My Early Observations & Hockey in Madagascar

Well, I'm back.

In the first few days of being back in the States a few things have caught my attention:

• My mother's reaction to flies in the house. One fly will send her into what could accurately be described as an overblown tirade. She should have come check out my kabone (poop hole) in Madagascar on a hot day.
• The suspension systems on cars. My mom was driving towards a rather large pot hole near a sewer going about 45 MPH. I started to cringe cause she wasn't slowing down. However, the impact wouldn't have been enough to spill a full wine glass on a mattress (and I'm not talking about one of those nice Tempur Pedic mattresses from the commercial. I'm talking a Malagasy sponge mattress). I thought for sure the bottom of the car was going to fall out and I would have been run over by a caravan of speeding Sprinters (a large van) all hell bent on being the first shitbox to make it to their destination.
• Prices/Tip. I bought two pints of beer for my brother and I the other day. $14 with tip. I'm not complaining because it was a good beer, but that is also the equivalent of 14 65cl THBs (a big beer) which would lead to significant and probably deadly alcohol poisoning.
• Water fountains. Being able to trust drinking water, especially those right next to the bathroom, is pretty incredible. But the real reason I added this is because the water fountain I saw in the Atlanta airport was hands free. Are you kidding me?! Are we that lazy now? I bent over and looked like a bonafide moron waving my hands in different directions trying to activate the water fountain while keeping my mouth open and eyes fixed on the spout. I also couldn't help but blink cause you never know when its gonna come out or if it will get all over your face. Are you envisioning this debacle? Pretty funny, right? Go ahead. I would have laughed too had it not been so sad and pathetic. I also never actually got any water so I left with my face beat red and full of embarrassment. I got some water from sink in the bathroom and so far it has not led to gastroenteritis.
• Not having to buy a beer or food from my parents in order to charge my computer or iPod in their house. It doesn't even seem fair. (When a PCV needs to charge something, he or she will go to some establishment and purchase something in order to offset the cost of the electricity use. When multiple PCVs go together, it can often look like NASA has set up shop in Madagascar).
• And one I am not surprised by, but is still a problem for me is that one will receive the stink (pun intended) eye and a frown for a smelly fart, not a high five. This could take some getting used to again.

I'm sure there will be many more things that blow my mind for various reasons. I'll try to keep a running list.

A funny thing happened a few weeks ago while I was playing in a Malagasy Independence Day basketball tournament in Manakara. You all remember fripe? I have explained it here before, but basically it is a clothing vendor on the street whose retail line is usually made up of clothing items people have donated from first world countries. These clothing items have a wide range and rarely will you ever see a single vendor specialize in a certain article of clothing. The average Malagasy person wears clothes out of function, not fashion (for those who know me, you can imagine how well I fit in). There are many Malagasy people who try to get a hold on the latest fad in the first world and replicate it. Many succeed, others fail (so I'm told by other PCVs. God knows I'm in no position to judge people on their dress).

At a basketball game, you wouldn't expect anyone to be dressing for fashion, right? That's what I thought, at least. I was sitting with my team on the side of the court watching the game before ours when a player on another team walked through the gate. He looked like (or at least was trying to look like) a genuine badass. He had a fade haircut, a cigarette in his mouth, and aviator glasses on. His sleeveless dry-fit Nike shirt was clean and tight (a poor choice as our friend was/is a tad overweight) and he actually had basketball shoes! He walked in with the bravado that he owned the place and was a force to be reckoned with on a basketball court. He also had a pair of black mesh shorts on with a brand name on the thigh that looked oddly familiar to me, but I couldn't quite see it clearly. I got up and walked over to him for a closer look. The uncontrollable laughter began immediately after I recognized the shorts. The writing on the thigh said "Itech" and his so-called "shorts" was actually a pair of hockey jock shorts which come with velcro flaps on the front and back of each thigh to hold your hockey socks up. 

These are the jock shorts he was wearing except black. For any non-hockey players here, you adhere your hockey socks to those black flaps to keep them from falling down.

Being a hockey player I thought this was particularly hilarious so there was absolutely no way I wasn't going to ask him about his fashion statement:

(translated from Malagasy so remember something could have gotten lost in the translation)...

Me: Hey! What's up? I like your shorts.

Him: Thanks. 

Me: Did you buy them here in Manakara?

Him: Yeah. I got them last week.

Me: How much did they cost?

Him: 4,000 ariary (less than $2).

Me: What's with this thing on your leg [pointing to velcro flaps]?

Him: I still don't know, but this is what athletes outside of Madagascar wear these days.

Me: Really? Like who?

Him: Do you know LeBron James?

Me: [Hits head against wall].

Gettin' Serious for a Sec

A few years ago I served on PC Madagascar's VAC. VAC is a group of about 8 volunteers who represent their region of PCVs. Their job is to attend meetings at PC office three times per year and then set up meetings in their region to report new policies or PC actions to their region of volunteers.

At one of the meetings I remember the topic of married LGBT volunteers being brought up. At the time, PC allowed married heterosexual couples to serve and live together. Now, the organization wanted to expand to married LGBT couples. At the time, I knew PC allowed couples to serve but I didn't realize there were guidelines for sexual orientation. Anyway, it was the beginning of a big change and it was exciting. The problem was PC Madagascar was being considered as a pilot country for LGBT couples and right away that raised a red flag with everyone in the room.

Unfortunately, in the three years I have been in Madagascar, I don't know of a single LGBT volunteer who was out to their community. Maybe someone told one or two trusted people but the bottom line is you would truly be putting yourself in danger to be open about your sexuality in Madagascar. 

I don't know the first thing about the struggles of the LGBT community. I mean, I know what I can see by being a contributing member to society, but I don't know what it would be like to walk in that person's shoes for a day. But, imagine coming out to your entire family and friends in the states and then joining the Peace Corps to do some good in the world only to realize that your desire to do good is going to cost you your newfound peace of mind. You have to take a step back and deny who you really are not only to be accepted in a strange world, but to make sure you can remain safe for two years. For this reason, I think LBGT PCVs in Madagascar and in similar places around the world are some of the strongest people I've ever met.

But this blog post isn't necessarily intended to bring attention that feat, despite how incredible it is. Instead, I wanted to give Americans a small look at how the LGBT community is viewed by Malagasy people. In western culture, I don't think we can deny that the LGBT community has always had it much harder than the heterosexual community has. There are a great many people in western culture who don't agree with the LGBT lifestyle. I do not understand these opinions, but after my recent English club I realize it could be sooooooo much worse.

Every Friday, I meet with a group of young Malagasy people. The group is mostly students, but there are some in their late 20s as well. We meet and usually discuss a topic decided on by one of the members for about an hour or so and then we discuss English vocabulary and I teach some things they may not have understood during the conversation.

Recently, a 26-year-old woman joined the English club and she has been a breath of fresh air! In her second meeting she asked if she could bring the topic for the discussion. We all said yes and she said she wanted to discuss homosexuality. 

The room went completely silent. 

Only I said, "That sounds like a great idea! We'd love for you to prepare a discussion about that," though it was clear I was in the significant minority. Of the 15 people in attendance, I would say only this girl, me and another American friend of mine who is a missionary in Manakara were excited about this. Homosexuality had come up once in a discussion I was part of about a year before. It was nothing short of despicable, but I wanted to see if a different group of people might have some different opinions.

In short, they didn't. All members except the three of us mentioned above said homosexuality was bad and Malagasy people need to work with "these people" to change their mentality.

I won't go into major detail about the discussion itself, but I just want to write some of the seriously uninformed and often incredibly offensive and cruel opinions that were given...

-One student said that people are not born gay, they become gay because they watch films featuring homosexual pornographic content. This, in turn, makes people curious and therefore they become gay.

-Similarly, another member said that technology has made people gay. Again, as I mentioned in my previous blog, sometimes things are just lost in translation but it sounded to me like he was saying computers, movies, phones and all the amenities they offer have led to an increase in people becoming gay.

-An opinion of a lot of members in the group was that it is a virus. It was the opinion of one person that people can be born gay because they lack enough testosterone which makes them feminine. We entertained this virus debacle for a moment and asked each person if their brother or sister or best friend were gay, how would you handle that news? It was the opinion of all the Malagasy members (except 1 and the girl who brought the topic) that they would no longer be able to live near this family member or befriend that person any longer. The reason, as one student put it, is that this person may bite you causing you to become gay. So, in the span of a few minutes, we went from the LGBT community being a group of diseased outcasts to a homosexual zombie apocalypse.

My American friend, Joel, and I just looked at each other. It was one of the most jaw-dropping things either of us had ever heard in our time here.

-Others had the opinion that if you go out with another LGBT person you may end up drinking. Drinking often leads to bad decisions and LGBT people will try to take advantage of you in your state of lowered inhibition.

I asked the group, which is mostly male on this day, why they would assume that any gay man would be interested in them? I asked if they ever considered that opinion to be conceited? I also asked if they think that the one Malagasy girl in the room, the one who decided on today's discussion, would want to have sex with any one of them just because they are both interested in the opposite sex.

No one spoke.

-The final part of the discussion was easily the most disturbing. This woman in the room (who apparently has two LGBT friends in Tana) asked the group if they think people in the LGBT community should be imprisoned. It seemed like an astronomical question, but at this point nothing was going to surprise me. Again, it was the opinion of all except four (two being myself and Joel) that people of the LGBT community should be in jail to prevent spread of the "disease."

I asked them if they really meant to jail these people and never let them out. They nodded. I suggested (this is obviously not my opinion, I just wanted to see how ridiculous their mindset was) why not kill all LGBT persons and have a genocide? They seemed to agree that that was too far but I think some of them were understanding what I was getting at and that I was genuinely annoyed by the whole conversation.

At the beginning of the conversation, some of the members said that homosexuality was wrong because of the bible (this is a very religious country) because LGBT couples cannot reproduce. I was happy to make it known to the group that my cousin and her wife are currently expecting their first child. I'm sure you can imagine that to they were completely shocked. I explained how that works and they said that's not natural. I offered a counter argument of a man who is unable to contribute to the reproductive process because of health issues saying that these couples still have children through artificial insemination or adoption. This was still not okay according to them. Unfortunately, I was talking to people who belong to a culture where in some places those who have twins will either give one (or both) up or have them trampled on by cows and the one that lives is kept.

I just want to say that this blog post is not intended to spark controversy or debate on this page or my facebook page though I realize that is a possibility. I think those who know me would attest to the fact that I am not one to involve myself in controversial topics, but maybe I should start every once in a while if there are people who think like this. The real intent of this post is just to give those who read it a look at how people in Madagascar see an issue that is still hotly debated in our world.

In closing, I hope the moral of this whole thing is that simple mindedness is a problem, not just in this country, but all over. Hopefully we can all remember to try and keep an open mind about all people, no matter what their background, sexual orientation or personal hobbies are.

Fame and Fort- No, just fame

A former PCV in Madagascar once said one of the things he would miss most when he returned to the United States was being famous. Going from messiah to pariah. Okay, maybe not a pariah, but I couldn't pass up that awesome rhyme.

Anyway, it seemed weird at the time for someone to consider him- or herself famous, but after three years here, I get it.

As a tall, white, American male who constantly rides around on a beautiful black Trek bike (which is like an American seeing a Maserati roll by in the States) I am one of the most identifiable people in my town.

A few weeks ago I was walking through the market in Manakara. As I passed a stall I heard one of the vendors talking to a co-worker...

Vendor: Mahay teny Gasy be izy! (He is really good at Malagasy)

Coworker: Kaiky! (Really?!)

Vendor: Tena marina! Nampianatra tany Ampasimanjeva taloha izy fa efa nifindra Manakara. Mampianatra ny mpampianatra izy izao (It's true! He taught in Ampasimanjeva before but he moved to Manakara. He teaches teachers now).

Co-worker: Mampianatra ino? (Teaching what?)

Vendor: Ny fomba fampianarana anglisy fa tena mahay teny gasy be izy. Mbola tsy hitanao ny vadiny? Nipetraka tany Analavory taloha izy fa efa aty koa izao. Any andranovato izy mipetraka. Tena mahay be avao koa izy fa fohy be. (The ways to teach English but he is really good at Malagasy. Have you seen his wife? She lived in Analavory but she's here now too. She lives in Andranovato. She's also really good at Malagasy but she's short).

Coworker: Kaiky!

(I'm feeling a bit weird about people talking about me while standing right there now so I decide to speak up...)

Me: Akory Aby! (hi)

Vendor: Zay!!! (See!)

(Everyone laughs)

Things like this happen all the time. People who I am positive I have never met will know my name, what I do, who my girlfriend is (the wife reference is normal. For the record I'm not married), where I live and everything else. Briana had lived in Manakara for maybe a week and a half at that point and they knew where she lived!

Knowing where you live can be problematic. Well, for the obvious reason that Bri and I had all our stuff stolen from her house, but for other reasons, too.

I swear one of my students right now has slipped a GPS tracking device into my backpack or my shoe or something. I can't shake him. And the problem is that he knows where I live. I am completely happy to speak English with students and teach but sometimes you just need your space and naturally you would think a house is a good place to do that. Well, not if you live in Madagascar and not of they know where you live.

Sometimes, when Malagasy people get into your house it's nearly impossible to get them out. Ya know, cause they only want to speak English and you are trying to encourage that but they don't necessarily understand what you're saying so you have to explain, "please, go home," about ten different ways and make sure they're all as polite as possible. But no matter how hard you try something always just gets lost in the translation.

Last week I saw this student on the road and he showed me a bunch of English audio files that he got off of YouTube on his phone. He was really excited so I was trying to be excited for him even though it had been a long day and I just wanted to go home. 

Then, he forever changed our relationship by showing me his photo album on his phone. He only had maybe 6 pictures hut amongst them was a picture of my older brother and I before we went skydiving like ten years ago, a picture of me with some volunteers on a trip in country, and two of my profile pictures from Facebook. Those alone would be plenty to creep me right out...and they did. For starters, my pictures are blocked so I have no idea how he got them. I asked but he just responded, "yes, it's good." Like I said, lost in translation. Then, he shows me another picture where he has cropped two separate pictures (one of me and one of him) and put our faces over a yellow background with our names under them. This was the scariest thing I have seen in Madagascar. He wouldn't answer my question about why he had those or maybe he just didn't understand. 

Didnt matter anymore. I wanted to...scratch that...had to get outta there.

About an hour later, I am sitting at my house and I looked at my phone. He had sent me a text 10 minutes before saying he was going to come to my house "to speaking the english."

Let's pause for a second. In some strange world maybe this could be confused for flattery but I never gave him my phone number nor told him where I live and still had no idea how he got the pictures or why he put them on his phone. So, instead of flattery I experienced something more like panic.

Afraid I would be too late if I sent him a message, I grabbed my bike, hurled it into my house and quickly locked the door behind me. I ran to the back door and the windows and shut those as well. I turned off my small speaker and sat in darkness for the next 15 minutes.

This was one of the sadder, but funnier moments of my last few years:

English teaching volunteer defenseless against the PI-like skills of his 18-year-old Malagasy student.

Anyway, I don't know if he ever came because I never heard anything. In some lesson soon we're going to have to review some new vocabulary. I think "stalking" may find its way into the list of new words. In the meantime, I'm being a little more careful about how often I leave my door open.

A Fool's Errand: The Search for Our Stolen Items Continues

The last time I posted to this blog I wasn't the happiest of campers for obvious reasons. Well, today I am going to continue the story. However, today I am in a much better mood the reason being that I am currently sitting on a padded chair in front of my parents' computer with a cold drink and a very low chance of getting burglarized in the next 5 days. A bunch of little things that have combined to put a very large smile on my face.

So...back to the story of the devastating weekend that continued into a devastating week and a half.

Bill's real name is Jean Freddy. I thought it was kind of cool to conceal the identity of an "undercover cop" because I wanted to have some fun while retelling a nightmare.

Well, Jean Freddy is the lowest of the low when it comes to possessing any degree of humanity. I'm sure you're all sitting there saying, "well, I coulda told you that" or "doesn't surprise me in the slightest," but I remind you that we were in an incredibly desperate situation and we were clinging to any possibility of finding our stuff. But, as the saying goes, "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me." The police and Jean Freddy fooled us a couple times.

The last time I posted here Jean Freddy had left the police station hunting down a possible suspect. The next day I wrote the blog post, but still had not heard a word from him. The day after writing the blog post I returned to the police station to speak to the officer we had been working with the most. It was three o'clock in the afternoon and he was completely wasted. He could barely stand, he was spitting all over me as he spoke (there's say it don't spray it and then there's the maid of the mist, this dude was definitely the maid to my mist), and he could not make eye contact. Just that was enough to bum me right out, but he kept talking.

"Have you heard from Jean Freddy yet?" I asked.
"Yeah, we have him," he responded like it was common knowledge. "You can go talk to him yourself. He's in one of the cells in the station."
Oh boy...What now? I thought.
"He's here? In a cell? Why?"
"He got caught last night trying to break into another house on the south side of town," he said with a twisted grin on his face.
God dammit. You have got to be kidding me! So let me just get up to speed here...you're wasted, he's in jail, Ernest (hotshot investigator) doesn't respond to calls or texts and we still have nothing? Saawwweeeet.

After this, the police officer, whose name is Fleury, says that Jean Freddy duped us all. Ya don't say?He went on to say that Jean Freddy never had any leads at any point. I reminded Fleury that not two days ago he assured us Jean Freddy's criminal days were over and that he has been very helpful with police investigations. He couldn't even find the words to respond in his drunken stupor.

At that point I was scared to ask my next question, but I thought I'd just see what he had to say...

"What exactly is being done now to try to find our things now?"
"We have friends all over."
"Right, as in police?"
"No, no, not Police," he laughed. "Just friends. And you should really call your friends around Manakara to see if they have seen your computer."
"Yeah, they know, but that's only four people and two of them are not here. Where are these friends of yours and how are they qualified to look for this stuff?"
"I just have a lot of friends around Manakara. Everyone is looking for your things."

He then went into this 15-minute drunken diatribe about how this isn't the United States and how we (Briana and I) were being unreasonable thinking our things could be found so quickly. I'll be honest, he has a good point. In the States, some forensic investigator would probably take a finger print on the broken window or in the house and the thief would be identified in a few days. People, and particularly Americans, want results.

My apologies, Fleury. On the other hand, the forensic investigators probably wouldn't be able to do their job very well if they were hammered.

.....................

Fast forward a couple days when three new volunteers have arrived in Manakara before they went to the town they will be living in for the next two years. It's sort of tradition to take them out for dinner and a few drinks when they get into town.

After we left dinner, we were walking down the street to go to a karaoke bar. I walked in last and noticed a rather sketchy-looking Malagasy man walking behind us wearing a purse (or as Zach Galifiniakis would call it, a satchel). I turned to go into the karaoke bar and then did a double take to satchel guy and noticed he was wearing one of Briana's souvenir purses!

My mouth dropped. I grabbed him by the shoulders and walked him into the karaoke bar and had Briana confirm that it was, in fact, her bag. We explained the situation to the bar owner and all of us took the short walk over to the police station together.

The guy, whose name is Setra (which means violent or dangerous in English), claimed that he found the purse on the ground the morning after the house was broken into. He maintained that he didn't break in and never saw anyone. He also confessed that he picked up two other purses of Briana's and gave one to his girlfriend and sold the other one. He also said that he knew us and where Briana lives (which isn't that crazy considering there are not too many white people in Manakara). He also said his uncle lives across the street from Briana. Nevertheless, we had no idea who he was.

He was told he would sleep in the Police station that night and we would be back in the morning to discuss this all with Fleury. I felt incredibly guilty being the reason this guy found himself incarcerated for a night, but I didn't know what else to do.

The next morning we went to his house with Fleury to look around to see if anything was there. It felt highly unethical and weird to be on the front lines of the investigation, yet there we were, the accusers, standing in his bedroom with the police, his parents, and other members of his family all looking on. Before we started looking around his bed to see if he had stashed anything there, his parents begged and pleaded with Briana and I which made things even more weird. We asked them about Setra and when the point of his girlfriend and the other bags came up, they said he had no girlfriend. Then we asked where exactly their family lives in Manakara. They said they have no family anywhere near Manakara. It was getting fishier by the minute.

A quick look around his bed and we found an eye mask of Briana's. Not a big find, but the kicker was that at the time of the break-in, the eye mask wasn't in any of the bags that Setra claimed to have found on the road. It was in another bag. We made all of the inconsistencies known to everyone in the room and the father proceeded to scold Setra in front of the family, saying that he is destroying himself and destroying the family. It was another awful moment to have caused, let alone witness.

We walked a few blocks to another bar where Setra said he sold a small souvenir women's wallet that Briana bought to bring home. At this point, Setra's mom claimed that he found those things only a few days ago and not the morning after we were burglarized. However, when we arrived at this other bar and identified the stolen and resold item, the owner of the bar claimed Setra had, in fact, sold it to them on the morning after the break-in.

The day before I left Manakara to come back to the States, Briana, Setra and myself all made separate statements to a prosecutor. I actually had to pay for Setra's transportation to the courthouse because the Police refused. It felt like the government was laughing at me.

The case is supposedly going to trial now, but in the end it is our word against his. There is no other evidence to go on. Some moments I think for sure he did it and other moments I think maybe he really did just see the stuff on the road and has no idea. Either way, you cannot convict a guy based on a few bags and no hard evidence. Setra is not scared by this whole thing because even if he did steal it, the stuff is long gone by now. The trial is supposed to continue upon my return to Madagascar next week.

Unfortunately, all these events have had an even bigger impact than just our stuff being lost. As I mentioned in the last post, both Briana and I lost our piece of mind. Unfortunately, Briana wasn't feeling any more comfortable as the days went on. This past week she made the decision to revoke her 6-month extension and close her service with the rest of her group.

You can't be effective when you don't trust anyone around you and whoever stole our things permanently ruined that for her. You couldn't begin to imagine how difficult of a decision that was for her, but she is undoubtedly making the best and healthiest decision for herself. It is a tough end to two great years.

A Devastating Night

Well, it has been another emotionally draining few days at the hands of host country nationals.

This past Sunday night I went over to Briana's house to watch a movie. I brought my backpack and my computer to watch the movie, my external cause thats where all my movies are, and my ipod also happened to be in my backpack along with the equivalent of 20 American dollars (not chump change here). The movie ended late so I decided to stay the night at Briana's. It also had been a long day so I fell asleep quickly and like a rock...

Around 11:50pm both Bri and myself woke up to a loud crash. I sleep like its permanent so I didn't exactly jump up. Briana asked me what the noise was and in my sleepy stupor I said, "it's probably just the rain and the wind." In my defense it was raining pretty hard that night.

Briana's new house in Manakara is two floors. After a few minutes she convinced me to go take a look downstairs. I was still half asleep so it took me a while to notice one of the windows was wide open and it had a gaping hole in the middle of it.

Instant panic set in.

I quickly realized that we left my computer and charger on the table after we finished the movie...

Gone.

I checked on the shelf near the kitchen where Briana keeps her smaller electronics like her Malagasy phone, iPod, speaker, chargers, etc.

Gone.

I saw a purse of Briana's on the ground near the wall where she hangs bags. It's the same place I had put my backpack earlier that night. It's also where Briana puts her purse containing her wallet, bank cards, ID and money.

Gone.

We went into another room to make sure our bikes were still there (note: it would have seemed impossible to fit bikes out this window to anyone who hadn't just woken up). Then we checked for our saddle bags which we use to carry things when we bike.

Bikes there. Bags gone.

This all took about 30 seconds and then I ran back to the broken window to see if I could see anything.

Nope.

Goosebumps the size of the biggest mole you've ever seen set in all over my body. I just couldn't move. I have never felt instant shock like that. I have been robbed before here in Peace Corps, but this felt much worse. This was in my town by forced entry. The previous time was on vacation in a hotel probably by a guard with a key. Both of them unfortunately happened in the middle of the night.

Briana and I started surveying items on the first floor of the house but we obviously weren't going to go running down the street in the middle of the night looking for someone with a shit load of electronics.

After taking an inventory we came up with the following list of stolen items:

-A 15" MacBook pro, charger and converter.

-2 iPods

-A phone

-A digital camera

-2 backpacks - one including all my lessons, teacher training materials and USBs.

-2 saddle bags

-Briana's purse and wallet

-A small speaker

-A few souvenir purses

These things combined for a grand total of about $2,000 or roughly 1/3 of a PCV's earnings for 2 years.

We decided to tell Briana's landlord (she lives next door) about an hour after the incident. They helped calm us down and remind us there was nothing we could do now but to wait to go to the Police in the morning. Needless to say, neither of us got much sleep after that.

I'm not going to try not to give too much of my personal opinion here because I don't know who reads this stuff (just a reminder that these are my opinions and not the opinion of Peace Corps), but after dealing with the authorities after my first burglary, I wasn't too pumped or encouraged to do it again. Unfortunately, we had lost too much not to go.

There are two authorities here: 1 is the police which serves all cities and major towns. The other is the Gendarmerie which serves in rural areas.

We went to both offices in Manakara.

First, at the Police station, we filled out reports and explained all the things we lost. Then, we asked for more specifics on how the Police go about finding things that are stolen. As opposed to answering the question, they said: "don't worry, we'll find it" or "don't be sad" and even "how many friends do you have in surrounding towns? You should call them and tell them to be on the lookout for people selling your stuff."

Sorry, I thought that was your job?

I asked one officer what they would do around Manakara to look for these items. He responded by saying, "well, you should look around in all the small electronic stores and the small shacks where people fix computers, phones, and things like that."

I thought, "wait me? I don't know the first thing about investigative work." Needless to say, we weren't quite pumped about our odds when we left the police station.

The Gendarmes was no better. We gave them our comprehensive list of lost items to the guy in charge. He dutifully slid it into the middle of a massive stack of papers, told us he would let us know if he heard anything, and said goodbye. Unsatisfied, we asked a few questions which were all met with lazy answers so we left.

Briana lost her Malagasy ID card and her bank card so we had to return to the Police station with passport photos and another piece of paper with the lost items. The purpose being that these completed papers would help her get replacement cards. We were expecting another disappointing string of empty promises, but we were actually surprised to hear about the stuff that had happened since we left.

The Police brought in a sort of "undercover investigator." I write this in quotes because he is not employed by the police and if you saw him you would know that this dude is definitely not some PI. Turns out he used to be a thief himself but recently changed sides and then was brought in by the Police to help them solve robbery and burglary cases. Well, this guy, we'll call him Bill (I've always wanted to pretend like I need to conceal someone's identity in a story), took down another list of all the stuff we lost and took off like a ghost. Sketchy doesn't come close to characterizing this dude.

We left to go back and get some lunch with the intention of returning to the police in the afternoon to question a carpenter (the only Malagasy person who had been in the house since Briana got it and the only one with the unique knowledge of the lesser security on the window that was broken into).

We ate lunch and then decided to get our afternoon going as it was full of more paperwork, interviews, and sending updates to Peace Corps. Briana went upstairs to grab a USB (both of mine were stolen in my backpack) to use to scan & send the police reports to Peace Corps. When she got upstairs she screamed, "oh my god!" My stomach just sunk.

"They took our externals!" she said.

The silver lining in all of this was that I had recently backed up everything on my computer and Briana still had all her pictures (despite her stolen camera) and everything else on her external. Now, it was all gone.

I walked upstairs because I had to look at the shelf myself. I saw they were gone and just sat down in a speechless, almost catatonic state. We had just come to terms with all the things we had lost, but we thought we still had all electronic documents & files (resumes, word documents, music, etc). Now, we literally have nothing to show for all the work we have ever done on a computer.

Briana went back downstairs to check to see if she moved the externals to her trunk at some point. When I heard her sobbing down there I knew she didn't find them. That was easily our lowest point of the day. Not only did we lose the externals but we realized these guys were only a few feet from us while we were sleeping and we had no idea.

We went back to the Police station and told them about the externals. They wouldn't even add it to their report because it meant more work for them. They just laughed at the idea that we could sleep through such a thing. Despite all their help we left and went to send some forms to Peace Corps before returning back to Briana's house. We intended to pack up some of her things to bring to my house or to a hotel for the night when Bill called and told us to meet him.

Again, sketchy doesn't even scratch the surface. Around 6:30pm we went to meet Bill in a public area. He told us he found a friend of the person who broke into Briana's house and they wanted 13,000 ariary (half for him and half for the friend) to go to the thief's house, get all of our stuff, and then he would call us with confirmation later that night.

We were ecstatic! Sketchy investigator Bill came through! 13,000Ar is about $5 so it was nothing in the scheme of what we had lost. We agreed that he would call us that night if he found anything. If not, we would meet him at the Police station in the morning to find out what happened.

He never called.

On Tuesday morning, Briana and I returned to the Police station. We were met by two of the same officers from the day before and one new guy. They asked us to write down everything we had lost. I started to get annoyed. Then, some guy with aviators walks in and starts asking for exact brand names of everything we lost cause he was the big fish investigator in the office and he would make everything alright. He started talking himself up and I snapped...

"Do you all not work together here? Why are we filling out a form about all the stuff we lost for the 3rd time?! You already have it all! If he's the big investigator why wasn't he told yesterday?!"

Briana shut me up by reminding me that if we piss them off they would simply dismiss us and not do anything to help (not that much was being done to this point). So, I finished yet another list and handed it off. We haven't heard from that guy since.

Not long after that the guy we had really been working with the day before showed up, but with no new information. We told him about our meeting with Bill the previous night and he was shocked. "Great," we thought. This dude has no idea that Bill had a lead which means Bill probably never had a lead.

We decided to call Bill when he didn't show up to the station. The Police officer got on the phone and called him up only to find out it wasn't Bill on the other end. Bill had borrowed a phone from some random guy to call us the night before. We had no idea where he was and now we had no way to contact him. We figured we were duped big time. This time we lost 13,000 ariary. This was also when the officer chose to tell us that he doesnt actually trust Bill 100% and that Bill doesn't always come through. I asked him why he has a reputation with the Police if he's a criminal? For this, he had no answer. 

He said he forgot to tell us the previous day that we should only pay Bill once he has everything and we have seen it. Unfortunately, the previous day he just told us that if Bill does his job, you need to pay him. We figured he was doing his job, so we paid him not wanting to pass up the opportunity to get all of our stuff back and went back to Briana's house.

We went to leave the Police station feeling depressed once again when Bill showed up. He walked in and told some story about why he didn't have our stuff and why he didn't have a phone and then said he knows who broke into our house. 2 men, one who lives right near Briana, were the culprits according to Bill. Naturally, we were taking everything he said with a grain of salt at this point. Instantly, the officer and Bill were best buds again solidified by a "good job" pat on the shoulder.

At this point our emotional capacity to endure was about zilch. We had just lost everything, the Police didn't really seem to care to help, Bill appeared to be the greatest con man/investigator Madagascar has ever seen, and on top of it all we remembered we gave up years of our lives to come here to help others, but we can't trust anyone to help us.

Bill said he was going to go to the home of one of the suspected crooks to see if he could get some kind of a confession from him and then call in the reinforcements. At this point Briana realized everything I just mentioned above and started to break down. Overwhelmed and crying, she told Bill that when he sees the crook to tell him that we are volunteers who have given up two years to come here and help people and we are not the people they should be stealing from. Bill and the cop started laughing. It was just another demonstration of how big of a heart Briana has and how little these people can care about our presence in Madagascar. It was an awful moment to be apart of. 

At that point Briana decided she wasn't going to come back to the Police station again so she left and I agreed to return in the afternoon to see about any new developments. As of Wednesday morning (Madagascar time), Bill had not called back or returned to the Police station. The hot shot investigator didn't call and the officer we have been working with said there is nothing new to report.

In movies and TV shows you always hear that after 2-3 days if you haven't found the missing person or the stolen items you're probably never going to see them again. Well, the reality is sinking in.

Today was a bittersweet day. I woke up to an email that I was a finalist to interview for a job that I have been eyeing for nearly two years now. On the other hand, I realized that the interview is now two weeks away and I have nothing physical to show any of the companies I will be interviewing with: my resume is gone, my work from previous employers is gone and all videos I created from my University of Miami days and beyond are gone. I can't even get to work on creating these things again because I have no computer to do it on. 

I keep telling myself to be happy. After all, it's just stuff. It can be replaced. But then I realize, it really can't.

I am grateful that both Briana and I are physically okay but this whole incident has made me sick - physically, I am exhausted from the past few days of constant police visits, paperwork and little sleep. Emotionally this has been a roller coaster unlike any I have experienced in Peace Corps. And mentally I have never been so angry at Malagasy people and the culture. On the other  hand, I have also never been so happy about my expected close of service date which is coming so quickly. It's an awful way to think after an incredible journey, but this one stung. I am looking forward to my return home for a week and to see what may be next for me. After that, I hope I can come back with a clear head, rejuvenated and ready to finish out my service with the same motivation I've had for the past 2+ years.

THE FINAL HOURS!!!!

Hello Blog World!

There are only a few hours left in the Challenge Detroit community vote phase! Thank you to all of you who have voted in the past few days. Please send this link to anyone you can think of and tell them to vote before 11:59PM EST tonight! Thank you everyone for all of your support. Go to my Facebook page to see a video of some more lemurs!

http://woobox.com/ti3h9z/vote/for/6593294

Challenge Detroit Voting Round

My video passed through to the community vote round so I have one final favor to ask: please go to this link http://woobox.com/ti3h9z/vote/for/6593294. You may be asked to like the Challenge Detroit page and you will have to agree to some privacy elements. After that you should be able to see my video and personal statement and a button on the top toolbar that says "vote." PLEASE CLICK THAT! You should see your vote update to the total tally. You have until April 12th! You can also view the video and statements of the other 174 remaining applicants. I really appreciate you all helping out!

You can only vote once. After you have done that I would really appreciate if you could pass this message on to your friends, family, coworkers, and anyone else who comes to mind. If you don’t have a Facebook account, I’m not going to ask you to create one for this, but if you could still pass this email along to others that would be really great!

You all have been so supportive with views on YouTube and I have no doubt that your help has caught Challenge Detroit’s attention. Thank you so much!! Now, I need your help to try and solidify a spot in the final (interview) round. Again, you have UNTIL SUNDAY, APRIL 12^th to “vote” for me on Challenge Detroit’s Facebook page. Here is the link again!http://woobox.com/ti3h9z/vote/for/6593294 

You can also go to Challenge Detroit's facebook page and search for the "Challenge Detroit Year 4 Semi-Finalists page." I believe all the candidates will show up in order of most to least amount of votes.

And just to give you something Madagascar...here is a picture of my girlfriend Briana and I on vacation here in Nosy Be last week.

Call For Help

Hi Everyone!

You may or may not have heard that I am applying for a one-year fellowship program in Detroit that would start in September. Challenge Detroit is a revitalization project that is currently in its third year and I am hopeful to be part of year number 4. There are four cuts during this application process and I have just submitted my materials for the second cut, which is why I am sending this email to all of you fine people.

In the second round, each applicant was asked to submit a 500-word essay and a 1:00 minute video. For the essay, I chose to write about the challenges I have faced and how those obstacles might better prepare me for the fellowship. The video is more open-ended, but since I can't shoot any video of/in Detroit, I focused on Madagascar. You will see when you watch it.

Here is the link: https://youtu.be/uN2kGy4KWmY

The second round of cuts is made by the selection committee based on the materials from the first round, the video, and the essay. If I pass through the second round, I will enter the "community vote phase" where applicants are judged based on the number of views they have for their 1:00 minute video. With that said, I would love for all of you to watch my video as many times as possible! Also, if you could inform any friends or family members I would be forever grateful! Obviously, I haven't made it to the third round yet, but I figure it can't hurt to get a head start just in case. I should know by April 6th if I made it to round three and then the community vote phases closes on April 12th.

Thank you all so much for your help. I will try to keep you updated as much as possible in the coming weeks. Hope you are all doing well! For anyone in suburban Detroit, hopefully I will see you all in a few months!

Rory

PS. To all my friends in the broadcasting field, please remember this is Madagascar and all the radio shacks here were fresh out of wireless and handheld mics. Haha! Love to all!