A Library and New Lessons Learned: Another Trimester in Ampasimanjeva

Well, it’s finished, if you can believe that. Construction on the Faraony Resource Center started on November 11^th and finished December 18^th in what I think may be one of the fastest jobs ever completed in the history of Madagascar. This is particularly amazing considering the fact that the last week and a half worked slowed to a pace that I was originally expecting. This past Monday (which was supposed to be the last day) the workers didn’t even show up. I later found out they went and got drunk for the day. Then yesterday the gendarmerie and police showed up at the library on behalf of some workers who are building a new set of classrooms right next to my library (those classrooms are being built by a French man in town. They started about four months before the library started and are still nowhere near finishing. Now, everyone in town is saying that Americans work better than the French. It’s pretty amusing). They said one of the guys working on the library borrowed a piece of equipment and never gave it back. Bottom line is now 4 workers are apparently being held in jail and the big boss (my buddy who is like the contractor for the job) has to go and get them out. The worker apparently already offered to reimburse the money for the piece of equipment (40,000Ar or about $18) but the workers for the new classrooms wanted the piece of equipment back, not money. This is the kind of crap that happens on a day-to-day basis here.

Back to the whole timeline thing…

On my proposal for this project, I wrote that the construction would start in mid January, assuming it was going to take longer than 3 and a half weeks to raise $6,000. However, thanks to all of you, I was able to start incredible early and finish even earlier (the proposal asks us to map out how long each aspect of the project will take. I estimated 2.5 months for the build. It took just more than 5 weeks). You may be thinking, ‘what kind of piece of crap can anyone build with $6,000+ and 5 weeks?’ Well, actually you can make a pretty nice 6x4 meter structure out of it. It’s no library by American standards, but it's no closet either. Have a look!

You can kind of see the new classrooms that the french guy is building just to the right.

Notice how the classrooms to the right still look pretty much the same as my first picture. AMERICA!

So, now begins the real work – unpacking 42 boxes of books, sorting and categorizing them, training the librarian and turning this thing into a legit learning opportunity for the thousands of people in my region who may be illiterate or never finished high school. I am hopefully going to have the help of at least the two PCVs who live near me, so what might normally be a lot of tedious work (organizing and cataloging books) will hopefully be a good time. Plus, we just built a library. How can you not have a huge grin on your face after that? Before I get to that part of the project, I am headed for a small vacation in Diego, a town in the most northern part of Madagascar. But before I close the book on the library, I want to say another big thank you to everyone who chipped in to help with this. I think I speak for the thousands of people whose lives you have just changed when I say your kindness and generosity is greatly appreciated.

The first trimester of my second, and possibly final, year in Peace Corps has come to an end. Wow, it was so much better than the first year. First and foremost, it is just so much easier when you can speak their language. Make no mistake about it; I could not speak this language well enough at this time last year to teach effectively. But in addition to that, I feel comfortable standing in front of a class of 70+ students and teaching for a full 2 hours. I’m not saying I want to teach for the rest of my life, but I feel like I understand the English language well enough (you all would be surprised to find out how much you don’t know about English. We can speak it, right? So who really cares what the name of the tense is and what the rules are for its usage?) to teach it and have it make sense (for the most part) to Malagasy students. Questions too. Last year if kids had a question I would ask them always to ask it in English. I told myself I was trying to get them to speak in the target language more (which is true), but it was really just a front to disguise my inability to speak and understand Malagasy. Quite frankly, it was a despicable thing to do, but what choice did I have? If I screwed up understanding their question or botched my answer I would have lost all credibility in an instant. Likewise, if my high school French teacher had told us to ask our questions in French, I probably would have had a mild tirade and told myself ‘Fuck that’ and never spoken in class ever, thus making the entire language learning process completely useless (unfortunately it was pretty useless anyway considering I don’t speak much French). The bottom line is I don’t do that anymore and I haven’t had a problem yet. If I do trip over my Malagasy while trying to explain something, I usually can have a good laugh with the rest of the class and then move on. What is really exciting though is that kids actually speak up now – they are raising their lands and asking questions – something that didn’t really happen last year and never happens in a Malagasy classroom. Malagasy teachers stick to a strictly lecture-based teaching method and students are taught from a young age that the teacher is the boss and you do not question him or her. Such an act would be like not eating rice for lunch – blasphemous (gotta get that rice joke in there somewhere). So, students go through their education like drones – taking orders and copying everything down that is written on the board without ever actually learning anything. Honestly, I think if most of my students pulled out their notebooks from their classes last year they would be surprised to find that the material is fairly similar, they just never actually really learned it. I’m not saying I’m better or even that I’m a good teacher because I am definitely not (that’s a fact, not modesty). However, I do think the way in which we, as Americans, take education for granted – a more interactive learning system, especially with a language – has helped some of these kids out a lot. There are several students who could barely say, “Hello. How are you?” last year who are now having full, albeit very broken, conversations with me. It’s a pretty cool feeling and one that you have to remember when things are not going your way. On the other hand, I still have my fair share of students who either don’t care or just don’t get it and never improve on their exams. That feeling never ceases to suck the life and energy right out of you.

Speaking of tests (and I think this is a cultural thing, but I cant stand it nonetheless), kids do not study or cram before tests ever! We just had our first trimester finals last week and unfortunately there was a little problem with one test…

Quick back-story on how we give tests…

For some stupid reason, the Proviseur goes to the big city near us (72km away) to print out all the finals for each subject to give to each student when they are taking the exam. To you and me, that obviously sounds completely normal. Well, here we usually do things a little differently and just write the exam on the blackboard and the students copy. Making several hundred copies is expensive and teachers just don’t have the money. But again, for some reason, the finals are different. The problem with this is that the Proviseur is a pretty cheap dude and tries to format all the tests so that he can get 3 or 4 tests on one page thus saving paper and a bunch of money in copies. That’s great up until it’s time to give the test out to the students and the teachers notice that he has either changed or deleted half the test in order to save money. Next thing you know, the teachers are all working to correct these pages and wasting the first 20-30 minutes of test time. It’s a total disaster, but after several times of me saying don’t do this, they keep doing it.

Back to the final that had the problem…

So, naturally, this same problem happened last week so students were left sitting around for a half hour before the test started. None of them were looking in their notebooks or studying anything. It blows my mind every time. In the states, when I had a test on a particular day, I remember waking up early to review notes, brining my books to lunch and then having my book open on my desk right up until the point my professor put the exam in front of me. Granted, not all students were as neurotic as I was, but we can’t all be Will Hunting. Back to Madagascar – no one was reviewing anything in the 30-minute delay before the test. I mean literally 0 out of the 350+ students at the lycee were trying to cram in one last piece of information. It is like this every test and I think its crazy. But then again, that just seems to be how education goes around here.

Back to the whole bit about me possibly having taught my last first trimester here in Madagascar. I am in Manakara now because I am looking around at possible third year extension opportunities. I think the only way I extend is if I find something I want to do in this city. I really love it here and I definitely wouldn’t want to leave the PCV family I have here in the southeast. I have until the beginning of May to find a job, find a good work partner through this job, and make a decision. I think the part that freaks me out the most is the actual decision part – definitely more than my decision to join Peace Corp in the first place. It’s another year of my life, I will actually know what I am going to be doing for that year (could be a good or bad thing), and I will also have to watch basically every other PCV that I currently know in this country leave before me. Just another mind fuck that you can chalk up to the Peace Corps experience. So, I have a little more than 4 months to make a decision. If I don’t extend though, I will be leaving this country as early as 9 months from now. Crazy!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to All!!!! See you in 2014.

Tamana Ve?

I wrote this about month ago with no intention of blogging it. For whatever reason I just sat down and started writing, which is odd considering I have never written in or kept a journal in my life. Reading it now, though, it seems like something you all will appreciate.

Quick update on the library project: After several weeks of trying to get the money that several Malagasy donors had promised months ago, they have finally given me (at least part of) their contribution. Building is going to start on the 11^th of November. Again, thank you so much to all of you who helped make this possible. I will try to keep you all updated as best as I can through the interwebs.

***************

I think after a year and a bit I can finally say, “Yes, I am.” I’m not really sure what brought this particular thought process because I haven’t had an especially awesome day, but what the hell.

No two Peace Corps volunteer experiences are the same. Obviously, this would be true of a volunteer in Fiji and a volunteer in Ethiopia, but I am talking about volunteers within Madagascar, too. My Peace Corps experience has been worlds apart from even that of my two site mates; the bottom line is I got extremely lucky. From what I have heard of the volunteer placement process (not for country, but for town/village within a country) it doesn’t seem that many aspects of one’s professional background are matched with site needs. Instead, it’s more of a mix and match with no great systematic approach, aside from possible medical requirements. I remember I was a bit confused when I wasn’t matched to my first choice, a town in northern Madagascar that had an English radio program started by a previous volunteer. I think anyone who knows me would agree that this would have seemed like a perfect match. But after the two-week process of reviewing and researching all the different sites available to the group of volunteers I came to country with and trying to conceal those choices from your new friends (a very awkward time) so as to not give too much away, I genuinely became fed up. The day before our site announcements we had an interview with Peace Corps staff members and I told them I didn’t really care anymore. I didn’t say it with malice or frustration in my voice (even though I really was fed up). I just said, ‘you have my choices, whatever you decide I am fine with.’ From the beginning of the application process up until that point, we are given no say in anything that happens to us, so for us to have a choice in where we live for two years in a tropical island, you can imagine the tension. Turns out, I was very convincing in that interview because I was placed in one of the sites no one asked for. When you come from the land of running water, electricity and porcelain toilets it is pretty easy to gravitate towards those things when you are given the option. After I found out I was going to Ampasimanjeva I looked back at my research of the site and saw the words “Fuck No” on the top. To this day, I have no idea why I wrote that. It’s almost embarrassing that I made such a judgment off a piece of paper.

Fast forward to today. I live in a house made out of the equivalent of tree bark. When it rains, it sounds like Armageddon (I’m actually hoping for a cyclone this year just to see if this baby can take it). I fetch (often nasty) water from a well about a football field away and poop in a hole about 200 yards away (a distance of which has definitely presented problems so far). I live in a town small enough where there are no restaurants for a quick meal. So even after a long, crappy day I still have to cook (an activity I hate) or I just don’t eat. Usually, I go with the latter. I know this sounds like complaining. I can tell you we volunteers do plenty of complaining about our respective situations (usually for therapeutic reasons), but I assure you this is the exact opposite.

When I first arrived here in Ampasimanjeva, people used to ask me, “Tamana ve anao?” (Are you settled? Do you like it here?). Obviously, I said yes because no one in American culture would ever say, “Hell no, this sucks” or “What the hell did I just get myself into” especially if you are expected to live in this place for another 2 years. So, I went with, “Oh, yeah. This is awesome. I’m completely settled in.” I was very convincing indeed. To be honest, I don’t think I would have known how to say in Malagasy my reasons for not being tamana yet.

I have come to realize that even though these people and this culture can frustrate the hell out of me, it is exactly what I was looking for. Even though it can get incredibly lonely when you have no electricity, nothing to do, and are staring at four walls infested with ants, rats and flying roaches. This is home and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I think I can finally say, “I am tamana.”

We just finished our one-year conference and we had a session for those possibly interested in extending their service. It got loud in the room and it became very clear that about 90% of the volunteers completely tuned out. I think myself and maybe two other people were genuinely interested (don’t panic yet, mom. I’m just considering it). As I mentioned, there are days where I can’t wait to get out: the general apathy and lethargy of a lot of the Malagasy people can be deflating, disengaging and exhausting. Even still, these people find pleasure in their own livelihood, no matter how awful it may appear to the outside world. Who are we (the first world) to judge their way of life if it doesn’t seem to bother them? We use phrases like “the third world” and make judgments based on the 30 seconds CNN devotes to some small village in Africa once per month. I think what I am trying to say is that I finally understand what Peace Corps meant when they said volunteers often get more out of the experience than they give. Malagasy people often jokingly ask me if I can take them back to the states with me when I leave. These people are very small so they would probably fit in most checked bags. Just kidding. The truth is that while they are curious to hear my answer, I don’t think these people really have any desire to live in a culture where work and money come before everything (not to mention a life without rice three times per day. God forbid). I have met people, both Malagasy and ex-pats, who have the money to go somewhere else in this world, but choose Madagascar. Why? American culture would consider such a mentality completely nuts, as did many volunteers’ families when they left for the Peace Corps (I got lucky and had nothing but support). Granted, a lot of these people (but not all of them) who choose Madagascar have the financial means to live lavishly in a country like this.

Other volunteers tell me about their friends back home who are working jobs they hate, but what else can they do? Quit and move back in with their parents? No, society tells them that is failure even if you have the most accepting, helpful parents in the world. Even volunteers who are heading home and going to live with their parents until they can find work seem to feel like they have to justify their reasoning for doing so. I don’t know what the answer is for people stuck in miserable jobs, but if it happens to me, I would probably go crazy, especially after doing something like this. The more I think about it the more life in the states (and the first world in general) seems like a race toward retirement. Don’t get me wrong, I know there are people who love their jobs and never want to retire, I’m just talking about people my age who are stuck in a rut with no way out.

Just before I started writing this I had a conversation with my friend outside about the library and what he thinks it will mean for this town. Such a conversation would never happen at 2:30 on a Monday afternoon. No way! Those are precious work hours and time is money. I am almost 26 years old. I will not have much money when I return to the states and I couldn’t be happier. A lot of times you’ll hear volunteers say something like, “yeah, this job is great, but I have to get back and start a real life.” I understand the viewpoint – we are living here on the government’s dime with no real structure to our work schedule. If you are not a teacher, your own self-motivation is literally the only schedule you hold yourself to. Thankfully, Peace Corps is loaded with self-motivated people. But to me this doesn’t feel like a transition to a real life. I don’t think it is something that I just needed to get out of my system.

Okay, you’re all probably thinking, “Holy crap, he’s finally lost it.” But I swear I haven’t (although I guess that’s what anyone would say right before they are checked into the nut house). I am just reflecting on my own experiences here and what it may mean for my future.

When I first got here, I have questioned whether or not I should have stayed in Detroit and done humanitarian work there. We all know that city needs all the help it can get. That is my plan for when I return – to live near family and play some role in the attempt to restore Detroit. But the longer I live in a place where phrases like “time is money” or “Eat. Work. Sleep” are just that, idioms, and not actually ways of life, the more tempted I am to stay. Is it possible to live a life in the U.S. without regard for money? Hope so. Will I be here for a third year? I don’t know. All I can say is it’s not out of the question.

I just got back from a trip to Mauritius with my parents for 6 days. It was unbelievable. I met some of my dad’s family that I had either never met before or couldn’t remember because I was too young at the time. It was so great that I am hoping to go back with some of my Peace Corps friends over Easter vacation. Despite the beauty of my 6-day getaway, coming back to my small village in Madagascar definitely messed with my mind. I wonder…if I go back to Detroit right away will I forget how great of a time I had here? Will I want to come back at some point? Will I base my decision on the cost of a plane ticket? I really hope not.

I wrote that a few weeks ago and I guarantee my opinion on all of this has changed at least 2 or 3 times with the ebbs and flows of my work. This is a love-hate relationship and I think this post shows the side of me when I am really loving my job.

Misoatra Betsaka!

Words in a blog post could never really do justice to my excitement or gratitude to what just happened in the past few weeks with my library project. It appears as though the goal amount has been met and the webpage has shut down. For this I say THANK YOU SO MUCH!

One of the reasons Peace Corps turned down my original library proposal was because it was too expensive, which I understood. The whole idea of Peace Corps is to help build sustainable ideas, not necessarily giant structures. Trust me when I say this library is far from a giant, but hopefully it will serve as a tool for continued education and English learning for the hundreds of people who can’t finish school for one reason or another.

When Peace Corps turned down my first proposal they told me that the average volunteer project takes about 6 months to raise $4,000 (or something like that). You all helped me raise $6,000+ dollars in only a few weeks. For that, I, along with the thousands of residents of the Faraony region, am eternally grateful. To everyone who donated, reposted the link, emailed it to friends, or made personal sacrifices to donate a few bucks– you have helped raise a large amount for a Peace Corps project and apparently did so in record time. Thank you!

I have not received an official email from Peace Corps saying the project goal amount has been reached, but my parents and I checked the site every day while on vacation this past week until we didn’t see it anymore. Peace Corps said the money would be transferred into my account 7-10 days after the goal amount is reached. Nothing yet, but I’m sure it’s on the way. I am headed back to my site today to work on collecting the money owed by my community. I believe I already mentioned it, but your portion is 75% of the project’s total cost. The other 25% must come from the people in my community. It can be in the form of manual labor, material donations or money. Three different groups agreed to give me the rest of the money needed to build the resource center. Now, I just need to go get it. I am hoping to start building in November or December. Obviously, I will keep everyone in the loop throughout the process and try to post pictures of it all.

I thought I might end this post with a quick story since everyone seems to like hearing about weird events that happen in Madagascar. A few weeks ago I was heading by to my town on a taxi-brousse from my banking town and the place where I taught for two weeks this summer: Manakara. On the way, I saw a rare, albeit fairly disgusting site. I should preface this by saying that there is no shame in public breastfeeding here. All mothers do it at all hours of the day in all areas of the country. Sometimes these mothers can be a bit older and that can be a tough thing to see.

Anyway, so we are in the brousse and everything is going well (or about as well as any long distance trip can go in a sh*tbox with wheels). At that point, one of the twin boys belonging to the woman in front of me breaks out in a sobbing cry that could easily be mistaken for an international siren warning of Armageddon. In effort to silence the child, the mother lifts up her shirt and starts breastfeeding. Not two minutes later, the other twin realizes there may be some favoritism happening so he starts balling his eyes out. So, the mom picks up her other child, lifts up her shirt completely and the boy starts feeding. Last year, such a site would have been mildly disturbing. Now, I call it Tuesday. The boys have since stopped screaming so I try to fall asleep.

A few minutes go by before the woman sitting next to this mother taps me on the shoulder and asks me if I have a plastic bag. To ask for a plastic bag inside a moving taxi-brousse is to say, “I am about to blow chunks. Please help me out.” Unfortunately, I didn’t have one but thought to myself, ‘if you turn around and face anywhere but my direction, I will move mountains to help you find one.’ Turns out, there were a few up near the driver so he passed one back to this lady who then held it in front of the mother (she has no hands at this point since they are occupied by her two breastfeeding children). The bag is placed in perfect time and the mother proceeds to throw up and ungodly amount of food that would give even the most potent of projectile vomiters a run for their money. What made this whole scenario hilarious/disgusting/surreal was that the two kids didn’t even come up for air or to see what was going on while this was happening. Even funnier maybe was that not a single person in this beyond capacity taxi-brousse was acknowledging it. I could do nothing but laugh as the whole situation.

Just another funny experience I thought you may all want to hear. Thank you all again so much for your help with my library project! I can’t wait to get started and show you all how it is going.

Approved!

They approved the library and set up a website for donation! Here is a link to the donation page. You just have to select Madagascar from the drop down list, find my name and select an amount. Thanks so much everyone. I'll add a more complete blog post when I have the time.

https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.donatenow

Education Updates and a Few Pictures

I apologize for yet another long absence from the blog. All is well here on the red island. I am one week in to a 2-week BAC prep course that I am teaching in my banking town, Manakara. I may or may not have explained this already, but the BAC is a weeklong exam that all students graduating high school must pass in order to get their diploma and be eligible for university. The passing rate for this exam is shockingly low (10 students out of about 70 terminale students from the school I teach at passed the BAC last year) and it doesn’t seem like these low numbers seem to bother people. While I don’t know what the minimum passing score is, it is nothing close to the standard that students are held to in the United States (no matter what test we would be taking). The average Malagasy student who has desires of going to college in North America would be royally screwed because the test expectations are so high. But back to the idea that no one seems to blink an eye when only 10 students pass the biggest test of their lives. This apathy, generally speaking, is the attitude toward education in this country. Clearly, this is extremely depressing as someone whose humanitarian work and entire purpose for being in this country is based on education, but also just as another resident of this country. I’ve become close to a lot of host country nationals here so seeing the apathy in teachers and students alike after repeated attempts to explain what the average educated person can do in his life compared to the person who is not – it makes you question your purpose on a large scale.

Good news, though, speaking of promoting education! I just received more than 1,000 books for my town. The books are from Books for Africa, an organization back in the states. About 20 volunteers started this project roughly 2 years ago and unfortunately a lot of them are no longer PCVs in Madagascar anymore so they weren’t able to see the books in their towns, but several other PCVs (including myself) took over for those people and benefited greatly for it. Big thanks to Brittany Bemis! No Peace Corps experience is complete unless a million things go wrong; you have a few mental breakdowns, another few days of pure bliss and a few dozen Malagasy people calling you vazaha. This was exactly that. While you have moments of pure misery and vague thoughts of ETing (early termination of service) during these projects, the end result makes everything so worth it. Another reason Peace Corps is the hardest job you’ll ever love. Anyways, so my books are at the house of a volunteer 12 km from me. The big truck carrying the books couldn’t bring them all the way to my site because the road is so bad and they never would have made it. It’s usually pretty bad, but it has been raining a lot recently turning what was a pretty bad road into complete mush.

Quick side story

When I was coming to Manakara to teach this course we got stuck in mud 3 different times so everyone got out to push. It’s always funny to hear the reaction of Malagasy people when they see a white person. Sometimes its excitement, sometimes its anger (thank you to the French and colonization for that one), and other times it is complete terror, but that is usually just with young children (no joke. There is one child who breaks into a deathly cry whenever I walk past her house). Anyways, watching people watching me push a taxi-brousse up a mucked up hill was amusing. It’s weird because Malagasy people can be so cruel to vazaha, but they still seem to look at any foreigner as royalty. The shock on their faces as I was slipping and sliding around and getting covered in mud was the equivalent of the face of any hockey fan if the Columbus Blue Jackets won the Stanley Cup and everyone on the team only had one leg – it seems impossible.

But back to the books! So, they are waiting in a town near me and I am going to bring them the rest of the way once I am finished with this English course here in Manakara. These are books for basic, intermediate and advanced English learners, math textbooks, science textbooks, encyclopedias in French and English. It’s really unbelievable. Speaking of unbelievable, I was told last week that my library project is going to be approved (though I’ll sleep better once it actually is) and is just waiting on a signature from our Country Director. Rainy/cyclone season around here is no joke, so you can’t really start building between December and February. Depending on how long it takes to raise the money, I am hoping to start building in either November or at the end of February. The builder says it should take a month to complete and by that time all the books will have been sorted/coded/etc and ready to be put on the shelves meaning we could open it a few months before I end my service. This is obviously my hope for rest of the library project, but as I mentioned earlier no Peace Corps project is complete without plenty of misery and pain. Can’t wait to see what that will be.

A few weeks ago I was a trainer for the new education volunteers who just arrived in country. New volunteers are a really big deal in Peace Corps culture. Everyone gets really excited to see new people – I guess we are like Malagasy people in that sense. Huh, interesting. Anyways, I was at the Peace Corps training center for a week talking to 29 new people about my experiences in the first year and it was a great time. I basically gave presentations on teaching English as a foreign language as well as the Malagasy education system and its culture. It was really weird to be on the other side of the training experience. I’m obviously still learning every day that I am here, so being the one to pass on the knowledge was strange.

So, I am here in Manakara for the next week and a bit teaching this English course. After that, I am going back to Ampasimanjeva to hang out there for a few weeks before heading to Fort Dauphin, a city down on the southern coast, with a few other volunteers. After that, my parents are coming here for a week although we still have no idea where we are going. Then, I go to Tana for a ‘one year in’ meeting before heading back to site for another school year and hopefully some library building.

I meant to tell everyone this a long time ago, but I forgot every time I wrote a new post. I don’t use the P.O. Box address in Manakara anymore. The volunteer to whom that PO box belonged to left the country back in April and closed up the box when he did so. Let me know if you sent anything to that address since April. I should still be able to get it. For the future, you can use this address for the Peace Corps office in Tana:

Peace Corps

Lot II K 76

Bonnet Mahatony Ivandry

Antananarivo 101, Madagascar

It is harder for me to get because I don’t go to Tana very often, but when people from our region go up there we usually pick up stuff for each other and bring it back. It’s also cheaper to receive packages there than here in Manakara.

Finally, in a previous post I mentioned that I recently organized a meeting for my region in the mountains. Here are some pictures from the weekend.

The whole group near our camp site.

A nice little trek through rice fields on our way up to the camp