mahay mpahandro izy!

learning to read in the winter

sisters

at the university

dont even try to take her book away!

lil brother

1:44 pm

August 6, 2011

Peace Corps House

Antananarivo, Madagascar

Dear Everybody:

It has now been winter on the island for almost two months, and I write you wearing all of my clean shirts (three), curled up next to the radiator and having just put some bread in the oven. The flour we used was old and lumpy, but I’m fairly certain that I bake bread for the smell more than for the consumption, so I’m not too worried—just glad to have an oven and be near a radiator for a while. And the house already smells less like generators and more like warmth.

As you may have presumed, I’m not currently at my site but in the capital city. The reasons for this are several—first, I just saw of my first visitors at the airport. Second, the doctors / dentists / optometrists live in the city and I needed to see them all. Third, it’s our summer break and there are no classes, so I have time to travel a bit. (To be honest I really want to go home, but I can’t until the doctors are done with me. . . blah.) So let’s deal with the end of school, then vacation, then future plans, then some lists. So if you want to just scroll down and read the lists, Eva—no problem!

So, school ended on July 15th. My learning curve throughout this year was steep to the very last, and all I can say is I’m eager to begin a new academic year with less naivety and fear and with, to be honest, a great deal more excitement. Not that one year can ever adjust you to a culture, but I do know quite a few more words that I used to, which will help, and instead of being awed at the patchy ceilings and bat-infested roofs or marveling at both the smells and smiles emanating from my students, maybe we can get to work. I hope so anyway. Fellow volunteers have helped me to adjust my English Club to better fit the needs of my community, and I plan to run two special courses over the coming year, one on “English and the Environment” and another, yet untitled, focusing on higher education, computer literacy, etc. So I guess now I’ve already jumped to future plans, but it’s hard not to as I’m currently quite excited about them. Ok, ok, back to the past. . .

Perhaps one reason I find it difficult to talk about the final trimester of school is that very little work is done from May to July. School is petering out and students—even hardworking ones—stop coming. June 26 is the day of independence here, and classes are unattended for a week, and then exams start. No one comes to class after exams, even though they are supposed to do so. There is, like most systems in Mcar, absolutely no intelligible rhyme or reason to the structure of exams in this country, unless it is to help students fail. Which a good portion of mine did. Passing English wasn’t the problem for them, however. If one came to class, did the work, and tried, one passed my class—but when both the Malagasy and French teachers quit before the halfway mark and those two exams must still be taken—and passed—to pass the grade level, well, I’ll be seeing a lot of my students again next year.

Bread’s ready! Be back in a moment.

Mmmm, delicious.

Ok, so after exams were completed, I took off for vacation. My first stop was Fianarantsoa, where I work with a university group and have become friends with a few of the guys. So I met up with them, a few volunteers, and went south for a day to see JERRY MARCOS perform. Jerrry Marcos may be the most famous living singer in Mcar, and it was lovely to get to see him live. My favorite moment was when, during a song where you’re supposed to flip your hair, he called out “hey blonde white girl in the middle of the crowd, flip your hair.” (Which, of course, I did.)

The next day, Brittany and I took an 8 hour taxi-brousse up to the capital to meet Betsy, David, and Eva, fresh from South Africa. (Yes, I cried when they stepped out of customs. Yes, I cried again on the taxi. . . ). There is no way to explain what seeing faces from America was like—I have not interacted with anyone that is not Malagasy or Peace Corps for over a year (except via email / gchat), and although they’ve been gone a week I’m still shuddering with the impact that their trip had on me. I now (yay!) know I have couches to sleep on when (if ever) I go back. . . they are truly my closest family. Ok enough feelings (get over it I have feelings).

So, first we went out to Morondava to see baobabs and—for Brittany and I—a new part of the country. Sea food, broken-down taxis, beautiful sunsets, plenty of beer, a few hair-and-ear-cuts, some mild dehydration, and we made it back to Antsirabe, a city on the central plateau. A highlight there was getting to watch an artisan as he crafted a bird out of zebu horn—which I then bought for $1.50. After this we finally made it to Ifanadiana, where we spent two days being absolutely swarmed by children. Seven of these kids permanently live at my house, and so I was ready for the onslaught—it was both fun and tiring for my guests, I think. It was, however, amazing to see the village through my friends’ eyes and try to remember what it was like when I first arrived. On one of our last nights they admitted to me that when I said I was extending and planned to live in Mcar for 3 years, none of them believed me—having been here, however, they know it’s a serious possibility.

So, we rushed back up to Tana and made all the flights on time, at which point I came to the Peace Corps house where I have sat for five days as the doctors attempt to discover whether I have Schistosomiasis or some inflammatory intestinal disease. I’m hoping for the former, as it’s easier to get rid of. . either way, I love PC health care more than I can say! I’m stuck here until at least Tuesday, so if anyone wants to skype / videochat / etc, let me know!

As far as future plans go, I’m working on putting together a library with a teacher from the middle school that I work at—super exciting for me, especially as the woman I’m working with seems to be as eager as I am. There is are already quite a few kids books sitting at my house, waiting for shelves, and I just stopped buy the US Embassy to pick up some more, and my family is helping me set up some book drives for when I’m home in December. If anyone is interested in helping out—do just let me know! Dictionaries for every kid, right? You’ll be hearing about this project with great regularity, I hope, but for now it’s still in the first stages.

I’m going to attach a few pictures and upload this letter to my blog, but this is all the writing I can do for now, folks. If I’m stuck in the city for much longer I’ll send out those lists I promised at the opening of this letter . . . til then, be well, do good work, and stay in touch!

All my love,

Rebekah

“What I think’, said Anna, toying with the glove she had pulled off, ‘is that as there are as many minds as there are heads, so there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.” Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

“I am unable to submit to a dark power that assumes the shape of a tarantula” The Idiot, Fydor Dostoevsky

“Honey, are you incapable of complexity?” Mountains beyond Mountains, Tracy Kidder

So, it’s really not possible to fill you in on all the happenings of these last few months, so I won’t try. Instead, let’s just aim for a picture of my day, today, Wednesday the 18th of May, 2011 (the day of the apocalypse and the year of parrot fever). Hrm.

I woke up about five-thirty to a cat stepping in my ear, as she does most mornings and normally throughout every night. Her name is Killer, and she was hungry. However, since she is the most picky of cats, she stayed hungry until just now (about 9 am), as she refused to eat the fish I bought for her yesterday. What sort of cat doesn’t like fish? I ask you. The pump, about 50 meters away, wasn’t running yet, so I couldn’t get any water to wash my face or hands or dishes, but that doesn’t matter over much because I might not have washed any of those things were the pump running, and it always comes on eventually, so I just had to wait. So, I wrote up an exam, started a letter to my sister, and bustled down to a local bread-and-coffee shop for some breakfast before class.

The shop sells coffee, tea, and four kinds of fried bread—mofomeneka, mofosira, mofogasy, mofografe. My favorite is the mofografe, although I do not know what “grafe” is in English, or even if I am spelling it correctly. It’s a round piece of bread, about one inch in diameter and half an inch thick, and delicious. Class didn’t start until 7:30, so I had plenty of time to chat with the other breakfasters and wave to the waves of students walking by-- “Good Morning Miss!” “Miss Rebekah! Good Afternoon!” “Good Morning Ferdinand, morning Tojo! Hello Josianne! Akory aby!” Its lovely. I love mornings, even the cold ones that have now descended upon the Vatovavy region, mist and quiet and kittens and palm trees. If my family were here, life would be perfect.

So, after breakfast, I wander off to the CEG (middle school) to give my 6th graders an exam. Along the way my neighbor stopped me and said, not to worry, she filled my buckets because the pump started running, and then ran down the hill to catch me and let me know, so I wouldn’t worry during class. I also had to stop and talk to about 53 vendors of various things, so it took me half an hour to make the seven minute walk to class. All 60 of my students showed up today (as they knew there would be an exam), but after glancing over their tests it appears as though the large majority cannot yet remember what present simple is. Of course, there are a few kids that can not only conjugate in their sleep but also remember ever single word I’ve ever taught them, plus a few that have just fallen out of my mouth. So the realities of my work here represent themselves—the situation does not promote retention, to put it lightly. Sixty kids to a class, no lights, no books, class three hours a week if I’m lucky, no word for “to be” in their language, English puts an “s” on plurals but there’s also that “s” on the end of puts. . so many puts? Many people put? Poor kids. Malagasy doesn’t pluralize anything either.

However, the kids are awesome—all smiles. I’m so lucky to know them. Teaching the 6eme is an absolute treat.

And now I’m home. My way home from class took about half an hour as well, since the frip vendors were out and about. . . “frip” being the Malagasy term for second-hand Western clothing. Imagine the best thrift store you’ve ever been to, and that’s market day. We don’t sell cool little knick-knacks—those are at the tourist markets. For us, it’s all made in china or sent from America. As with any thrift store, the range in quality is astronomical—but never have I owned such hilarious and diverse clothing. For example: dress-pant-overalls, snake-skin pants, a kimono, t-shirts so priceless any hipster would murder for them. At about a dollar per item, it’s not a bad way to dress myself. The mother of two of the neighbor kids—my very favorite two, if you check on facebook you’ll see they’re everywhere—stopped me while I was looking at the frip and asked me why I hadn’t been to visit lately. . I was over on Sunday, and I’ve truly been busy ever since. . . it’s already Wednesday! I guess I’ll need to stop by.

But when? At 12:30 I’m meeting some other teachers for a volleyball game. I’m not sure where we got the net, but it appeared a bit ago and, as my Malagasy still leaves pretty much everything to be desired, I jumped at the chance to spend time around the other teachers doing something that does NOT involve talking. Plus, I’m pretty good at volleyball, for a Malagasy person. I get pretty discouraged sometimes, so it’s nice to feel like I’m doing anything well. . . even though, in America, my volleyball skills are such that I never left the bench in high school. There is a life lesson somewhere in that, but I’ll let you find it for yourselves. I’d like a paragraph of at least five sentences, due on Monday.

Then, at 2, there is English Club for my 2nd students (10th grade). I think I’m going to make them write poems today. Last week we did American Easter—complete with hunting and dying and eating eggs. Tell me, why exactly does a rabbit leave eggs? English Club is either the best part of my week or the worst—usually dependent on my mood going into it, if you can believe that. Soon as this letter is finished, I’ve got to do some lesson planning for that—just a little. Lessons are, in my opinion, much better if you plan less and just focus more on what’s going on when you get there and start learning. (Kitten is now trying to eat my face.)

English Club will be done around four, at which point hopefully I’ll correct these papers. There will be an exam in the second section of 6th grade tomorrow, but I really dislike correcting more than 60 papers a day, so if I do today’s today, and tomorrow’s tomorrow, I’ll be all caught up and ready to leave for the city on Friday after class. It’s a volunteer’s last weekend, so we’re all going in to say goodbye. Also, I have the chance to go to a famadiana (when you take your ancestors out of their tombs and rewrap them) on Saturday, which I really hope works out. At some point I’ll make cookies, as I have no oven but there’s one I can use in the city. Make cookies and drink beer. Heavenly bliss of activity. Then, Sunday, there’s some sort of poetry slam that I’m going to try to find. I met some of the poets a couple weeks ago, and my friend introduced them to PennSound and Andrea Gibbson—I was too shy to talk to them, of course.

I mean, it’s a village teacher’s life. It’s really not all that exciting, but I like it—I like making fun of the ducklings that live right by my house and think they’re chickens, playing with my kids. I like teaching and teaching again, reading and reading again, feeding the cat and making soup for myself. There is still a lot of work I need to do before I can hope for any big projects—for example, making friends with adults—but I’ve started talking with the other English teachers here in Ifanadiana and we’ll see what happens. For some reason, May has been a homesick month—probably because everyone is graduating and I have no idea what is happening in anyone’s life—also likely because I was sick the first bit of it. Also, I think living on your own in a new culture teaches you more about yourself than you ever really wanted to know. I mean, living itself can also teach one more about oneself than one wanted to know.

In other news: MY SISTER IS HAVING A BABY. Which is probably the most unbelievable and amazing fact I could possibly communicate. It also means that I’ll likely be coming home (courtesy of MomDadKatie’s frequent flier miles) in December. So if anyone wants to hit up the Grand Forks / Fargo holiday hotspot. . . it would be great to see you! And to Eva, David, and Besty. . . I look forward to your visit every day. Bella, Valeria, Stephanie. . I expect you to purchase tickets soonsoon.

Tomorrow, May 19th, marks the 10th month anniversary of my departure from America. Just fyi.

Let’s see, what else? If you have access to facebook, you’ll see that I was able to take a trip up to Mahajunga—a city in the Northwest—for Easter. Saw the Mozambique Channel, baobabs, spent a lot of time in taxi-brousses, listened to too much Paul Simon. (never too much Paul Simon!). Then I went all the way back through Ifanadiana and over to the East coast—to the Indian Ocean, a city called Manakara. It was lovely to get to see more of the country, that’s for sure. I’m looking forward to the end of school (July 15th!) and getting to take another trip somewhere. Also, I’m buying a computer off this volunteer that is leaving, so hopefully I’ll be able to resume writing individual emails, like I did that one time in January—and keep in contact with each one of you. Erica, Philicia, Bella, Tim, Eva, Mel, Family—I already owe each of you long emails. They will come, I promise! For your constant support and friendship I am so grateful—I was so afraid of being forgotten, but here I am 10 months in and as remembered as when I was next to you, chattering away. You can’t know what a gift that is to me, and how it encourages me in my work and life here.

And I’m off! I’ll send this out on Friday, return the computer I’ve borrowed to its owner, and try to catch as many of you as possible on gchat.

xx

Rebekah Rose

“The only real, practical, hope-giving way to remedy the fragmentation that is the disease of the modern spirit is a small and humble way-a way that a government or agency or organization will never think of, though a person may think of it: one must begin in ones own life the private solutions that can only in turn become public solutions.” –Wendell Berry

“There is no posterity in eternity” (Steppenwolf, Hesse)

Dear Friends:

For those of you with facebook accounts, I strongly encourage you to disregard this email and simply peruse my recent album, “library club.” It gives a much better idea of my life than this email will be, but I do want to send out something wordy as well. My computer is broken (again), otherwise I would have continued my policy of typing up individual emails and sending those out instead of a massive update, since I find myself very much missing individuals rather than masses. However, for the present time this will have to do.

So, news. Just a warning before the email proper: I’ve been pretty sick all day—not sure what I’m dealing with, but it involves throwing up and a very infected ankle. Thus, I feel like my typing sounds tired. Please don’t be mislead—I’ve never been happier, I just don’t have the desire to enthuse at the moment.

The most exciting part of my life is Library Club, which is officially Wednesday afternoons from 2-4 pm. But not a day goes by without someone stopping by to read. Library Club, as an official event, only came about because I wanted a way to feed my kids snacks without them expecting peanuts and bananas every day. So, every Wednesday there are snacks. . but every day, there are books and magazines, pencils and paper and dictionaries, silly pictures of life in America and chalk-drawing marathons at Miss Rebekah’s house.

Having grown up surrounded by books, swum through libraries, majored in English Literature, etc, it was quite the culture shock to realize the written word as luxury. I am so lucky to be able to provide access to books. . . ack. This is why you should just look at the pictures, yall. Anyway, there is an NGO near me that had these kid’s books in boxes. And I took them—I even have books in Malagasy, which is great. I have to give them back eventually, but since Betsy, Eva, and David are visiting me in July. . I’m hoping for replacements. (hey, Betsy, Eva, David—want to bring some kids books?). So. . Library Club isn’t turning into very interesting writing. I mean, we sit around and read books together. I try to translate “Going on a Bear Hunt” into Malagasy, but there are no bears here. We tell each other stories using the pictures of the books I can’t translate. They write lists and lists of vocabulary words and show up in class with examples I didn’t teach them.

Because of the pace of the days / lack of computer / social interaction, I also have turned my head into a private library and I just wish I had left life and read for 7 months straight a long time ago. I thought that perhaps I’d send out my list of books I’ve read since being here instead of an update, because it’s interesting to see what English books end up in the Peace Corps circuit, but that’s on my computer, too.

I’m liking teaching more and more—I don’t want my kids to pass into the next level come July. Although I do, of course, want them to pass. . I don’t! I still don’t have any adult friends but that’s partly because I don’t have any babies. In Madagascar (at least in my village) you’re very much a kid until you have kids. So the other teachers / “grown-ups” don’t really know what to do with me, because I don’t have any babies, and answer “never” to “oh but when will you have babies?”

Which is fine by me, adults are kind of creepy.

So this is all for now, folks. My Amazing Dad sent me a new battery / power cord for my computer, so you may hear from me again quite soon. And I do hope to hear from you! Although, I must admit that I am overwhelmed by how many of you have not forgotten me. It gets pretty lonely, at times, but even after seven months I can log onto the internets and you still want to know how I am, I have emails and letters and chats and encouragements. I miss you so much—the most difficult thing is knowing that what I miss, my life in Philly, won’t ever exist again and so my homesick becomes directionless and it all gets very sad—but there has been always someone there to remind me that I’m loved by people with whom I can converse fluently, and that I do have the ability to converse fluently and retain friendships. . . sense. This email makes none. Better luck next time!

Sambatra be i aho.

all my love,

Rebekah Rose

My dear and most dear public:

I write you this in great hopes of an internet access tomorrow; if that turns out to not be the case, hello from the past and I post this with an accompanying update. But whew. What to say?

I believe I left off pre-site visit, so here is a bit about the place I will be living and teaching come the end of September (school starts on October 11th, but I will [lord willing] sign in as an official volunteer on the 22nd of September—somewhere between swear-in and school-start I will move), Ifanadiana:

Located in the central south-east of Madagascar, Ifanadiana is the district capital which means its Lycee (high school) is fed into by the surrounding areas. From what I understood (my Malagasy being shaky to say the least, and was even more unsure the weeks ago that I was in Ifan), I will be teaching 2nd, or about 10th grade, as well as one class at the CEG, or the jr high. English is taught from 6eme-or about 6th grade-on, and the classes should be at pretty different levels. There are either 317 students total at the Lycee or I will be teaching a total of 317 students, if that helps any of you to predict my upcoming years please let me know.

Although the district capital, Ifan is quite small—seven and a half thousand is the official population count, but I was already recognizing many faces on my second day. I think everyone recognized me before I even arrived, however, as I will be the only white resident. The paved road that serves the SE of Mada runs through the town, and it takes about 30 minutes for the taxi-brousse to get through the 1 or 2 k that my town takes up, as we make the road into our market whenever we feel like it. One day, as I waited for this taxi-brousse to Ranamafana (where I stayed as there is no hotel and Ifan, and my house is currently devoid of a stable roof, bed, stove. . . pretty much a concrete block. Leaky concrete tho.) I saw another white person (or “vazaha”), and I stared at him in as much shock as those around me did—and then ended up having dinner with him in the next village that night, as he was a friend of another volunteer. Figures.

Ranamafana, literally “warm water,” is right next to a huge national park; the best description I’ve been able to come up with is that it looks like Colorado, but with a rainforest on top of it. Never having seen a rainforest before August, I guess that description may not make it much more clear to my friends in Philadelphia—so, um, there was a lot of water. I will try to get Matt to post a few pictures I sent him, as I still can’t access my blog (Mike, I think you’re right about blogspot; soon I will try to move to wordpress!), though they may actually do less justice to the beauty of it than my words. Once you see the picture you may think you know what this area of Madagascar looks like—but it doesn’t do two dimensional very well. If I could say that viewing it has changed the way I see without sounding preposterous, I would. Dad, you were so missed every moment of my time in the rainforesty mountains. We climbed nearly vertically up past a waterfall—four hours of hiking and I didn’t want to stop, but we had to come back and finish training.

There is a banana tree that grows out of my kabone, and a banana field on my walk to school—other consumables along this dirt path are papayas, sugar cane, jackfruit, a fruit I can’t remember the name of, oranges, and avocados. Pretty great, if one can handle the cyclones. Which apparently cancel school for a while each January.

Since returning to the training village, so much has happened that everything I could tell you already feels like old news. We are two weeks into student teaching, one week to go, and my host dad has started to drink every night (I can hear him vomiting as I type)—he knows I don’t approve, and as I am about a foot taller than him he won’t look at me or even eat dinner with us if he is drunk, but as soon as I leave he and my host mother start to fight. It makes me so sad, part of me wants to leave and most of me wants to punch his face. But, as I am a giant by Gasy standards (my host mother doesn’t believe I don’t play basketball. “But you are so tall and strong!” She says.) I don’t, as my presence is terrifying enough to keep him quiet. The baby cries all night, every night, which may turn out to be really effective family planning—I’m good with being an aunt, forever.

At first I thought my 2 year old sister was a devilchild, but at least a silly one. However, after playing hide-and-seek around the courtyard, letting her scribble on my books, and giggling wildly while we waited for the rice to be ready, at some point I became quite good friends with this two-year-old. As my (real) family knows, I like kids but only really click with a few of them—and little Fiti has a place in my heart forever. She is, yes, a little crazy but she also never, ever gets rocked, or sung to, or hugged. Part of this is that Malagasy people don’t hug (which, I have to tell you, makes me much more sad than I thought it would), part of it is that her dad still wants to be 18 and her mom has a sick 7 month old and is so young. Now, I hardly get home but Fiti runs up to me and, instead of hitting me or yelling, as she used to do, she snuggles. I’m starting to think she purposely tries to fall asleep on my lap, and she loves “rock a bye baby” as much as “froggy went a-courtin,” to say nothing of “swing low, sweet chariot” and “dream a little dream of me.” Which are, apparently, the only songs to which I know all the words. Actually, if someone could send me the lyrics to “froggy went a-courting” that would be awesome. I love that song.

In other news, I absolutely love rice. Call it Stockholm syndrome if you will, but I love the stuff. Seriously. We had pasta the other night and it’s just so. . slimy. Noodles are weird. Rice is quickly becoming my favorite food. So good. Not that I don’t miss foods. . . I really, really do. Oatmeal. Ketchup. What I miss more is not being able to cook for myself—which will change when I get to site, so it’s not as big of a deal.

I really feel as though this email / blogpost is so long that it will only be read by my Mother, and Sarah (who is, by the way, the best correspondent in the world. I usually have a few minutes in the AM before I head out to teach my class of volunteer Gasys, and her letters are treasures that I can reread every day). But, to reward the few of those who made it, here are a few of my favorite tidbits so far:

1. One of the host gifts I brought was a Frisbee. Not being able, at first, to explain what it was for, it sat on our window sill for about a week, while the family must have pondered its use. Now, it is clear—we eat out of it every night. And I don’t have the heart to say it’s something that is supposed to be thrown around when it makes such a nice blue plate.

2. I no longer have to sleep 12 hours a night. It’s more like eight. But I’m getting up earlier and earlier. I love it. Mornings are the best time.

3. I had a bruise on my hip for the first week and a half of sleeping at my host family’s house cause the bed was so hard.

4. Today it was so cold that when I opened the well-covering my glasses fogged over. I LOVE wells.

5. I can wear sarongs (here called lambahonys) all the time and look less weird than if I was wearing anything else. Awesome.

6. I read so much. So so much. But if anyone wants they could send me a copy of Julian of Norwich, which I should have brought. But I’m actually a good way through this massive book on WWI, and I supplement it with a constant supply of poetry and fiction. Mmmm delicious.

7. Malagasy is starting to make sense. I am working on learning the passive form of all the verbs—or as many as I can. It’s not required, but it’s how people actually talk—and learning that is kinda more important to me than passing the test.

8. My computer broke, I may be able to fix it in Tana I may not. This is not a favorite thing just a thing that seems to me very important, because I liked having the music and the typing and the pictures on it. And excel sheets are so much tidier than graph paper when doing grades, even if one has to copy it down onto paper when term is done.

9. Oh! I should tell you about teaching! Well, for starters, there are no books. The students have notebooks into which they copy everything you put on the blackboard and thus become their textbooks. My handwriting is already improving, no way am I going to have students who think “th” and “m” are the same letter, as they appear when I write. These copybooks of the students are incredibly tidy, fascinating worlds to me. I love putting an exercise on the board and then walking through the rows and looking at English as a foreign language, realizing through their errors what I should have been teaching. I can’t wait to have my own class, though I hope I do not teach the 6eme. Every class ends with me a little terrified about the fact that I have students, a little in love with English, covered in chalk, and anxious to learn Malagasy.

10. In one of my dreams, I was playing in the bars in New Orleans with Snoop Dogg. He was on the sax—I played organ.

11. I actually prefer washing my hair outside, with a bucket, to showering at the training center. Water pressure isn’t great there, and although it is normally very cold and rainy, one only really needs to wash her hair when it is sunny, otherwise one should be wearing a hat. So, when it is sunny, I wash my hair. Which makes very real the excuse “I’m sorry, I can’t, I have to wash my hair. . . “ cause it’s true. When it’s sunny I do not hang out, I bathe.

12. Gasy love Celine Dion and Shakira. I’ve started listening to Brahms like he’s ear-crack tho. Which he kind of is.

Ok, well, thanks for listening, and check back next time for a possibly more concise post. Please know that I think of you so often—always I miss telling you the little things, because Tim should know how proud my host family was when I turned out to be really “good” at killing chickens, and the mist rising of the rice paddies every morning needs Bella to watch it while we open Greenline together. (not that I miss greenline). I want to eat birds’ feet with Stephanie, ask River a million questions, walk down the dirt road wearing lambahony with Valeria. . . talk about teaching with Betsy, have my family around me. And Matt, I’ll have you know that the other volunteers don’t ask me why I “look so happy today!” anymore, they’re like, oh, how is Matt, he must have called.

If you send me anything, send me letters. Use specific words, I miss them--tell me whatever it is you are learning, I miss facts--and news of your lives these past weeks.

xx and all my love,

Rebekah

Ps: I forgot to tell you, witches are a very serious business in Madagascar, and on the plateau they are owls during the daytime. At night they are naked women. Coastal areas don’t believe in them as much but. . owl earings have retired, wordpress blog will likely have less phonetically pleasing name. Don’t need anyone thinking the new mpampianatra is anything unholy.

My students always want to write “Miss Rebekaha.”

My Dear and Most Dear Public:

I write you on this, the tenth day of September, not having sent my previous email / update. However, I will at some point have internet again, therefore here is some more chatter about life in Madagascar. This update will contain two lists, one story, and two poems, if I can keep it at that.

To begin, here are those things which, upon my arrival, shocked me, but now appear normal. If I can remember what was surprising so short ago.

1. Lack of internet, for one. I don’t really even miss the thing. I have a book on WWI which contains much more information than I would likely learn in a month of pursing the headlines, albeit the format has taken me some acclimatization. Also, I’ve quite easily adjusted to getting 1-4 texts per week, and one phone call, rather than whatever enormous amount I thought normal in the States. I still keep my phone on me at all times—part security blanket, partly the fact that its flashlight is really, really bright and handy.

2. Kabones. Six by six inch square hole in the ground, bring your own toilet paper. Most natural thing in the world.

3. Rice. See previous post attached. Well, semi-previous, cause I guess you will be receiving these simultaneously. But I sure hope you don’t read them at the same time—no one needs that much news.

4. Umbys (zebu, or horned and humped cows) taking up as much of the road as they can.

5. Chickens everywhere. EVERYWHERE. The first few times they wandered in while we were at dinner I did a double take, but now I just want to eat their eggs.

6. No mirrors. I am so used to seeing myself, but I kind of see out of myself more that there’s no way to see my whole self at once.

7. Filtering my water, then adding bleach to it before drinking it. I was talking about faucets with one of my friends today—we just couldn’t believe that water is so forced, and seems so natural to us in the states.

8. Being called “teacher” as I walk down the street.

9. Dirt. Just kinda a fact of life, it’s everywhere, and most things don’t smell good.

So, story time.

Once upon a time there was a very happy girl. Her name was Rebekah. She lived in America, and really liked to listen to music. She also liked to sing and to dance. However, she did not truly know the importance of music. Rebekah would listen to the same singer every day, and not realize that his songs were not always very fun. She thought she loved a band called “The Grateful Dead,” but she didn’t know that she had yet to progress from “like” to “love.” No one knows why this was. Perhaps Rebekah spent too much time listening to music that actually belonged to boys that she liked. Perhaps Rebekah spent too much time looking in the mirror to for anything to get in her ears. Whatever the reason, Rebekah’s life was happy, but not full. Then, one day and for no reason at all, Rebekah moved to an island called Madagascar. In Madagascar, there is a lot of music. It can best be described as “island” music, and always sung in a language that Rebekah doesn’t know. Sometimes they play imported music in Madagascar, and then Rebekah sings along to lyrics that she is very glad her host mother does not understand, because they are dirty. She began listening to her ipod sometimes, and each time found herself unable to focus on the book in front of her, or to sleep. You see, the music she had always known had been separated from every-day use, and Rebekah was beginning to understand that this was magic coming in her ears. While Rebekah was learning this, she was student teaching at the local Malagasy High School. The last week of this student teaching, the student teachers were put into groups and were instructed to review for, proctor, and correct an exam. Rebekah was put in a group with Israel, who plays the banjo, and Josh, who plays the guitar. So, at eight am one Sunday morning, Rebekah and Israel ran into each other on the main street. Israel was going to the market to buy some greens. Rebekah was waiting for Israel and Josh, who had both forgotten that they were supposed to write a test that day. So then Israel remembered, and they went and bought some greens and some wafers. They found Josh at the market, too, because there are not many places to be in villages. Josh, Israel, and Rebekah went to Israel’s house to write a lesson. But first Josh played a song on his guitar, because he loves the guitar but did not have one for two months and he could not stop playing it, even to plan a lesson. He was very good at the guitar. He played the “Tennessee Waltz.” Suddenly, even Rebekah forgot about lesson planning (Israel had already reforgotten), because she was singing along to the banjo and guitar, and waltzing to herself with words that she and Israel were trying to learn. They learned the waltz. Then, Israel and Josh began to play “Sugar Magnolia” and Rebekah’s life was changed.

Israel, Josh, and Rebekah decided that singing was most fun, so they taught the “Tennessee Waltz” to their class as a review. All of the students later got wonderful grades on the test, because music is a great teaching tool. Well, all except one but that student is not smart. Israel and Rebekah also taught the students how to Waltz, because the classes are two hours long and it did not take two hours to hand back tests. It is also very fun to watch 10th graders try to both touch and not touch each other. But then, after about half an hour or so of the same song, everyone got bored with the Waltz. So Josh started playing some swing music. Israel turned to Rebekah and asked, “Hey, do you know how to swing?” and apparently she did, because they were soon demonstrating every swingin’ flip around the world that your grandfather learned in WWII. Soon they had to move outside because everyone wanted to learn, or at least watch, the dancing. Now, there is always singing. Savannah, Rebekah’s friend, knows the words to every Grateful Dead song, which is good because Rebekah does not have very many of them on her ipod and her computer is very, very broken. Josh and Israel and Rebekah like to write songs, but Rebekah can only write lyrics and sometimes sings off-key, so sometimes she just smiles along. Rebekah and her host mother put Malagasy words to the waltz tune, and sing around the kitchen—and her 2 year old sister loves to waltz around the courtyard. One of the language instructors is teaching Rebekah some Malagasy dances in return for booty-shaking lessons. (Not that the language instructor needs them.) Right now, Rebekah feels like she is not doing very much justice to this notable life-event. But she hopes you enjoyed her story, and now you know what texts are like for those learning English in Madagascar. Because I write them.

Whew, that took longer than expected. Final list for today: Things to which I Have Not Acclimatized.

1. Not seeing Matt every day.

2. The electric lights being so dark that I long for candles, but my host family is so glad to give me the electric lights that I can’t, can’t be seen with a candle.

3. My hands looking like they’ve spent all day outside (which they have)—and having a ring-tan on my married finger. It’s better if Gasy men think you’re married. Not that that really stops anyone. So, um, by the way Eva—I’m awearin yr ring.

4. The lack of health care for everyone who is not American.

5. No books in the schools. None.

I am sure there will be more not-used-to’s at site, but I have been living in the same place for two months now, and it’s pretty normal to m.

Ok, now two poems.

Notes On A Meeting in Madagascar, September 8, 2010

The wise elders

had a voice

during the end of the day.

When you hesitate, later

is unaffected—

though we are nervous

toward importing rice.

If they start shooting up

you may hear

in the villages, though

we see it a lot

& anytime soon.

So, again, our role

will continue for now—

to push. Which is complicated.

The second scenario:

leave office the way you did

neutral, and a lot worse

in an isolated area.

On the ground, they

calm them. You can’t

raise supply anymore.

Much is centralized. He

went back and forth. Right

now the name of the

region I don’t know, but

they used to be elected

six provinces, 22 regions, 119 districts,

some of these used to be

elected. That’s a story,

going back and forth.

Rice is still cheap on the island.

Not the Congo. A little

more average. Compare

99% in a positive light.

At the end of the day,

most people are too.

Notes on Cross Cultural SexEd, 10th of September 2010

Good. First, ready? Good.

yeah want to have prepared

more song yeah. does that mean

how do you say we’re

discussing our answer my girlfriend

won’t trust me, can you

use condoms every day?

what is small yeah his first question

oh. yeah. um it makes him

where did he say? youth.

do they have to stay here?

and that’s all for now, friends and dear family. if any of you want to work on the poems, go ahead! they’re yours for the playing.

xx and all my love,

Rebekah Rose

dear all:

first off, do not worry about me ever again or anymore, especially in

regards to the holiday season. my family seems to think that i am

without ANY amenities whatsoever (not true, i have an outlet!) and i

have received so much love and christmas goodies that i could float

home to high heaven, as i have been doing. i'll be spending christmas

with a few other volunteers, who are quickly becoming family--ally and

i just bought a cheap advent calender, too.

be ye forewarned, however: i am in shellnculture shock, still, and

promise no structure nor semblance thereof within this likely short

email.

first, i am in the capital again, as it is inservice training time.

which means that i am surrounded by other volunteers, internet,

chocolate, and christmas music. it is very, very hot, and i just

bought the largest flowers that i have ever seen in my life. they look

like they came from the set of Jurassic park or something. then again,

a lot of things in madagascar are prehistoric.

my teaching load should be lessening soon, which is an incredibly

needed occurrence. i grossly overestimated my natural talents in that

whole "work" arena, and can't wait for the arrival of another english

teacher come january. plus, perhaps that person will actually speak

english and can help me on my malagasy.

i've been thinking of the best way to describe the past two months,

but there is no way. ally (remember her from now on, she's becoming my

kambana (twin) and i spend one day a week together, and last week we

just looked at each other and said

well, my identity kind of hurts. i'm ready for a break. (which is

probably why they have inservice training about now). and then we

agreed that if we had known how hard this was going to be, we would

not have had the courage to come. my father says thus is the nature of

courage--i say, thus am i ever foolhardy. take your pick, i'm glad i'm

here, and i miss you all but i really don't yet want to come back.

being a good teacher is going to take me a very, very long time.

espeically as i am trying to learn to do so many other things.

. so, anyway, let's get a list going. here is a list of things i never

expected to see, or do, and which now i will never forget.

a grown man filling a waterbottle from a puddle

a 2 inch hernia on a naked, malnourished 2 year old

my friend elyse's face when she told me "rebekah, i have a problem. my

husband has a new wife and doesn't want to see his son"

my super smart student's face when i caught her giving answers to her

friend and gave her a zero.

the 6eme turning all the star stickers i gave them into jewlery (the

boys all made earings.)

a wooden carosel showing up in my town and turning the night into

banana-leaf carnivalic revelry, riding it 3 times in a row with

another grown woman who insisted that they play "wakawaka" each time.

the economic gap expressed so clearly in the classroom--my rich kids

have time to study, and food enough to think through things.

the gender equality being drastically better than one would ever

think. girls hit back, here. in the classroom, sometimes, which

becomes another kind of problem. . .

market day consisting of stall after stall of made-in-china plastic

that is going to end up on the ground, in the water supply, in our

food

at the big huge american-ish store in the capital today, a girl just

peeing out front

everyone just peeing everywhere

the look on my teacher's faces when i suddenly became a person to them

instead of "peace corps volunteer." i was crying, they finally

realized they should ask my name and stop just telling me how

wonderful marybeth (the previous volunteer) was.

unable to sleep at night, fireflies lighting up my room

planting a garden with elyse

coloring with the neighbor kids. they're allowed one sheet of paper a

day, and i always draw with them. we're still pretty shy of each

other, but we're starting to really get along. they teach me the words

of everything they draw.

having the most spoiled christmas of my life (thank you everybody)

the three "cool" boys in my 2nd deciding that i was "cool" and they

were going to try to learn english. learning that letting my students

laugh both with and at me is the best way to get them to remember

things.

you know what's awesome? malagasy people show ALL their emotions. now

that i'm not as scared as i was, i'm starting to fit right in.

lychee season is also upon us, my friends, which has changed my

perception of delicious. . . also, because i'm in the highlands, i

just had the first apple since arrival. i LOVE apples.

when i asked my friend why we couldn't put the trash somewhere that

was NOT the river, she told me not to worry, a storm would come and

take it away. this is seriously becoming a massive concern. i'll try

to get you pictures. its my hope to do something about it.

also, just to let you know:

my computer is fixed and coming back to me, soon instead of blog posts

i'm just going to send out stories! which will be much more fun to

read and should give you a better picture of my life here. but for now

i'm going to run around and speak english while i yet can. (i think my

english is changing, though.)

miss you all dearly, and do send me specific questions or anything

like that. i must honestly say that i have more support from home than

any volunteer i've yet encountered--thank you.

be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

so, nearly november, and I have so much to tell you and not an idea

how to do so. to begin, the setting, let's suppose.

October 29th, 12:12 pm, Fianarantsoa, Madagascar. I am sitting in the

PC house, which is currently a wreck due to "remodeling," waiting for

a car that is supposed to be coming down from Tana today. There are

rumors of packages and letters, and I will wait in this mess of a

sort-of-house until the umby come home to ascertain the validity of

the hesaidshesaid which makes up all the news-on-this-island. I've had

one letter from the states in the past month-and-a-week; eva, thank

you! ; and am really quiet desperate for the rest of them, as I KNOW

they exist. somewhere. (have I mentioned that I do feel over the

rainbow, at times? diametrically opposite of american life in all

ways, including the spatial.) however, my parents do call regularly,

so at least I know that america has not disappeared. yet.

I am in Fianarantsoa because it is the closest town with a bank, and I

ran out of money. Mada is a completely cash economy, so whenever I run

out I have to take a taxi-brousse into Fianar (Ally came to my site

yesterday; we woke up at 4 and were on the brousse by 4:30. I love

this country for knowing that day starts as soon as possible and ends

when it's dark) and spend two days away from site, trying to get

myself paid. And buying spices. because I really, really like them. I

miss spices more than chocolate or ice cream. I found cumin today, and

some cloves, and a few others, spent a ridic amt of money on them.

Totally worth it. You see, now that I am teaching about 350-400

students every week, I find myself in desperate need of a means of

relaxation, and cooking is the only one that comes easily to me. Why

not go running, rebekah? you ask. Well, because the boys watch me. I'm

easy to find, being blonde. And one of them has a blonde wig, which

they think is really, really funny. Oh, and did I mention that it was

hot? It is very hot. I do not want to go running anymore because I

sweat out my body weight every single class period, walk my legs sore

to and from class, and don't need any more encouragement towards

dehydration. Well, Rebekah, why don't you just listen to some music

and do some yoga? well, because my computer is broken, in fact it is

in America, and yoga is not something one as inflexible as me just

"does." tends to stress me out when I try it. And well, then, why not

just have a cigarette? Well, this is the clincher, my friends,

I Have Actually Quit.

Wait.

Let it soak in.

over three weeks, and not a puff has passed my lips. A moment of

silence, please, for the years of my mother's life consumed this past

week, when I cried over the phone to her for 1 and 1/2 hours after

walking out on my terminal class because they were so disrespectful,

and she verbally held my hand while I spewed up an entire set of

assumptions that I didn't know I had into the phone instead of just

smoking it off.

Thank you mommy.

and now, a moment for my parent's depleted savings account, having

paid for this phone call without a second thought.

So, the crisis.

I am the same age as some of my term students, but that does not make

it ok for them to call me barbie. We have now split the class in two,

and I'm going back in next week--but perhaps a more orderly version of

the weekly events is warranted.

Ok. So.

I teach 2 sections of 6eme. These kids are 10-15 and have never had

English before. They are wonderful. I leave each class so encouraged,

I don't understand it--they really, really want to learn. And

everything is a game. You should see them sing the "wheels on the bus"

song (rewritten to exhibit present continuous). They try so hard, and

I all I can say is that I wish that I could go back and teach the

first classes over again. My learning curve is vertical--and so much

of me wants to apologize to these kids that they have me completely

unpracticed. They deserve better.

There are also 2 sections of 2nd, A and B. They're about 10th grade,

not old enough to really be terrible yet. I teach them a total of 6

hours/week though, which is not enough. Then 1ere, and Term. The 1ere

class was really terrible at first. But, then they realized that I

simply was not going to talk unless they were quiet. I have no desire

to scream over 70 kids. Now when they get out of line I just stop

talking, and I refuse to start again until they shut up. Seems to be

working, cause the kids who want to learn make the others pay

attention. The Term. class has been a disaster. I'm over the maximum

hours contracted by the PC by 6 because there is no other English

teacher, which is fine. I mean, when the Term kid showed up at my door

and was like, please teach us, I couldn't say no. But then, when I got

there, they absolutely would not pay attention. To be fair, I thought

there were 7 of them (that's how many there had been the previous

week). But there were 88. To further explain my reaction, I, for a

various of unmentioned reasons, namely worms, was gastronomically

disturbed in a very bad way. I don't think that they (the kids) will

have trouble paying attention next week. (The worms, I think, are

dead. Let's hope.) I have explained to them that I will not be called

barbie, or beautiful, in class. I told them that I have a very tall

American boyfriend who doesn't like it (at times, this has been true,

so I'm not exactly lying), and that I may be young but I know English,

and if they want to learn it they will have to forget about the

teacher and concentrate on the subject. I really wish that I had been

able to figure out a way to still have taught the class, but, there is

next week.

Now, a typical classroom.

The kids have no books. No dictionaries. I'm not going to try say any

of this well. I'm on my friends computer, and have so much to say that

I can't really worry, for now, about saying it in the best manner.

Just, here is a typical class:

Three kids to a bench. Not very much of the ceiling is still a

ceiling. I come in, put a review exercise on the board so that they're

busy while I copy the vocab up, and the lesson--everything that I want

them to know has to be put on the blackboard. There is no way, at the

moment (but I'm working on this) to give them even print-outs of

vocab. You should see how they treasure the few hand outs they

have--everyone shares them, wrinkled and taped. Then we start, doing

the review exercise together. Everyone wants to come to the

blackboard. (which is very, very hard to see.) Kids literally climb

over each other. Sometimes they don't have any idea what the answer

is, and then everyone starts in--oh, he's not smart, teacher, I know

the answer, teacher, pick me. Gradually the kid turns to me, nothing

but sheepish, and says, heh, yeah i'm not smart. and sits down.

Unembarrassed. He's just not smart at English, it's not his fault.

How do I motivate a class that does not operate off of a competitive

system? I have lived in America for so long.

Malagasy has no word for "to be," by the way. Just to start things off easily.

Each class is an entire life. So many of you on this list are either

teachers or students--to those of you whom have been on the other end

of my learning, thank you. I am slowly learning what bad teacher karma

I must have, and begging the gods to be kind in returning unto me what

I have dished out unto you. I love love love teaching, every class I

love it more. But it is hard. and I'm not very good at it yet.

Whew. Other news? Um.

I'm healthy. Well, I mean, when I showed my thumb to Ally (the

closest volunteer to me, and a truly godsend of a site partner. I

don't know what I would do without her) she was like, "yeah, that's

probably a fungus, but I think it'll be ok til December. Do you wanna

go hike up a mountian?" I read Moby Dick, and immediately started

reading it again. I cannot believe I went so long without reading that

book. Cooking is my favorite time of day. Living alone in a village in

Madagascar is wonderful, but it would be much less so if my mother did

not call me once a week. I think of all of you so often. Oh! I nearly

forgot. I made you a list the other day. Here:

Thinks I don't like missing:

Philadelphia

Pillows

Schedules

Libraries

Used bookstores

hugs

being rude to strangers

cooking with Matt and River

Oatmeal

Fall

PennSound

wine with Valeria

things that smell good

Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Recorded music

Things I love:

teaching

my 11 year old student who is smarter than me

cooking and living alone

wearing lambas

saying hello to everyone

market day

being more financially secure than ever before on 4 dollars / day

the palm tree in front of my house

the mango tree in front of my house

being quiet, all the time.

reading, reading, reading, reading

not smoking

not having any mirrors

fruits without English names

owning just enough clothes for four teaching outfits and teaching five

days a week

losing all traces of my hypochondria

my watch

malagasy fashion. lol.

street food

not dealing with the impostor complex anymore

journaling and not worrying about how that fact "seems" to other people

teny malagasy

waking up as early as i want (normally before 5. . . yesssssss.)

sleeping as soon as my work is done (normally before 10. . yessssss)

getting mail

sending mail

writing every thing by hand. recording grades onto graph paper and

praying it stays intact. no such thing as a hard copy. (this i hate

too)

Things I just really don't like:

watching the rainforest disappear

Malagasy men (terrible)

being hungry all the time

peace corps bureaucracy

not teaching well

being called fat by all the Malagasy women

being stared at

not having any mirrors

being asked for english lessons by every single person in my village

not having a dictionary

This is quite the leviathan of the email. I think I'm done with it;

I'll leave you two alone together. Please do write me--I am becoming

quite good friends with my postman, who is always saying. . "efa lasa!

tsy misy taratasy Rebek, azafady, efa lasa! mantany ny Proviseur

anao!" But I keep asking. Send me lists of good words. I miss you all

dearly.

all my love,

Rebekah

PS I have four tomato plants. And I am staying here for 3 years.

my dear everyone:

i am alive, and writing on a french keyboard so please forgive the

brevity and ,misspellinginity of this email: i am going to try to both

learn french and steal my computer owning site partners email with

which to write future emails; i am sorry!

there is much to tell; but for now; just this:

my village is lovely; my malagasy needs so much work; school starts on

the 11th of october; i miss you all; i have a new address but send

everything important and all packages to the old as mail is quite

fickle in the villages:

CATON, RS, PCV

Lycee Ifanadiana

312- Ifanadiana

MADAGASCAR

all my love;

rebekah

hey everyone!! this is me pointing to where i will be stationed for 2 years! yay!

haha actually this is katie, bekah's sister. bekah will be staying here, in the jungle, for two years. that is a really long time to live in a jungle. it's kinda like LOST.

Dear and most dear friends:

To start right in—

not that it’s actually possible to media res you, because it’s all

very, very different here, and the past two weeks have lasted at least

half a year—I’m going to take Mark’s advice, and just tell you the

aspects of my usual day (as well as a few of my favorite things about

the language) and save the sappy stuff for my letters and (occasional)

phone calls. Just a shout out for my first letter-writers: Matt and

Sarah, how appropriate that you were the first two that I wrote! I

carry your letters with me at all times, and I wish you were here.

Ok, so, my typical day starts at 6 am. PCVs live with host families

during training, and my family is quite young—Noeline, Jose (both 25),

Fiti (2) and Fitiavana (7 months). The baby starts crying at about

4:30, and that’s when I should get out of bed. But I don’t. Anyway, I

wake up, straighten my room and wash out my “po” (due to the high amt

of rabies / slippery path to the kabone (latrine), it’s not safe to

use the outhouse at night. hence, the universally used “po.” Chamber

pot has a lid, thankfully.) Of course, in order to wash my po I have

to draw water from the well, which fortunately is quite close to the

house. Then there is breakfast, consisting of about 4 oz of coffee,

and either dry bread or rice and leftovers. In order to wash, I boil

water & sort of sponge myself. Thankfully it’s between 40 and 50

degrees at all times and therefore I do not (yet) smell. At least that

I can tell.

We then have language class from 8-12, and let me tell you—Malagasy is

like no language I’ve ever heard. Originating from the Austronesia

area, written down first in Arabic and now using the romantic

alphabet, it’s quite a treat to remember. Just some examples: “Namana”

means “I had” as well as “friend;” “mamaky” means “to read” or “to

break” (ya’ll gotta know how much I love the fact that reading and

breaking are the same action. . . ) I really like the language, tho

it’s a challenge, especially since I’m now trying to learn the dialect

spoke near my site as well as the Standard Malagasy spoken at home.

Lunch is spent with the host family and consists of rice and “loaka,”

or any side dish. In Madagascar, there are two kinds of food: rice and

everything else. I don’t like rice anymore. We eat it at every meal,

including breakfast. When I am living on my own, I will be able to

control my own diet a lot more, to which I am certainly looking

forward. . . the fruit here is incredible (even in the winter), as are

the fish.

The afternoon consists of technical classes (like: how to avoid

getting malaria. or how to write a lesson plan. or how to make sure

you’re safe at night. have I mentioned that I’m suffering from intense

bouts of hypochondria.) and then we’re home by 5 or so to help with

dinner and sleep. I’d like to pretend that the reason I sleep so much

is an extended jet lag, or is a result of my super intense mental

exercise every day, but it’s really just the fact that the only warm

place I ever am is my bed, and then only if I fall asleep before 9.

I’m also having crazy dreams every night, which more than make up for

the lack of entertainment here. My favorites so far are: Matt refusing

to drive me to the airport because he wanted to watch Dumbo, Judy Lord

telling me that she was my grandmother, trying to pack for my site

ONLY being able to buy things at that TrueValue store at Northport in

Fargo, and being faced with a whole counter of Ben&Jerry’s, that I

bought and only being able to eat the Strawberry Cheesecake. Ew.

So that is my typical day, except for Thursdays, which we spend at the

Training Site outside the village (which has showers, so I do wash my

hair 1/week). Next Thursday we will actually spend the night at the

Training Site and then Friday we leave for our week-long “site visit,”

when we get to go see the places we’ll be living for 2 years! I’ve

been placed in the (whoop) RAINFOREST, in a village called Ifanadiana.

I’ll have a two-room house, but I don’t yet know what grades I will be

teaching—so more on that after site visit. I wish I had more to tell

you about my site, but my knowledge of Madagascar is right now limited

to my drive through the capital and my host family’s house. So instead

I will tell you about my house.

We have a total of three rooms, their bedroom, my bedroom, and across

a little courtyard the kitchen. I think I would kill for an oven at

this point, but we have a little one-burner coal stove thing that

makes me want to cry for warm bread. My host dad’s parents live

upstairs (but I’ve never seen the upstairs so I don’t count it as part

of our house) and his brother lives next door. My host parents are in

the process of building their own house in the backyard, but from the

looks of things it’ll be a while til they move.

Ok, so just a few more things before I go—I was asked before I left to

make a list of the most useful things that I brought with me, and the

things I should have brought. I’m sure this list will change as I

progress throughout my time here, but here it is:

Most Useful Items (qualified by at least daily use)

1. Watch

2. flashlight

3. coat that separates into a fleece and a raincoat (I wear the fleece

all day, even to bed; and it rains every day.)

4. boots and underarmour—thanks dad!

5. Purel

Most needed items (send these if you can!)

1. attention

2. purel

3. silica gel packets—you know those packets that keep things dry?

yeah, I’m going to the rainforest, and I’m gonna loose my computer and

camera if I can’t figure out a way to keep things dry, and the staff

here says these are best.

4. music—I left without the Wu Tang, without Beruit, without Phantom

of the Opera.

5. FOOD. I know it’s only been two weeks but I eat rice at every

single meal. I miss: oatmeal, chocolate (its seriously not the same

stuff here!!), granola bars, popcorn, salsa, KETCHUP, butter (no

refrigeration means no butter, no cheese. . ack ack ack I must stop

thinking about these things!)

6. pictures.

Alright everyone, I need to go cause I’m writing this on Thursday, at

the training site, in order to post it tomorrow when we go into Tana

for our yellow fever shots, and my friend needs to use it (while we

have electricity) to write her blog post. I hope this wasn’t too dull,

and I know it was long but. . . just think of how much I can talk at

you in person, and imagine me NOT being able to talk unless it’s in

class or in Malagasy! But I do miss you all dearly—and if you read

this please for the love of love leave a comment! I don’t like

imagining an audience of posterity, but I do like remembering your

faces.

could look up and I so miss cooking dinner for you and Matt and

listening to what you learned that day.

hoothoot,

Rebekah Rose

sound so definitely becomes

us

as

right you have the right

body. she felt her face on the face

of the earth

and fell off

The wait is over! There is news of little Bekah! However, it won't be as witty or informative as if she were posting it herself.

This is Sarah, Bekah's oldest sister. I had the chance to talk with her this morning for a few minutes. She said I could post something for you all if I wanted. If you all are anything like I have been, a new post on here will make your day.

First of all, she sounded WONDERFUL! So, so happy. I caught her studying between training and she was conjugating verbs. Let me start from the beginning...

Bekah got there safely. All of her luggage arrived. She was able to get a cell phone and text me from it. For some reason texting is cheap, but calls are expensive. So I called her back. She said there hasn't been anything that she is really wishing she packed and can't live without.

It sounds like she is pretty busy with training, but is enjoying her host family. She has plans to use internet next Friday and will make a post then. She also only gets mail on Thurs as the mail is sent to the capital and then brought to her village once a week. So she hasn't gotten any yet, but keep writing!

Ok everyone, here is my actual mailing address:

Rebekah Caton, PCV

Bureau du Corps de la Paix

B.P. 12091

Poste Zoom Ankorondrano

Antananarivo 101

Madagascar

You will ALWAYS be able to send mail here, even once I get my address site. . the other address is only for extremely important packages, like medication. Since I don't take any medication regularly, this really should not be an issue.

My flight is in so few short very short hours--if I haven't called you yet, I will probably do so today. To all of you who made Philadelphia such a haven for me this past year--thank you. You are in my heart always. And my to my so important and drastically loving family--Mom, Dad, Sarah, Katie, Sam, Lorna Beth, Betsy, and Matt--be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

All my love,

Rebekah Rose

dear all:

I write you from Washington DC with distressing news: the address posted previously is incorrect! That is the address for our BAGGAGE; what follows is the address for our MAIL. I am so very sorry and please please send me letters soon.

The correct address will be retrieved tomorrow and posted before I leave.

oh dear,

Rebekah

Well, dear friends, I have just decided that this is our photo-of-the-day; please notice the speechless nature of the pictured gentleman, for I am also quite speechless about this whole impending departure thing. Since I cannot really visualize what my life will be like in a week, I'm going to just briefly post about what life has been like these past few days. Great.

Last weekend my two older sisters were in Philadelphia for a final visit before I leave--they cleaned my apartment, held my hand as I bought so many things I never realized that I needed, cooked with me, liked Matt, and brought my beautiful perfect amazing nephew Liam along so that we could all revel in the extra baby-happiness that comes from watching him breathe. They also didn't mind that my water seldom works, there is little to no air conditioning to be found in my apartment, or the general lack of amenities (like cars) to which they are used. There will be nothing sappy in this post because I am currently too emotionally overloaded to even go there--but let me just say that I will most certainly miss the near-daily conversations I have with each of them.

I finished up my PennSound work on Wednesday, but of course it still feels like I will be in the office on Monday. It is truly impossible to convince the muscle memory created by two years of steady employment that it has suddenly become outdated and thus incorrect--especially when PennSound has been such a lovely part of my life and has afforded me such opportunity, to say nothing of how much I treasure my co-workers there! Thankfully I've been assured that my access to the servers will remain. . . so I can still change yr pages from the Africa. . . provided there is internet.

The last 3 days have been intensely packed with goodbyes and intense packing, I know a few people were interested in what I finally decided to bring, so here it is:

the books:

Paterson, collected Roethke, Celan, O'Hara, Valeria's Book, various poems that I just printed out, Marjery Kempe, Ivanhoe, Paradise Lost, East of Eden. And to all you academics that just died a little bit inside: Steinbeck is wonderful, get off your high horse and play. oh I also have a phrasebook and a guidebook. and 3 photo albums.

"sensible" things:

(this is so that I can look back and see what was actually sensible)

leatherman, solar panels, flashlight, rain jacket, expensive and unfly but very sturdy shoes, superdeduper lightweight sleeping bag, paper, pencils, cards, puzzles, thermos, nalgene, underarmour, extra ziplock bags, 1 million pounds of medicines, a first-aid book from my sister The Nurse, scissors, foodstuffs, and more.

I probably won't post again until I have something Malagasy to say. . . til then, be well, do good work, and stay in touch.

and write "air mail" on yr letters.

Yup. That's right. Ten days until I officially start my Peace Corps training. Because I inadvertently left quite a number of people off my attempted listserv, I decided it might actually just be easier to have a blog, although they aren't as fun as emailing and I'm fairly sure that I'm going to start talking to "posterity" even now, when I am still surrounded by your smiling faces (or can achieve your smiley voices via phone whenever I wish). And I really don't need the encouragement to be loquacious or cheaply profound that "posterity," as an audience, tends to afford. Oh well! Moving on.

As most of you know, I'll be leaving on July 19th for a 27 month stint in Madagascar. That is, if I make it through training. A brief breakdown of this:

July 19th I wake up and turn 23. Then, at 7 am or so, I will get on a plane and go to Washington DC, where I will have my first staging / orientation. We will all meet and greet and then sleep and get on another plane the next day, say oh about 5 pm. This plane will land in Johannesburg, South Africa, and will let us all off it to play for an evening, sadly & certainly AFTER the Alonso will have left the country. Ah, World Cup, why do you so certainly avoid me? The NEXT day we will fly into Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar. We'll spend the night there (bec apparently we get in pretty late) and the next day we'll go to the training site in Mantasoa, about 70 km away from Antananarivo, and where 95.5 percent of the population farms. Oh, and it's currently winter in Madagascar--so 40's or 50's at night, 60's during the day. Which is going to feel a LOT warmer than it actually is bec it's so grossly grosshot in Philadelphia right now.

So, once we're in Mantasoa, we'll immediately move in with our host families and start training--pretty much a 9-5 day, with necessary language acquisition by the swear-in date of September 21st. So I'll be studying, likely, whenever it's light. After training, I'll start teaching at a site that will be decided upon during training. Until I get my site, my address will be:

Rebekah Caton, PCT

Peace Corps Madagascar

Villa Les Lierres

Lot IIk76 Lot. Bonnet Invandry

Antananarivo

Madagascar

But be forewarned: I will have no phone or internets, indefinitely. Because of this, one of the administrators has offered to send out a mass email to our family members simply saying we've arrived--Matt and my mommy will get one--but the best chance to hear from me will be to write letters and check back here. on that note:

PLEASE COMMENT AND WRITE ME LETTERS I will need your support very, very much.

alright, friendly readers, I must return to my American life for a few more days, there's so much to be doing!

hoothoot,

rebekah

*it's kind of eleven days til i leave. but ten alliterates. time is relative. whatever.