The Last Two Days

So I was walking down the street Sunday and was stopped by the middle school chemistry and French teacher (the same person)--"There you are! Why haven't you visited me yet?" "I don't know where you live..." "Well, come on!" So we walked about 15 minutes up the dirt road to his place, where I awkwardly smiled at his wife and daughters and drank some Bonbon Anglais (Bubblegum soda, about as good as it sounds). At one point, he leaned forward and patted my hand. "You come here any time and visit your Malagasy mother and father." He and his wife, concerned that I was too skinny, sent me home with bananas and cassava (healthy and wealthy people should be fat, of course, this is Africa). If you don't know what cassava is, don't worry, you're not missing much: it looks like a potato, tastes like nothing, has virtually no nutritional value, and is one of the most popular foods in Africa. Happily, I have a recipe for cream of cassava soup, thank you Peace Corps cookbook!

Later Sunday evening, my counterpart picked me up to escort me to the World Cup final, which the (female!) doctor at the hospital had invited us to. So I watched Spain beat the flourescent-orange Netherlands with the vice mayor, (3 person) hospital staff, and commune school director--nice to be around people who find white people mildly amusing rather than endlessly fascinating!

Yesterday morning I found my favorite local dessert at the weekly market (the Gasy version of peanut brittle) and did some yard work (with a machete). Had to watch my step with the chores because some of the neighbors have been posting their cows in my yard. They're not supposed to, but I guess I'm not using the grass, and I get readily accessible manure from them, good for soil improvement projects. More importantly, nothing keeps the kids away from my windows like a feisty bull.

The mayor stopped by in the afternoon with a funding request to the American Embassy that he wanted me to sign and send. They referred to me in the letter by title, or rather by what they think my title should be: Mademoiselle Corpeace. The letter detailed 10 projects, with an estimate of how much they would cost. Good, right? Except the projects included a sports center, a tourist information center, and an agricultural research center. And the total amount requested was about 80 US million dollars. I didn't know whether I felt like laughing or crying...between the economic and political crisis, most governmental development aid to Madagascar has been pulled, and (without being too pessimistic) I think I'll be lucky to fund a few wells. I smiled vaguely and told him I'd look it over.

Last night there was a disco--a big twice monthly event that takes place about 100 feet from my house and goes until 5 in the morning, without exaggeration. It actually isn't too bad. While I cooked, I listened to the Voice of America request hour and wondered again why so many PCVs from Zambia call in. One of the other volunteers in my region keeps track of how many days in a row he gets rain (I think the current record is 12?), while I keep track of the number of times there's a VOA request hour in which someone DOESN'T request a Michael Jackson song. So far, 2 in 2 months. Not that I mind MJ, but my god, the world is obsessed.

This morning I had to wait a bizarrely long time for a taxi brousse. One of the men from town decided I needed help hailing one once one did come along, though let me tell you, a 5-10 blond has NO problem getting a bush taxi to stop in this region. Once one did stop--a station wagon--the driver fit 18 people in. Allow me to clarify. When I say station wagon, I AM referring to the Western idea of a station wagon, which in the U.S. seats 5. How did the driver fit 18? Well, I sat in the passenger bucket seat with a mother and her baby, the driver had a teen seated next to him in HIS bucket seat whom he had to reach over to shift, there were 4 people in the "trunk" space, and 4 people sitting in the 3 person backseat. And 4 people sitting in the laps of those people. And one guy sitting on top of those 4, with his chin jammed into the driver's headrest. So if you were ever wondering how clown cars worked.

Workwise, nothing too exciting to report. I got tentative permission to do a world map mural, but will have to wait for school exams to finish. I planted some avocado trees. I wrote 15 pages of a community report and analysis, for which I've been doing a good amount of research and interviews. And I started a (very small) moringa tree nursery. If you haven't heard of moringas, they're pretty cool--nutritious leaves and fast growing, so good forfood, fencing, and firewood. More info here. And also, there's some info about my community partner's work in Madland here.

From my kitchen....

Neighborhood kids

It's the dry season, can you tell?

Making peanut butter (I have to admit it: store-bought is tastier!)

I usually get middle-school boys stopping by to ask English questions as I cook dinner.

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!

Conversations

I'm in town for a natural resources management conference--sounds impressive, but mostly I've been sitting in a conference room with no idea what people are saying! Anyway, I thought I'd amuse you with an example of my language and cultural progress--

Sample conversation, translated from Malagasy, Week 1

Malagasy: Hey vazaha! (Vazaha=white-skinned foreigner)

Rowan: I'm not a foreigner, I live here! My name is Rowan.

Malagasy: Ehhh! You're already good at Malagasy!

Rowan: A little, I'm still learning.

Malagasy: (something incomprehensible)

Rowan: Um...can you speak slower, please?

Malagasy: Aren't you good at Malagasy?

Rowan: I'm still learning, and this is the fourth dialect I've learned in three months!

Malagasy: OK, you are French?

Rowan: No, I'm American

Malagasy: You're African?

Rowan: No, American, I'm from the United States.

Malagasy: Oh, South America.

Rowan: No, North America, near Canada.

Malagasy: Oh, they speak French in Quebec.

Rowan: Yes.

Malagasy: Obama is from the U.S. He looks like me. You don't, you're the opposite, so white! See the difference between our skin color? Crazy!

Rowan: Very true.

Malagasy: What are you doing?

Rowan: I'm going on a walk and then I will cook lunch.

Malagasy: Will you cook rice?

Rowan: Yes.

Malagasy: Good, enjoy!

Rowan: Thank you!

Sample conversation, translated from Malagasy, Week 4

Malagasy: Roy-Anne! Hey!

Rowan: Hey, what's new?

Malagasy: Nothing new. Where were you yesterday, I didn't see you!

Rowan: I went to the market, I needed vegetables.

Malagasy: Very nice, you're getting water now? (Malagasies have a (usually) endearing habit of constantly stating the obvious to have something to say)

Rowan: Yes, I'm getting water.

Malagasy: Why do you carry it like a man? You should carry it on your head!

Rowan: I can carry one bucket on my head, but I'd not good with two!

Malagasy: Ahh! OK, question, what does this mean in Malagasy--"Can you hold my bear?"

Rowan: Wait, what?

Malagasy: Can you hold my bear?

Rowan: Where did you hear that?

Malagasy: A movie. They were in a restaurant.

Rowan: Ohhh, "Can you hold my beer"! In Malagasy, afaka mangala biereko, I guess.

Malagasy: That makes no sense.

Rowan: No not really, but more sense than bear--Afaka mangala bibibeko!

Malagasy: Haha, OK!

Rowan: See you later!

Malagasy: Bye!

The people in my town are really nice, and I'm glad that my language is finally getting to the point where I can have conversations with them--or at least have conversations with sympathetic speakers who will enunciate for me! Last night, I was experimenting with pancake recipes (cinnamon, chocolate, banana, raisin--half for me and half divided among the five fascinated children crowded around the stove). After the kids left, two middle schoolers came up to the window and one completely floored me by striking up a conversation about what he had been learning in school, namely the importance of the Marshall Plan in the development of the economy in post-WW2 Europe. I was totally amazed and gratified that, with occasional rephrasing on both our parts, we were able to have a good conversation!

In other news, the World Cup is starting in South Africa, and it sounds like some of the people in my town are going to pay for a generator and reception for the games so everyone can watch the matches in the big empty building near my well--Brazil is the favorite team!

Leeches suck

Hey!

Hopefully pictures are worth a thousand words, because I used most of my internet time uploading pics and this will have to be brief!

My exciting news of the previous few weeks is that I was able to join some Malagasy researchers on some camping trips in the forest complex--the hikes were rainy and difficult (and I lost count of the number of leeches I pulled off), but great to see how they were doing collections and tree counts to identify endangered species. And yes, did see some lemurs (crowned lemurs) but no pictures because they were skittish little guys. I was thinking while I was at camp that the whole experience should feel much more surreal and exotic than it did, but at the time, catching crab in a jungle stream by flashlight with Malagasy reseachers seemed pretty normal.

I've been cooking a lot the last week or so--food variety is a bit limited in my area, so I've been compensating by planning way ahead for meals so I can buy veggies and such in town. It's pleasant to cook in the evenings while listening to my shortwave (last night, Chinese opera and Radio France; the night before, a sithar concert from India and Radio Iran).

Have I told you about ranampango yet? Malagasies cook a lot of rice, and after they've served themselves and have some burned rice left over in the pot, they'll boil water in the pot and serve it with dinner--a sort of tea that tastes like, well, burned rice. Always safe to drink though, and free, so I've acquired a taste for it.

Anjangoveratra

Don't care how long I'm here, these little guys will still be awesome!

I climbed that!

At camp with some of the Malagasy researchers.

Trying to help in the kitchen while visiting one of the commune towns...those are moringa leaves, the government has been encouraging people to grow them because they have great nutrition and grow fast.

Me on the mountain above the hospital, about 1k from my house...it's the only place I get cell reception! The mountain in the background is Makirovana, a protected area that my community partner, the Missouri Botanical Gardens, works in.

Dear Blogger, your formatting still sucks. Rowan

My House

Hard to get the whole room at once, but here's part of my bedroom; you can see the outhouse out the window. :)

Part of the kitchen, with gas stove, water filter, and floor mat.

The my side of the storage facility, with neighbors beyond.

The entrance to my house is on the right; the rest of the building is storage for community farmers.

At site

Hello all,

Have been at site a little over a week; oh where to start? First, I guess, I updated my address and phone number, and added a short wish list as requested-- see sidebar. I should be checking email about every 2 weeks but would also love to hear from people by snail mail! And, long shot BUT--if any of you folks I know happen to be in Northern Madagascar, or really anywhere in the country, let me know! You can crash at my place or we can travel around if my schedule permits. There you go/ the official invitation.

OK, so site: I was able to help install the other two new volunteers in my region, nice because I got to see their sites and travel around the area a little. My site, properly called Anjangoveratra, is hot and beautiful. Lots of crazy vegetation growing off the side of the road like papaya, vanilla, oranges, mangoes, and bananas. Plus of course lots of rice fields.

The day I got here my installer (French influence--someone official from the Peace Corps has to introduce us to the community) had me give two speeches. In Malagasy. The first to 20 community VIPs and the second to 200 schoolkids. Yipes. But I guess they went OK because the installer jokingly offered the equivalent of 5 bucks, a lot here, to anyone who could speak English as well as I could speak 'Gasy, and no one stepped forward.

My house consists of two big concrete rooms at the community storage building, which might sound weird, but it means my house is about double the size of the average bamboo and palm house in the village and vastly more secure from cyclones and robbery. No electricity, or course, and I haul water from a well about 50 meters away.

So far my time has consisted mainly of

1) trying to figure out how to run a household here, and that's not easy, let me tell you! With the number of little chores I have to do, it's no wonder so few people here live alone

2) Walking around my community, trying to get people to call me Rowan (or 'Roy-Anne') instead of vazaha, which means white foreigner

and 3) Trying to convince people that I'm American, not French, and that no, America is not in Europe. For all our self-aggrandizing on the world stage, people here know surprisingly little about the States.

My community has been really kind so far, sometimes overly so--I barely have a moment to myself and they have and overly flattering idea of what I can accomplish in the next 2 years. In the interests of fairness; I should probably list a few annoyances, because of course there are some--

1)Ants and cockroaches; the bad part of me (the part that's not an Environment volunteer) wants to douse the evil little buggars with poison--but if I can defend my reaction, I had a 3 inch cockroach fly into my face last night. That's one species I'm OK not conserving!

2) Kids--an expected annoyance, but it's hard to stay composed with 30 kids whispering and staring as you go about your chores. I bear them as long as I can and then shoo them away--still trying to feel out where to set boundaries.

3) It's late autumn, and it's still hot. Hmm. Summer should be interesting.

OK, gotta go, hope to hear from you all eventually, email or otherwise!

Officially a Volunteer

After 10 weeks of language, rice, host families, and getting muddy with hands-on learning, I'm happy to say that 24 trainees were sworn in as Volunteers at the Ambassador's house in Tana today. We (me and two other volunteers, plus a staff member) fly north tomorrow to buy house supplies and move in. I just checked the weather--a relatively cool 89 degrees in Sambava, but it feels like 104(!). Keeping in mind that it's fall going into winter here south of the equator!

In response to an email question, some of the projects we've been working on in the past two months in addition to language and cultural training and the obligatory bureaucracy: building fuel-efficient cookstoves, building "hotboxes" to conserve firewood, intensive rice planting (aka SRI), the reforestation process, building compost piles and other soil improvement, some animal husbandry, and some erosion control. We have In-Service Training in 3 months, where we can work on more site-specific project information.

Another random smattering of pics

Building a garden















Rough life: visiting a beach north of Tamatave.















Indri! The largest lemur.















Chameleon and Tad















Oxcart passing outside my window. (Yes, I know those are cows. They still call them oxcarts.)

Also: Dear Blogger, your automatic formatting sucks. But I never have time to mess with it, so readers will have to dear with aesthetic imperfection, alas. :)