This is dedicated to all of you who have struggled to find your path and never gave up.

Oh!

To be a shoe

upon your feet

And to feel where you have been

And where you grew.

To feel the hesitation

And sensation

Of courage

As you chose your paths

To travel

And witness

The lives you chose

To see the fear of unsureness set

Take hold with a wayward step

And to fix your course

When you with timid trepidation

Chose your way

How many wonders we will have seen

How much sorrow and struggle

We would find

The origins of the wounds that kept

And those that healed in time

Kept by the heart

To meet those

That you have seen and showed

What an amazement you are

To see the compassion and confusion and how far

Your manner adapted

the sense

To create, to cope

And to survive

Oh to be that shoe

And stop the roulette

Of guessing

To see what you have seen

And to feel

What you have felt

All along.

So on my last trip to Tana I was squeezed comfortably into a small spot behind the driver of our van. A man got on with two boys, both very small, sat one in his lap and the other was standing in front of him. This is very common in Madagascar because the people cant afford paying for bus fair for more than one member of the family. I watched the adorable little boy cling to the front seat as our taxi took off towards our destination and then watched as over the next thirty minutes he slowly began to fall asleep standing up. He then sat down on his brothers legs, on top of his dad so that they resembled a small sad sort of pyramid. That's when I finally stepped in; put down my Emily Dickinson and offering for the little boy to sit in my lap. The father was very grateful and immediately the boy sat down, and fell asleep within minutes. I loved feeling his little frame against my chest, and the warmth of his little body. We sat like that for the last hour of our trip, me sleeping sitting up with his head tucked under my chin, him nestled in my arms. I was in absolute love with him for the ride. As we passed the small communities along the way everyone kept commenting about the foreigner with her son. It was very funny.

Then as we entered Tana and we are travelling along a long bypass that enters a city, a car, travelling straight towards us, swerves and flies into a rice patty, turning over in the air as it goes. It happened within seconds, our whole van gasped in disbelief and a small serving of shock. We pulled over, as did the two cars behind us who saw the same thing. Within seconds the men were out and in the rice patty, trying to save the people who had just untimely entered someone else's yard. One man, the driver was pulled out first. He was so drunk when they set him down on the curb that he couldn't stand on his own feet but instead did a sort of fluid hula dance as he attempted to regain sobriety. A passing motorist accepted the man into his car and took him onward to the hospital. A second man, the front seat passenger was removed very shortly afterward, blood coursing down the side of his face although I doubt he noticed that as he too was also very inebriated. I looked at the little boy in my lap, furious with such a waste of life it may have been. Here was one who was starting his life, those were two who seemed intent on ending it. But more to the point. We were seconds from being a part of their drunken show as well. Such a waste.

To try

and not succeed

is to learn the truest lesson

that can be taught.

That true appreciation comes in loss.

To seek and find blame in the effort

is to lose

our chance.

Within each day

a thousand trials await.

From sleep to sleep

we strive,

pushing ourselves into

possibilities.

Finding ourselves in

opportunities we have created

in trials.

Greet the day with a smile to see

how far your light can cast

and chase shadows.

Reflecting off mirrors

the beams reach the farthest places.

Far from you, the source.

Farther than we can see.

Or know.

So circle back.

Refuse and cast aside Failure,

that threatens to claim your brightness

Instead see

the appreciation within the smile

and light upon the faces

of thousands.

Take your chance and try.

Try and try again.

To see how far

you can truly grow.

Let me tell you about home.

Antanifotsy is located about 2 ½ hours from the capital and an hour away from the regional capital, Antsirabe in the highlands region of Madagascar. Being in the highlands we have lots of green due to the immense amount of rain in our area. Its cold in the winter and warm and rainy in the summer. The days can be absolutely beautiful with clear or slightly clouded skies and pure sunshine. All of these things add up to our main source of work, agriculture.

We are known for our carrots and potatoes. And where do the scraps from those crops go? To our third most known product, pigs. Yes, we are farmers. As you travel from the capital into the district of Antanifotsy all you see are rice fields, and crops growing from the earth. Long ears of corn reach for the sky, cabbage and different types of greens cover the earth that isn’t flooded for rice production. It is absolutely beautiful. If you ever want to see how many colors of green can exist in one area, travel to my town. Carrots are the size of your forearm in a color orange that Crayola has yet to discover. Our potatoes are large and delicious; purple, yellow, and white. And the pork is steaming fresh at the butchers every morning. Cows add to our scenery in small private groups; maybe two, maybe five. I once commented to a friend that it sometimes seemed the cows were just roaming on their own. I was told that while you may never see them, the herders are always there, finding a moment of relaxation while their bovine investments graze.

Antanifotsy is the center of the district of Antanifotsy. “What is a district?”, you may ask. Well, the closest thing I can compare it to is like Fresno. It is only a city because there are some many random farms and settlements around it that the people needed a place to meet and sell. The city itself is small, maybe 2-3,000 people. But because of its location and status as a district capital we are blessed with a military and police presence, governmental offices, and the occasional presence of NGO’s working with our water and malarial issues. We have two private schools through our catholic and FJKM churches, as well as our public CEG ( my work and the equivalent of an elementary/jr high school) a lycee ( high school) and an EPP ( pre-K and Kindergarten). The educational possibilities here are high and stressed to the local children. Possibly because of the close vicinity to the capital and its universities, the interest in education seems to be pretty high. The motivation of the parents and adults filter down to the children. As an activity in my higher level classes I asked my students what they wanted to do and over half of them responded as doctors or dentists. Another quarter of the students responded towards a military style occupation and others said teachers. So the motivation level is high, although the opportunities maybe less than so. But that’s where I come in. ( Or so I think)

When you walk through my town you have the distinct feeling of being home. Last month I had the unfortunate need to walk the 4k from the main road into town due to a lack of cars that could take me to my actually site. At first I was a little nervous walking home late in the dark but within the first few minutes my fears were gone. I couldn’t go three minutes without people shouting greetings from balconies and doorways as I walked in the dark streets. You are home here within seconds with people yelling “welcome back” and “why are you walking so late?” or just commenting on the darkness.

During the day it is just as friendly and the hustling market place invites you to come visit our fresh produce. The smells of fresh tomatoes, cilantro, onions, carrots, greens, spicy sakay peppers greet your nose as you travel the smooth dirt path between the vendors stalls. Stall are constructed from wood and plastic sheeting set at a height for most Malagasy in the area, which is a foot of disadvantage for me. The first things you meet are the multiple vegetable stalls with their friendly smiling woman sitting behind them. Most vendors sell the same things although some can be counted on for fresh peeled chickpeas, sliced carrots or green beans, cabbages the size of your head, or sweet melons. A chorus of “hello”s and “how are you”’s greet me as I path my way through, weaving through children, carts, and shoppers. After the vegetables come the fruits, an old man with a smile to brighten any day sells small pile of apples and grapes, now that they are in season, and offers samples every day, hoping for a sale to help feed his family. Five families sell bananas of all shapes and sizes year round. Small fat bananas that require two bites per layer, long thin ones that are cheaper but feel almost silly to eat due to their small finger size shapes. Then the butchers in their breezy stalls that never smell too overpowering with the stench of death. Fresh sausages hang on racks, slabs of meat are carved, new layers steaming when you order the delicious meat hidden under fat and ribs. Pork and beef, butchered every morning waits on tile slabs to be carved for your order in six different and yet identical stalls. Dogs and children run around, the dogs grabbing scraps, the children grabbing the dogs. Cats wait on windowsills, geese wander the streets in menacing packs, ducks curl on stairwells waiting for the day to pass as chickens wander the streets with clutches of chicks to tempt my dog. Children cry out “good morning” no matter what time of day it is. Small stalls sell juice, fresh yogurt, and small breads for coffee. In the morning there are women who sell small breads, coffee, and tea for breakfast (my morning routine) and share the gossip of the day, or comment on the weather. The occasional cow cart forces us to the side as they pass and Thursday mornings the cow herds are driven through town, blocking our one road for a good ten minutes.

Life is continuous here and happens right on the street. Lined with houses in all shapes and sizes with families spilling out of them, the streets are our social and economic centers for all happenings. Most houses here are converted into store fronts offering flour, salt, sugar, oil, homemade soaps, and other basic essentials to the locals and travelers passing through. Our two taxi stations serve not only to take us to the capitals and on to the other areas of our great island, but we also serve as transportation to the outlying communities beyond the reach of the paved highways. Its quite the hustle and bustle six days of the week. On Sundays our churches regulate all business. Only a handful of stores and vendors continue their work while the churches offer religious service throughout the day. The children in our local schools often live far from our actual town and may walk 10K to get to school if they cant find a local family or relative to live with. They make their way to our town on Sundays and are often the only feet treading our roads. We have one paved road heading in to town, the same road takes you out. One dirt road travels you out to one church, the other takes you down to the CEG and the buses to take you to the farm fields. We have small hills in the distance littered with houses overlooking the family farms and the town center and when the thunder storms come to town they find themselves trapped in our community. You can feel it in your bones when the storms hit. It thunders, rains, and five minutes later the earth and the people dry under the pure sunlight hitting your face. Everyone is smiling, selling, buying, supplying, traveling and living.

And that is my home.

This last week in class I was teaching comparisons to my students. Our adjectives of the day were tall, short, big, little, fat, thin, long,curly and straight. So after the length of our grammar lesson I decided to put their new knowledge into action. Asking two children to the front of the class I then called on my students to make a verbal comparison using the structure they had just learned. Here is the resulting conversation. At the front of the room stand myself, a boy named Onja, and a girl named Juliette.

Me: "Ok class, now what can you tell me about Onja?" ( notice I did not use the key phrase "give me a comparison")

A girl name Aina raises her hand(smart girl): Onja is black.

The shock sets in with cultural smoothness and I stammer: " Yes, ok, Onja is black. Now can you give me a comparison?" (gesturing between the boy and girl)

Aina consults with her partner, a very smart girl named Mendrika. Quickly they come to a most remarkable conclusion: "Onja is blacker...than you."

I hold back the laughter and take on a supportive expression for their efforts and correct usage of the grammar learned and then decide to just go for it: "And who is blacker than me?""

The class doesn't understand that one too quickly so I translate it into Malagasy and they all start to giggle. Aina raises her hand again and I call on her: Tsy iza, tsy iza.

The answer... no one.

I smile, throw up my hands in a shrug, which always leads to classroom laughter and turn back to my chalk bag. Lesson completed. I consider my reactions as I write the exercises on the board.

If I had been in America, that conversation would have been an absolute disaster, resulting in parents filing into classrooms, serious faces, and serious expressions promising serious consequences. After a conversation, perhaps two, the child would be so frightened out of the expression that it would/might only appear in the future as a term of difference/hate.

Here in Madagascar, however, it means absolutely nothing. Except in this case that my children actually were able to apply our English lesson for the day into a real life, spontaneous incident. Other than that it serves only to remind me that the wonders of children is that they have yet to learn what we all have yet to forget. Color only matters to those who would choose to make it matter. My 50 children of this particular English class see it as only a color. It means nothing else. It may mean, in this country, many different things as a result of American cinema reaching its hands across oceans and those perspectives are not ones we would ever wish on other people as our statement of us. Yet, as an ex-patriot, I live every day in the shadows of these expectations and, as a result, have begun to see our self portrayal so cleverly hidden in our films.

Imagine, hundreds of years from now, scientists discover a carefully preserved blockbuster. With careful precision they extract the delicate discs, unearthing machines as they go. After months of care and anticipation they play the first disc in an attempt to understand the society that had created such an uninteresting place. What would the film tell about us, as a people?

Scary question if you think about it long enough. Or maybe it is only scary to me as someone living that exact situation. Only I am not with scientists. I am with normal, every day people that will more than likely never experience anything outside of their farm fields, local town centers, and , if they are lucky, the capital of this country. To them, America IS what is in the film. American women ARE the women in the films and in the magazine pictures. Our culture IS what is portrayed in these pictures of extravagance, emaciated women wanting to lose more weight, clothing that has no purpose other than to flash its colors, homes of such gross extravagance the people in it are considered with disdain. We have so much that we cannot possibly appreciate or cherish anything. We have no culture of our own to respect so how can we respect others, especially when we clearly don't respect ourselves. Money has given us laziness and has robbed of us of our sacred. We don't know what it is to be married ( reference to divorce rate), have real relationships, responsibilities, our to understand what true need feels like. We have never suffered so we cannot understand suffering. Our society is so glutenous we could never understand what it is to be without food. We hold no one more dear than our own selves, and even they we treat with neglect and utter disregard. (These are perspectives and casual statements I have gathered from many conversations, enough to know that they are no limited to a few select people, but rather are shared by many, although not all.) This is what I am constantly fighting as I enter even a basic conversation with a Malagasy person, be it child or adult. Constantly fighting against the attributes, attitudes, and qualities we have given ourselves in our attempts to impress others and thereby creating our own sadness.

Not mine though. I love telling people about my home, my family, my culture. Explaining how many types of foods we have and why, the cultures we have and why. Why I am so big when they all look so small, why my hair is curly if I am not Metis ( African and white blooded). Why I smile like I do, why I have no money etc. It makes me laugh, I make them laugh, and it spurs more and more conversations. I see my time here, my time with my friends and families and students as a broad domino affect. They will tell their families, and friends. And while the information will eventually die out in its interest, it will have changed or questioned the perceived notions of who I am for enough people that when the next person comes along with their wonderfully obnoxious assumptions it is my friends and co-workers who correct them, not I.

And this is already happening.

Look at the power of information.

“ Words are just words.”

A person I care very deeply about, and who cares for me the same, recently uttered this statement to me, in the middle of a debate, and I was so shocked I lost my track completely. He won the debate. I just sat on my butt and stared. The more the thought settled into my mind, the more horrible it became. Just words? Just words?

Words are everything that we, as a global society have chosen to use not just in what we could consider basic communication but in expression. Of ourselves, our opinions, our personalities. We create words into art, into pictures. They fuel our imaginations in countless and unlimited directions. There is no limit on the affect of words on the human race. It is intrinsic to our basic needs and desires, and is our outlet for everything we have found to contribute to our very existence.

As a writer, a poet, and an artist, words are my outlet. Not only for art and expression of my own opinion ,but the logging of my thoughts, emotions, reactions, and experiences. They are my form of a shuttle, for the lost imagination slumbering in the back of my mind, for wayward and unrecognized emotions that threaten to overtake my rationality in times of tiredness. They are my battlefield of understanding, not only of my outside connections but also the untracked trails within myself. My words create and destroy ideas, which in themselves are pictures and words that have connected of their own accord in my heart’s attempts of expression. They are the canvass in which I turn to create worlds of fantasy, stories of love and trials, hardship, struggle, and personal victory. They express every facet of my eclectic personality. Without them I would be lost.

Or really, I would be faced with a new challenge in the art of self expression. But not the point.

When did we lose our faith in words? Was it the advent of the political system? Did rulers in the old ages create the dark side of linguistic syntax or did they even care to twist words into the destruction of faith? As children we learn the meaning of combing letters and, when heard, trust them to the extent we understand. Is it as children, in the face of empty promises and the deceitful twisting and contorting of diatribe that we learn the true meaning of language? Is it then that we lose faith? Or is the faith lost not in words, but in humanity itself?

In ages of political speeches, in which we are told to blindly follow or to learn to read “between the lines” and advertising, targeted at twisting words into psychological triggers, we are constantly faced with what words can mean and have lost the sight of what words truly entail. In our educational system the emphasis is lost on thorough expression. It is instead focused on regurgitation. There is no seeking and discovering of new words like new friends. There is no art created on paper in handwriting and ink. There is no insightful innovation as words are linked with others in creative metaphors, analysis, and allusions. We have lost the alliteration, hyperbole, and simile. Most no longer know the meaning of, or recognize the presence of such techniques in writing. We are taught, shown and expected to regurgitate information. Ignorance is passed through the system with low marks and improvement is never expected. The demand for self thought and self expression lessens, and so then, does the true meaning of text. The understanding of usage is gone, the understanding of impact and affect is lost. And so then, is the joy of prose.

Words can destroy and undo greatness. They can twist and manipulate. They can force, cajole and undermine the balance of our selves. But they also create and breathe life into staleness. They fill silence and spaces of white sheets. They increase our understanding of what is sacred; sacred silence, sacred thoughts, sacred moments. They bring us joy and happiness in understanding. They hold confusion and clarity with the placement of prepositions, nouns, adverbs, verbs and adjectives. They are building blocks to great works of art and expression. They are one of the truest forms of artistic idiom. Millions to chose from, finding the perfect combination to hear the chime within your soul that tells you, “Yes, that’s exactly it.” How else to express feelings and emotion in the attempt to be understood? We crave that understanding and yet have lost the ability to achieve it as we lose definition and the joy of conceiving connection. We learn them so early for our basic desires of hunger, want, tiredness, happiness, sadness and the simple loves of our small lives. We relearn them again as our expressions consume and give birth to joy, bitterness, jealousy, obsession, love, desire and the understanding of change. There is no limit to what we can create, what we can develop and use, the countless combinations. Its defined in the definitions of space and silence, of time and stillness. Limitless in itself. Limited only by us, it’s benefactors.

What then can we do to restore this broken temple? There is no need to wait for the dust to settle to know that the walls are crumbling, the pillars who once supported this great structure have been eaten with the disgraces of time. What can we do before nothing remains and we are staring with puzzlement at the rubble of past greatness?

Three words housed within the very soul: Sincerity, Faith, Integrity.

Where can we start?

With ourselves.

And then go from there.

　

　

Well, after a glorious week on the beach, eating mangoes the size of a face and lychee and drinking baobab juice I am now stuck back in tana at the PC hostel. But to no great amount of hurry as I wait for our training to begin. In the mean time, updating photos, reviewing my trip, swapping stories with friends and sleeping after all those travels. And care packages! Thanks parents and Cederic! I appreciate the goodies and have been enjoying the snacking while watching movies pirated from other volunteers.

Arr matey!

Anyways, I am having nothing but relaxation but cant seem to find the push to write about my christmas travels. But, the moment I do feel that interest youll be sure to find a new neat story nestled in this website! So check again soon!

Hope everyone had a wonderful new year and holiday season. You were all in my thoughts as I ate meat on sticks, watched the sunset, explained the combination of "sun burn" and ""white woman" to malagasy friends, and made new relationships for the new year.

So love you all and check back again soon!

She chews her pencil deciding

The paper a blank canvass for her thoughts and details

The lines begin to form in white

Her eyes tracing shapes in the space between spaces

The pencil twitches

Caught in the strength of her fingers

Held enthralled as it feels the climax

Of invention

She begins to fill the void

Lines forming through carbon

Pleasure pours from her body

As her passions sweep her again and again into the art

Muscles moving in smooth sweeps across parchment, leaving their faint traces

Motion created from stillness

Life created from nothing

Beads of sweat form on her face

Her hands gripped

Cramp as muscles scream irritation

Her back aches as her mind cries for patience

“Almost done” becomes her mantra as the forms from her mind take life in her eyes

Long sweeps become short strokes

Light lines turn into bold flashes, shades of gray

The white, so easily recognized,

Becomes hidden in the shadows

It is over

She sits back and breathes

Her body relaxing , releasing its hold

She stares at the life she has created and whispers

“My love”

　

　

　

So, as a woman in the states I had only one reason why the five year old can of hairspray was still in my repertoire of toiletries: Arachnid assassinations. I was a smart shooter with it too. Anything smaller than a daddy long-leg got a five foot distance which took a lot of muster and convincing, Ill have you know! Anything larger than that harmless insect eating eight legged manifestation of horror deserved a careful appraisal then a steady stream for a good twenty seconds, reevaluation, and if necessary a second.

Why these precautionary measures? Because every time I spotted one of these wall stalkers the room quickly disappeared into the barn scene from the original Arachnophobia. Entering the silent darkness I knew my death awaited and screamed as the mutant monster launched itself and ATE MY FACE!

No really. Every time. I had no shame about it too. In front of family, friends, or strangers, I would scream and launch myself across the room, mentally locating the nearest bottle of stiffening agent to render it immobile. I couldn’t even touch the pictures of spiders in books, after watching a children’s movie where the pictures come to life. I was convinced the black widows and tarantulas portrayed in high color photos with descriptions would crawl up my fingertips and once again…. EAT MY FACE! No, this isn’t some long lost memory. This carried me through high school. Rationality was not a highlight of my teenage personality.

I couldn’t swim in lakes because I had studied the Loch Ness monster and watched movies like The Blob and The Thing From the Black Lagoon one too many times.

Why am I telling you this possibly damaging story? Because of what happened one quiet summer night, this November ( its summer for us in Madagascar) as I sat, peacefully on my bed, reading a book as I heated water for my shower.

So there I was. The opposite of any potentially harmful creature as I sat cross-legged in my lamba, waiting to finish y nightly routine as y water heated on the stove. One corner of my mind considered washing y hair, the other absorbed the book. Morality for Beautiful Girls, by Alex Mc Call Smith, the third in the Ladies Detective Agency series. I remember because I had just read a part on the presence of scorpions in shoes and had stopped reading to eye my shoes sitting “harmlessly” on the floor. It was then that a movement caught my eye. I looked up to see a modest sized, spider/tarantula looking thing slowly and disjointedly walking itself up my wall. I paused, the nerves in my arms screaming for hairspray, the nerves in my legs screaming for exodus of the house. Thankfully I had been reading so my brain was still detaching from the book in my lap and therefore postponed the fight or flight response my body was so furiously generating.

Anyone who knows me knows that from a distance my eyes are… well Im not sharp shooter, or owl, or in fact anything that can see well past about 50 feet in front of their face. My eyes are crap, from a distance. This is an important fact for this next part.

I’m still cringing.

I peered at the apparition on the wall and noticed that while its body was a tan color, its back was dark brown. No, I could not see why it was a different color and my inquisitive mind wanted to see what it was. So I carefully got unfolded my legs and got myself up and around the bed, all without taking my eyes off the body making its way up to my ceiling. What I saw was lumpy darkness on the body and figured, with my analytical brain, that it was a clever camouflage. With that said, I picked up my closest shoe, a shower sandal and smacked the body with all the force my controlled fear could muster. It was far too uch and as the sound reverberated off the wall the most remarkable of things happened. Instead of squishing flat, as should happen in such cases, the darkness on the back of the large epitome of nightmares scattered across my walls with great speed. That is when I realized what I had done. You may call it instant karma but as I stared at the fifty baby tarantulas scattering across my wall three thoughts raced through my brain. 1) It wasn’t camouflage. 2) That’s what I get for killing another creature, and the last. 3) If those babies got into my roof space I was f&*^ed! All three of these thoughts were the first three seconds. The fourth second after the murder found me squishing baby tarantulas with… my fingers. That’s right folks. Miss Arachno-spray was now hunting living tarantulas as they fled across her walls, into her clothing, and into her photo book with her bare fingers. Granted they were no larger than the head of a pin but it makes absolutely no difference.

How was this feat accomplished?

The thought of fifty pin sized spiders becoming fifty giant tarantulas all residing above my head. A plank of wood does not offer adequate protection from that situation. That’s all that kept me going. When the genocide was complete and the large corpse had been relocated outside of the house I washed my hands, scrubbed my nails and then realized what I had done.

Then I took a shower. And scrubbed till it hurt.

Thus did I learn my lesson about squishing insects. Three days later I woke to see a giant ciacid ( the screaming bugs) sitting on my computer next to my bed. I carefully picked up the computer and flung the insect out the door. Lesson learned.

Thank you mother nature.

The quiet that comes in absence is suffocating Where the happiness held between selves Lay in the shallow light of morning The emptiness has taken its hold Leaving only memories The stillness overwrites the laughter Of bubbling brooks gone to stone Echoes and remnants are all that remain But listen close and you will hear The whisper Of heart songs

There’s so much pleasure in aging Discovering the wonders In your life The world only shrinks as it grows larger Imagination never satisfied Explores continents And waitsFor you to catch up

I remember the smells Small gnawing pains of hunger Eating foods still undone A day of magical disappearing acts “Who ate the brie?” Samples leaving trays in laughter Similar smiles within similar faces tell stories Unfolding in details Aromas surround conversations Until the feast Basking in glows of love The family provides Bellies full, retiring to games Waiting to return and revisit again A day of cooking Hours of joy We continue.

Hunting flies takes a great deal more work than you could ever expect. Before we begin: Like any athletic activity prepare your body for the effort with a good stretching and breathing routine to warm up your muscles and your mind. First you must train yourself in the art of spotting the black splotch against your wall that is different than the dirt, tarantulas or any other miscellaneous that may be posted there. Next you will need your weapon; an old rag is preferably as you are hunting truly dirty little bugs, although any piece of cloth will suffice. Then you need nothing but patience. Track your target as it flies, unsettled, although with some practice you will be able to sneak up on the little suckers and skip straight to the killing. The next is not for the weak of heart. Once your quarry has landed cock your arm into a position appropriate for throwing, take a small inhale for the effort and swing that cloth as fast and as hard as you can, although depending on the surface you may wish to hold back a little of that strength. In time you will become a master at the art and you will find yourself an efficient killer, with no need to stalk the same fly twice. Since we are just starting however, you may find the need to do so. In that case track the fly with as little movement as possible since it will only settle that much faster. Once you have again lulled it into the stupor of false security, prepare and adjust your attack as is necessary. Once you have successfully cleaned out the host of flies that love to claim your dwelling for their own, sweep up their little remains or point them out to your dog for immediate consumption. Unlike most creatures, flies are not daunted by the death of their own so dispose of their little carcasses as fast as possible. Side note: this is a great way to pass a good fifteen minutes in your day and can be quite therapeutic. Try enhancing this de-stressor of an activity with a little mood music, incense, or a good snack (after you wash your hands). Use this activity to relieve tension, release aggression, or concentrate instead on using it to clear your mind. Can be used as a substitute or ending to your morning or afternoon yoga routine.

Mangos! Glorious mangos have come top Madagascar! All sorts of sizes and colors can only add to the absolute excitement that I have walking into market these days. Long narrow mangoes are three for 200 Ar, the larger green and yellow mangoes are 200 Ar ( 10 cents) each! Green and yellow on the outside but sweet and tangy succulent yumminess on the inside! Then, to only add to the sweet fleshy happiness that is now characterizing each and every day, the local Farmer’s market that happens here every Friday brought the arrival of tiny brightly colored mini mangoes that are deceptively hard on the outside but inside; a brilliant flash of sweet bright orange meat surrounding a tiny pit! Delicious! How much are these beauties? 800 Ar for a kilo ( 2.2 lbs for 40 cents). Just wonderful. Sure, my new choice of snack is a tad bit messy but once you start eating them the mess only helps you continue to eat them, afterall, the mess is already a mess! The only thing that cues the end is when the bag is empty or my teeth are so full of mangoe fibers I can no longer rip into the juiciness! Just siit down in the backyard, lean over your legs and dig in. Don’t worry about messy drippings and droppings. That’s what dogs and chickens are for. And…I need more dental floss. (Lol) Anyways, besides the arrival of mangoes nothing new ever happens or is happening in my town. My kids are still learning, the cattle are still pulling carts around, the men are still driving the pigs back and forth from markets. The butchers still hack into bones, the grocers still drip water on bright green leaves to catch your eye and to keep them looking healthy. There’s a political reform thing going on that is restricting a bit of our movement and the “president” of Madagascar is coming to my town next Monday although I will be staying as far as possible from that place. Every day is the same, working to live, living your work, and now….eating mangoes in between time. I love mangos.

Next month- PEACHES!

Sometimes I feel like I’m living in an episode of Little House on the Prairie. Do you remember that show? I watched loyally as I was growing up ( not that growing up can ever be relegated to past tense) and it was possibly the first book series I ever read along with Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. But yes, an episode of that show can almost be applied to most of my days here. “Pa, there were bullies at school (market) today and they said mean things ( that I cant speak Malagasy)” “That’s ok Laura. Let me teach you about conflict resolution.” “You mean I cant just punch them in the face?” “That’s not conflict resolution. That’s conflict exacerbation.” “Oh.” Of course I am most members of the cast on most days. Everyone from the blind sister, to the rugged father. The hard working mother, the playful son or the willful and wily Laura who learns the difficult frontier lessons with her own unique style. And so finishes my book report. No, in all actuality, life here is wonderful and although the rude and inconsiderate people exist in no matter what level of development a country may be standing in, there are also many friendly and hospitable people to color the scene. My families, for example that continue to invite me to play dominoes and to chat with them are just those kind of people. Friendly, open, welcoming, struggling and still smiling. I have earned a great deal of respect for my community that I didn’t feel before. Everyone works here. Small children carry small buckets of water, big children watch out for their younger siblings and cousins and clean dishes, wash the floors, and carry food to the animals. Young boys herd young cows, young girls herd younger children. Women care for the house and the fields, and the food, and the children and the money. Men cart, carry, dig, build, weld, fix, and overall tend to the basic workings of our community. And I? I educate. I get children to practice English phrases with a glow of pride on their little faces to accompany the edge of nervousness in their little voices. Hopefully I will give them a small amount of time to hope for life outside of this constant turning of the wheel, and maybe work towards something different: college in America, travel, working in offices and cities to better the lives of their own, a career outside of farming, vending, planting, or breeding. Who knows. Mine is the only work that doesn’t show immediate results and fruits of my labor but I can only look forward to the long run. (shrug). Such is my lot loving accomplished. Cleo gets bigger and bigger every day, and demands more and more food to eat. This is a problem some days when she refuses to eat sweet potatoes instead of potatoes, or waits for the cold rice to be reheated. Brat. She’s a brat. That’s what I get for giving her a name to instill strength, cunning and stubbornness. I swear I fully believe in the power of names. She’s also a wonderful companion, escorting me in the darkness to my kabone, to the market, and about on my errands. She created her first growls of warning this last week and is now barking at people approaching me in a small gesture of protection. Its still cute because she’s still small (comes up to me knee). Small is, of course, relatively speaking as she is a puppy and will eventually become a monster. For now though she only acts as big as her name and has yet to grow into all that fur. October brought my one year anniversary since I left country. Can you believe it? What did you do last year? I traveled to three different countries, met people that will thrive in my heart and memory forever, was adopted by five different families, completed 3 months of training in two different languages and lived in three different communities affecting countless people, mainly children. I shard my culture and myself and learned and adapted to things that I never even considered anywhere in the realm of possibilities. I ate foods I would have gagged thinking about and liked (most of) them. I explored Paris for a day, Niger for 6 weeks, and created a life in Madagascar twice. And last year I was sitting at home in San Diego, on the internet, eating a chicken burrito. (Still wish I was eating those burritos.) I gained a sense of pride, accomplishment and adventure in my daily existence to replace the boredom and discontentment I felt constantly in a stale life I never contented myself with. That’s quite the year. In fact, its horrible to admit to myself that I accomplished more in the last year that in the last three. Its rough, although without regret when you realize that the only person holding you back was yourself although at the same time, the only person who could push you into and through the change is also yourself. That helps eradicate the feelings of self guilt that may occur. Halloween came and went without much notice. One day I was writing on the board in my class and the student asked for the date. That was the only reason I realized Halloween was the following weekend. My mind flashed with decorations, store fronts dressed in orange and black, children chattering about costumes, adults planning parties, teenagers planning to drink as though no one will notice. That all means nothing at all here, but there were a few dance parties in the regional capitals. The dancing was great, the party wasn’t a party. But still, I love to dance. Constantly dwelling in my mind are my kids, their classes, and our most recent speaking projects. Held a project in my class the other week where the students had to use the future tense to create responses to a few questions I had written on the board. One of them was “You have 1,000,000 Ariary. What will you do?” The responses varied but the two most cutting were: “I will buy medicine.” “I will eat.” Those almost killed me. I didn’t know how to respond and felt a little silly that my example for that sentence was travel, buy a car, and go on vacation. Just a little stab to the heart, a little blood, and no facial expression. No one laughed, no one giggled. They all agreed and the next group shared their sentences. Rough. And now here’s a happy transition. Speaking of 1,000,000 Ariary though, I have already started planning my Christmas break. Morondava baby! Woohoo! Known for the most photographed place in Madagascar, the Avenue of Baobabs, Morondava rests on the west coast, the shore line of the Mozambique channel. Six days of seafood, swimming, photographing, more eating, and relaxing and sightseeing are in store for me! It is also a large cultural capital ( African predominantly due to the location) and has large celebration feasts on holidays, like Christmas when I’m there so hopefully I will be able to go to one of those as well. There are also large tombs in the area that are supposed to be amazing to see. I am so very excited and can not wait! In fact, its powering me to make it through the mental tiredness. A few more weeks and I’m off to surf, shellfish, and massive trees! Such a sweet deal and will hopefully be a pleasant distraction from the sadness that comes with the holiday seasons. I miss making cookies with Pam, opening stockings that jingle on my bed, sitting and staring at the Christmas tree, shaking presents, smelling pine mixed with cinnamon and roasting food, laughing, drinking eggnog, sleeping through excitement. Twinkling lights, orchestras, and comfort food. Sugar plum fairies, nutcrackers, partridges resting in trees, Charlie Brown searching for his tree and Snoopy dancing on a piano. No matter what I’m doing, those memories remind of what I’m missing, not that I ever cared about missing it before. But, now, they are only memories, not expectations. But here, children hope to eat, to have medicine for family members, to visit family, maybe take a vacation to a nearby town. I feel like I should slap my own knuckles. So much appreciation for so many things in so many ways. So that’s that for now. There is a wonderful proverb in Malagasy that seems only fitting right now as the holidays approach along with my one year anniversary in country. “Be like the Chameleon. Always looking forward with a quick glance behind.”

So, with the help of fantastic herb seeds sent from home, I was finally urged to do my garden project. Four days, three blisters, and two children later its finally done. No sprouts yet but Ive (hopefully) got pumpkins, tomatoes (two types.. I forgot there were different types of tomatoes. Imagine how funny it was to me after a year here to receive three different strains of tomatoes in a package. I just stared at the three packages dumbfounded. Then read the directions.), cucumbers, local zucchini, local chilis called sakay, beans, bell peppers, rosemary, basil, cilantro, garlic, chives, some pretty flowers, and something else I cant remember at the moment. Anyways... here are some pics of the place!

Local boys helping me it. After seeing a tarantula in the water pump room I hired the boy with red sleeves to fetch water twice a week. I pay him pretty well according to the local family.

This is the herb planter where hopefully tasty seasonings will grow. Yes I built the lopsided circle although it has since been corrected.

My little flower planter and dish washing area. Old desks come in handy. Creativity is a must in this lifestyle.

Watching the boys working in the dirt, the girls stayed clean but were awestruck when I was down in the dirt picking out roots, rocks and trash. Apparently people of my "standing" shouldnt get so dirty. I told them I loved it and they laughed and whispered for a good 30min straight

Even Cleo got in on the fun. Although at this point she is trying to dig up a tea plant.

My house is still in the works but here are some preliminary pics for all you curious peeps!

The kitchen which is across from the shower

The shower area with my custom shelves for bathroom stuff I rarely use :)My little study/work/eating room. Its a little messy at the moment as I prepare for 17 classes, two english clubs, and a teachers english club... oh and 5 english courses for the community.. oh and my radio class too. Ok thats it I swear.

My front door. I love my glass doors, except right now when I dont have curtains and many children are oh so curious.

My cute pink house. I know the pics arent in order but sh&* happens.

Do you ever feel like your life is a show? Being separated from American culture, I am embarrassed to say that I cannot remember the title of this movie because in life, movie titles don’t actually matter. And while names like Ed Sullivan and Andy Griffith keep popping up in mind, I’m thinking of the movie with Jim Carrey about the man who is raised in a bubble as a 24 hour show. While my brain struggles for the title I can remember the movie very well. That’s exactly how I feel, except that in this scene I am the director, actor, producer, and writer for everyone involved. This carries with it several interesting perspectives as I am both completely immersed and completely detached. Although the very suggestion that I can be both clearly negates the completely part of those two statements. These days the dreams are becoming repetitive. They are dreams about home that involve two of three things on a continuous basis: 1) teaching my family and friends Malagasy phrases. 2) eating 3) lace underwear. Not the most likely of dream combinations but trust me when I say that my creativity has come to all new heights in the last month, albeit subconsciously, to perfectly blend at least two of the three topics into one seamless transition. If you asked why I could only tell you what I have come up with (Ill limit this to the top five. There are many hours in the day and the first three are usually spent with a hot cup of olive tea and me sitting in the small warmth of the sun wondering what the hell was going on last night): 1) I am bored with the food here. Although I have recently added 5 jars of peanut butter and 4 cans of corn to my constant supply of food I am desperately bored with my meals on a daily basis. Thus I dream of fantastic extravagance or weird food experiments with parents. Salmon in any form, beef that has flavor, plump chicken cake/brownies, and other such fantastic things. Don’t get me started on Mexican food. It litters my dreams at least three times a week. I was able to find chicken pieces of a good size in market on Monday and made some skillet chicken with fried potatoes (serving as lunch and dinner) but its only in the big market otherwise I would be on a severe chicken kick. Added cow heart back into my diet for something new and gave a cow tongue to my dog, thinking maybe I would try it too. But, my own tongue threatened mutiny in the form of upheaval so I let Cleo feast while I stuck to my chicken instead. 2) I speak a lot of Malagasy. I’ve noticed, with a small amount of pride, that my language has gotten so much better. In my daily life I have stopped speaking English, with no classes, or fluent friends in town, my only language in market and around the house is Malagasy. My writing keeps my mind fresh on my vocabulary while some of my friends have complained of vocabulary loss. Luckily enough I have a lot of words I can lose before that point but I keep writing anyways as I find my inner voice chattering nonstop these days and my eyes constantly flashing towards my computer or journal. My journal is starting to lose room as I slowly fill up its pages and so I turn more and more often towards this outlet. 3) I miss nice underwear. Ok no joke. There are two things that, in my comfortable yet un satisfying life in the states, I could buy on a daily basis without flinching: necklaces and underwear. Why? I have no idea. Men have asked for years, and curious women have considered why it is that women are in love with cute and sexy underwear and the truth is this. We love wearing it for ourselves. It has absolutely nothing to do with you and while we are thrilled that you enjoy these things that is only a side affect. Now, granted, there are many of use that love the basics but even those women will reach out for the cute polka dots, animal patterns and fun colors to add to their collections. Living with the same 10 pairs in two colors for the last….year! (holy crap I’ve been here for a year) has done absolutely nothing for my compulsion towards dainty frills and every morning I find nothing at all intriguing about my first layer of dress in the morning. I dream about lace and colors and stripes and patterns and anything besides the same shades of black and periwinkle blue. And I have never in my life had to sew my bottoms. When you begin to set aside an hour in your week to mend your undies you lose all interest in them as attire and begin to see them along the same line as socks. It really is a sad business. 4) I am excited to come home. For those of you who don’t know, I will be more than likely extending my service for another year. I really wanted to contribute two full years to a community and I am in absolute love with the one I am living in so I am thinking of staying. I have until January to decide. On that note, Peace Corps gives me a month of home leave before my third year begins so that I can relax and restock and visit with my family. I would be lying if I said that didn’t make a difference in my decision process. And so I am wistfully, in my sleeping moments, dreaming about home. Sharing experiences, seeing friends, getting big enthusiastic hugs from long lost people, and enjoying what American life has to offer with a whole new perspective. And while, realistically, I may go a little insane from the back transition, I am looking forward to everything I know is out there and making mental plans to visit people, go diving, eat, go to the movies, see a mall, shop (for undies!), drop off souvenirs, and bring back yummy things from the states for friends and for my kids. 5) Last but not least I am overall extremely tired. And in my tiredness my brain is reconstructing my top three things that I think of in passing, on a daily basis. With a new puppy in the house, my school year starting very soon on the 12th of October, and my project ideas running through my days, I find myself in bed by 7:30 and waking up at 6 with the puppy every morning. After a year of not sleeping an entire night my brain has adapted into auto pilot. When I add my kickboxing, ab workouts (first time in my life I’ve used a workout video but I love it!), gardening and daily house cleaning to keep away the tarantulas ( I repeat….TARANTULAS) I am f&^*ing tired every night and love the slightly uncomfortable albeit warm bed I can slip into every night. Then as my lights switch off my brain regurgitates the thoughts that had been pushed into the back of my mind everyday. I may be bored with the food but there’s nothing to be done about it. I enjoy speaking Malagasy but remind myself to do my brain puzzle books to keep my English keen. I even speak to the dog in both languages. I hate my underwear but our local mall is located is located in South Africa and I still have a stubborn aversion to someone else’s used unmentionables. And the tiredness, well that’s only a frame of mind for the first half of the day and by the second half, well, my nightly routines kick in and there’s no time for tiredness until its done. So since there is nothing to be done about all of these things, I, the director, decide to create a character with strong will and endurance to conquer the difficulties ahead of myself. I, the scene writer, decide to write myself into a long plane flight back to America (temporarily of course) and begin considering the range of emotion that I as an actor will be able to convey to myself the viewer. I, the wardrobe coordinator, scan the piles of used clothes constantly to outfit myself, the teacher, better in my environment and hold back the discouragement while hoping the camera catches the display of facial emotions that appear whenever a new hole is discovered in my dainties. I, the head chef of a one man team, decide to blend spices and flavors that I would have never considered in a direct effort to create something different. Instead of thinking what I want to eat I think of how I want to eat it and create a taste from there. I watch as I eat every creation, hoping to see that my work has paid off and that I have somehow succeeded in impressing myself. With every ruined creation however, I worry that I will be fired, and so strive to accomplish some great feat where food from my childhood is recreated in a completely different setting. And now, that this great gooble of garble is finally over, I can begin to shoot the next scene that stars me pouring over books of English lesson plans and creatively creating activities for my English club to start on the 20th. I haven’t written the script yet but I have told myself that more than likely we will be relying on the soundtrack for noise as my part will be most likely silent. Scene 9,946, take 1.…Action!

These days things move smoothly in the quiet of the hours. I spend my time getting to know people, talking as much as possible, working on a radio show program and preparing ideas for classes. Its not the most exhilarating experience, I know, but its still an experience. What can I say?

I cook, I clean, I wake up, I shower (sometimes) I look at my garden while drinking my hot tea in the morning and think about what I want to plant when I get my hands on my seeds, then dream about abundant plants sprouting near my house at night. I like green.

I have a puppy! She’s beautiful and huge and an absolute terror right now to my lack of interior decorations. Thank god for cement floors and OLD used clothing or I may have considered myself insane to go through this again. She’s possibly a German shepherd mix although the little weasel of a man trying to sell her to me for WAY to much money said she was a better breed than that. To me she looks a little like an elk hound but that’s what wishful thinking will do to you. She does, however, have the black and tan on the face of a German shepherd, although no black on her sides, finished with a black tail with a tan strip underlying. Little white booties and a little patch of a white crest on her chest compliments her whole look. I named her Cleo, after the clever Cleopatra, hoping the name will imbibe some of the attributes. So far the stubbornness is the only one apparent. But shes just so dang cute and is already proving herself a devoted companion in her own puppy ways.

I am feeling much more myself these days than I have in the past month as my life settles in and the rocks are pulled from my path. (There are always more rocks). I found myself today wishing for an old green sweater in the chill of the morning. It was my favorite sweater I wore all the time at home when it was cold. The mossy green combined with the warmth of the yarn made it golden in my eyes. I just find it funny that I think should think now of possessions I have left at home when I cant summon to memory more than 5 total. I feel more enticed by my surroundings too. Moving her was very strange; to feel the separation from your home again in a country where I have felt at home in so many places. For a week or so I felt like an observer only, observing myself dwindling through the day, the assistance of the videos pilfered from another volunteer and that helped my day move a little bit different. I forced myself to go into town every day at least once if not twice to meet or talk with someone in an effort of strengthening a relationship and was rewarded with two people asking me for money and two people with whom I am now on a touching basis. (Remember from many blogs ago that touching is an act of comfort and friendship among women in Malagasy communities.(Just in case that comment caused an arch in one or more eyebrows.)) I do find my creative inspiration coming along on its own terms also as I find myself thinking of stories already begun and stories still unwritten in physical form. When I am quiet enough to hear my muse speak again, then I know I am alright.

Afternoons usually find me lying in the sunlight reading a book. Because of this daily habit I have once again resumed my habits of chewing through books in mere days (at most). In the last week alone I finished Moretta, Dragonlady of Pern, by Anne McCaffrey, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston ( phenomenal book!!!!) and Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulemia, by Marya Hornbacher. A strange mix to be sure but since most of our reading materials come by whatever we can get our hands on you cant afford to be in anyway picky. Their eyes was an absolutely wonderful book and after reading it (took a little longer as it is written in the dialect of old south) it is easy to see why it has reached so much acclaim in so many circles. I wish it had been picked out to be read in my women’s studies class back in college (not that I went to that class but three times due to the dronamatic tones of the professor) so I at least would have had the exposure to it. Wasted is also an amazing reflection of the self. No, I was obviously never bulimic or anorexic but the reflection of struggle and mental wavering of growing up in an emotionally imbalanced household most people, including myself, can connect with and I found myself nodding my head and recognizing so many of the self realizations and self destructive tendencies she tried to follow in her quest to reach unattainably set standards. How many of us know this truth and refuse to see it? It was a wonderful book. This week I have started The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith which is already proving to be quite captivating although I am forcing myself to read only a chunk a night in fear that I will eat the book and find myself with an empty plate all too soon. There is a sadness when a good book ends, like saying goodbye to a close friend with who you have shared the secret of the mind. There’s also the intense need for the satisfaction of discovering the secrets within the pages. it’s a difficult game to play but ultimately one queen will be forced to surrender.

This morning is very cold. It is a morning for warm pancakes and steaming syrup, or eggs and toast, or hot oatmeal with goodies. I had hot tea, but it was a delicious hot tea made from olive leaves and accented with a type of sweetened condensed milk and sugar. it’s a deliciously sweet and not so nutritious breakfast, but when your daily life forces you outside in the cold you do what you can to accommodate. Already this morning I have washed dishes, considered the absence of my favorite sweater from home, made and drank a cup of tea, wrote this blog, changed the sheets on my bed (puppy accident which will hopefully never be repeated), stretched out my legs from yesterdays exercise video and listened to at least eight tracks of classical music. Once finished with all this I will go into town and get eggs (hopefully) and a small wheel of cheese that will last me two days, three at most. I will consider dinner but defer it until later when I am more informed of my interests for the day. I will walk around my community waiting to be called a vazah so that I can introduce myself as the new teacher here and will smile and greet every person my eyes connect with. I will feel a wave of loneliness as I move through the streets, aware that there are more eyes recording my actions than I care to count and will feel the need to find a family in this new place. I will sweep my house 3-4 times, finish another three lesson plans before my brain burns out but I will feel a small sense of accomplishment in writing out Malagasy and English script for my radio show( 11 weeks, 2x a week, 22 lessons) , lose a few more games of minesweeper advanced but remind myself that in the last 4,000 games I have won one, then watch the day dwindle until around 4 when I begin preparing dinner to eat around 5 and have myself washed and in warm clothes for bed around 630. In bed physically but not asleep I will stay awake until around 8 or so then succumb to the sleep that is so badly needed. Thankfully this routine will go through overhaul once the school year gets closer and begins. But as for now I am subsisting. Happy, and still feeling like I am on the right track Ill go to sleep knowing that when I wake up tomorrow I will do it all again.

I wish I could play a game of chess. That is the amount of time I feel these days.

　

　

　

~

Darkness falls

Slaughtering sleeping shadows

Left behind

Resigning His post

Light leaves

To lovers desires

　

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She plays in the abandon of age

Not knowing is half the battle

The other being death

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They say everything has its place

But how do we know

The ‘x’ of the map

Is not the ‘x’ of the next

But ours

Rest your eyes in carefree comforts

And cease to worry

Of destinations

　............................................................................................................................　

How to say what is a life

Warmth of touch

Companionship

Love

Coldness of the dark

Unknowing

Silence

Essential ingredients for the gift

Of the present

　...........................................................................................................................

To the old it is patience

To the young it is flight

To those moving mountains

It is dedication not of body

But spirit and mind

Constance

Not only found in sorrow

Approach and departure

We move

Scaling summits

　

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I once dreamed

A place so real

I cried when I woke

Of creatures so large

The ground shook when they spoke

Afraid of the size

Afraid of the chores

Afraid of my life

From here the rain pours

I learned to wake up

As the years went on

I learned to breathe

To sacrifice the pawn

Not just once

More than I could count

Whenever feelings of control

Were in no large amount

Lost in a dream

From a world that fades

How often you feel small

In the game of charades~

Well I have officially moved in and begun the process of exploration and making friends. My bitter thoughts of lost accomplishments in my last community have started to fade as I am slowly making myself known in my community. It’s a daily process of walking to market, meeting new people and slowly dispelling the stories concerning the new white person in the neighborhood. The loneliness is a daily struggle that gets easier and easier as I refuse to allow myself to sink into a morose state of mind which is all to easy in an entirely new place.

These days are full of organizing, reorganizing, laundry and planning. Lots and lots of planning. House planning, furniture planning at the carpenter, food planning ( usually involving me staring at my small food section in my kitchen and then creating something fantastically simple) and program planning. I am to have a radio show twice a week teaching the local area English over a radio program, as well as a mandatory English club for the children at my school, as well as normal classes and an English class for teachers. I am also hoping to work with the other 3 English teachers directly throughout the school year with any grammar questions, methods for teaching new concepts etc. My English club will sing, watch films, hopefully dance, ( wouldn’t it be fun to teach a bunch of kids to salsa or swing???!!!!) and put on theatrics. it’s a very exiting time, although it will mean a lot of work I am excited to see how it goes.

My days consist of a small routine, although it will change soon with the school year beginning on the 11th of October. I wake up in the morning to the darkness of my room and the sound of ox carts on the street below my house. I wait a little, usually mentally committing myself to the day and tackling the feelings of wanting to continue sleeping in order to avoid what I most surely have to do. I roll out of bed and force myself to do a ten minute yoga routine I have on my computer which I pilfered from another volunteer. We love our workout dvd’s here. I don’t like the routine very much but it does its job. It also makes me realize I need to sweep y floor which I mentally commit myself to do later. I slip on my sandals ( called Scooby doo’s here (no joke)) and head into the kitchen, usually warily eyeing the dish from the night before and then staring at my small pantry. Breakfast may consist of oatmeal, peanut butter and bananas (I’m absolutely addicted although I limit myself to one HUGE spoonful of peanut butter a day after I ate a small can in two and cant replenish my stock until I go in to my banking town an hour down the road once a month), tea with sweetened condensed milk ( a big favorite around here) or eggs if I have truly planned ahead. Without Chance to eat in my house cooking has become slightly boring and I am having to retrain myself to cooking for one again. After breakfast I stare at my room for a little bit and put on music to make myself move and do chores. The first four days in this new town was all laundry…after a month I had accumulated quite a lot. These days there is not much left. A small move, a small motion to organize. Doing the dishes, sweeping the floor, reminding myself to buy something here and there. Thinking of plans, thinking of all the other things I should be doing, thinking of the lesson plans I have to write, mentally writing the lesson plans, looking up a Malagasy word I didn’t recognize the day before ( today’s words are Mangarona - to snatch with the hand and Mandromboka- to grab), staring at my bookshelf deciding if I want to read a new book or re-read an old favorite, wondering when friends or parents will call, picking up my phone to check my credit, re-asking myself if I do want a cat or dog, thinking of my next travel plan and the things I will have to buy when in Antsirabe ( my large banking town down the road with all the good stuff) then preparing to go to town. I go to the market around mid-morning… each day it gets easier to go as going to the market is far more than just an outing. It is people staring, asking questions, asking each other questions not truly ready to believe that I can speak their language, asking for prices, trying to say a friendly hello to the same ladies every day and each day being rewarded with a little bit more of a conversation beyond “what do you want to buy?”, and of course having to ward off at least one man with either too much liquor or too much testosterone…which ever comes first. After market I do another little workout while waiting for lunch to finish cooking, or bleaching if its fruits and veggies, or for my water to finish dripping through the purifier because I forgot the night before to fill up a new bottle. I scold myself although not for too long, after all waiting is what Madagascar is about.

A few days ago I had the chance to walk around my community and meet the local officials with my director. A few need no mention but the two that do is the Chief of the District who broke out his English the moment he met me and the Commisaire of Police who made me laugh so hard I almost cried. He had three questions of great importance that he produced with so much flair that Hollywood looked dull.

Question #1: If you fall in love will you stay? “yes”

Question #2: Do you like it here? “yes”

Question #3: Do you like pork and greens? Too which I responded a very enthusiastic yes ( its one of my favorite dishes and dangerously enough, I can cook it quite well.) that caused him in turn to break out in a wonderful raspy laugh as he jumped and slapped his knees. This shocked the hell out of me coming from a community official but the entire office broke out in a great loud peal of laughter and he settled back into his chair, lighting up a cigarette and placing a hand on his knee. His face was wonderfully wrinkled from sun and years, he still had most of his teeth and he sported his blue suit of status wonderfully well with one leg crossed over the other and my blue nationality card in his hand. I looked to my director and turned back to the Commissarie, opened my mouth and then closed it again as he handed me my papers. He gestured for me to continue what I was going to say as I fought to hold back the laughter and tears that just couldn’t stop. After a day of worrying about first impressions he was a wonderful end and I could feel the stress lifting with each wrinkle of expression that crosses his face.

“I think I love you” I said, forcing the words out through my laughter.

“No, I’m already married.” He replied with all the seriousness of a great response. He held the expression for about 5 seconds of silence as I pretended to be ashamed with the same amount of fortitude as he pretended to be serious. In laughter we left his office, and the rest of the day flew by quickly.

Coming home from my afternoon jaunts I grab and fill my two buckets at the tap in the schoolyard enjoying the strain on my arms ( sick pleasures right?) as I find a new method of smoothly and quickly walking, without spilling, back to my house. Then comes dinner time.

The genius design of my house leaves me without a light in both my kitchen and bathroom area but this is no big thing as I am thoroughly joyful to have any lights at all in my humble abode. So, I cook by candle light although some days I am too hungry to wait until dark and so finish my cooking as the last hint of light is taken from the sky. I choose my movie for the evening from my small selection, usually trying to pick the one I haven’t already seen ten times ( most of them by now fit in the 10-20 category) and sit at my table and enjoy my food, soup for the most part. Its freaking freezing (pardon the adjective) and all I want by the end of the day is something hot in my stomach. Also, due to the limited counter space soon to be fixed with the addition of a cooking table, it is far easier to hand chop veggies into a pot and add seasoning than it is to take on any large ordeal. Tonight as I am writing this I am planning eggs over potatoes. The potatoes here are delicious and I can find cheese too! And, since I am no longer in the hottest place my house acts as a refrigerator and things like jellies and cheese don’t go bad right away! Imagine that! As you look into your refrigerator today you can think of my cheering for joy in the cool temperatures of my house that my cheese will last 4 days instead of none and smile at the simple tidbits that truly make life great. Don’t for the first minute think that I envy you and your wonderful controlled environments but I definitely have an entirely new sense of appreciation for so many small things: towels that are clean, water I don’t have to count bleach drops, food I can pop into my mouth without so much as a second of forethought, any dish I want delivered to my door, sushi ( Ok that actually I am incredibly envious for and cant wait for the moment I get into the United States. I am going to eat as much raw fish as I can pack in and then go back for more- no joke) clothes that shrink in the dryer, underwear that last longer than a few months because of the rate that hand scrubbing eats fabric, smooth feet - never had them but I have apparently convinced myself that back in the states there is NO WAY my feet were this bad, and last but not least a flushing toilet. Not that I mind my new hole in the ground as it is much cleaner than my last location but seriously, the cool tile floor beneath your feet and the decorated room with its clean white sink and little soap and towels to match the color scheme. I remember these things with fondness and a wistful tilt of the head. (Just did it again.)

Oh and sauces. I found a small bottle of Worcestershire sauce at the market and splurged on it and I have cooed over that bottle lovingly for at least a week now. Now go look in your pantry. No really. The expression I could give you right now if this was a live conversation would be one of narrowed eyes, a strongly pointed finger in the direction of your nearest food storage and pursed lips threatening to smile. (Those of you who know me know exactly the face I am speaking of!)

After dinner I throw my three dishes into my plastic bin dedicated to tomorrow and heat two pots of water for my shower ( guilty pleasures), run to the hole for the last time that evening ( hopefully) start my water boiler ( another guilty pleasure) for my nightly tea and then make the worlds fastest and most inefficient shower happen. That is to say I literally throw five - ten large cups of water on my self before and after soap, telling myself Ill wash my hair tomorrow( about every three days I brave the cold for combing out the tangles) , and then, before the water cools, jump into a towel and into clothes gasping at the cold as though I am surprised, hurrying into the warmest fleeciest clothing I can find, grabbing my nightly tea and climbing under the blankets to finish the movie from earlier. (Best part of the routine because its fast and intensely satisfying in the end) I may write or read or just watch the film but either way it is the end of a day where some of the hours have actually been counted ( as in now). I tell myself that tomorrow I will begin to write my radio program, or begin/finish a new book, or start to design a border for the rooms of my house, plan the plots of my garden for when my seeds arrive or do something…different. But the things I do differently are never planned, or accounted for in the morning planning sessions, and the constancies are only things that I can create on my own. So I say goodbye for now, telling myself tomorrow I will take some pictures, or play with the ones I already have, I will organize the photos I want to print on my trip to Antsirabe or I will find a new way to hang up something that is one my floor.

Until next time!

Love-Me

I said goodbye today. With sorrow in my heart the tears escaped to my cheeks being kissed by my adopted family and friends. With final hugs, arm holding, and promises to be reunited again I climbed into the car. With a final pat on Chance's head I told her she was in good hands and hoped she understood. Even now my heart is heavy, too heavy to hold in one hand and so my soul cradles it with two, pressing it against our chest willing it to go back to its place.

What to do when your heart says goodbye? Your brain tells you its fine, its illogical to cry, reunions come so swiftly when you are least expecting them, life continues within abscence, I will still sleep and dream of new places. Is it the fear that causes the tears? The fears of loss of neglect or is it the fear of new and of the unknown? It doesnt matter what the brain justifies and lectures, the heart continues pumping its sorrow, the lungs sigh in grief and the feet inch forward to continue the paths we choose.

Its been two months of medication and trial and error until finding out I would have to make the choice between continuous medication or a cold climate. I chose the cold climate; i chose to move and experience more new, more unknown, expose myself to more of the dark mental weakness we keep suckling in the corners of ourselves. I have lived since then knowing what was emminent but it was in those last days of packing, the last days of nostalgia, the last days of last walks, last meals, and last conversations when the heart wakes up and catches on to the foul plot afoot.

And now I am here in the capital, a room full of baggage, waiting with slight trepidation mixed with excitement and expectation to travel the last small leg of this trip to my town.

So goodbye Maevatanana. Goodbye family and friends and Chance, the closest sorrow in my heart. Goodbye heat, midnight trips to collect water, meat markets, and little ladies selling tomatoes. Goodbye mpivarotras with their small kados, fish ladies with fish still alive, flouncing off the reed mat clinging desperately to life. Goodbye students who didnt try, and those who exceeded their own expectations.

So closes the chapter of the last 8 months of my life and now moisten your finger and turn the page.. so begins the next.Chapter of an unkown number: Antanifotsy: The home in the high plateau.

I stepped out of the taxi and the cold wind bit the nose right off my face. No, its no joke. Within seconds my nose was nothing more than a memory, nothing left but icy numbness. To my horror the cold, now invigorated by it’s sense of accomplishment, began its descent into my cheeks, my eyelids and my lips. Soon I would be nothing more than a shade of my former self, a leperatic tribute to whatever my womanly charms may have been. As the terror of freezing began to sink into my bones I heard only two words rise over the pounding of my heart.

“Hot coffee?”

“What?”

“Do you want hot coffee or tea?”

I blinked, twice. Hot tea? Oh. I looked around me and remembered I was standing outside of my taxi brousse company. Shivering internally under two layers of shirts and sweatshirts, a scarf, and two pairs of pants. I blinked again feeling the warmth spreading through my body as I willed my limbs to move and break off the frost coating my joints. Tucking my my lips into the zipped up hood of my sweatshirt I followed my travel companion and his dad through the crowd into a crowded but wonderfully toasty environment, a metal shed warmed only by the heat of the numerous bodies crowding inside. Teas, coffees, and breads for breakfast. Small goodies lined the walls for travelers passing through with a case of the munchies. I sipped the warm liquid, savoring the feeling as it spread through my body, not having any want or need to leave this toasty place. But, as with all things, the end was near so I buckled up, drank down the last of my lemon tea, stuffed the last of my bread roll into my mouth and stepped back out into the frigid morning of Antananarivo. And waited. Waited for two hours for our taxi to go. I watched vans, buses, trucks, chickens, vendors, travelers, beggars, and clouds. Women dressed in layers wrapped blankets around their waists, chests and heads to keep whatever warmth they had to themselves. Men did the same, the more sporty boys looking like any kid from home, hoodies, beanies, baggy jeans. I knew I was freezing but as long as I kept watching everything else I was perfectly fine.

Our trip was underway. I had never traveled on the southern roads before so every sight was brand new. My eyes were tired but I couldn’t sleep. Instead I curled into a ball on my seat and leaned my head against the glass of the window. I couldn’t help but let my inner child take over, eagerly pointing out everything I saw, everything from colors and textures to cow herds, rice patties, valleys and viewpoints. My friend had the patience needed to deal with my 4yr old self and smiled and pointed out even more things for me to see and notice and photograph. Being a photographer himself he had an eye for beauty and I didn’t feel like anything got past our intensive searching gaze. Dipping into the pages he had printed for me detailing information regarding our visiting points I found a not on the Bara people of the south.

“ The cow of the south, the brahman, is related very closely to the species of India and is an intrinsic part of the Bara culture. This is a culture of cattle breeding and rustling and stealing your neighbor’s cows was a common incidence. In Bara society a boy would be recognized a man when he successfully stole a neighboring group cattle.”

I read this outloud to my friend and he listenend intently until I started laughing.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“You’re Bara right?”

“Yeah.”

“Who’s cows did you steal.”

“I didn’t steal any cows.”

“So then, you’re not…”

“Unless you want me to leave you at the next stop I suggest you don’t finish that sentence.”

I laughed gently to myself until I caught the expression on his face. It was one mixed between exasperation and absolute humor. I both wanted to laugh harder and opt out to take the path of wisdom. I took the path of wisdom and continued my watch of the scenery. We passed by large tows teeming with people, filled with factories producing products I recognized. Small towns covered in children and livestock, blankets covered in bright orange carrots coated the roadside of Antsirabe and the surrounding areas, the dull brown of delicious potatoes sporting their own textures. It was amazing, I had never seen the brilliance of color that this whole area was known for. Carrots, potatoes, beans, rice fields, clouds, the sky itself a blue I will never lose appreciation for.

We arrived in Fianarantsoa right at sunset and waited for twenty minutes for our connector to Ambalavao, our destination. I was left at our new taxi with a group of men that stared while I stood watching my breath joining the air in whispy clouds. Finally I couldn’t take the muttering and staring any longer.

“Hello. How are you?”

“You speak Malagasy?”

“Yes I do. Although I am just trying.”

“The vazah speaks Malagasy!.”

“Im not a vazah. Im an american or a peace corps volunteer or I have a name too.”

“You really can speak Malagasy.” Thus prompting a conversation regarding the ease at which Americans can learn Malagasy and how hard it is for Malagasy to learn English. My response is always that it is completely different.

“You are very friendly. That’s very good. Most vazahs aren’t friendly. You need to be friendly here. Its our culture.”

“That is very true,” I agreed. “I love being here and I love being friendly. If I am friendly then I am always at home.”

At this point our taxi got ready to leave for the short 45 min trip to Ambalavao, the cow town of the south. We got in right after dark and were ushered straight away into a relatives house for a dinner of cow heart and pork with greens. All the while we were eating was conversation in the local dialect, a little different than the official dialect I am used to hearing in my own town. It was hard to follow, I was tired, hungry and wanted a bath. Our hostess, one of the many cousins I would meet on my trip, was kind enough to warm up water for me and I convinced myself it would be worthwhile to at least rinse off the day’s grime. By candlelight I was led to a small lean-to about a foot shorter than I am. I crouched there in the darkness with the soft glow of the candle illuminating the bucket as I poured cup after cup of warm water on my skin. It felt fantastic but was diminished by my posture and the knowledge that the moment I stepped outside every piece of warmth was going to be ripped from my skin. I chastised myself quickly and we settled that everything was a new adventure and this was only the beginning.

I was shown to a small room to sleep and put my things. I took one look at the bed and was more than grateful for the rest I was sure to have. The lights turned out and alone in the pitch black of the night I rested, listening to foreign noises that made my imagination uneasy and robbed the sleep from the hours.

The next morning after a breakfast of eggs, an adventurous trip to the bathroom and participating in a gawking exchange between myself and the local flock of children I was given a tour of the town. I was so excited. I grabbed my camera and tennis shoes, ready to tourist the hell out of myself. Immersed in a flack of Malagasy family members- I was accepted into the family the night before- we headed off to make the customary rounds of greetings. When one cousin heard another was visited by us a representative, usually a smaller child, was sent to come find us and tell us not to forget their household. Hours later we continued our walk into town passing by the extensive cattle corrals covering half of the town. My guides shared with me the extent to which the cattle here are known. I was told that the cattle traded and sold here was eaten all over the country and that the cattle market every Wednesday was the biggest and well known. Herders came from all areas of the south to trade and sell their cattle every week. I wanted to see the large herds and was rewarded only with a large truck filled with cattle, eyes white with fear, tails tied to the beams of the truck bed.

“Where are they going?”

“Off to Tana probably.”

“I want steak.”

My friend laughed at me for that comment as I snapped my shots and we continued again into the heart of the town. After all it was already past ten o’clock in the morning and the drinking had yet to begin. After being told the town was known for its wine as well as its cows and sported two different wineries I was sad that we didn’t have more time but instead ordered a bottle of wine with our mid morning snack. Two glasses in and I was filling the lightness within my head as the wine proved its potency. After we were all comfortably toasted we headed to my soon to be newest adopted mother’s house. Aunt Francoise, a venerable stout woman with a wonderful wrinkled face attoped with a wiry bush of hair, welcomed us warmly, embracing me in a hug with the kisses of greeting. Her smile shook all anxiety I was feeling away and she set me down to a lunch of cow heart grilled with curry, rice, and greens. It was delicious and wonderful. While my friend showered I was turned into a model. The local fabric, called a lambahoany was being sported by new mother and I asked her about it with great interest. She immediately went into the back room and reemrged wearing something new and handed it to me.

“it’s a souvenir for you.”

“Oh no, its ok.” I replied, although immediately remembering you cant turn down anything given to you as a gift from anyone, especially family. I gratefully accepted the gift then looked at her.

“What’s wrong.”

“I don’t know how to wear this.”

“Oh!” And thus began the dress up operation. I was shown the three traditional ways of wearing the tube of cloth and then Aunt Francoise brought out hers with the strict understanding that it was NOT a souvenir which prompted a big smile from me at her reaction. She then dressed me in the purple cloth outfitted with bright glittery sequins in the traditionally flamboyant style of Malagasy women. It was great fun and many photos came from it. The lambahoany was a wonderful gift and I wear it constantly but the best souvenirs were the memories themselves. After another night of delicious brochettes ( fresh cows make tasty treats) and delicious meals we met the next frigid morning ready to depart for our next destination. But not before visiting and saying goodbye to each and every family we had said hello to. It was in these goodbyes that I was able to meet the drunk uncles, divulging unto me stories of my friend’s childhood and his raising and the city itself and then the demand that I return soon and say hello. Before our departure we took a small walk to my friend’s first school and I snapped pictures of children and the symbolic twin mountains of the region. Many stories and local myths surround the twins and they were a beautiful backdrop to many of my shots.

After a short wait involving drunks and weird carnivorous chickens we squeezed ourselves into a taxi brousse and were quickly on our way to the next stop… Ihosy.

The night before we didn’t sleep. I remember. She tossed and turned all night, tense next to me. The winds were strong, pushing leaves and sticks and the fence against our house never ceased. My sensitive ears heard it all but to her it was all just noise. I got up and nuzzled next to her, pushing my nose into her arm with a reassuring lick. “It sounds like someone’s breaking in Chance.” She said to me in the dark giving me a reassuring pat and small scratch behind the ears. “Its ok, Ill protect you.” I tried to tell her. But since we don’t get to use the same language as the rest of you all I could do was comfort her, snuggling against her through the evening. We snoozed.

The next morning was like every other morning. A woman came and washed the clothes that had been in a glorious pile on the floor available for me to roll and play in for the last week. I watched, more than a little forlorn to see the pile disappearing so quickly. When she had gone the house was back to just the two of us again and we sat in the backyard watching the wet clothing flapping in the breeze. She walked back into the house and I followed, as I always do, hoping for food to appear in her hand. It didn’t. Instead she returned with her hot water machine and plugged it in before grabbing her little key for the closet in the back yard. I walked her there too, but stayed at a distance. Sometimes humans must be luckier than dogs. Our sensitive noses pick up the subtle and not so subtle notes in every situation, including the kabone. Vicious, foul smelling things. I sat waiting for her to return, right as she had closed the door I smelled it. Something was wrong. Something was wrong in our house! The smell, it was like something I had never smelled before and it was in our house. No wait, I had smelled it before. When they burned the beautiful trash piles I would dig through in the back of the schoolyard. I started barking, snarling, snarling at the doorway of our home. My fur behind my neck raised up, my body tense and ready for battle. Where was she? Couldn’t she hear me yelling my warning? She came out of the door and saw me, we locked eyes and I barked again, my voice reaching a new frenzy as I leaped to the door and backed back down. “Hurry!” I yelled, “hurry hurry something’s in there!” She caught my urgency and ran to me then heard the sound. I couldn’t believe she didn’t smell it But her urgency caught up to mine when she heard the sound. She raced into the house, me right on her heels. But there wasn’t a person, there was a thing. A bright orange thing raced up our wall, right next to our bed, reaching and eating its way up to the ceiling. The plastic of the chord had melted off to the floor. I could do nothing but sit and wait just in case. I growled warning to the monster. “If you so much as touch her I will kill you myself.” I sat and watched as she blew as hard as she could on the monster. For a moment it looked like she had one but it came back again, just as strong as before. I was proud as she reacted just as fast, grabbing her towel off the bed and putting it on top of the monster. The monster was gone, we had won. But the smell was intolerable. We both left, sitting back outside where we had been moments earlier, before the monster had attacked. She walked back into the house and pulled the rest of the plastic away from the wall, tossing it outside where we couldn’t smell it anymore. We had won! “Good girl,” she cooed to me, rubbing me face and nose with soft touches and affection. “That was so good, you saved us, you saved us today.” I rested my face on her leg and could feel her hands shaking as she rested next to me. “Ill always protect you,” I wanted to tell her. I pressed my shoulder against her, pushed my nose back into her hand and looked up with my most affectionate look. We spent the rest of the day eyeing the wall warily, waiting for the monster to reappear, but it never did.

That night for dinner she presented me with a plate of the best food humans have ever created. Banana pancakes. After dinner we curled up again in the bed, ready to finish the very long day. I stood guard, she slept. The way its supposed to be.

Enjoying the lookout over Fianarantsoa

Betsileo women are gorgeous!

The long southern roads

Too shy until her picture was done

The clan of Ambalavao

Baobabs of the southwest

The queen of the south

Cattle is the culture of Ambalavao

Dress up with Devyn. I was family in minutes!

Beautiful scenery is everywhere

Its funny the randomness of memories that come to you when you are ill or otherwise mentally stagnant for a short period of time. My memories, although they seemed long were in truth more than likely rapid and without any pattern of succession.

I remember watching with fascination as my friend Loren used a straight razor to shave in his bathroom in San Francisco. I remember watching him make the face soap and slather it on. How bad I wanted to write my initials in the soap as my inner 4 yr old took over. The smell of the leather strap as he sharpened the blade mixed with the soap and the musty wood smell of his apartment, I watched in absolute fascination as he slid the blade across his skin without any cuts or incident and the way it sliced the hair straight off, expecting the whole time to see a fountain of blood at any moment and holding my breath in case it should happen exactly that way.

Sitting in the passenger side of Katy’s giant monster of a truck we named Jiffy- a well loved and well used jeep with a canvas top that someone had sliced and an engine that alerted the neighborhood to her presence two minutes before she arrived. I remember sitting in the passenger side of that fantastically fun and childhood dream of a car as we tore down the freeway ( tearing down the freeway at about 70mph feels incredibly fast in that giant) on our way to the beach on a Sunday morning that we had woken up early for only to go back to sleep once we got to the glorious sounds and smells of the ocean. Feeling the wind whipping my hair watching the smaller cars that in my own were eye level. The roar of the engine, humming tunes to ourselves or shouting conversation snippets before they were ripped from our mouths. Smiling at each other or catching each others eye as we saw something that we knew we both found entertaining.

Feeding bat rays at Sea World. Sliding my hands across their slimy skin as they delicately sucked the fish from my hands and griping their wings as they smoothly slide past. Loosing any sense of age and decorum as I plunged my arms into the cool sea water up to the elbows waiting for the next bat ray to make a pass against the ridge of the tank. Beaming at Katy and the children surrounding me and totally loosing myself in the moment each and every time I could. Staring at the black glass bat ray pendant at sea world with its $15 price tag and telling myself, “No, Ill get it next time,” each time not getting it. Its been three years since I first saw it and I still want it just as bad as that first day. Although that only makes the getting of it when I finally can an absolute joy!

Eating chicken burritos in the early evening after a long day of work and swim and enjoying the wonderful flavors. In fact, food is on of our favorite conversation topics in Peace Corps. We talk about it, fantasize about it, and discuss our means of consuming as much of it as possible as soon as we get the chance to get back to the states. Its very very entertaining how often it comes up. And the pain of separation never gets any easier. It never really does. Sushi bars with Gregg in San Diego, my dad and my brother in San Francisco, Okazu Ya with Loren in San Francisco and discovering Okazu Ya Bombs- which I can actually still remember the taste of, or cooking breakfast on Saturday mornings in SF after returning from the Italian butcher shop down the street from his house with fresh crusty bread and sausages.

Going out with Narcy and Melissa on Wednesday nights to the only smoker’s bar in San Francisco. Even though I don’t smoke anymore I still remember the greatness of the whole experience. Laughing, smoking, de-stressing, talking, and drinking before consuming a few slices of pizza from across the street at Pizza Orgazsmica- which really was as good as it claimed. Well, not the end result but if you really, really loved pizza…. Anyways, a few hot cheesy slices after a few drinks around 1 or 2 in the morning was just what you needed to finish off a night.

Sitting on my parents couch in San Diego talking to Pam. Many, so many conversations, about pain, hopes, dreams, futures, pasts, disappointments, healing, etc. So many conversations I didn’t hear like I should have, that were stored inside of me until I was quiet enough to unravel and listen to them all over again. Why does it take us so long sometimes? To find, within ourselves, the quiet that is needed to truly listen to the wisdom of those around us in an application sense of the word listen. Not simply just to hear but to apply, to realize what step you are in that application process and how much farther you have to go.

Watching the elephants routine show at the zoo in Salt Lake City with Cederic. Snapping off shots on my camera with each new stunt and trick performed by the elephants as their handlers discussed the purpose and use of each of those stunts being performed. Watching in awe as the giant beasts made gestures of affection and went easily from one action to another, from playing to lifting their feet, opening their large mouths or demonstrating the dexterity of their trunks. I remembering looking at Cederic to see his reaction and see if he was with me on the wonder and excitement of seeing these animals. I remember hiking through the park talking about dreams of travel, the places we could go and see, places to backpack, hike, tramp through forests, see mountains, sleep near seas. Talking about peace corps, hopes and dreams of futures, our families, lives, jobs, careers possibilities and painting his house. ( I know random but it’s the small stuff that stands out when your mind looks back). Sharing the excitement of the elephants with someone else who appreciated it only increases my own, although it would seem that I instantly revert back to that 4 yr old each and every time and loose myself in the moment, the company, and the environment I am experiencing. Its really the only way to experience anything that is worth experiencing. It’s the whole environment, including the people you are with that make it in the records in my mind.

The same as eating fish tacos with my dad one of my last nights in San Diego. It wasn’t the food that was great, it was more a snack in the day of shopping, but it was the conversation. The pride in his voice and face as we talked about Niger, about me finally leaving, about hopes and expectations and my fears. So many fears of leaving the next, leaving my family and life behind, the fear was more that I would be left behind with all those I was physically leaving. I know now that this is truly impossible. For those you truly love, you carry them with you in all things you do. My grandmother who died years ago is carried on within me and my family each day and she is physically gone completely. We don’t get forgotten or left, only those who are truly the ones you want in your life are the ones that stay and we keep it that way. Those I love know they are loved by me and I know I am loved by them and that is the way it is meant to be. But the fears are scary, when you are looking at the drop of the cliff and have no idea what the next rise will look like ore bring. Many things are so unknown, about yourself and your actions and the fear comes from that. But its intensity is overpowered with the excitement of promised adventure and that was our conversation. The places I was going, the things I could do, could see, could experience. What might happen, what could, things that sounded ridiculous that now I can say “Actually yeah, I did that too.” Bad Feinman humor jokes riddled with plays on words and extreme scenarios that tickle your imagination into a squeal with little to no effort that I manage to only hold aside with an exasperated expression that only causes my Dad to laugh twice as much. My Dad’s expression of looking to the sky with raised hands and a half beg, half plead, 100% hilarious expression asking the powers that be why he was blessed with such an intelligently ridiculous daughter, then slapping his hands and rocking back into my own seat, trying to swallow all the fears and sadness that continue to threaten the joy of the evening. Speaking of slapping hands.

Playing the hand slap game with my Dad as a child, actually I cant say that since we still do, and then later in life with countless friends and Loren. Laughing so hard I cant breathe or so or let alone pull my hands back away into safety before getting completely killed. I remember Loren’s response laugh to my own laughing. It caused more and more. Narci’s laugh that matched my own with hysterity and wheezing which we noticed while doing it that left us countless hours of silent laughing fits with no air, until our ribs and muscles ached to breathe and we had to separate rooms and, sometimes, stop looking at each other for minutes at a time until the urges had passed. Giving yourself into that kind of laughter and the health it brings for your mind and body. I have so many memories of laughter in my laugh. Family, friends, my brother has my Dad’s laugh, which I don’t know if he would admit or not. And when he gives in to it, in Northern California it was over food or drinking, he does the same bend and the same face, with the same smile and the same crinkles that marks a family laugh and it just kills me. I love watching him laugh, just like I love watching anyone I love laugh. It’s the best expression.

Cooking with my mom. Cooking in the kitchen when I was younger and the countless times she would make me stop and reread the recipe. “Read the whole thing first” she would tell me, and each time I wouldn’t, impatient and assuming that the recipe went in order, which it never does in those gourmet magazines, then getting caught in the lie of not reading it all the way through when half way it called for a three hour refrigeration, or only half of a required ingredient to add to the mix. I read through the whole thing now each time, I honestly do, but I remember those lessons. Learning to beat, sift, mix, whip, pour, scoop, fillet, etc. Learning to season and flavor by taste, which combined with which that made an odd but delicious result. Cooking by smell instead of by text for basic foods, going outside the lines for some ingredients and which you could never hurt to skimp on if you didn’t want to overpower the food, loving garlic more and more each day. Learning the respect for a good knife and the quality of a pan or random utensil, learning how to do it all by hand and then cheat with gadgets after I had figured that out first. And watching her ice cakes. I remember picking out birthday cakes from an assortment of fun pans, almost always the pony for me, or a bear. Helping her add colors to the icing mixes, sneaking my finger into the bowl for a quick lick, or finding an excuse to go back to the mix master to grab my own serving. Playing with the assortments of icing tips and icing bags, offering to clean them just to get my hands dirty and then cleaning up the mess afterwards and seeing a beautiful cake come to life like in my coloring books. I loved watching those, whether it was for me or someone else it was art. I remember hoping that I would learn to make cakes like that one day and that she would do my wedding cake for me when I got old, not that I ever wanted to get married. Boys had cooties and they were retarded. Oh wait, not much changes as we age does it? Now, as I cook on my own on a two burner stove with one skillet and one pot, all those lessons in hand work are paying off as each day I invent new recipes and unravel the mysteries of new fresh foods. At least I can get my beans shelled. From there I am on my own!

Waking up Saturday mornings at my grandma’s house to the smell of eggs frying sunny side up in butter on the stove, a tray of fresh toasted bagels, cream cheese and lox with tomatoes and onions piled high. Watching her and smelling the food mixed with the smell of her house that echoed her own blend of perfume, products, and cigarettes. Completely made up in a style only women raised in the 30’s and 40’s still have, she maneuvered her way around the kitchen with coffee, food, juice, and smiles and kisses for her son and grandkids. White hair blown and brushed back in a style that had enough hairspray to look exactly the same by the end of the day, little waist, and big smile, she was as much a part of the perfect Saturday as the breakfast itself.

　

You all are the best memories. Keep them coming!!!! And as always thank you!!!

I mourned the passing of my Peach-Os today. I mourned with a moment of silence as I slowly and methodically pulled out the last three Peach-O’s from the bag and one by one chewed them, savoring each and every last taste of sugary peachy goodness. As I popped the last into my mouth I hesitated- considering the option of saving the aforementioned candy for another day. Realizing the ridiculousness of saving a solitary small fort of happiness and remembering that I had recently gained three pounds on my most recent trip to the capital, I ate the Peach-O. Mmmm.. I can still taste it now as I relive the memory. Sugary, tart and delicious and reminding me of home and family and days of candy stores. I stared at the now empty bag and smoothed its crinkles as I continued my masticate and think upon the gloriousness that lives within a Peach-O, lovingly caressing and rereading the English and grammatically correct print on the wrapping. Realizing that I had stood in the center of my kitchen looking at the bag for a good ten minutes while consuming the last three morsels of happiness I snapped myself out of it and consoled myself with a thought of asking for more in care packages to come. With some great effort I loving placed the now empty and looking extremely forlorn wrapping in the bag of trash hanging on my wall, grabbed my cup of pink lemonade powdered drink mix and walked into the next room. I have come up with a conclusion to all this. There are simply not enough Peach-Os in a bag of Peach-Os.

Today’s gastronomical delight- an un-marked can from the very same care package from my parents. Making a salad of fresh tomatoes and onions ( as always) and some sautéed green beans with carrots over rice, I decided that whatever was in the can would probably be a fantastic edition to my meal. Opening it up I stared with incredulity at the contents. They almost liked look…. I popped one in my mouth and chewed and almost died with shock. Canned octopus! I couldn’t believe it…so I ate three more just to be sure. Absolutely wonderful and something I would have watched my dad eat in the states with a wrinkled nose and stance of disgust. But here in Madagascar, and having still not traveled south to eat the fresh octopus you can get on the beach, I ate every piece nestled within the tin, saving only five for the actual meal. I shared a small piece with my dog ( I know. I know. But if you saw her face…) opting instead to give her the oil on her rice. My taste buds don’t even know what to do with themselves now.

PS- Just in case you HAPPEN to be wondering…Watermelon, apple, and peach… my favorite fruit-o’s Thanks!

Five months has officially begun and I still feel like I am going just as strong as before. Actually, possibly even stronger. As I finish my school year and am preparing the final lessons and exams for my classes I am also planning trips for my grand vacance- both work and pleasure of course! Well, in truth, its pleasure even when its work since I am able to travel and experience more and more of this beautiful country. Coming up I hope to find myself visiting volunteers in the south, explaining my national book drive project to them and relevant members of their communities while seeing what the south of Madagascar actually looks like. Then, with my dad visiting after my 27th birthday I will get to show him my home and coastal town while also taking a few actual vacation days to the north to go DIVING!!!! Manta rays, bat rays, whale sharks, and giant reef fish await our eager observations! So that’s very exciting and helps me get through the more rough days. Telling everyone about my travels has prompted many a question about my family, everyone stating they want to meet my dad, and my students even asking to come home to America, as a joke of course. My response is IF I go home, they have to be able to fit in my luggage. This creates a bunch of laughter from all of us as they mime the suitcase and every gesture I have just made. Kids here like to mimic and mime me which at first was incredibly annoying but noy is a kind of entertainment and I figure, at least they are learning English at the same time.

Chance gets bigger and bigger every day and has settled into a combination of alikaa gasy and vazah- that is to say she’s spoiled like a dog in the states but roams free and scavenges like a dog here in Madagascar. Only difference is she wont starve to death since she has a human that feeds her. Healthy and happy she has her roam of the school and is starting to spread out into some of our local mini communities where she stays when I am out of town. Apparently she invites herself over even when I’m not with her and many of my friends give her their food scrapes- which I told them has earned them a repeat customer. At home though her favorite thing is to snuggle against me, especially in the colder mornings, and nuzzle her head under my chin and into my throat. It tickles but the gesture is so loving I cant get myself to move. I stroke her head and she snoozes. In the mornings she has started to wait for me to finish waking up, then she bursts into action and jumps on my hips, mouthing my hands, pressing and snuggling against my back, jumping in and out of bed until we go out for our morning bathroom trip.

As my dog and I have our own bond and she gets larger its hard to ignore the starving puppies that are dying next to my friend’s house., Since I have decided I cant actually take another puppy- both because of money and the fact that my dog is the ONLY queen of the realm, I have decided to get these puppies adopted and top inform everyone that has a dog that neutering is a possibility for all of their animals. It kills me that as I am feeding five skin and bone month old puppies the people around me are exclaiming in surprise as the starving animals start to guzzle the powdered milk I have prepared for them. What surprise is there when the only true surprise is that we can look upon this small lives with complete indifference as they come and go just as quickly in this sometimes cruel world.

So I have all five out of the five going to good homes this week. A good bath to get rid of parasites and a bag of powdered milk(their mother is starving and so has no food for her puppies) and they will be good to go.

A painting project for our school map and an idea to get a room dedicated to English and thereby helping me start a true English club are in the works. Since I have travel and my book project in the works I am aiming to do our school map project in September but it is nonetheless another exciting plan in my future. Here is Maevatanana we have an issue with underage girls getting pregnant and dropping out of school. Since I am planning on writing a blog about children’s life in our town I wont go into details yet but it is a known and decently accepted fact among our local population, although no one approves of it there is nothing in the works to create some sort of way to ebb the tide. So I have come up with an idea of a series of girls camps on Saturdays. We will be discussing AIDS, STDS, pregnancy, sex, options, and do a series of self esteem activities. My goal is not only to attack the pregnancy situation and concerns of safety with unprotected sex, but also to create a strong network of peers among the girls, including myself and some teachers in the community, so that girls have people to turn to with questions or fears, or concerns and feel they have a safety net. I am very excited and passionate about this project idea, and hope to have it ready to begin for the next school year, after the cyclone season. The children in this community just have such a small selection of role models and no idea of where they are going. So few have any sort of goals for their lives, beyond marriage, boyfriends, family, and gold mining or farming that they see very little need for school, language, and applying themselves to anything. We are also working in a culture where the man does continue to run the house and has his way when he exerts it. Although women here are incredibly strong and important members within the community, we still have the hierarchy of, sometimes, non working males with visions of superiority. This has to leave girls feeling as though they have no options. My goal is to get them to realize they have far more options than they have ever considered.

Every night I find myself doing art which is an awesome unwind for the evening. With the arrival of my parent’s care package came beads and hemp lacing and so a piece of jewelry is made every evening and distributed to a friend the next day. I love it, experimenting with the knots and beads to make patterns. I’m still not very good at it but the end results are pretty and always appreciated. Soon I will be painting a new baobab design on my walls and Joanna’s ( a possible tattoo design for her) and designing some sort of pattern involving chameleons and baobabs to do around my house. Its hard work but time consuming. Its just hard to find the supplies and more difficult to figure out when you can afford them.

I have felt the need to re-nest myself and so am having the carpenters make me a set of book cases- small, one for my kitchen as a pantry and one for my actual books in my bedroom- this will hopefully free up space so I actually have a table to use as a table and have a book case to put my books and notebooks and art supplies. I hate living our of a trunk.

My community is becoming more and more familiar with me. I have a few Malagasy friends here and in the capital that I walk and hang out with often, getting a chance to have meals at their house or relax and watch some Malagasy tv is a real treat. I have promised to let my friend Bridgette and her gaggle of daughters do my hair in complete braids, the thought of which thrills them to no end. New markets, new epiceries, and new neighbors constantly remind all of us that our town is not only a cross-roads but a growing and developing place. I constantly am surprised by what I see has sprung up in my absence.

With our independence day coming up everyone is preparing for parties. I already have a new and considered “sexy” outfit of a shirt dress and tight pants- all the fashion here and fine with me! Hopefully it is comfortable while I am dancing. More than likely Ill be wearing flipflops since it is almost impossible to find women’s shoes here above a size 8. Gives me quite the frustration when we go shopping for anything! Cake drives, pizza selling and other fund raising activities will be held, along with a big fete in the town square which we will be dancing and singing in again with the Dongadonga women, as well as an even larger fete that night. The drinks and food will begin around 11am and carry on long through the night I am sure. It will be a great chance to be a part of my community, students are already asking and responding with happiness when I tell them I will be here for the fete. They always get a kick out of dancing with me or seeing Joanna and I dance. As though we are all that different. Sometimes I fell like half our job here at Peace Corps is proving that we are all very much the same.

On the home front I have begun to ad more art for my house, creating new projects on walls as well as in the cooking category. I definitely feel a home feeling whenever I return from the capital which is nice to have after so long of a wait. A mouse fell into my shower bucket the other morning and I had to chuck it out the door then stop to watch the sunrise as my dog went bolting after the waterlogged creature. Frequenting basketball games is a nice break from life at home and the monotony that can set in( and does at times) and gives us a chance to bond more with everyone else. I have a little girl I have absolutely fallen in love with and need to get a picture to post of her. She is absolutely adorable and loves to sit and play with my hair and my fingers as we watch basketball. Her older brother is just as gorgeous as she is and at the last music concert in Maevatanana Joanna and I sought refuge from the men asking for dances with those two. Only coming up to our stomachs, we whisked them across the dance floor, taking a picture with their family and switching partners to do it all over again. The smiles on their little faces were the most amazing. It could have been black as an abyss and you would have seen the light beaming from their faces.

I write letters to friends and family and dread going to the post office but I will have to go this week. Now there are too many! So expect it people!!!!!

Thank you all for your continued support. Your letters and cards cause great amounts of happiness and end up on my walls or my journal. Care packages are a truly wonderful thing and I love getting the chance to write you all letters back. Hope all your lives back in the states are going smoothly and without to much upset and thank you for continuing to keep me in them!

Love you all!

The day after I rescued the two boys from starvation and certain death came the news that the mother was found dead with her puppies still trying to feed. Traumatized and sad, Joanna turned to me for help to get them adopted. In the spirit of my mother I immediately agreed to take them on and find a new family. Immediately I found one nest to me with a student that was in love with Chance. Joanna agreed to try and take another and see how that went, which left only one more to get a new home. I headed out to Joanna’s house where we bathed and fed the three girls, naming them the three jewels…. Ruby, Sapphire and Opal. Ruby was kept by Joanna and adopted out a day later, Sapphire went to my students house and Opal came home with me to meet Chance.

The meeting was tentative and fascinating… Setting Opal on the floor between us, I introduced her into our pack with only minor disciplining for Chance as she struggled to understand the role of the little body curling on the Alpha female’s (me) legs. I knew how to introduce the two of them and understood already what kind of time it could take but sure enough, within ten minutes Chance was playing with the tiny puppy wandering and exploring the house. That night Chance slept at a friends house while I went out on the town with other friends and watched what locals call a Spectacle. This absolutely cracks me up since spectacle back at home is a little bit different. This spectacle involved a very well known and loved band, drinks ( of course) food ( also of course) and dancing ( of course x3). It was very fun but I returned to a hungry and tired baby already trained to my call. Opening the door she teetered towards me on her little stiff baby legs and wagged her tiny fuzzy tail in happiness that I had returned. It was a quick bond of love between us. But that night.

Due to my medication I slept for a fantastic and fully exhausted three hours.

3 AM: she was awake, crying, wanting food and love and warmth.

4 AM: and again.

5 AM: And again. Except at 5 instead of responding to her crying I slammed my hand down on the mattress, sternly said “Opal!” and she immediately quieted down.

6:30 AM: we were hungry. Both of us actually. I hadn’t eaten the night before except for a few beef brochettes and our drinks. I made a quick et of oatmeal and honey for the two of us, knowing for a fact that she would be back asleep the moment after she had finished eating.

7AM: She’s out. And Im back in bed. For the next hour.

But she is absolutely adorable. Absolutely, and almost identical to Chance. Identical markings except for her left foot. Instead of a white thigh high boot, she’s got nothing but a baby booty. it’s the cutest thing to watch her and Chance as the wrestle and play. And she’s smart and super quick to learn anything new. Learning from Chance today she barked her first bark, leaped over my legs and tried to recover with her face- exactly what Chance used to do ( and still does sometimes) and even snapped at Chance after she tried to steal her food. Chance was very disconcerted and a little confused that the bottom rung of our pack hierarchy had stood up to her. She’s going to be a fantastic and amazingly loving companion and will have the nerve to take on the other dogs of her neighborhood.

But I also know I cant keep her. I just cant. Every second though I get more and more set on it. So I found her a new family with a friend in town and I am still having such a hard time letting her go. I already love her! She is just like Chance in so many different ways and actions. Even the same quirks. Its beautiful. And my in my mind I can see them being a beautiful set of dogs when the get older. But Chance is the queen of the household and although I do everything I can to make sure she cant be depressed or feel unloved I know she loves being the ruler of the house. I also see though that she loves playing with Opal, wrestling, and even napping nose to nose with her. So what do I do?

I have decided I really should give her up. I am about to leave for a chunk of time this summer and wont be around to raise her. On the other hand she will be as old as chance was when I left her the first time to go on a trip. And I know my friend would love to baby-sit both of my girls along with her new puppy I just gave her. Its just the expense. And it is incredibly expensive to feed one dog, let alone another. Yes, she has to go to a new home. But I think a part of my heart may go with her. I don’t know how my mom used to do it when I was younger. Maybe we just learn to focus on the fact that we have made a huge difference in a life and will be able to make another difference for someone else in the future. (sighs)

She does capture your heart though. As the all do.

The woman held onto the side of the taxi with whatever strength she had left and held her head in a resemblance of defeat and constant awareness. As she felt the urge hit her again she had the brief thought of shame mixed with regret for not staying where she was safe and cared for. She was immediately aware of the people surrounding her in the taxi, the speed of the car as it hurtled towards her destination, and the distinct black and blue colors and metallic smell of the asphalt mixed with the background green of grasses and brush. Finally, she succumbed to the onward rush of nausea and hurled over the side of the car, using her hand to shield, however she could, her fellow passengers, from the tragedy that had overtaken her. Again and again, until there was nothing left but convulsions, she gave in, knowing it was completely impossible to hold back any longer. This was, after all, the second time today that it had happened, and it never got easier. Washing her hands she slipped back into her seat defeated and wanting nothing more than a hot bath and a bed. I wish I could say I watched all of this from a safe distance, but that was just not the case.

It was me.

Yes, I made the stupid decision to get on a taxi brousse for what should be a 6 ½ hour drive that turns every time into an 8 or 9 our drive, even though I had already been sick twice that morning with food poisoning pains in my stomach. Why? I have no freaking clue. I asked myself the same question while I was trying to figure out how to make myself sleep through the vomiting and stabbing pains while cramped in a beaten mini bus hurtling towards Maevatanana, along with 10 other people. Thinking back on it now I still think I was a complete idiot, but at least now it is over. It was horrible. And an all time new low for experiences that I ever thought I would have the good graces to have.

No thanks.

But the BBQ the night before was fun… Splendid really, with real BBQ chicken and potato salad, beef and burgers, and hot dogs and sausages ( the last one was the one that did it I think) but it was delicious. And I got to talk to Katy who I had missed more than I think I even realized. So in stepping away from the part for a half hour to talk to her I found myself laughing and smiling more than I had in days. I miss my friends. So beside the technicolor aftermath it was a great way to end a long course of training.

Our IST training ( occurs after the first three months at site for all volunteers) was extremely productive, providing a bunch of new ideas and new designs for projects formulating in my head and exciting my energy again. By the end of the week though I was done and ready to be away. Now that I am home (and slightly missing running water and provided food) I am all too happy to find myself welcomed by friends and being told I was missed greatly, feeling that happy feeling of realizing your presence means something to more than a few people and hearing what they have to say about life since you were gone, which it turns out, is incredibly quiet and slow even though you hope for better, and getting kisses from my dog every morning to tell me its time to drag my ass out of bed and let her out. I mumble in protest which only increases the kisses and snuggles since I have now proved I am actually awake and therefore no longer immune to any affections. ( Vicious cycle I tell you, absolutely vicious)

I came home to find my town relatively unchanged, a few new vendors here and there, new fetes underway, and new foods in market….seaweed!!!!

So seaweed salads for the week. Anyone have any recipes for easy to make salad dressings???? I love my seaweed salads but would love to know some good Asian style vinaigrettes or dressings I cant put on it. And I wish I knew how to make the seaweed salad you buy at sushi restaurants. I used to love that stuff.

So, feeling inspired and happy to be home I turn my attention to possible projects, organizing the gifts I got from the parentals in the mail, started running with the puppy at night after class ( she needs to learn to run next to and not on top of, my feet but she’ll get there and thank you guys for the new shoes.. Love them!!!!) dancing again and dealing with the aftermath of whatever is wrong with my skin the whole while. Constant health issues are starting to weight me down, and while its nothing incredibly drastic I still find myself annoyed with even the slightest bodily malfunction (right now I strained the small muscles near my inner ankle and they are causing me to have constant frustration). So, while we wait for the results and thoughts of the doctor in South Africa and the dermatologist in Washington I patiently prevent myself from scratching off my skin and feeling completely disfigured by the novel written across my skin in braille. Its, yucky. There are worse things though.

Learning how to meditate with an instructor during training was possibly the best situation I have taken advantage of in the last month. The best advice and apparently the key to it for me was in our directions.

“Focus on your heart. All energy flows from there and surrounds you and us. Empty your mind but the thoughts will still come. They always will, you can never stop thinking. But when a though comes, put it to the side and refocus back on the energy coming from your heart again.”

I don’t know if it was the setting, or the tiredness helping prevent a thought process. I don’t know what it was but I went into the whole thing fully expecting either frustration or to immediately slip back into sleep (fun party the night before) but for an hour I found myself slipping deeper and deeper into a wakeful relaxation where thoughts would enter but would be replaced as I visualized back to the warm energy I felt and imagined flowing out of my amazing heart. I became conscious of my breathing and lost all realization of tiredness level and when her voice penetrated my awareness to let us know we where done I felt like I was reentering a place I had left. It was by far the most amazing experience. There was no guiding done the whole time by voice from our teacher. She had told us she was channeling to us but there was no actual verbal guides or markers that helped me. I was thoroughly amazed.

And am still doing it.

Although I have yet to find the quiet time here at the home.

Although, I bet I will get good enough to be able to center in the midst of this chaos called school.

Hmmm

Anyways- life continue as it always does with my brain and heart recording as much information as it can possibly hold in a days time and finding myself slipping into exhaustion midway through the day, succumbing to a nap and again dancing my way after evening into a wonderful sleep.

Now if only I could find a new body everything would be fantastic.

Love- me

PS- After rereading all the thoughts that have spilled out into this letter I must apologize for the seemingly random spatterings of consciousness. I am actually very hungry and waiting for veggies to finish their bleach soaking so that I can east yet another seaweed salad. So I do so humbly apologize and only hope that those who know and love me have already realized that it was probably the hunger that caused me to bounce around the rooms of my mind like a bouncy ball on steroids and were still able to enjoy the results.

Book of last week: The Other Boeyln Girl By Margaret Gregory

Book of this week: Dont have one yet

Splurge of the week: A Twix bar- 2,000 Ar

Food craving of the week: Broccoli and cheese Casserole

Thing I wish I could do most: Wash my clothes in a washing machine

Most random action of the last week: 2 hours of english karaoke performance for my host family back in Montasoa. They asked for one and I continued.. on.. and on.. and sang... *breaks down in tears*

And in response: Next karoake song to be performed live in a bar: Shania Twain "I Feel Like a Woman"

Entertaining thought of the week: Coming into Tana for training a white cow stood in the middle of the road and stared us down, refusing to move. At first I stared back and the expression she gave us as we got closer and closer said nothing more than "I refuse to MOOOOOOVe" (sorry I had to have a Feinman joke moment) I quite literally saw her body in portions of steaks and thought of at least four different style in which I could create something fabulous. Ive been hungry ever since.

W0rst movie I've seen in ten years from last week: Australia... what the f&%$ is going on in that movie? Is it an action, drama, or comedy, and what the hell is it about? I wasted 1 1/2 hours before I realized it was better to fastforward to the relative parts.

I could make a list of things I wish would and wouldnt happen but that wouldnt actually get me anywhere.. so I wont. I will say though that after a week of training confinement in Montasoa I walked away with a bunch of great ideas about possible projects and even started working on my first real project.... a national book drive for the fight against illiteracy! Yay! SO excited.. got the first go ahead from my supervisor and already drafted my first proposal. So here's hoping. Also found out in speaking with my director that there is a huge problem with pregnant teens ( we're talking about 13 and 14yr olds) in my community which I absolutely refuse to accept and so, in response, am now thinking of holding a series of saturday day camps to work with peer groups, eductaion, support, and girl empowerment. I am completely and totally amped.

Best thing sent to me in a care package: Rosemary seeds- result to come- Garlic/rosemary olive oil and happy tummies.

Best art project of the week: Designing logos for our shirts and my wall at home of intertwined baobab trees and possibly a friend's tattoo.

Most amazing emotion:Im in love with my life. And if youve ever felt that way before you completely understand. You can stop an admire an iris for what color it is, what color it isnt, the fact that it has survived and evolved to this point, found its niche, and that it has opened just for today before it submits to the effects of time. Its almost a combination of the look on a babies face, the feeling of your parent's love wrapped around, your favorite food, and a fresh morning with no fears. Its wonderful.

As my dog slowly grows into her doggy body and looses whatever grip of puppy innocence she had she doesnt ever loose her chance to curl up with her momma!!!!

Yes yes.. i had puppies... moving on

I love my dog and her companionship... even when she is chewing on one of my two pairs of earrings in this country or growling at the empty water bottle on the floor as she scoots her adversary and knocks over anything in her path. When I sing in my house she stops and cocks her head to the side and perks her ears up and stops everything shes doing. When i watch movies on the computer she lays down in my lap and watches it with me and if I even try to type anything or write anything down she is in my face and my lap telling me that my attention is best placed elsewhere. But she guards me and our house each day and night and walks me to and back from the water pump every evening to make sure I'm well protected and to use any chance she can to harass any chickens that may come across her way.Two weeks ago she found out that drinking hydrogen peroxide is a long walk off a short pier in the ways of mortality...that was a fantastically fun night... I didnt know vomit came in that shade of green. Fascinating.No matter what her antics may cause in ways of pain to any of physical belongings she is a fantastic companion on this rediculous adventure!

I took this picture of us and thought it was so cute I just had to share. She loves snuggling with me for our afternoon naps ( because its too dang hot to move) or at night for bed. I love it

No Im serious! I was watching the South Park episode about internet the other day and I couldn’t help but laugh my ass off all over again. Besides the fact that I am a huge fan of South Park and all of their commentary fantasticness, if you are or have ever been in Peace Corps you would completely understand the amount of humor that I found as the resident of South Park scramble frantically with their addiction as the internet collapses across America. Actually the amount of humor I find in every episode as the creators of South Park poke fun at acceptable American nuances and social catastrophes that don’t even relate to us here anymore. People find themselves lost and dealing with withdrawals and I found for the first time a completely new perspective as someone who has traded in everything I never knew I took for granted in my last life. The residents of South Park travel west with the hope of finding a land with internet a plenty with the conversations sounding just like the ones Jo and I have some times. We dream of internet for free at the hostel in the capital knowing full well it probably won’t work, or plan to get online sometimes to load a blog knowing full well it may be a three day process between trying to get a time the store is open and combining it with the internet being on. You learn a whole new version of patience if you want to try and gain back some of the things you took for granted before. You load a webpage and could go take a shower before its back up. It’s amazing, and something we talk about often, how much you don’t realize all the things you take for granted on a daily basis in the states. Small things, being able to pee in the morning in a bathroom where the most you may worry about is the ant that has crawled across your bathroom sink. Or the ability to get hungry and have food instantly, to drink water whenever you want, to do your laundry without planning it or thinking about it. Foods, I’m not even going to start on foods, (I still can’t get myself to watch Julia and Julia out of fear) but other things as well, knowing where your stores are that have the things you need, turning on a spicket, walking on carpet or clean floors, picking up the phone on a whim to talk to someone anywhere. And most of all…knowing the news of the world. I just found out yesterday about the oil spill off the gulf coast and Jo and I are still mourning over it. We have no news, have no idea what is going on in the world outside of our town, let alone Madagascar. Our world can get so small until we find the resources to make it larger again. Deciding to sit down and surf the web, flipping through pages, grumbling when it takes 15 sec to load…15 seconds gets us so excited to see here we feel our hopes soar if ever it happens…We fantasize about Time magazine, and thinking of my days perusing through my National Geographics almost makes me cry. I have to laugh at the amount of impatience and expectations I had in the life before this one. These days IF the internet works it may take about 5 min to load a page, 15 to load three pictures. I fetch my water every night, prepare it as I sleep and add bleach while I’m sitting thinking I’d like to have a drink when the bleach is done in 15min. There is no refrigerator, there is no electricity every morning, except Sundays when it doesn’t turn off and then, if I can sleep until 6 or 7, I’m truly lucky. My feet are orange, they won’t change color no matter how many times I want to scrub them clean. I had the opportunity to use a pumice stone (really need one by the way) the other day and I could have scrubbed to my bones and it wouldn’t have mattered. Instead of lighting candles at night to set my mood to relaxation I light mosquito coils and my gas stove to cook my meal. When I begin to get hungry I start to bleach my salads and I gather all my foods for the day in the morning when I go to market. I keep my eye on my tomatoes and carrots because if they rot I’ve lost two days worth of food. Meat is bought in the morning when it’s most fresh, cooked around lunch time and eaten for lunch and dinner; if I even bother as it is both expensive and such a hassle as I wonder if I will be in complete gastrointestinal pain the next day. I walk to town through my market and look in piles of clothes if I need, buy more bleach, buy toilet paper, and sometimes a cold coke (served in glass bottles which are very cheap if you sit and drink them when you buy them). In the mornings the sun rises around 4:30 but I wait until around 5:15 so that the cockroaches that own my house as I sleep have enough time to leave.

Speaking of our local insect population I have definitely noticed a complete desensitization in that department. When I first got her there where many night you could hear my screen or holler out loud as something large flew across my face, crawled up my legs, or my favorite was when I sat talking to a giant cockroach in my shower that wouldn’t leave for at least a good 15 min convinced it would go somewhere while it was most likely convinced that I would go away. I really wanted to take my bucket bath so I eventually started grabbing my shoes and chucking them at the cockroach. Combing my ability to aim from years in water polo and the massive size of the cockroach I won, and my victories have been coming ever since. They fly by the way. I used to keep my hair wrapped in a cloth when I was facing down a new opponent. Two days ago a cockroach crawled up my drain as I was showering. I grabbed the brick in my bath that keeps the mice from crawling in, smashed the cockroach, and pushed it back out the drain while rinsing my hair. I was truly impressed with myself. I now chase mice out of my house with shoes and books and yell at bats as they crawl down my wall wondering where the hell just got themselves into. In my bathroom I watch the geckos that litter the walls waiting for the insects to come out. I even started chasing them across the walls of my kitchen with my finger. I also, sad to say, have had many conversations with my local gecko population and while I would love to say I have conquered my fear of spiders but that is just not possible. The spiders here are huge. That is all. But my days of hairspraying spiders the size of dimes from across the room and waiting for their death is over… I don’t have any hairspray. Instead I take my broom and squish spiders larger than quarters into the wall. But there are still a few I have kept around because they are very useful and they do eat so many of the amazing things that are still crawling all over my house.

And sometimes I just shrug. And that’s all I have to say to everything going on, I laugh, I smile, or I shrug. There’s really no better response to life that can be found.

This last weekend found me in the midst of many awesome events so let’s begin!

After returning from the capital I found myself on the ground running to keep up with the events I had been missing and the events that were coming. I dove back into my classes, had a few good ones and one really bad one that will be resolved this week, then learned the new schedule for the rest of the school year, met with teachers to discuss the upcoming exams, began planning for the next exam I need to write this week and even looked to see what units I would be able to finish before the final exams hit our school. I started my teaching with the new English club we have reformed here in Maevatanana and found myself face to face with students and adults at all levels of English abilities teaching numbers and counting in English as Friday slowly dwindled to a close. I had far more fun with the English club than I had anticipated and I cant wait until next month when we begin singing and looking to put on play. I watched the school buildings behind us continue their construction and visited with Bridgette and her family for a few days enjoying girl talk, gossip about sepas( boyfriends) among Bridgette and her daughters( Bridgette of course only enjoyed my quarter of the conversation and I watched her mouth turn into a line as her youngest daughter giggled about her newest interest) The Malagasy women have this clucking noise they make with the tip of their tongue in their mouth. It’s a noise of disproval and sometimes, disbelief, and this found our way many a time into my visit. I made plans to eat with her family as I had completely destroyed one of the local traditional foods the week before and she wanted me to experience it as it was deliciously intended. I was then invited to a wedding and didn’t foresee any scheduling conflict which was stupid of me but… oh well!

Saturday was a wedding, and true to Malagasy form it started an hour and a half late. Of course this blamed on the bride although I am not entirely convinced that truly was the case. I dressed in a new nicer skirt and my heels ( the only nice clothes I own) and watched the whole service, that was not surprisingly very similar to our own although this was Catholic and only half as long. The priest sang his part, the couple went to the microphone to recite their vows, sat at a special pew in front of the priest throughout the service, exchanged rings, kissed, and made their way down the alter. A small group of singers accompanied them in the front of the church and led us through at least ten Malagasy religious songs, one of which found the whole party dancing in a line through the church. The bride was dressed in a white gown with white gloves trimmed in nothing less than Malagasy beauty with bright pink bows on her back and detailing the sleeves and skirt of her dress. The groom could have passed for a groom in the states except that he was a Malagasy man speaking Malagasy. As we exited the church we did the kiss of greeting (biss biss) to the bride, groom, and both sets of in-laws with a ARAHABAINA! ( CONGRATULATIONS) to the happy family.

After the service had concluded, about an hour and half later, we all headed to the restaurant on the edge of town to wait for the new couple as they drove through the community honking their horn with their family trailing in cars behind them. The community then gets to share and offer their congratulations and recognize the couple as a new family in our community. There was so much happiness in the crowd as they went past it didn’t even matter who I was and that I looked so very different than everyone else. The restaurant was one that Joanna and I had wanted to try and there was no disappointment at all. Our meal started with a salad in traditional vinegar and oil dressing of carrots, cucumbers, eggs, onions, and cabbage on a lettuce leaf. Lunch itself was pork and chicken that is cooked in oil together over rice, which was very good with the sakay sauce they had on the table. All of it washed down by fresh guarana juice and sodas. Dessert was a fruit salad of bananas, apples, avocado, and oranges in a syrup, and, of course, the wedding cake, which matched the brides dress in pink detailing and tasted like coconut. The icing in this country tastes like butter. As we ate the dancing began and the moment the Tafindrafindray began, the opening dancing for EVERY Malagasy party, the father of the bride came right up to me to ask me for the dance. No one apparently expected me to know it and as he led me around the floor clapping and cheering ensued. I had to keep myself from laughing to loud the entire time as I didn’t want anyone to think I was embarrassed more than just enjoying myself. I danced a few more dances and then completely embarrassed myself as my date and I went up to the couple to offer our gift on behalf of the teachers here at the CEG and completely forgot to give the congratulatory kisses to the groom. As I walked away a cry of protest went up that stopped my date and I in our tracks. I didn’t know what they were saying until he looked at me and said “Oh! You didn’t kiss the handsome man!” I whirled around and scrambled back to the couples table and gave the beaming groom my congratulations amid the cheers and clapping of all the guests. I think I actually blushed in that little cultural flop.

My date and I danced a few more dances together and then left the party, much to my great relief as I had not worn anything more than flip flops for the last few months and had already almost lost my balance three different times. I got home, showered and flopped into bed, only to get a message from Joanna saying that Bridgette, who I had asked Jo to go tell I was at a wedding today, had prepared a whole meal for me and that I should go to her house with Tupperware. I jumped right back out of bed, pulled on my new sundress I had bought for my last trip and rushed down to Bridgettes house, only to find her missing at the hospital. A taxi brousse accident had happened right outside of town and everyone except for one person had died. As I waited for her I talked with her daughters, had my hair played with, which is by far one of my favorite things these days, and watched a meeting between the current and former presidents that we being held in Pretoria. ( For those of who you aren’t up on the world news, Madagascar is in the middle of a political crisis that is just getting worse and after many a meeting that didn’t actually happen, the leaders have finally gotten together although I won’t find out the news following for another week I’m sure)

Bridgette returned and fed me wonderful food that I MUST learn how to make and we chatted for a while until Joanna came to get me to go to a woman’s song and dance group practice that we have just joined. We headed up to the woman’s house and found ourselves learning very fast Malagasy lyrics that make you feel like your tongue is completely out of control and convinced it should be separated as an independent nation from the rest of you. I also got to dance which caused laughter and cheers from the crowd of kids that had formed to watch the spectacle of the two Americans learning Malagasy songs. This woman’s group is called the DongaDonga woman, which translates to short and fat, both of which I almost don’t qualify for, but they put on performances and sing on the TV about health and environmental concerns and are, absolutely, an amazing group of women and their daughters. The camaraderie was immediate with all of us as we raised our voices in song and I swung my hips with the song writer only to be rewarded with the Malagasy gesture of complete acceptance and approval of clasped hands and wrists amid laughter. In Madagascar if you can make a Malagasy person truly laugh then you will find yourself plunged in the midst of the brotherhood that identifies the Malagasy culture and you will never be seen as a stranger again.

High spirits and a tired body ended Saturday and the sleep was oh so satisfactory.

Sunday started all over again early with a pancake breakfast at Joanna’s. However, as I walked to her house I was stopped by Bridgette’s family who told me I had to meet Jo there because now she was at the hospital visiting someone. I sat and relaxed with their family, (who told me I looked beautiful to which I responded that if they kept that up I was coming over every day!) watched as Bridgette braided her three daughters thick African hair with skilled fingers, talked to her friends as they came to visit her and then got a call from my parents which always lifts my spirits a little higher. Jo finally showed up and it turned out that of the two people in the car who didn’t die, one was an Australian friend we had met on our last trip to Mahajonga who works in the local communities here to build orphanages and get funding for internal improvement projects. He was being helicopter evacuated with broken arms and other various wounds. He had seen everyone around him die due to the carelessness and neglectfulness of the driver and the fear was struck home into each of us. Now we understood why our friends in the community were so protective of us in arranging our travel every time we went anywhere. We had a feast of pancakes with two teacher friends from my school then learned guitar on her floor, her playing accompanied by my singing. I am now set on having my friend in Tana get a guitar built for me. It sounds like a fun way to pass the time and we really had fun.

We then headed off to another friends house and had a fantastic Malagasy lunch and talked for a few hours, visiting with my friend’s four year old cousin who is a Dora fan and has his English basics established. He is quite the character and took to Joanna and I immediately, offering us gifts of clay sticks which we transformed into little men and cubes of clay, much to his delight. Stuffed to the gill we headed home a few hours later giving as much thanks as we could muster while leaving at the same time. It was a fun and wonderful afternoon that was completed with yet another set of singing and dancing rehearsal with the DongaDonga again, this time with a much larger crowd and complete with a song sharing session at the end of practice in which Jo and I traded off with the other girls and women in singing songs in our own languages. It was… awesome.

And now it is Monday. I have a test to write, homework to enter in my book, an entire class to put into detention and red pants to find in market, as well as another dance practice tonight. I feel so much more attached to community as I get myself farther and farther into my community projects. Now its not just the children that know me and offer me their English greetings but their parent and other adults in my community that I sing with, dance with, or teach English to at our newly established English club, or that I have met in my interactions with my friends and their families. I am slowly and surely becoming a not so new attraction for the locals here and I love that spirit of brotherhood and kinship that is slowly spreading out to us. It’s a intrinsic basic of Malagasy culture and experiencing it first hand is one of the most amazing gifts you can ever be given.

Today I burned a possibly fantastic lunch into a black crispiness while I attempted to multi task and finish laundry as my food slowly burned into unrecognizable that son solidified into a black substance at the bottom of my skillet. My hands were on fire, from chopping massive amounts of hot sakay peppers that are far more potent than anything I have ever encountered in the states, and I did my laundry with a little too much excitement enjoying the feeling of cold water on my red and inflamed skin. The worst part was I had taken precautions against the very thing I was suffering from. I had gone into my med kit and found a pair of latex gloves that figured would protect me from the oils I had seen cause severe pain to other friends when they had prepared the stuff. But, I forgot to prepare the garlic first and took off the gloves when it came to peeling the three heads I had bought for this little experiment. Oils apparently still on the cutting board or the blade of the knife got onto my skin and I felt the oil begin to irritate my skin and the fire began to spread. Last time I had attacked only one small pepper and had accidentally touched my face after washing my hands and felt the burning spread across my eyelids and forehead and promised myself never to make that mistake again. This time I took on at least 60 small green peppers with my giant clever, latex gloves, and straight posture to put as much distance between myself and the cutting board. Now, an hour later, I can still barely touch my hands to anything without feeling like they are on straight open flame. It is a fantastic experience to have and one I’m sure will cause a great deal of laughter with my Malagasy friends tomorrow. In the mean time, my dog lays on the floor full of the black crispiness I couldn’t get myself to eat, as I sit in front of the fan with my hands gingerly tapping this keyboard fantasizing about ice, snow, cool ocean water, and milkshakes. What can I say… life doesn’t get better than this.

The food should have been thin sliced carrots and onions simmered with garlic which I then added pork in a honey glaze to. It ended up black crispy on top of rice with tomato slices. Not so exciting but dinner looks to be better. Greens with pork and onions…. I don’t know how it will taste as I have never attempted to make it before but I have recently fallen in love with the green assortment that we can find here in Madagascar and I am slowly attempting to figure out how to make them delicious! There are 6 main types of greens found here and at least 2 dozen less easily accessible strains to be found in the country. They are delicious and after two months of carrots, tomatoes, and onions my taste buds are craving any greens they can find. So let the experimentation begin.

Last night was a curry dinner that made me proud and boosted my hopes in my cooking education here. Until today of course. Although I do find that it is mainly the result of me being distracted by the burning skin covering my hands and wrists and the laundry and my dog, who slowly gets larger and larger every day. On an exciting note however, I do get the chance to go eat with my friend who runs a juice and liquor epicerie in town and has slowly been taking me in to her family. Her name is Bridgette, a wonderful woman who laughs and smiles more than anything else, loves when I come to talk to her, and has a small litter of children already well on their way through the education system. Whenever I walk into town I find myself at her house, sitting in the shade of her trees and listening to the Malagasy music she blasts all day. Her house is on the edge of one of the arms of the market as well so the assortment of people that travel past her house to listen in or join the conversations we share are pretty amazing. Our friendship had started when I first got into town, she helped me haggle and select a pot for my house and a few weeks later I found myself stopping by each day just to say hello. Traveling with me to market my first month in found us in the midst of question after question as she helped me find the best butcher and choose the best selections of pork for a meal. Last month when she got sick I helped her rehydrate with a little ORS ( oral rehydration salt) solution I made for her in a bottle of fresh water and quickly found myself invited in for meals, conversations and drinks as I make my way past her house each day. It’s a building and constantly changing friendship but it’s an awesome part of my day as I make my way in and out of markets. Now I am a friend of the family and look forward to many more conversations and days spent eating and laughing with her and her children.

As I think about it now and as the heat slowly dwindles from my fingers I may ask her next time to make my sakay for me. It would burn so much less. Or, even better, maybe I’ll have her teach me how she does it and avoids the hours of discomfort that follow. There are so many amazing recipes here in this country I can’t wait to learn them all.

Alright so after the partying of Easter weekend I headed into Tana to take care of some business in the city and visit with my supervisors and friends. Whenever I go out of town I leave Chance with a friend and colleague of mine and her family. (This friend happens to make some awesome fresh juice which I often indulge in on relaxing weekends) Madame Nirina and her family live on my side of the town and has a large area that Chance loves to play in. While it was hard to leave him the first time it has since gotten easier as they both love each other's company.

So I left chance with a little reservation asking Joanna to look in on him while I was gone and make sure that I was right to trust my new friend. As the days passed I enjoyed eating french and Chinese food in the capital, took care of my business needs in the city and went out and met new friends and new connections in the city. I headed back to Maevatanana with my friend Esther(my Korean friend featured in my Picasa web albums) and had an interesting text from Joanna saying that my dog was fat and healthy and that Nirina had an interesting thing to say about him. That night I picked him up- he was quite fat. Apparently everyone feeds my dog more than I do because every time I leave him with a new family his twice as large as he was before. The next morning I came with gifts for Nirina and to say thankyou and visit with her. As I sat down she said to me... Momba ny alikako, tsy lahy izy fa vavy. Which means, "About your dog. Its not a boy, its a girl." My jaw dropped open as I tried to retranslate the words into anything else. I had her repeat herself three times as I kept trying to make the words what they werent. There was no way... no way my dog was a girl. I had just convinced myself that she was a boy after trying to name her Lilly. Nirina called her brother into the room and her confirmed it. "We've raised dogs for ten years," he said. "And that is a girl." Then he said the funniest thing I had heard all week. "Tsy misy penis!" ( Complete with hand gesture) (Tsy misy is Malagasy for There is no...) We all laughed until tears started to creep out the sides of our eyes and I accepted the fact that I was right it was a girl, that I had been calling my dog a boy this whole time and that now I was quite possibly responsible for my puppies own issues of sexual identity. After all- she had already started trying to hump things (Me) twice. Its funny how your brain identifies certain things with sex and as I brought myself to say good girl and bad girl over the last few weeks I have realized that my protection instice for my little girl is twice as strong as it was for my little boy, that she quite possibly gets away with a few more things, but is just as spoiled no matter what she does and doesnt have. Although I now catch myself warily eyeing the boy dog, who Ive named Roscoe and who I think is her sibling, and warning him that he will be neutered the moment he makes a move on her. Although Ive caught her twice trying to prove her testosterone level to him, which only confuses the whole situtation more. As I sat on my back porch teaching english to my neighbor I told him the sitatuion and he looked at me with a funny expression. I asked him why such a weird look and he just laughed and said, "Well yeah, its a girl." I punched him in the arm then let loose an exasperated sigh as I slowly realized I was the only way who believed I was raising a big brute male of a guard dog. "You could have told me," I said. "If you had been studying your english you would have known I have been saying GOOD BOY!!!." With that we laughed and continued to study, me feeling a little more rediculous and a little more at home at the same time.

I know this blog has been a long time coming but many things in this country take much more time than they ever need to. Maybe it is a sign that I am adapting into this culture. You should all be afraid of this. (Laughs inside)

Ok, so Easter Malagasy style is a long weekend affair that stretches across a time run of Saturday night, Sunday, and then Easter Monday which is the large holiday that closes off whole towns, and opens large over sized parties accompanied by a massive amount of music, volleyball, sports, and food, and of course, drinking.

Our Easter weekend started Sunday with a rugby game at large dirt field just outside of Maevatana. Featuring our own local team of small Malagasy people dwarfed only by the large team from Antananarivo who had scary thigh muscles larger than some cows I have seen in this country (true story) we watched as the men pummeled and beat each other to a set of rules I never figured out. Blood, sweat, and a random featurette of a goat wandering across the rugby field, I gained a new appreciation for the sport that is 10 times scarier than football and twice as mean as water polo. It was awesome. Standing along the lines of the field with students, friends, and neighbors we cheered, groaned and hooted at the players and the referees ( all of which were friends of mine from school). When the game had ended we watched the players do a circle dance among the teams to show sportsmanship and walked ourselves back into town.

After relaxing and resting for a few hours we prettied ourselves up (entailing putting on fresh clean clothes) and headed out to a friends house to get ready to go out for a night of dancing and partying. At her house we were quickly out dressed by our fashionable Malagasy counterparts for the evening, ate a quick meal of tomatoes salad, steak frite and some egg and some beer and headed to our pre-party destination.

Pre-party destinations are recquired for any Malagasy outing as the Malagasy evening of true partying doesn't actually begging until around 11pm. Until then any dance floors, dance halls or bars are empty except for a few parties of people eating or drinking and watching others arrive. Our first location was a restaurant with some older teenage boys dancing together. I watched them dance then watched as our friends, in their mid to late 30's got up to dance with them. There is no qualms here about age or even sex for that matter, although the preference is to dance with a partner of the opposite sex, age has no relevance and my friends were quickly partnered up with teenagers having a blast on the dance floor. I conserved some energy, danced a few songs and drank down our first few rounds then we headed out to the true party destination. Stopping for a Malagasy bathroom break ( which I will not explain except to say its urbanization meets camping) and we headed into a large and entirely empty dance hall blasting its Malagasy music. New rounds of drinks were brought and we danced a few lonely songs. The next thing we know, around 11pm both rugby teams and a slew of locals arrived at the same time and the party truly began. We danced all night being passed around the floor by one partner after another, taking breaks to dance with the few 10year olds who were braving the dancing with the rest of us and breaks to sit and drink while we would quickly sweat out all the water in our bodies.

Malagasy dancing is an active blend of traditional dance moves danced entirely with bent knees slowly lowering yourself and your partner to the floor, mixed with hip hop moves seen on tv, lots of butt moves (not so scandalous here but seen as somewhat scandalous even in the states) some interesting blends of reggae and modern dance as well all rolled into energetic fast moving music. The dances include line dancing in trains around the dance floor where the leader initiates the move for the dance sequence and the rest follow, couples dancing that mix ballroom with swing with hip hop, or just single group dancing. The reggae dance is a weird hop swing style of dance that I just cant get myself into and so would improvise with my own smooth moving style that caught quite a lot of attention and shortly had more than one person trying to imitate my moves which only cracked me up more as I was entirely trying to imitate them. The boys handled themselves well, only needing to be put back int heir place rarely. One of my dance partners was phenomenally good and respectful and I danced with him more than a few times through the evening much to the dismay of many of the onlookers. Joanna did the same and more than once we sought out the 10 year olds that would watch the old boys and imitate their moves, sometimes dancing with their hands out in front holding their imaginary partners as they danced across the floor. The smiles on their faces when we would seek them out for dancing lit up the whole party.

When we had finally worn ourselves out we headed home amid groans and multiple friends telling us to stay longer as the party wouldn't end until 4 or 5am. We were completely worn out and I wanted nothing more than my bed so we all said good night. The next morning, ever muscle in my body aching from the strain oft he night before I stumbled out to the water spicket to get my water for the day and ran straight into the entire Antananarivo Malagasy team, much to their delight, and my more than slight embarrassment as I was still in my PJs and all of them were half naked washing in my water spicket. I sat and waited my turn trying to remain invisible with the family that lives near me on the school grounds wishing that I was still asleep, that it was not 6 in the morning and that I didn't have anything to do that day. As it turned out I did and around 8am I headed back into town ready for a day of Malagasy picnic at our local gigantic river. I had no idea what to expect so I brought a change of clothes to wear in the river and playing volleyball. We sat at our friends house again and watched as a slew of supplies were brought out, pot after pot of delicious smelling mixes, soups, pots of raw meat, a pot with 4 shopped chickens staring out at us, a small charcoal grill and flatware followed by two families worth of children with the promise of more to come. We all piled in and headed out. We set up massive speakers, our grill, a food area, and a large plastic tarp that would keep us in the shade through the heat of the day. Then the food started. Rounds of grilled cow heart, grilled chicken, tomatoes soups, beer, a mint juice made with ice water and mint syrup, rum and tomato salad. The food never stopped all day. One round would bring our large part of over 20 people together, we would eat and finish, heading back into the river or to the other side that hide quite the elaborate set up, only to be called back to camp for another round of food, fried rice mix, pasta mix, more meat, more drink. We couldn't have sunk into the river if we had wanted what all the food we had consumed. As the morning turned into day the river bank filled with families, the smell of food drifting with the laughter of the children playing and splashing in the river and the constant roar of conversation from the families perched along the banks. We wandered the river stopping to talk with friends and acquaintances that were eager for us to come join their party and eat food which we obliged, much to our stomach's great discomforts. Small gambling games, food vendors, and candy vendors littered the shady area of the river and a volleyball net was quickly constructed with teams lining up to compete. I wanted to try my hand in it but the sun quickly rose and began to burn the bottoms of our feet as we walked. We retreated to the shade, ate more food and relaxed for a small time in the shade of the mango trees protecting the pools of the river. I played with my students, teaching random English phrases, songs, and splashing massive amounts of water in every direction. The day wore on and our energy level dwindled to a mere spark telling both Joanna and I that it was time to sleep. We still had one more party to go to that evening. Heading back into town I felt some of the most intense tiredness that I ever remember feeling. I stumbled into bed managing only to pour a few scoops of water over myself to wash away sand and sweat and fall into bed. My dog, quite thankfully, seemed to sense my sheer exhaustion and contented herself to chewing on a flip flop since I couldn't put an argument.

That night was the Easter ball. Since we are the local Americans we got in under the invitation of our friend and found ourselves in the midst of men in jeans or slack and ties and shirts, and women in anything from a prom dress to jeans and a cute blouse. Like the night before the dancing started off slow and reserved but as the drinking and food eating continued the floor quickly filled with people, couples and singles. My neighbor and friend came with us and we found ourselves turning to him for safety as the night wore on and one man in particular overstepped the line of acceptable. It was a fun night of laughter and food, I myself abstained from the drinking as much as possible as I had already had my limit of everything the night before. As I put myself through the dance moves yet again I felt everything connecting my body together send out one complaint after another but I pushed myself to the next extent anyways, feeling myself caught up in the wave of energy that pulses through the Malagasy dance floor. You don't want to leave, you don't want to stop, you just push forward and only stop when you feel your body reach a new limit. The heat pushed it for us and we found ourselves leaving before 1am this time. Again I fell face first into my bed, feeling incredibly satisfied and thoroughly enjoyed out with everything that I had been through for the weekend, and looking forward to the next day of absolutely nothing to do.

And what did I do the next day. Nothing. I went to market in the morning, stocked up on some delicious veggies and eggs and rice and crashed the day at my house, took three naps, stretched at least 5 times, listened to music and completed my book of Hidato puzzles. And then went to sleep again.

What an awesome experience.

I get to do it again.... June 26th...Malagasy Independence....My friends are already requesting the dances.

Hope you all had a great time too!

A weekend getaway. Finally, after weeks of feeling stress and trying, sometimes in vain, to control the tumult of emotions one feels in uprooting and attempting to stabilize and familiarize yourself we were going to get away. Nothing prepares you, I have decided, for uprooting yourself completely by country, culture, and language, short of actually going through the process yourself. It’s been hard, the tiredness that comes when you feel you are falling short of some pre intended goal you don’t remember establishing, countered only by the exhilaration of surpassing one of those same goals, is sometimes enough for you to learn a new tidbit about your own emotional health and stability. If it doesn’t teach me anything else I have learned through this last experience that I am stronger and much more capable than what I could have assumed before. Or maybe that is the point of knowing you’ve opened the right door; there’s no sign and nothing to keep us from closing it back up except ourselves and taking that challenge is what your soul needs to grow and keep the frustration of a stagnant existence at bay. And now I’ve completely sidetracked. So let me continue.

We were so excited and our spirits were high as we set out on our first taxi-brousse experience. I sat in the passenger seat, Joanna in the middle next to the driver. Taking motion sickness pills just in case since I didn’t know how good the “great” road we would be raveling was, I fought off the sleepiness until I felt its hold on me pass. The countryside was just too great to pass up. It is possible at some point in living on this island that I will grow so accustomed to my surroundings, but for now all I see is beauty everywhere I go. And that is a perspective I never hope to lose. I remember thinking during our 5 hour drive, that I would swear even the clouds and the sky are different than those at home. Then I felt the small sting of dismay when my inner voice told me what I knew to be true. I stopped looking at the clouds and sky a long time ago. Why do we stop seeing the beauty that surrounds us every day and only recognize the change?

We passed not only countryside but full temperate zones, coming out of brush land and red clay hills, passing over a muddy and violent series of waterfalls that were awing and belittling at the same time, into rain and wet greenery, national parks, blankets of lilies decorating ponds and irrigation damns, rice fields, and then into the coastal lands, wetlands with a faint smell of the sea. Each town we would stop to let off and collect more passengers and with each stop we were swarmed with children and women selling foods from both the area specifically and standard Malagasy finger foods. We passed through regions of guava and passion fruit, into corn and cashews. Milk vendors on the side of the road reminded us of the threat of tuberculosis ( found in the milk here) while brochette vendors gave us a fantastic and alto pleasurable snack of small meat cubes on a stick. Fried manioc, breads, brochettes, chicken pieces on platters, fruit…. It was a fun thing to look forward too with each stop just to see what new foods this region would present. Sharing the road with ox carts, the occasional stubborn herd of cattle and small clusters of goats that refused to move, we eventually made our to the coastal town of Mahajonga, one of the first European settlements made and one of the largest tourist cities for Malagasy and foreigners alike. Known for its great beaches, its 700yr old baobab tree, and its phenomenal boardwalk, Mahajonga boasts much more than can be seen. Its surroundings include an incredible national rainforest, a small stretch of reef type environments with outlying islands you can take ferries too and more white people than I have seen in a long while. It was also my first run in with a horrible system that, unfortunately, still exists here between the local older French male population and the younger Malagasy women population. Altogether though it was a phenomenal city and we were happy to arrive.

Transportation in the main cities is not as limited as you may think. We may not have subways, and the national railway is currently down but we have so many other creative means of travel. Ox carts and by foot are the local means but the larger cities offer taxis and the wonderfully frightening poss poss ( pronounced puss puss which the drivers will yell at you every time you walk anywhere… PUSS PUSS!!! PUSS PUSS!!! YOU WANT PUSS PUSS!!! I never got over it the entire time) We took a taxi to the first hotel on our list of places but one look at the foreigners with backpacks on our shoulders and the rates went double for what we expected. So we continued, by foot to the coast and got out first glimpse of the magnificent 700 yr old baobab tree of Mahajonga. It is complete fady to touch the baobab but our cameras captured enough for us. Walking up the coast we came upon two hotels, one a small basic hotel but before we could walk there we came across the La Piscine hotel, one of the nicest hotels in the city known for its 50m Olympic sized swimming pool and view. The hotel is built on the coast with the pool itself jutting into the sea like some pier. It was awesome to look at, complete with air-conditioning as we walked in, it felt like heaven. Talking with the woman at the front desk I got us a discount and we checked in for two nights, deciding that we had earned a little splurging. Our room, for both of us, came to about $45 US a night complete with a queen bed, shower (we both took at least 5) access to wireless internet, and use of the amazing pool. We felt completely spoiled. We checked in and relaxed for a second then left to check out the town, by foot of course. We found a restaurant of decent quality the basted Vietnamese cuisine and sat down with a bag of beers and water. The food experience there was mediocre except for a minor incident with sakay chili puree mistaken for sun dried tomato paste it went smoothly and we checked back into our room for a nighttime swim. As we looked up the face of the hotel we were surprised to realize we were one of three parties of people checked into the entire hotel. The next day I got the chance to use internet and skype with the boyfriend which was an awesome beginning to my vacation while I waited for Joanna to finish a meeting with a local health organization. When she returned back to the hotel room we set out for a fun day at the beach.

The beach was far but I can still remember the instant we saw it… little Malagasy homes stretched out on a stretch of sand intermeshed with giant vacation homes for some rich foreigners that had the opportunity to choose to live there. Our cab driver named Nemja agreed to meet us back here in two and a half hours, giving us ample opportunity to enjoy the area. As we walked onto the beach we were motioned over by a large group of Malagasy people enjoying themselves with beers, food, whiskey, and fruit. Their kids played in the sand while the adults sat under the beach umbrellas. At first we declined, and made our way to our own umbrella shade then decide to immediately go for a swim. As I headed out to the water a girl ran up to me and asked if we were going to stay at the beach. I said yes and then though I mistranslated when she said we had to pay. It ended up that we would have to pay to use the umbrella so we decided to take the people up on their offer and join them during the heat of the day at their umbrella. We sat down and it was immediately obvious that the men were a fair way into drunk while the women were keeping up the watchful vigil over the children. Something very strange happens when a foreigner speaking the local language joins a group. The normal boundaries o the sexes seem to disappear and while the women were quiet and more in the background of the conversation, we were brought to the foreground, offered drinks, joked with about drinking and the area and the culture and invited out to go dancing. The men were crowded around a bucket where two boys where shucking small live oysters into a glass with some lime juice. When I realized they were oysters my imagination was completely captured. I wanted shellfish! The entire time I noticed the wives just listening and playing with the most gorgeous children, one a healthy 4yr old girl named Narissa with glorious little black ringlets for her hair. I had no interest in the men’s drunken ridiculousness so I immediately socialized with the women and the girl who couldn’t stop hiding in her mother’s arms while peering back out at me under her mass of curls. I let my hair down to show her mine and she bubbled with giggles. When I gave her a mango we had brought for snack the shyness was gone and she and I sat in the background eating our fruit. I listened to Joanna making conversation with the men and resisted any efforts one of them kept exerting to get me into the conversation. I felt uncomfortable but was enjoying the company of Narissa. Once we had finished our fruit we thanked them for including us, respectfully declined dancing that evening and gave them a fake hotel location for safety’s sake then excused ourselves to go eat and swim.

We headed to the only obvious restaurant in the area and sat down as the only guests where the bungalow of the restaurant emptied out onto the beach. I had no idea what I was ordering but placed an order for two dishes then hid our stuff, and we headed out to swim. It felt wonderful! Months of dirt and sweat and the grim you feel on you continuously was nothing as I floated in the cool and salty ocean. I could almost feel myself healing, and in truth more healing occurred there than just the fresh salt in my wounds.

Refreshed we headed back up to the hotely to see if our food was ready, which it wasn’t. Joanna went to lay out under the sun as I relaxed in the shade. A woman came by with two buckets and asked “hoitra?”, the Malagasy word for oyster. At first I said no and so she sat in the shade of one of the local fishing sail boats that had been pulled up on the beach. By curiosity got the better of me though so I walked over and looked to see what else she had and ask the prices. One bucket held dozens of fresh nd stil live oysters while the other held just as many large red clams. The oysters were 500Ar for 12, the clams 600Ar for one. I immediately agreed intent on eating at least 2 dozen oysters. (each had a very small amount of meat, about the size of a nickel and I have a sever weakness when if comes to Fruis de le Mer!) We sat under the shade as she began to shuck and as I spoke to her in Malagasy her smile just kept getting bigger. We idly chatted as I happily swallowed one oyster after another until she offered me a clam. I have never liked raw clam in the states so at first I declined but then remembered my Dad’s letter to me in my journal that pushes me to try everything and be open to every opportunity and I remember thinking to myself, “When else will I have this opportunity.” So, slightly hesitant I agreed to one clam. She cracked into the meaty shell, skillfully cleaned and drained it slightly then handed it over to me gesturing that I should squeeze some of the lime into the flesh. I did, tilted my head back and sucked it out of the shell before I could hesitate again. My first chew was hesitant but I was greeted with a flood of sweet and phenomenal flavor that thrilled every taste bud of my senses! It was delicious and after I had finished swallowing I quickly ordered 4 more. I had no interest in the oysters at that point. The sweet red clams had completely enamored me and I had no intention of going back. I got Joanna to eat a few oysters and even try a clam we were given as a gift from the clam lady. As she left I had to convince myself not to call her back. Even now I remember the taste and texture and emotions of that moment. I cannot wait to have it again.

Our food finally arrived after that experience ended and we found ourselves staring at two large plates, one with a full crab smothered in a wonderfully aromatic curry sauce and the other with two prawns the size of my forearms. N We dug in with relish and when Joanna finished licking the plate 10 min later a part of us felt a twinge of sadness. It was an absolutely phenomenal meal. All for about $15 US for both of us. Stuffed, we headed back to the ocean for another swim and relax until the taxi came back.

The rest of the weekend passed with us wandering the city, talking to locals, trying to find stores only to see they worked on the Malagasy schedule of “close and open whenever the heck we want to”. We ate local food in the bazaar and brought business for our vendors as everyone crowded to see the vazahs who spoke Malagasy. I got some clothes, my first gigantic hat ever (ITS AWESOME ANF GREEN!), drank lots of fruit juices, ate lots of mangoes and drank cold cokes as we wandered the city. Our last day we left our fancy shmancy hotel for another that was recommended by some of the teachers at my school in Maeva. The hotel was quaint and cute, very empty, with a great large Malagasy style room complete with a partition wall for the shower and bathroom, a tv, and more importantly, A/C. We stayed on the top floor in possibly the best room on the corner of the building overlooking one of the main streets and a full area of local shops. It was an incredible view at sunset and sunrise. We shopped all that day seeing what the city had to offer in the way to tourists and locals alike then headed down to the boardwalk for our last sunset. The sky put on a show for us; pinks and purples combining with grays, yellows, and oranges rolling in to the coastline from the sea. Everyone was out to see the beauty: families, lovers, friends, business people and the local older French male population. It almost felt like a community event as we stroll along past a row of hotely’s whose smells boasted some phenomenal food possibilities but, in which, we were far to full to partake; promising, instead, to return on our next trip. As darkness fell we sat and drank the last of our water watching the people walk by, the children playing on the boardwalk wall and the men fishing on the edge of the rocks. With the night came the music, loud and blaring as they love it here, over the sounds of the waves and the conversation. We followed the music until the ice cream store then had to stop and make room in our incredibly full stomachs for one last bite of real ice cream. Ice cream here is in local flavors: rum, passion fruit, guava, strawberry, orange, vanilla, combo etc…I asked for strawberry and passion fruit together but the man didn’t listen to what I was saying. Seeing, instead, two vazahs he tried to give me two single scoops so I settled for a fresh strawberry ice cream which was worth every penny of the 50cents it cost! We ate and watched as French men propositioned Malagasy women with wallets drawn while parents rented small toy cars for their children to drive around with some assistance up and down the boardwalk. We grabbed a cab once our culinary experience had, we thought, been finished and went back to the hotel to shower and change. We decided, once back at home, that we should go to the hotel restaurant and get a bite just with it being our last night in town so we headed down. An hour later after a wild boar pate followed by two large sweet water prawns (once again easily the size of my forearms) and pork fillet over manioc with an onion compote, we were too full to breathe but so happily satisfied with the experience. Back at the hotel room we put on a movie on Joanna’s laptop but I last all of 5 min, being so happily stuffed and tired from the day of walking and haggling and beyond ready to surrender to the sweet sleep I had been waiting so patiently for.

Our next morning started before the sun rose, which was beautiful when it did. We headed down to the taxis, managing to fit everything again into our bags we had brought ( a minor miracle). We bought our tickets, got some street breads and street coffee, used a flush toilet for the last time at the nearby gas station and waited an hour for our bus to leave. We got decent seat right behind the driver with room for our legs to fold up against the front seats and space to put our belongings so we wouldn’t be separated. I popped a Dramamine to help ease a somewhat restless stomach and tried to force myself into sleep. I was, quite unfortunately, fighting nausea the whole way home but in no way did it damper the experience. Going home was just as exciting as the way in, more foods, more towns, more travel companions. Sitting in the back of the car you felt much more a part of each person travelling with you, much more so than sitting with the driver. Listening to the music, the laughter, the conversation, and experiencing every stop was so much fun. Every gendarme stop (random road check for documents) I met a new gendarme, one of which gave me knuckles in greeting which cracks me up even now. I still love the look of surprise when I say a basic greeting in Malagasy and continue the conversation farther. Getting home I was exhausted, with an over excited puppy I unpacked, poured a bucket over my head and looked forward to an amazing sleep.

Mahajonga was amazing. A port town of its own standing and caliber, it is huge. All the areas only briefly explored and still unexplored by me are calling me back for another go. But the fun and experience are still carrying with me forward. Even now, as I feel the frustrations of disorganization, assumptions, and the controlled chaos that governs my life here as an outsider trying to be in, and insiders that don’t realize what it feels like to be out, I can still smell the ocean, taste the red clams, remember drifting in soft salty waves, and smiling with the little girl with the jet black curls.

I can’t wait to go back.

left for Mahajonga and a weekend of relaxing and letting go f some of the stresses of integration I found my dog, by chance. A student of mine, who had known he had been taken two weeks before, saw him near her house. A student in a few grades higher than ours had stolen him and had him in his yard. So, I scheduled with her to go to the students house and she relented, although somewhat reluctant to be drawn that far into the process. Our first stop was the mother of the student who is a corn and rice vendor in the market place. Lost in my thoughts I didn’t catch the conversation that occurred until I heard my student say that the dog was mine and I wanted him back. I caught the woman in the eye and nodded my head. She looked unnerved but not too apologetic and gave us permission to go to her house and get him back. 5 min later I found myself circumnavigating grazing cows in a small offshoot community and tucking into a small metal house with a metal sheeting and wood post fence. My student talked to the boy sitting on the floor ( I don’t know if he was the one who stole him or I may have jumped him) and the boy gestured to a small woodpile in the corner of the fenced yard. There, sleeping in the mud, was my puppy. Chase looked at me and cocked his head as if to say, “Is that you?” I called his name and he bolted for me, cowering down on the floor in apologetic joy. I was so happy to bring him home I renamed him Chance for obvious reasons. He was a little worse for wear and tear, a few new scars and scratches but he is now an incredibly affectionate and attentive companion, never letting me out of his sight, following me on walks around the community, coming when he’s called and sleeping with me at night; although we still have a little bit of flea business to take care of. He has picked up a fear that tells me he was beaten a few times in those short weeks but his happiness and confidence has returned and he has discovered the joy to be found in harassing and completely upsetting flocks of chickens, chasing the lone turkey that lives next door around our yard, or striking fear into the hearts sleeping ducks. Geese, he discovered simultaneously, fight back.

Happy Easter to all you fantastic people!

Easter in Madagascar is apparently one of the biggest holidays right next to Christmas. How do we celebrate? With massive community wide parties.

Our festivities kick off starting Saturday night with a gospel concert featuring a famous Malagasy singer and dance. Sunday is prayer all day long in the many churches framing the center of our community. The topic of so many conversations this last week has been what church I will be attending. I am getting very good at Malagasy subtlety and sidetracking the conversation or completely answering a different question all together. You have to be careful here with what you say and how you say it. If you say something that is taken completely incorrectly the people here are respectful enough not to question you on the topic so that is taken as your fact. Which can work for and against you in many respects. The last thing I have an interest in doing is insulting one of the many facets of Christianity that are here. Hopefully as my language grows stronger I will be able to have some cultural/religious conversations with some of my friends and see what the community’s less than obvious view point on the religious state of affairs is.

Sunday night begins the second most glorious of the parties at one of the very large houses here that has been converted into a movie viewing room ( on an old school projector) and dance hall. (It has electricity and is old south plantation style huge). I will be going to the dance with two of my friends who I will have to introduce in my next blog. Many of my friends in the community will be participating though and I am excited for it. Lots of dancing to Malgasy tunes- which are fantastic for moving yourself all over to- and hip hop… also one of my favorite style for dancing or working out in my room!

Monday is the pinnacle of the holiday festivities since on Sunday so much of the day is lost to prayer. The Malagasy over compensate for this loss of party time by having a community wide picnic in one of our local fokotanys( kind of like a mini town usually consisting of about 10-20 houses). This is not the American version of a community event, this is an actually community event. Our community will be completely closed down, with the exception of a few vendors I’m sure, and everyone is going out to picnic. Dacing and eating are automatically assumed at any cultural gathering. Malagasy love their music, and there will be karaoke of course, loud and out of tune singing that only gets worse as the drinking continues. Living in a very wet culture has its benefits and drawbacks… lots of great parties but an equal number of completely intoxicated people in one area. You have to give in to it though in whatever way works for you and while I will be in charge of bringing the drinks for our large family that is going, I won’t be blaring myself out of tune on the giant speakers to Brittany Spears or Enrique Iglesias. Yes, the American music here is sappy, horrible, and about 5 to 10 years behind us. Which makes both Joanna and myself wonder what is happening in the world of music and film in our continent!

I hope all of you at home have a great Easter/Passover/Ostara holiday and that you are all in health and are happy people! Love to you all!

Hey all… living her in Madagascar has its priveldges in the fresh procduce department but its absolutely amazing what kinds of things that I took for granted in the starts that I cant get or can for a crazy amount of money, here.. so here is the requested updated wish list …

All mail- letters, postcards ( I like the art for my wall) and such can be sent to…

Devyn Feinman

CEG Maevatanana

412 Madagascar

And all packages can be sent to

Devyn Feinman

Corps de La Paix

BP 12091

Poste Zoom Ankorandrano

101 Antananarivo

Madagascar

Things I would love!!!!

Sauce mixes, and spice mixes- meat rubs, barbecue spices, veggie spices, asian spices sauce mixes, taco spice etc…

Garlic powder, onion powder…Rosemary!!! I would actually kill for some herb seeds to be honest… I could plant inside if I had to.. I would figure it out…

Oatmeal!!!! OMG so expensive here!!! $6 US for a small can container.

Beef/Ostrich/Venison ( you get the point) Jerky- Teriyaki always!!!!

Canned tuna and chicken are always a plus… chicken is crazy expensive here and I haven’t had any in months!

Pictures of all you guys!!!! It makes a big difference to us here to be able to see familiar and loved faces when we are surrounded by so many different surroundings.

Granola is unheard of here…I miss it sooooooooo much….

The unnecessary but so satisfying sweets…

Peanut M&Ms

Gummys- sharks, coke bottles, sours etc.. my favorite are the fruit rings and fruit slices

Dried fruits- especially apricot and apple…

I bike and hike a lot here so anything you come across that is workable for those situations would be marvelous…I use my pocketknives religiously for everything from opening cans of tomato paste at home to carving pineapples by the river…batteries are not hard to find, but good ones don’t exist, I have electricity that’s only off for a few hours every day, I live in sandals and skirts and shorts, live out of my canteen water bottles,

Things I need only a few of… please add a note at the bottom of this blog so people know what not to get.. Thanks!

Flip flops- I need some that are durable… Im just finding junk till I get some sent or go home… I wear size 11 in Reefs and similar sports brands…anything with a toe thong makes me happy…

Spray/Leave in hair conditioner for dry curly hair

Fun and random kitchen utensils… I don’t care what you send… I still love cooking and miss my random things… like wooden spoons, spatulas, etc…

Sports bras- Size L… if it has cups or a clasp in the back go for XL… I’m not sure these days…

Sweat resistant/waterproof sunscreen with a decent spf… 40 at least… 45-60 preferably.. although I don’t think it actually works past 45…

USB flash drives… I don’t know how expensive these are but I’m dying for another one and they are ridiculous here…

A travel doggy bowl for the puppy…collapsible or squishy or whatever as long as I can pack it in my backpack or my bike bag.

A XL(full body) sports towel- I got the last one from REI and promptly lost it in Niger when someone stole my towel… most likely thinking it was theirs. So I need a new one… the sports towels are the best since they dry fast and compact into small size… REI has theirs on sale periodically… soft is nice…please!

Thanks to all of you for the continued mental, emothional and physical support from home! Love you all!

Alright yall… so I have gotten back into cooking and harnessing the available foods I can find on this island, but I need some help.

I need some recipes please!!! Stovetop only, I can make milk with powder and water. I don’t have a fridge or all the fun and random spices but I am incredibly inventive and can substitute when necessary….

So I want recipes… biscuits for the stove top or something similar, ketchup, chicken and dumplings, pancakes, egg dishes etc..

Some of the things we have here…

manioc, potatoes, sweet potatoes, beef, pork, chicken, duck, fish, crab, eel and alligator (sometimes), ginger, garlic, tomatoes, onions, green onions, parsley, carrots, green beans, rice, lentils, chickpeas(garbanzo beans), white beans, black eyed peas, butter beans, peanuts, pasta ( crazy expensive though), fresh rolls, or fresh baguettes, eggs, canned sardines, bananas,

Baking basic: Flour, sugar, salt, I can find baking soda and yeast if I need to. Powdered milk, sweetened condensed milk, congealer, tapioca beads,

Seasonal: avocadoes, pineapples, mangos, apples, plums and apricots, persimmons, celery, guava, citrus- not exactly oranges not exactly lemons, kind of in the middle, limes,

Please email or post here any recipes you can find.. I would be so appreciative!!! Any of your camping recipes I know you all have, or single skillet recipes, I have a large pot too and would love to make some stews but even that I have no idea how to really make and internet is too expensive and slow to look up links or recipes myself so post them here or like I said email me at devo_and_giraffes@hotmail.com

Thanks!

Malagasy people love to ask as many questions about you as they can. Its not completely uncommon to meet a market vendor for the first time conversationally and have them ask, before they know your name, if you are married? Single? American? And what church you go to. It’s the Malagasy version of a dating service for foreigners. This information is then passed from that one vendor to as many as he or she can tell not only to show how that they have spoken to the local vazah, but also to spread word that they might be able to marry off a son before the process has ended. The conversations run a little like this, although of course in Malagasy… I have translated for your benefits. The key to the entire conversation is laughter, as is with so many conversations in this country.

Vendor :Hello! How’s your health?

Me: Hello, my health is good. And yours?

Vendor: It is good. American yes?

Me: American! I work at the CEG teaching English and live here in Maeva. It is nice to meet you.

Vendor: It is nice to meet you. Already married?

Me: No, not married. Maybe someday.

Vendor: Someday soon? Why aren’t you married?

Me: I have to work here in Madagascar! I don’t have time for marriage.

This solicits a riotous uproar of laughter from any who have now stopped to overhear the conversation.

Vendor: You can marry a Malagasy man. (Here have this one.)

Madagascar is gorgeous, varied, green, my home, and… well when I first arrived to this country I would have said rain as I was then living in the wettest location on the island. It rained so much…at first it was a blessing to feel the cool water running in streams down the paved roads and roofed buildings but then after days and days of rain with sun in between I forgot about the dry suffering that was Niger and wished only for a stop to the constant rain fall. At one point it took three days of line drying for the laundry I had only so recently learned to wash in the river, to dry. In response to this change of climate I requested a position in the west coast region of the island in what the Malagasy people describe as one of the hottest places here. I requested this location because of its proximity to an incredible coastal town and the capital city, because it is known to be rich in mango orchards, and because nothing is hotter then Niger which I had grown used to in the short time I was there. However, it is hot by their standards, which I had grown accustomed to, and very cool by Niger standards which I had so keen still in my memory. I wanted nothing more to live in Maevatanana, “heavenly city” in Malagasy. Now, this morning, after suffering through a night of broken fans, I have to tell myself it really is hotter than a bull’s balls in Texas, however hot that can be. But that is the first thought I had after my second half hour nap in between fanning myself with a grass mat fan this morning as the sun rose.!!!! On a side note though I am adjusting gradually to this new climate as I noticed this morning it felt so cool, at a mere 90degrees. I know it will get easier.

Now for the main and not so bitchy aspect of the blog… I love Madagascar! After our three months of training between Niger and here, we all passed into the ranks of Peace Corps volunteers in a ceremony at the American Ambassadors house in Antananarivo. A giant tortoise provided entertainment throughout the ceremony by making his way unimpeded through the gathering of officials on stage. I presented a speech in Malagasy which I will post here on the blog as well. It went quite smoothly, although I was deathly nervous for the weeks after I had been voted to do the speech! Afterwards I was congratulated by the President of USAID which was an honor and an excitement to make a contact in that organization. I was also able to make contacts with a few other teaching organizations here in Madagascar as well as receive some wonderful compliments from some of the Malagasy there that told me my language sounded very natural. That gave me just the confidence I needed to step into a line of interviews with local journalists, in Malagasy of course. At one point I had to have help translating as anyone who has heard me speak Malagasy will tell you the words are long, and the Malagasy language has managed to completely omit all spaces between words and sentences. Imagine teaching pronunciation to native Malagasy speakers! Pauses have no resounding affect whatsoever. After an amazing night of dancing and karaoke in the clubs of the capital city we headed out to our home cities. The drive was beautiful and long but full of gorgeous scenery and wonderful opportunities for sleep. After so much time waiting I finally got to see my house and unleash my pent up nesting instincts…Three days of shopping, meeting locals, and eating great food I found myself alone, for the first time since leaving the US, in a foreign country with nothing but myself for company. I didn’t know what to do so I went to sleep, listening with avid fascination to the chorus of geckos that stalked my walls for whatever insects they could find. The next morning I woke up overheated at 5am, which is when the electricity is turned off. I sat in the stillness of my room listening to my surroundings and thinking about the day. I decided with finality to not get a cat or dog since that would only add to the responsibilities to take into consideration in my new surroundings and instead to be content with getting to know and making contacts in my new community. I looked around the vast emptiness I know needed to call home and felt that in order to call it a home I had to create. But I came upon that block that comes when you feel overwhelmed by so much in front of you. I had for more lying at my feet than just a new house. I had a new culture, I had all my training that now had to be used, I had classrooms of kids to prepare for, I had my own mind set to achieve and maintain while I knew I would be an object of American stereotypes, constant interest and other such attention that I had to be ready to experience. I felt the desire to escape from all those feelings and internal decisions I knew I had to make but that was nowhere to escape to. I was already awake. So, after allowing myself to run through a cycle of ups and downs, positives and negatives, I gave myself a suck it up comment and got out of bed to make myself some cold oatmeal. I wandered around with my cold cereal in awe of everything. I had so much, and yet nothing, to do. I felt lost even though I knew I was exactly where I wanted to be. Nothing prepares you for the true meaning of alone when you are in a new country, a new place, and in the midst of so many expectations. That loneliness over the course of the day only grew as I discovered that not only was I in the proverbial fish bowl, I was the only thing in the whole damn bowl besides water in a country where water is of no great shortage. I hid in my room for at least a few hours, busying myself with the move itself, inspecting the areas of my house that needed repairs, paint, where I wanted to place the few things I brought, or owned. I explored my yard and found my water source, a small tap and pump near the home of the surveillant general and found a trash pile of broken desks and tables. It was there that I got the brilliant idea of creating hanging shelves, so I salvaged a few blue boards from a long ago destroyed desk and brought them back home with me to continue my scheming. Let me explain the reason for cleverness…

My house is a side room attached to a row of classrooms… it is two large rooms, one right after the other in a long line…my kitchen i placed in the front room, the bed in the next with a table for work space and in the back small room is my BUCKET BATH!!! Which happens to be one of my favorite times of day!! I have a small backyard useful for nothing except a quick meal in the morning and my house overlooks a large area of no fences, including a basketball court and an amazing view of every sunset.

Its walls are solid concrete so any holes that are available for use have to be put there by a powerdrill, which I do not have. I do, though, have my father’s ingenuity for creating something from nothing, like the kitchen sink omelettes I have come to love here with no refrigerator, and my mother’s creative talents. Combing the two together I have crafted a hanging shelf system using pieces of twine, a pre-existing nail, and two trashed desk boards. I stared at my work for a good 5 min before piling on the random bathroom essentials that had survived the tri-country move. I was incredibly proud of such a small accomplishment and it only helped a little more in making the two and a half rooms into MY two and half rooms.

Shortly after I had returned back to my house I heard a soft knock on my back door and saw the daughter of the surveillant standing there. She invited me over to her house and I consented that I would come in a short while. I put on some not so dirty clothes and stepped out of my house. Two doors down I saw a small dog sitting in front of a school door. I quickly realized that it wasn’t just a small dog but a very very young puppy. He put up a good growl to warn me away but I sat down and he immediately came over to check me out. It was then that I realized he was indeed very young, not yet able to see or walk with any capability. I picked him up and continued my walk to my neighbors determined to see if he was maybe theirs since, if not, I couldn’t possible leave him where I had found him. I met the family, relearned my Malagasy greetings including asking them about the puppy’s origin learning the words for breast milk and how to say “settled in” in Malagasy. The meeting went well and the puppy hasn’t left me since that day. His name is Chase, he can now see, wag his tail and has finally learned how to run, although It is more of a leaping bounding movement with two legs working together at the same time. He’s adorable, except when he chews on everything I own but the companionship is priceless. I absolutely love it… I moved in twice, once for necessity, the second day for aesthetics. And once I had finished the second move I felt more truly at home. I did finally have my “why am I here moment” when hormones, combined with the overwhelming sensation of constant supervision, got the best of me and I felt like to walk outside would mean certain death to any resemblance of my senses I still had. So after a short and terse conversation with my dad I stepped into the lion’s den, so to say that I went outside of my door and allowed the 60 children that had gathered to stare. The clincher for me was that before I stepped out I told myself I didn’t have to put on a show. So while I sat in my door frame they stared at me and I continued to stare right back at them. We spoke some Malagasy, they talked between themselves, practiced some English and watched each other for a good 30 min. Then, as children do, they got quickly bored of the new attraction that acts the same as everyone else they’ve met. So slowly the crowd dispersed leaving me with 5 boys, between the ages of 6 and 9 that were engrossed with playing with my puppy and determined to help me overcome some basic Malagasy linguistic hurdles. We conversed and played until their hunger overcame them, as children do, and they ran off to get food at their homes. When the last had left I sighed and continued to sit in my doorway as not only does it have the best breeze out of the sunlight but that I had overcome the first real hurdle I had experienced. I went to sleep again that night thankful as I heard the chorus of geckos kick in, that I was in Madagascar, surrounding by bug eating lizards, and that for some reason a small animal had appeared at the same moment that I needed some silent companionship. The next morning I cursed the geckos as I removed the clothing hanging inside that I would have to rewash after a night of gecko droppings. I discovered a snail that size of my palm that I have since removed and had return three different times. In a snail’s perspective that is an impressive feat of intent, so I have allowed him to stay; affectionately calling him Horace, named after a plant I owned that never died in San Francisco. Now I have two pets; one that terrifies me every time I shower and one that drives me crazy with his incessant puppyness. They are a welcome diversion to come home to though after a day of classrooms, children, and market craziness.

Party culture: Malagasy culture is rich and colorful with the influences of Polynesia and Africa. My first real experience of Malagasy culture was our family day at the training site when our host families were invited to our host center for refreshments and speeches and little gifts from us. I had personally bought my family a large mug and candles and a few small cars for the boys. I will have to write more on my host family at some other point. But after all the speeches were over, Malagasy LOVE LONG SPEECHES) there was a mad rush of the food tables. I should explain that in this culture there is no such thing as a line. It is a permanent Saturday night bar rush in this country. Small stores to dinner parties are all the same. If you aren’t paying attention someone else will take over for you whether you agree or not. I have since mastered this attitude and combining it with my automatic popularity with men and women here as a Malagasy speaking foreign woman, I rarely find myself waiting for anything. After we had eaten as much as we could dancing commenced in which everyone, including elderly and small children danced to incredibly colorful music. When I say colorful music I mean the kind of music that when you listen to it you can close your eyes and see the whirling of men and women in a fast moving upbeat dance. I danced with host parents and siblings that day and as we created dancing circles you could see the pre-teen boys dancing out there with their siblings and parents with no hint of the embarrassment you would see in the states. It was amazing. Later, at my first party with my fellow teachers for a new year’s celebration, I would learn that more than likely that lack of embarrassment stems from the fact that when someone asks you to dance there is no denial that is actually accepted. So while I was busy trying to remain as inconspicuous as a white person can in this country my looks of amusement mixed with embarrassment were not enough to save me from partner after partner who came looking for a dance with the new vazah. I had the time of my life, including my off key version of Bryan Adams gone karaoke. As soon as my fellow teachers discovered I could sing Malagasy songs, thanks to singing classes I asked for from a teacher at training site, I haven’t been able to talk myself out of a single performance, much to their unabashed delight.

About my classes: I teach 6eme- the equivalent to our 6th grade at home. I have 5 classes with anywhere from 50 something to 70 something children in each class. The levels and capabilities of the children in each class are varied and dynamic, from those who have an interest to those that wish they were playing soccer to some who understand and some who refuse to try. The foreigner aspect is actually something that works here in my favor as everyone is excited to prove their abilities, are interested in my antics and want to participate with the “vazah” (Malagasy for foreigner) I love teaching the kids, and although I have only taught a handful of classes so far, already feel that my classes will quickly become more of my class than just another English class. Already my student have experienced my ability for facial expression. On the first day three boys were late for class. I was mid vocab when they decided to arrive. As is customary in Madagascar, they waited by the door for permission to enter late. I told them to enter and they apologized in Malagasy and in English with a complete lack of sincerity that could not go unnoticed. I then gave them an expression that elicited riotous laughter from their fellow classmates and silence from them and that I could only explain as a visual scolding mixed with a subtle irritation. The expression was such that the word of it was passed to my next class. When I set out for the next class of the day I had children running ahead of me to get into the door before I set foot in the classroom. I haven’t had too many late since that day without a sincere apology if they are.

The Market place of Madagascar is one of the most welcoming and yet overwhelming places to find yourself, especially on market day. Every vendor is selling what appears to be the same thing from meat, to fruits, nuts, vegetables, spices, three types of rice, manioc, sweet potatoes, fish, crabs still walking their baskets, fowl, cows, used clothing, pots, pans, buckets, and anything else you need to live here in Maeva. On closer inspection though nothing actually is the same, everything bears a subtle variation that is only spiced by the vendor doing the selling. I have since made friends with a few vendors in the market place that I go to specifically to prevent the foreigner price of goods but for the first few days everything was a haggle starting off with an originally price, cutting it in half and weeding it out from there. At the end of a 20 minute bout of bartering you still felt that you had overpaid and were now twice as exhausted after the attempt of translating thoughts into processes and coming ahead of the game. I introduced myself to everyone I spoke to and received a Malagasy husband from one vendor eager to sell her son off to a vazah; I respectfully declined of course much to their added amusement. We were quickly known throughout the market place as the foreigners who could speak Gasy which gave us a small dose of pride. Over the last few weeks I have made close connections with a few vendors, and have started receiving market gifts, a common practice in Gasy customs but rarely shared with foreigners.

I have only lived here for a few short weeks but they have been hot and long, long days… starting with the shutting off of the fan at 5am through classes, down to the daily market trips, the greetings, and conversations with local vendors, and finally ending with cooking up something Malagasy and tasty at home. This next week looks to be exciting as well with some planned bike trips to look forward too as well as a few hikes to a nearby area that looks intriguing. I have discovered a new fascination for the wild chameleons here that will wander right in front of you on the dirt roads by the school. They are purple and black and walk their funny two toed strut across your path with one eye cocked back to make sure you are a safe distance away as they look forward to their new leafy hiding place. They are amazing and beautiful creatures and I find myself stopping to watch their entire progress every time I get the chance. The Malagasy have an incredible proverb that I have adopted as I make my home here. “Be like the chameleon, always looking forward with a glance behind.”

The internet situation will be improving with the possibility, through one of our new contacts, of having solid Internet abilities once a week. As for now we are borrowing internet from a local seller in exchange for English conversation practice while we are in his shop. It isn’t a perfect system as it runs on Malagasy time…not measurable in clocks, and more often than not one technical issue after another presents itself but one of the first things you learn when you leave to live in another country, you must leave any preconceived notions of control and expectations of your environment at the door and be ready to experience and receive everything that comes your way. Only then, I think, will you find what you left your house for in the first place. After a while you realize that Malagasy time, while it may not be perfect is still a system, that the technical breakdowns is just an option to go do something else while you wait, that bartering is the best ability to present yourself in the new culture to people that would more easily pass you off as another tourist, and that even the geckos are doing their part in the whole of this experience.

In Niger my friends realized that I enjoyed making up and sharing random stories, usually based on dreams. After countless random mornings of dream sharing I started to be asked to tell stories before bed at night which I was a little shy to do at first but quickly warmed up to.. On our last night in Niger I made up this story for a friend that was unable to come with us to Madagascar. I told it to a group of friends, a little nervously, but enjoyed it enough to continue thinking of it. I decided to write it here for you to enjoy, and to show myself what the story could become if I got a chance to put more into it.

The Beauty of Their World

A long time ago a man gazed upon the soft round face of his daughter and felt such happiness as he had ever known. As he looked into her stormy gray eyes he told his wife with pride, “She must be the most beautiful thing in this world.”

His wife agreed and together they raised her as best he could, bestowing love, affection, and the belief that everything is possible in her world. As she continued to grow the father felt a knawing in his soul, one he had repressed for years in the joys of fatherhood. Finally he turned to his wife and said, “I have seen our daughter grow these last 6 years with such beauty and wisdom. I could not be more proud. But I must know what other beauty exists in this world.” His wife, knowing her husbands heart as her own, kissed him and made ready for his departure as he went to kiss his daughter goodbye. In her sleep the daughter dreamed of butterflies kissing her nose and she smiled and murmured her happiness.

The man set out on foot across the desert that bordered their village remembering a story he had heard as a child from his own grandfather: a story of a beautiful place of green amidst the sand of the desert, which was fed by an underground spring. His small heart had soared with the imagination when he had first heard the story so many years ago and he could think of no better start for this leg of his life’s journey. He followed the voice of his grandfather and kept to his direction for five days. On the fifth day he entered the most beautiful refuge of green; he could have never have imagined such beauty. He stayed for two days but could see nothing but his daughters face in all the beauty that surrounded him. The spirit that called the oasis home saw the man and felt the love that emanated so strongly from him. The spirit had never encountered such intense emotion from a mortal before and felt the need to know his story. The night the spirit approached him but the man was not afraid, for he knew that he was following his path after so many years of keeping his distance.

The spirit asked him, “Why is it you feel so strongly of love? Surely it cannot be what you see here?”

“No,” he replied, “Although this is the most beautiful place I have ever seen, the love I carry withing myself comes from my very soul and it is from the face of my daughter for she is the center of my world.”

The spirit was intrigued by this and told him of another place, of flowing waters so clear you could see the sparkling of the stones beneath its surface during the days and the shimmering of the stars above during its nights. The mans soul craved this sight and urged him forward to discover this new place of such beauty. He thanked the spirit and packed immediately for the next step on his path. The spirit had said it was not too far.

Three days later the man came to the banks of the most amazing sight he could have ever imagined. He found himself on the banks of a vast river with the most clear and sparkling water he had ever seen. The stones and small fish that lived within its waters shone like small gems and reminded him of the vast hoarders of riches in children’s tales. He watched fascinated as the small boats with this pristine white sails dotted the water, gliding effortlessly between shores. The man sat on the banks of this river and took in everything he could see. As the sun finished its vigilance and the moon took over the skies he watched as one by one the stars appeared in the mirrored surface. As he looked straight across the water he could imagine he was floating in space, surrounded by the stars and their reflections. The man felt so overwhelmed by the beauty of his surroundings he sat for two days without moving, napping only in intervals so as not to miss the chance of seeing the beautiful world that passed by him each hour. On the third day the spirit that lived within the river realized that the man she had been watching, whose love was emanating so strongly it was almost tangible, was growing restless. Since she had assumed that the love he was showing was due to the brilliance of her waters the spirit approached him but the man was not afraid, although he didn’t know what the next step for him would be, he knew that he was on the right path and had the faith that the next step would reveal itself.

The spirit took a seat beside the man and said, “Why have you sat on my banks these last few days? Why is it you feel so strongly of love? Surely it cannot be what you see here?”

“No,” he said, “While this is the only river I have ever seen, I have no doubt that it is the most beautiful in this world. But the love I feel comes from the face of my daughter. When I look into her face I see so much love, I see the love of me and my wife, the love of our family, and the love she has for me in return. She is the center of my world.”

The spirit was intrigued by this story and told him of a place where the water never ended, where it came straight onto the land in large swelling waves. She told him of the depths of this water, how it plunged into the darkest depths where no man could follow, and of the creatures that inhabited its realms. The man’s heart leapt and he knew at once that this was the next step he was to follow. He thanked the spirit, who was sorry to lose her admirer, and set off at once for what he felt could be the last leg of his journey. The man walked for only one day before he found himself looking across a body of water, so vast, it looked as though the world plummeted off the edge. He knew that this had to be the place the spirit had spoken of. He sat himself upon the sand and watched as the gentle lapping water swirled up to his feet, retreated into crashing waves, and returned again to swirl at his feet. Never had he seen so much beauty in the motion of the water. Remembering what the spirit had said of the creatures within these depths he began to walk into the sea in order to see more of what he had heard existed. As the water grew deeper and he felt the pull of the ocean against his legs the man felt no panic. He kept only the face of his daughter in his mind and felt the peace descend upon his soul that one receives when they have felt the call of their path and answered it to the end. The spirit that lived within the waves of the sea saw the man sinking within his waters and while he could not push him back to safety he spoke to him and said, “What would make you enter my waters not knowing how to return? What is this love that surrounds you and yet cannot keep you afloat?”

“It is my daughter,” the man replied, “that is the source of the love you see. I only hope to be able to see here from where I am travelling next and that one day she may understand that while she was the center of my world, my heart lead me onto a path of such beauty that was impossible for one person to hold.”

The spirit promised the man that if ever he came across his daughter his message would be passed on. With a smile and a last breathe the man slipped beneath the sea and the spirit felt such sadness as he had never felt in all his years of surging.

Years passed and the girl grew in the steps of her mother and father. She was such a beautiful blend of wisdom and grace that she quickly gained the favors of admirers. While she appreciated their attentions and praises she felt a great soreness in her heart from the absence of her father. After some time the girl felt her heart speaking more and more loudly for a young man in the village that seemed to everyone to be her perfect match. But the girl’s heart was not whole and she mistrusted what it told her. Finally one day she asked her mother where her father had gone the night that she had dreamed of butterflies kissing her nose.

“My daughter,” she replied,” I have watched you grow these last years with such beauty and grace and more and more like myself and your father every day. But I know you’re hearts hurt from when he never returned and while I never heard why he didn’t return I know that for whatever reason he had to follow his path and when you love someone as completely as we loved each other, you recognize the needs of their soul as the needs of your own. If you wish to find him and heal you heart then that is your journey and you must take it. All of my love and his will be with you wherever you go.”

The girl’s soul felt strengthened by this and with a cheerful goodbye she left her village of 19 years and set out on the footsteps of her father who had followed the story of his grandfather from so many years ago.

After five days of walking she came upon the same gorgeous green her father had seen from so long before. While her heart did not lust for these sites as her father’s had, she wanted nothing more than to follow his journey. She didn’t know where to go or where her path would lead her but she traveled with the strength and solidity of one that knew she was following the path her soul required and was backed by the love and support of her parents. She had sat down for no longer than an hour contemplating the next step she would follow when the same spirit that had spoken to her father approached her. The girl was not frightened for she knew that she was following her soul’s calling in following her father’s footsteps.

“Young woman,” the spirit said, “I have never seen you before but I have seen someone who carried their love with them much as you carry yours. While I do not see many people here I believe he was just like you.”

At this the girls heart leapt with joy for she knew that the next part of her journey had just presented itself. “He was my father,” she replied, “and he has never returned to us. Can you tell me where he went from here as I have taken it upon myself to discover what has kept him away from his wife and daughter for all these years?”

The spirit told her the story of meeting her father and the directions he had given to the waters that are so clear they show the sparkling of the stones beneath and the shinning of the stars above. The girl thanked the spirit and left with the joy that comes when one follows with uncompromising faith the path that the soul has required one to take.

After two days the girl came across the very river of which the spirit had directed her and her father all those years ago. The girl’s heart felt light as she gazed upon the beauty her father had seen. She watched the sails of the boats as the drifted from shore to shore and the stars that appeared above when the sun had reached its sleep. She sat upon the banks of the river and waited, for she knew with full certainty that the next step would present itself as the spirit had in the oasis of green within the desert.

In no time at all the spirit within the river noticed the young woman on its banks with the same love the man from so long ago had carried with him. She had remember the man that had gazed in such rapture at her banks and was amazed to see another so like him sitting as he had sat so many years ago.

The spirit approached her and said, “Young woman, I see you staring upon my waters with such love. Surely it is not from what you see that this comes forth.”

“No,” the girl replied. “The love you see is the love of my father and mother. It is my father I am searching for; he travelled this very path many years ago and never returned to us. In order for my heart to feel whole I have taken it upon myself to find that which kept him from his wife and daughter.”

The spirit recognized immediately to whom she was referring and with no reluctance told the girl the story of her father and what she had told him when he had approached her so long ago. Once again the girl thanked all those looking over her and gathered her belongings. She set off at once with high hopes that she would soon discover what had captured her father’s heart.

As she came upon the sea the next day she was struck by the beauty of the moving water. She had never seen such movements, the steady crashing and swelling of the water as it approached and retreated from the shore. She had no idea how it happened that the water would flirt with the land over and over again but she felt within herself that this must truly be the place her father had longed to find. She spent two days walking along the shore letting the water swirl around her feet and cascade upon her legs captivated by the sensations of the sea. The spirit of the sea in turn, was also enthralled, but by her beauty, for he had never seen a woman so beautiful tempting the surging of his waters. He watched as she danced on the waters edge, running forward on her toes as the water left the shore and running and squealing with glee as the next wave surged towards her. The spirit was set on meeting such a breathtaking young woman and so created himself a form in which to approach her. As the woman looked up the coastline she spied an old man fishing along the shore. She walked steadily towards him with her chin held high knowing that she would find the last piece of her journey here. With no fear she approached him and said,

“Excuse me sir. If you are from this place of overwhelming beauty which I feel within my soul that you are could you please tell me about a traveler, a man, which came by here so many years ago. He was my father and it is my destiny to find what has kept him from returning to his wife and daughter.”

The spirit immediately knew her for who she was and knowing her father he knew what his story should be.

“ Young woman,” he replied, “ I met your father all those years ago. He came looking for the most beautiful sight in the world and was sent her by the spirit of that river you passed, and before that the spirit of the oasis that you met first. He came surrounded with the love he had for you, for you were and will always b e the center of the world. But in his quest to find the unimaginable he walked into my waters and was unable to walk back out. For you see, I am the spirit of these waters and have been waiting for the day to tell you his story and to impart to you his last thoughts. He left this life with the peace that comes when one has walked the path of their hearts dreams. He left with thoughts of you and his wife for you were all that was in his world.”

At this the girl was overwhelmed with sadness. She had not known what to expect in this search for father, but she had not prepared herself to lose the man she had kept in her heart for so many years. She looked down to where her toes were buried and her tears began to fall into the sand. The spirits soul wept to see such beauty suppressed by so much pain and so decided what it was he could do to bring back the smile that had lit up his morning so few hours earlier. As he watched her tears falling in silent patters he thought of the perfect gift he could give one with so much hurt. Out of the tears falling between her feet he formed a flat disk of the purest white he could muster. The girl gasped in surprise when she saw the gift he had created and picked it up from the darkness of the sand.

“What is this?” she asked. “ What is this that has been created from my tears as they fell upon the sand?”

“That is a gift from my sea to you. It pains my very being to see you suffer in the pain you hold inside. As your father’s daughter remind yourself that it was the joy and beauty of the world, even within the simplicity of a shell such as that, that drove him along his path, away from his home and wife and child, through an oasis, past the glittering river and into my depths. While I could not save him I can give this gift to you in hopes that you remember what his soul called him to do.”

The girl felt her heart lift and her soul shake off the darkness that had settled over her with the news of her father’s death. She saw within the shell the simple beauty her tears had created as they had fallen from her heart. She looked up with new eyes and gazed upon this ocean that had been the end of her father’s journey. However, instead of seeing it as the end of his, she saw only the beginning of hers. She told the spirit she would stay for the next few days and contemplate what her next step should be as she felt that fate had know given her back the next choice for her journey she would take the time she needed to prepare herself and open herself up to whatever her heart would desire.

The spirit was pleased with her choice and had expected it. He hoped only to win her heart and keep her here to gaze upon her as she now gazed upon the sea. The next day as the girl walked upon the coast before the sun had begun its climb into the sky the spirit decided to bestow a gift for the girl in order to win her heart to the beauty of the sea. As the sun began to claim its position the sea retreated leaving behind it clusters of the white disks the spirit had created the day before from her tears of sorrow. The girl gasped in delight at the sight of the white amidst the dark sand and began collecting as many as she could carry. After she had gathered an armful she looked behind her and saw the dark sand she had left behind. Determined not to leave behind less beauty than she had passed she gently placed each of the shells in its spot and contented herself instead to look upon the shore and marvel each shell. While they were all of the same general shape they were all incredibly unique in size, the pattern of the tear drops on front looked very different from one shell to the next and she was not surprised for although her tears are all tears, they are all unique from source to destination.

For three days the girl paced the coast, each morning the spirit dropped more shells and polished stones from his depths on the shore for the water to leave behind and for her to find. He found nothing more enjoyable than watching the light of her face when she discovered these new treasures. As the days went on the girl spent each morning and each night walking the shore taking in the breathtaking beauty of the sea and finding joy in the treasures lefts for her discovery. She felt though, that her time was coming to an end. A tension within her began to grow as she though of her home, her mother, and the young man whom her heart had felt so pulled towards. She realized, as she spent the days that she no longer felt the sorrow of her fathers death but instead felt the peace that comes in discovering someone you loved followed their dream and you have just begun the next part of yours. It was time for her to leave and without a word she left in the early morning, when the moon still shone its face in the sky. The next morning as always, the spirit carefully placed his treasures along the shore looking forward to watching this beautiful girl enjoy each shell and stone he had selected. He waited for her to arrive and as the sun completed its journey he realized that the girl was not going to come for his treasures any longer. The spirit, in the mannerisms of those whose existence is not counted in years, felt no sorrow or remorse at the loss of the beautiful girl. Instead, each morning he continued to place his gifts upon the shores of his coastline knowing that one day the girl, or another who wished to see immeasurable beauty would find him and he would be ready. In the mannerisms of those whose existence is not counted in years patience is, above all things, an intrinsic trait; for what does time mean to the power and beauty of the sea?

The girl never returned to see his shores. Instead she returned to her village and told her mother of her travels, of the spirits that where there to guide her journey just as they had guided the journey of her father so long ago. She told her of the beauty of the sea and the woman’s heart glowed with the pride one feels of being the mother of a child who has found their path and has travelled it in the face of the fear it can bring, and the wife of one who found their path and travelled it to the end. The girl never forgot the beauty she had seen, or the path she had followed, or the treasures she had discovered on the coast of the sea. She passed that story to her daughters, and they to theirs in the hopes that one day one of them would feel the pull in their journey to follow their ancestors. And to this day you can walk the coast of the sea and take in its breathtaking beauty. And perhaps, just perhaps, the sea will leave its treasures for you to find, just as it did for the beautiful girl who found her path all those years ago.

To tell the story of what happened on the day I almost lost part of me I have to say first that I am totally fine although I thought at points that I might end up losing it completely.

The day came with high expectations. It would be the day that we would find out our villages for the next two years after 10 weeks of training. We were all so excited. Besides the week long murder mystery that I, along with my friend Tom, was hosting, it was the only thing anyone could talk about.

Our day started with our first trip outside of Montasau, our training town. Our first Malagasy market! It was teeming with people, all staring at the bus loads of vazah (foreigners) that had just been un-loaded on their unprepared town. Wait, to backup a minute let me explain how we got to this market. We were piled early into vans and told that although the town was only 20-30k away it would take us over an hour to get there. We drove through gorgeous country, winding up and around mountains, overlooking valleys blanketed by rice fields displaying more shades of green than you can find in a deluxe box of crayolas. The sky’s blue, mingled with the green of our environment creating the most breathtaking picture, accented only by the white wisps of cloud speckling the sky line.

Anyone who has ridden the Indiana Jones: Temple of Doom ride at Disneyland will understand what the drive itself felt like: bouncing, jostling, braking, accelerating, revving the engine, sharp turns, and potholes you could swear were created specifically to swallow bicycles. As you travel you learn the best positions to relax in and let your body react to the impact of the drive.

Now to return to the market. It was, almost, overwhelming. Meat vendors, poison vendors, epiceries selling fried mixtures of egg with spinach and pepper and onion called mofosakay( spicey bread) which actually has very little spice at all. There were meat brochettes teeming with flies, cats seeking new hiding places and dogs sulking about hungrily eyeing the baskets of duckling, or bundles of live chickens bound together by their feet. The streets were dirt, with wood planks in some places to level it out for the market stalls erected only for this day every week. Every few feet or so, a large storm drain stretched across the street. I remember looking into the drain, a cement trough about a foot or two deep lined with river rocks and thinking it would really suck to fall in to it… seeing how it was completely uncovered except for three metal bars on one side only. This is where the sub story of my day begins. I made it safely over the first of these drains, unknowing that there was more than one. As I was looking at a basket of duckling I was passing by, the ground suddenly opened underneath me as I quickly discovered the next of the storm drains. As I fell, I grabbed the small Malagasy man in front of me but before he came down as an unsuitable anchor, my left leg recovered from the surprise change in elevation and came to my rescue. I recovered, assured everyone I was completely fine and kept walking, intent on ignoring the searing pain in my heal. I had only been out of the bus for a total of possibly five minutes, maybe less.

A few min later when my foot began to slip inside of my sandal I decided it was time to figure out exactly to what extent I had just inflicted damage on myself. I looked down hoping the only thing under my foot was sewage water but knowing differently. My teacher and I stopped at a corner so I could at least wash off the blood and see how bad the cuts where. I promised my heal that if it didn’t contact some ridiculous infection from whatever small bacteria lived in said storm gutter I wouldn’t cut it off. I handed over my purse and washed. When I was satisfied that I had at least done what I could for the time being I grabbed my purse back from her, swung it over my shoulder and in the process elbowed a baby in the head.

No I didn’t mean to and yes, I am completely serious. I turned to see who I had hit to apologize, saw his little face turn to me, saw the look of recognition that a vazah had hit him and watched the quick contorting from happy baby to screaming. My teacher and I both began protesting “Azafady! Azafady!” (I’m so sorry!!!!) to his mother but she just kept walking, pressing his head against her shoulder… I could hear him screaming for the next 10 min.

The rest of the shopping experience passed without incident. I bargained myself 2 t shirts and 2 long sleeve shirts, a blanket, and a secret santa gift. The clothing piles were an experience all to themselves. All second hand “dead man’s” clothing, heaped in piles with no particular sense of order, vendors yelling prices per piece over the noise of the market itself. 500Ar, 400Ar, (2,000 Ary Ary in a dollar), it was all very cheap and you could find some incredible, and incredibly ugly, item to add to the limited wardrobe we came here with. When we were done we travelled back to the temple of doom to the training center, got my heel attended to, and ate pan friend fish for lunch.

The rest of the day went decently uneventful. After the heal I proceeded to kick the same foot into a dresser while on the phone, slammed the back of the same heel into a terrazzo stair, almost had an easel decapitate me and then to put icing on the cake, I slammed my funny bone beautifully into the top of a chair after Christmas carols. I popped 3 out 4 balloons I was inflating for our murder mystery game and the fourth balloon that I actually managed to inflate, well that one popped on its own 5 min later. (Those of you who know me can also take into account the fact that the sound of a balloon popping to me is the most horrible sound…right next to nails on chalkboards and loud static.)

At the point that the last balloon chose to pop I decided I had to go to sleep before I killed myself…or lost an appendage…perhaps both.

Following Up: The heel is annoying. After two days of being fine it came down with a fantastic infection underneath the skin which put me in a room with a doctor and a pair of scissors as well as some fabulous antibiotics. My clothes are fantastic, my blanket marvelously warm, and my secret santa loved her gift; a tapestry of a Madagascar map with farming scenes around it. I got a similar tapestry from my secret santa but instead of farmers I got parrots. It will be a nice accent to the house I can eventually move into. I have found a teacher and am still taking singing lessons all in Malagasy which is a beautiful blend of Polynesian and African music. As for food, I have practically turned into a fruit bat.

My camera is being retarded so when i can get it working I will get these pictures posted on this blog. In the meantime let me reccount to you the most amazing day in a beautiful city. We flew, uneventfully, into Paris arriving at 6am in local time. Immediately I was floored by so many things I have never noticed before. White tile, no bugs, solid toilet seats, or hell, even toilets at all. Carpet! Air that smelled like water instead of dust and burning trash. A short bus ride later we checked into our hotel rooms. I flopped into a cloud of a bed, and was completely lost for the next few hours in sleep that felt so good I kept waking up. I finally gave up an any more sleep and crept into the most gorgeous shower I have ever experienced. In truth this shower is nothing spectacular, except when compared to a bucket of poured water is a absolute heaven. It was hot; I curled against the wall for minutes just letting the water pour down. I hadnt felt so wastefull in the last month but I could not get past the sensation. After what, shamefully, was more than likely longer than 30min I emerged and flopped back into bed. When I woke up to answer the door I walked on carpet and almost had a heartattack just from the feeling. I never knew how many of these little and seemingly invisible conveniences I had been taking for granted. After a lunch or goat cheese and spinach pastry and salad, chicken in a mushroom sauce with rice followed by fruit in a waffle cone dipped in chocolate we set off for Paris. I have to explain this food only for the fact that we were absolutely floored, almost tempted, if not for the large dining room, to lick our plates clean. A short train ride and navigation through a large metro station and we emerged into Paris. My friend Melissa and I had already pre-decided that we wanted to spend our remaining daylight hours on a bus tour in order to maximize our view and ability to navigate the city in less than 5 hours. After walking for an hour, past the Louvre, to the river Seine, we finally found our bus and hit our first stop.... Notre Dame. Its Christmas in Paris, and Parisians know how to decorate their city. We entered in to Notre Dame and found ourselves breathless in the face of the most beautiful architecture. Here we were, fresh from the poorest country in the world, exposed to nothing but the pinnacle of oppulence. There was more richess in the history and upkeep of this cathedral than there was in entire cities in the country we had been calling home. It was an incredible sense of culture shock. Almost as intense as stepping off the plane into the hustle and bustle of Charles de Gaulle airport. The next time you step out of your house I challenge you all to look around you and find the things that you have stopped looking at for the last years of your life and see their beauty. It is absolutely flooring.Departing from Notre Dame as dusk set in to an overcast day we took our sets on the top of our open air bus, knowing full well that our bodies, aclimated to the warmth of Niger, would freeze. And they did. But not before we were driven past countless streetsm rues, and gorgeous buildings, rich with history and the continued need for our society to glorify and continue teaching our past to the next generation. Paris was lit up for us, the buildings twinkling with lights, fqux icicles that looked as though they were dripping down to the street below, purple, blue, everything lit to compare to its neighbor and I appreciated every single minute of it all. The next and last stop that we left our bus for was the eiffel tower. Our path to it though was gorgeous and indirect, taking us past store fronts, museums, old historical buildings and giant shopping centers. I got so many gorgous night time pictures of it all and promise to include them in this blog as soon as my camera begins behaving. Finally as our stomachs and the cold began to get the better of us we ducked into a cafe to eat a dinner of steak and frites, warm goat cheese on toast with a salad and two bloody marys that tasted like nothing more than tomatoe juice in a glass. Following dinner we headed into a local wine shop and purchased two bottler, one of which I am drinking as I type and it is quite fabulous. Following the wine shop we meandered into a local boulengerie.... a bread and pasterie shop as I had been asked by friends who had remained in the hotel to purchase chocolate croissants. There I picked up an apple tart-absolutely phenomenal- as well as 5 chocolate croissants(had to have one for myself of course) and another serving of a goat cheese topped toast with a strong cheese in between the toast slices. I was stuffed by the second bite but had to finish the entire thing... After all... tomorrow is Madagascar. I navigated us through a maze of subways home only to find it raining, and us in our half desert have cold weather gear, looking at a 45 min walk back to a hotel. But providence smiled on us again after such a wonderful day that a girl at a bus stop offered to share her taxi with us as it was going right past our destination. We stepped out of the cab, no worse for wear, wondering what it was that we had done to get such amazing Karma. We decided to delegate it to the proposition of pay it forward and know you find me as I currently am.... drinking a glass of glorious wine, typing this blog, cursing my camera, and feeling the effects of no sleep, excitement wearing down, and the stresses of the last days taking over. So goodnight my friends... tomorrow I leave for Madagascar and hope to be able to write in the next month or so again. I have no idea what to expect or what I can assume as the major thing Niger taught me was to expect everything and nothing at the exact same time. That way you are open and optimistic and never dissapointed. Love you all and good night!

As many of you may have heard, through the media or other sources of international gossip, we trainees of Niger 2009-2011 are now to be the trainees of Madagascar 2009-2012. Due to the increase of kidnapping attempts, whether failed or no, the powers that be have decided it is much easier and safer for all involved that we should be relocated. So, through teary goodbyes, many tears by the way, we are readying ourselves to part on Sunday. A day lay-over in Paris will lift the mood and the promises that await us in Madagascar cant be ignored. An island with every climate one could imagine; many of us find ourselves wondering what activity we will be entertaining, whether cliff diving, scuba, snorkel, swim, hiking, camping, exploring rain forests etc...

I will be switching to teaching English and couldn't be more excited. I actually requested from our director to get switched and am now so thankful since it has actually occurred. I will more than likely be posted in a bigger city which means more blogs ( start celebrating now), electricity and maybe, just maybe, lots of kids for me to work with! I teach 15 hours a week and during summer breaks will be looking for internships with the many local national parks... I can only hope to work with one of the aquatic parks. Can you imagine! Oh my gawd I AM SO FREAKING EXCITED!

I hope to write more in Paris during layover as we are now rushing off to purchases souvenirs, and see more of this city we are hesitant to leave.

All blessings come with some sacrifice it would seem and while I am sad to leave this beautiful country I cant help but look forward to this next step on my adventure.

Love you all...

I will post our new address as soon as I have it and if anyone has already sent something they will be forwarding to us as soon as possible.

Thanks for your support and I loved the cards!

I don't know how this happens and even as I am typing this post I am slightly nauseated. The most recent holiday in Niger was Tabaski, a holiday characterized by massive sheep slaughtering... which, while it is a fascinating and delicious process, ended up with my internals craving to be externals and a four day stay in the training infirmary. To make things short and sweet we went to a large and community wide prayer that was amazing, complete with camels and bejewelled horses, every one sporting new clothing, (many Obama shirts) , new shawls, new shoes, every completely decked in their finest. We slaughtered our sheep, we cooked it over and open spit all day and ate it at night. Our lunch while it was cooking... sheep intestines fried in oil. Then sheep intestines in sauce over rice, then sheep meat. As I tentatively tasted something that looked like a small intestine braided I could not help but wonder... if their insides don't digest this.. then how will my insides digest their insides? I ate it anyways, with much coaxing from my host family and hence the title of this entire piece... they tasted of bacon. Once you stop thinking about what it is your actually eating it is not that bad. Then, while you spend your days in the infirmary swearing a life style of vegetarianism, not thinking about it becomes a crucial point of your physical success.

My stomach is still crawling.

Oh an locusts, they taste like dried fish. Dad, the stuff we ate in china... this was a very mellow version.

I love Niger

Its hot, and not worth washing your feet but today on my way into Dosso I rode on the back of an open back truck, holding on for my life to the steel bars that made our passenger cage! For the last few days I have been visiting another current volunteer readying herself to leave for the states as her experience comes to a close and mine is just beginning. Loving my youthfull back every night, we slept on the floor, looked at star charts, killed a scorpion, saw a spider (the size of which I would love to never see again... you all know my intense... um... dislike?? of spiders) and discussed past and future plans with peace corps. Ive carried water on my head, which wasnt so bad since i cheated with my hands! :) Ive chassed chickens and goats out of gardens, weaved my way through a cattle market and found some tasty treats in deep oil fryers. Now, for a few more days we are all taking a break from our classes and schedules with our volunteers, and to be frank, it is a much needed rest.

I am loving everything about Niger and the other trainees I am working with. After the first few days you stop thinking about how much you are sweating and instead, look forward to the shower that comes before meals. When I am at training center I live with a host family with 13 children, all but two are grown and gone so my farm is actually quite quiet. I have 2 donkeys , 2 cats, 2 goats with their 2 babies, 2 chickens with their 6 chicks, and 2 guinnea hens which, I am hoping, soon become one of our dinners. I also have a frog that i have nicknamed Homer who loves to live under my water barrel in my bathroom to surprise my during midnight showers and come into my hut when its cold in the morning to surprise me when Im looking for clothes. I hate crickets but they are everywhere and completely unavoidable so the desensitization to their appearance is already underway. We at one point had a rooster but after my family found out it was the reason I wasnt sleeping it quickly became someones meal. That is how the people are out here. They are incredibly warm and welcoming and so excited to be teaching us our languages, helping us understand the local culture and helping us experience the local food. The weirdest thing I have eaten that I will never eat again... cow heart. It was dark or it would not have been consumed. But, due to social norms, I couldnt spit it out and so proceeded to chew for the next 5 min trying to drown the tase in water. Goat meat was a welcome change from that meal. On the topic of food we have discovered to vital necessities to life in Niger... one is something called Solani.. a fresh yogurt you drink out of the bag that supposedly comes in flavors...the other... ice water in bag. Its safe to drink and makes the day much worth the dust and heat.

Our first market experience came and went.... I ended up buying two fabric.. one which I have made into a gorgeous green flowy skirt, the other I am plotting to turn into a purst and possibly a wallet... once i find a ruler the sewing shall begin.

Im absolutely loving it out here.. even though I am not a heat person (our first market was mid day at 116F) and the idea of spiders bigger than my feet frighten any possibility of comfort without our mosquito nets. The land itself and the people are absolutely beautiful and the only intimidation I have felt so far has been due to the language that I am slowly getting a hold of... Hausa!

I cant wait to get to my post and finally settle in for the next few years.Many people have pets, some even have camels and donkeys! So wild!.. this next week we will be going over gardening, planting options and more on the health concerns of the country...

I miss home and love everyone...Letters are going out, although postage is quite expensive so I am sending multiples at a time.. so if you are wondering why its taking so long thats why!

Love- Devyn

Ps- Video and pics to come!

The first euros have been used!!! The Purchases: A lox, egg and cucumber sandwich on wheat and 30min on an internet computer.

We have been travelling since 7am wednesday morning... local time: 9:20 am with an hour to go before the final flight into Niamey.... excitement is running high as we get closer and closer to our destination of choice...nerves, expectations, wonders... they never cease as we, a training group of 39, drift in and out of sleep ( whenever possible) and transportation methods.

I have to say two things... 1) thank you to all of you who made my last days at home the most memorable... it is these memories I will cherish when I am feeling the longing for my home, family, and running water...

and 2)I am truely honored to understand how much many of you care about me and my adventures.. It was overwhelimingly touching and I hope to keep you as updated and connected with our happenings as possible.

The run down so far... upon arriving to King of Prussia, PA there was a mistake with my room arrangements so I actually didnt have a room ready... all taken care of no biggie... the next day excitment continued to build as all 39 of us crowded into on of the many conference rooms at the Radison Hotel, in Valley Forge, and began the process of departure. We shared fears, expectations, wonders, and fun things we had learned about the country we are about to call home. Talks of safety, expectations, and details only increased what we were already feeling about our decision. Many of us are recent college grads, some finally pursuing what they dreamed, and all eager and anxious to meet a new culture, a new people, and explore a part of the world foreign to us back at home. The next morning at 7am we were checked out and excitedly chatting in the lobby. 7:30 boarding busses, head counts, laughing and promptly, upon departure.. sleep. The entire bus.. out... since of course, noone had any sleep the night before. We travelled to historic downtown philly to get SHOT!!! By yellow fever innoculations.. the first of...9?... innoculations we are to receive... I hate needles.

Flight #1 most recently completed was JFK airport at 7pm Wed night to Paris, France at 8:10 am thursday morning. A long, decently comfortable flight with a decent meal and a screaming child many of us will never forget. And french... a new language filtered our hearing preparing us for arrival into Paris. Standing in our second security line of the morning many of us looked around realizing that we were foreigners... some for the first time... we spoke english to each other and hesitatingly spoke french to the officers and clerks within the airport and know you have reached to where we have begun this tale. For 3 euros I am able to write to you this letter, and for 5euros I am able to eat my sandwich. The next few days will be quick and without much rest... once we land in Niamey we will be ushered off for a 45min drive in Peace corps vehicles to the training center in Niger. Orientation, dinner, sleep ( we hope) for an early breakfast at 7am the following morning and our true training begins. We are excited, and all filled with the same hopes and expectations and dreams of helping others and embarking on this terrific adventure. And with that I say au revoir to all of you and hope you all a wonderful week.... Till I am able to write again....

Love- Devyn