Vacation Travels Part 1: The Brousse from Hell

 Vacation has come to an end, sadly. But it was an adventure to say the least…

Vacation started with a parade of vazaha heading to the taxi brousse to what we thought was a reservation for 8 in a nice brousse to Ambanja.  But obviously, that is too much to ask. Reservations don’t mean much here. So we got to the station to find that our 8 seats now had an extra 3 people sitting in them. And the nice brousse we were expecting turned into a rickety old brousse that I thought was going to explode at any point. It made a weird humming noise when we went over 30mph also, so I don’t think that was good. In any case, we loaded up, smooshed into our seats, and had a birthday party. My friends had bought party hats, kazoos, candy and drinks, so we had a festive birthday party for the first 15 minutes of our trip…I’m pretty sure everyone on the brousse hated us, but it was fun.

The fun didn’t last too long though. About four hours into our trip we heard a huge thud. The brakes had fallen off. And since it was dark by this point, the driver had to go look for them with a flashlight. I’m pretty sure he found them, because then he got on a blue jumpsuit conveniently stored in the trunk, and started fixing our brousse. So we sat on the side of the road for over an hour, while our driver (with unknown mechanic skills) hammered away at the brakes. We tried to pass the time by singing Christmas carols until a Malagasy woman told us to be quiet or the mpangalatras (thieves) would come. So that was a little scary. It was also scary to watch the huge thunderstorm approaching. Anyway, before we knew it, our brakes were fixed (?), so off we went. We stopped for food for about 20 minutes, and in that time our driver lost the keys. So that was another hour of waiting around….And then a few hours later our headlights stopped working. So we stopped again, the driver started fiddling with things under the seats (which is where the engine is?) and then he was lighting something on fire. I guess they started working again, so we took off again, only to have them break 30 minutes later. This time we waited for another brousse to pass, so we could mooch off their headlights. That worked for awhile…And then when we were about an hour away from Ambanja the car overheated. So the driver got out and started pouring water in the radiator….however that just caused hot steam to spray all over the people in the car….And everyone thought the car was going to explode so people freaked out and started jumping out of the window or shoving people to get out of the door. So that was fun.

After pouring water into the hot radiator...

At least the view from the brousse was pretty.

Eventually we did make it to Ambanja and at that point I never wanted to see another taxi brousse again. Part one of vacation, done.

A Malagasy Christmas

Yu and my boss.

Secret Santas in Mantasoa. People got creative...especially with that cabbage.

Santa came to Mantasoa.

This is what December in Madagascar looks like.

Dreaming of a White Christmas?

In honor of the holiday season, I’ve been listening to the Charlie Brown Christmas cd on repeat, with the N’SYNC Christmas album sprinkled in there. But its just not the same. Not that I really miss the snow, but I do miss how pretty white christmas lights are, and how nice it is to sit by a fire with hot chocolate and Christmas cookies. But I’m just going to have a different kind of Christmas this year. No snow, no 24/7 Christmas carols on the radio, no last minute Christmas shopping at the packed mall…just sun, palm trees, and the beach. The only thing I can complain about is that I can’t be with friends and family at home. And that I’m spending my bday on a 16 hour busride…with no AC and lots of people crammed inside. But that’s okay.

But anyway, I’m back in Tana after two weeks of training. We went back to the training center in Mantasoa for two weeks of electricity, hot running water, and snack time. (True story. We get snacktime twice a day because sitting through lectures all day makes you hungry). The first week was IST with everyone from my stage. We surprised PC by not having any ETs (early terminations) so it was all 27 of us. Before IST started we spent the weekend in Tana, enjoying wifi at the Meva (PC house), mexican food, and time to hear everyone’s crazy stories. Unfortunately, two people in our stage also got pickpocketed so that was a downer.

IST is somewhat of a rite of passage because it means you have survived three months on your own, not knowing anyone, not speaking the language and not having anything to do. Most volunteers say that the first three months are the hardest…so everyone was excited to have made it this far. To celebrate, PC surprised us with lots of American food. Sandwiches, hotdogs and hamburgers, pizza, fried chicken and tacos! This probably doesn’t seem like a big deal to anyone else, but for the volunteers, who have been eating mostly rice, pasta, potatos and vegetables,  seeing lunch meat, cheese, mustard, mayo, pickles, lettuce and tomato seemed like a slice of heaven. Not to mention the giant bowl of popcorn that was full all day every day.

Along with the American food, the volunteers made an attempt to get in the xmas spirit by decorating the training center, having our boss dress up like Santa, blaring xmas carols and doing secret santas. Unfortunately, the good food and good times also meant that almost everyone would get sick from the change in diet, the large quantity of food, and the traveling. I’m pretty sure every session we had about 4 people in bed recovering from stomach problems. The food was worth it though.  

After IST everyone headed back to Tana except for 8 volunteers who stayed for a second week of training about malaria, child/maternal health and project design and management. Our day off in between training we had a movie marathon and managed to watch 6 movies including all 4 Twilight movies. (MK and Mere, sorry for making fun of you so much for that…) But in our defense it was pouring rain all day so we didn’t have many other options…We did play in the rain at one point though.

For the second week of training the 8 of us brought our Malagasy counterparts with us. The information was really helpful, but it was really hard to sit through 5 days of training where we sat in one room from 8-5. I thought I would be excited to have a busy schedule at training, but now I realize that I like all my free time at site. The training was pretty helpful though. And during our sessions all the volunteers wrote some pretty good group poems, made training superlatives, and passed notes. It was almost like elementary school.

And other things that are very “Madagascar”…

·      My ATM finally came to the bank. But the bank is about an hour and a half from my site, and I didn’t have time to go back there before I left for training/vacation. Luckily there are no privacy rules here, so the bank gave my ATM card AND pin number to my friend because he said he would see me “sometime soon.”

·      I have also been suffering from some “malagasy ailments.” Every time I get bitten by a mosquito or bed bug or some other random bug that likes to eat my arms…I swell up a lot and then it gets infected because I scratch it. So the other day I had about 8 bandaids on my arms and legs trying to prevent me from scratching….It only helped a little. And then I got some weird skin fungus which apparently everyone has here. So yay! Apparently it will go away…in 6 months?

So that’s about all that’s going on here. I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays! I wish I could be celebrating with everyone. But I’m thinking of all of you and I miss everyone!

Five Months Down. Lots to go.

Five months ago I left home for staging! Its crazy to think that now I'm sitting in Madagascar, moved into a hut in my village, and am somewhat able to communicate in Malagasy. I guess a lot has happened in 5 months! 

Back to the land of internet so time for an update...although there hasn't been too much going on since I wrote at Thanksgiving. I'm back in Antananarivo for the weekend until our IST conference. My whole stage is back together for the first time since we all moved to our sites, so it is exciting to hear about everyone's towns and what everyone is up to. But its also a weird feeling going from my tiny village where I go to bed at 730pm and speak Malagasy all day, to a house with 30 PCVs in a place with hot showers, wifi, and English speakers. Its culture shock all over again. But I really do like the hot showers...and I even had nachos for dinner last night. Word on the street is that there is even a place where I can buy a bagel and cream cheese. If this is true, I will be a very happy person.

So since I last updated...I have acquired crayons and magazines (thank you Katie Leight), and the kids have gone crazy. They come and color in my house almost every day, and now I have an entire wall covered in pictures. And they really like looking at People magazine and describing what is happening in all the pictures....the girl with green eye shadow is really sick, and the girl wearing a dress with a big slit accidently ripped her clothes, and it goes on...Its pretty entertaining. The kids have also become really helpful and fetch my water and then bring me fruit. I can't eat the fruit fast enough to keep up with what they bring me. Lychees, pineapples, mangoes and bananas. I cannot complain. When I'm not melting in the humidity, I really love the East Coast. We will see what I think when the rainy season starts...


Lychee season changes everything in my town. People stop working, stop going to the clinic, stop doing everything except going into the forest and fetching lychees. All day every day. And now is one of the only times of year when people have a lot of money...so now people are drunk all the time, there are random fights in the market, and new market stalls appear every day. Its like a whole new town!

Last weekend there was a little goodbye party in Vatomandry for two PCVs who were finished with their service and then two other volunteers from a different NGO. We had a delicious dinner and even had cocktails with fresh mango and pineapple. It was a nice change from the cooking I do for myself. And then we went to a bar downtown and observed the crazy antics of drunk people in town. These two crazy men started fighting really close to us, and one guy ran over to a nearby fence, pulled out a huge stick and then ran down the street screaming. He didn't reappear the rest of the night, so I'm still not sure how that fight ended. It was a good time and I got to say goodbye to the volunteers who are leaving my region! In the morning, we woke up at 5am to watch the sunrise on the beach and it was beautiful. I'm pretty sure thats the only sunrise I've ever been awake for...and it might be the only one, but it was definitely beautiful.

I also have made some friends my age which is unbelievably exciting. They are health workers in nearby towns and in their 20s too...unlike many of the other people my age, they aren't married and don't have children! So we have a little more in common. One day they showed up at my house and said we were going to Vatomandry for the day to hang out on the beach. It was a fun surprise, so we went out to lunch (cow hoof soup) and then hung out on the beach all day. It was a nice change from the 3 year olds I usually socialize with...but I do love the 3 year olds too.

And I also had a Little Miss Sunshine moment, when I was taking a brousse to a friend's site about an hour away. Our brousse stopped to pick up some new passengers, and when the driver tried to restart the car it wouldn't start without a running push from about 5 of the passengers. I just laughed. And then on the way home, the brousse I got on had about 36 people in it already. When I sat down I had to misplace a small baby, who then was quickly put back on my lap. Oh Malagasy transportation...

But thats about all that is going on here in Madagascar. I'm hanging out in Tana for the rest of the weekend and then heading back to Mantasoa to the training center for our in-service training followed by a week of malaria training followed by a vacation for xmas and new years. Should be a good time.

 I just got a big batch of letters, so if you wrote me recently...I probably got it and I'm writing you back!! And keep the letters coming...they keep me sane.

I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season! I keep forgetting that its that time of year...but someone should make a snow angel and drink hot chocolate in my honor. I'll melt in the 100 degree weather in return.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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!