Machetes and Flags

Hello again from Sambava, the town where a gal can walk into a bank with a machete and no one bats an eye...speaking of machetes, I was walking the 1.5k to cell reception the other day and heard a quiet hello from the side of the road...from a girl, about 7 years old, cleaning off a bloody machete on the grass as she squatted next to a bucket of chicken guts that she had just carved up. One of those "oh yeah, I'm not in North America" moments.

I got mail! I went into the post office to get stamps and a postal worker who had never seen me before wandered out of the back with some letters they hadn't "sent up the road" yet. She just guessed that they were mine...(I think) I'm the only American AND only white female who gets mail there. They took between 3.5 and 7 weeks to get here and I'll send you an email if I got a letter from you to let you know!

The big event recently was independence day on the 26th. A big one--50 years since Madagascar became independent from France! Several people decided that I should give a speech at the flag raising ceremony with the other "community leaders and VIPs" (in quotations because I really don't think I've earned the term yet, I'm just locally famous). Well, OK, I said, but tell me when it is and someone has to help me write the speech. Naturally the day rolls around and I still have no clue what's up, so I wander around town until someone (the mayor) tells me where to sit and we watch the parade of chanting schoolchildren file toward the school. We follow them, and are ushered into a well-ordered square of 300 clapping people and the shy person in me cringes bashfully. We listen to some speeches (Malagasies LOVE speeches), and some poems (which I'm happy to say I almost understood!) , stand at attention while the flag is raised to the national anthem, and watched some dancers (who spent most of the time scowling at the keyboardist for being off rhythm). And somewhere in there I gave a little self-prepared speech about what I was doing in the community and how I was happy to be there. Later that afternoon I got hassled by a drunk lady at the celebratory soccer game and a nearby stranger told her to back off because I lived here. (I've mentioned my community is really nice, right?)

Workwise, I'm surveying people and writing a report on the community--for community knowledge, my own knowledge, and to be able to get funding from American orgs who require a report. I'm also attempting to get two small projects going (i.e., haven't been able to do anything yet): making a demo biointensive garden with a local health NGO to show families how to reduce food shortages in the winter (caused by lack of money, not lack of food, don't worry Mom), and painting a world map at the school. I used to wonder why PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) spent their time on such a 'random' project, but after having many children spend hours staring at the world map in my kitchen and explaining several times that the US is not next to Brazil, I get it!