I live in a tree house. At least that’s what it feels like. My house is made of sticks and leaves, when it rains it rains inside too (although thats not supposed to happen) and when the wind blows it blows inside too. When I’m laying under my mosquito net I feel like I’m a little kid camping out in a tree fort. But no, this is actually my life now. Woah.
So where to begin-a lot has happened since I wrote last.
End of training
I finally finished training! I never thought that would happen-especially on day 1 when you see a detailed schedule of the next 9 weeks of your life. But its over. The last 5 weeks of training went by really fast and by the end I think everyone was ready to be done…including the trainers. We had 4 health presentations in Malagasy and they went well. Two of tehm were teaching hour long classes at the school. Monica, Ellen and I taught 6-eme and 10-nde. The 6-eme class was awesome. They loved singing about healthy foods and they were really participatory. Our nutrition lesson went well. Then we did HIV/AIDS/STIs with the 10nde class but it was a little harder because they would answer our questions in ways that we couldn’t understand. It would have helped if we spoke a little more ‘gasy. Oh well. Along with presentations we had our final language test. Everyone has to get intermediate mid before they are allowed to go to site. And everyone in our stage passed. Either we’re a really mazoto stage like everyone says, or PC is out of $$ and they can’t afford not to let people go to site. Either way, our group is fairly competent in gasy. Enough so that Pc will send us off on our own.
To celebrate being done with presentations and the language test, a big group of us ventured to a little slice of paradise called La Hermitage. I like to refer to it as “Mantasoa’s best kept secret.” It’s a 4 star hotel and restaurant plopped down in the middle of nowhere. It seems a litle out of place among the rice paddies and cow herds, but no complaints here. They had pizza, Heineken and spaghetti. We were very happy campers.
Other unofficial sessions during training included a nightly dance party. The Malagasy love to dance, and the minute American music comes on, so do the trainees. One such memorable dance party included clearing the room and running and jumping/sliding on pillows across the floor (slip n slide style). Unfortunately this dance party ended in someone needing stiches…
Anyway, then came swearing in as official volunteers. Fun fact: we take the same oath as the president does! Swearing in was a really nice ceremony. It felt a little reminiscent of highschool open houses with a tent set up on the basketball court and couches moved outside, but it was nice. Usually swearing in takes place in Tana, but because of the current political situation, we did it at the training center. And usually people from the embassy come, but they planned a big party for the same day, so no such luck. But all our host families came and after the official ceremony we crammed 200 people inside for lunch. Nice and cozy. The next day, almost all the volunteers left for site…except for the lucky 8 who got to stay another night. One perk of being the “leftovers” was getting delicious pity food-brownies, steak and lasagna. Yum.
Installation
Finally it was my turn to go to site. My installation group included Franka and Modeste-two trainers-Sam and I. (Hi Sam’s parents-if you’re reading this!), and a PC car and driver Johnny. Johnny loves American club music so our 6 hour drive was entertaining to say the least. We drove a few hours to Moramanga where we stopped to do some shopping. But without having seen my house, that was difficult. We walked into a store they they said “Okay, buy what you need to furnish your house and live for 2 years in Madagascar.” (Well not in those words…) It was overwhelming to say the least. I managed to buy clothespins and cups. Then we drove on…and eventually we showed up in my town, Tsarasambo. To find my house, we yelled at people walking by to tell us where the mayor lived. And luckily we found it. We arrived at my house, and the mayor appeared out of nowhere. I stumbled over my Malagasy words and tried to introduce myself (I think that’s why they make fluent Malagasy speakers go with you). They had built me a bed and hung some curtains already. And there was a pile of coconuts in the corner. We cracked them open to celebrate.
My house is made of local materials (aka sticks and banana leaves). Its in the mayor’s compound so there are tons of people around. There are bananas and pineapples growing outside. It’s a one room house and its cute. Apparently they’re building me a new house though. Right next door. There’s a big pile of bleaves to prove it…but we’ll see if it actually gets built. They’re also building me my own kabone…until that actually happens, I get to walk across a rice paddy.
So after briefly seeing my house we left for Sam’s town, Mahanoro, which is also my banking town. In Mahanoror we opened bank accounts (which took about 4 hours), bought new phones,
SHOUT OUT-CALL ME PLEASE. I MISS YOU ALL AND WOULD LOVE TO HEAR YOUR VOICE. MY NUMBER IS 11261337974570 OR 11261348162197. YOU CAN BUY SKYPE CREDIT AND ITS SUPER CHEAP AND ILL LOVE YOU FOREVER.
And did some more shopping. I bought a mattress which we carried through town on a pousse pousse (rick shaw). And we spent about 4 hours looking for where to buy a gas stove. No luck-which meant no cooking for awhile. We moved Sam into his house at the school and then back to Tsarasambo for me.
We got to my house and started making sure everything was in order. We added latches to the doors and changed the locks. Then I went to Vatomandry (the closest big town) and went on courtesy visits. I was introduced to the police, the gendarme and some NGOs in town. Then I also had to do a formal visit to the mayor even though he lives next door and walks past my door shirtless….And then, PC drove away.
Rumor has it that some volunteers chase after the PC car as it drives away. While I did not chase after the car, I did have a good, long, “OMG What have I done” moment…and a good cry. There’s not much else you can do at that point because reality hits. I’m here for 2 years. Shit.
Luckily (and unluckily) there are about 15-20 kids at the mayor’s house so they slowly accumulated at my door and that was a good distraction. I had my first dinner at the mayor’s house since I didn’t have a stove, and I found myself sitting in a chair covered in stuffed animals. And then I slept…a good, solid 11 hours. Which still left me waking up at 6am.
First Few Days
The downside of living right on the main road is that taxi brousses (think minivan with 25 people inside) start passing around 4:30 am, and the rest of the compound wakes up around 5:30. I, not too happily, crawl out of bed around 6:30.
So now-here I am. I’m finally at my site where I’ll be for the next 2 years. I’m trying to take it day by day so I don’t get too overwhelmed. But all the volunteers say the first 3 months are the hardest. I still don’t speak good Malagasy, no one knows me yet, and I don’t have any projects to work on. And the days are so long.
If I ever complained about not having free time in college or during training, I take it back. I’ve never had so much time. I don’t really know what to do with myself. I usually go to the market 2-3 times a day. I sit at my door and say hi to people who walk by. I plan out meals I want to cook-and then replan when I realize I can’t buy that food here. I take my time washing dishes. I sweep my house about 4 times. Sometimes I just go walk around. And I read a lot. I’ve made friends with a lot of little girls and they come talk to me sometimes. And when I say talk-I mean we sit in silence and then they laugh when I try to speak ‘gasy. Some people come over to practice English too.
One of the mayors’ sons (he has 10) has made my home renovations his new pet project. So he comes over sometimes and builds shelves and hangs my pots and does other helpful things. He helps me with Malagasy and I teach him some English. And after the first rain storm he was particularly helpful in fixing all the leaks in my house. Interestingly enough, fixing the roof here entails ripping off leaves from good parts of the roof and patching leaking parts. No comment. Also, conveniently, there was a big leak right over my bed. Since my mattress is sponge, (the same exact csponge I was my dishes with), the mattress absorbed a lot of water. YAY. Well anyway, my house now only leaks a little. And my new house…it will be waterproof! (Hopefully).
But now my handyman friend left and its back to sitting and staring. When I looked up the word for lonely in Malagasy it said, “malahelo satria tsy manana namana”. This literally translates to “sad because don’t have friends.” I wouldn’t say I’m lonely-I have about 20 friends age 8-12 who come and stare at me and sometimes do my dishes and fetch me water. ScORE.
One morning I woke up and it was pouring so I decided to wait to do dishes and fetch water. I planned to lay in bed and read until the rain stopped. But before I knew it, 2 girls were washing my dishes and 2 others brought me water. In exchange, I painted their nails. Fair trade?
So the next few weeks I’ll be hangin gout in my tree fort, reading, trying to learn Malagsy and getting used to this new life. Its awesome though. Later this week I get to help with vaccine day at the health clinic and the next week I’ll help weigh babies with my counterpart. And that’s about it.
Anyway, I miss everyone so much and I love phone calls and letters. If you write me I promise to write you back! I hope all is well at home. I’m looking forward to hearing updates. From here on out I’ll hopefully have internet a little more often, but I’m also not holding my breath….
And two more funny stories before I leave the internet café…
One day after running out of toilet paper I decided to make it that day’s goal…to purchase more tp. Seemed like an easy task until I went to every epicerie in town and no one sold toilet paper. Thankfully, I have some NYT left over from a carepackage (thanks dad), and I have a new urgency to read it.
Also, the second time I used by kabone-I almost fell in. The wood was rotted through, and I took one wrong step and my leg went through. It could have ended quite badly, but I caught myself. Crisis averted. Now if only my new kabone would hurry up and be finished….
If you’re still reading this…I’m amazed at your dedication. Sorry for such a long post, but theres a lot to talk about.
Miss you all!
