04/17/10
I reposted the last entries posted at the end of this because I noticed after posting that some of the letters and words were screwed up. I blame the flash drive that I bought here, ive been having problems with it from the start.

So the bike race is really coming together. Chris was in Tana for his IST and then training new volunteers and he met with USAID and PSI the organizations that we are partnering with for the project and they were both really excited about it. We officially have the cinemobile booked for the trip and both organizations want to participate and help. PSI is a social marketing NGO that operates on the belief that health products need to have value in order for people to use them. For this reason they don’t give their products away, but rather market them, catering to whatever population they are targeting. They sell their products at a very minimal price, not to achieve a profit, but because when health products are given out for free, they lose their value. PSI works in as many countries as Peace Corps does, and then some, and here their focus is on Sur Eau (to clean water with), mosquito nets and condoms. They also run the ‘cinemobile’ which is a land cruiser equipped with speakers and an outdoor movie screen. They play music videos while running contests and games and then show a film with a health message. It’s a pretty big event when it goes to a village, so they should be a great addition to our bike trip. I am going into Ambato this afternoon to meet with Tom and Chris on his way back to site and we’re going to talk about getting a budget figured out and starting to apply for the PEPFAR money to do the project. It’s pretty exciting the way it is all working out.

I got another package from my parents on Thursday, (yay!) and the whole encounter with the post office was pretty hilarious. First I went in but didn’t have the money to pay the customs fee, so they just let me take it and I told them I’d come back with the money tomorrow. Needless to say, it took 3 more trips to the post office for the guy to get back the return receipt from me, give me my change and then hunt me down one more time because he thought I should sign some more forms. Haha he had never had to deal with a return receipt before, I don’t think he was too happy about it, but at the same time I think their glad to have me, as I am the only person sending and receiving mail on a regular basis in town.

So the whole reason for all the vague descriptions of what I should have been doing with the translation thing on Monday finally came out the other day. Lucette came to talk to me and finally told me who her new sipa is. Surprise, surprise, it’s the director of the school in ambohimanga that I was suppose to ‘work’ with on this project. Haha it all became so much clearer. These ‘americans’ actually do exist, but they do not work for the WWF, they work for an organization called Madagascar Wildlife Conservation. They are apparently coming back to the school and I am supposed to come help again on Monday. The director of the school doesn’t know that I am ‘in the know’ so he is still approaching the whole thing as a work opportunity for me, but in reality the whole purpose of it is so that him and Lucette can see each other, while still keeping their relationship a secret. It’s a strange little world I live in. In some ways I don’t mind being a pawn, it’s kind of funny, but at the same time he is creating actual work for me, but not really giving me enough information. For instance, on Monday I am supposed to come ‘interpret’ for them (haha this man has heard me speak malagasy and the fact that he is enlisting me as an interpreter, means he must really like lucette!). I was only told the topic would be environment and malagasy culture; this in itself doesn’t make sense. Why would Americans come teach malagasy about Malagasy culture in a language they don’t speak? He also threw in something about talking to the kids about healthy food, but was not clear about whether I would be preparing that or whether they would. I tried to clear it up with Lucette, but she wasn’t as inquisitive as she would normally be because the whole thing is just a rouse for them spending time together. When it comes down to it though on Monday I am going to have to stand in front of the school and either interpret or give a health lesson, haha and I am the one who is going to look silly.

It will be good for me to get out and work with a different part of the community, but while we were talking to the director of the school, the director of the middle school showed up, and they all decided that it would be a great idea for me to work with the middle school English teachers. I sidestepped being talked into teaching an English class by pointing out that I already had a job and that I have to leave town often to do Peace Corps stuff, but I think I will now be obligated to work with the English teachers.

Today I have plans to eat lunch with the Pastor in Ambohimanga and Lucette just camed and asked if I have morning plans. She wants me to go to the school in Ambohimanga to see the director. I don’t have actual plans, but I had planned on doing some work on my computer that I had been putting off and working on some stuff to bring to meet with Tom and Chris today. And I was going to finish cleaning my house. I don’t mind doing some work with the school so that Lucette can see her sipa on acceptable grounds, but I am not going to let this relationship dominate my life. When I was at his house the other day with Lucette he put on videos of concerts of American music. I watched some Rolling Stones, Beatles and Otis Redding (I think?). I informed him that, yes, it is American music that I know, but that it is from my parents generation. I also had to explain that I don’t have any VCDs, and that we don’t still use those in the states (what is a VCD anyway? Something before the technology of a DVD?) Haha I seriously live in a weird Malagasy soap opera.

Well off to lunch with the Pastor now, sure to be some interesting conversations about religion, which I can’t yet really have in Malagasy!

04/08/10

Rareka Be (very tired)

So we did the whole bike trip. And it wasn’t even very hard. The first couple hours of the first day were the hardest part because we were in the mountains, but after that it was flat ground on a nice paved road for the rest of that day and all of the next. We went 5.5 hours the first day, 3.5 the second, 4ish on the third and 3 hours on the last. Just over 200 kilometers in all. The third day was pretty hard for me because it was hilly and my legs hadn’t had any time to recover, but then we took a 2 day break.

On the Monday after Easter we went to my town by brousse from Megan’s house and it was crazy there. My town had been talking about how all the people from around the lake come to mitsangasangana (walk around) in Station. Easter Monday (lundi du paque) is a holiday in itself here and no one works and everyone goes somewhere with family or friends to have a picnic. My town has concerts every year on the Research station’s grounds. I was expecting that there would be a lot of people, but I was shocked when we got there. The street was so crowded you could barely walk and the concert was packed. It was just like we were in a state fair back in the states. There were people set up selling fried foods and drinks and beer everywhere. It took me a long time to even find anyone that I knew from my village. Tom, megan, erin and I hung out and walked around and we found our friend Rivo and his brother. They all left around 3 to go back home, but I decided to stay the night at my house so that I could see the whole concert and spend time with my friends. Right after they left I met up with Lucette and Pepe and their friends and the concert got really fun. Everyone was dancing and drinking beer and a couple younger guys from my town came to dance with us; their goal was to dance with me but I refused so they stayed and danced with Lucette and her friends. One of them has had his eye on me I think for a while—he always shows up at random times. When he left the women all told me he was bogosy but ratsy (handsome but bad). Haha all I could do is laugh and tell them that I was definitely not interested in him. We were also next to this group of people from another town who were dancing and they joined our group. Lucette is really mahay at dancing and she attracts a crowd. The women were really into getting me to dance and I had a lot of fun shaking my butt with them and causing a whole huge crowd to erupt in laughter.

Lucette informed me that there would be a ball at night and that I should go with her. I’ve heard that these balls can really go either way for volunteers, but I figured, why not? We went back to our house after the concert, but the party didn’t end for most people. There were still huge crowds of drunk people in the street, and the epicerie next door was kind enough to blare music for the whole street until well past dark. I made food and danced in my house while Lucette and her step daughter, Fara, got ready. It was the usual playlist I hear of a mix of malagasy and American music. I always laugh when the Mandy Moore song from ‘a walk to remember’ and the Mamma Mia soundtrack (shout out to the Milton house) come on. The ball ended up being a lot of fun. All the drunk creepers from the daytime must have passed out and not been able to make it to the ball (it started at 9pm, when most malagasy have been asleep for an hour) and the crowd was relatively sober and really into having a good time. Fara had a few 18-20 year old friends and Lucette and I danced with them most of the time. Lucette didn’t help me get out of dancing with men during the slow songs, but all of the men I danced with were perfect gentlemen. Most of them were trying to use the moment to actually get to talk to me one on one, but between the loud music and dancing I was unable to understand most of what they were telling me. My town has a lot of sihanika (spelling could be way off) which is one of the many groups of malagay which have their own dialect and culture and they have a certain style of dancing and it was really fun to learn it. They also play a lot of American music and everyone wanted to see how the American girl dances to music. We stayed out until 12:30, officially the latest I’ve been awake at village, and when Lucette and I left, one of the men that Fara is friends with walked us home and all the other girls stayed and kept dancing. I heard them come in sometime after 2am and when I got up at 6:30 in the morning they were already up cooking rice for breakfast. It doesn’t happen often, but when malagasy party, they party. People were out all night, got up at the normal 5am and then went to work. I slept on the way back to Imerimandroso to continue the bike ride. Well sort of slept, it’s hard to sleep with 26 adults and 6 children crammed into the bed of one truck.
All in all, the trip was a definite success and we got to talk to a bunch of people about coming back in July. My favorite part was getting to see all of the villages that the volunteers live in. After a few days of riding and sleeping 3 to a bed or on the floor, I was ready to get back to village though. It’s definitely become home and when I met Hannah and Megan’s closest friends, it made me miss Lucette and my friends from station. I spent yesterday afternoon at home and Lucette and I stayed up and talked until 8:30pm. Word had spread that I went to the ball and danced all night and I had many people tell me that they were sad that they missed watching me, and they wanted me to dance for them instead right then. I had to explain, many times, that I don’t dance in the middle of the street, with no music, by myself and that they’d just have to wait until the next ball. Today I am back in Ambato on my way tomorrow to Moramanga to visit Sara. On Monday I will be back in village for a while and I am excited to stay put there for a few weeks.

04/13/10

I had a great weekend but I am not going to write about it now.

I am so glad to be back in village. Yesterday I was originally supposed to do some sort of translation for a group of Americans who were coming to make a school. This was literally all I was told about the whole situation that my friends had made plans for me to do. I was pretty skeptical that they were actually going to be Americans because my villagers still tell me that there is a black American working at CALA, and when I investigated this fact a long time ago I found out that the ‘black american’ is actually a man from Ghana. Due to a series of random events I was not in my house on Sunday or in the early morning on Monday. When I got there at 8 am (what I figured was plenty early for translation) Lucette told me that I had already missed the group, who left at 4am. As it turns out, I was merely invited to accompany the teachers and students on their outing with some ‘americans’ who work for the world wildlife federation on their trip to go see the lake lemurs. I was kind of bummed that I missed them, but that is not at all what I was told to be prepared for. Mostly, I really want to know if these mythical Americans that live in Ambato actually exist. I might have to hunt down the office the next time I am in Ambato just to see because I am pretty sure there are no other Americans in the Ambato region. There are a bunch of Frenchies and one British guy, but if there were other Americans I think we would have heard about them already.

Today I spent the day visiting some friends. I went to Nadia and Pascaline’s house in the morning; two middle school aged girls that I really like. It’s Pascaline’s 14th birthday this week and she made me promise that I would come to see her again. Then in the afternoon I went out to Ambohimanga to visit Noeline, since I haven’t seen her in a really long time. She wasn’t there, but I went walking with her teenaged daughter for a while. We ran into the pastor’s wife and she insisted I come meet her husband because he has wanted to meet me for a while. I was a little bit hesitant to agree, but usually I don’t actually have a choice in matters like this anyway. I ended up spending an hour at their house talking to them both and I actually really like them. They made me set a time that I would come and eat with them on the spot, and now I have plans for Saturday afternoon. The pastor is even going to come check at 10am on Saturday to see if I can still come and if I can’t we’re going to set a different day. They were both very enthusiastic and want to practice speaking English with me, and they seem like they would be very helpful with Malagasy. The rumor that I don’t go to church to pray might not have made it all the way out to Ambohimanga, so the real test of this potential friendship is going to be whether they are equally persistent about getting me to come to their church.

04/21/10
So I just had the epiphany that I could make a delicious salad with the things at the market, since I discovered yesterday that one of the types of greens that they sell is watercress. I just had a watercress, scallions, tomato, cucumber, lentils and hardboiled egg salad with a vinegar, salt and pepper dressing. It may sound kind of bland to all you back home, but I feel like it’s the closest I’ve gotten to American lunch yet. I kind of feel like I am committing some sort of sin; not only did I not cook rice for breakfast or lunch, but I didn’t even eat bread or pasta (the only somewhat acceptable substitute for rice) with my lunch. It really feels like a dirty little secret. My friends would be literally horrified, and I would probably be force fed some rice if I told anyone.

I spent half of the day yesterday checking my bathroom every couple hours for the spider that evaded my original attempts at smashing him. It was one of the very large, flat ones which resemble the type of spider we nick-named teddy bear spiders in Haiti. And these suckers are quick. For some reason they like my bathroom (maybe because its dark and cool and filled with bugs) and they regularly scare the shit out of me when they scurry out from under the toilet seat. I also have a new found fear for them after hearing Sara’s story of how one night when she was re-pulling her hair back one of them climbed out of her hair and onto her hand. I’ve made friends with most of the spiders in my house, but I think that could be one of the most terrifying things that could possibly happen to a person here. At about 4 o’clock yesterday, I found mr. teddy bear spider and smashed him dead with my running shoe.

The ‘Americans’ who came to the school on Monday were, no surprise at all, not Americans. Haha I knew it from the start. They were actually Irish (or British? I can’t remember) and are only here in Madagascar for 2 months (contrary to the fact that I was told they live in Ambato) and they are here making a documentary about Madagascar Wildlife Conservation, a Malagasy organization. There were so many false facts given to me that basically everything I wrote before can be scratched. They were also not there to see how they can help the school, but to film the students who had seen the lemurs and read the comic book that MWC creates to help educate students about the importance of conservation of the marshland and the Bandro. It was pretty cool just to meet them and talk to them, and they had some questions for me because some things were not conveyed clearly across the language gap, but for all real purposes there was no reason for me to be there. The man who was accompanying them from MWC spoke almost perfect English. I did learn that the crazy plants in the marsh that look sort of like a huge dandelion in the form you would blow the seeds away, is actually papyrus. It’s kind of funny because I knew the malagasy word for it was zozoro and that the Bandro live in it, and that the Bandro like papyrus, but I had yet to put all three things together.

I also never updated about the lunch with the Pastor and his family. If they had given me any justification to not like them I probably would have avoided them for the remainder of my time here, but there is no way to do that. They were both wonderful and their kids were adorable. They had invited my friend Madam Noeline to come to lunch as well, and I honestly had so much fun talking to all of them. For the first hour or so before lunch, they practiced their English with me, and both the Pastor and his wife knew a lot. They had a hard time hearing it and understanding (mostly because malagasy have created their own pronunciation of English) but once they got the topic they were able to converse slowly.

We stuck to malagasy over lunch and it was just all around enjoyable. They made a delicious lunch which was complete with a ‘salad’ prior to the main course because they know that’s western culture. After lunch the Pastor had to go work, but I sat and talked with his wife and Noeline for a while. Religion came up, haha of course, and when I told the pastor’s wife that I was raised protestant she was shocked that I hadn’t come to their church yet, but then I told her that I don’t still go and she was curious but not pushy. I explained that I am still spiritual, but that I don’t like to go to church. And then I explained that that was the only way I could explain it in malagasy because I am not mahay at words revolving religion. She completely accepted it and then we moved on to talking about my work. They were telling me how there is a 13 year old girl who is pregnant in Ambohimanga. 13! I told them that one of the things I want to do is get to know the CEG aged girls (middle school) and teach them about sexual health and birth control options because there are far too many young girls pregnant here. Both are mom’s of young girls and it’s a little bit taboo to teach girls about sexual health (hence all the pregnant girls!) and they started off saying, that I shouldn’t teach them about birth control, but that they should wait until they were married. I explained to them that the girls are already taught that, and that I don’t want to encourage girls to have sex (in fact I’m definitely going to do the opposite), but that there are girls who are having sex anyways and they need to learn about sexual health and how to prevent getting pregnant. Teenagers are stubborn and will do what they want. I also explained that it’s similar in the states. Many parents don’t want to talk to their children about sex and birth control, but enough young girls got pregnant that they started teaching about it in schools and providing information. And that many young girls in high school, go to the doctor to get birth control without their parents knowing. After explaining this the Pastor’s wife seemed to really understand where I was coming from and told me that, for her, when girls com to her she has to show them in the Bible where it tells them not to have sex until they are married, but that since I am working in health that it would be good for me to teach girls about sexual health. She can’t teach about sexual health herself, but she thinks it’s a good thing that I can. They ended the lunch by inviting me to go to Tana with them during the grand vacance from school to meet their family and see all of the sites, like the queens palace. I hope to become good friends with them.
These are the ways that I think my time here is going to be beneficial for the community. Sustainable health projects are hard to develop with little money and not that much time, but opening people up to new ideas will continue to be beneficial when I am gone. I could tell at the end of the conversation my friends agreed that girls should be taught about birth control options, even though when I first suggested it, they seemed a little horrified. I don’t think that my standing in front of 10 women and giving a talk about health every morning at the health clinic is going to change the way that people act. But repeated conversations, with friends, where I can explain why I think something is important, just might make a difference one day. I have the same feeling about talking directly to young girls. Sure I could arrange to talk to all the girls at the CEG at once, but when I think about how sex ed went over in high school, it was more a joke than anything. The times that I really learned things were when myself or a friend did the research and then we all talked about it. That’s definitely one of my goals here; to be someone that girl’s feel they can come talk to about health issues. And also to develop relationships and pass information on to girls who can then be a resource for their friends. I haven’t figured out exactly how I am going to go about this yet, but I am making friends with young girls and that in itself has been fun.

I was supposed to be going to Ambato today to fetch the vaccines for tomorrow’s vaccine day, but yesterday when I showed up at the CSB to get the thermos, the doctor informed me that vaccine day isn’t until the last Thursday of the month, this month to correspond with mother and child health week. Thanks to my Rasazy, who forgot this, everyone in the surrounding area has it written in their carnet (a little health book) to return tomorrow to get their next vaccine. Not to mention that because of this, I have been reminding people for the last week to come tomorrow for vaccines. When I asked the Rasazy if she had told anyone that the date had changed, she looked confused and told me only the people who have come in today. So basically tomorrow there will probably be many angry women who walked a long ways to get their babies vaccinated. I started telling people in my town and I know the people in her town will know by tomorrow, but the women from far away will have no way of knowing until they get most of the way here tomorrow.

This turned out to be a really random post. I apologize, but I can’t seem to get my thoughts organized in a normal fashi