, planning the spacing of the trees so that they each have enough room with the existing trees, size of the holes, and manure quality. Over the course of July, they will dig holes, then in August we will go back and double check everything, they will bring in manure, and in September we will plant. The people who attend the trainings and prove to be diligent farmers will be duly rewarded with trees.

I’m heading up to work with Earthwatch for a few weeks next month. Before I do that, it will be the perfect time to start air layering lychees. This means we will be preparing different branches of existing trees to grow their own roots (still attached to the tree) and then in December and January they should be ready to be chopped off the tree and planted. Down time in the next month or two will consist of training several groups of people to produce their own trees.

How hiking in Madagascar differs from Los Angeles

Today I went on a 4 hour hike around the park. Mike and I hike up on the north side of the town of Ranomafana and went until there were no trails left. Then we went some more. There are several rivers and streams around Ranomafana and we ended up having to cross one over and over by way of steppingstone. My new hiking boots are quickly getting worn in.

Somewhere on the hike we got to talking about how hiking in the US is so much different than hiking here. When I mention trails here, they are likely footpaths that are no wider than a single boot. There are often large rocks, brush, and saplings in these paths that are either trampled or avoided. The most terrifying part for me is the large population of terrestrial leeches that live in the forest liter and brush. They are (supposedly) small and crawl around like inchworms…up shoes, up socks, into pant legs, and up as far as thighs. They also linger on leaves and will gladly climb onto the hands of the unsuspecting. They then transform from skinny creepy worms to stereotypical leeches getting fatter and fatter on the very blood you need to continue hiking around. When they eventually are satisfied and fall off, you are then left bleeding your way through a rainforest. To make matters worse, like sharks, the next leech is attracted to your ever bloody sock-line and attaches itself in the SAME place! Anticoagulants help insure this cycle continues until you eventually run out of the forest screaming and slapping leeches off (I still can’t think of a more logical way to handle this inevitable situation).

With a lack of a maintained trail, we usually end up using whatever is handy to propel ourselves up hills and to keep from falling down them. This usually means grabbing onto a well placed tree and leveraging. Since we weren’t actually in the national park, the deforestation makes a lot of that impossible. Instead of gracefully (and somewhat neatly) making our way around, we end up scrambling, falling, and butt scooting more than most people would like to admit. The forest seems to have natural defenses to silly Americans trampling around. These include but are not limited to: thorns, trip-wire like vines, and plants with sticky seeds that love hair and can even stick to skin. My very least favorite is a plant or bug that causes your skin to burn for a few minutes, puff up into hives for a few minutes, make you believe that you are going to have a major allergic reaction and NEED to get out of the forest NOW, then magically stop reacting and go back to normal after 10 minutes or so. This time I ended up limping out (new boots) with completely filthy and bloody pants, burrs stuck to all of my clothes, a layer of plant life on my backpack, mud coated boots (that were dry on the inside, despite slipping in shallow water a few times, thanks Teva!), a couple of leeches inside my pants, and a temporarily hive covered hand.

All of this makes you wonder why I keep going back in for more. Refer to pictures of all the interesting plants, animals, insects, fungi, and waterfalls for rationale. =D Same time next week?

Ranomafana Painting Project

After moving out of my old site, I went up to Ranomafana to work with Valbio and Madagascar National Parks on Mike's project. We were assigned to paint the new visitors center for the park. There were 2 large rooms and another wall to paint in a week. The eight of us worked long days and finished some really great paintings as well as a topographical map.

River Trip

So for vacation we had planned on a group of 4 to go out to Tsingy. We ended up realizing that another group of 5 volunteers were going at the same time so our groups merged together. We spent 3 days going down a river in canoes and spotting various interesting things along the banks. We stopped at a gorgeous waterfall and eventually docked at a place to meet up with our "car". While we had reserved 4x4s to take us to the park, we were greeted by a camion, a very large vehicle usually used for transporting cattle. Long days in the car ensued. The good news is that Tsingy Bemaraha is totally worth it. The park is amazing and you actually have to wear a harness for a good portion of Grand Tsingy (the big rocks). We climbed up some huge rocks and into some small caves. We also visited Petit Tsingy which is the miniature version. The rocks are limestone and have been worn away over millions of years by rain.

Morondava and Baobobs

Coming back from Tsingy we stopped at the Avenue de Baobobs. It is very impressive. Some of the trees are thousands of years old and their scale is hard to capture in photographs. We got there right at sunset and stayed until it was almost dark. Morondava was great and we had a lot of fun exploring the town. It has the market featured in Bizzare Foods. Its so funny because the guy in the show has to say how awful the food is in it, we loved it! It was cheap and tasty. They also had some drink we were calling milk juice that was almost like strawberry quik.

Another year...

Its strange to know that this is my last birthday in Madagascar. Having just moved out of my old site and moving into my new house feels very surreal. Spending my day relaxing and eating good food.

Mario Kart

Being driven in a taxi brousse is a lot like being in Mario Kart with somebody else driving. You race around from one point to another, passing people with no real logic, occasionally there are objects to avoid and, no matter what, your car can't handle curves very well. Also, since you don't necessarily stop to eat, when you are done with your food, you simply toss the biodegradables out the window. I swear, every time I toss a banana peel out the window, I can only think of the following car spinning in circles and getting delayed a few extra seconds (with sound effects).

We are the world

Finished painting my World HIV/AIDS Distribution Map at the local middle school. The kids from both the middle and elementary school have been going in during their recess and lunch to stare at the map and comment. Now I'm working on a Madagascar map along the same lines at the elementary school. I'll post pictures when I get to better internet.

Moving

Have packed up most of my stuff and am sending it ahead so that when I finally move I have a manageable amount. Its amazing that I came with 80lbs of stuff crammed into 2 bags and carry-on. Now everything has expanded to be huge and with all the technical books, cooking supplies, seeds, etc I have a LOT of stuff. I'll be living out of my backpack the last two weeks or so here.

The Circle of Peace Corps Life

As I'm moving to my new site, 2 new people are getting installed in my area. A lot of my stuff is being passed down and it will be interesting to see how they are in a few months. Somebody is moving in to the place where I was in the forest for weeks in October. I love the people there so I recommended it as a new site. Hopefully he enjoys it as much as I did.

*Cue Sonic the Hedgehog theme*

Every night at 10, like clockwork, there starts a strange noise in my house. The first time I heard it, I related it to the sound of somebody running their fingernails down my wall. Thankfully, that was not the case, but after grabbing my headlamp and rape whistle, I climbed out of bed and my mosquito net. As I walked over toward my sword (kid you not, I own a sword now) and scanned the room. Nothing in the bedroom, on to the other room. Scanning the door, firmly locked, now the window, also secure. Stalking around, headlamp on full brightness, rape whistle between my teeth, sword drawn, I realized that the noise was coming from within the house! As weird as it sounds, this is a really reassuring thing, because obviously nobody was in my house which leaves wildlife.

Again scanning the room, this time looking 360 degrees, I finally spotted the source of the noise. A tenrec the size of a nerf ball was up in my rafters. Tenrecs are animals that look like hedgehogs but I think are unrelated and just happen to look alike through convergent evolution. This nocturnal guy was stalking around my house and the source of his noise were the claws and quills brushing along the wood in my rafters and walls. When I shined the light on him/her it stopped and since it couldn’t curl up without falling, it simply closed its eyes and pretended to be invisible. After poking it with my broom handle and it looking sad and defenseless, I let it go about its business, making creepy noises. It comes back every night and to some degree keeps the rats away, so for now we are on good terms.

After showing some people pictures I learned that I actually have 2 types of tenrecs living in my house. The one above is a Setifer and the other are mole tenrecs. One walks around above my bed and the other comes in through the floorboards and lives under my bed. I must say, both of them have distinct, strong odors but are generally mild roommates. Every once in a while I have to ignore them fighting or mating…pretty standard for roommates…

We are the world?

Finishing up the first of 2 maps, one World Aids Distribution map at the middle school, the next will be the same but Madagascar and at the elementary school. I had done about a third of the countries when I started writing the names on them and had about 60 students staring at the map. One kid had on flipflops that said “ANGOLA” and he was shouting excitedly when he found it on the map. Similar reactions happened with Ghana and Thailand. When some of them asked where I was from, I pointed to the South West section of the US and they at first nodded it off, then about thirty seconds later realized how far it is from South Eastern Madagascar. I ended up spending a lot of time explaining different parts of the world and what languages are spoken instead of painting more countries on the map. Its amazing to me that by 18 most people haven’t had time to stare at a map and learn where some major countries yet. Thus far nobody knew where the US was, nor any other country other than Madagascar really. After all the questions of where Canada is in the United States and where was England since the US should be next to it (since we both speak English), I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised, but needless to say, I’m quite happy with the results of making this map.

Movin’ on Up

Up North that is. Just a couple months till I move and I’m already trying to figure out all the logistics. My first load to go up and I just got to see my new living space. Running water is going to be amazing. The view is scenic to say the least and the environment is entirely different from the South East. It’s a lot colder and that transition is going to be a little weird. The past few days has been going around to talk to people in and around Madiorano. I’m getting introduced to future coworkers and to the projects that are already in progress.

Friends of Madagascar

Friends of Madagascar is a non-governmental organization (NGO) that is working in Madagascar practicing what they like to call “conservation through education”. Their more structural projects involve building or refurbishing schools and occasionally churches. This is to provide a learning space for students to continue their education (often allowing them to go to middle or high school rather than just elementary) and through this the youth learn more of the sciences and about respecting the environment. Communities involved have expressed interest and are motivated enough to contribute some of the supplies and labor while donations provide the rest.

Another project is a fruit tree project (this one I will be working on personally). The goal is going to be continuing the effort to make fruit trees available to smaller communities around Ranomafana National Park that don’t receive benefits by their proximity to the park. The goal of this is to increase variety and quality of fruit trees in the area to relieve economic and food security pressure on villagers and to help restore degraded land around the park. This is done by bringing in new varieties and also teaching villagers how to raise and graft their own trees from this new stock.

Ways to help

I know that a few of you have asked how you can personally help and now I will be working with Friends of Madagascar. I don’t handle the financial aspects of the NGO so any donations don’t go directly to me, but if you want to donate to the NGO and possibly specify particular project that you want to support, it will help the Madagascar. If you don’t want to donate money, but rather supplies, Friends of Madagascar has a list of items that they pay to have shipped from Florida to Madagascar. These range from school supplies to soccer balls to occasional building supplies. Most of this is distributed in towns that Peace Corps Volunteers live in by the volunteers that find a need for it in their village.

Another way to support Peace Corps Volunteers in Madagagascar and elsewhere is to donate to Peace Corps Partnership Projects. These are projects that PCVs are currently trying to find funding for and are highly varied. If there is a topic that interests you, health, education, business, environment, agriculture, female empowerment, and etcetera there is a related project hoping to get off the ground.

Lastly, Kiva is an unrelated group that gives loans in third world countries to individuals and small groups. You can loan somebody money (in $25 increments) which then funds their business proposal. When they pay the loan back, you get paid back and can either take your money out or reinvest in another project. Basically you can invest in other peoples dreams risk free and while you don’t make anything, you don’t lose anything either. So if you don’t mind not making the single cent you might make in interest in a bank, you can help a person in the country of your choice. How awesome is that? [You can also join a lending team on Kiva, such as Stuff You Should Know or an organization that you like, and support two things at once]

Diversity Committee

Since the country is restarting, I have been heading the committee to help PCVs, staff, and HCNs deal with American Diversity while living in Madagascar. In the past few weeks I've visited a couple other volunteers and we are starting to make some activities that other volunteers can do at site. I also went to see the new trainees !!! and talked to them about how to handle various situations where American culture differs from that here and how to better support one another.

Tanambe and Brieville

Travelled to Tanambe and Brieville and visited Erin and Haley. We worked on Diversity Committee activities and caught up. It was so good to see them again, they live several days away from me so its very rare that I see them. Took some pictures at a woman's garden in Tanambe and the pictures should be on my shutterfly (alisonthieme.shutterfly.com) She had many types of plants and actually runs a landscaping business around town. I'll try to post some more pictures of Brieville if I can.

Women's Day

Planted Moringa at the local hospital on Women's day. After weeks of asking the hospital when they wanted to plant, they came to me the day before the festival to ask me if the next day would be good. It was better than good! We planted the last of the Moringa saplings that I had and then had a "carnivale" which means running around town in a group singing to excite everybody about the festival. After they had speeches, dancing, and drinks.

Moving

I am going to be changing my site in June. Since my village has many nutrition and health issues and is less suited to be an environment site, I am moving to allow myself to be replaced. Starting in June I will be living at the Friends of Madagascar house near Ranomafana. This means that my address will change one last time.

Alison Thieme

BP 12091 Corps de la Paix

Poste Zoom Ankorondrano

101 Antananarivo

Madagascar

Blog 02-18-2011

*cue “Jaws” theme*

I figured you didnt want a whole line of “duh duh” to introduce my story. My last trip going back home I was waiting for a bush taxi to take me back from Farafangana. The van pulls up with a large…lump…on top. Curious to see what was on it I walked all the way around it. It was a brown skin with not much identifiable due to the tarp it was on. 10+feet long, several feet around and bigger in the middle…I wasn’t sure what it was! Eventually they moved the tarp slightly and I was able to see its easily recognizable head. On top of the car was a hammerhead shark! The fins and tail were removed and it was still huge! The bunnies I had just bought were supposed to be transported up there with it. As I went to call a friend (before I could snag a picture) the car drove away! It came back an hour later unloaded. What do you pack on top of your car?

Lychees

Lychee season came and went all to quickly. With the first few drops of rain, the lychees ripen and by December they are finally starting. Within days the ground in my village became covered with peels and seeds. I could buy ~40 lychees for 5 cents. This led to a lot of gorging and a few weeks later…fly season arrived. I love lychees, but I’m not sure that they are worth the flies that came with them. After going on vacation over the holidays, by the time I came back they were gone. A few weeks of eating 100+lychees a day and I already want them back.

Roofing

When I got back to my home sweet hut, part of the roof to the latrine had blown off. After getting that fixed, a while later the peak of my roof flew off! It was during an ugly day and when I told my neighbors that the top of the roof blew off they came to help. In the rain. I was amazed that they would climb up and fix my roof in a light rain. They wouldn’t accept payment for it as they said it was a favor and I ended up having to tell them that the money was a New Years gift for them to take it. That night it rained harder than I have ever seen and I was unbelievably grateful that they had fixed the huge hole.

The last week has been a bit crazy weather wise. After my roof was patched (it still is leaking a lot in other places and needs to be replaced) I started gathering supplies to redo it. Before enough ravinala leaves could be gathered, a storm hit and the paths flooded. Since the men carry them on these paths I wont be getting my roof fixed for a while.

Bunny!

I am the proud new owner of a white and grey rabbit with dark eyes. He is really cute and eats the weeds I have in my yard. He also loves to eat my sweet potato leaves which is fine with me since they are out of season and need to be dug up anyways. He lives a fairly peaceful life, even though the mayor’s rabbit sometimes escapes his hutch and harasses him. I don’t have a hutch yet so he sleeps in a movable container and spends his days at the end of a leash.

Moringa update

My Moringa tree nursery is tapped out at the moment…because we have planted them all! There are actually 15 left but are reserved for planting at the hospital. We’ve planted at the elementary and middle schools as well as a women’s center. The rest have been distributed amongst the community. I hope to plant again when its not rainy season and increase the numbers from ~100 trees to 200 or 300 trees. The tallest one that I planted in my yard is already taller than I am and I’ve trimmed it to make it bushier (aka more leaves).

World Map

The world map is coming along. I’ve finished a good chunk of the east and am about to start on Africa and Europe. We painted a large blue rectangle for the ocean/background. Next we draw the entire world, then fill it in with color. Since we started a month ago, things are going pretty steadily whenever school isn’t in session and there isn’t a cyclone.

Google calling!

I love google phone calls. When I am at good internet (which is rare) I have the opportunity to call any American number for free! So if I haven’t called you and you want me to, email me your number. Also if you get an unknown 760 number, answer it!

Cyclone Bingiza

As soon as I had to travel to Fianaratsoa there was a cyclone! We got one of the last taxis out of Farafangana, traveled through calf deep water outside of Farafangana and then traveled fairly quickly to Ranomafana. Earlier in the day near the park entrance to Ranomafana Park the river next to the road flooded to 5 or 6 feet deep, flowing water. By the next morning we still had to wait a couple hours for the water to go down to thigh deep. We waded through on foot and pushed the car for a kilometer and a half. By later that day the water was down but a large area of the road had sunken 3 feet due to erosion. Also by that morning the road from Farafangana was chest deep in water and fast moving. Everyone who left after us is stuck there. Out of the two options I’m glad to be stuck in a city with internet and a sturdy house.

For pictures go to alisonthieme.shutterfly.com

How old is old enough?

Almost every day I get asked how old I am. Apparently it matters a lot to people here. I am far too old to be single and not actively looking. I am too old to not have multiple children by now. Talking to a group of women in my village they were all shocked when I said I was twenty-three. They then all told me their ages. With toddlers and babies on their backs, looking to be late thirties or early forties, they told me they were twenty-four and twenty-six. They then spread the word to their friends of how OLD I am. Hopefully I can avoid matchmakers in the village. I recently had it confirmed that female PCVs cannot reasonably expect to be just friends with any men our own age. It is interpreted as a boyfriend and we modify our behavior accordingly so that we aren’t alone with anyone in our houses. I miss having normal friendships, thankfully I know have a lot of friends under the age of twelve…=P

Catcalls

At dinner the other evening with Erin, we had a group of men (drinking/drunk) whistle at us. Unsurprised, we went to into the restaurant and sat on the patio. As we ate the men started to say “MEOW” at us rather loudly. Instead of whistling or hissing, they were performing their new form of a catcall at us. (This is all made even stranger by the fact that that the noise cats make here is called “mew”, not “meow”, and instead of “kitty kitty” they say, “mimi”, neither of which is “meow”.)Before we could say anything to them they stumbled away into the darkness.

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree…

I haven’t had one for two years now. Spent Christmas in Fianaratsoa talking to a few of you on Skype and catching up. I was so happy to see my family on Christmas as my parents borrowed a web cam from the neighbors (many thanks to Phil and Sharon!). It was great to get to talk to everyone, it made my holiday very happy. I hope to be at internet in a few months that is good enough to do that again.

New Years!

Traveled up north to Mahajanga for New Years Eve celebrations. Ate arguably the best pizza on Madagascar at Marco’s and gelato. Also had fish kabobs on the boardwalk which we turned into fish tacos, we brought our own limes and everything. Drank a few beers and strolled the boardwalk with several hundred Malagasy people and went dancing to ring in the new year.

Mid-Service Conference

With one year left in our service, my stage met up to talk about projects, NGOs, and our plans for the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps. The second year of service supposedly goes by faster and you end up with more work so here goes nothing. I applied for funding for my Moringa project, primarily for seed to buy it and should find out next month whether I’ll be receiving it or not. I also got to meet with many NGO representatives and see quite a few of my friends.

In the time between then and finishing my medical exams, I went to a few get togethers and met RPCVs, embassy staff and marines. It was a lot of fun, not that I’m not ready to go back to my hut. I dislike living out of a bag and not being able to cook, but if I have to, being in good company and eating delicious food is a fine substitute.

And here it is:

Everyone knows education is important for mental development and can be the biggest influence on improving a society. For the most part, these ideas seem basic, though somewhat foreign as concepts. What seems to go unnoticed in the developed world is the role that education plays on social development, the importance of which becomes apparent when most members of a community haven’t finished elementary school.

My theory goes somewhere along the lines of…social skills stop progressing at whatever grade people stop attending school. The presentation of the effects of this in adults are: mimicry (aka a half an hour of a group of adults mimicking one sentence such as, don’t touch me), poking or other touching that is not age appropriate, following other people around and talking about them in their presence (normally in front of the person in the same language they have been using). If you have these things happen to you, think “wow, its like the person is in 3rd grade,” then realize that they stopped school in 3rd grade, life begins to make sense. This theory applies just as well for more educated people as well. The older students, educated adults, and people who live around educated people are exposed to different social behavior and act in a different manner that most Americans would see as age appropriate. There’s something just weird about seeing fifty year old men mocking a volunteer then asking for money/beer. If that’s a sign of esteem, I’m still not comfortable with it.

Podcasts

I have just discovered the sanity-saving aspects of podcasts. After days of not speaking in English or hearing any English other than a random Celine Dion or Akon song, podcasts are AMAZING! From the more intellectual university talks to more practical “Stuff You Should Know” to comedy, I now have gotten hours of potentially life saving media. Celebrating ensues...=D

Try to set the night on fire!

Slash and burn agriculture is in season here in Madagascar. So far several national parks have been partially burned as well as reserves. This says nothing for the thousands of hectares of private land and farm land that is also burned every year. In the South East (as well as most of Madagascar) this has led to a reduction in the number of trees (combined with good ol' deforestation) and increased savannah. While many adult trees can survive this type of burning, saplings are usually laid waste and thus the next generation of trees never forms. A few plants like ravinala (The Traveller's Palm) end up thriving and become a valuable source of materials since the forests are depleted, if not eliminated entirely.

As I have been travelling lately, these burned areas, as well as fires in progress, seem to be of no particular concern to locals. It's "fire season", not because of any natural fires but rather due to purposefully set fires in hopes of renewing the land for the next year. Having grown up in Southern California the most common fire I saw was a wildfire and this idea scares me. The parks that have burned have been due to out of control fires, largely due to the ignorance of those setting the fires. To stop the fires, everyone must go out and defend their home with whatever they can use to beat back the flames. In many cases this can go on for hours to defend a single community. Since there are no handy fire hydrants nor trucks, nor firefighters for that matter, it is every man for himself. Having walked the perimeter of one of the local fires (using a GPS to measure the size) I am tired of seeing the damage. We'll see about fire education soon.

Travels with French guys:

Imagine trying to go South in a 4x4, the back of the truck entirely filled with people. Next imagine your suprise when 3 young French men also climb in back. Next picture being stuck in an unusual situation where only one of them knows English well, all of your highschool French has blended with Malagasy, and they don't speak a word of Malagasy. To top everything off, the driver will lie about the travel time, leave you in the middle of nowhere, and a group effort of 3 languages is the only way to get out. Essentially everything came in 3's this past week. 3 days, 3 French friends, 3 languages. All in all we kept eachother safe and eventually made it out of a cellphone black hole.

Welcome Back!

Since my travels happened to coincide with a communications test, everyone was aware how out of cell service I was. Everyone I had been in around before or going towards had recieved numerous contacts from PC staff each day. Thanks for all the concern, but it had me freaked out when I got 15 texts and numerous missed calls when I could finally turn on my phone.

The South:

Wholly hotness! I forgot what dry heat felt like for a bit. The kind where you cant work for 4-6hours midday unless you want heat exhaustion. And even then, laying down in the shade, sweating, you still feel exhausted. I did manage to dig a garden with Tatum as well as learn to better transplant Moringa. We walked out to a section of spiny forest (exciting to any botany nerds out there) and experienced first hand the Madagascar hissing cockroaches (this led to some confusion as they sound like a short gas leak or a fart). I also saw a civet, lizards, and two tortoises. I ate my first habobo, which is some form of old milk, on sweet potato with honey and was amazed by the deliciousness. They also produce peanut butter in the South and I was lucky enough (aka: thank you Paul) to aquire some in the whirlwind of my departure.

Travels with Malagasy people:

The return trip from visiting Tatum's site and very briefly seeing part of the South was undoubtably just as interesting as the ride there. After staying at a fellow PCV's house and trying to figure out ride arrangements for the next day, a man arrives at the house to ask if I wanted to go, right now, in a 4x4. Since my other options were less appealing than a WHOLE seat (I am used to squeezing in many many people) I packed up and jumped in. They even gave me a seat with a belt! About 3 hours into the trip something is wrong...the metal rod that connects the wheels to the steering system had fallen off! They rig it with ropes and we are able to get about one kilometer per fix. After hours of this we eventually arrive at a small town and are able to look for a mechanic. This takes a day to fix as the mechanic does not have the correct parts. When the driver finally returns with the part fixed, his eyes hurt. He apparently did the welding himself, without any protective glasses. He is rendered unable to drive until the next morning. We eventually get to Ihosy where the driver announces that the repair cost so much that he can no longer afford gasoline. This leads to a several hour hunt and my eventual return to civilization.

Forest:

The new transects were postponed for a little bit so in the mean time I was working on the lemur census. This involved 5km bike to the town, 7km walk to the forest, and then 2.5km hike on an already established transect. Then we do everything in reverse, packing our lunches into the forest. A transect is a very narrow pathway through the forest. Since they do not cut any trees and only can move branches and roots out of the way. There are fallen trees to climb over and under and saplings to avoid as well as the occasional hidden holes covered with leaves. These transects are at specific degrees and distances apart to know exactly where you are in the forest.

Lemurs:

We spotted several groups of woolly lemurs as well as brown lemurs. We averaged seeing 2 groups per day (2 transects, seeing more groups in the morning than in the afternoon). On my second to last day in the forest I was given the opportunity to lead as our guide had to pee. Having not seen any lemurs that day I shocked everybody when a minute or two into leading I saw a male brown lemur. Upon finding him we also saw a female and two others in the group. =D Very exciting. By documenting where the lemurs are in the forest, group dynamics, activities, and the type of forest we can hopefully find out the effects of the different pressures on the forest on the lemur populations.

Funding:

USAID has decided to change their requirements for Child and Maternal health so that my Moringa project will not be receiving funding. Unfortunate but I am still working with what seeds and materials I already have and can probably do a smaller project to a similar effect.

Lemur hunting:

Just kidding, I dont hunt, but I am going into the forest to set up new transects for a lemur study! Ill be minorly unavailable for about 2 weeks or so. I should be out by the end of the month and back online by Halloween =D Send me some silly pictures! I will be working with Durell a wildlife conservation group, my first time camping with only Malagasy people, wish me luck!

Bon jour!

Lately I have been getting "Bon jour" and "bon soir" a lot. I am now starting to count how many of these "BJs" I get a day, and for that matter how much "BS" I get too. This generally still occurs after explaining that I am not French and understand Malagasy better than French...if only this explanation yielded anything...oh well, without it we couldnt have set up such a fun game!

More to come with more and better internet!

Vacation!

Went to Ambalavao and Ishalo/Ranohira on vacation these past few days. Ambalavao has some really interesting paper making with a process similar to papyrus. They pound the material obtained from a plant, then make it in a frame with water, dry it, and press flowers into it while its still wet. Its very pretty.

Ishalo is amazing. A large amount of it reminds me of California and Arizona and was making me rather homesick. I ended up going on a long hike in the park and got to see some very pretty natural pools. Two of them were known for their colors as they have varied depth and were black and blue. There were also sandstone formations and some really neat plants (One is like a mini baobab painted silver with yellow flowers). There was also a tree/bush that doesn’t have leaves, its stem is simply flattened. There is a place known as “La Fenetre” or “the window” in which the sun sets in the middle of a rock formation that looks like an upside-down triangle.

Its so dry here compared to the south-east that my skin got all dry and my lips chapped! I haven’t felt that since Niger. I still feel homesick for hiking around Southern California and dry heat. I’m heading back to my site much tanner than when I left.

Oh Paddy.

Did a small SRI training with my counterpart and his wife. After planting one field with me, he is teaching other people the techniques he has learned. The rice is now several weeks old so there should be rice in a couple months! Working in the fields is extremely difficult. Since we are lacking in the way of tractor or horse/cow power, all the tilling is done with a shovel and a lot of squishing mud globs with feet. There aren’t enough cows to go to all the fields and tractors would have a very difficult time with transportation since there aren’t roads going out to the fields. When the field is finally made smooth and flat, the transplanting begins and several days of leaning over later, a field is planted =D. I wish I actually liked non-sticky rice better.

Berny

I got to meet a guy in Ishalo who is French but born in Malagasy. He’s 83 and has more energy than almost anyone I’ve met. He also speaks all dialects of Malagasy so well that he acts as a translator for certain government business if the officials don’t understand that particular dialect. At 83 he keeps an orchard and garden that are better than most I’ve seen in country, with more types of trees and employing techniques other tree growers haven’t even heard of. Learned a ton in a small amount of time and the best part is that he does this all in a part of the country where its hot and dry with poor soil quality. Amazing!

Newbies: part 2!

In a very short amount of time there will be several new volunteers by me. Its super exciting to have more people around and since they’ve already visited their sites we got to meet some of them. I’m looking forward to their arrival and so pretty soon some new names might start appearing in my blog.

Squirrel!

So most people in the states have seen squirrels or some other rodent that becomes rather obnoxious in its attempt to get your food. In parts of Ishalo (namely the picnic tables) the local version of a squirrel is a lemur. They had some sort of a brown lemur as well as the ring tailed lemur becoming very forward in their attempts to steal food. Rather interestingly the guides do very little to stop this and seem to almost promote it as a way of getting the tourists to get the opportunity to see lemurs. They successfully stole a banana peel from us before we started becoming VERY aggressive in our defense of PB&Js. I put myself between my sandwich and the lemur who wanted it. In response she put her front hands on my arm until I shook her off. All of this with a baby in tow on her belly! Obviously most tourists aren’t putting up much of a fight for their food, nor careful about the messes they make. While I hate seeing the lemurs acting this way it was the first ring-tailed lemurs I’ve seen and was interesting. I also saw a couple wild Sifka relaxing natural pool-side which were more impressive although a bit farther away (aka not touching me).

Pimp!

Recently at the taxi brousse station in Fianaratsoa there was a classic example of Malagasy style. A boy about 12 years old was wearing large, gold aviator glasses; a red though mis-matched track suit (with small wear holes in the butt); off-red shoes; a briefcase; a cane that can only be described as a pimp stick; and the weirdest pout/frown I have ever seen. Imagine: 12 year old, briefcase, pimp stick, pout.

Braids:

My village has decided that my hair is long enough to braid. This might be true for the very top of my head which hasn’t been trimmed in 6 months or so. This however is definitely not true for the sides of my hair which at some points are only an inch long. My hair has thus become a cause of much laughter in my village. Cornrows are artfully done on the top of my head, accompanied by thirty or so tiny braids that stick out in any direction on the sides. Most of my neighbors tactfully ask, “Who did your hair?” while others say, “Oh! You have had your hair braided!” or “Nice braids (teeheehee)” or simply laugh. I feel like I am in a nightmare from middle school and can’t take out the braids for a couple days as the friends who braid it are great and its just my hair isn’t long enough to look good braided yet and I don’t want to offend them.

Posting pictures of everything as I am able on alisonthieme.shutterfly.com

More Moringa!

I’ve been planting like crazy. Right now a lot of families are suffering food security wise as well as nutrition. I’m trying to help at least for next year to have that be less by planting more now. There have been some difficulties getting Moringa to transplant from a bag into a new spot but direct seeding has been good. Anyways, I’m planting away here and hoping for some improvement.

Lets get cooking:

Recently helped make 2 mud stoves and repair a manufactured mud stove. They are really easy to make and reduce the amount of firewood villagers use to 1/3 the former amount. Since its free for them to make (they already have the materials available) a lot of people were interested to see what we were doing and are waiting to see how well they work once they are fully dry. Lets hope they are perfect and people start implementing them, saves their money and forest.

Lemurs?

I am still waiting to start lemur research but my contact has been out of town recently. If something exciting happens I’ll let you all know.

When riding in a taxi brousse in a third world country, the situation often arrises that music is played. While this is usually an unchangeable situation, occasionally the opportunity arises to fix it. Please realize that the music being played is usually in a foreign language, played too loud on low quality speakers, and for some reason there is always a speaker right next to your ear. This exact situation arose last week while 9 of us PCVs were in a car. I of course was sat next to the speaker. After repeatedly requesting the driver to turn it down...an opportunity presented itself. Since the driver had his own speakers he hardly noticed when someone unwired the speaker blasting in her ear. Thank goodness for a simple wiring set up and music so loud the driver can't tell when some speakers aren't on.

Bike Trip around Lac Alotra

Brief Overview:

After arriving in Ambatondrazaka from Tana, we slept at a friends house then biked to Amparafaravola, our first stop on the HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention bike trip. The first ride was 67km, our longest day and we arrived in the evening to practice for the next day.

Each festival consisted of 2 hours of the public being able to come up to our different booths and discuss various topics. I was mostly at the environment booth talking about diet, nutrition, and Moringa. We handed out tons of seeds for Moringa and hopefully will see a difference if we get back there. Other booths consisted of HIV/AIDS prevention (complete with condom demonstrations), general health (nutrition, malaria, STDS, family planning), family budgeting, “what is Peace Corps?” and a kids song booth.

The next 2 hours we were on and off the stage in each town. We did skits on how to treat friends and family who have HIV or AIDS, how HIV is transmitted and not transmitted, practicing safe sex, and how HIV/AIDS attacks the immune system. We also performed condom demonstrations, followed by group condom races and blindfolded condom races. We also sang songs that were adapted from Malagasy songs to be about AIDS and lowering the risk of transmission.

The last 2 hours were done by PSI, a local group who promotes awareness and prevention They played music videos and Malagasy made movies about being faithful.

After hours out in the sun and long bike rides, we were all generally exhausted. Speaking in a foreign language for hours on end, answer questions and giving speeches over and over, really wears out the mind. Early bike rides took care of any physical stamina we had left.

By several days of biking, festivals, and sleeping in tents we were wiped out. Thankfully Kelly and Sara came to give a much needed morale boost. We pushed through to the last of 9 towns to arrive back in Ambatondrazaka for a day of rest and preparation for our final festival. The last festival was complete with the arrival of Boda, the Health APCD and finally some much needed HIV testing on site. With the ever changing situation of Madagascar, HIV tests have become unavailable throughout the country, making the promotion of testing and prevention rather difficult. We kept having to tell people to go get tested when they change partners but there are no tests available…

Tested 34 people on the last day, none were positive =D

Funniest parts

Doing condom demonstrations with gender reversals so the woman would hold the wooden phallus and the man would put on the condom. I did this multiple times to rather humorous reactions. Also realize this is in front of mixed crowds, aka children and old women included.

Some other PCVs struggled with certain parts of the condom demonstrations, just imagine while on stage and in front of hundreds of people, failing to open a condom wrapper or to tie a knot in it.

Having 8 and 9 year old children be able to answer questions about how to prevent AIDS in front of the very same crowd.

Teens and young adults having fun with the blindfolded condom races. One guy tried to put it in her pocket when it had been “used”, another girl was holding the wooden phallus the wrong end forward. Also the group condom races often were a battle of the sexes and the 65 year old woman winning the race to the trash can was often amazing to watch.

The general dialog of our group was one of the best things. Having to ask the group where they put the “wooden phalluses” is rather hilarious. Things kept getting moved around and we were always laughing.

At some point during the trip, there would be a couple of weird pauses in our on stage performances. In order to fill the gaps we implemented group dancing on stage, the official Malagasy “start the party” song, and a solo lip-syncing performance by Stephanie. The audience never knew it wasn’t planned. Since the lip-syncing was performed to a duet, an assortment of men filled the other role.

Someone pooped in a sleeping bag right before the trip (on accident, caused by extreme digestive illness). A sleeping bag that wasn’t theirs and the other person had to sleep with a blanket instead.

We ate rice and beans most nights as its cheap and has protein. We left places smelling like we had eaten beans.

Dentist

Going to a dentist in a foreign country has to automatically be interesting. Since Peace Corps requires certain gum tests to be done, namely probing for depth, most volunteers bleed profusely from their gums. While that was unpleasant, the woman assistant who insisted on being a part of the action was extremely unnecessary. She was in charge of the suction and the water squirter. This ended up with my face being sprayed, the back of my throat being sprayed, and my lip being stuck to the suction nozzle. Imagine all that while the mirror and poking device are also in your mouth. At one point I demanded her to stop as she kept getting the suction nozzle either stuck to my lip or cheek.

Newbies! Again!

I got to run over to the training site yesterday for a quick meeting with the new stage. I even got to meet the people who have been placed near to me =D Soon we’ll be welcoming 3 new people to my banking town. We were the first volunteers they met so it was a bit overwhelming. Mike and I tried to answer as many questions as possible in the very limited time we had and to quell some fears. They just got in a week and a half ago or so and hopefully I’ll get to greet them again during site visits.

New pictures up:

alisonthieme.shutterfly.com I’ll try to post as I have internet.

Ok, trying to use shutterfly... will slowly be posting pictures to alisonthieme.shutterfly.com

Blog 07/17/2010

Ranomafana Part 2:

After a few more hikes around Ranomafana (and no more leeches), I have seen several interesting things which I am posting in picture form. Enjoy! Tatum came out to visit before the bike trip so we went around to a couple waterfalls.

Food!

The best part about seeing other volunteers is that you can combine forces and create delicious food. Since seeing Tatum we’ve continued on the good food binge started with Abe, Brian, Mike and Tod. The past week has held: Tacos, “Chipotle” style steak fajita burritos complete with guacamole, salsa, cilantro rice, pinto beans and lettuce, BBQ steak sandwiches, mashed potatoes and gravy, Ghirardelli Double Chocolate brownies (THANKS SHIRLEY!!!), chili, stew, and tonight will hopefully be pizza (the dough is rising now). Thanks to anyone who has sent me a care packages, especially those with seasoning packets which are making this all possible. =D

Camera:

So after not using my camera for a while I came back to my house, opened my trunk and found my camera…DEAD. After a week or so of worry (especially since Abe has the same camera and his was DOA) I have recharged it and it works. Hopefully with the power of my camera and his lenses combined we shall form…Captain Planet!…or at least some better quality pictures. I may in the future post some pictures taken on my camera but not by me. If anyone knows of an easy way to post videos I’ll try to do that eventually.

COS Trip?

As I travel a bit around Madagascar, meet other travelers, and talk with fellow PCVs, the topic of a COS (Close of Service) trip has come up. Past PC Mad Volunteers have done a variety of trips and I’m considering (aka planning and hoping) doing a trip of my own. There is no foreseen limit to time (other than the desire to see friends and family at home) and the only limit is money. The ideal would be to visit friends in South Africa, make our way over land to some Swahili speaking countries, and then maybe continue back to do “the loop” in West Africa or catch a boat to Asia from Mozambique. Does anybody know of any cheap (but safe) travel options in the Africa/Asia realm? We have heard rumors of some boats and freighters that are slow but cheap but nothing with any confirmation. Thankfully a lot of the countries we want to go to have Peace Corps established there which makes finding things once we get there easier as well as giving us a support system on the ground (and will also hopefully make it so my parents worry less).

Work:

Recently I have been learning more about vetiver grass in Ranomafana. The local cell phone tower is on the verge of collapse and to prevent further erosion, vetiver grass is being used. In Ranomafana I went up to the ValBio research center and got to meet with researchers and staff. Many of their projects are fascinating and since they host study abroad groups as well as other programs, they get a broad range of studies while also supporting the local community. Learning from them was great and hopefully I can find some inspiration from any of their amazing projects to apply in my own village.

The bike trip starts this week and so hopefully we can get some good AIDS information out to the public. After the bike trip I hopefully will be starting my SRI demonstration field as the rice planting season in my village is now. Between holidays and my trip, planting has been temporarily postponed until I get back. I’m finally submitting funding forms after having them deleted and having to find a computer to retype them on. Wish me luck!

Fety Piranena:

June 26th is the Madagascar independence day. This independence day marked the nation's 50th anniversary of independence from France. As this is the biggest holiday of the year for Malagasy it comes standard with a holiday season. Most of June consists of some form of preparation for the 26th (Pronounced the French way vingt-six [van-seese] and referred to as such) and starting as early as April people were talking about the coming holiday. Notably the Christmas holiday is a religious and family oriented holiday, not a season. The party in my village started on the 25th with an all-night dance. After being invited by multiple people, I attended with several of them and enjoyed the rarity of music and a light bulb run off of a generator. This all occurred in the open-air market at the top of the hill in my village. I left when most of the children left and the music continued for 12 hours. At night the kids all had poppers which they would utilize when nobody was paying attention in order to receive the maximum reaction from each explosion.

The actual holiday of vingt-six was composed of a lot of waiting. As everything in Madagascar runs on Malagasy time, the festivities which were supposed to start at 9am were delayed until 11:30am. I was invited to sit on the stage as I was giving a short speech. Through Friends of Madagascar I had acquired some soccer jerseys and balls to distribute to my community. I suppose I should mention that I am not comfortable with public speaking. As we sit on the stage and they fix the microphone to work I pay attention just in time to notice that the mayor is introducing me and saying that I will be giving the first speech. Slowly I made my way around the seats to the microphone to find out that the cord is extremely short. I give my speech, bent in half, partially facing the crowd in order to accommodate the length of the cord. By the time I announced the soccer balls for the schools and the jerseys for the community, the crowd of several hundred people were cheering and didn't notice my shaking like a leaf. The rest of the speeches were all about the success of the country and community in the last fifty years. After the speeches they brought groups from the different community groups up to sing and/or dance. These were similar to American wedding money dances. Some of these were to get support for the local churches or children's groups and got huge support. Donations ranged from five cents to five dollars and one guy even through in his phone as a donation to one of the adult groups.

Once the presentations were done, the adults moved to the local middle school to enjoy refreshments. Sodas for the women and alcoholic drinks for the men. With very large groups of Malagasy people consuming free beverages, a sense of urgency quickly develops. Since each table could get another bottle once theirs was empty, the members of each table are pressured to drink as quickly as possible so that they overall can get the most free drinks. I drank ten cups of soda in under five minutes. Once the drinks were finished (five minutes after they started, approximately ten cases of liter bottles) the women leave to participate in other small parties or start making the feast. The men in the community stay behind to voice their concerns to the officials. The teachers invited me to a small party where even more soda was consumed. I got to talk about some future plans for work with the schools and enjoyed the company. One of my coworkers made dinner for me and by then it was nightfall.

The epitome of class:

For the holiday the officials in the community dress to the nines. This means for most of them, dress pants, shirt, tie, jacket and shoes. The jacket and pants generally are not the same color, fabric or pattern. The same ideas follow for the rest of the outfit. In particular take note of the shoes. With a pant-suit the ideal shoes are dress shoes, if those cannot be acquired then there are three options left. They are as follows in order of increasing fanciness: barefoot, flip flops, and jellies. Yes, jellies. The 3rd grade, American girl standard for shoes is also compatible with black tie events in third world countries. Made out of squishy plastics, they are everything you could hope for for from a shoe and more.

After effects of vingt-six:

Since the speaker system occasionally malfunctioned, the introduction part of my speech was difficult to understand. As a result of this, several people in my village think my name is SON! as this is how it sounded to the crowd. Small children now yell hello to me calling me SON in the highest pitch they can manage.

Friends of Madagascar:

Several people have thanked me for the soccer related contributions and I hopefully can redirect some of that thanks to the Friends of Madagascar staff and donors. THANK YOU!!! The elementary and middle school kids are out there every day playing with the balls and the adults now have enough jerseys that they are well represented when they play neighboring communities.

Winter?

These seasons are made even more different by living off the coast of the Indian Ocean and cyclone season. As of now it is cold and rainy which will continue until September or so when it will become cold and dry and move slowly into heavy rains and a warming trend by November. Its been two solid weeks of rain and its getting hard to find clean clothes. In the rare glimpses of sunshine I run to wash clothes and at least partially dry them before the rains begin again.

Training:

As the bike trip quickly approaches, Melissa and I have been training since IST. The race is 220km over 9 days. A tour de lac if you will which seems fitting since it will overlap with the tour de france. We are way more fit than we were and are now able to go more than 30km comfortably. It will be a test since the first day of the trip is the longest and hardest at 60km. Wish me luck!

Ranomafana:

In Malagasy, Ranomafana means hot water, named after the hot springs in town. Other than these hot springs, most of the water in Ranomafana is cold! Since arriving to work on a vetiver grass project with Mike it has rained every day, bitterly cold. Since the vetiver grass project has had some recent set backs due to terracing issues we went into the forest for the day. I encountered my first LEECHES! EWW!!! They are terrestrial leeches that climb up your feet and pants. My feet were covered in them. We saw a few golden bamboo lemurs and a greater bamboo lemur. Both are some of the most rare species of lemur. They live primarily on bamboo which contains toxic levels of cyanide and is not eaten by other mammals in the forest. We also got to see some spectacular waterfalls, a few birds (it was raining), and a leaf-tailed gecko which was better camouflaged than a chameleon.

The couple volunteers and I have also managed to make hamburgers complete with onion rings and fries. The plan for tonight is chicken tacos. par

Work, work, work

Since the second training work has been pretty constant. Help has been pouring in from SDMad, USAID, CARE, Unicef, and FID. It has been amazing. Starting on an SRI example field soon that was given to me along with using seed given to me. My sweet potato field has been planted and my garden is looking good.

OUCH!

The other week while sitting with my neighbors by the fire... SOMETHING BIT ME!!! I captured it in my pant leg and held it until someone grabbed a flashlight. Upon letting it go and shaking it out of my pants it was a creepy crawly! I called the doctor and he just said it would hurt a lot, probably not kill me. After careful research since, my friends and I have determined it was a centipede that bit me. It hurt a lot.

Birthday!

First birthday spent abroad. I missed all of you terribly, especially since now I am old (23) and reminescing. Danced a lot and played some beer pong. I had a great time and now time seems to be passing faster and faster.

So the first part of my service is done and most people tend to qualify it as the worst. Things are finally starting to pick up so that of course means i'm not at site for a while doing training again. Picture is on the way from the capital to my site

Mova!

In my area Mova is the name for the melanin eating fungus that I currently am growing on my face, back, and chest! It looks like normal skin except for weird white spots. My doctor asked if I had dandruff...thanks...but no. Anyways clearing that up, I'm loving tropical diseases! Its better than the toe fleas which are exactly what they sound like.

Diet part 2:

Just so you know, being on the third world country diet also means that everyone, no matter how thin you will become, will always be thinner than you. They will also be ripped starting at age 6 or so. I didnt know a 10 year old could have a 6 pack before I came here.

Crikey!

So after hearing about crocodiles in the local river near us I am always excited to hear about them. Knowing this, on one of the recent market days in my village I get a group of men at my door at 8am. Confused I greet them and a group of kids act as a buffer. Out of a gunny sack out comes a 1 meter long crocodile with its mouth tied shut. So of course I touched it, showed them how crocodiles have 2 sets of eyelids and then refused to buy it to kill it. They were disappointed that I wouldnt pay them (going rate $12.50) but were happy to pose for pictures.

Walk about:

When living in a third world country and somebody invites you to go buy rice with them, ask how far away it is before you agree. After going through rice fields, across a river, up and down hills we arrive at the market in a far off commune. When we finally got back 7 hours later all my villagers asked me why I would ever walk that far. Apparently I walked approx 40km or just short of a marathon.

Newbies!

We got a couple new volunteers to share our banking town and a bunch more in my region which basically means new people to see once or twice a month and other people that I may never see. I was the rumored mohawk trainee who was culturally insensitive =D

Mampagetra: to cause to fart, to make gasy. For a culture that is called Malagasy, and call themselves "Gasy" this seems an appropriate word to start out with this time. In the South East region of the country, most people eat bread fruit for lunch when it is in season. While nutritionally pointless other than some fiber, it does cause extreme gas. This means that all the kids who come visit me know that I dont eat a lot of bread fruit as I don't want to fart a lot. We have a general understanding that I also don't want people farting inside my house. Many hilarious conversations have followed one of the "bread fruit incidents".

Diet!

If you want to lose weight in a way that is fast, safe, and easy...quite simply it doesn't exist. If, however, you have 27 months to spare, are willing to work for free, and eat only what is seasonally available in your region, you'll probably drop a few extra lbs. Now that I've been out of country 6 months, I've lost a bit over 20 lbs, gained quite a bit of muscle, and am in decent shape. All I needed to do was work for hours in rice fields, gardens, haul manure, and bike or walk everywhere! The foods that are available right now are: potatoes (imported from other parts of the country), leeks, onions, tomatoes, garlic, green onions, avocados, limes, oranges, bread fruit, jack fruit, jaky, carrots, cucumbers, squash, rice, beans, peanuts, pasta, cabbage, chilies, and eggs. Comebine this with almost no fat intake other than a bit of oil for cooking and voila! I mean, I got anemic within a couple months, but who cares about that when you're thin?

Vazaha:

On that note, after being called vazaha (white, foreign person) for 5 months, I'm finally becoming white! Who knows why but I'm developing white spots (I call them anti-freckles) on my shoulders. The kids say they arent a big deal and other people in my village have them but I'm calling the doctor. I noticed them this week and the skin looks normal and healthy but unpigmented...

New haircut:

Since all the women here are all about braiding here and want to braid my "slippery" hair, I've been working on growing it out a bit. The mohawk is officially trimmed and now I've got a boyish cut. The process of getting your hair cut in a foreign country (where most people have a very differently textured hair) and you dont know the right words to be specific about a haircut is HILARIOUS! Lots of gesturing and basic words (cut, shorter, not short, want to grow, yes, yes, no!) later, I had a generally correct version of what I wanted and then it came to taking off the drop cloth. I had hair clippings everywhere!! She then proceeded to lead me to the sink and wash out my hair, then wash of my face and neck since the hair was everywhere. Melissa witnessed the whole thing and asked what was going on when I was getting washed. The response: "She's washing my face...and my neck...and now she's drying them!!" By the end of it we were all laughing hysterically. I dont know if she had ever had to cut hair while laughing so much. She kept questioning whether or not I wanted to keep the grown out mohawk on top and wouldn't believe me when I did, eventually I gave in to her wishes and now its a bit shorter everywhere.

Post storm:

My village is slowly drying out. The water level in the rivers is dropped several meters and its slowly becoming possible to walk out to some of the fields. There has thus far been very limited relief services in my region as we were not as directly hit by the storm and while they arent needed now, it looks like it might be a starvation year in my area if aid is not recieved later in the year. This has already been taken into consideration and so I'm hoping to be able to make a difference when the time comes. In the mean while its back to working in the fields and seeing if we can recover any of the failed rice.

Biking:

I love to ride my bicycle! I dont know if my legs do, but I certainly do. While many of the roads in Madagascar would be amazing on a motorcycle, since I am working with Peace Corps I cannot ride a motorcycle. Instead I pedal everywhere and have been getting in pretty good shape doing so. The roads are curvy and hilly, I dont think they follow the same regulations as in the states. In the next couple weeks I plan to bike the twenty-something km to the nearest big town. I've gone 17km recently but don't want to go the whole way by myself. Nearest cold beer is 11km away meaning its also 11km to get back home...sigh.

Bush Taxis:

I thought that transportation would be a bit different in Madagascar than in Niger. Alas! I was wrong! It seems to be true for most of Africa that they have what in the states would be called a van (here its a bus) and pile as much as possible in and on the van and then still fit a bit more in. They generally have 15 to 19 seats (including these little ones that fold out into where there usually is an aisle) and a rack on the top. The record so far for any taxi I've been in is 26 people inside and several sitting on top. This does not include any livestock that may be traveling with us. I nearly crushed a chicken that I didn't notice was under my seat. Since goats are less common here than in Niger we dont see any tied on top anymore but I fully expect if any large animal needs transport that thats where it will go.

Rat count:

2 killed. 1 mother with 4 babies spotted and 1 large rat still remain. They now poop in my shower area and since my food is all locked up they have reverted to eating my books and soap (I kid you not there are claw and tooth marks all over my soap!). They are now getting crafty and taking the food out of the traps without setting them off. One also was trapped but not killed so I had to solve that issue...

Prize for anybody who can figure out what this is:

A fruit that here they refer to as jaky. It has the texture of custard, has large spikes on the outside and is about the size of a cantelope. Grows on a tree and has black seeds around the size of a dime. Its green/yellow on the outside with white fruit on the inside. Delicious but nobody seems to know the name of it in another language. Also there is another fruit called Angave which on the outside looks more like a pomegranate but the inside is totally different.

Bon Bon Anglais

Whoever named this product did a terrible disservice to any English speaker. Thanks Coca Cola! It’s a drink that when translated from French means English Candy. It tastes like old bubble gum that you get on Halloween and only has any flavor for a minute or two. It also is known as lemonade here. Double whammy. Any time people realize that you speak English they assume that you would enjoy this “English Candy”. You may also be suckered in by the title lemonade and it sounds so refreshing after only drinking water for months that you agree. My suggestion: Don’t!

Dancing/Music Videos

The dancing here mainly consists of booty shaking and hip thrusting. There are many different styles of this as you may be able to discover if you look up Malagasy music videos. Its pretty interesting and it makes going out dancing a fascinating experience. Bringing a suitable guy is necessary or you can get offers to dance by a dozen different men at a time. And by offers I mean practically attacked while you try to dance with your friends. All in all its pretty fun to go out here and the music is a new style to me. Among the confusing songs are ones that sounds like "that's skeevy" or "le vache qui ri".

Tropical Storm

In the past couple weeks there has been a large tropical storm in the area. A huge amount of flooding has since left my region rather devastated. While most people are physically okay, most of the rice fields are ruined for the season. More than a week after the tropical storm has subsided into regular rainy season, most fields are still under several feet of water. Relief services have not made a visible presence here yet as there are many areas worse off. I haven’t been able to get out to the fields because of the high water level and mud, nor have other farmers.

Kabone

With the flooding from the tropical storm, my kabone (latrine) filled with water. When it drained it left the land around my latrine weak and as I went to go use it, the ground collapsed. My right leg fell into the latrine and I had to haul myself out. A rather unpleasant experience if you can imagine. Cleaned myself up and only had some minor scrapes and bruises but I think I might be scarred for life mentally.

Americans

A group of Washington University in St. Louis students recently visited MBG in Mahabo. I went over there most days to work with them during the tropical storm. It was interesting to interact with people again and to have conversations in English with anyone other than Melissa. I forget that I am an Expat now and it seems strange to have been gone so long. Cultural differences are starting to make more sense to me and I would interpret some of the differences to them. In all, a lot of their plans were ruined or changed because of the weather but they still managed to do some valuable work. I learned how to make a water filter with them and hope to continue some of their work with local farmers.

Fauna

Saw a huge snake dead in the road a few weeks ago, it looked like a constrictor. I also had a snake fall out of my mango tree yesterday and land outside my door. We stared at each other for a minute then he slithered into the forest behind my house. The very same day I also saw a millipede in my yard. It looked comfortable so I left it alone. Rats are the new bane of my existence. They eat my food, poop in my house, and wake me up in the middle of the night. I hope this changes and I’ve managed to trap/kill one and it still continues. While learning how to fish like a native Malagasy person there was a crocodile in the area O_O I am not allowed to swim in the rivers anyways but now there is extra incentive not to!

Thunder

Thunder also keeps me up at night. Last night was the loudest and closest I think I’ve ever experienced lightning/thunder. It was basically right outside my house and made my bed shake. It was near deafening and seemed to linger for hours.

I had this nice long blog typed up and then of course when i get here my flash drive is blank! So much for posting pictures.

My house:

I have a two room house that is big by PC standards. The door faces the back and I have two windows with plenty of light. My yard is big and has my latrine, shower area, a mandarin orange tree and room for several garden beds. I'm near the market that happens on Saturdays and I like the environment.

Lightning bugs!

Who knew about these magical creatures? I sure didn't. Having never seen lightning bugs before Melissa had to correct me the first time i saw one in the hotel room on the way down. I thought there was a kid playing with a laser pointer outside. I love these little guys! Every evening at dusk they light up the neighborhood like stars everywhere. I usually cant see the real stars because of clouds so these are an excellent replacement.

Food:

Food here is rather limited in selection so every week or two I try to go into town to pick up vegetables. The market in village basically only has tomatoes, onions and garlic. When we go into town tho there is a ton of food and so Melissa and I have been able to experiment, thus far successfully creating sopas/burritos, fries, guacamole, pastas, and banana pancakes. Its delicious!

New Names:

My name here is not tektonik, instead it is Vazaha. Even though I explain on a regular basis that my name is not Vazaha it doesnt matter and they refer to me as such at almost all times. The few times they do not they generally call me madame or madamemoiselle. I now have an improvement and have a few people who call me Alison. The other day I was translating shirts that were written in English for the kids. One kid had a shirt that said "I'm not only CUTE, I'm Irish too!". When I told the kids that this meant he had a nice face and was a vazaha. The kids could not stop laughing at him after that.

Soccer:

Soccer for me has been a huge life saver here. I play several times a week and am making a few friends by doing so. Its exciting to finally be able to talk to people and they are impressed because most girls dont play soccer. I can keep up when we have a juggling circle and they taught me a game "Pass-pass" which is liek a normal game but sideways and half court and they use a stick instead of a goal. If you hit the stick with the ball you get a point and this makes it where you dont have to have as many people on each team.

Work:

Its slow going when there is nothing here to work with. I was under the impression that there was a group i was supposed to be working with but there are no farmer groups here and no NGOs. I'm trying to start working with individuals and have been working with MBG a bit but mostly focusing on language. Its a headache having to always speak a foreign language, especially when people get impatient. I'm hoping to soon be able to go with the men out to the fields to get a better idea of farming practices here but its still weird to be a foreign woman trying to work with men.

I hope you all are doing well. I'm missing everybody like crazy and am trying to ignore that fact because its hard enough as it is.

New Addresses:

For packages and letters:

Alisn Thieme (MBG)

Direction Regional De L'environnement et des Forets Atsimo-Atsinanana

B.P. 27 Fenoarivo

Farafangana 309

Madagascar

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or for letters only:

Sister Alison Thieme

B.P. 70

Vangaindrano 320

Madagascar

Swearing-In: I have finally sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer! After a busy evening of acquiring seeds for a garden and some herb seedlings I had a fitful nights sleep then got ready for the ceremony. We swore in as volunteers at a big televised ceremony. On our trip random people have recognized us and mentioned the ceremony. We were then fed delicious snacks and pizza and allowed to use the pool. After we went shopping in the capital city we went out for dinner (burger and fries!) and toured the city a little bit. The next morning we were packed and ready to go early in the morning and headed out of town. The main roads are good but very windy. It took 4 hours to go 90 km because of the windy nature of the roads. Indian Ocean: Last night I took my first steps into the Indian Ocean. On the East coast of Madagascar the ocean is rather powerful. The waves crash directly on the shore and a rip current attempts to pull you in and under. Playing in the waves is rather difficult and quickly loses the appeal that it has in the US. Sand also magically penetrates any swimsuit. The coastline for the most part is gorgeous and in the next few days I will be going down to other coastal cities and will see a lot more of it. Coelacanth: Apparently in some of the islands off the coast of Madagascar exist the coelacanth. This is also an area where subsistence fishermen capture and eat both leatherback turtles and coelacanth if caught. Since there are few options for the fisherman to acquire food for their families as well as nobody to educate them on the importance of these animals, it continues largely unchecked. Volunteers have witnessed a huge coelacanth being killed and consumed (think about 6 feet long) and been able to do nothing even with the language skills to explain that not only is it taboo to eat them but that they are also very important/protected/special creatures. Turtle remains scatter the beaches and poachers attempt to steal their eggs during breeding season. All I could do when I heard this is hold my head in my hands and worry about what was going on in the Mozambique Channel. Running: While I’m not a big fan of running for no reason anyways, I think that in most of Madagascar running for exercise is largely misunderstood. Since people do not run for exercise as their daily activities provide ample exercise, if other people see you running they will generally start running also because they assume you are running away from something. In a country that believes in the existence of spirits and witches, running is a way to flee something scary, not to get your heart rate up and burn calories. Tektonik: Here in the South East I may have adopted a new nickname. Everywhere I go with my hair styled children follow me and talk about “tektonik” (spelled the Malagasy way). Apparently a Mohawk in the south is indicative of a person who listens to tektonik music and dances a lot. I may modify this to tekto and use it as a name when I’m dealing with children because they find it hilarious. In 5 towns or so yesterday people called me tektonik and it’s a running joke amongst my group. Vazaha: Vazaha is the term for white people in Madagascar. It is not said with malice simply as a way to describe a person as being non-native or different looking. As we drove through a market the other day a group of white women in their 50s walked by and pointed into the van saying, “Vazaha! Vazaha!”. We all had a good laugh. There is much camaraderie amongst non-Malagasy as there is currently very little tourism and it is rare to see a foreigner, either on vacation or working in Madagascar.