IWhere to even begin…Its hard to believe its November already, and the end of November at that. A volunteer told me that the days go slow and the time goes fast here…and they were right. On days with nothing going on I wake up and can’t imagine how I’m going to spend the next 12 hours, and then miraculously I’v been at site for almost three months. I’m also having trouble remembering its November because all my normal associations are gone-I’m not counting down until school break, I haven’t had to shovel snow yet, and the xmas decorations haven’t lined the shelves at my open air market….Its getting really, really hot here and sometimes I forget that its not this hot everywhere. But there are lychees everywhere and that makes me really happy.
Tamatave/VAC
At the end of October I got to travel a little for the VAC (volunteer advisory council) meeting. The volunteers in my region met in Foulpointe, a beach town perfect for vacation. After a 6 hour drive in a revamped delivery truck we made it. VAC was a good chance to meet the other volunteers around me, sit on the beach and eat really good seafood. Before leaving a group of us paid a guy to take us to the reef in his canoe. It was beautiful and we got to see all kinds of crazy/creepy sea creatures.
From Foulpointe I went to Tamatave where I was going to help out with a health program with American doctors. We stayed at this NGO’s compound, St. Gabriel, which was started by a group of men from India. So we spent the week eating delicious Indian food every night. The program focused on training midwives on best practices, best equipment and best mdicine. So along with 2 weeks of training, the organization donated $150,000 worth of medical equipment and $30,000 worth of meds to a health clinic in Tamatave. It was pretty cool to see the midwives learning to use an ultrasound machine for the first time. I also managed to witness live birth. My stomach could only handle about 5 minutes. 4 women in 1 room in 1 hour…and no one even screamed. People believe that women who scream during birth let the spirits in, so unlike the States, the birthing process is relatively quiet. Still messy though.
Life at Site Continues
The days all blend together here. I usually don’t know what day of the week it is, until its Thursday and I have to take my malaria meds….the rest of the days are pretty much the same. But they’re good days.
The kids have started to make my home their home. So even before I open my doors in the morning, I see little heads peaking through the floorboards under my house. Then when I open my doors—in they run. They love looking at my pictures from home and now they know everyon’es name in my pictures. So I hear a 3 year old explaining that this is my uncle and those are the people she lived with in college….its pretty cute. And I’ve come to accept that my best friends are going to be under 10, and that’s ok.
I still have incredible amounts of down time. I sleep 12 hours a night, finish about a book a day and try to do things inefficiently so I know I have something to do later. (That’s a big adjustment for an econ major who likes efficiency). But that’s the pace of life here. Especially since its so hot, everyone moves in slow motion-if at all.
Other things that remind me I’m in Madagascar…
One day I was weighing babies with my counterpart and I met a newborn named Jackie Chan. Seriously.
And my new house that was supposed to be built 2 months ago-a worker has reappeared (but only briefly). At least long enough to tear down the 4 walls it once had. Seriously. One morning my new house had 4 walls. The next day it had no walls. Now it has about 1.5, but the worker has disappeared again. When I tried to ask someone where the walls went, all they said was “tsy mety, tsy mety”—not okay, not okay. My thoughts on the slow progress include: 1. No money. 2. Too hot. 3. Everytime the new materials are dropped off, they quickly become firewood for the neighbors (I actually saw this.)
In an effort to learn more about my community, Sahondra took me to meet the village elders, tangalamenas. They told me about the history of Tsarasambo which was cool to learn about, but it went something like this. 1. I ask a question in ‘gasy. 2. Sahondra rewords my question in ‘gasy. 3. Elder speaks really fast in ‘gasy. 4. Sahondra dumbs down response into words I might understand. 5. I write notes in English…Its comical how much is probably lost in translation.
One night I was laying in my bed and I heard a loud crash. I thought my bed was broken. Nope. It was actually the floor of my house (which is raised about a foot off the ground). My bed had fallen through the floor, all the way to the ground. Since it was nighttime, I had to wait until morning to fix it…it wasn’t the most comfortable night of sleep…
I made a new 12 year old friend who comes to my house after school. One afternoon she mentioned in passing that two kids in the town next to mine were eaten by a crocodile the day before. WHAT. I’m still not sure if its true or not…but I probably won’t be swimming for awhile.
One typical day at the market I was buying my veggies and I heard yelling. When I looked up there was a runaway angry cow charging through the streets. It was like a movie. Parents and kids running away. Cow charging through the busy market. Taxi brousse coming straight at it. Five ‘gasy men trying to catch it. It was a fiasco to say the least…
Last week I went to visit a friend an hour away but I picked the wrong brousse. A 45 minute drive took 3 hours because we stopped for so long. Instead of hiring moving trucks people just use the brousses. So our first stop turned into an hour wait while a house moved all its furniture from inside to the top of the brousse. I’m pretty sure there was a couch, 2 chairs a mattress, a bike and some other stuff up there. The next stop took just as long. Luckily I was sandwiched between two people who spoke some English, so that was fun at least.
And then I actually did some real health work. I went out with 4 other health workers and some government workers to the farthest fokontanys (villages) to do trainings. I was told we would leave at 8, so of course someone came to tell me we were leaving at 630. Nothing happens when it says it will here! It was a 10km hike up and down hills…in the sun! Yikes. Super hot. But it was beautfiul. We held the training in a school, but you wouldn’t have known it was a school. The walls were falling down, and there were no desks, chairs or blackboard. The training went well though. Until halfway through, they said, “okay Corey, now talk about health.” I don’t like being put on the spot in English, but it makes it a little harder in Malagasy….so I talked for about 30seconds about hand washing…I doubt anyone understood anything I said, but that’s okay. When I got back from the 10km hike home, there were kids camped out at my door wanting to learn English. So before I knew it there were 10 kids in my 1 room hut with their notebooks out. It was pretty cute. I had to kick them out everytually when I needed to cook!
And I finally got a chance to take a ton of pictures of my site, which I hadn’t done before. A friend in town also needed pictures, so we spent about 2 days running around town and all the close villages taking pictures…(hopefully I’ll be able to upload some in the near future…) Since he was Malagasy he didn’t feel awkward about taking pictures of people about 1 ft from their face, or yelling at people harvesting rice to pose for a pictures. Although it was awkward for me, I got some good pictures of it.
Shout Outs!
Thank you to everyone who has called/sent letters! MK, Corinne, Mere, Chasen, Jenna-I love hearing your voices!!! And I finally got a huge delivery of mail, so if you wrote me, expect a letter back! Brooke, Katie (thank you thank you for the magazines), MK, Corinne, Chasen, Patrick, Zach, Alyssa—you guys are the best.
Thanksgiving
My first Thanksgiving not in Michigan. It was definitely an adventure. I got together with a group of volunteers in Mahanoro for our own version of Thanksgiving. We bought a live turkey at the market (later named Mildred), dug a huge pit for an oven, and managed to kill/pluck/roast a turkey, make sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, green beans, other potatoes, stuffing and other Thanksgiving goodnesses. Everything is a little more complicated without an oven, but everything turned out surprisingly delicious. And then we had smores at a bonfire on the beach. So although I wasn’t at home for the Thanksgivings I grew up with, it was still a memorable one. Although I miss all you friends and family who might still be reading this….
But that’s about all that is new with me…In a few weeks I’ll be back in Tana for a few weeks of training, and then a potential vacation for Christmas and New Years! We will see….I hope everyone is doing well in the states! Miss you all!
