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.
