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!

Unsolicited Thoughts on International Charitable Aid

International aid is a funny thing. After class the other day I was biking down the street and I started to notice a troubling trend: nothing here belongs to the Malagasy people. I saw a school whose funding was paid for by Japan. I saw a series of wells, which were donated by the Republic of Kuwait. I saw a road sign signifying road repairs completed by the European Union. I saw a medical office building, which is home to an Italian aid organization. And finally there I was, a Peace Corps volunteer from the United States, biking through it all.

A few days ago, I was with my English conversation club (which is hilariously nicknamed YESMAN for Young English Speakers of MANakara) and we were discussing the job climate here in Manakara. One of the students said the main problem is that too many public sector government workers are not being paid enough or at all by the Malagasy government. He went on to say that the real problem is that countries other than Madagascar (he was pretty non-specific) haven’t giving the Malagasy government enough money to pay these workers.

This seems to be a common trend: people feel entitled to aid. For Malagasy people, receiving money from developed countries is as customary as receiving money through direct deposit. No one should have to do any work; the money should just be there. As a Peace Corps volunteers, it makes your skin crawl a bit.

On the one hand, how can you blame them? When they walk through their every day lives seeing signs of aid from this country or that, wouldn’t we, too, just accept it as normalcy? You might even be surprised to see something “Vita Gasy” (Made in Madagascar).

It appears as though dependency on international aid has grown like a virus in Malagasy culture.

During our stay in Madagascar, PCVs receive something like $200 per month for things like food, transportation, lodging on the road, urgent medical needs, and other essential or non-essential items. As PCVs we are supposed to be living in circumstances on par with Malagasy people. You’d be hard pressed to find a family of five that brings in that much money per month. In addition to our monthly stipend we have nice bikes, clean American clothing and other physical traits that wouldn’t require a detective for one to determine that we are not Malagasy. Because of this, PCVs will be asked for money or a “kadoa” (gift) everywhere he/she goes. If a PCV buys bananas in a small-town market, someone may very well ask for one or many of those bananas in the two or three minutes it takes the PCV to walk home. If someone introduces a PCV to someone he/she needs to talk to, it is also common for that person to ask the PCV for a little bit of money to buy a cigarette or other similar item in exchange for their service. The concept of bargaining for a good or service you want to purchase can often turn into a huge pain in the butt because the vendor automatically assumes PCVs have more money (which, as I admitted, is true). The kicker, though, is that because of this fact, the vendor then believes extortion is justified. No joke. If you protest a price, vendors will often tell you “you’re white so you must have money.” Sometimes I run into really stingy vendors who will not budge. Unfortunately, I really need the item for whatever reason so I’ll buy it anyway. While many of you sitting at home probably think I need to just relax, I would argue that by making that purchase I not only confirmed their suspicion, but I just ruined any opportunity the next white person has at getting a fair price at this particular stall.

The concept of “mangataka’ing” (to beg or ask for something) is so bad here that PCVs will literally befriend people if that person doesn’t constantly ask for things. It’s an unfortunate, but very real problem.

Here in Madagascar, international aid has created an environment where not only is it okay, but it is expected that foreigners should be giving money or material donations when any such opportunity presents itself. It is expected in large sums (in the example of the student who thinks the job situation is the fault of a lack of international monetary aid) and small donations (in the example of the Peace Corps Mada volunteer who would be hard-pressed to go a day without being asked for something).

How will Malagasy people learn to be independent if they always have charity to lean on? Isn’t this the same as your parents kicking you out of the house if you have graduated college and choose not to look for a job? From where I am sitting it doesn’t seem like many Malagasy people are being proactive about the changes that need to be made for this country to function again. Then again, behavior change is an incredibly difficult thing to evoke. On the other hand, they know they don’t need to change their behavior when they can rely on mom and dad (that’s international aid for those who are also realizing this is a really bad metaphor) to keep them going on a day-to-day basis? Granted, I live in a small sliver of Madagascar so I can’t speak to the daily-goings-on in other parts of the country.

In the end, I don’t know what the answer is. Fortunately for all of us, there are other people in position to make these decisions. Unfortunately, lots of them make these decisions with political motivations (another reason not to be a politician-love ya Fritz).

Let me just make one quick clarification. I love Peace Corps Madagascar and this really has been the best job I have ever had. I guess I get worked up over this stuff because I have put a lot of effort into my work here and I don’t want to see it or these people flounder.

A few weeks ago there was a pretty epic cyclone that destroyed parts of the south east coast. Several people died, homes were destroyed, flooding of epic proportions (like the kinds you see on natural disaster videos) displaced thousands, big, hulking trees went down and entire sections of road were washed away (don’t I seem like the bad guy after that soap box lecture about charitable aid). At the beginning I thought it would be cool to see what a cyclone would be like, but after a few hours I was thinking, “Holy shit. Okayyyy, that’s enough. Saw it. It can stop now.”

Yeah, it didn’t stop. Rain pelted down for nearly two days in a country with no real sewer system. I also had to work quickly to make sure my hole in the ground didn’t overflow and have its contents all over my yard. Serves me right for looking forward to a cyclone. Here are a few pictures…

What is left of a section of road

There was also a road here

and here.

I just took these pictures a few days ago, nearly a month later.

Pancakes are great cyclone food. Care package from mom arrived at the perfect time.

A few kids at a house near me pulling stuff out through the window.

Water started receding so I went out to my poop hole to check on the damage.

This all used to be road

Not a lake or river

Road

This is not a lake or a river.

I wanted to let everyone know that I am applying to Challenge Detroit, a revitalization project in Detroit that is currently in year 3. I have made it through the first round and if I make it to a certain point in the application process, there is a “community vote” where people go on to Youtube and watch a video (that I am currently creating) and the applicants are judged for views and likes. I would love to have your help. It will be around April 6^th if I make it.

Finally, Congrats to Cooper and Emily on getting engaged! Very happy for the both of you!

The Mental Hurdles of a PCV in Mada...and Lemurs!

This may be a rash generalization but I think there are some people in the US and the world that suffer from post 9-11 Islamaphobia. Before I scare everyone off, bare with me for a second. Whatever your opinion may be, I think some might agree that when a Muslim male or female walks into a room wearing traditional, religious garb this person attracts a fair amount of attention. I apologize if this is offensive to anyone, but what I really want everyone to do for a quick second is to take a minute and put yourself in that person’s shoes. What does it feel like to be that Muslim man or woman attracting the eyes of everyone in the room? To stick out because of stereotype?

I’ve been wanting to write a blog post like this for some time now – a reflection on what it has meant to be an American or really any vazaha (the Malagasy word for foreigner) in Madagascar. After two and a half years here, I’ve come to the rather depressing conclusion that it seems impossible for an American Peace Corps Volunteer to completely integrate themselves into Malagasy culture and society.

Let me quickly start with this term “vazaha,” which I may have already written a blog post about. I can't remember. Imagine you are walking down a street in your slice of suburban America or wherever when let’s say a person of Asian descent comes walking toward you on the same sidewalk…

You don’t know anything about this person: where they were born, how they got to where they are, or what they do for a living. Common sense tells most of us that extending this stranger a quick greeting would be the kind thing to do. Unfortunately, western society seems to think that extending a kind greeting to a complete stranger is a bit strange in itself and possibly borderline creepy. In fact, western culture usually tells us that you're more likely to have some sort of ulterior motive or that you’re selling something than simply displaying a random act of kindness. But for the purpose of this blog post, let’s say you give a quick “hello” and then the two of you go on your way and maybe never see each other again. No harm done, right?

Here in Madagascar, such an innocent exchange appears impossible. It seems that at some point between Madagascar winning its independence from France in 1960 until now a certain degree of narrow-mindedness has slowly grown out of control. Let’s go back to our sidewalk example to see if I can explain myself a bit better.

Imagine this same Asian American walking toward you on the same street in your slice of suburbia. As this person comes within eyesight you stop dead in your tracks and stare at him or her. I’m talking like a deep, hypnotic gaze. You've probably seen him or her around before but you just can't help it. As this person gets closer you pull on the corners of your eyes while mocking them with your intentionally sloppy version of Chinese or Japanese or other language from an Asian culture. Finally, to top it all off, you decide to greet this person with “hello foreigner.” Granted, I am no expert in foreign relations but I have to believe that it is highly possible you should start running for your life at that exact moment. In most places in the world this is one of the more offensive things you could do in this situation. However, for a PCV in Madagascar, this could be a Tuesday…or Friday…or possibly any part of any day of the week. Then, multiply that by 2 (or maybe more) years. Trust me when I tell you that it gets really, really old (and I’m not even Asian American).

Most white volunteers are greeted with “Bonjour vazaha” depending on where he or she lives. PCVs in smaller towns usually don’t get it as much because there are less people in the town and he or she usually knows everyone. In larger towns you get lost in the shuffle and you’re probably not the only white person anymore (ie. Manakara - pretty sure I got at least two or three on my two minute bike ride to post this blog). When I lived in Ampasimanjeva, I rarely heard “bonjour vazaha,” but anytime I left my small town for another other town or city all bets were off.

You might ask why can’t they just say hello and be done with it? Well folks, therein lies the million-dollar question. But let’s play devils advocate here for a second. For starters, the French colonized this place forever (and still have a pretty big influence) so that explains the “bonjour” part. And of course, all white people are French so--…oh. Wait. They’re not?! Weird.

But seriously, the bonjour thing really isn’t a big deal since most white people who do visit here are French. I also haven’t forgotten that this is one of the poorest countries in the world where the importance of education is used as more of a punch line than a path to a brighter future. Another reason is that almost all Malagasy people are black or darker skinned and probably have never left this country so it's not incredibly surprising to see why they’re so blown away when they see white people.

I’ve been told (and I’ve noticed) that Malagasy people love to state the obvious. So much so that it’s almost a cultural habit. So, for example, if I’m sitting on my porch with a bucket of soapy water while scrubbing clothes some Malagasy person may walk by and ask, “are you washing clothes?” Most PCVs will respond with a smile and say yes, but inside we’re thinking, ‘no I’m driving a car. Of course, I’m washing clothes. What does it look like?’ I guess I would equate it to two Americans talking about the weather. Both conversations are just filling time and both are equally uninteresting for all parties involved.

According to a few Malagasy people, the same logic applies to the word vazaha. If you see a tall white male walking down in a street in Madagascar you don’t need a sign to know that he’s not from around here, but Malagasy people still can’t keep themselves from pointing out the obvious, thus leading to the bonjour vazaha.

I used to play basketball in Ampasimanjeva with a kid who lived right next to me. He was always really respectful and knew my name, but when we played basketball and he was calling for the ball or something he would address me as “vazaha” or “lava be” (meaning really tall). It's like everything went right out the window when he had some d'ing him up.

There are actually times when I can appreciate the usage of the vazaha comment to differentiate between people. To stick with the basketball references if I’m playing on a team with four other Malagasy guys and the opposing team is deciding who is going to guard me then they’re most likely going to say ‘you take the vazaha’ cause its an easy identifier and they may not know my name.

But even if they know names, Malagasy people still teach their children to say vazaha from a really young age. There is a six-year old who lives in a house near me here in Manakara and no matter how many times I’ve told him my name is Rory, that I’m American and I don’t speak French I always get the same loud, high pitched greeting every morning, “SALUT VAZAHA!” Don’t worry, I’m not getting all worked up because of a six-year old, but what I’m trying to say is that we as volunteers stick out like a sore thumb. Despite our attempts to learn this language, wear the right clothes, and participate in cultural traditions we quickly lose whatever connection we feel with our communities when we hear the all too familiar greeting bonjour vazaha. Teenagers and kids do the most damage when it comes to the vazaha comment because it is in their sarcastic, demeaning tone that you know not only are they using the V-word just to use it but using it to poke fun as well.

Most of us tell our close friends and neighbors that we don’t really appreciate the word vazaha and they usually respect that. Recently I was biking with Briana in Analavory when we passed one of her closest friends’ house. We were biking slowly and she was sitting out front with her 8-month old baby and she yelled in somewhat of a baby voice (as if it were her child talking), “SALUT VAZAHA E!” I was a bit surprised, but we kept going to Bri’s house. When we got there she said her friend knows that she doesn’t like when people say vazaha but she was probably just doing it to tease or to annoy us. You may be reading this and think wow Rory, Briana and all PCVs are apparently really melodramatic, but first think about the fact that we are in a foreign place, surrounded by people we haven’t known for that long, speaking a language we all struggle with at times, thousands of miles away from family and friends and all the while just trying to help out. We go through days where we feel like we are on top of the world and we really are just another Malagasy person with white skin. Other days we hear vazaha and the like and we remember that this is not our home. We are like 10-year-olds in school in that all we really want is to fit in and not be labeled or criticized for being different, but it seems like that isn’t really possible here. If we do the basic day-to-day chores of any Malagasy person such as getting water, carrying things of any weight, wearing some traditional dress (especially for women), carrying an axe, working in the rice fields or getting muddy then we are almost guaranteed to get laughed at, pointed at or talked about by people who think we’re too stupid to understand what they’re saying about us. It's a deflating feeling.

For argument sake let’s suppose you think I’m being a bit dramatic. Here’s another thing that PCVs run into all the time: people thinking they can get more out of us and are justified in doing so because we are white. If we are white then we are not from here and if we’re not from here then we must have mountains of money waiting for us in our real home. A relevant example actually just happened as I was writing this to a volunteer passing through Manakara on her way to a moringa (type of edible plant) training that she is organizing with another volunteer. She arrived in Manakara with something like 70 or more of these plants in 5 crates (all of which are a bit heavy). She has to move three of these crates on to another brousse to take the plants another 20 kilometers south to the town where the training is going to be held the next day. She goes up to one brousse driver and asks how much it will cost to send these 3 crates to the town. He says 3,000 ariary. The PCV laughs to herself a bit and says no thanks knowing full well that the cost for a person to go to this town is half that. The guy clearly thinks she is a unsuspecting vazaha who will give any amount of money. She walks to another brousse driver and asks him. He agrees to do it for free and says its no problem (the answer any PCV would have hoped for but probably never expected) until a few seconds later the first driver comes over and tells him that he should charge 3,000 too. Solidarity wins out and the volunteer is forced to move on to a third and final driver (there are only so many drivers for certain routes). The same thing happens leaving 3 greedy Malagasy male brousse drivers versus a white, female PCV whose only crime is trying to bring 70 plants to a small town 80 kilometers away from her "home" to show people how they can farm and eat an extremely healthy, inexpensive plant. In the end, there is no other way for the plants to be sent so the brousse drivers win. The worst part is that they know they are screwing her over because they are smiling and laughing the whole time as her frustration mounts. (For your information, 3,000 ariary is a little more than a dollar so, yes, it isn’t a question of whether she can pay it but the principle).

These kinds of things happen all the time in all sorts of places in Madagascar and often times the Malagasy person will tell you straight up that they know you can afford it because you are vazaha. You can talk about what it means to be a volunteer, to not make money, and that you have lived and worked in this place for years. You can do this until you’re blue in the face, but that price is never going to change.

You don’t even have to be buying something for this to happen. There was a middle school-aged kid who used to live next to me in Ampasimanjeva and on the same day that I opened the library in June, he came in and asked me if I could give him a soccer ball. I was a bit confused because the request came completely out of left field so I asked him what he meant and he reiterated that the next time I left to go to a big town or city that I should bring him back a soccer ball. I told a white lie to keep from getting too annoyed and said that I didn’t have enough money to get him a soccer ball. Keep in mind this is a kid that I really didn’t have too much interaction with, but he always seemed nice enough. He then brought up the fact that I’m a white vazaha so I must be lying about the fact that I don’t have enough money. I admittedly got a little angry at that point and said something like “is this not enough?” while gesturing to the library we were standing in. You may still being thinking, "Jeez, Rory, ya Scrooge. Just go get the kid a ball. I'll send you the money." But the bottom line is that the requests and begging never stops because it's never enough. There is always something else that we should be giving.

Moments like these really make you think twice about the concept of international aid. If Malagasy people keep seeing American or European NGOs and volunteers offer financial or material aid even when it might not be asked for, how will they ever learn to live independently? Peace Corps prides itself on sustainable projects, but in the end there needs to be motivated Malagasy people behind these projects and sometimes they can be incredibly hard to find.

In continuing with the idea of monetary humanitarian aid, the Malagasy government appears to have one of the most corrupt infrastructures I have ever seen (just a reminder that these are my thoughts and not those of the Peace Corps). When another country offers monetary aid it's not hard to imagine that the money won’t go farther than the corrupt pockets of various government officials. So in the midst of feeling like you can never be accepted into Malagasy society you also sometimes get this horrible feeling that maybe the work you’re doing here is only further debilitating these people, the country and it's future.

There are so many other examples of every day occurrences where a volunteer might feel detached from his or her community or have doubts about the work he or she is doing. It sucks to stick out and it sucks to have no way to hide it, but it seems as though our Malagasy counterparts can’t seem to get past it. And so we continue on with our work as strangers, as foreigners, as vazaha.

Just so we end this on a positive, happier note I thought I would include some pictures from the last few weeks, including lemurs! Hope everyone had a great Christmas and new years celebration!

My best friend from Ampasimanjeva gets married! No, I don't own a belt.

The official opening of the library in Ampasimanjeva. To the left of the picture is the girl who replaced me in Ampasimanjeva.

Christmas in Analavory. We wrapped up a bunch of things Briana doesn't use anymore and gave presents to a family she is really close to. They loved it!

A taxi-brousse accident on our bike ride to Manakara. The accident was about five days old by this point. It was an overnight brousse from Tana, a ride we all have to do. Apparently several people died including probably everyone in the front row. I'm not sure if the broken bottles near the car is some sort of ceremony that was held. That's a complete guess.

We went to a hotel just north of Manakara and there were lemurs.

We made friends quickly. When it doubt, bring food.

The gang