The end of training is in sight!

Only one night left at my host family's house, then packing at the training center and swearing in. I fly north on the 5th. (The roads are so bad that they've deemed the north a 'fly site', since three days on bone-jarring roads is cruel and unusual punishment and dangerous to boot.) The last week has been a bit stressful, with three 5-minute technical presentations in Malagasy (the last one delivered to some of our host families) and our final language test (trainees have to achieve intermediate high proficiency before going to site). But we're almost officially volunteers!

Language-wise, going north should be interesting; I've mentioned that I'm learning Sakalava while speaking Standard with my host family? Well, in my town, they apparently speak Tsimihety, Betsimisaraka, and Antaimoro dialects. All pretty closely related but it should be interesting to see what hybrid dialect I end up speaking.

I mentioned rice planting last time; this was made difficult by a local taboo ('fady') that forbids cultivating the rice fields in April in my training town. Apparently rocks will fall from the sky if you do; we ended up practicing in a mini-field in a nearby town (see previous post for pic). The fady are an interesting phenomenon that vary hugely between regions, towns, and even families. In addition to the rice planting, it's fady here to sleep with your feet pointing East (so you don't kick the sun as it rises). Up at my site, it's apparently fady to work the fields on Tuesdays or Thursdays. Should be interesting to see what else I come across.

I'll leave you with another quick recipe: Cucumber or carrot salad (super easy). Peel, halve lengthwise, and thinly slice cucumbers, then mix with white vinegar, salt, and oil to taste. Alternatively, you can do the same thing with grated carrots. For some reason, salad vegetables are rarely mixed.

Catch you all in about a week--R

Pictures!

A tanrec, kinda like a hedgehog













Learning how to plant rice












Me and my host family outside our house











The town where we did training, Anjozoro














Walking along the river in the rice fields

In Tana for a few hours to open up bank accounts, so...internet again! Training continues; we practiced making compost piles yesterday and got to try our hand at planting rice (very muddy work indeed). The garden we planted two weeks ago is sending up seedlings in every bed, which is gratifying to see and apparently surprising to the family that owns the garden, as they didn't expect to see results so fast!

I mentioned the avocados piled with sugar dessert in the last post and my mother commented, correctly, that it sounded like something I wouldn't like. The other night, my family surprised me by having unsugared mashed avocados with dinner, which made the rice taste like Mexican food (a refreshing change). I'm not sure if it was due to my mangled attempt at explaining this, but the next day they came up with another variation: mashed avocados with yogurt, condensed milk, and sugar. Surprisingly, this "guacamole yogurt" was the best dish of the three. So there, if you want to attempt some Malagasy cooking...

Yipes! Gotta go! I'll post again in 3 weeks or so!

Hello friends and fam,

Writing on a French keyboard on a slow computer, but I have internet finally (though just for an hour)! The other volunteers and I are on a 'tech trip' right now, traveling to other project sites for a week to get ideas for how projects could work in our areas. I'm writing from Tamatave on the East coast and it's about 95 degrees.

So much to cover, I barely know where to start! The experience has been good so far, I'm enjoying it. I'm learning two Malagasy dialects, Standard and Sakalava. Learning fast but not nearly fast enough for my taste of course! Mail service has been more regular than internet, so if you want to send me a letter, it might be quicker than emailing. And I promise to write back-mail from Madagascar!

Our days at the training site are split between language and 'tech' sessions; in the past week we built a garden for a family in the community and learned how to germinate rice. The program has been taking a sensible approch as to our role in the community, stressing that we are there as faclitators and resources rather than experts. This approach allows us to work with the community and advocate for them with NGOs, rather than telling them what to do.

The food has been, as Mom wrote, very rice-centered. I'd estimate three mixing bowls full is consumed by my 4 person family every day. We mix it with a bean or veggie side-dish. Occasionally, we'll have fried bread or fried bananas for breakfast. Fruit for dessert; persimmons, apples, pears, chinese guavas, sugared avocados, or pineapple. The weather has been between 70 and 80 in the highlands and it rains for part of every day. Much hotter here on the coast of course!

Some quick notes:

• I've seen quite a few chameleons! There are lots of species here
• I scrub my floor every day with my feet, using half a coconut shell. Kills bugs and lifts dirt.
• Malagasy families do not go out after dark. Depending on who you ask, this is because of witches, vampires, or rabid dogs.
• To deal with being in after dark, everyone has a po, which is a plastic chamber pot. Very useful.
• We've visited two national parks, and were able to see some indri, which are the largest lemurs in Madagascar. They look a bit like black and white teddy bears with long limbs, and bound from tree to tree.
• Once I get to a better internet connection, I promise to upload pics and much more info on where I am and what I'm doing. Til then--

Yours MAD-ly,

Rowan

Land of Lemurs

Locals told Rowan of a tame lemur in the area so she set out to find it. She was able to handle it - the little guy loved to have his armpits scratched and ears rubbed. There was also a friendly tortoise living there, roaming the back yard.
Last night Rowan demonstrated shadow puppets on the wall in candlelight.
She continues to love the challenge of training, though is weary of rain and rice - both of which seem to be in abundance.

Far and Away

Rowan's Mom here - she is not able to access internet at this point so I will pass along what I've learned during 2 recent phone conversations.
Rowan has found Malagasies to be very friendly and the Peace Corps takes good care of the volunteers. Her host family consists of 3 generations: Grandma, Mom and Granddaughter. Last night, after a game of dominoes, Row taught them the Macarena. She does her chores every day which includes helping with the pigs and chickens and she scrubs her floor with 1/2 a coconut shell. Living with a host family helps the volunteers learn how to run a Malagasy household.
There is a cyclone off the coast so there is a lot of rain lately.
After training, Rowan will be placed in Makaiorvana - nearest "big" town is Vohemar - in the Northeast part of the island. There she will work with the Missouri Botanical Gardens.
Rowan said everything is red and green - green rice paddies and red dirt. She speaks fondly of her host family - "Mom" sings in the morning.

Packed and Heading Out

...Well, almost.

I've spent a good part of the day corralling my stuff and stuffing it into luggage. I think I've done an all right job, though I won't know if I've met the Peace Corps weight limit of 80 lbs til I get to the airport! Space was not much of an issue, but the weight'll always getcha. (This isn't helped by the fact that I'm bringing a small library of books, without which weight wouldn't be a problem. :)

Anyway, I'll have limited internet from here on out, but as the Peace Corps reminded us to tell family and friends: No news is good news. It means we're learning and doing instead of sitting in front of a computer. :) Up next: four flights to the Eighth Continent. Talk to you not-so-soon...~R

Middlebury-Madagascar Connection

My friend Avery pointed me to this video, which interviews a Middlebury student who went to Madagascar and did some photography. The tribe he mentions photographing, the Antrandroy, are a poorer tribe in the southern deserts who rely on the prickly pear cactus for part of their livelihood, hence their name, which means "people of the thorns".

Contact Info

Hello family, friends, and hey, strangers too:

I know I'm living on the opposite side of the world and am not available for the usual tech-based contact, but that doesn't mean I don't want to stay in touch! I want to hear from you! I have internet access about every 2 weeks, and here's the other way to reach me:

My address at site is:
Rowan Braybrook

MBG

Anjangoveratra

Sambava (208)

MADAGASCAR

Letters and envelope packages take anywhere between 2 weeks and 2 months to get here. Boxes, maybe a bit longer, but it's surprisingly not too bad!

Snail Mail Notes:

• Snail mail letters and pictures are greatly GREATLY appreciated, since my internet (coughcoughFacebookcough) access will be limited. Let me know what you're up to!
• Tape packages securely so people are less likely to tamper with them.
• Write Airmail or Par Avion on the envelope. Ground mail takes months!
• Padded envelopes are usually the best way to go for larger things, since they're treated like letters. If you're thinking of sending something heavier, you might want to check on the price of a flat-rate box or envelope.
  
• For package customs forms, declare a value of under $20 and make the content description sound boring--"used school supplies" rather than "awesome CDs". 'Religious materials' also works well.

And as requested, a wish list the I will keep updated (but feel free to surprise me!)

• Letters and pictures! Letters are honestly almost as good as packages!
• Drink additives like Emergen-C, On-The-Go packets or tea (favorites teas are Lady Grey, English Breakfast, Rajini, and Jasmine Green)
• Magazines, especially current events mags like the Atlantic or the Economist
• Dried fruit like apricots and cherries; any nuts besides peanuts
• Any American candy, especially dark chocolate M&Ms
• Grated parmesan cheese!!!
• Bear Creek soup mixes (just add water) or anything similar
• Chocolate chip cookie mix (with patience, I can make these on stovetop)
• Salmon or tuna in pouches
• Annie's purple box (or just Annie's cheese packets--I can get pasta here and save you the weight!)
• Kid's books and any other educational materials I can share--for example, a wall map of the U.S., or easy books in English to give as prizes to my English Club. French-English dictionaries for the library.

Haven't had much luck with people calling my cell, but if you ask and send me your number, I'm happy to call you!

I'll keep this post updated and there's a link to it on the right sidebar.

The 2-Minute Tour

I guess when people first hear the name Madagascar, they think of this:

Or this:

(Awww...)

On the whole, not bad stereotypes for an African country to have! But there's a lot more to Madagascar, and if you have a few minutes to read what I lifted off the internet and Peace Corps reading materials, you might find some of it fascinating. (And for those of you who haven't read my blogs before, this is me going into academic lecture mode, so bear with me... :)

Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world, a footprint-shaped (if you squint) landmass the size of Texas off the southeast coast of Africa. It's one of the most important biodiversity hotspots an earth: about 90% (exact amount up for debate) of its plants and animals are found nowhere else, leading some biologists to refer to it as the "eighth continent"or "the island ark". It was separated from the African mainland about 165 million years ago, and since there were no large predators in Madagascar, the animals didn't need to evolve and as such are living fossils.

But this diversity is seriously threatened by poaching, severe erosion, and deforestation (it's lost nearly 90% of its original forests due to the lumber trade and slash-and-burn agriculture). Madagascar is also one of the poorest countries in the world: with a per capital gross national income of about $233 per person per year, it ranks 152nd out of 170 countries. Around 80% of Malagasies rely on subsistence agriculture to survive.

The Malagasy population of around 18-20 million is comprised of 18(ish) different ethnic groups/"tribes", each of which speaks a dialect of the Malagasy language. French is another official language, but its use is mainly confined to urban areas. Malagasy, from my limited exposure, seems to combine vowel-happy Hawaiian with length-happy German to create words like varavarankely (window) and mandrapihaona (see you later). It's most closely related to the languages of Borneo, a fact that illustrates Madagascar's diverse cultural background of African, Southeast Asian, and Arabic contact.

Before Madagascar was officially colonized by the French in 1895, it was ruled by dominant regional kingdoms, with influence from Arabic and European coastal trading posts. Resistance against the colonizing French heightened during the Malagasy Uprising of 1947, and full independence was achieved in 1960.

More recently, Madagascar has continued to have political struggles. The Peace Corps actually left the country for about 9 months of 2009 after Rajoelina ousted Ravalomanana in a coup. The situation has now calmed enough to send volunteers back.

Made it this far? Yay, thanks for reading! You now know more about Madagascar than about 95% of your peers. And if you're interested in reading more, you can:

• visit some more volunteer blogs
• click on some of the "Madagascar Links" on the right side of the blog (I especially like Wild Madagascar)
• pick up a book! I'd particularly recommend The Eighth Continent, by Peter Tyson (yup, that's where I got the idea for the blog name).