Rat Pee and New Friends
So I’ve officially survived more than 24 hours at my site! I was thinking that it would be e a good idea to quickly write about my first impressions of the town, and I almost didn’t because I looked at my watch and saw that it was already 8:15pm and didn’t want to be up ‘too late.’ Maybe I’m adjusting a little too well to Malagasy culture? I have to say that following with the description of Ambato, all if the people who told me about my region really didn’t do it justice. The road is completely flat leading to my village, but there are rice paddies on either side of the road, with mountains beyond them. Its beautiful. And even though I am nowhere near the coast, it has a little bit of a tropical feel, I think because it is so green and there are lots of banana trees bordering the rice paddies. Its kind of funny that I was disappointed when people kept telling me that there was a lot of rice in my area; I love rice paddies. I think I was just overlooking that fact because I was overhearing peoples sites who were being placed on the beach near coral reefs.
First impressions of my town: The first thing I remember thinking is that it was really weird that all the men were wearing jellies in the mayors office. I mean c’mon jellies cannot pass for dress shoes. Maybe that was the only thing that stuck out in my mind because during the first couple introductions I was still a little carsick from the drive, and really didn’t have the energy to pay attention to the conversation. My house shares a small yard with my counterpart, Lucette, and her family. They are really great and helpful and act somewhere in between a host family and friends. They gave me a lot of space yesterday and today to set up my house and do what I wanted, but came to get me when they were going to fetch water or walk to the market. They scolded me a little for not telling them I was going to get water in the middle of the day, but it seems very friendly and casual. The little kids spent most of the afternoon in my house, but I didn’t mind because I literally had nothing else to do. I’m the 4th volunteer who has lived in this house, so these kids have basically had PC here for most of their lives. Lucette’s son, Poapa, is probably 10 or so, but I can already tell he will be very helpful. He understands my strange way of speaking Malagasy, and when I talk in circles around what I am actually trying to convey, he then explains what I meant to the other kids staring blankly at me. They also seem to know that Americans need space and they know the boundaries that past volunteers set. They didn’t come into my house until I invited them and they didn’t sit on my bed, and when I got up to get ready to leave, they older 2 herded the rest out.
My house was a little intense when I first got here. I could tell right away that it would eventually feel really cozy and cute, but when I opened the door all I saw was the dirt and spiderwebs and couldn’t get over the smell of bat urine. I went to work immediately at cleaning. I spent most of the afternoon exterminating spiders and cleaning the shelves and ledges of bat poop and dust. It really made me long for the days when my mom would help me clean out my new apartment at school. I really still need a mop and the walls should be washed too, but I wasn’t prepared for this extensive of a cleaning job, as Boda had written in my site report that ‘my counterpart had cleaned up for me’. Not true.
After cleaning I unpacked about half of my things and did some organizing. Lucette told me I am mahay at preparing a house. I don’t know what that means for the past volunteers because I literally still have piles of things lying around. I’m waiting to hang pictures and things on the walls until I am sure that the bats are actually gone. The electrician, who reinstalled my lights, is apparently also a bat exterminator and I got a 2 for 1 deal. I’m pretty sure that getting rid of bats is more complicated than whatever he did though, because he wasn’t gone very long dealing with it. I guess for $1.50 US, I can afford to call him back again though.
I also have a weird indoor toilet/latrine and I haven’t decided whether I think it’s a blessing or a curse yet. I’ve heard from previous volunteers at this site that it can get quite smelly, but luckily they’ve let me in on some of their tricks. It’s not actually a toilet though and you have to throw water down after using it, which is kind of a waste of water. There was a flood a week ago that broke the nearby water pump and until they fix it, I have to go to a well that’s kind of far away. The shower is also just a pipe that drains the water outside. It’s strange. You basically are standing, showering in a bathroom and letting the water drain away, which it only does most of the way.
The doctors in Madagascar went on strike for better wages, so I haven’t actually met anyone at the CSB except for the doctor’s wife and baby daughter, but supposedly they will be there tomorrow. I prepared a short kabari incase I get coerced into giving one, which I am guessing will happen sometime tomorrow.
The people around, for the most part, seem pretty great. I’m getting a lot of people telling me how mahay Ben was (the last pcv) and wondering where he is, but I’ve had a bunch of people tell me that they are going to be my friends and one woman opened up her yard so that I could get cell phone service. There are 3 women who sell rice outside of lucette’s house and they told me that tomorrow I am going to sit with them and talk and that I have to bring my dictionary so that I can be mahay at speaking Malagasy soon. They seemed really funny and nice.
I only had one moment today when I felt a little overwhelmed by the fact that I didn’t have anything to do because the CSB was closed and I didn’t know anyone, the kids were at school, and I had to wait at the house for the carpenter, but I just cleaned a little more and jammed to some music (thank god for my speakers, living in silence would suck). I think cooking is going to become a large part of my day, too. For my first breakfast alone I cooked oatmeal with passionfruit in it and made tea. I was pretty proud of myself, and I even had a TIME magazine from a couple weeks ago to read while I ate.
2/6/10 — Tamana aho.
One of the first things that people ask me after they find out that I am not French and that I am actually living here is, ‘tamana ianao?’ Which means ‘are you at home and settled here?’ After spending the last 5 days in my town I really am starting to feel Tamana. Not in the permanent way that I will be once I am mahay at speaking Malagasy and have made some good friends, but I really like it here.
My house is really starting to feel like a home; I’ve been taking on one project a day. I now have a cork board that’s covered by one of my pagnes from Niger with all of my pictures and cards that I’ve received from family and friends. It kind of spills off the corkboard and I hung up a picture that my host siblings in Niger colored, my world map and some magazine photos. Today I bought some of this thick plastic material and nailed it to my tables so that I can easily clean up after meal prep. It has a tile print on it, so I think that might be what it actually is for. With most of the other additions to my house, Lucette has looked at them puzzled and then informs me of what they are supposed to be used for. Such as the woven baskets that are not holding most of my things on shelves—they actually are for storing rice and food to go to and from the market. She approved of my table top though, and actually told me how gaga she is with my abilities to mikarakara my house (how surprised she is at my ability to prepare a house—some words are just better in Malagasy).
The pump got fixed in our town too! Wahoo! I only had to fetch water from the well for 4 days. Now Lucette has a pump in her house that I am allowed to use, and I can wash my dishes in her sink. This may sound simple, but it completely changes the amount of time it takes me to go through the process of cooking and cleaning up from a meal. Having running water to wash dishes with makes me much more willing to cook with more than one pan, which will do wonders for the variety of my diet. I still try to avoid cooking in the evening, because you’re not really supposed to go outside after dark (even though I can hear the kids outside my door as I’m typing this) and I don’t like dumping food water down my drain in my toilet. Today I managed to have only 1 dish, a knife and a fork. And I had fruit salad, peanuts (that I roasted myself) and a cucumber, tomato and laughing cow cheese sandwich. I was pretty proud of myself.
I guess the important thing to mention about the pump being fixed is that while the convenience of it is amazing, it is some of the dirtiest water I have ever seen come out of a faucet. The water coming out of the hole in the ground was loads cleaner. My buckets of it are murky and I was afraid to use it for anything that involves cooking or cleaning at first, but so far so good. Showering with it probably isn’t really doing me much good. It’s kind of like taking a bath in a puddle. It apparently gets bad like this when there’s a lot of rain, so im hoping that it will clear up after the cyclone passes and the pipes recover from the last flood.
Yesterday I sat outside for a couple hours with the 3 women who sell rice, and the man with the rice grinder machine; the four people in my village that proclaimed themselves my friends. They got me a chair and they were teaching me new words and I would tell them how to say it in English. Every 15 minutes or so we would get a new crowd of people watching us, and at one point a young guy said something that must have been along the lines of ‘she doesn’t know how to speak malagasy’. The women all jumped on him and started yelling at him about how I need to practice and that’s why I was sitting there having a conversation and told him that he needed to leave. I mean they thoroughly embarrassed this guy. And the young guys in town can be really obnoxious. It was pretty awesome. I mean it wouldn’t have upset me anyways, I know I can’t speak Malagasy. Sometimes I finish trying to express a thought and realize that I don’t even understand what I just said, but it was great that they were already sticking up for me. I think I’m going to really like them.
Today, I went into Ambato with Lucette to go to the market. I wasn’t expecting to go to Ambato on market days every week, but now I think I might be going pretty often. It takes less than 30minutes on a taxi brousse to get there, and there really isn’t much at my market in town. I actually ran into a bunch of people from my village while I was shopping. It was fun though, Tom came down and shopped with us and Lucette wouldn’t let anyone rip us off. At one point someone tried to charge us 100 ariary too much for a bunch of green beans and she made us walk away and wouldn’t let us buy from the lady (we’re literally talking about pennies difference). She is also a huge gossip and I went with her on all her social visits to family and friends. Her husband apparently has a new sipa (boyfriend/girlfriend) in town and she was asking everyone about her. She’s really open about all of it, even though I don’t understand everything she tells me. She’s pretty great so far, and we both got invited back to Ambato for a valentine’s day fety next week by her younger sister. Not sure what that will entail, but I’m sure it will be hilarious.
For the last couple days where ever I go, I have had mothers bringing their babies and toddlers up to me. It’s absolutely hilarious. You can tell that they have never seen a white person before and they generally just stare at me completely confused. Some also cry and most of them toddle away behind their mothers if I try to come closer. At the CSB I picked up a baby because he was crying while his mother was meeting with the sage femme. He couldn’t decide whether he was interested in or terrified of me, and it apparently tired him trying to decide because after 5 minutes of looking at me wide-eyed and skeptical he fell asleep on my shoulder. The whole office was talking about it for the rest of the day.
I really have nothing but positive things to say about my life here so far. I mean the peace corps is pretty awesome. I go to work at the CSB in the morning (but I only have to work there 3 days a week if I want to do other things) and then I have the rest of the day to do whatever I want. And right now it’s basically my job to hang out with people, learn the language and make friends. I mean what an awesome job. My mom was asking me on the phone yesterday if I’ve been getting bored and I honestly don’t have the time to. Everyone takes a 2 hour lunch and then by the time I clean up, talk with some people and maybe do one other thing, it’s about to get dark and I go home and start my nighttime chores and cooking. Before I go to bed I try to actually read my book (currently The Grapes of Wrath) but I have been so exhausted every night that I can only get through a couple pages before falling asleep, and its not even 9pm. In some ways, I have nothing but time on my hands for the next 2 years, but in others ways I feel like I wish I had more time in the day to read, study Malagasy, ect. When I was telling my parents about all of this they told me that it sounded like I was living the life of a retiree. In some ways it kind of is, but what a great way to enter the working world.
2/14/10
So now that I’m 2 weeks into being at site, I have to say I feel really comfortable. I spend a lot of time talking to people and when I was with 2 other volunteers yesterday, I realized while telling them some of the gossip that I have gotten from the ladies in my town, that I really am understanding quite a bit. It’s sometimes frustrating because I can’t say exactly what I want to say to people, and I have to slowly talk in circles around my point, but people usually eventually understand.
At the CSB (clinic) last week, the Doctor tricked me into giving my first couple fanentanas (Health sensibilizations). The doctor is young and seems pretty mazoto (has a lot of effort) and is really nice to the patients. He’s always saingysaingy (joking) with them and takes time to talk to the women and children. He usually starts the talks by calling attention to the fact that he has a new vazaha working here and calling them out on the fact that they’re afraid of vazaha since none of them have entered the health room where I sit and study until the doctor and sage femme get there. The first day after talking about who I am and what I will be doing here, he slyly asked me to tell the women why there are only 2 children in my family, and why that’s normal in the United States. It was his way of leading me into talking about family planning and the benefits of only having a few children and spacing births. After I finish talking, he rephrases it in a way that makes sense to them. They generally just ask me random questions about myself and about American culture afterwards and the doctor jokes with them about it. They were asking me if I get paid a salary and I told them that peace corps gives me money for food, but that I am working for free. The doctor adds that peace corps gives me a house, a bike, food, money, a boyfriend… but he says it really quick so that I won’t notice and I called him out on it and everyone thought it was hilarious. The women who have come to the clinic have started stopping me and talking to me when they see me in town and it’s a really cool way to get to start knowing the women in town.
Last week I also met some stagieres (not sure what exactly that title refers to) who are working at CALA the agricultural research center in my town. I ran into 2 of the girls on the street and they invited me back to their house where I also met their friend Alda. They are all in their young 20’s and students at the university in Tana. They’re here working on some research for 6 months. I’m pretty sure it has something to do with insects and tomatoes, but I can’t be sure. I sat and had sweet potatoes with them and then they walked me back to my house. It was the first time that I felt like there was going to be someone in this town that I would consider to be a close friend. I really like some of the women, and Lucette is amazing, but these are people who I feel like I can relate to on a different level. I went home feeling like a little kid excited about meeting a new friend at school and since they’re from out of town they seem equally excited. I went walking with them a little the other day again, but I’m sure ill be spending a lot more time with them soon.
It’s kind of funny because everyone in my town is a little bit gaga (surprised) everytime I show up somewhere alone or am walking by myself. I learned the word for solitary (manginagina) very quickly and after I got a bunch of comments about it I started noticing the people, especially women, hardly ever do anything alone. Even to walk down the street they have a friend. I think it’s definitely a cultural thing rather than safety aspect, but I am blowing their mind. I don’t like being on someone else’s schedule and I would rather walk, run, bike or go into town by myself so that I can be on my own schedule. I think that was one of the parts of training that was really wearing on me. I had to follow their schedule all the time and be accommodating to what 35 other people wanted or needed to do. It’s so nice to be on my own. I feel like I’ll end up riding my bike into Ambato most of the time for similar reasons; even though it takes about an hour to get there, it’s nice to not be waiting for a taxi brousse. I can go when I want and when I’m ready to come home I can get on my bike and head home. I do miss my friends from training, but I think I am a much happier person now that I am finally at site.
Two of the other volunteers in my region came to my house for lunch yesterday and then we all rode our bikes into Ambato for the night. It was really nice to hang out, have a beer and talk about all the funny situations that we’ve gotten into in the last 2 weeks. We went out dancing at Ibiza again and then after only 6 hours of sleep I got back on my bike and came back here. It’s been a nice relaxing day, but I am exhausted so that’s all for now, I should have some more interesting posts soon.
Oh and I have a new postal address, since my town has a post office. It is:
Nicole Keusch
BP 29
Station alaotra 503
Madagascar
East Africa

Keep writing me letters! I love them and love hearing about everyone’s life back in the states.