One Year in Madagascar

About two and a half years ago, while sitting in the middle of a deserted newsroom in the middle of the night, I started thinking that I might be more useful [to the world in general] if I did something about all the horrible things I was writing in the news as opposed to just writing and complaining to my coworkers about how awful people can be. That is when I started doing Habitat for Humanity pretty regularly. I really enjoyed the work and the people I was working with so I got to thinking about a mission trip. Unfortunately, most of these trips were either religiously affiliated or extremely expensive. Peace Corps was neither.

Fast forward to today. It’s pretty wild to think I’ve been here in Madagascar for a year.

In a year of Peace Corps service I have been lucky enough to experience things that some people will not be able to experience in their lifetime. I have met hundreds of different people and tons of volunteers. These are some of the coolest, most interesting and down-to-earth people on this planet. I have learned a new language and adopted what I once thought to be the craziest of cultural behaviors as my own (I eat rice twice a day at site). I have pooped in a hole and in my pants (you won’t believe the things this country does to your bowels). I have hit the highest of highs and lowest of lows. I love my job and I am excited about the next year.

This past week I was at the Peace Corps Training Center about 2.5 hours east of the capital city here in Mada. I was lucky in that I got to be around other Americans for July 4^th and I have spent the last week and a half hanging out with other volunteers (something you are always looking forward to when you are at site). Unfortunately, while I was with these great people, I missed yet another major event back home: my cousin’s wedding. CONGRATULATIONS SHANNON AND JOHN! Shannon, I am imagining a wedding of spotlight, sevens, volleyball, monopoly and hundreds of other games. Whether they were involved or not, I hope you guys had a great time and are now enjoying a honeymoon somewhere. Sorry I missed it. Congrats to the happy couple.

I am going to try and sum up the last few months because I know it has been a while since I posted anything. Here goes…

8 new volunteers landed down in the southeast a few months ago. They are all cool and it seems like we are all getting along really well. It’s pretty wild to think about all the people who apply to Peace Corps, all the people who get selected, then those who are sent to Madagascar and then those who are sent to the sudest. No one picked Madagascar and a lot of us didn’t pick the places we now live in within Madagascar, but we all seem to get along really well.

Every 4 months all the volunteers from each region in Madagascar get together for a meeting to talk about new Peace Corps policies and rules. I am the representative for the sudest region, so I am supposed to decide where and when we have the meeting, conduct it, and then report back to Peace Corps when it is over. A few weeks ago, our region went on a camping trip in what could vaguely be described as the top of a hill in the middle of nowhere. We biked, swam in a waterfall, hiked a few moutains, roasted smores, had bonfires and enjoyed ourselves. It seemed to be a hit with everyone, so that was nice. There were a lot of things that could have gone really wrong, but nothing did. I am excited to start planning another one in October.

I have now finished a full year of teaching. I don’t really have the memory to recollect all the major events that happened during the past school year, but a few things come to mind. For example, I remember the shock I felt standing in front of my first class and wondering how I would ever get them to understand what I am saying let alone teach them the English language. Another day I watched as a student was forced to kneel in a puddle of mud and water because he tried to climb through a window when he was late to class. I continued to teach oblivious to the fact that the lycee secretary was stealing several million Ariary from the lycee. I also remember a significant amount of frustration coming from how often classes were cancelled.

Don’t worry. It’s not all bad, but usually things that are bad have more of a shock value and I remember them better.

I should say that while not all students have the dedication to learn English, there is a select few with motivation unlike any I have ever seen. I have one seconde student named Tokishery. I originally thought about donating an entire blog post to him, but I think these few paragraphs will suffice:

Tokishery wakes up at 3:30 every morning to make food for his entire family (about 6 people). While cooking rice is not difficult, it is still time consuming. When he is done cleaning up he leaves the house to bring his two younger sisters to school – an hour and a half walk without shoes to the main part of town. More recently it has gotten pretty cold in the morning, so he walks to school in colder weather without any warm clothes (because he doesn’t have any) or shoes along a dewy, dirt road.

This made me think back to my years in high school and the American mentality in general. Most high school students would probably fight our parents every step of the way if we were asked to drop off and/or pick up our siblings from school. If it were cold outside, we would grab the nearest North Face jacket, a hat and a pair of gloves and be on our toasty warm way. You might even thrown on boots if it was particularly cold or if you just thought it had been a long time since you wore them. Plenty of us probably utilized before- or after-school time to talk with teachers, but if any of us ever had to wake up at 3:30 am to do so you can be pretty sure no one ever would. Lastly, before we got in our cars to drive the few miles to school, we would probably run the engine for a few minutes – cranking up the hot air and defrosting the windows – because taking that 10-minute ride without a warm car or clear windows would be downright miserable. I hope I am not offending anyone because I am literally only speaking from my own experiences. It just seemed/seems as though this is a cultural norm (at least in suburban Detroit).

Anyways, back to Tokishery. Once he has dropped off his sisters, he backtracks 40 minutes to get to my house roughly a half an hour before classes start so he can speak English. In addition to his two younger sisters who live in Ampasimanjeva, Tokishery has another younger brother and a younger sister. For some reason, Tokishery’s parents chose them as the two to send to Manakara for their education, an expensive privilege that (from my experiences) is usually given to the oldest child. How about that for a slap in the face? He said his parents need him to work in their rice fields and help with the manual labor around the house. Now, he is trying to learn English to hopefully find his way out of Ampasimanjeva. A few weeks before classes ended he asked me if I could help him find a job before I leave this country. He wants to either work on a boat in Mahajunga or Tamatave or be a tourist guide. I have no idea how I can help him with that, but I’m gonna try.

The Library Project…

The last time I posted I said that I had just sent in my first proposal for the library. Well, it was not approved. Peace Corps prides itself on investing in low-cost projects and building capacity, not monuments. My project was slated to cost about $8,000. While the cost was not the only problem with the proposal, it was the one that stuck out the most. Other flaws in the plan included how I would impart knowledge on my community about running a library in order to help it thrive long after I leave this country. I have since fixed these issues and re-sent my proposal. Unfortunately, making all these changes took about a month for several reasons. First, I don’t have electricity and the report is a formal one, completed on a computer. Minor problem. Second, I live 3 hours from my builder who I had to meet with twice to make the library smaller and cheaper. Third, a French man in my town was going to donate a solar panel and computers to the library, which would have been a huge part of the 25% contribution that all Peace Corps volunteers must get from their community. Unfortunately (but still good at the same time), he is building new classrooms now so he is going to add the computers and solar panel to his new building. With that decision, I lost about 3 million ariary worth of community contribution so I went back to Manakara to talk to the education and regional government ministers to ask for money. They promised to give the money, but saying is one thing and doing is another. I will sleep better when that money is actually in my hand or bank account.

I will admit that Peace Corps not accepting my first proposal was a pretty low point, but I didn’t mind going back out and putting in the leg work to do what I needed to do to fix it. I don’t imagine I will find the same drive if it is denied a second time with all the changes I have made. I imagine it will be pretty difficult for me to get back on the saddle and use another month or so to make the necessary changes. Finally, I have now passed the one-year mark of my service, so it goes without saying that if any library is going to happen, I need to be able to start fundraising soon if I am going to finish everything before my COS date.

So the school year is now over. As taxpayers, I’m sure you would all like to know why Peace Corps is giving me a monthly allowance to live in this country when I have no formal work during the vacation.

Well, I just finished a weeklong training to train the new education volunteers that will be arrivingon Thursday afternoon. I will be training themfrom the 22^nd to the 27^th of July doing presentations about how to teach English as a Foreign Language as well as just telling them about my personal experiences from the past year. After that, I am headed to Manakara to teach English to terminale students for a few weeks before their BACC exam. In order to pass high school, all terminale (the equivalent of a high school senior) must pass the BACC exam. It is an exciting job because it is with students who are choosing to study English outside of class. Similar to an English club, you don’t have to worry about the attentiveness or motivation of your students in this situation. After the teaching gig in Manakara I will head to another volunteer’s site to help out with a soccer tournament she is organizing. I believe we are also going to give smaller presentations about things like malaria, HIV/AIDS, gardening, and other Peace Corps initiatives while the tournament is going on. After that, I am hoping to go on a small vacation before my parents visit for a week. Very excited to see them and watch them rough it for a week in Madagascar. After they leave I will go back to Tana for a conference with the group of volunteers that I came into this country with to talk about what we have experienced in the first year and what we are planning for the next year. After that, I am headed back to my village again to start another school year. Hopefully by that time, my library project will be approved and will have started fundraising.

I hope everyone is doing well wherever you are. So long for now.

99 Problems and the First World Ain't One

Life is looking up here on the Red Island. I think I have mentioned before the manic-depressive behavior that comes with being a Peace Corps volunteer. Well, it starts from the beginning. You come to country with these grand ideas - some that you later realize were not very well thought out – but you are sure your presence in what appears to be a forsaken country will still be nothing but positive. Then, you get to site, realize that you never really understood the phrase ‘middle-of-nowhere’ until that moment and slowly these grand ideas come crashing down and the self-doubt creeps in like a bad dream. No doubt this happens to hundreds, if not thousands of Peace Corps volunteers all over the world. You will love your job one day and curse yourself and your host country the next. It is an emotional rollercoaster unlike any I have ever experienced. The Peace Corps motto used to be “the toughest job you’ll ever love.” I don’t know why it changed, but I get it.

A few weeks back my service hit a few rough patches. I was still working on my library grant proposal long after the deadline I had set for myself. This was due largely to the fact that the lycee lost a ton of money courtesy of its secretary. As I mentioned in my previous blog, this man continues to work at the lycee because he is a state employee and therefore cannot be fired by the lycee or its Proviseur. Recently, I was actually told that many of the people in the town (and most of the teachers) believe the Proviseur may be in on the scam. Can’t tell you how depressing that would be if it turns out to be true. I should also add that the secretary who stole the money is still in charge of getting the money every few weeks from the bank in Manakara (this despite my constant protests to the Proviseur and the rest of the staff). In addition to the finanacial issues, classes were being cancelled at an unbelievable rate for reasons that seemed completely ridiculous to me: two teachers’ meetings (we all live within shouting distance of each other so there is no reason we can’t meet at any other time than when kids are supposed to have class and they are supposed to work), a day for students to clean up the school yard and basketball court, and an obscene amount of religious holidays. Granted, I am not a very good catholic. Quite frankly, the only reason I consider myself catholic is because my parents are/were and I wear a Celtic cross for sentimental value. Whatever happened to the good old days of separation of church and state?! I volunteer at a public school yet religion has clearly sunk its claws deep into the fabric of this country’s basic functionality. I apologize if I offend anyone. I don’t mean to personify religion as an angry cat, but in my opinion some things are better left without G’s opinion.

Anyway, all these things seemed to happen at once. Then, with classes being cancelled at such an alarming rate it was nearly impossible to get any lessons through to my students. I would teach them one thing and then they wouldn’t see it again for another week and a half and God knows they aren’t studying at home (see what I did there). In addition to forgetting basic information, some students were getting egregiously disrespectful in class and others who, when I kicked them out for being disrespectful, happily hopped up and acted as if I were doing them the biggest favor. It is weeks like these where I am asking myself: what in the hell am I doing here? How can one volunteer ever make a difference when there are clearly so many bigger problems with this country than whether or not a few people can speak English? Sometimes when students start laughing at me when I misspeak in Malagasy I think to myself, ‘why do you deserve my help?’ A few times I have even started to question why I am about to ask all of you for money to help me pay for a library when I am questioning whether or not it is deserved. Usually a few hours will go by and I read a book or something to take my mind off of the whole experience for a while.

After nearly a year in this country, I think I am finally getting it though. The bottom line is this library is not intended for the masses. Sure, I would love to have everyone in the Faraony region lining up out the door to read a few books and study some English, but it will never happen and I would be doomed to think so. The reason I am here, the reason I am teaching at a lycee in Madagascar, trying to build a library, teaching multiple English clubs and speaking really bad English with kids at random hours of the day is because I am making a monumental difference in the lives of the few. And that is more than enough. It’s one thing to tell yourself you aren’t going to change the world in two years before you leave, but it is another thing entirely to come to that realization while you are in your service. I have arrived at and passed that point and couldn’t be happier about it. Even if there is no physical affirmation of my presence here (ex. if my library project does not go through for some reason) I know there are students, teachers, and people here whose lives will never be the same because of that American guy who lived with them for a little while. It is the little victories that assure me of this.

Little Victory #1

Two students were in my house and we were all sitting around speaking English (or attempting to) when one of them asked what classes I will be teaching next year. I told him I didn’t know but assumed the same ones as this year. One grew a huge smile and the other sunk into his chair a bit and said, “I am going to be in Premiere A” which is a class I don’t teach. He added, “I learn good you.” I jokingly thought to myself ‘clearly you don’t’ and then corrected him. It was particularly depressing since we had just gone over adverbs (how bout that for some English grammar humor?).

Little Victory #2

A student who has drastically improved his English since I first met him has started coming to my house pretty regularly to learn new vocab and practice his speaking. Last week he told me, “You not speak Malagasy with me” or in English “Please don’t speak Malagasy with me anymore.” I couldn’t have been happier. He now comes to my house every morning for a half an hour before classes start.

Little Victory #3

I was showing the plans for the library to the other English teacher who works at the lycee. She appeared awestruck by basic CAD drawings and said, “We are all praying that we are able to build this.”

Little Victory #4

I finally sent in my library project proposal. I am now waiting on Peace Corps to hopefully give me the approval so that I can officially start bothering you all for money.

Little Victory #5

A library doesn’t look so good without books. I recently secured a way to get more than 1,000 books for the library if it is approved. They should arrive in a few months.

Little Victory #6

I just built a garden in my backyard because no Peace Corps home is complete without a garden. It actually took me about 3-4 weeks to cut my grass with a hook-shaped knife about the size of your hand. I don’t have a lot of space, but it was like a jungle out there and the knife isn’t very sharp nor does it cover a lot of surface area with one strike. Anyways, I planted tomatoes, cauliflower, green beans and peppers. I am hoping for a good yield, but if not I will definitely try again. I’m hoping this garden will get the other teachers who live around me interested in doing the same. The town where vegetables are sold is about 2km away. Since everyone walks everywhere, it’s a bit of a pain in the ass. I’m hoping the teachers and I can either eat the vegetables ourselves and save some money and a long walk or sell some of it and use it for the library.

Check it out! 

Little Victory #7

A bunch of new volunteers arrived here in the southeast region a few weeks ago and all of them seem really cool. Really excited for our camping weekend/meeting in a few weeks.

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I didn’t mean for this blog to be so preachy. My apologies. Usually I just keep all this stuff to myself and the world continues to turn, but I thought you all might want to know what it is really like to be a PCV in my situation.

I want to leave you with a funny story. One of my English club students came over the other day while I was creating my garden. He said hi and was talking with me in broken English for a bit before he introduced his friend (whose name I can’t remember). I asked them what they were doing and why they stopped by. Next thing I know I was getting a lecture from one of Jehovah’s witnesses in the comfy confines of my wooden home in the middle of nowhere in Madagascar. Could not believe it. I have several pamphlets I can now use to light my trash on fire.

GO WINGS!

Life at the Lycee and New Volunteers

Apologies for my lengthy absence from my blog…

Things here at the lycee hit a bit of a rocky point recently. We found out that the secretary of the lycee has been stealing money. Some of the teachers are paid by the state and some are paid by the FRAM (which is the equivalent of a PTA). The secretarty has been stealing money from this PTA fund which meaning several teachers went almost two months without getting paid. In this country that means to you starve. Anyway, those teachers have since been paid, but the secretary still works here even though everyone knows he is a thief. Unfortunately, he is an employee of the state and therefore can only be fired by the Minister of Education here in Madagascar. The lycee cannot fire him. Yes, I also thought this was unbelievable.

Many of you know I am already working on a project to build a library here in Ampasimanjeva, but Peace Corps rules require that the community contribute at least 25% of the project’s total cost. The FRAM was all set to be a big help until this minor hiccup with the secretary. I don’t know how much was stolen, but I do know that it was an insane amount even for American currency. It seems we are close to getting back to normal here and people still seem to want to put money into this library project so that is encouraging. I am sending my library proposal to Peace Corps today for their review. Fingers crossed that it gets approved. Hopefully will find out in the next month or so.

Early April was vacation time for teachers. I went to a national park with a few other volunteers: we saw some lemurs, hung out at a waterfall and had a good time in the bush for a few days. We also managed to get robbed in the middle of the night in our bungalow. Even still, had a great time.

But enough of the doom and gloom…on to the bright side.

This past month was Malaria awareness month. Malaria kills tens of thousands of people in Madagascar every year so it is still very much a problem. Peace Corps countries in Africa had a competition to see who could put on the most Malaria-related event. I painted two murals with some other volunteers – one on the hospital in my town and one on a primary school in another volunteer’s town. I used to scoff at the idea of Peace Corps volunteers doing murals on buildings. It seemed childish and a like a complete waste of time. But man was I wrong. Our murals showed ways to prevent Malaria, how to take care of your mosquito net, symptoms of Malaria and what to do if you have Malaria. The amount of attention these things attract is like something I never could have imagined. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people go to this hospital every week and will see the mural. Not only that, but a lot of these people genuinely don’t understand things about Malaria that you or I may have picked up because we have gone through school or been or a hospital in our lives. After we finished the mural in my town we gave a little speech to the people who were there explaining Malaria and the mural itself. They seemed to enjoy it. I also gave Malaria lessons in my three classes. Our region won the Malaria competition within Madagascar last year. Hoping for a repeat.

                My buddy Nick and I after we finished the Malaria mural outside the hospital in my town.

New volunteers will arrive at their new sites in a few days. I will also have a new site mate who I am very excited to meet and show around like my old site mate Al did for me. Pretty weird to think I was in her position only a few months ago and now I feel so comfortable in this environment.

Speaking of new volunteers, there will be more education volunteers coming in July. I applied to be one of the trainers and got the position, so that is pretty exciting. The position also means all the trainers have to go to the training center before they arrive to talk about how Peace Corps wants us to train these new volunteers This meeting takes place during July 4^th weekend so it will be cool to be with a few other Americans for that.

I was also offered a position at a small library for kids in a town called Ifaty for the summer. I’m hoping I can still do it now that I have this training position. Anyone who knows me know that I don’t like a lot of down time so this will be huge during the school vacation. Also, I can get the opportunity to see how a Malagasy library functions before I hopefully open up my own in my town.

Three times a year the volunteers in each region get together to talk about policy changes that Peace Corps is making or talk about any changes that volunteers want to see or problems they are having. I am in charge of organizing the meeting for the volunteers in the South East region. Another volunteer (who lives close to the spot we have picked for our next meeting) and I have set up a camping weekend in what could roughly be described as the middle of nowhere. Very excited about it. There is a waterfall, we are gonna do some hiking, and just hang out in the woods for a few days at the end of June. Should be a good time. you can imagine how important these meetings can be to volunteers after being at site for a long time, not seeing other Americans or getting to speak English.

I have more to say, but I think that is good for now. Maybe I'll come back tomorrow and add a few things if there is time. The new volunteers for the South East arrive on Sunday, which is why I am in Manakara for the weekend. We are going to welcome them, help them buy stuff for their house and then go with them to their new site, which will be their home for the next two years.

Peace! Go Wings!

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

A Compilation of Random Thoughts and Curious Cultural Differences

Taxi-brousses are an unsual experience. Most brousses have a driver and a mpanampy (helper) sitting with the rest of us. The mpanampy is usually running around for most of the ride putting stuff on top of the brousse and collecting money and such. On the brousse I took into Fianarantsoa this weekend, the brousse pulled over not long after we left my town. The mpanampy got out and paid some guy on the side of the street for 4 water bottles - but just for the bottles - there was no water in them. He got back into the brousse and we kept going. After a few kilometers he opened one and the smell of gasoline hit everyone like a brick wall. I assume gas had been in the bottles before and then they just trapped the fumes in. He proceeded to start huffing from all four bottles and we continued on our way. I have been in this country for nearly 7 months, but I am surprised every day.



Last week I went to visit a few Italian volunteers that work at the hospital in my town. When I got there one of the volunteers was watching over a two-month-old baby who was born with a twin. Their mother gave birth to them and left. Being born as a twin can sometimes be a death sentence for babies in this country. Sometimes when a woman gives birth to twins she will not look at them, she will not touch them, and definitely will not take them home. That is exactly what happened to this poor duo, but thankfully they were born in a hospital and not in the woman’s home so they have a chance. I’m not sure if this still happens, but during training we were told that in the deep south of Madagascar if a woman gives birth to twins, the parents will take them outside and have their cattle trample over them. If one of them lives, they keep that one.

I don’t mean to depress anyone, but I’ve realized I haven’t really explained much about the culture, so I thought I would mention that. There are so many things that I found so strange when I first got here, but now they are just commonplace. You all might get a kick out of it though….

Malagasy people have a strange schedule. They work with the sun. When it is light outside, they are working in the rice fields. Epiceries usually open soon after and the day gets going. Around noon everything shuts down: the epiceries close, everyone goes home to eat rice and then sleep. Around 2 or 2:30 the town starts functioning again until about 5 or 6. Meals are like clockwork. People eat rice three times per day and anything else is so out of the norm that they often can’t fathom it. I have tried explaining that it is just different in the US – that people eat when they have time and for a lot of people that doesn’t mean having a meal three times a day. They were blown away. Americans are defined by our work. Malagasy would never let work get in the way of rice or sleep. I went to visit someone in my town the other day around 3:30 in the afternoon (during the week), but he was still asleep after eating.

Fripping is also an interesting experience. Fripping is basically like shopping at the Salvation Army in the United States. Everything you have ever “given to the poor,” Salvation Army, or Goodwill shows up here in Mada. Sometimes, you can find some unbelievably nice clothes (ex. one of my stage mates bought a polo collared shirt for something like 2- or 3,000 AR or $1). More often, though, you will find ridiculous clothes - like a 25-year-old man wearing a pink t-shirt that says, “Pretty in Pink” or “Mommy’s Little Princess.” It can be hard to walk by some of these things and not burst into laughter, but it’s also interesting to be around a culture that really doesn’t put any thought into outward appearance. These people have no idea what anything they are wearing says. One of the volunteers I talked to said the best shirt he has seen in this country was a New England Patriots 19-0 t-shirt from when they lost to the Giants in the Super Bowl a few years back. The Pats loss became Africa’s gain (as I’m sure it has for every runner up in any championship game ever).

Anyways, enough with the culture comparison.

School is still going well. Getting back into teaching after a nice vacation wasn’t nearly as difficult as I had expected. My English club for adults is going to start on February 5^th. I am going to have two classes per week and I’m pretty excited about it. I think it will be a little bit more relaxing to teach a smaller class that is not made up of kids. I really enjoy teaching the younger crowd, but getting them to care about a language that is spoken by a good portion of the world is not as easy as you might think.

Every once in a while I will have classes where it seems like nothing is getting through or maybe we do a quick review of the last lesson right before class starts. Sometimes it turns into 45 minutes because they don’t get it and can’t retain information – the lesson from two days ago may as well be written in English. Get it. See what I did there.

Just this past week I was teaching a lesson about agreeing and disagreeing. We read through a dialogue, defined all of the vocabulary, picked out any additional words they didn’t know and I explained all of them in Gasy. Granted, I am no expert at this language, but I'm pretty positive I was on my game that day. Also, usually when I say something incorrectly in gasy I get laughed at for several minutes before the lesson can continue. Anyway, I felt really confident about what I had just taught them and was pretty sure they seemed to understand it so we moved on to a speaking part. It was pretty straightforward – I gave my opinion on something and then asked, “Do you agree?” (ex. I think English is great. Do you agree?) Even with all the vocabulary written on the board in front of them, the necessary translations and such, only a handful could formulate a response. I even asked the question in Malagasy and told them to answer it in Malagasy and then we could translate together. Still, they couldn't do it. It was definitely a difficult teaching moment. After you’ve exhausted all avenues of teaching a particular topic what do you do? At what point do you move on with some kids still not understanding the lesson? Keep in mind this is very different from the US - Gasy students rarely, if ever, come to my house to ask me questions. If you do poorly or don’t understand something in class in the US, you go to talk to the teacher before or after the class and figure it out. My obstacle has been getting kids to care enough to want to do that. I’m working on it.



Living in this country/being a Peace Corps volunteer is strange as far as the ups-and-downs go. Little victories can go a long way. I had a conversation with a teacher the other night and he spoke at the pace that Malagasy people speak. Normally, if a gasy person speaks to me at the rate he would speak to one of his gasy friends, I would be lost. But in that conversation I understood everything. I didn’t have to ask him to repeat anything and we talked for about a half hour. I even started giving him some English pointers and explained how it would compare in Malagasy. I was flying high after that. Little victory. The next day, I taught agreeing and disagreeing and, well, we all know where that went (or didn’t go).

I will hopefully be going to Manakara in the next few weeks to talk to a contractor to start working on this library project. This weekend I’ve also started writing a proposal to get funding for it. If my proposal is accepted, Peace Corps will set up a link on their website to my project where you can donate if you’d like. First, I have to create a budget, but once I have raised the amount needed to complete the project, the page closes. It’s kind of a cool way to give aid in that you know exactly where your money is going and what it is being used for. I’ll keep you guys posted on when I have gotten to that point. Any help you might be able to give would be greatly appreciated.



My Proviseur and I outside the Peace Corps training center in Mantasoa in December. Our counterparts spent three days with us learning about Peace Corps and brainstorming ideas for secondary projects. Hoping Proviseur Adrien and I can get a library in Ampasimanjeva.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Hope everyone is doing well!

An African Christmas

My first vacation in Madagascar has come to a close. I went with 8 other volunteers to Mahajanga in the Northwest part of the country for Christmas and then back to Tana for New Years. We had a great time, but it will be nice to get back to site and get back to work. Classes start up next Monday, but the next few months are going to be consumed by starting up my secondary projects. I have a few ideas the biggest of which is building a library next to my lycee. I have a lot of work to do as far as figuring out the building plans, finding out the costs, getting funding and books and a bunch more. This is definitely a project that will take my full two years, but I’m pretty excited to get started. I also want to start English clubs for adults and kids in my town, a small convention every few months for the English teachers in the area, and a trash clean-up group to meet every few weeks. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that there are no garbage cans or garbage trucks. People burn trash fires outside their house, but it never really gets the job done. There are a lot of cities in Madagascar that are much worse than my town as far as trash goes, but hopefully this will be a good start towards cleaning it up a bit. Aside from these secondary projects, the second trimester goes until the end of March and then we have two weeks off for Easter break. It’s nice to have the school year so evenly spaced out with breaks. Excited to get back and get started with everything.

Hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas and New Year’s celebrations. It was definitely weird not being at my parent’s house for the annual New Year’s celebration. Speaking of family, CONGRATULATIONS MATT AND ASHLEY who got engaged a few weeks ago. Ashley, I don’t know if you quite realize what you’re about to marry into, but I’m so happy for the both of you. Wish I could have been there to celebrate. SAME TO SHANNON AND JOHN!!!!! How awesome that everyone goes and gets engaged while I’m gone. Just kidding. Congratulations to all you guys. Keep me posted on them wedding dates.

I am going to try and post some pictures on Facebook, but there are about 30 people here all using Internet at the same time, so it may not work. I'm also going to try and upload a video of my house in Ampasimanjeva, but that most likely will not work.

I believe the last time I blogged I was about to play in a basketball game (teachers vs students). We killed ‘em. It wasn’t even close. I think the final score was something like 56-20. It’s amazing how amused the Malagasy people are by 6’4” white guys in a basketball jersey. Anyways, had a great time and I am looking forward to continued dominance. The school is apparently going to pave the basketball court next to the lycee within the next few months, so that will be awesome but I’m not gonna hold my breath. If not, maybe I can add another project to my list.

The Malagasy Life

Okay, so I have to start this out with a HUGE thank you to my parents and our family friends, the Squatritos. They sent packages to me around the end of september. I believe they arrived fairly quickly but I hadn't been able to get to them until another volunteer helped me out and brought them to me. Thanks Al. I never seen such a beautiful site than what was in those boxes. It was pretty much all food and it was all fantastic! Thank you.

Speaking of the food that was sent, I got some Oreos from my parents. I opened them last night and not even 5 minutes later one of my teacher friends came over, but I couldn't put the Oreos away in time. About 15 minutes later I had 6 left. That was probably one of the hardest moments I have had since I got here. Just kidding, but seriously a huge bummer. I actually just ate the rest of them for fear of having another spontaneous visitor in the near future. He enjoyed them though, so that's good.

Food here is not too exciting, so you can imagine my joy when I opened those packages. Malagasy people eat rice 3 times per day every day. It is a big bowl of rice with a small side dish called loaka. The loaka is usually some beans or vegetables or maybe some meat. People ask what I eat back in the united states and when I tell them I don't eat rice 3 times it's a huge deal- like there is no God. Religion is also a big deal over here, but I'm not gonna get into that. But back to the rice. Two teachers at my lycee are paid by the equivelant of the parent/teachers association in the US. Since they don't get as much as the rest of the teachers do, each student also has to bring in 5 cups of rice by mid December for these two teachers. I thought that was a pretty unbelievable scenario. At the same meeting of the parent teachers association where this was decided, I gave my first speech in Malagasy. It went really well. I basically just introduced myself and explained my position with peace corps and what I was doing, etc. it was pretty cool.

Several funny situations have come up since i got here so i thought id share a few: Malagasy people think every American singer is Michael Jackson (one guy was even positive that MJ was still alive. I didnt give him the bad news) although some r&b songs will elicit a Chris brown reference. I'm assuming the rihanna thing didn't have as much of a negative effect with the Malagasy people. One person asked me if there is a moon in the states. I also got sick two weekends ago (less funny), but on several occasions during that weekend I had a teacher come over to my house and rub oil on my stomach. Apparently it is some kind of Malagasy cure. I don't think it worked because the vommitting continued. Moral of the story, I won't be buying eggs in this country ever again.

I have also seen several cock fights since I arrived at site, which was originally a really shocking thing after watching some espn features and working in the news. Now, walking by a cock fight is almost no big deal which is kind of messed up. A cock fight around here is about as normal as.... I don't know, but something really normal. Insert your own clever metaphor. They are pretty unbelievable. In the first one I saw one chicken looked like he was on death's door, but he pulled through. Another shocking thing to see was a guy smoking (thats not the shocking part) then he threw the butt on the ground. A boy, who couldn't have been more than 8 years old, walked over, picked it up, and started smoking it.

But on to more positive things. I successfully built a gutter system on my house using what looks like tree bark, some sticks and a few nails. It's awesome although it hasn't rained in a while. When it does, I have a full stock of water within 10 minutes. It's a beautiful thing. Now I need to buy a big basin to put at the end of the gutter so my supply can last longer than the rain. Hopefully I can get some pictures of that up soon.

Teaching is going well. I gave my first tests last week. After the review I was really excited, but they ended up not doing as great as I had hoped. A few of the other teachers didn't seem phased by the scores which was sort of shocking. Apparently it is really common over here for kids to not do so well, which is probably why I am here in the first place. Anyways, I guess it's back to the drawing board to figure out how I can get the lesson across better. Not sure if I mentioned this yet, but I have roughly 170 students in 3 classes so one on one interaction is a bit more difficult. Cheating also appears to be a problem. When you have 2-3 kids squished into a desk built for two very small children it can be hard to prevent, but I think I got the message across after the first test.

I think that is all I have for now. There is a bball game today teachers vs. students. Pretty pumped. I have about a foot advantage over the tallest person here. I'll let ya know who wins.

Oh last, but not least. I am headed back to our training center in December along with the other 24 volunteers who came with me to Madagascar in July. There is a training session and recap sort of regarding our first 3 months as volunteers. Will be good to see everyone again, but I should also have Internet for a bit so hopefully I can get some pictures up during that time. Stay tuned.

Rory

Ohh. PS. Nick I saw ur message about sending stuff. Yeah, the conversion is crazy. It's like a dollar to 2,000 ariary. Unfortunately American money is useless where I am. I have no way I using it and I can't convert it unless I'm in the capital. With that said, feel free to send anything anytime you want. Getting that stuff from my parents and the Squatritos was unreal. Thank you again you guys. I will happily pay any amount of ariary at any time for anything anyone may want to send. Thank you for thinking of me.