Cows, Kabones and Life in the Classroom

It has been another wild month and a half here in Mada. And what is a Peace Corps experience without a few good stories.

First off, I haven't really addressed the concept of hygiene yet. It really should be a whole post on its own, but here's a little idea...

• Bucket showers. There is no running water in my town (unless you're really lucky or really rich). I am neither so bucket showers it is. Originally it was getting to be a bit of a pain in the ass to fetch water every time I wanted to take a shower (which started out as every day). Because of that, I chose to really integrate myself and the amount of showers per week really started to dwindle. Don't worry. I have since gotten back to every day or every other day for a few reasons: (1) it's really hot so fetching the water is completely worth it, (2) I have a gutter and it rains a lot so I really don't have to fetch water all that much and (3) I play a lot of soccer in really hot weather so it's much more necessary now. However, if you have the pleasure of walking up and down the rows of my classes or get to spend 5 minutes in a taxi-brousse, you will quickly realize what it is not to shower for weeks at a time. Eventually you get used to it.

• Poop holes (aka kabone or as my stage mates so eloquently named it during training, "glory hole"). I actually have not mastered the kabone stance because only a few weeks after I moved into my house I took a chair that wouldn't fit in my house, cut a hole in the middle, and put it above the glory hole as my own wooden throne. It has been a great invention, but a little less great is the fact that my kabone is adjoined to another kabone used by several women that I work with. I think you probably know where this is going, but when you eat rice 3 times per day, seven days per week you might experience a few issues while using your kabone. Man, have I heard some serious issues coming from the other side of that wall. Traumatizing stuff. Another thing I have noticed is that most Malagasy people don't use toilet paper. They will use notebook paper, leaves or just bring a bucket of water into the toilet and clean off European style. It's surprising when you consider that toilet paper is 600-700Ar in my town (about 30 cents). People here either can't afford it or simply have been doing it this way for so long that they just don't care or see it as a necessary purchase with the little money they do have. So, after everyone has done their business and more than likely not washed their hands, they go out and talk to everyone. It is Malagasy custom to shake the hand of everyone you meet when you walk into a conversation no matter how often you see that person (it often feels as ridiculous as it sounds particularly when your shaking the hand of the same person for the 15th time that week). You also shake the hand of everyone in the conversation when you leave. I have had several conversations where the hand shaking has taken longer than the actual conversation lasted.

• Quick sidenote- while teaching during the first trimester one of my students went to walk out of the classroom without asking first. He was also trying to hide a crunched up piece of paper. I'm not really sure what I thought at the time - maybe that he was passing notes or helping a student in another class cheat. Anyways, I stopped him, took the paper, and opened it up. There was nothing on it so I asked him where he was going without asking. Turns out he was just trying to get to the bathroom without the whole world noticing that he had notebook paper as TP. Whoops.

Seeing a cow walking the streets is much more likely than seeing a car on them. Sometimes, it can be a little scary running or biking or walking at them because they have minds of their own. At any moment they could realize that the 5-year-old herding them wouldn't make for much of a fight, destroy the kid and bolt. Well, a few weeks ago one cow got loose on the lycee grounds and b-lined for my house. I have a fence and a gate but the gate was open and the fence is kind of a joke. At this point I still didn't know the cow was loose, let alone in my yard until I heard some really loud mooing and then my house shook a few times. I remember thinking the mooing sounded like it was coming from a lot closer than normal but the road is right out my door so I didn't think twice. I went to the door to see the cow had taken down part of the fence and was running away. Make no mistake- cows can run...and fast. At the pace he was going, it might as well have been a semi cause no one stood a chance against it.

I played in my first soccer game with the Ampasimanjeva team last weekend. I told them I just wanted to practice with them because I enjoy the exercise but they insisted I be part of the games too. It was a good time. I got called "vazaha" about 1,000 times by people watching and players on the other team. Vazaha means foreigner and while most Malagasy people will try to tell you that it is a term of respect for people who are more fortunate than they are, I, along with many other PC mada volunteers would tell you that it is used more just to give the white guy a hard time when there is nothing else to do. Let's be honest, you don't need to say "vazaha" for everyone to know that I wasn't born an bred in Madagascar. Imagine meeting a Malagasy tourist in your home town and yelling "foreigner" at him or her. I would assume that this wouldn't happen and if you planned totalk to that person you would ask for their name. Anyway, that doesn't happen here. Bottom line, the game was fun. Although I still suck, I managed to get an assist (I actually don't even know if they keep track of such a stat in soccer, but they should) and we won 5-0.

Now back to the classroom. I gave a test a few weeks back and unfortunately a lot of the kids did not do well again. I know I am the teacher and English is my first language, but I swear it wasn't a difficult test. The exercises and directions on the test were verbatim from the exercises we did in class. It's because they dont study anything outside of the 4 hours each teacher gets with them per week. I wanted to think of a way to get them thinking about English outside of class but with an incentive so I offered to add 3 points to the test of any student that comes to my house 3 times during the trimester and speaks English. The next day I had a line out my gate. Actually I have consistently had students coming over for the past 3 weeks. It has been awesome. To be honest it has even been a bit annoying at times because I no longer have any time to myself. Anyways, the students who want to get better are doing so and those who may not care much about English but want a better grade (3 points on tests out of 20 is huge), they are learning too. Fingers crossed for good news at the end of this trimester.

I will never underestimate the phrase strength in numbers again. When I teach I try to teach as much as I can in English, but if I didn't speak Malagasy they would never understand anything. Imagine trying to learn French with a teacher who only spoke French. You would probably get really frustrated before saying F this and leaving. The other day I was writing on the board in Malagasy to help them out and I wrote "fararoa" which I thought meant second. After about a minute to a minute and a half of uncontrollable laughter on their part, I was told that "fararoa" is spelt "faroa." The laughter then continued for another 30 seconds or so and I was incapable of stopping it. Sometimes I will join in on the laughter as a little self-deprecating humor only so I feel a little less like an idiot. That day I wasn't feeling the laughter so much, but in the end I am the only white, English speaking person for 12 km so I am pretty much defenseless against a mob of students who want to correct me. Sometimes I want to remind them that I have managed to learn and retain more Malagasy in 8 months than they have with English in however many years. Of course, such a comparison wouldnt be fair because I am fortunate enough to be able to work in the country where the target language is being spoken. Still, it doesnt mean I don't think it. By the way, I later went to look up "faroa" in the dictionary and didn't find it. That's because it's spelled "faharoa." 

I am pretty excited for vacation in two weeks. The second trimester is ending and the third trimester starts in April. At the end of the third trimester I will have been in this country for a year which is pretty wild to think about. Actually the new group of trainees just arrived a few days ago to start their training and subsequent 2 years of service. Kind of cool to think back to what I was thinking before I left, then at staging and when I stepped foot off the plane. Wishing the new group of mada volunteers the beat of luck in their next 27 months. Excited to meet you guys. 

Lastly, I just got a package a few weeks ago from some of my Canadian relatives. I think it was one of the biggest boxes I have ever seen. You guys will never know how great it was to eat an Oreo or have cereal again. Thank you so much! This time I made sure I got to eat all the Oreos that were sent to me because I slept with them. 

One more thing. Names are a bit unusual here and I thought I would leave you with a few of my students' names that I thought were interesting:
- Leader
- El Natacha
- Blondie
- Zamiary
- Excellent (x2)
- Hanitriniaina (say this one 10 times fast)
- Soanizy (female)
- Rakotomalala