As evidence that life on this island is a never-ending series of adventures, my first week into the new year has already encompassed all of the best and worst things that Madagascar has to offer. After celebrating Christmas in my village, I took off for vacation just before the new year. Monique (a PCV friend) and I headed to Andasibe National Park where we met up with our friend Erica and her family. One odd dynamic of PCV friendships is that while we grow to know each other, we often don't get to meet each other's friends and family back home--people who have made us who we are and inevitably come up in conversation. So it was really nice to meet and spend some time with the Wherry family.

We went on two hikes in Andasibe: one at night and one in the morning. We were hoping to see the mouse lemur, the world's smallest mammal, but weren't that lucky. (Erica's father rather appropriately described the experience as "wandering through the jungle with flashlights looking for monkeys"), but it was fun nonetheless as we did see some interesting frogs, chameleons, and the like. The next morning we got up and set off on our quest to find the Indri Indri lemur, aka "Babakoto" in Malagasy. While the Indri are the largest lemur and is the subject of some Malagasy legends, they are best known for their wailing cry/song which resounds through the forest. Here are a couple of videos of the Indri; the first video is stuff I shot in the park, the 2nd one is not mine but lets your hear the song of the Indri:

From a distance the song is actually quite beautiful (not quite as screechy as the video seems), and I could hear them calling from the bungalow we stayed in near the edge of the park. Mostly I was just incredibly excited to have FINALLY seen lemurs after nearly 18 months on this island.

After Andasibe, we headed up to Mahajanga to reign in the new year. We arrived on New Year's Eve and had a festive yet low-key evening. We had dinner at Marco Pizza, where we had incredible pizza and cocktails as well as great hospitality from the owner. Once our bellies were satisfied we headed down to the boardwalk looking for someplace to reign in the new year. Everything we'd heard from other PCV's had led us to believe that the boardwalk was where everything happens in Mahajanga, so we figured it'd be a safe bet. Unfortunately there wasn't much going on and we weren't able to find anywhere that had a TV or even any sort of countdown going. So we got a little creative and were able to create our own with the assistance of a cell phone and the timer on a video camera. Sadly our experience that night was a bad omen for the rest of our time in Mahajanga -- all of the incredible seafood, fish/shrimp/lobster kabobs, Indian food, tortillas, and nightlife we'd heard so much about never materialized during our time in Mahajanga. My best guess is that things were just shut down because of the holiday and had we gone at a different time we would have experienced all the same wonder and awe as our PCV friends.

On New Year's Day we headed to Ankarafantsika National Park in hopes of seeing the Tromba (spirit possession) ceremony, which is organized at a lake in the park every year on the 1st. As is typical of Madagascar adventures, we got to the park only to be told that the man who usually organizes the Tromba died and they hadn't named his successor yet so they wouldn't be having it this year. We decided we'd still like to go through the park anyway and see some wildlife. Among the things we saw were Coquerel's Sifaka (similar to but not to be confused with lemurs), chameleons, lizards, and several bird species. We also got to see the only 4 Adansonia madagascariensis baobabs which remain in the world today (shown here with my friend Kathy). The tree can only grow once the seed has been digested by a particular type of lemur which is now extinct since many of the trees had been dying out, so these 4 trees are all that remain. Our guide Gabriel talked extensively about the many symbiotic relationships such as this that exist in the park. It was interesting to reflect on just how interconnected our world is, and I find this relationship to be quite representative of my experience thus far in Madagascar. While I have skills and knowledge to share with my Malagasy counterparts, I also am deeply dependent upon their own knowledge, skills, hospitality, patience, talents and spiritual gifts. I am the baobab: I come bearing seeds that can grow only once digested and enriched by those around me. After seeing the baobabs and hiking for a couple of hours we reached this gorgeous canyon, which scientists believe was actually carved out by the sea instead of a river since the park used to be under water.

After an exhausting but incredible day of hiking in the park, we headed back to town for a good night's sleep. We had a lazy morning the next day but eventually made our way to a pool to relax for the afternoon. Although there were a few disappointments and unmet expectations, all in all, the first few days of vacation were great--as I mentioned, they included the best that Madagascar has to offer. After Monday the 2nd is where things headed south (at least for me). I woke up on Tuesday morning with what felt like a resurgence of the intestinal bug I had Christmas morning, though it may have been something entirely different. After 24 hours of self-treating and trying to stay hydrated, I called the PC doctors who put me on an antibiotic. I finished up the antibiotic today but am still feeling fairly lousy. I'm no longer making frequent trips to the restroom but and still experiencing a good deal of nausea and intense cramps, and haven't regained my appetite. But, I have been staying in a good hotel--very friendly staff, great showers, and free wifi. I'm hoping to head back to my village tomorrow even if I'm not feeling better. After all the chaos, I'm just ready to be back where things are familiar and routine. At any rate, don't worry because I will be fine - nothing I haven't dealt with several times already since being here!

Hopefully the new year hasn't been quite as adventurous for you as it has been for me! Cheers for 2012! Love love.

Since I spent Christmas away from my village last year, I decided to remain in town this time around and see what Malagasy Christmas is all about. On Christmas Eve day, I did prepare American food with two other PCV's: my site mate Charity and our friend Brad. Despite my stove's gas tank running out a few days prior and me subsequently ruining 2 of my 3 cooking pots over my charcoal stove, Charity's stove and a little creativity still meant we were able to pull together a Christmas feast. We ended up with beef stew, stuffing, sweet potatoes, sauteed vegetables, flatbread with nutella and Dad's homemade apple butter, chocolate honey cookies, pumpkin-banana bread, rose wine, and probably several other things I'm forgetting. We actually had a fairly classy dining room table set-up with a tablecloth, napkins, confetti, candles, etc. thanks to care packages from home :)

Later that night Charity and I went to church at the Protestant church in our village. Christmas Eve in my village was actually not too different from how I spend the evening in the states. The youth were putting on a concert/show and then there was supposed to be a worship service. The whole thing began with the entire congregation singing, "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" in Malagasy, which was absolutely beautiful. Already one of my favorite hymns, it felt especially meaningful to hear it sung by my Malagasy friends and neighbors. It was a simple reminder that despite the differences that may separate us from one other -- language, politics, geography, religion -- there will still always be things that we as members of the human family can find in common. As long as we keep that notion in sight, perhaps the everlasting peace we talk about so much during the Christmas season is not such a distant possibility.

My Christmas morning was not the most delightful I've ever had. I woke up to another round of one of the many illnesses this island has to offer, so the morning was spent lying in bed fighting nausea and making frequent runs to the bathroom. Although I wasn't feeling great, I finally dragged myself out of bed by late morning to get ready for lunch. I had stayed at site specifically to experience Malagasy Christmas, and I didn't want to miss out on the invitation I had received to eat lunch with my landlord and his family (who live below me). Despite the stomach pangs, it was a very enjoyable meal. Everyone wants to know: what do the Malagasy eat for Christmas/other holidays? To be honest, it's pretty much the exact same as any other day, but slightly more fancy. We ate rice with a couple of different meat dishes (beef, pork), but with the addition of soft drinks. Most families will splurge on what they consider to be better cuts of meat (more fat, pigs' feet, intestines, etc.), but that's about as elaborate as it gets. My landlord's family happens to be one of the richest in my village, so they may have had even more than most. For our part Charity, Brad, and I had taken over a pineapple, drinks, and cookies to share. Although a stark contrast from the often over-commercialized American Christmas, it was really nice to share the day with good friends, good hospitality, and good food.

As we were wrapping up the meal, a couple of the guys spontaneously burst into a Malagasy jam session on my guitar. Here's a short video for you to see:

And that's how my Christmas went! I hope your holidays were just as enjoyable. I'll be putting up another post or two by tomorrow about recent work and vacation, but this is all I'm putting in this one.

Love love.

Sorry for the once again very overdue post. A ton has happened in the past several weeks, but I’ll try to share the highlights.

In early November, I had my mid-service training, heading back to the training village where this whole adventure began. I hadn’t seen many of the other PCV’s from my training group since last December, so it was really great catching up with everybody. It also was a perfect opportunity to reflect on the first year of service and think about where I’d like the second year to be headed.

The first week of the training was only for health PCV’s and a counterpart from our site. A “counterpart” can really be anyone in the village—somebody we work with on a regular basis and who is likely to be heavily involved in future projects we may have. So we had quite a mix of people: doctors from the local clinics, mayors, community members. I brought along Perline, one of the village health educators I have worked with a few times out in the more distant parts of my village. The first few days of the training were a very in-depth malaria training. Peace Corps Africa is now engaging in a huge “Stomp Out Malaria” initiative, so we were brushing up on our malaria knowledge and learning new tools and ways to work on malaria projects. It was incredibly interesting for me, as doing malaria work was one of my primary motivations for wanting to join Peace Corps . . . but also a tad disappointing because my new village has an incredibly low incidence of malaria, and it really would be a poor investment of my time trying to do major projects on it when there are much bigger concerns in my region—clean water, family planning, STI’s. However, the rest of the week was much more applicable to the work I’ll likely be doing for the rest of service.

The second half of that week was a “Project Design Management” workshop, mostly with the intention of training up our counterparts, but it was also incredibly helpful for us PCV’s. We reviewed some of the tools for doing community analysis (to help a community identify and prioritize its needs, wants, and problems), and also learned about aspects of project implementation such as budgeting, task designation, goal-setting, etc. It was very valuable information and I know both PCV’s and counterparts learned a lot. It was also a fairly heavy reflection time for some of us PCV’s. Some of the sessions got a tad frustrating, as there’s sometimes a bit of a disconnect between what the PCV sees as his or her role, and what the community thinks the role of the PCV should be. The perception on the part of the Malagasy is typically that “vazaha” have lots of money, and that it should be used to fund the construction of physical things such as pumps/wells, school buildings, etc. Although some of the sessions got a bit heated, it was great reflection time for counterparts and PCV's alike in terms of development, the roles of outsiders, sustainable work, among other things. Wrestling with these questions and challenges has been one of the best aspects of Peace Corps for me.

The second week of the training, the education PCV’s joined us and had some additional sector-related sessions, but also had general administrative, safety/security, medical, etc. sessions from various staff members. The highlight of the week for me was definitely the prank war that Tisa, Ally, and I ended up in against our friend Raff. It all started with Tisa harmlessly swiping Raff’s brand new THB shirt. Now in order for you to understand the implications of this, you probably need a bit of background about THB. THB, or Three Horses Beer, is virtually the only beer available in Madagascar. It tastes awful and is not ever a selection that would be made by an intelligent person in America. In certain “vazaha” establishments, imported beer may be available, but is not generally the best option for a PCV's budget. Thus, many of our gatherings involve the consumption of THB. Additionally, the "THB tour" travels through Madagascar, doing promotions, putting on concerts, etc. These promotions often involve swing music and Elvis tunes blasting out of gigantic stereo systems, deals such as 10 small THB's for 10,000 Ariary ($5.00 US), and the distribution of free THB hats and shirts. These t-shirts are highly coveted by PCV's, as the acquisition of one is like a Madagascar PCV milestone. It is in so many ways symbolic of the experience here in general - that things never quite work out like you plan and you may often have to try to accomplish the same task more than once. (Case in point: attending a THB tour event is in no way a guarantee that one will receive a t-shirt, as they often run out very early on. I have seen the tour several times and do not yet have my shirt.) Thus, Raff was beyond excited about the acquisition of his THB shirt, and was therefore beyond distraught when it suddenly went missing. Thus commenced the prank war.

Several pranks were executed by both sides throughout the week, but here are the highlights: #1: Raff and his roommates, Paul and Israel, moving all of Tisa and Ally's belongings from their room outside, including all furniture, and identically replicating the setup of their room outdoors. #2: Us girls individually taping/pinning all of Raff's belongings to the ceiling. #3: Raff spraying me with shaving cream in the middle of the night (which I did not wake up to until much later, and thus had rolled around in it for quite a while). #4: The final kicker, the victory.....we took all of Raff's "madinika" (small bills, the equivalent of nicks and dimes, but the most frequently used currency here), and freezing it on a gigantic block of ice which was left out on display at the breakfast buffet. This elicited the remark of, "Awwwww. Alright, you win." Needless to say, it was a hilarious week and kept everyone's spirits high as we had to part ways and embark on the final year here in Mada.

I also had a great Thanksgiving celebration with some of the PCV's in my area: Monique, Carolyn, Natalie, Dan, and my sitemate Charity. Although I don't have any stories nearly as ridiculous as last year's diarrhea-ridden bird, it was still a phenomenal day. Natalie has a "real" oven (run off of charcoal), but we were able to pull of a legitimate (and DELICIOUS) roast turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, stuffing, salad, and many desserts. Great food, great friends, great times.

I have now been back in the village for a few weeks and am getting work underway. Charity and I have a meeting this coming Friday with village leaders about a possible water project. I have also been continuing cooking club, and have had a few new faces every week. I've also been teaching health classes at the high school and will hopefully have the Girls' Club underway by the end of January. So, it looks like things are going pretty well!

I will be spending Christmas in my village, but then going on vacation to Mahajanga with a bunch of girls for New Year's. I am VERY excited, since I really haven't seen much of this island yet and STILL haven't seen lemurs in the wild. (I know, I can't believe it myself!) Anyway, hope all is well and that you all have a very happy and blessed holiday season!

Love love.

PS: I apologize for the lack of photos. I have several ready to post, but this internet cafe is a little weird and I'm having trouble. Maybe next time!

I had the first "meeting" for my cooking club last week. Even though several women had expressed interest and been asking when I'd be teaching how to cook, I was a bit apprehensive about how it would actually work out. (If I have learned anything in my time here, it is not to have any expectations for anything until it actually happens. May seem pessimistic, but it is just the reality of life in the developing world.) I picked a time and started spreading the word to come to my house on Monday afternoon. I said I would buy all of the supplies but asked each person to bring 100 Ariary (the equivalent of about 5 cents). This is the amount that most snacks such as doughnuts cost at the market, and I figured if everyone's used to chipping in, it might be more likely to continue even after I leave. Anyway, as the appointed hour approached I grew increasingly nervous. But, I actually had 7 women and 3 kids show up!

We made a modified version of pumpkin-yogurt cornbread. There's no pumpkin in my village, so I made a creative substitution of bananas. It worked out extremely well, but I imagine it would be even more delicious with pumpkin. I am jealous of all of you back home who will be able to make this for Thanksgiving dinner with the abundance of pumpkin around. (Or, if you want to pull a Kristen and substitute tropical fruit, I bet mangoes and/or pineapple would also be fun!) Here's the recipe:

1 cup flour

1 cup corn meal

1 cup plain yogurt

1 cup cooked, pureed pumpkin (or creative substitution!)

1 egg

2 Tbs. brown sugar (I put in heaping spoonfuls)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

Combine wet ingredients in one bowl and dry in another. Gently fold in flour mixture until just moistened. Bake in a greased and floured baking pan for about 30 minutes or until done. (Sorry there's no actual temperature listed.) The recipe is from Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites. It makes a fairly small recipe so I suggest doubling it if you're making it for more than a couple people. Enjoy!

I'm heading up to the training village for the next two weeks for my mid-service conference. I'm very excited because I'll get to see a bunch of my friends that I haven't seen since last December! Hopefully I'll check back in in a couple of weeks.

Here are some more videos. When I didn't have any work happening (which was often), I spent most of my free time at my first site with the kids in my neighborhood. Sometimes I'd use the opportunity to talk about things like handwashing and hygiene, but of course we had lots of fun silly time. The first couple of videos are of them doing Malagasy things: dancing and a children's rhyme. Then there are a few of me working on the Peace Corps' 2nd goal to foster understanding of American culture among host country nationals: tee ball & line dancing. The final one is a testament to the universality of some aspects of culture; "Bieber Fever" has is just as prevalent in Madagascar as it is in the states.

Aren't these kids fantastic?

Love love.

Lots more to share about my new site! I have a sitemate in my new village - another PCV who is working in the Small Enterprise Development (SED) sector. Her name is Charity but she goes by Chacha. She's been in our village since May of this year and has also been keeping a blog. She's written some really wonderful stuff so I encourage you to check out her blog at http://gypcee.wordpress.com. We've both been in and out for various trainings, meetings, and other things, so we haven't really spent any time together IN our village. But in a few weeks we'll both be back, and I think we're going to get along really well. She's already done a ton of community needs assessment work and laid the groundwork so the two of us can get lots of projects going. I'm very excited to have such a great partner at site!

This week is the "Mother and Child Health Week" held every April and October. I believe I've written about this before, but a quick refresher. Vaccines, deworming pills, and vitamin A are given out freely to children under 5 and women who are pregnant or recently gave birth. My clinic had a lot of extra help and it was obvious I wasn't needed to help with much of the grunt work for the week, so I decided to take the opportunity to really focus on doing education about vitamin A. For the past few weeks I've been testing out various recipes with vitamin A-rich foods so that I could do cooking demonstrations. I finally settled on a simple carrot soup recipe. On Monday morning I gathered all the mothers around who were waiting for the services and had them help me make the soup, talking about why vitamin A is so important to be incorporated into kids' diets. I had been pretty nervous that nobody was going to like it or that they would think it was weird, but it actually ended up being a huge success! Many women studied the recipe to make sure they remembered it. Several wondered when I would be doing another cooking demo and asked if they could come learn how to cook at my house.

When I get back to site after these meetings in the capital, I think I'm going to start a weekly cooking class at my house. I'm VERY excited about this! Malnutrition is such a major concern here because it is challenging to find a variety of nutritious, affordable, and seasonally available foods in rural villages. But a little creativity can go a long way, and it will be lots of fun to experiment with different ingredients and learn new recipes from each other. I also thought it might be fun to share the recipes on here so all of you back home can try them. I have a few up my sleeve that I think may be great for Thanksgiving! Here's the carrot soup recipe:

6 medium carrots, shredded

1-2 small onions, finely chopped

1 cup milk

2 1/2 cups water

2 bouillon cubes

You can throw everything all together at once and heat for about 15 minutes, but I find it helps to start dissolving the bouillon in water first. Try experimenting with adding extra spices or ingredients (I really like adding green onions!) As the Malagasy say, "mazotoa!" (enjoy!)

In other very exciting news, I have had a rather fabulous internet connection for the last day and a half and have been able to upload a ton of videos I've taken over the last 15 months! I don't have any from my new village yet so peoples' appearances and the things you see in the background look VERY different from my new site, but I will work on getting current videos too. I have about 15 videos so I won't put them all in here; I'll spread them out over the next couple of days. (They are already loaded on youtube so if you're so inclined you can view them all on my account, walliesfilms.)

The first video is a tour of the clinic I worked at in my first village. Every village varies a bit in terms of size and number of the clinic buildings, how many staff work, how many patients come, and what the weekly schedule is. However, this should give you a good idea of what most clinics are like in Madagascar.

For all you non-believers, here is PROOF that I can kill a chicken with my own two hands!

And finally, 2 videos from the Jerry Marcoss concert I mentioned in my last post:

Hope you enjoy watching those!

Love love.

I wrote this post a while ago but the internet cafe was closed the last time I was in town. I have more updates to add but should have internet at least through Monday, so I'll make sure to post again. I'm hoping I'll be able to get a few video clips up, but not holding my breath.

Well, I'm all moved into my new village and have spent the past couple of weeks settling in. Although the adjustment this time around is FAR easier than it was a year ago, there have still been some challenges. The people in this region (mostly Betsileo) speak a different one than what's spoken where I was in the West (mostly Sakalava, Antandroy, and Vezo). It's by no means an entirely new language, but there are enough pronunciation nuances and different vocabulary words that I'm a bit confused. [Note: There are 18 different tribes & dialects of Malagasy. Allegedly Malagasy can all understand each other regardless of which dialect is being spoken; I have observed this to be generally true, though not absolutely. The Malagasy people's explanation of their own language sounds much like the United States, where you could go to any state and expect to speak fluent English, though there are distinct accents in places such as New York, Chicago, Texas, Boston. My own experience is that it's more like comparing American English with that spoken in England, Ireland, Australia, etc. The basics are the same, though slang and certain expressions are often unique to the region, and while you'd likely be able to communicate with anyone speaking English, somebody with a particularly heavy accent may be difficult to understand.] The Betsileo also speak VERY quickly, and I'm having a hard time keeping up. I had heard prior to arriving here that the Betsileo are known for being especially talkative. Luckily for me, this has proved to be entirely true -- I can hardly buy a banana without engaging in at least a 10-minute conversation. Surely this will help me pick up the local dialect quickly.

I also have been re-experiencing all the elements of being the new person in town again. In my old village, I had grown accustomed to running errands at certain places and kept fairly regular business with certain market women. It was easier for me since they usually knew exactly what I wanted without having to ask, and I would often get a "kado" (gift), something like an extra tomato or handful of beans. I had friends and knew all my neighbors and had a routine. I knew what foods were available and where to find them. Here, I've found myself wandering around town going to every shop trying to find things. Everyone has been very friendly and helpful, though it is still tiring for me trying to reestablish a routine.

In addition to my having to figure things out, my town is also having to learn what to make of me. There is another PCV in my town, Charity ("Chacha"), who is a Small Enterprise Development volunteer. The day I moved in, though, she left for an in-service training in the PC training village near Tana. About half the town realizes I'm a different person, but the other half keep calling me Chacha. This is especially funny to me because we look NOTHING alike--she is taller and has shorter black hair. But I guess we "vazaha" all look identical, and I guess I should appreciate that they at least think they're calling me by my name, instead of just yelling out "salama vazaha" ("hey foreigner.") It'll be funny when she's back from training and we both are strolling around town.

Despite these minor challenges to readjusting, I think I am really going to like my life here. It's a very artsy area - the region around Ambositra is known for all of its handicrafts, especially woven straw products and silk scarves. I see tons of straw hats, mats, purses, etc. in all of the markets around here. A lot of the Small Enterprise Development volunteers are placed in this region and partnered with a local boutique. I'm back in the highlands/plateau region like where I was during training. There are rice paddies EVERYWHERE - usually at the bottom of hills with terraced farms rising around them. Much of the surrounding area looks a lot like these pictures. If I'm not mistaken, the bright green in this picture is rice that is mature/ready to be harvested. But despite 15 months here, I still wouldn't consider myself a rice expert :)

My new house is INCREDIBLE. I am on the third floor of a house behind the market and commune/mayor's office. The upper balcony is the level that I am on.

I have two large rooms (each of which is bigger than the one room I had before), and a GIGANTIC balcony that wraps around 2 sides of the house. I can watch the sunrise from one side and the sunset from the other. My town is basically built on a hill, and my house is close to the top of the hill so the view (which is gorgeous) overlooks the entire town and surrounding villages. Here's a picture of the balcony, as well as the view from it. Most of the buildings in the second picture are houses.

Here are a few shots of the inside of my house - 2 of the kitchen, and 2 of my bedroom. I haven't been able to get all of my furniture made yet so I'm still living partially in boxes and it's not all set up, but this is an idea of what it looks like.

My landlady and her family live downstairs, but the staircase in outside on the balcony so I really have my own separate living space. I haven't met her husband yet since he's out of town, but she has an adorable 3-year-old son, Fanilo (which means "torch"), who I'm pretty sure I'm going to bring back with me to America. I sort of have electricity; if my landlady's generator is on, I have a light in each room and a single plug. However, they've only turned it on twice for about 2 hours each in the whole last month. Most of the time I still charge small electronics on a solar charger, or just do without. Currently I have to go into my landlady's house to use the rest room, but they're going to build my own bathroom when her husband gets back. (At first I'd thought this wasn't necessary, but Peace Corps was insistent and I have since realized the bathroom's a bit hard to get to, and this could get rather awkward when I'm sick, which is bound to happen.) It's a "real" toilet which means you flush it yourself by pouring in a bucket of water, and it doesn't have an actual toilet seat. [Side bar: I'm convinced there must be an alternate universe somewhere with a surplus of toilet seats but utter lack of toilets, because I have yet to find a toilet in Madagascar that still has its seat attached. I hadn't realized it was such a disposable accessory.] I have my own "shower" (pictured) outside on my balcony - I still have to shower just with a bucket of water, which I always boil first because it's very cold here.

With the move, I had been pretty worried about getting work going and accomplishing things with only a year left. But everyone in my new town is extremely "mazoto" (motivated, hard-working), and I've already gotten started. My second day in town, a guy from the mayor's office took me to a meeting of all the health educators for my commune so I could meet them. There are 22 "fokontany" (neighborhoods), each with 22 health educators. At the meeting I introduced myself, explained a little about my work, and encouraged them all to stop by my house or the clinic to schedule times to work together so I could get out into the countryside/more rural villages. While I was serious, I didn't really expect anything to happen without me taking initiative since that's how it was in my other village--any work I did was entirely started by my own effort. Already, I've had 3 people come by. This week is the mother & child health week that happens twice a year, when Vitamin A, deworming pills, and vaccines are given out to pregnant women and children under 5. I'll talk about the work I did for that in my next post. In November I will start teaching health classes at the high school, and hopefully the middle school as well although I haven't yet had a meeting with the principal of the middle school. I don't think I'll be working at this clinic as much as I had at my old site, but that's probably a good thing since it seems like I'll have enough other work to keep busy.

Last bit of news is that Jerry Marcoss was in Ambositra (my banking town) a couple weekends ago, so I went into town to see him. He's a HUGE pop star in Madagascar; I'd guess at least half of the hit songs on the radio are by him. (And get this: the tickets cost less than a dollar!) I went with another PCV, and it was a lot of fun. Definitely one of those things you just have to do in Madagascar!

I HAVE A MAILING ADDRESS FOR MY NEW SITE!! I'm in the process of moving - I left my old village today and will be moving into my new one tomorrow. I may yet open my own PO box once I get there so that I can claim mail myself; this address belongs to one of the schools, so the Principal brings mail to the PCV when he's in town. But know that you can start sending things to this address:

Kristen Walling: Antanambao

FKT, CR Imito

B.P. 113 Ambositra (Peace Corps)

Madagascar

The address for the PC office in Antananarivo is also still valid, and I'll actually be able to go to Tana much more frequently now. I'm in the process of moving now - I'm supposed to move my stuff in tomorrow, and depending on how things go I'll sleep there tomorrow night or Saturday. But now for my latest adventure . . . .

One problem faced by every single country on the planet is that its people must have some means by which they can get from one place to the next. In the developing world, the most common solution to this problem is the bush taxi. Depending on your location, this method of transport may go by any number of names--in Ghana it was the "tro-tro;" in francophone countries such as Madagascar it is the "taxi-brousse" (or the more Malagasy-ized "taksy-borosy"); us PCV's in our typical fashion of shortening or assigning an acronym to every phrase possible lovingly refer to them simply as "brousses;" and I am sure there are dozens of other names in dozens of other countries. In any event, they are by far the cheapest form of transport both within a single city (compare 15 cent brousse fare to $5.00 taxi ride) or for traveling between cities (roughly $10.00 for a long day's journey in a brousse, versus $50.00 per day + fuel in a private 4x4). Thus brousses are the primary mode of transportation for the average Malagasy person or American Peace Corps Volunteer. In addition to affordability, all brousses share many things in common.

A typical brousse is a van, often a Peugeot or other similar model, with at least 30 years on it and in desperate need of a tune-up. In fact, "tune-up" is probably not even a sufficient way to describe the needs of most brousses. It's not unusual for me to watch the driver install headlights or other parts shortly before departure, or for 5 men to push the van while the driver is simultaneously hot-wiring the car. (My favorite brousse that runs between my site and Morondava actually needs to be pushed backwards in order to get started. Literally. The engine will not start if the car is moving forwards!)

Brousses are generally operated in pairs--one driver, and one assistant who collects fare and assists with loading and unloading luggage from under the seats or on top of the vehicle. (In Ghana this guy was called the "mate;" I haven't heard a name here, so I just stick with that.) Ideally, these vans would hold 12-15 passengers comfortably. Instead, they far more often hold 30-35. This defiance of the laws of physics matched only by clown cars and cans of sardines is achieved by removing the normal seats in them and replacing them with slimmer benches arranged closer together. Usually the bench seats are positioned on the left side of the vehicle, and the right side of the vehicle--on which passengers enter and exit through a sliding door (if said vehicle even has a door)--has single seats which are attached to the benches but which fold down and flip sideways, creating a sort of "aisle" to reach the farthest depths of the brousse (the back seat). At first glance you would probably assume that two people could fit in a bench and one on the side seat, allowing 3 per row, but inevitably a fourth person is forced to sit on the incredibly uncomfortable metal bar connecting those seats (sometimes with the assistance of a pillow to ease the pain, though more often than not said person must suffer without). You know the expression "beer goggles?" Well, I have now coined the term "mate goggles." Mate goggles are when the mate looks at the brousse and sees it in a new and beautiful light, brimming with possibilities. He sees that yes, if we try really hard, we might in fact be able to fit a fifth person into each row...and then we can place a couple of babies on laps...and then we can cram a few more passengers into the row behind the driver BACKWARDS with their legs staggered between the other passengers'...and then we can have up to three men standing, hanging out the side door, holding on to the roof. And voila, the maximum capacity of the brousse has been increased exponentially in a matter of seconds. [I have tried to snap photos to prove to those of you who have never traveled in the developing world that I am by no means exaggerating . . . but alas, every brousse I have ever been in has been so crowded that it's been impossible to show anything but the 3 people in my immediate vicinity with whom I am competing for oxygen.]

Now if that doesn't yet sound like enough of an adventure to you, just hold your horses. Or rather your chickens, ducks, goats, and pigs. That's right, not only are brousses the cheapest means of transporting people, they are also used to haul people's things from place to place. (Perhaps the greatest feat I have witnessed was seeing an entire live cow hoisted onto the roof of a brousse in West Africa.) While these animals are sometimes bound and set on top of the car or behind the back seat, or neatly packaged up into baskets designed for easy transport, it is also not unusual to have smaller ones shoved around your feet or placed in a bag on the seat next to you. I'm sure you can imagine just how happy the average chicken is to have its feet tied up with five other chickens and placed at my feet, and they never fail to make sure that I personally am aware of just how ecstatic they are to be in their present situation. If they stop their squawking and wing-flapping long enough to take a breath, they then inevitably begin trying to peck their way into the gigantic sacks of rice or crates of tomatoes which have also been miraculously piled into the brousse.

But don't get me wrong--despite the extreme overcrowding, brousses often come with some great features most other vehicles lack. Have you ever worried that your gas gage was just slightly off and that perhaps you wouldn't make it to the gas station before running out of fuel? Or have you ever wondered if you even have a gas tank, since you can't actually see it? Well, have no fear--gas gages are completely unnecessary in brousses, since the "gas tank" (plastic bottle with tube running to engine) is usually positioned right in the front seat, so you can see exactly how much fuel you have left. Vanilla and Forest Pine air fresheners hanging from the rearview mirror also become unnecessary expenses; instead you can just inhale the gasoline fumes wafting through the vehicle for the duration of your journey. Furthermore, if you are one of those people for whom windows are an insufficient means to view your surroundings as you drive by, many brousses also come fully equipped with "peep-holes" in the floor and roof so you can watch the road and sky as you pass by. A bucket of fish once tipped over on the roof of the brousse I was in and the water seeped through one of the holes, drenching me. I found this to be an especially convenient surprise since I hadn't had time to shower that morning before heading into town.

Admittedly, this is often an incredibly stressful way to travel. They're hot and uncomfortable and often take 3 or 4 times as long as the journey would take if I could just hop in a car and drive myself. They leave a minimum of 2 hours after the planned departure time, and then they stop every 45 minutes. Stations at the beginning and end of the journey are inevitably crowded with taxi drivers and hawkers who assume I'm an ignorant tourist willing to shell out large chunks of money. However, I never know what kind of adventure I'm going to get myself into or what hilarious story I'll be able to tell after a journey by brousse. I don't know how many times I've been on the brink of tears and had to consciously remind myself that eventually, I would look back at that moment and laugh. I recently had one of those moments.

My site is close enough to Morondava that under normal conditions it usually doesn't take much more than an our to get in or out of town. That being said, in light of all the aforementioned possibilities for disaster, I still try to build in some room for error. It's dark by about 7pm now and the last regular brousses leave Morondava by 5:30, so I usually am at the station by 3 or 4, knowing I still have plenty of wiggle room. One fateful afternoon we set off shortly after I arrived at the station, leaving Morondava around 4:00. Nearly halfway back to my site, around 4:30, the driver noticed we had a flat tire so we pulled over to the side of the road and everyone got out. As you may guess, this isn't a particularly unusual scenario, and I expected we'd be back on the road shortly. I did have a brief moment of panic when I realized my brousse didn't have a spare tire (which IS unusual--normally they are prepared for imminent vehicular failure), but soon found relief in another brousse which passed and did have a spare tire. Naturally it was nailed to the underside of that brousse in a most inaccessible fashion, but soon enough the spare was extracted from the belly of the brousse, our tire was changed, and we were on our way again by a little before 5:00. About 10 minutes later we pulled over again, and the driver and mate began working again on the rogue tire. It quickly became obvious to me that they did not have the right parts to make that tire stay in place on the wheel--not enough, and not in the correct sizes.

Unfortunately, AAA Madagascar does not exist. Thus, the driver seemed to think the only reasonable solution was to remove various bolts from all of the wheels and move them around, trying to find some combination of fitting parts. Of course, none of those wheels had really been properly assembled, so chisels and wrenches were produced to force parts that did not fit, and before long the vehicle suddenly had not one but THREE wheels not properly attached. At first I sat patiently and figured I had no choice but to wait it out. After 6:00, I began to grow a little concerned. My house is next to my clinic, in a fenced-in compound that the clinic's security guard locks with chains every night around 7 or so. I still had time, but we were at least another 15 minutes' drive to my site, and it did not look like we were getting close to being ready to leave. I started asking the driver how quickly we'd be leaving, explaining that I really needed to get home before the gate was locked. He assured me we'd be on our way within 15 minutes. 15 minutes passed and we were back down to only one rogue wheel, but it still looked like we weren't close. Another 15 minutes, no apparent progress. I decided to try to call a neighbor and see if they could tell the guard I'd be late; I didn't have cell reception where we were broken down. I kept pestering the driver, and he continued to reassure me we were almost done. ("There's only one more bolt," "15 more minutes.") Then, they started removing bolts again and I finally let myself go into panic mode. It was after 7:00.

I started looking for other vehicles passing by, but there were none. A few had already passed, and I was fearful that the last ones for the day were among those that had gone by us. I again tried to appeal to the driver and some of the other passengers, to no avail. FINALLY, around 7:30, another brousse pulled up. There is an unwritten rule among brousse drivers that in the event of a breakdown, one driver will not pilfer another driver's passengers. However, I was desperate and had absolutely no indication that my driver would leave soon--in 15 minutes or any other certain amount of time. So, I (and several other rather peeved passengers) approached the new driver and asked if we could get in his brousse. Our driver kept saying we'd be leaving soon, he only had 2 more bolts to put on. I argued that 2 hours before they had been saying the exact same thing and that I was already late to get into the compound. Driver #2 insisted it wouldn't be fair, that all the drivers were friends, and he couldn't let us leave our other brousse. I continued to insist that I had already been patient with a driver who was lying to me and that it was imperative I get home ASAP. Finally, he agreed. I was lucky that I was only traveling with a backpack in my lap, but some of the other defectors had luggage on top of the first brousse. Naturally, the driver refused to let any of them have their luggage, figuring it would force them to stay with his brousse. People started yelling at Driver #1 and demanding he return their belongings so they could leave. Meanwhile, Driver #2 was TRYING to leave. He started inching away while the mate tried to close the door, but the passengers waiting on luggage stood in front of him in the road, refusing to let him pass. So there we all were--me, hysterical I wouldn't be able to get into my house, Driver #1 yelling at all the passengers to get back in his defective brousse, Driver #2 yelling for everyone to clear the road, and about 10 angry Malagasy people yelling at both drivers to quit being ridiculous. Normally, I am 100% supportive of coming up with creative ways to take a stand against an injustice. At that moment, I have to admit I was slightly less than amused at the continuing delays. Finally, driver #1 relented and gave people their things so they could get in the new vehicle and we were on our way.

I made it back home around 8:00 to find the gate had already been locked. It took several minutes, but I was finally able to get the guard's attention by yelling, and he came to open the gate. I did have to spend the next 3 days answering relentless questions from all of my neighbors about why I had come back so late, but I guess in the end it all worked out OK. And now that several weeks have gone by, I'm beginning to look back at it as one of those times that drives you crazy when it's happening but makes a great story later on. Man, the things I endure to keep you people entertained! Hah.

Send me mail! Love love.

QUICK ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT MAIL: I still don't have a firm date, but I'll be moving sites around mid-September. Shayla will still be able to claim anything that arrives after I leave, but it probably doesn't make sense to send a package at all right now or any letters after about August 20th. You can still send letters and packages to the address in Antananarivo, and I'll get them in a much more reasonable time frame from my new site. I think I'll have a PO box once I get to my new site too, but I don't know for sure. Also, please comment/email/facebook with a current address for yourself and dates it would be valid. A bunch of you are going abroad, or returning from abroad, or moved places in DC, or moved to another state, or any other number of things I cannot keep track of from this island. Even if your address is the same as last year, I'd appreciate knowing that too. Thanks! :)

I'm sure you're all wanting to know about my new site. I'm going to be moving to the plateau region in the center of the country because the climate is much colder and therefore unlikely to cause heat rash issues. My new site will be near Ambositra (south of Tana & Antsirabe, north of Fianarantsoa). There's already a SED (small enterprise development) volunteer, Charity (goes by Chacha) who's been there since May. I met her when I got back from the states, and I think we're really going to hit it off as sitemates. I just got the information from my supervisor about the site, so I'll include that in my next update. But now, a little bit more about my life for the past few weeks at my current site.

One of the greatest challenges I continue to face here is the inability to speak fluent Malagasy, despite my best efforts to do so. I had previously heard that it takes about a year to develop language fluency in a foreign country. Either I'd heard incorrectly, or perhaps it is based on the assumption you've already been studying that language in a formal setting, or maybe it's just blatantly false. Whatever the case may be, I just passed the ONE YEAR IN MADAGASCAR mark (!!!!!!) last week (July 22), and I can say with certainty that I am nowhere near fluent in Malagasy. I look back to where I was this time a year ago, barely able to say, "My name is Kristen. Where is the latrine?" and realize how far I have come . . . but I still have a long way to go. In addition to ongoing confusion over the Malagasy language, the culture remains at times an even greater code I've yet to crack. And it seems more often than not that these two things work together to leave me utterly baffled. A perfect example of this happened a few weeks ago.

One afternoon I was heading to the market with my friend Isabelle when she asked me about the 3 poisoned children. I said I hadn't worked at the clinic that morning and didn't know what she was talking about. All she knew was that 3 children had been brought to the clinic because they had eaten poison; 1 had already died, and 2 were still very sick. I then wanted to know how the kids got the poison in the first place. Granted, the idea of locking chemicals in a cupboard under the sink is not exactly standard practice here (not having cupboards, much less sinks), but I also have seen very few Malagasy families that have ANY objects sitting around. Most people buy everything they need exactly when they need it in exactly the quantity they intend to use right then. Rather than buy a whole liter of oil or a large bar of soap, they buy a few tablespoons or a small bar each day. (For some this is an economic necessity, for others I think just habit.) So anyway, I was trying to imagine a scenario where a family may have had poison just sitting around, unattended, for kids to get into.

When I was asking about this, Isabelle told me that they had been poisoned from eating street food/market food stalls. I was very concerned because I often buy snacks at the market, but she reassured me that it wasn't anybody at the main market but certain ones set up at people's houses. She continued to explain and say that sometimes bad people poison the food because when kids eat it and die, there has to be a funeral, and those bad people want to get free food at the funeral. I had been following her up until that point. Then I began to seriously question my understanding of the conversation. When this happens, I first try to figure out if I even understood all of the words correctly. I repeated what I thought Isabelle had said to me, and she confirmed it. Then I started trying to remember if any of the words might have multiple meanings. Some of the medical terms in malagasy are especially tricky. For example "fanafody" typically means medicine, but can also mean poison, chemicals in general, or in certain contexts refer to charms/witchcraft/traditional beliefs. But, Isabelle had been using the French word for poison (which is also "poison," incidentally, so I was pretty sure I understood). I had thus reached the point at which I usually chalk it up to a cultural disconnect.

Although I had assumed the idea of a food vendor intentionally poisoning children was pretty far-fetched, I guess I shouldn't have ruled it out entirely. Or, maybe the kids had somehow gotten their hands on some poison that was lying around, but the story got embellished somewhere after several retellings as tends to happen in small towns. I also wondered if maybe something else had made them sick: a virus, contaminated food, parasites, etc., and that the story was the result of a lack of medical knowledge. I figured I'd ask about it at work the next day. When I did, the midwife seemed to have absolutely no idea what I was talking about, and I never was able to figure out exactly what had happened.

I would say this kind of thing happens on a pretty regular basis, at least a couple of times per month. I find myself in a seemingly ludicrous situation, and never do figure out what's going on. At times this gets incredibly frustrating. It's rather disheartening to know that I have been living and working here for over a year and still get confused about the language and culture. It's also incredibly humbling. There are times that I'm considered the "expert," because most people here know that I have a university degree and work at the clinic. But as this example shows, there's still a lot I don't know, and although I can help to provide knowledge and skills to my local counterparts, I'm equally dependent upon them for my own survival, understanding, and success as a volunteer. I don't think there will ever be a time during my service when I can stop asking questions and trying to better understand the situation I'm in. This symbiotic relationship is, I believe, the crux of the entire Peace Corps program. We learn from each other, and through that we develop as a human family. Looking back on my first year, I feel really great knowing that I've made enough progress to feel like while I have something to offer, I also have much to gain from this experience. So, raise your glass in celebration of a great first year and hope for an even better second year! (Just make sure there is no "fanafody" in it before you drink, please.)

After nearly a month of vacation, work in Tana, and PCV meetings, I made it back to my site. I had barely been out of the taxi-brousse for a minute when I was swarmed by kids from my neighborhood who began excitedly chanting, "The vazaha is back! The vazaha is back!" Despite my protests, many of them helped drag my luggage through the dirt back to my house. After such a long time away from site, including a home visit which reminded me just how different my life in America is, I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to feel upon returning to my village here in Madagascar. It was really nice to receive such a warm welcome back from friends, although admittedly it hasn't been the easiest readjustment.

One of the things that has made settling back in difficult is the fact that, yet again, I've been sick. In the latest of my many digestive troubles, I had what one of the Peace Corps doctors calls the "Double Dragon" -- when the body's only two mechanisms for dealing with an upset stomach are occurring simultaneously. I would never, EVER, wish such a thing upon another person. I was pretty miserable for a couple of days, but luckily I have incredibly hospitable friends and neighbors around me who were more than willing to help. When I couldn't even get out of bed, I sent a couple of kids to the market to buy crackers, toilet paper, and phone credit, and I gave them a little extra money so they could buy chips or candy for themselves as a thank-you. People also offered to fetch water for me or do anything else I needed. I'm not back at 100% yet, but I'm doing okay. But enough about my intestinal troubles . . . .

One of the most widely known facets of Peace Corps is the interaction and exchange between two different cultures. Indeed, rarely a day goes by that I don't think about the differences between Malagasy and American culture. So starkly different are the two that at times it's incredibly easy to forget that there are similarities, too. One of the things I've been doing to help myself try to adjust back to my life here is think of the similarities I have noticed over my time here so far. Here's what I've come up with:

1) Some people will be buttheads no matter what you do. But a smile goes a long way in a difficult situation. There are rude Americans. There are rude Malagasy. Some people will never be satisfied with how they are being treated. And being a foreigner, I probably annoy and anger people on a pretty regular basis without even realizing it. But when I stay calm, patient, friendly, and offer a smile, people are a lot more willing to help me figure out what to do. Same thing in America (try yelling at an employee versus kindly asking for assistance and see how far you get).

2) Little kids think big kids are way cool. It's a rare day when I don't have at least 20 children hanging out in my house/yard. Admittedly, some of this has to do with the fact that I am a very white, very tall (compared to the Malagasy), foreigner. But I also like to tell myself it's because I'm just a big kid and they want to be like me. :)

3) A party's not a party without a lot of food. Sharing food in Madagascar, just like sharing food in America, is an expression of welcome and celebration.

4) Justin Bieber is a pop sensation. While Malagasy music hasn't yet hit it big statesides, American pop culture has certainly infiltrated over here. The kids in my neighborhood have adopted "Baby" as their latest favorite song, so I hear them singing it [or trying to, anyway--their comprehension of the English words is a little subpar] almost constantly.

In other news, last Sunday was "vingt-six" (the 26th...June 26), Madagascar's national holiday. I was expecting there to be quite the party going on, since everyone was concerned when I went to the states that I wouldn't be back in time for the holiday. It was also all anybody could talk about for the week leading up to the big day. Turns out it actually wasn't too different from any other party/festival/big occasion I've seen in my town. I later heard from people that a lot more happens in Morondava and Mahabo--the bigger towns near me. (Shayla also told me she and a bunch of kids from her neighborhood went to see fireworks.) But, I celebrated the best that I could with some friends and neighbors. Mid-afternoon I wandered over to the field by the mayor's office where there was music and "wrestling." (It's not exactly wrestling, but similar idea--this is a popular hobby for Malagasy men & boys.) Since I had only been back in town for a few days, I hadn't seen all of my friends yet, but I ran into many at the party and then visited a few people at home to drop off gifts and such.

Also, a couple more things that may be of interest. This article is from several weeks old by now, but you may find it interesting. By the International Crisis Group, it does a pretty good job of laying out the status of the political crisis here right now and the options for and challenges to moving forward. http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/africa/southern-africa/madagascar/madagascar-from-crisis-to-transition.aspx

Finally, if you have any way to track down the Madagascar episode of Andrew Zimmern/Bizarre Foods, I definitely recommend watching it. The entire episode features Morondava (my area!) and the Sakalava tribe (one of the tribes in my village). My life isn't exactly like the show, of course, but it will give you a good idea of what the area around me looks like and a little cultural insight.

I should get going, so that's it for now. Hope you're all well!

Love love.

Quick luggage update: it did arrive, mostly in tact. It would appear a voalavo (rat) discovered it at some point and mistakenly thought the reason I packed crystal light mix and instant oatmeal was for the sole purpose of sharing with him. Such is life. I spent the weekend in Antsirabe for a regional volunteer meeting and will be heading back to site before too long. Since Morondava is so far away, Shayla and I rarely see other volunteers. It was really great to see friends and meet several of the new volunteers that arrived in March.

I made sure many of you saw this while I was home. But due to popular demand, I'm posting it here too so you always know where to find it. Tsiliva is a popular artist here in Madagascar. And yes, this is what passes for quality entertainment. Lyrics include such gems as "big Jesus, yes yes, big devil, no no;" "we all learn our lessons well;" and "it makes me sad when children are naughty, if you behave you won't have problems." Mazotoa (enjoy)!

Also, don't think I've talked much about this yet. I still don't have any major projects going at my site. But one of the things I have started to do is to try to take advantage of the fact that a ton of children think I'm the bees' knees and spend an enormous chunk of time at my house. I've started turning some of our play dates into opportunities to do some health education. I've started baking cookies and cakes with the kids, but making sure everybody washes their hands before cooking and eating and that we talk about good hygiene. I think once I'm back I'm going to start "Toothbrushing Time with Kristen" every day; we'll all gather and brush our teeth together. Here are some photos of the cooking fun, and another really cool one of a baobab tree.

Hand washing before cooking!

Fifa, Bana, Fetisoa (in back), & Fandry

mixing cake batter

wicked cool baobab

Until next time...Love love.

Apologies for this LONG-overdue post. I kept putting off updating, figuring that while I was at home I would have lots of time and free internet. Instead, I spent all my time stuffing my face with Chipotle burritos. But anyway, I'll try to give at least a brief rundown of the last several months.

I had started teaching health classes at the public middle school in my town. Many of the students are a bit older than middle school students in the states, partly because the French education system is slightly different from ours, but also because of the economic situation many families are in. Students often have to stop attending school for a swhile if they can't afford the fees (even the public schools require uniforms and basic supplies like notebooks/pens/etc.) So, I was working with the two oldest grades at the middle school, and most of my students are roughly in the 14-17 age group. Between the two grades, there are 5 sections.

So far, I've done an HIV/AIDS lesson with each section. I wanted to start small, and HIV/AIDS is a complicated enough topic that I figured it was enough to begin with. the lessons went really well and most of the students were very excited to have me in class. I'm hoping by next school year to maybe have a more regular time to meet with the students and teach about health. Also, I may start a Girls' Club over the summer and do activities that focus on women's empowerment, peer pressure, positive self image, etc.

In other news, if there were Tropical Disease Bingo, I'd probably be pretty close to having a BINGO by now. Shortly before heading to the states for my brother's high school graduation, I contracted amoebic dysentery. (Oregon Trail jokes aside, I can assure you, that was NOT much of a party.) But the doctors started me on meds and it all began to turn around. It still made for a pretty uncomfortable 36 hours of airports and airplanes over the Atlantic, but I made it home eventually. I got to spend 4 great days over Memorial Day weekend with my friends in DC, and then 2 weeks at home with family for Ryan's graduation. [And in case you hadn't heard yet, he'll be joining the ranks of the OSU Buckeyes this fall! Congrats Ryan!]

I'm sure many of you will be wanting an update on all of the heat rash issues. I went to the travel clinic while I was home to see if the doctors there had ANY other ideas for how I could treat the heat rash when it comes back during next year's hot season (as it most likely will). As I'm back in Madagascar, I obviously got all the clearance I needed to return. But now that I'm back, I've had conversations with medical and administrative staff. It's looking like I'm probably going to have to move sites, to the highlands which are SIGNIFICANTLY colder. Things are still a bit up in the air and it will be a few more months down the road, but I'm pretty sure that's what's going to happen. (Keep sending mail, though! I'm not leaving any time soon!)

The other debacle of the last few days is that my luggage didn't arrive with me on Wednesday night. Apparently it's here now though, and I can go pick it up at the airport in a few minutes. Then I'm heading south to Antsirabe for a regional volunteer meeting, and in a couple of days I'll be heading back to my village. I have a few more things to finish up while I'm here at the meva and have free internet, but I'll try to get a few more pictures up before I head out. It was so great to be home and see all of you! Keep sending mail! :)

Love love.

There is a Malagasy game I'd like to tell you about. It is called Poke the Pimple, and it is quite similar to Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Although people use their fingers instead of paper tails, and there is no donkey - only the many pimples on my face. I'm still not sure of all the rules, but it seems to me the main objective is to see who can get their fingers closest to a pimple. 25 points if you notice it and point at it while whispering to your friend; 50 points if you point to the corresponding location on your own face; 100 points if you actually poke my pimple; 200 points if you muster the courage to ask me what it is. This game is extremely popular with Malagasy children, although adults are much better at it. Children usually don't jump out of the 25-point bracket, but market women consistently break the 200-point barrier. I believe I heard a rumor they're considering adding Poke the Pimple to the Olympic Games in 2020. If they do, I'm sure that Madagascar will sweep the medals and probably set several new records.

Other than playing that every day, there hasn't been too much going on lately. I've spent the last several weeks having repairs done on my house. A series of storms knocked my fence completely down, and I had reinforcements put on my windows and doors for overnight and when I leave my house for extended periods of time. Since I lived in the residence halls all through college, I've never had a place of my own where I was in charge of dealing with maintenance. It's been really funny to me trying to navigate all of that in a foreign language--I'm clueless enough with all that stuff in English. Placing orders for supplies and negotiating with the carpenter has been an absolutely hilarious adventure. I debated whether or not I even wanted to have the fence rebuilt, but ultimately decided yes for several reasons. Everyone around me has fences, and I really do feel like it's necessary for security. But the most important thing that influenced me was my role as a health volunteer. There are lots of cats and dogs in the neighborhood (generally not vaccinated), as well as chickens, goats, and other creatures that roam around. When I talk about hygiene, cleanliness, disease, keeping food and water clean and uncontaminated, I figured it might be helpful if I model a healthy lifestyle and clean home by trying to keep animals away from my living & cooking space. If I don't even do it, how can I expect anyone else to?!

I've been fairly frustrated with work lately. I am in a new site for Peace Corps - no PCV has ever been in my village before, though there have been volunteers from other organizations/countries. I can tell those groups had very different roles from me, though, and I have struggled to figure out how to explain why I'm there and what my role is in the community. Getting projects going outside of working at the clinic that also involve Malagasy people is very challenging. I really want my local counterparts to be involved in every step of the process so that things may continue even after I leave here. I've decided to try to stop focusing all of my energy on work and try instead just to live here. I'm hoping that if I spend more time with women at the market, start inviting people over to my house for dinner, and find other ways to build relationships, ideas might start to develop.

That being said, it is getting easier. More and more people recognize me (even if I have no idea who they are -- there are thousands of people in my village!) ... but I'm not just the vazaha anymore. At least not to some people. A lot of times I don't even have to explain myself - somebody else will jump in for me and say "oh, yes, she works at the hospital, she goes around and talks about health, I saw her doing this/that one day, etc etc." It's really reassuring to hear that.

International Women's Day was a couple of weeks ago, and my village had a festival for it. There was a parade of sorts in the morning, and then everyone gathered around all day for singing and dancing. Here's a picture of the parade up to the village commune:

All the women were also doing "yard work" in front of the commune/cleaning up the area. I decided to pitch in and help, figuring everyone would get a kick of the vazaha getting involved. Sure enough everybody thought it was hysterical and kept telling me I was doing it the wrong way. There is a right way and a wrong way to dig up weeds, didn't you know?

I kept hearing that the Prime Minister of Madagascar was going to be coming - to which I thought, "Seriously? Out of ALL the places in Madagascar, he's going to be in MY village?!" But after I had waited around for several hours, still with no sign of his arrival, I finally decided to leave. But I did stay long enough to see a lot of the singing and dancing, and enjoyed lunch. It was kind of like a Malagasy picnic with people sitting on mats on the ground!

Even though I've been here for several months, I had NEVER IN MY LIFE seen so much rice!!!!!! They had dozens of ENORMOUS pots of it, and it was scooped into gigantic water buckets to distribute. I unfortunately didn't snap a picture of the giant buckets, but here are some pictures of lunch & a couple women I ate with:

All in all, it was a very nice day, and it started generating some ideas to possibly implement later in my service. It reminded me that people love food and a celebration which has food will always attract people.....so maybe I can organize some educational festivals similar to this one. We shall see.

Well I think that's about all the news I have related to Madagascar. Before I sign off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY LITTLE BROTHER!!!! He turned 18 this week!!! AND he's gotten into quite the selection of colleges. Congrats, I'm so proud of you!

Love love.

The rash has gone away and the doctors have cleared me to go back to my site. It's been cold and rainy here in Tana and is still really hot at my site, so there's a good chance the rash will resurface. But we'll cross that bridge if and when we come to it. I have a new ointment that hopefully will help stave it off.

I'm ready to head back. Being in Tana was actually pretty stressful this time around. There have been a ton of people in and out of the meva, and the internet has been TERRIBLE (hence why I didn't update all week). I was able to relax and watch a few movies, but I was sort of itching to get out of the city and back to my village. I'm still not completely acclimated at my site, but I felt like I was just beginning to make some strides when I had to come to Tana to deal with the whole rash issue. Hopefully I'll be able to get settled right back in and pick up with work.

Honestly I don't know what else to say. There haven't been many new things happening at my site. Just a quick word on mail before I sign off . . . it seems like mail delivery may be slowing down a little bit, both to and from Madagascar. Most things are arriving though so please keep sending stuff! So far I've received every package I was supposed to, and everything seems to be present. It seems like some letters aren't making it, or maybe they're just held up. Honestly I can't predict it - some things arrive in as little as 10 days, some things come 2-3 months after they're postmarked. There seems to be no rhyme or reason with the type of packaging or point of origin. So, please just keep writing to me and keep fingers crossed it gets here eventually! I love all the letters :)

Love love

"Never a dull moment, huh?" - part of a text from my mother last week. Never a dull moment is right. I've been battling a heat rash on my back since late November. It was annoying but tolerable for a while, and the combination of my travels in December in cooler parts of the country + some different meds helped a little bit. But ever since I got back to my site, the weather has been growing more and more miserable each day, as has the rash. Last week it flared up to an unbearable level, and did not improve despite the Peace Corps doctors increasing my med dosage and adding another medication. So, they told me I would need to come to Tana to see a dermatologist. So naturally, cyclone Bingiza decided to hit Morondava at the exact same time, preventing me from leaving my site and traveling to Tana. Then over the weekend the safety and security officer was sending out alerts about potential problems with demonstrations in Tana, especially around the airport. Apparently former president Ravalomanana (who has been exiled) thought it would be a good time to try to finagle his way back onto the island. So, getting to Tana was a bit of a challenge. Had it been an emergency, the situation absolutely would have been different, so to all concerned parties - have no fear. Since it wasn't an emergency, I was able to wait it out and am now in Tana. I'll be here at least through tomorrow, possibly longer. I'm seeing the dermatologist in the morning so we'll see how it goes. I'll be sure to post something longer tomorrow. For now, I have an early morning ahead of me and want to take advantage of the electricity and crawl into bed with a movie.

Here's a picture of my back one of the days last week. (Cooler whether has since helped the rash cool off, though it is still bothering me.)

Well, I have survived another month of village life. And apparently I am now ugly. When I came back to my site after traveling, I discovered that Floria and her family (my old neighbors) had also moved into a new house—one that didn’t have rent. I still swing by their new house occasionally, though it’s out of my way enough that I can’t go all the time. On several of these recent visits, Floria has been very distraught over my physical appearance due to my having lost a little bit of weight since my arrival. Not much, but enough to be a bit slimmer than I was when I stepped off that plane six months ago. (I attribute this primarily to the removal of Chipotle burritos from my diet, but also have to give a bit of credit to the frequent intestinal troubles which my mother so eloquently described: “well with all that diarrhea you’ve been having, you can hardly keep anything in.”) Anyway, Floria keeps telling me things which translate roughly to, “You used to be fat. Now you are skinny and your face has gotten really ugly. What kind of food am I supposed to eat so I can have fat arms like you used to have?” I try to explain that we value the opposite in America and that I would be considered more attractive now, but she insists that I am not healthy and I would be much more beautiful if I got fat again. Oh well.

In other outrageous news, due to my marlaria prophylaxis I occasionally have dreams that are either entirely ridiculous or incredibly frightening. Last week I dreamt that my brother Ryan had enlisted in the Navy and was killed in combat. I share this with you not to be dramatic, but rather because, surprisingly, it was a bit of insight into Malagasy culture. Even though I obviously realized it was only a dream, I was understandably shaken up by it and it was still bothering me a day later. I mentioned it to one of my Malagasy friends and she told me, “Oh, that’s really good!” I wondered briefly about which words I had mixed up in my explanation that she misunderstood my meaning, but then she added, “We believe that if you dream about somebody dying, he or she will actually have a very long life. So it is a good thing if you dream about people dying.” Apparently you should all hope that I start having dreams you drop dead very suddenly. Interesting, eh?

In terms of work, I am still struggling to figure out what to do at my site, but I am very slowly beginning to find ways to branch out beyond the clinic. There is a local nutrition organization that trains health educators throughout Madagascar to weigh children, do cooking demonstrations for mothers, and other nutrition-related activities. There are several people who work for them in my village, but one woman in particular has been incredibly helpful and welcoming to me. So for the last several weeks I have been going out one day a week with Madame Vao to help weigh babies and distribute and explain the children’s health notebooks provided by the Ministry of Health. (The notebooks have growth charts showing target weight ranges, and also have pictures and information about a balanced diet, good breastfeeding practices, vaccination, and other crucial information for children under age 5.) I very quickly realized that Madame Vao is really on top of her game and doesn’t actually need my help at all. But I enjoy working with her—she helps me learn more Malagasy language—and I’ve found it’s a good way for me to interact more with people in my community. So to make myself a bit more useful, I still help weigh babies and add information I think is important, but I’ve also started giving talks about other topics such as diarrhea or malaria. I figure while I have a crowd gathered, I may as well take the opportunity to deliver more health messages.

This week I realized I may be able to help more than I had thought originally. Several weeks ago Madame Vao had casually mentioned something about “ananambo” (moringa) growing by her house. Moringa is an incredibly nutritious plant and fortunately grows very well in many parts of Madagascar. I pulled out some information I had from Peace Corps about the plant and mentioned that the seeds and leaves can both be eaten and the leaves can be dried and pounded into a powder to add to the food of young children. Even a small amount of moringa can provide kids’ daily requirements of calcium; magnesium; iron; and vitamins A, B, & C, and it’s great for pregnant mothers or women who are breastfeeding. She knew it contained calcium but hadn’t realized just how nutritionally valuable the plant is. Anyway, after mentioning it I hadn’t really thought twice about it. But this week, Madame Vao asked to see the information again and copied it down. She told some of the mothers with underweight babies about it this week, and if I understood correctly, we’re going to do a cooking demonstration with moringa at her house next week. I’m really excited about this because it’s pretty much the first time since I’ve moved into my village that I felt like I was actually providing a knowledge or skill that wasn’t already here. If things go well next week, I’m going to see if Madame Vao can help me gather some other health educators in the area who might be interested in coming to learn about moringa.

I also had another great day for work yesterday. When I first moved in I met a man, Severino, who told me he did health education and had worked some with a couple of Japanese volunteers who lived here a couple of years ago. I couldn’t figure out if he was affiliated with any organization, and I’ll admit I was a little bit skeptical of his intentions since Malagasy men are usually not timid about their desire to have a vazaha wife. But I had seen him helping with mosquito net distribution in November, and he was very friendly (though not too friendly) when I bumped into him a couple times by the market. Since I’ve been feeling a little stir crazy spending a lot of slow hours at the clinic, I decided I’d see if he’d be interested in going around the area to do health talks. I’ve really enjoyed working with Madame Vao and thought I’d be much more satisfied here if I could do work similar to that on a more regular basis. Anyway, Severino and I agreed to go around to houses yesterday and talk about malaria. I had no idea how successful it would be, but I was incredibly pleased with the day.

All along, I’ve assumed that knowledge and practices related to health were probably better around where I live since the clinic is right here and therefore people are more likely to come to give birth, receive vaccinations, and seek treatment when they’re sick. This is probably true, and I’ve noticed that most of the people at the clinic are from fairly close neighborhoods. So I figured once I got more acclimated, I’d spend most of my time trying to get into areas that are much farther away from the clinic and not do a whole lot of work in the area immediately around my house. I did make the mistake of assuming that most people actually utilize these services since they’re so close. Going around yesterday, I realized this is apparently not the case and that there is still a lot of work that can be done in the area immediately around me (and I’m actually a bit frightened of what I might see when I do go farther out!) Despite the fact that there was a Ministry-of-Health-sponsored mosquito net distribution in November, there were still a lot of households that did not have nets. And there were an alarming number of families that had nets (multiples even!) but were not using them—they were stored in boxes or bags in a corner. Although the net distribution went really well, I’m not sure there was any follow-up after the fact to make sure people were actually using them. This is probably something I’ll try to initiate the next time a distribution happens. In addition to being able to see things for myself, working with Severino was great. He explained new vocabulary to me and helped me correct mistakes I made speaking Malagasy. He’s also a very good educator—he had people really engaged and laughing a lot of the time. It was also useful for me to see how he did the talks at the houses. I’ve been doing talks on the exact same information for the last few months at the clinic, but doing them at people’s houses added an element of visibility, and I hadn’t realized how helpful that could be. He was not at all shy about pointing out to people spots where they should sweep up messes or get rid of standing water or cover buckets in their house. I felt like the talks yesterday were infinitely more helpful to my community than the talks I’ve been giving at the clinic. And I don’t think at any point in time we were anywhere farther than a ten-minute walk to the clinic. We’re heading out again next Wednesday to go to areas we didn’t hit yet. I’m hoping he’ll be willing to do this every week so we can go really far and talk about lots of different topics, but we’ll see!

I also got some insight from him about possible future projects. I’ve been struggling for a while to figure out how the health educators are organized, what they’re trained in, who they are, etc. etc. Everybody seems to have a slightly different answer (which in some ways probably is an answer). But Severino said there used to be a lot of people who went out a while back, but things are disorganized because of the recent political struggles and people don’t want to work anymore since they’re not paid. This gives me some things to ponder with regard to how I can potentially help get a health educator system back up and running. There are clearly people who have knowledge about doing health eduation, and there are several organizations around Madagascar that help train and equip health educators to do work, so I’m hoping that during my time here I’ll be able to get a really good program going in my area again.

As usual, I’ve written an encyclopedia, so I think I’ll cut it off here. Haven’t taken any pictures lately, but I’ll try to get some for next time. Before I sign off I want to send special birthday wishes to my Grandmother Walling today and Grandpa Hanna tomorrow. Also, a rather belated congratulations to my brother Ryan who has been accepted at Auburn and Kansas University!! (Although the booger won't ever answer his telephone, so I had to find this out a couple weeks late via an email from my father. Sheesh.)

And to the new group of trainees arriving next month—WE’RE SO EXCITED FOR YOU TO BE COMING!! Hopefully my answers to some of your questions have been helpful. Looking forward to meeting all of you eventually!

Love love.

Well, after a few weeks of bopping around and helping out with projects at friends' sites, I'm back in Tana and will be finally heading back to my own site in a couple of days. After my training, I headed south to Glenda's site, a little bit outside of Antsirabe, for a week. Her clinic has an outdoor kitchen area for the women giving birth. They usually stay at the clinic for a few days, so it's nice to have an area to cook food. The cookstoves that were already there were pretty rundown, though, so we decided to help build new ones. We've learned how to make high-efficiency cookstoves out of local materials such as dirt, clay, ashes, or rice flour. They help contain heat, using less wood or charcoal than simply building a fire, so the Malagasy term for them is "fatana mititsy" ("stingy stove"). We gathered all of the patients & staff at the clinic and explained the process for making the stoves and benefits of using them. Then we got them to help us sift the materials and make the mixture. A lot of people seemed very interested and were asking a lot of questions about the stoves, wanting to know what other kinds of materials could be used for the mixture. And of course, it was fun to play in the mud! Here, Monique, Glenda, and I are beginning to sift the materials and mix them together with water.

I also celebrated Christmas at Glenda's site, along with Monique and Erica. We made our best attempt at the "Peace Corps oven" (a fairly imprecise method involving sand, empty cans, and a very large pot over a gas stove) and baked some Christmas cookies. They sort of all ran together, but considering we've been in Madagascar for over 5 months, we thought they got the job done.

Glenda had also bought a "Christmas tree" (though, the Malagasy and American concepts of what shape a Christmas tree typically are seem to differ a bit). We did our best (thanks to Colleen for the decorations you sent in the package!) to perk it up it in an American fashion, though it still had an uncanny resemblance to the Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

After Christmas I proceeded on to Tisa's site near Fianarantsoa. We did a training with the health educators in her commune and taught them about the "hot box." In the same concept as the fatana mititsy, the hot box is a way of cooking over fire for a short period of time, and then moving the food to a box/basket/some sort of contraption that contains heat so the food can keep cooking without using up resources. We used woven baskets, fabric, and blankets-items which probably every Malagasy family has in their house. The cookstoves and the hot boxes are great for the environment and health - they cut down on smoke which causes respiratory infections. On subsequent days, we went out with the health educators into the villages further away to teach villagers about the technique. Figuring a demonstration would help, and knowing how much the Malagasy people love their rice, we actually cooked rice in the hot box so everyone could see it in action. It was a huge success! Tisa's going to go back out and follow up in a few weeks and see if anybody has actually started using the hot box to cook.

Even though it was already after Christmas Day, the celebrations were still in full swing at Tisa's site. One afternoon we went to a "Christmas Spectacle," which had an array of performances but featured a kids' Christmas pageant. The script told the story of the birth and included musical interludes in Malagasy, French, and English. I was especially moved by the part of the story where Mary and Elizabeth greeted one another ("Bonjour Mary, Bonjour Elizabeth"), and discussed the pending arrival of their sons. The mayor's son's rendition of Michael Jackson's "We Are the World" was also informative - I had not previously realized what a pivotal role that song played in the birth of Jesus Christ. Here you can see everyone gathered in the stable - complete with baby Jesus lying on the ground and Herod's soldiers (wearing pink glittery wizards' hats) standing in the background.

Tisa's site is also right near the enormous tea estate at Sahambavy, where Madagascar's famous vanilla tea is made. So we took a stroll one by the plantation and saw where the tea grows. In case you can't tell, Erica, Tisa, and I are spelling out "TEA" in the picture.

Finally, I reigned in the new year with a bunch of other PCV's in Fianarantsoa. Of course I put the New Year's hats and necklaces that Colleen sent to good use and made my American friends wear them around town with me all day. We attracted even more attention than we usually get just for being "vazaha," but I'm pretty sure the Malagasy people got a kick out of it (thanks again, Colleen!)

Tomorrow I'll be flying back to Morondava. Word on the street is I have a ton of letters and packages waiting for me; I'll be picking it all up and then hopefully head back to my site in the afternoon - thanks in advance for anything you've sent! Since I'm itching to get back and really get settled into the new house and start things all over again, I'm not planning on being in town any time soon. So it may be a while before I update again, but know that I'm thinking about and missing you all. Hope everyone had blessed holidays!

Love love.

Last week I was back at the Peace Corps training site for several days of in-service training. After we've been at site for nearly 3 months, PC likes to bring us all back together to process the first few months and try to figure out where to go with projects now that we know a bit more of what it's like to actually be a volunteer. The schedule was pretty flexible so we got to help create our own sessions and get information about the things that we felt like we needed to learn and take back to our sites. It was also nice to see the other 37 people from my training class again - Shayla was the only one I had seen since I was installed at my site. We were all able to exchange horror stories about the mayhem we faced in our first few months at site and bounce some ideas off of each other for future projects.

I'm pretty pleased with how the week went because I feel like I have a little more direction for what I can do when I get back to site in a few weeks. At first I was flabbergasted at how many health-related activities are already going on at some of the other volunteers' sites. Although, many of these sites have had PCV's in the past or are in bigger, less isolated towns. My site is fairly removed from where many NGO's and aid organizations focus their work, and it's a new Peace Corps site. So there's not much going on in my area yet. After hearing everyone else's stories, though, I have realized I'm definitely NOT in the worst situation. While there's not much happening yet, I do have a pretty great clinic staff and a lot of excitement in the community so I think there's potential for things to develop.

Many villages already have many health educators who are trained in health topics and go out into the community to share knowledge and often provide basic health care such as vaccines. I either don't yet have them at my site, or they're not organized in a comprehensive and effective way yet. So when I get back to my village, I'm hoping to begin searching for people who are interested in doing health education and work with local organizations to conduct trainings and start getting people out into the more remote parts of my commune.

Perhaps what I'm most excited about, however, is a social marketing organization I may begin working with several days a week. They have organized many health campaigns and products for disease prevention, especially on malaria and STI and HIV/AIDS education. They do a lot of work on AIDS prevention and STI awareness among commercial sex workers, and that is definitely a major concern in the Morondava area. My Peace Corps supervisor introduced me to a couple of their employees who are hopefully going to get me in touch with their Morondava office so I can work with them when I'm back. I'm hoping that ends up working out because I think I could learn a lot by working with their office. Keep fingers crossed it works out!

Now beyond all the seriousness, as you can probably imagine, bringing together nearly 40 Americans who haven't seen each other for a few months results in a bit of ridiculousness and mayhem. In markets and roadside stalls all over Madagascar, you can find second-hand clothes from overseas; the Malagasy people call this stuff "frip." (I have seen about a trillion pairs of athletic shorts that say "Cleveland 23" on them - can't imagine why!) Anyway, a bunch of us decided to have an "Ugly Frip Party" during our in-service training, the idea being that we would all find the most outrageous frip we possibly could and have a dance party. It was pretty hilarious seeing what everybody was able to come up with. Here I am with other PCV's Christiane and Monique, and then Brianna. It was a fun night!

There was also a bit of chaos when we got back to the meva (Peace Corps transit house) in Tana. As the rainy season is beginning, we've had pretty heavy rain storms the last several nights. The meva is also at the bottom of a hill, so thanks to gravity water collects pretty rapidly and starts flowing into the entrance of the largest bedroom. This happened the first night we were back, but we got all of our bags off the floor and walked carefully across the tile floor. Two nights ago it rained again and we saw a ton of water pouring from the second-floor balcony, which we assumed was again from the rain. After it had stopped raining for a while, though, my friend Tisa soon discovered that the entire second floor was flooding because the tube to a water tank in the medical unit had broken and was spewing water everywhere. Several of us sprang into action, got the guards to help us turn off the water, called the PC duty officers and medical staff, and started a broom brigade to begin sweeping the several inches of water outside and over the balconies. JUST when I think I'm done with my days of being an RA - hah!

This is Lorin, aiming the still-spewing water into the sink so at least it wasn't spraying all over the med unit anymore.

Water gushing down the meva stairs.

Tisa and Monique moving dripping boxes of medical supplies off of the floor and to a more dry location.

Me, attempting to sweep up water.

There's just been all kinds of excitement these last couple of weeks!

I still won't be back at my site for a couple more weeks. I'm going to a couple of the other health volunteers' sites to help out with some projects. I'll be in the Antsirabe area for several days adding a kitchen & cookstoves onto the maternity room at my friend Glenda's site, and will spend Christmas there with her Malagasy friends and a few other PCV's. Then I'll be around Fianarantsoa at Tisa's site doing a training with the health educators. Tisa's site has 41 HEALTH EDUCATORS that do a lot of work in her community. Since that's something I want to start up at my own site, I'm excited to see how they work and get some ideas on how to begin.

I'm really not sure what my access to internet is going to be like over the next couple of weeks. I think there's a chance I'll have more access than I usually do at my site, but I just don't know for sure. I will be swinging back through Tana around January 2 or 3 before I return to Morondava, though, and I should have internet then that's fast enough for skype - so keep that in mind! Hope you all have a wonderful time for the holidays; I'm thinking of you all!

Love love.

This post is fairly late getting up here, but since everyone has been inquiring about my turkey/my Thanksgiving celebration, I’ll talk a little bit about that. The day was a huge success! Philbert Kely’s health problems continued, and I didn’t think it was a good idea to eat him for Thanksgiving dinner, so I was prepared to purchase a new bird closer to the day. Then he mysteriously disappeared, and when I inquired about him I got some suspicious answers from my neighbors. I’m pretty sure they may have sold him to a local Malagasy restaurant without telling me, though I haven’t been able to confirm that. Either way, we ended up eating a different bird for our Thanksgiving celebration.

Shayla, the only other volunteer near me, came over and we had green beans, mashed potatoes, STUFFING FROM AMERICA (thanks Mom!), and “sweet potato casserole.” A combination of foods being different colors/shapes/sizes here and my poor language skills resulted in me buying a million pounds of yams instead of sweet potatoes. And I did not realize this until after I had started trying to mash them up. I had marshmallows I had bought in Tana after swearing-in so I decided to see what would happen anyway. It ended up being DELICIOUS. We set up a buffet table in my back yard and let everyone prepare their plates.

My neighbors killed and prepared the turkey. I was pretty disappointed that I didn’t get to kill the bird myself, but apparently it’s taboo for women to kill animals in my region. There also wasn’t any feasible way to roast a turkey, but my neighbor’s sister cooked it in a pot with oil, curry, tomatoes, onions, and some other spices. Not your typical Thanksgiving turkey, but still amazing.

A bunch of my friends from the neighborhood came over for the feast. I’m not sure anybody really liked the food too much—there were some funny facial expressions and I had a sneaking suspicion most people were trying to politely force the food down. When I asked if everyone liked American food, many of them said, “Eka fa mbo tsy zatra,” which basically means, “Yes, we’re just not accustomed to it yet.” Here you can see the looks of hesitation on the face of Anniko, a girl who lived just down the street from me in my old house, and some of my other former neighbors.

Shayla and I, on the other hand, were beyond satisfied. It ended up being far closer to an American Thanksgiving than I ever would have imagined could be possible in Madagascar. During the meal I explained as best I could in my broken Malagasy how the tradition was started and why we celebrate the holiday. I certainly have a new appreciation for it after my first several months here in Madagascar. I told my friends I can relate to being the outsider who doesn't know how to speak the same language or find and prepare food, and that I've been grateful to everyone in my village who has welcomed me and tried to help me get settled in. It was definitely an odd way to celebrate the day, but I'm glad I was able to successfully share it with my community here.

Well, it's been a while since I've been able to update this, but it's also been a very hectic several weeks. I've been in Tana for a few days because I have in-service training next week and then will be doing business projects with some other volunteers. This much-needed break could not have come at a more perfect time. It's been nice to see all of my American friends from my training class and be back in a place with more amenities and connectivity to life off the island.

My housing situation had been growing increasingly problematic, mostly because of an overbearing landlady and many health issues. A combination of doctors' recommendations and my supervisor's visit to my site led to me being moved into a new house last week. I'm still in the same village, about a 2 minute walk from where my old house was. Luckily I don't think there are any hard feelings, and I still swing by the old neighborhood almost every day to hang out with my friends around there. I have still been eating with my old neighbors, but my work schedule and the new house have made it less convenient than it used to be so I may switch to eating with them only on the weekends now.

Here's a picture from moving day, which I thought was absolutely hysterical. I had to get assistance my friends across the street who have an ox-cart to move my furniture and other heavy things to the new house. My very own Malagasy U-Haul.

I had a great week in the new house, and I think it's going to solve a lot of my problems, making it easier to get acclimated to life here and get started on more serious work when I'm back at site in a few weeks. I'm RIGHT next to the clinic now, but I like it. Most of the other staff also lives in the vicinity, so I think it helps all the patients affiliate me with the clinic and health work when they see me around there even more frequently than before. Here are some pictures of the house: a view from the outside (mine is the room on the right; the other rooms are used by the clinic when staff comes from other towns to help out for a few weeks at a time); views of the inside; 2 of the 3 ADORABLE puppies that often sleep in the shade in my yard.

These last few days in Tana have been simply marvelous. Everyone from my training class has been trickling into town over the last couple of days - it's nice catching up with everyone and getting to explore the city a little bit. Even though I came into Tana several times during training, it was usually for half a day and was to take care of Peace Corps business; never had much free time. It felt kind of ridiculous that I've been in the country for almost 5 months and had no idea how to get around the capital city. But, I've been living a life of luxury here at the Peace Corps meva (transit house). I've had free internet, couches, flush toilets, hot showers, a kitchen, the ability to sleep past 4:30am since there are no roosters or village children in the compound, and the temperature has been in the 70's (MUCH cooler than the average day at my site).

And the RESTAURANTS in Tana are nothing short of DIVINE!! I've enjoyed Indian food, salads, paninis, and other delicious meals. The place that has just topped off the whole week, though, is an American-style cafe called The Cookie Shop. The Cookie Shop has things like bagel sandwiches, tuna melts, chocolate chip cookies, brownie ice cream sundaes, cupcakes, iced coffee, chai tea, and fruit smoothies. I had an utterly delightful Saturday brunch special there this morning including waffles topped with chocolate syrup and whipped cream. Another volunteer was asked, "Would you like your carrot cake to come with the luscious cream cheese frosting?" -- to which she replied, "Why, yes, I believe I would like the luscious cream cheese frosting." The wait staff speak English, and one of my friends was even sassed with American-style sarcasm by an employee, giving us a good chuckle. (Sarcasm is a concept that is usually entirely lost on the Malagasy people.) It probably goes without saying that I have been to The Cookie Shop every day since I rolled into town.

These last several days have lifted my spirits and renewed my energy and excitement for my Peace Corps service. It is still going to be a few weeks before I'm back in my village, but I think I'll be ready for it when the time comes. These last couple of months have certainly not been the easiest. But I'm looking forward to going back and starting fresh. I've actually been learning a lot about my town and many of the health and development issues that I'll be working on . . . I'll update about all of that soon.

Well, I certainly can’t say that my life ever ceases to be interesting. Just when I thought my house couldn’t possibly be the place of residence for any more ants, cockroaches, and rats, I discovered a termite infestation. So on Tuesday I moved all of my belongings to the center of my house while my landlady’s husband doused my entire house with poison. I subsequently had an allergic reaction on my face and arms to something, presumably the chemical. So, one of the Peace Corps doctors instructed me to leave my site, stay in a hotel, and begin taking a steroid. I still had a bit of a reaction Wednesday morning, though things seem better now.

Heading back to site this morning. I can’t comment to give my personal opinion or an “insider’s view” or anything, but I can tell you that you should check out news about Madagascar. (And, honestly, you’ll probably be able to find out as much as I know, if not more.) There was a constitutional referendum that took place Wednesday and has made things interesting to say the least. I’m currently awaiting further updates and instructions from Peace Corps. But know that I am safe and once again healthy.

Sorry this is so short, but I’ve got to head out.

Love love.

I sincerely wish I could tell you all that I’m joking, but I’m not. A couple of weeks ago, I asked Floria if it was possible to buy a turkey here since there was an American holiday at the end of November that I was hoping to celebrate with my new friends here. She told me there are lots of turkeys but that they get very expensive close to Christmas, so I should buy one now. In the spirit of embracing life here I thought, “Well, why not? Raising a turkey for several weeks might be fun.” So on Friday (market day), I ventured to the market with Floria’s oldest daughter, Nuelina, in search of a fine Thanksgiving bird. I had assumed a turkey would cost roughly the same as a chicken, so I took what I figured would be enough money. After a disappointing realization that turkeys are actually considerably more expensive, I settled on a small but decent-looking bird, figuring it may plump up a bit after several weeks. I haggled the price down to 10,000 Ariary (roughly $5.00), brought the bird home, and—despite warnings from my brother not to get too attached—named it “Philbert Kely.” (Philbert is Floria’s oldest son; Philbert Kely, meaning Small Philbert, was the closest I could come up with for “Philbert Jr.”) I figured the neighbors would get a kick out of the fact that I named the bird after my adopted host family; indeed, they think it’s a riot.

Well, after getting Philbert Kely settled in to his new home, I headed to work. About four hours later I came home for lunch only to find out that Philbert Kely is VERY VERY SICK with terrible diarrhea. Actually, not even diarrhea so much as liquid perpetually falling out of his hind end. My first thought was, “I didn’t even know turkeys could GET diarrhea.” My second thought was, “Oh, how nice. My bird is just trying to live in solidarity with me while we both adjust to our new homes.” Many of my fellow volunteers, and a few of you back home who I’ve been able to talk to, have told me, “You WOULD be the one to buy a turkey.” Fill has been the only person who wasn’t remotely surprised that I bought a turkey but instead remarked, “YOU would get a turkey with diarrhea.” Philbert Kely seems to be making a slow yet steady recovery, so I’m holding onto a small glimmer of hope. Here’s a picture of the little guy; Floria’s the one holding him, and behind them is Narindra, a girl who lives across the street.

In terms of work, I’m still trying to figure out exactly how I can be useful here. Last week at the clinic was interesting. There was a Madagascar-wide malnutrition outreach program for children under 5 (the most at-risk group for malnutrition). Vitamin A capsules, deworming pills, and vaccines were available for free to all children under 5. A local nutrition organization brought in several staff to help throughout the week. On Monday, I went around town with a woman, telling people to bring their kids to the clinic anytime this week. On Tuesday morning I went to a local elementary school to help with the distribution. That was great because I got to meet the principal of the school and she wants me to start giving presentations there this week. A couple days I helped fill out cards at the clinic, and on Friday I went with the doctor and a couple of other helpers out to a village farther away from the clinic to get the meds out. This past week the schedule was back to normal, but I’ve started taking on a few more tasks as my language skills are improving. I mostly help weigh children under 5 and chart their growth to see if they’re malnourished or at risk.

I think in the long run the clinic is not going to be where I’ll do most of my work. My clinic has a great staff (a doctor, a midwife, and several support staff), and they already give presentations on preventative health measures (which is pretty much most of what I’m qualified to do). Some other volunteers were placed at clinics that don’t even have doctors or have staff that never shows up to work, so their help is much more needed. What I really think my clinic could use would be another doctor/nurse/midwife available for patient consultations, which I’m not even remotely qualified to do. But, I’m trying to help out where I can and in the meantime am looking for other ways to contribute to my community. I’ve started giving presentations at elementary schools and I’ve met several people that do nutrition work or community outreach through various organizations. My plan is to volunteer with current programs for a little while longer and then begin to see where my own ideas can expand on the work my local counterparts are already doing.

I’m still eating dinner with my neighbors every night, but I’ve had fun experimenting with various concoctions at breakfast and lunch. It’s always a gamble what I’m going to be able to find at the market at any given moment, so I’m trying to be creative with whatever’s available. I’ve had moderate success. In addition to being really, really good at boiling carrots, I have also successfully made a couple of meat dishes, tortillas from scratch, and homemade refried beans. I have unsuccessfully made several things not worth mentioning. One night I offered to cook “American food” for Floria’s family. Since many of the village children have made faces at my cooking and told me that I should make “good Malagasy food—rice with maybe some sweet potatoes on the side,” I decided to keep it pretty standard. I cooked beef in a tomato sauce and threw in some steak seasoning I had bought in the capital, a dish I’ve just about perfected. And I served it, of course, over rice. Everyone seemed skeptical at first, but it was a big hit. Here you can see Philbert (for whom my bird is named), and Calaneny, a friend who stayed with them for a few days.

Before I include a couple more pictures and sign off, I want to say thank-you to everyone who’s sent me stuff. Brenda, I got your package! And I’ve gotten letters/cards from the Hummels, Grandma and Grandpa, UMSA, Greta, and VB. And I’m sure there’s more on the way—things seem to be coming very sporadically. Some stuff comes in 10 days; some was sent over a month ago and hasn’t yet arrived. Anyway, this post is coming off of a pretty good week, but I would be lying if I said I’m acclimating and that things are getting much easier. In all of the seemingly endless frustrations, I often ask myself what I’m still doing here. There have been so many moments when if somebody had said, “Just come home,” I probably would have done it. But in those times that I’ve forgotten why I wanted to be here, your letters/cards/phonecalls/texts/emails/prayers of encouragement have reminded me a little bit about where I come from and where I hope to go in life. And they remind me that I have tons of people rooting for me back home (who are probably reading this from their iphones while sitting on the toilet . . . but I won’t even get into that.)

Here are some more pictures of the area around my house. Here you can see my water source. I lower a small bucket about 15 feet underground through this barrel.

These are the pig pens behind my house. The pink and purple thing behind the pigs would be my shower and latrine. I wasn’t kidding when I said they’re attached to a pig pen.

The slightly more pleasant view from my back yard, once you go a bit past the pigs.

As always happens when I pull out the camera to snap pictures, the village children were all ecstatic and wanted me to take pictures of them. There are mango trees growing all around my house, and in the picture several of them are holding up small, unripe mangoes. They LOVE to eat unripe mangoes with salt. It’s not my favorite snack, but I just really, really love ripe mangoes, so I’m willing to wait a few more weeks till they’re ripe.

So there you have it! A few more pieces of my life here :)

Love love.

Before I talk about my first couple of weeks at site, I want to tell you all that yesterday was a very important day for two reasons: 1) it was my mom’s birthday, and 2) it was Global Handwashing Day. I’d tell you how old my mom turned, but I’m pretty sure Malagasy numbers don’t go that high. If you see her, please wish her a VERY HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY for me. Make sure you talk really, really loudly though so she can hear you. (Hah—just kidding, Mom! I figure if I’m a pain even through the internet, maybe you won’t miss me so much!) There’s more about the handwashing business later in the post.

Well, I had kind of been waiting for the reality that I was in the Peace Corps to sink in. And boy oh boy did it sink in these last couple of weeks. Having come out of being really sick and an extremely frustrating move-in process, I probably wasn’t really in the best frame of mind to have suddenly been dropped off on my own. There were a lot of things I had planned on accomplishing during installation that just didn’t happen in all of the chaos. For instance, buying my furniture, working out my schedule with my doctor, etc. So there I was, confused, lonely, and with nothing to do since I wasn’t supposed to start working at the clinic until my fifth day. The thing I had been most excited about—cooking my own food and planning my own diet—actually proved to be a bit of a disaster. First of all, did you know how depressing it is eating three meals alone every day? I lived in the residence halls and stayed on the meal plan for all four years of college, so I usually met friends at one of the campus dining locations or cooked food in the lounge of my floor. But eating by myself and not having anyone to talk to was really lonely. Then there was the whole issue of WHAT to eat. I knew I would have much more limited options than what I’m accustomed to in the states—that’s one of the challenges Peace Corps makes abundantly clear we’ll likely ha. But I guess I figured I’m on a tropical island, and I’d be able to find stuff. Furthermore, the dialect that I learned during training is hardly similar to what they actually speak in my village. My neighbors make fun of me for using certain vocabulary words that my teachers specifically taught me were spoken at my site. So I can’t really communicate my needs to people, and I can’t understand their responses. Several times I tried to buy certain foods and couldn’t. I pretty much just stayed holed up in my house except for when I absolutely needed to get out and get something. The first couple of days were pretty miserable.

But then I decided to get my act together and do something about it. Any LOST fans will appreciate this. I thought about that incredible scene at the beginning of the series where Jack is coaching Kate through stitching up his wound. He tells her about his own experience performing a life-altering surgery on a young girl. He closed his eyes, let himself feel five seconds of fear, and then got going with what needed to be done. So I finally marched next door to my neighbors’ house and politely asked if I could eat dinner with them every night because I was lonely and wanted to practice speaking Malagasy better. They more than willingly agreed, and I have now eaten with them every night since my third day at site. I help cook and clean, and I give them money for food (which they argue with me about taking, but I insist).

GOD BLESS THIS WOMAN, MADAMO FLORIA, AND HER FIVE CHILDREN FILIBERT, NDRINA, NUELINA, ANJELA, AND HASSINA. I seriously am not sure I would still be in Madagascar if it weren’t for this family. They have been SO welcoming, hospitable, helpful, and patient. Some of my neighbors and coworkers have been a little less than understanding about my poor Malagasy skills and the fact that I come from a different culture. But Floria and her kids explain things to me 80 times if necessary and try to teach me different ways to say the same thing so my vocabulary is slowly expanding. We’re getting comfortable enough with each other to joke and tease each other, so they’re rapidly helping this place start to feel like home. I have had several really challenging, frustrating days here. But after every single dinner with them, I feel happy, refreshed, and ready to face the next day. I don’t think I can possibly express the full extent of my gratitude for them.

Life still has it’s challenges, though. It feels like in the epic battle between Kristen and the universe, the universe is winning. And by “universe,” what I actually mean is, “incredibly large army of ants that has repeatedly tried to stage a coup of my house since approximately 3 seconds after I moved in.” My first night, I thought I felt a couple insect bites so I flicked on my flashlight and found literally hundreds of ants crawling in my sheets. I slide my mattress away from the floor which has helped immensely with this, though I do still find the occasional renegade. The issue since then has been with them getting into everything ELSE in my house. They are EVERYWHERE, they get into EVERYTHING, and they are RELENTLESS. I find them in my clothes, they chew through sealed packages of food, they are EVERYWHERE!! (They got into my Laughing Cow cheese. Which is wrapped in foil. Inside a cardboard box.) I keep designing new contraptions that seem fool-proof. And just when I think I’ve found the solution after a day of losing nothing to the ants…they find a way to get in. The latest design (a Pringles can covered completely with duct tape) has kept them at bay since this morning, but I guarantee they’ll figure out a way to be in it by Monday. Note to anyone sending me a package: PLEASE PUT ANYTHING YOU SEND IN HEAVY-DUTY TUPPERWARE CONTAINERS. Little do these ants know just how "maditra" (stubborn) I can be - and I am GOING to conquer them!! But enough about the ant rant.

Aside from the thousands of unwanted roommates, my home is actually quite lovely. My “house” is the middle room of three rooms that share a porch. It is made of wood, with a cement floor and a tin roof. The walls and roof aren’t sealed, so I see a fair number of lizards coming in and out, which don’t bother me except when they make this ridiculous clicking sound in the middle of the night. I had a mouse friend for my first couple of days I can hear literally EVERYTHING going on in my neighbors’ rooms, and can actually sort of see into them a bit through the tiny cracks between planks of wood (and vice versa)…so I’m kind of left hanging with the concept of privacy. And my sleeping schedule is generally determined by those around me.

Everyone wants to know about the actual living conditions. I have no electricity or running water. I fetch water from a giant underground basin by lowering buckets down into it. I don’t think it’s really a well, and I’m not exactly sure where THAT water comes from. But as long as it’s there, I suppose I don’t really have to worry. I keep a few of my electronics charged with a combination of solar chargers or tapping into the kindness of the people down the street who have a generator they turn on occasionally. (Which is usually to blast obnoxiously loud Malagasy music that can be heard for miles around…but I suppose it’s a small price to pay for keeping my phone charged.) My “shower” is a wooden stall, connected to my latrine as well as the pigpen that is in my back yard. I take bucket baths though, since there’s no running water. The entrance is the same location as the spot where a lot of…..leftovers, shall we say….from the pigpen get left behind. (Don’t even get me started on the sanitary conditions of that. I usually just hold my breath and tread carefully.) My living allowance works out to be something like $4.20 per day. A small pile of vegetables or a loaf of bread is usually the equivalent of 10-15 cents; a cup of rice is about 30 cents; a cup of peanuts, flour, or sugar is double or triple that; a roll of toilet paper is about 25 cents; mailing a letter back home is $1.00-$2.00. [WHEN I SEND YOU MAIL, I EXPECT A RESPONSE!!!!]

My clinic also doesn’t have electricity or running water. There is a pump for water. The refrigerator they keep vaccines in runs off of petrol, when they can get it. My first week here, they ran out and had to turn patients away for several days because they couldn’t keep vaccines here. This is pretty indicative of what the public health situation here is like in general. In just these two weeks, I have seen countless cases of malaria, malnutrition, dehydration, fevers, and other common ailments that are no big deal in the states but are likely to cause death here. There are REALLY young girls who are pregnant (some about 14 years old!), and mothers don’t space their births out very much. So, there’s definitely a lot of opportunities for me to do some health education intervention here. I’m still trying to figure out how to that exactly. The staff at my clinic already has things running pretty well, and they give talks on the busiest mornings with basic health messages. I’ve started helping out with these talks. That’s actually what I did yesterday for Global Handwashing Day—talked about basic hygiene/handwashing, as well as vaccination, as important ways to prevent life-threatening diseases.

This post is getting incredibly long, so I think I’ll cut it off here and update again in a few weeks when I’m back in Morondava. For now, know that I’m alive and healthy and surviving at site, even if things haven’t really gotten easy yet. There’s a joke among Peace Corps Volunteers that “some people see the glass as half empty and some see it half full; Peace Corps Volunteers see it and say, ‘I can take a bath in that!’” While I don’t think I’m at that point yet in terms of resource conservation, I do think it accurately describes how I’m trying to approach life right now. I see situations, and I don’t necessarily know what to make of them. Depending on my attitude, life can be good or life can be bad—it all depends on how I choose to use what’s in front of me.

PS: I will try to put pictures up next time - I have already been on the internet for far longer than I should have allowed on this tight budget.

SUCCESS!!!! Shayla and I just opened a P.O. box that we’re going to share here in Morondava. I’ll only be able to get my mail when I come into town to do banking, and I don’t know yet how frequently I’ll be doing that. But at any rate, you can now start sending my mail to:

Kristen Walling

B.P. 294

Morondava 619

Madagascar

It’s such a relief to have done that. We did it completely on our own (without the help of our Malagasy installers), and almost exclusively in the Malagasy language. After a rather frustrating and exhausting week, it was good to realize that we can in fact accomplish tasks on our own here. START SENDING MAIL!!!!

Which is good, since I’m finally almost ready to actually be out at site. As you may have read in my post a couple days ago, myself and the other two volunteers in my region have had quite the time trying to get situated at our respective sites. Sure enough, they hadn’t finished the construction on my latrine and shower when I tried to move in. (Rather, they’d hardly even started—they had dug the hole for the latrine but that was it.) It’s apparently finished now, though. I moved most of my things in yesterday but as everything wasn’t 100% finished, I couldn’t stay. I had a couple more courtesy visits to the police and such in Morondava to finish up today anyway. As it would turn out, I actually got pretty lucky that I couldn’t move in right away.

I’ve had a pretty nasty struggle with what the doctor assumed is acute food poisoning since Saturday night. For the first 36 hours I was making excursions to the bathroom every 20-30 minutes. Even though I’m not staying in the most posh hotel in Morondava, I definitely appreciated having a flush toilet for the experience as opposed to a hole in the ground. (Although the couple of drives to and from my site trying to get things moved in were certainly…..interesting, shall we say.) After a while the doctor put me on an antibiotic which started to turn things around pretty quickly. I’ve been improving very rapidly for the last 24 hours. I tried to eat a good meal last night but ended up just nibbling at the food. I finally got some more substantial food in me today. (Mom, I know you laughed at me for saving those granola bars I received in the package a month ago. But boy am I glad I did! Breakfast this morning was utterly delightful.)

The schedule’s still tentative because Shayla still can’t move into her house. I’m assuming at this point that I’ll be dropped off by my installers at my site whenever they are completely done with everything and ready to head back to Tana. They have to drive through my site anyway. But, depending on how things go, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just decided to go out there and drop me off tonight. Who knows. Go with the flow.

This week has certainly epitomized what I expect much of my life to be like for the next two years. Ups and downs abound (a lot more downs this week than ups), and it’s going to take a lot of willpower to stay committed to being here. But despite all of the challenges, there are still many moments of great joy. On Saturday night we walked out of our hotel to head to dinner right as the head of government’s motorcade drove by. All the windows were down, and he WAVED TO US!! FROM 15 FEET AWAY!!!! It was pretty cool . . . I’m pretty sure I’ll never get that close to any American President. And when I was moving my things in yesterday, all the kids and women in my neighborhood started crowding around my house to watch the whole production. They seemed very excited that I was moving in. So, it’s the memories like these that I need to hold on to during the moments (or days, or weeks as it may be) when I’m struggling. As the Malagasy would say, “Mazotoa!” (Enjoy!)

Love love,

Kristen

ALSO I think I got this picture upload to work. So here's what the pictures are: 1) me with my host family during training, 2) my host family enjoying the s'mores I taught them how to make one night after dinner, 3) my host family's house, 4) me giving a demonstration (in Malagasy!) to the neighborhood about clean/safe water, 5) me at swearing in, with the Malagasy and American flags behind me

Greetings from Morondava!

Due to a slew of problems installing myself and the other two volunteers in the western part of the country, I find myself with a free afternoon at an internet cafe. The internet is fast enough for pictures, I hope. But it is costing me 100 Ariary per minute. My breakfast today cost 600 Ariary. By the time these are up I will have sacrificed at least 6 breakfasts. Also I'm using a French keyboard. Which is a challenge. Please forgive typos and lack of punctuation as they may appear. Point is....I expect mail from all of you to be on its way. Unfortunately I still haven't opened a PO box...angamba Latsinai (maybe Monday). In Malagasy "angamba" means maybe. But you often say it when really it means no. Same as in America.

Hmm...nevermind. Pictures seem to still be a no go. I will try once more but if not, sorry. Here's an excerpt of an email I just sent to my parents, to give you an idea of why installation is such a fiasco:

Peace Corps Washington has just altered the payment system so our money wasnt deposited to our accounts on time. Then the banks here took forever to process them. I spent 3 hours at the post office yesterday afternoon, was there till it closed; and almost still had to wait till Monday. Customer service is nonexistent here. Luckily I finally got it. Brenda, who we were supposed to drop off near Miandrivazo is still with us because she couldn't get money till yesterday either. We tried to install Shayla today. There is a family living in her house, allegedly getting evicted as we speak. So either she's making a family homeless, or she has to live in a temporary house for a month. Great. I drove though my site yesterday but we didn't stop to do anything. As of site visit I had no shower or latrine...I'd be willing to bet a lot of Ariary that they still don't exist. Also the "president" of Mcar, as well as Jerry Marcoss (biggest pop artist here) are both in Morondava this weekend. Shopping and getting around have been insane. I think I have almost everything I need though...at least to get by for a few weeks. Anything else I'm hoping I can get at my site or do without for a while.

Important alert in the event that you get bored and don't read all the way through the post.....but I have a new phone #. The provider I had for training doesn't have service at my site, so I had to switch. My new number is 032 844 9699.

Woohoo! I have finished training and am now officially sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer! And tomorrow marks the 2 month anniversary of my arrival in Madagascar! I wish I could tell you that the time has flown by – but that would be a lie. It seems like training has taken FOREVER . . . but here I am, finally, trained and ready to go. So, here’s what I’ve learned from training:

1. The Malagasy people are extremely hospitable. A staff member shared with us a Malagasy proverb that says “We are not like the Ikopa River who turns red when other rivers come to join us.” The people in my training village have done nothing but prove this to be true—they have been incredibly welcoming, friendly, and helpful. I’m always invited into people’s homes while walking down the road, and the Malagasy people are always delighted to engage in conversation. My host family has been absolutely wonderful, teaching me to cook Malagasy food, playing games with me, and trying their best to explain things to me when I’m confused (which is still about 80% of the time.)

2. Malagasy numbers and quantities will probably continue to baffle me for the duration of my service. The Malagasy people say their numbers in the opposite order from English, they specify each digit individually, and there are no abbreviations. For example, the number 428763 is recited in Malagasy as the equivalent of “three and six tens and seven hundreds and eight thousands and two ten-thousands and four hundred-thousands.” You would think such a large number would never be an issue . . . but the exchange rate is currently about $1.00 = 2100 Ariary, so I do deal with large numbers on a pretty regular basis. Describing quantity is also a bit of a challenge for me. Saying a word twice means you have less of it. At times, this is pretty straightforward. (i.e. “adola” means “crazy,” as in a person is actually crazy, but “adoladola” is how you might describe your silly friend; “mitovy” means “the same” but “mitovytovy” means “like” or “similar to”) However, this gets challenging with “kely” (“small”) and “kelykely” which is actually LARGER than small because it’s like saying “less small than small.” Very confusing when your brain still functions in your dominant language of English.

3. Peace Corps is a very humbling experience. My host family, my trainers, and people in my training village repeatedly tell me “efa mahay,” meaning already experienced/already knowledgeable. This is a lie. My 4-year-old host brother can chop up firewood with a machete. My 9-year-old host brother can build a fire and keep it going; even after two months of practice, every time I blow on embers to get a spark going again, I end up just blowing the fire out completely. Women carry buckets of water up mountains like they’re running a marathon; I still have to switch hands every couple of steps and am completely out of breath when I go less than 100 meters from my well to my house.

We finished up training by moving out of our home stays and staying at the training center for a few days. We had a few final sessions, mostly on administrative and logistical stuff, and packed up all of our luggage. On Friday all of the host families came to the training center for a thank-you celebration. Two of us trainees gave speeches - one on behalf of the education trainees, and me on behalf of the health trainees. I threw in a lot of jokes, and everyone actually laughed! A lot! I'm starting to move from being funny because I don't understand the language or culture, to being funny because I actually know how to tell a joke in Malagasy! It's a nice feeling. (Although, admittedly, most of the jokes were poking fun at myself and the other Americans.)

We came to Tana for our swearing-in ceremony this morning. Normally it's done at the Ambassador's Residence....but as there is currently no American Ambassador here, that was out of the question. But we did have the ceremony at the Peace Corps Country Director's house, and there were representatives present from both the American Embassy and the Malagasy government. It was a pretty short ceremony, but very well done. The Malagasy and American government officials alike were encouraging. It's quite the journey I have ahead of me for the next two years, and I'm feeling very anxious about it all suddenly becoming real this week. But I'm still eager to get to site and get settled in.

Tomorrow I'll start making the permanent move towards site. There are two other volunteers who will be traveling with me and getting installed before me. But by Saturday/Sunday I should be mostly settled in.

A few notes on mail/packages. I definitely appreciate everything - ESPECIALLY letters. I've received things so far from Grandma and Grandpa, the Hummels, Greta, Clara, Rachael, and Maggie. If you've sent something that hasn't arrived yet, I will get it eventually, but probably not till mid-December. The address I originally gave you will be good for the duration of my service, but now that I'm moving out to site I'll only get mail sent through there when I'm in the capital (once every several months at best). I'm planning to open a PO box when I get out to my site - hopefully I'll have the address for that by the end of the week (though no promises). Mail will also take MUCH longer now that I'm a couple days from the capital. Many of you should have mail coming to you from me already.

I have no idea what my internet access will be like over the next several weeks. But keep the emails coming, keep the letters coming! Hopefully you'll hear from me again soon!

Love love.

PS: I may try to put up a few more pictures again. But the internet and my computer are being very finicky at the moment. And quite frankly I'd rather try to use skype and call some of you than put up pictures.

Yay! Pictures are up! Here's what they are: 1) The dead, headless, and featherless chicken courtesy of yours truly. You can see my host mom holding up the head in the background (which I didn't know she was doing until after the picture was taken...she thought it was hilarious! Which, let's be honest, it was.) 2) The lake that our training center overlooks. 3) Me, back in my element! This picture was taken during one of the stops on our long two-day drive out to Morondava. 4) A sunset over the beach in Morondava. 5) A baobab tree along the main road out to Morondava.

Eventually I'll try to get some up of my host family, living arrangements, etc. But I couldn't resist showing you some of the scenery I get to see!

Well, I’m back from my site visit, and I finally feel like I’ve returned to Africa! AND I have now seen the village where I will be spending a little over the next two years of my life! As much as I have enjoyed my host family, the village where we’ve been training has been cold, rainy, and extremely mellow – not at all what I remember from my few months in West Africa. I have loved it, though it has been oddly unfamiliar. I knew that going to an island on the other side of the continent would mean the culture and the people would be very different, yet it has been so different that it was easy to forget that I was back. But this past week in Morondava has reassured me that I am, in fact, back in a part of Africa.

On Sunday morning, I embarked on my journey with Felicia and Shayla (two other trainees), Eddy (a PC staff member), and Andry (a PC driver). We drove to Miandrivazo, the biggest city about halfway between Tana and Morondava. Felicia’s site is just outside Miandrivazo, so we dropped her off and the rest of us continued on to Morondava. We stopped in my town for a few minutes on the way since it’s along the main road. Over the next couple of days I made short trips back to my village (once with Eddy, once on my own), but I spent probably about 3 hours total in the village. I was able to meet the mayor of my town, a midwife at the clinic where I’ll be working, and a couple of other people. I’m still a little bit confused as to my living arrangements, because it appears that the original plans had to be scrapped (I’m not exactly sure why). But I think the “house” that’s going to be mine is actually the middle room in a row of three houses with a shared porch. It is very small—smaller than your standard double room in a college residence hall—and will somehow have to fit a bed, table & chairs, makeshift stove, and dresser. Also probably not ideal for privacy…but, the people who I will share a porch with seem very friendly, and having neighbors will definitely make my house more secure and help me with integrating into the community.

My town is about a 90-minute taxi-brousse ride from Morondava (more on taxi-brousses in a moment). I actually spent most of the site visit in Morondava because my village doesn’t have a hotel. Shayla and I shared a hotel in Morondava each night, and spent the days exploring the city, hanging out near the beach, and trying to accomplish various site visit tasks (pricing out items in the market that we’ll need to buy upon installation, etc.) It’s a big tourist town since it’s the easiest point to get to and from a lot of national parks, river trips, and other places. As with any tourist spot, it has certain amenities for those willing to pay (in this case, places with hot water, A/C, internet access, pizza, ice cream), but also has an authentic culture for those willing to seek it out. So, it will be a fun, occasional getaway on the days I’m allotted to go into the city for banking and other business. Also, FYI if your Madagascar geography is still as mixed up as mine is…other than Shayla who is a couple hours from me, I’m about 6 hours away from Felicia, who will be the next closest volunteer, and another 5 hours or so beyond that from other volunteers. So I’m fairly removed from anyone I know, but that will just mean I’ll be forced to integrate more quickly into my new home!

Tomorrow morning I head back to my training village, and I’m pretty sure we won’t be back in Tana until the end of training/swearing-in/installation during the last week of September. [quick interjection: please send me mail!!!!] But before I go, I’d like to add a little more about life here in general.

Similar to the Ghana tro-tros, which you’ve probably heard a million stories from me about, the easiest and cheapest form of transportation here is in taxi-brousses. These are 15-passenger vans that have been converted so that nearly twice as many people can fit in them. Many of the seats are sideways, or backwards, or are constructed to flip up and down easily to allow passengers to slide in and out…..in other words, MASS CHAOS. But, they are my favorite way to get around. They’re usually not in the greatest condition, every type of person travels in them, you can usually find several animals (chickens, goats, zebu) either inside of them or tied to the top, and consequently there is usually some ridiculous incident that transpires during the journey. During one of my trips to my village the other day, I counted the number of passengers that were in the vehicle. 27. 27 people in a 15-passenger van. But, they are the perfect place to practice the Malagasy language and have pleasant interactions with people. It’s so nice to be back in a place that uses such an entertaining form of transportation!

I’m going to try to put a few pictures up on here, but the internet connection has been spotty so I’m making no promises. In the meantime, write letters, give my phone a call, or you’ll hear from me again in about a month!

Love love.

What luck! I'm back in Tana for the night before heading out to my site visit, so I have internet! I head out first thing tomorrow morning to start driving out to my permanent site, so I get to stay at the MEVA (transit house) in Tana. For security reasons, we're not allowed to travel at night, so it's going to take two days to get out to Morondava, the biggest city near my site. It's a 12-17 hour drive usually, depending on the weather/season/condition of the road, so it'll probably be nice to break up over two days anyway.

Although I'll be staying at a hotel in Morondava, on Tuesday and Wednesday I'll take day excursions about an hour and a half away to my permanent site (again, I can't publicly say the name of my exact site). I have certain things I'll need to do - introduce myself to the mayor and police in my town; check on my house to see what (if anything) needs to be added/repaired/etc; visit the clinic where I'll be doing a lot of my work; and hopefully I'll have time to meet some of my coworkers, neighbors, etc. I'm excited mostly just to see the city where I'm going to spend the next two years...but I'm also keeping my fingers crossed for a few days of some hopefully warmer and less rainy weather.

People have asked about the weather. It's fairly sporadic and the sky changes really quickly. It's usually pretty cold and rainy - remember, it's winter here - and it gets really cold at night. But there have been a couple of sunny days which have been GORGEOUS, and the sunny days seem to be increasing in frequency. The locals promise that the weather will only get more pleasant over the next month. I wouldn't be opposed to a few more sunny days. On clear nights, the sky is filled with the brightest stars I have ever seen in my life, and the Milky Way absolutely glows. It's too bad I can't really stay out after dark to look at them, but I can get a few glimpses here and there. When I'm at sight I'll have a little more freedom for things such as stargazing :)

The highlight of this past week was probably Sunday morning, when my family taught me how to kill a chicken. I knew this was likely to happen during training, and I was actually pretty excited about it. I'll probably be more likely to eat meat at site if I prepare it myself, and I thought it would be interesting to learn. During breakfast that day, my host dad pointed out the live chicken sitting in a basket that I had not noticed the day before. He said it was a small chicken and had only cost 3,000 Ariary (less than $1.50). I asked if I could learn to kill it, and they told me yes. I assumed initially that this would be a few weeks later, when it had grown bigger. I quickly realized that the chicken was actually going to be our lunch and that I would be killing it that very morning.

While I hesitate to glorify the slaughter itself, it wasn't as bad as one might guess and the event in general was rather funny. My host mom basically had me stand on the chicken (one foot over its wings, one over its feet), hold its neck, and slice off the head. Not really knowing what I was doing, and wielding a knife I thought far too large for the task at hand (really, "small machete" would be a more fitting term than "knife"), I made a fairly big mess of things and created a bit of chaos. We stayed in the kitchen rather than go outside, which struck me as odd but having never killed a chicken before I figured it wasn't my place to suggest otherwise. Since I was standing on the bird, it obviously couldn't run around with its head cut off as the expression goes, but it did wiggle rather uncomfortably under my feet for several minutes. After a few moments of stillness, my host mom would poke it to see if it started moving again. Though my Malagasy is still very limited, I do know the words for finished ("vita") and chicken ("akoho"), so I kept saying "akoho vita, akoho vita," which my host family thought was hilarious. It seems I am a constant source of amusement for them. Although, I wouldn't have it any other way since my host brothers never cease to amuse me either. Anyway, after the chicken died my host mom showed me how to remove the feathers and take it all apart. We later enjoyed a delicious lunch and dinner.

Aside from the chicken, this past week was pretty much the usual schedule - language class, tech sessions, administrative and medical stuff, etc. I would say the language barrier continues to be my biggest challenge. I'm amazed at how quickly I'm able to retain information, but I still obviously can't have very extensive or insightful conversations with anyone. It's funny the things I can say. In addition to learning basic things I need to know for my own survival (greetings, food, directions), I'm also learning health-tech-related vocabulary, safety and security, and various grammatical things. So as I flip through my notebook, I realize I can string together odd sentences like "she doesn't have AIDS yet," or "the police officer shot the thief." I know with time and patience I'll develop more fluency, so I just need to keep at it.

There is a Malagasy proverb that says "If you start up a hill like a young person, you will finish old; if you start up a hill like an old person, you will finish young." My frequent hikes up and down the mountain every day have taught me that in the most literal sense this is true. I have a lot more energy at the top if I go slowly and take small steps on the way up versus when I hurry or take big steps. Beyond the literal, though, these words are proving true for life here as well. It's a lot easier to take things one step at a time, one task at a time, one day at a time than to focus on too much all at once. Hopefully I can keep this in mind over the next couple of years.

Well, I want to get some sleep before heading off to site visit in the morning. Miss you all!

Love love.

Manahoana daholo (Hello all of you)!

It has been an absolutely wonderful first couple of weeks here in Madagascar!! I am having a blast with my fellow trainees as well as all of the Malagasy people I’m meeting. So much has happened in my first two weeks that I obviously can’t tell you everything, but I’d like to share several highlights and first impressions. (Note: this is a realllllllly long entry.)

After what seemed like endless days of traveling (approximately 40 hours), we finally arrived at the Ivato Airport outside of Antananarivo (Tana). PC staff assisted us through customs, shuttled us into vans, and took us to the MEVA (regional PC transit house). We spent the night of Thursday the 22nd where we had a very fast couple of safety/security, medical, and language sessions. Then that Friday we went to the village where we’ll be staying for the duration of training. I’m not allowed to give the specific location of myself or other volunteers….but I can say I’m not too far from the capital.

The village where I am is an absolutely GORGEOUS town in the plateau region. There are tree-covered hills rolling in all directions, connected by mud/dirt roads and paths and freckled with small neighborhoods of farms and houses. There are also rice paddies and small ponds at the base of all of the hills. There is a small market, a post office, a mayor’s office, and a couple of small shops in the center of town. From there, several dirt roads wind up the hills in different directions. Most of us trainees are in clusters along one of these roads. My house is at the top of a hill, what I would guess is 1-2km from the center of town. All of the host families came to the primary school to greet us and help escort us to our respective houses. My mom (Lala, though I’m supposed to call her Mama out of respect) came and showed me the way to my house, where I met my host dad (Jean de Dieu, but call him Dada) and two younger brothers (Herizo, age 9 and Eric, age 5). They primarily raise pigs for a living, but we also have 3 rabbits and one day there was a random zebu in the garden. My host dad disappeared the next day for a week, and the best I could gather in my very limited Malagasy is that he was in Tana to sell the zebu.

[Interjection #1: Peace Corps is not the job for you if you need to know what’s going on more than 20% of the time.]

To say that the first couple of weeks of my home-stay have been a fiasco would be quite the understatement. Although I’m learning quickly, I can only speak short, broken, and usually incorrect sentences in Malagasy; having a real conversation is entirely out of the question. I have gotten pretty good at making silly faces and shadow puppets by candlelight, which my host brothers find hilarious. Every time I try to teach them an American game, they think I’m trying to play a Malagasy game and just play that instead. However, I did successfully teach them War last night! (Having finally mastered a few words such as good, very good, bad, better, you, me, the same, and some numbers, I felt up to the challenge.) It’s also been hard because they speak Standard Malagasy in this region and I switched over to learning the dialect they’ll speak at my site, so that adds to the communication barrier. In general, Malagasy people can understand each other even though they speak 18 different dialects….but that definitely assumes some mastery of correct grammar and pronunciation. I do keep reminding myself that I’ve only been at my home-stay for two weeks now, so it’s OK that I’m still far from fluent!

As I expected, my house has no electricity or running water. It’s dark by about 6pm, so I use a combination of candles and flashlights to study, read, and journal at night. My family usually sends me to bed between 7 and 8 every night, and I usually go to sleep by 9 (cultural note on that in a minute). My bathroom is a pit latrine about 20 steps from the house, surrounded by a tarp. The “shower” is also a small stall surrounded by a tarp. There is a well down a hill behind my house, which I walk down several mornings a week to get a bucket of water. It’s not very far, but the biggest challenge is trying to walk up and down the hill without slipping in the mud since it has rained almost every single day. They are modest accommodations, but honestly are much better than what I had been expecting and was mentally prepared for, so I’m content.

Regardless of where you are in Madagascar, people probably won’t go out after it’s dark (i.e. 6 or 7 pm). The reasoning behind this varies greatly depending on who you ask. I had read in several places before my departure that witches, evil spirits, and rabid dogs are the primary concerns, though each region, village, or even family may have its own explanation. While I’m still not sure, I get the sense that my family observes this practice more out of tradition than fear of anything (my mom laughed at the word “mpamosavy”—witch—when it came up in my flashcards). Well anyway, one can imagine that not being able to leave the house after 7pm or so could create some challenges…..especially when the “kabone” (pit latrine) is in a stall separate from the house. Enter the “po” (bucket with lid). Any bodily or hygienic function that needs to occur at night goes in the po, which is emptied the next morning into the kabone and then cleaned. As I was well aware of this practice, I approached my first night at my home-stay with a cautious mindset, fully prepared to time my bathroom excursions accordingly and thus try to avoid having to use the po. After dinner my family showed me how to close and lock my door, and before I really realized what was happening I was suddenly in my room (clearly for the night), nowhere near the kabone, and needing to take care of business. I’ll leave the details to your imagination, but I will say that as I had not yet had any digestive problems and didn’t particularly want to give them reason to start, there I was on my first night….caught in a rather impressive balancing act over my po.

[Interjection #2: Madagascar is not the country for you if you have no sense of humor or ability to laugh at yourself.]

Well anyway, I made it through the night alive and well, woke up to a delicious breakfast, and met back up with my fellow trainees for some more orientation.

For the duration of training, all 42 of the people in my training class stay in the same village and surrounding neighborhoods. The PC Madagascar program is Community-Based Training, which means that most of our training is actually directly in the village and not at a PC site. One day a week we do all have sessions at the Peace Corps Training Center (PCTC) that pertain to the entire group (vaccinations/medical info, administrative stuff, safety & security, etc.) We will have the occasional overnight there if we have field trips the following day, but for the most part we are with our families. We have training all day Monday-Friday and only in the morning on Saturdays. Every day is a bit different, but a typical day is as follows:

around 6:00am (perhaps earlier): rise and shine!

8:00-12:00 (with 30 minute break): Malagasy Language

12:00-2:00: lunch back at host family’s house

2:00-4:30: full-group sessions, or technical training (Health for me, Education for others)

evening: head back home for dinner. I’m usually sent to my room by 7 or 7:30 (which I’m actually OK with since it’s about the only time of the day I have to study Malagasy, write in my journal, or read)

It’s an exhausting schedule since the sessions (especially Language) are jam-packed with information, and since it means four times a day I’m hiking down or up the hill to my house (about a 20-30 minute walk each way depending on which part of town I have to go to). Sometimes we’re in schools or community buildings, sometimes we’re in people’s houses. And though it’s exhausting, I’m still loving it—the immersion from not only the home-stay but also the constant interaction in the community is definitely the best way to start transitioning into what my life will be like for the next 27 months.

I’ve been eating reasonably well so far; my family really takes care of me. The books ARE NOT KIDDING when they say the Malagasy eat rice 3 times a day. Every meal involves rice and “loaka” (side-dishes). Loaka can mean anything from a hearty vegetable soup with spaghetti noodles to salad to chunks of beef or pork to shredded carrots to beans to eggs to French fries or anything else. But rice is always the main course, and the loaka is scooped on top of it to give it flavor.

[Interjection #3: Madagascar is not the country for you if you don’t like combining the foods on your plate.]

Peace Corps medical staff have extensive sessions with the host families about our diet and food preparation, and my family seems to have really taken their suggestions to heart. I have a fairly varied diet, and I’m DEFINITELY getting my share of vegetables. If I were to have any wish, it would probably be that I have a bit more fruit….but it is the middle of winter here, and I do still usually get an orange or a banana every day, so I really can’t complain.

Also, believe it or not….I AM THE TALLEST MEMBER OF MY MALAGASY FAMILY!!!! I had read that the Malagasy people as a whole were fairly short, but it didn’t quite register in my brain as I myself am only 5’4” (and a quarter!) However, I’m not kidding when I tell you I am taller than my four host family members. YES!!

I have internet today because I am in the capital. Since we received our site assignments last week, Peace Corps brought us into the city to open bank accounts according to what our site will be. I probably won’t have internet again till the end of training, or close to the end of it at least (i.e. the last week of September). If an opportunity comes up, it will be a nice surprise. I do have a phone now. Reception is very sporadic in our training village, and since I have no electricity I can’t charge it very often. But if you want to talk, give it a shot. (Just please try to remember that I’m 7 HOURS ahead of Eastern time, and that I go to bed by 9pm every night.) If you’re dialing from a landline, dial 011 261 34 439 7767. If you’re using Skype, the number should just be 034 439 7767.

IF YOU ARE READING THIS, PLEASE EMAIL/FACEBOOK ME YOUR MAILING ADDRESS. I did not bring very many with me; I ran out of time when packing. Rather than trying to figure out whose I do and don’t have, just assume that I don’t have yours and please send it to me so I can write to you! Since mail takes at least 3 weeks, please make sure it’s an address that will be valid starting in September. Also, please write to me! I promise to write back to anyone who writes me. So far I have received one card from my mom and one from Greta (both were received yesterday, FYI).

As I mentioned, I do know my permanent site. Since this post is already REALLY long, I’ll tell you about it some other time. I go on a site visit starting next week so I’ll know lots more after that anyway. But if you’re curious and want to look up some info yourself, look up Morondava. That is the closest major city to where I’ll be. (By the way, IT’S AWESOME AND I’M THRILLED!!!!!!!)

The internet is far too slow to upload pictures right now, but I’ll try to get some up eventually. For now, you’ll just have to be content with the knowledge that I am happy, healthy, and loving my life here so far. Every day has its challenges, but every day also has its blessings. A few days ago there was a GIGANTIC rainbow stretching across the whole sky. It’s impossible to stay frustrated for long when this country has so much to offer. So long for now!

Love love,

Kristen

In my complete lack of any website-making knowledge whatsoever, I apparently had several settings making things difficult for some of you. I think I have now corrected these problems - you should be able to comment on the posts even without having a blogger profile, and you should see options on the left to add an email subscription or RSS feeds. Hopefully things are easier for you guys now!

There are 41 of us in my training class - about half are in the community health project with me and half are in education. We all checked into the hotel yesterday and had about 4 hours of pre-departure sessions. Sessions included talking about some of our anxieties & aspirations, reflecting once again on our commitment to Peace Corps service, and covering logistical travel info. Then everyone split into groups to go to dinner and hang out for the night. I really like the other volunteers I've met so far - it seems like I'm with a group of pretty down-to-earth people who care about similar things as me and are ready for an adventure. And boy, is it going to be an adventure!! Since I'm facebook friends with a few of the volunteers, some of them noticed my nickname and have already started calling me Wallie, which has also now been expanded to "WallieWallieBingBang." Haha!

In less than 3 hours we'll be checking out of the hotel and heading to the airport. But before I go, I want to leave you with the words of one of my favorite characters from The Office:

"I am ready to face any challenges that might be foolish enough to face me." - Dwight K. Schrute

Hello again! Since everyone wants to know how to stay in touch over the next 27 months, here's all the info you should need for writing me letters. Peace Corps tells me that snail mail is the best way to communicate back and forth. While I may open a local P.O. box once I have my permanent site, the following address will be valid for my entire service:

Kristen Walling, PCV

Bureau du Corps de la Paix

B.P. 12091

Poste Zoom Ankorondrano

Antananarivo 101

Madagascar

I've heard a lot of different suggestions for how to help make sure that the mail gets there. Peace Corps says that sending padded envelopes is better than boxes because boxes usually have heavier customs taxes. Sending things via airmail (write both "airmail" and "par avion" on it) is likely to arrive faster, though is also probably more expensive. For packages specifically, current volunteers recommend declaring on the customs form that the value is $20 or less, and that it contains religious material. (Writing "God is good" or similar phrases is apparently a good idea.) I guess all of this makes it less prone to "sticky fingers."

I also say....don't bother sending things through express or priority mail. It will be crazy expensive, probably significantly more money than whatever is contained in the package. I don't mind waiting for things, and there's a good chance that after training I won't even be in the city where my mail will be delivered to very often. Sending it through faster services will likely mean you spend extra money for it to sit and wait for me.

If there happens to be some small, time-sensitive item to have to send, you can use DHL. (I personally recommend avoiding this just because it will be so ridiculously expensive!) The address for sending anything via DHL is:

Kristen Walling, PCV

c/o U.S. Peace Corps Madagascar

Villa les Lierres

Lot IIk76, Bonnet Invandry

Antananarivo

Madagascar

You'll also need to include the PC phone #: 261-20-224-3820.

Since I haven't even left yet, it's a lot easier for me to say that I'll be fine without a lot of things. But it's probably true. So, if you are inclined to send things, remind yourself that I don't need much. What I'd appreciate more than anything is letters and cards so I know what you're up to.

It can take several weeks or even months for things to arrive....so start writing me letters now and you may get a response by Thanksgiving!

Well, this is it! One week from today I'll be getting on the first of many flights to Madagascar to start a 27 month gig with the Peace Corps. This Saturday I'm headed to DC to visit all of my college friends for one last hoorah. Monday I check in at a hotel in Georgetown and officially begin as a Peace Corps Trainee. We have a whirlwind 24 hours of what Peace Corps calls "Staging": paperwork, shots, and covering basic info like safety/logistics/etc. On Tuesday evening just before 5:00 myself and all of the other volunteers beginning with my stage (I think 20-30 of us?) fly out. We will land for a stop in Dakar, Senegal on Wednesday, continuing onto Johannesburg, South Africa. We have an overnight in Joburg and another flight for a few hours on Thursday to arrive at the Ivato airport, just outside Antananarivo (aka Tana, the capital). We'll spend a night at a Peace Corps site in Tana, have a quick Malagasy language class, and move in with our host families on Friday. Chaotic doesn't even begin to describe how I imagine my first few days going, but I'm thrilled nonetheless.

I'll then spend the next 10-11 weeks living with my host family and training at a site about an hour outside Tana. I've seen some things leading me to believe we're not supposed to say publicly where we are, so for now I'll leave out the name of the city until I get further directions or approval from Peace Corps. Training will consist of intense language courses, health and security measures, and technical things I'll need to know for when I move out to my permanent site at the end of September. While I'm not entirely sure what I'll be doing yet, I have been assigned to the community health sector. Some of the biggest concerns in Madagascar are infectious disease (including HIV/AIDS) and sanitation, so I imagine many of my projects may involve these issues. I will probably be placed near a clinic and do some work there, as well as other community outreach/education projects. Beyond that, I just need to wait and see!

Since I decided last September to begin my application, people have asked me repeatedly why I

chose the Peace Corps, why Africa, why such a long time? While I don't know what I plan to do with the rest of my life, I know that I am interested in international relations, specifically in Africa, and possibly relating to public health. Tentatively I'm planning on pursuing a masters degree in public health, and I thought living abroad and working for an extended period of time in the field would give me a ton of knowledge and experience. My career advisor at American encouraged me to look at Peace Corps because it's a great foot in the door for future careers that may interest me with the State Department, the UN, USAID, etc. Additionally, if I complete the full 27 months, I'll get some benefits for grad school and/or hiring in federal positions.

Beyond that, though, I'm kind of in it for the whole experience. I don't entirely know what to expect, and there's something about that that's just really exciting. I think the truly best way to describe my feelings right now is to use an excerpt from a book I read during my semester in Ghana. The book Somebody's Heart is Burning by Tanya Shaffer is an absolutely phenomenal read. It's Shaffer's travel memoir about her experience volunteering for several months in Ghana and then traveling around much of West Africa and a few other parts of the continent. She articulates so beautifully many of the frustrations, joys, emotions, and interactions I had during my semester, most of which I didn't understand at the time and feel like I still continue to process even now, over a year later. I imagine my Peace Corps experience will be much the same way: never fully comprehending what is going on around me, and figuring its meaning out at some later date. So, it is from the following passage that I draw the inspiration for the title of this blog:

"Sitting on buses and tro-tros, I find myself repeatedly telling strangers the story of my life. Sometimes, hearing myself talk, I feel as if I'm doing it more for my own benefit than for the hapless individual sitting beside me, listening with such polite attention. Some need seems to drive my narration, as if through the telling I'm constructing a self-image that I can anchor myself to and believe in. I want the events to be linear and the lessons cumulative, building on each other like Legos: this led me here, and I learned this, and then I was here, and I was lost, and I found this.

Life, of course, was never so orderly. It was more like my long hair used to be after a ride in the open back of a truck: an ungovernable tangle. Growth wasn't like that either. Growth happened when I wasn't looking. It happened later, after I'd given up hope. And love wasn't like that: so transparent and unequivocal, a balance sheet of pros and cons. Life was life and love was love. All the explanations came later."

So, there you have it! I'll update this site a couple more times this week when I dig out the info that has my mailing address, etc. After this week, though, I probably won't get a chance to update more than once a month or so....so I highly recommend subscribing to the blog so it will automatically send you an email when I update. Save yourself the trouble of stalking my site all the time!