PST-again?

April has been a busy month! I just got back from a week at the training center, where I trained the new group of health volunteers. It was a really fun experience to get to be on the “other side of training” and it brought back so many memories of my PST. The new stage got here in March, so this was week 7 of their training, which meant it was jam-packed. Another health volunteer and I led sessions about safe motherhood, prenatal consultations and birth plans for the first two days. And then the the trainees had technical practicum. They gave presentations (in ‘gasy) at the health clinic, hosted a huge community festival for World Malaria Day, and of course had lots and lots of language classes. While I love our training center, I do not miss being in training!

It was interesting to see the new volunteers going through the exact same thing I went through 21 months ago though. The anxiety from having to give presentations in ‘gasy in front of a huge group of mothers. The exhaustion from sitting in sessions from 8 to 5 every day. The terrifying realization that training doesn’t last forever and soon they would be living alone at site. All these things I went through myself, and I could see the new trainees having the exact same thoughts and feelings. 

I also found it amazing to see how much you learn in a year. I still don’t feel like I’m a “zoky,” or an older volunteer, but my stage is oldest and the next to go home, which is hard to believe. Hearing the questions from the trainees made me realize how long I’ve been here, and how many crazy things have happened in that time. It was a good opportunity to remember these crazy experiences and to share them with the new trainees. Although, I probably shouldn’t have told them about my “house getting swept away in a cyclone” story, because I think that made them a little nervous.

Anyway, the training went really well. The malaria festival was a huge success. It began with a parade from the training center to the school with over 500 students walking with Peace Corps. All the elementary school children had made their own hats with messages about malaria prevention and our language teachers dressed up like mosquitoes. It was pretty funny. The festival was similar to what I did at my site, although on a much larger scale. Instead of one piñata…five. But, just like in Tsarasambo, the piñatas were utter chaos...including two full grown people getting trampled by candy seeking kids.  A fun day though.

The final night of training, the trainees hosted a talent show. As a typical trainer, we had to make a fool of ourself in front of the new volunteers, so we named ourselves the “Mahay-kus” (Mahay=smart/good at something) and we wrote 30 different haikus for the trainees about their lives as PCVs. They loved it. The other volunteers sang “Call me Maybe” but in Malagasy, the language trainers did a skit/interpretive dance about prostitution (interesting topic choice) and others sang and danced and played guitar. It was really fun.

The new group of volunteers is super hard working and a fun group. A few of them have sites close to mine, so I’m excited to help them move in and see them around the East coast for the few months that I have left!

Malaria Month

Earlier this month, I finished a malaria project with two other PCVs where we hosted three festivals in our villages. Everyone loves a party, so why not a malaria party. We had the festivals to teach about malaria, mosquito net care/repair, and how to make your own mosquito repellent. Malaria is a year-round problem where I live and pretty much everyone has had malaria at least once in their life. In my village, many people know what causes malaria (although some lingering falsehoods still exist-mangos cause malaria, witches cause malaria…etc. etc.)  People also have mosquito nets. There was a national distribution in November, so every house has at least one new net per every 3 people. So why do people still get malaria? It’s a really good question, and I don’t have the answer. It might be that people don’t use their net every night. It might be that people work in the fields until late at night. Or it might be that some nets in my village have holes in them as big as my face. Or maybe that I see the mosquito nets in my river used to catch fish. Whatever the reason, malaria continues to be a problem here, and a main focus of health PCVs at our sites. April 25^th is World Malaria Day and PC African countries are competing throughout the month to do the most malaria activities throughout April. The winning country gets…probably nothing, but that’s okay.

The festival started at my site, and then we traveled to two other sites. I think we looked like a traveling circus-3 weird looking people (vazaha), carting around lots of stuff (100 50kg rice sacks, buckets, posters, mosquito nets…) and doing really weird things that made people gawk and stare…. Just another day in PC. The piñata seemed like a good idea in theory, but it was pure chaos. The minute candy appeared kids (and adults) dove head first into masses of people. I’m surprised (and relieved) that no one got hurt! Since it was my site, I had the job of handing out candy afterwards so that everyone would get some. Within five seconds I was pinned to a tree surrounded by one hundred grabby kids. Never again will I give out candy at my site! Nevertheless, fety #1 was a success. The next day we left for fety #2.

Our second festival was in Tampolo, a small village 6ish hours north of my site. We found a brousse from Tamatave which left really quickly. Good luck! It didn’t last though. We ended up picking up a group of women on the road who told the driver they would pay extra if the driver took them right to their destination-a 30 minute detour for everyone else in the brousse. The driver agreed and we were pissed. And then our bad luck continued. We had to find another brousse to get to Brynna’s, and after waiting a long time to find a brousse that would take us, the brousse broke down 4 minutes later. At this point we were running low on time, so we flagged down other brousses going by. Our driver didn’t want to lose our business though, so he wouldn’t get our luggage down from on top of the brousse. Brynna had to get on top of the brousse to get our luggage down, and while that happened, the driver hid her shoes. When we finally found a new car to take us, and when Brynna finally got her shoes back, the driver tricked us into paying twice the amount and then refused to give us our money back when we realized what happened. It was the worst. We eventually made it to Brynna’s house and did some last minute prep before the festival in the morning, which was another success!

Finally we headed to our final site. We had more trouble finding a brousse, and the only one that stopped for us was already packed. Brynna had to climb through a window, I had to sit on the lap of a full grown woman, and Beth was smooshed somewhere in the back. Once we unloaded some people, we got what we thought would be more comfortable seats in the front row behind the driver. A little while later we found out that the driver wanted to create an extra row, pretty much in our laps, facing us. AWKWARD and UNCOMFORTABLE. I had the luck of having a young boy sitting, facing me. He, suffered from car sickness, and spent the next 3 hours puking into a bag, about 3 inches from my face.

We finally made it to site #3 by lunch time. We found some pousse pousses (rickshaws) to take us to Beth’s house because it was another 3k on a terrible road. Her road was a series of large craters, making it difficult, and terrifying to ride down. I was convinced that our pousse pousse was going to tip over. But we didn’t! We unloaded at Beth’s house and sat down for a few minutes to catch our breath before doing more fety prep.

As we were resting, we realized that one of our bags was missing. And not just any bag, but the bag with all our materials for the festival-posters, trivia, prizes, mosquito nets, rope, markers….Literally everything we needed was in there. After retracing our steps, we assumed the pousse driver had stolen it, and we gave up the search and started thinking of a plan B. Our only real option was to redo everything as best we could. We spent the evening remaking all our posters with our 2 remaining markers. We painted our piñata with a toothbrush, and we joked about how confused that pousse driver would be once he realized he didn’t steal an iPad, but rather a few mosquito nets…sucks for him.

The next day was fety # 3. It poured the entire morning so we had a smaller crowd than the others. But, it was still a success. By mid-afternoon, we were DONE. Three successful malaria festivals and three exhausted PCVs. We headed to Tamatave to relax and recover from the week.

Piñata Making in Mada

In preparation for a malaria festival project I worked on, I undertook the challenge of making a piñata that looked like a mosquito. My lack of artistic skills would have been enough of a challenge, but I didn’t realize what piñata making in Madagascar might entail. I began my piñata a week in advance…just in case. Of course, the first few days it rained 23 hours out of the day, so my drying options were non-existent. I just had to leave it on my floor and hope for the best.  However, every morning I would check on my piñata only to find that the mice in my house had eaten through a layer or two of my hard day’s work. So after spending a few hours re-paper macheing, I had to use my remaining energy to plot how to keep the mice from eating it. My dad, always supportive, wished me luck via phone with a fun fact that mice could fit through a hole the size of a pencil eraser. Thanks Dad! I built a few unsuccessful contraptions, and eventually ended up covering it with numerous buckets full of water. It worked pretty well and kept the mice away from my large, scary looking mosquito piñata. And, karma came back to haunt the mouse. It eventually drowned in the same water bucket I used to keep it from eating my work. Unfortunately, it also had a week to decay before I came home to find it. That was gross.  

Op Smile 2013

I just finished helping out with another successful Operation Smile Mission in Tana.  Like the one I helped with in August, this was a 10 day mission with 60+ medical volunteers from all over the world. We had doctors and nurses from Sweden, Russia, Italy, South Africa, India, China….and the list goes on.

Myself and 9 other PCVs helped out as translators for the 10 days. It was an exhausting experience, but definitely rewarding and one of the most memorable experiences from my service. The mission began with one day of screening past patients, and 2 days of screening new patients. Last mission they screened about 300 patients in the two days…this mission they had over 300 patients the first day, and over 500 total. Needless to say, it was a chaotic two days. I worked as a “runner,” taking patients from station to station, which included walking up 3 flights of stairs for every 10 patients to come through. After 12+ hours…I was a little tired. I thought walking patients from station to station would be easy enough…but it ended up being a nightmare. The head of the hospital ward only wanted a few patients in the hall at one time, while the doctors wanted there to be a line, and the nurses thought it should be a different way. Every person we asked gave a different set of instructions so no matter what, we were making someone mad. It was a long two days, but we survived.

Saturday afternoon was announcement day when all the patients who were screened gathered together on the basketball court and waited for numbers to be called. The selected families were visibly excited which is unusual in this culture. They couldn’t stop smiling, they grabbed our arms and thanked us, and they showed more emotion than I’ve ever seen a Malagasy person show before. But in contrast, we had to see over 300 patients turned away, which was really sad. Every family has a story about why they need the surgery, how far they traveled for it, and how it would change their life…but the team could only select 200 for surgery (a Mada record). Its sad to see people turned away, but hopefully most of them will come back in September for the next mission.

Surgery week lasted from Monday to Friday. I worked in the pre/post op ward for the week along with 2 other PCVs and a lot of Malagasy students. It was a crazy week, but really fun. We helped with translating for patients before and after surgery. Since none of the doctors spoke Malagasy, we actually got to play a huge role in the week’s activities, and I felt useful! I helped the nurses take vital signs after surgery, I taught mothers how to clean the lips, I helped the pediatrician in pre-op check-ups, and I answered tons of questions from mothers asking why there was blood in the IV or where they could get diapers and what food they could eat. It was exhausting! I also got to work with the dentist who was fitting patients with obdurators (a plastic thing they put in the mouth to cover the cleft palate). Aside from that, we were kept busy with discharging patients, checking in new patients, and dealing with random people who showed up for unknown reasons. The pre/post op nurses we got to work with were a really fun group of people. We had a Russian doctor, and Mauritian, Swedish, Australian and American nurses! But we also had to deal with the crazy woman who ran the hospital ward.

The Malagasy nurse who ran the ward tried her hardest to make our life difficult. She told us that the hospital bathroom would be locked in the night, so if patients needed to use the bathroom they would have to bring their own bucket. (100 people in a ward with no bathroom sounds like a disaster to me). She didn’t want to let parents sit on the bed with their child for the entire 24 hours they were in the hospital. She completely cancelled visiting hours. And the list goes on…  She was a challenge, but we survived with some funny stories.

I can’t even imagine trying to coordinate the logistics for the mission, and while there were some small issues (running out of medicine, losing patients, losing records, etc. etc. etc….) the week was a success! The last night we had a final banquet at a really fancy hotel. It felt like a wedding reception with music from the early 90s, a dance floor and strobe lights, and a buffet. It was a great end to the week and I’m sad that I won’t be able to help out on the next mission..but by that point I should be done with service!

(Pictures to come if the internet decides to speed up!)

That Time I Slept Through a House Burglary...

The past week or so has been one of the worst since moving to Mada. The only good thing about this is that it can’t get much worse haha.

On Feb. 13^th, a big group of “lehibes” (important people) from USAID came to my site to hear about the projects going on here. There was a BIG community meeting with probably 100 people plus lots of visitors, and it was an exciting event for my little town. Cecelia, a PCV from the big town over came and we watched and helped translate as needed. It was great to talk to all the visitors and at the end of the day they invited me to go with them the next day to a town I’d never seen! I love getting to see other places, and the offer of a free ride in an NGO car was hard to pass up. So I ran home, gathered my stuff and went to spend the night at Cecelias. Good timing too because I needed to charge all my stuff.

At Cecelia’s we hung out and talked with her sis who is visiting from the US for 3 months and I plugged in all my stuff to charge before I went to bed. My phone, laptop, kindle, and ipod were literally 6 inches from my head. I didn’t sleep that well because of mosquitoes and the insomnia from Mefloquin…but I would wake up, see my laptop flashing, look at my phone and doze off again. The last time I looked at my phone was 2:45. Awhile later, I woke back up and didn’t see my laptop anymore, figured Cecelia moved it (I’m not sure why that seemed like a rational thought) and went back to bed. Around 4:30 I woke up again, put on my glasses and decided to look for my stuff. I wandered through her dark house and didn’t see any of my stuff. Even my backpack full of clothes and a toothbrush…WEIRD. So I decided to ask Cecelia if she had moved all my stuff in the middle of the night. 

I peered into her room and aksed if she moved all my electronics. She and her sis both jumped out of bed because of course they didn’t move my stuff in the middle of the night. We turned on the lights and running through the house, realized we had been robbed. And none of us woke up. Luckily, Cecelia lives really close to the police, so we ran downstairs (yes she lives on the 2^nd floor), woke up the guard (yes she has a guard), and ran down the road, swearing/crying/wondering how this happened! We woke up the police and they came back to the house with us. We started looking around and found my backpack and papers strewn about the street about 50km away. We found my clothes and Cecelia’s kindle in the bushes. And we found Cecelia’s wallet resting nicely on top of her fence (yes she has a fence). Other than that, EVERYTHING was gone. Combined, they got 2 laptops, 2 ipods, 1 kindle, 2 cameras, 2 phones, my wallet and all forms of ID and a lot of cash. Interestingly, they left Cecelia all her US ATM cards and her ids which they dumped on the bathroom floor.

The police told us to come back at 8:30 to file a report, which is conveniently after all the brousses leave for Tamatave and Tana. Our stuff was most likely on one of those. We called PC and luckily some staff were in the area anyway, so they came to help us get things in order. And while we waited for PC some of Cecelia’s coworkers came and drove us to the brousse station and checkpoints to alert the police to what happened. Unfortunately, Cecelia and I both realized pretty quickly we wouldn’t see our stuff again. We got back and sat around thinking about what happened. She lives on the 2^nd floor of a fortress-with a family downstairs, a guard, a locked gate,  with a bell…and someone managed to climb a drainage pipe and come in and knew exactly where all her valuables were in the dark. They managed to pull out a bag under Cecelia’s bed while she and her sister slept in it. Not to mention how close they were to us to get our phones and computers. CRAZY.

PC got to our town and we went to the police to write a report. From the get-go everyone assumed the guard played a role…fitting since he claimed to have finished his last round before 3am. We went to the police and gendarme and I decided I should call my dad. I realize that at 3am in the US, getting a call to “check my insurance” seems silly…but it seemed like the logical next step. Sorry dad! Anyway, we went to the bank which is one of my least favorite places in this country. Of course they were still on their 2.5 hour lunch break, so we waited. Finally it opened-and what a long process. First we had to handwrite a report explaining what happened and apologize for losing my ATM card. Then had to wait in another line to withdraw money. But wait, I had NO ID, so I had to go have my picture taken….(This is a high quality pic...red, puffy face, big bags under my eyes…a great souvenir). We took the pics to the bank and glued them onto my report. Then we waited while they scanned and sent the pic to Tana for facial recognition. That took another hour. And finally they gave me my money only to have me fill out another form to request a new ATM card. Again, the no ID was a problem, so we had to call PC and look up my passport numbers. So frustrating. We finally got done a few hours later and went back to Cecelias house. I stopped at my house to get wine and goldfish crackers which I had been saving for the right moment, which seemed to be this. I went back to Cecelias, not wanting to go back to site yet. I dragged my blanket into her room and we tried to sleep, slumber party style. The next day I got a new phone, emailed the fam and went back to site. The craziest thing about all of this….it happened on the exact ONE year anniversary of Cyclone Giovanna that destroyed my house. I can only hope Feb. 13 2014 is a little better…

Back at site I felt a little better. I know the people, the kids keep me company, my neighbors lives 5 inches away, and all was well…although much quieter! Except I started feeling pretty sick pretty quickly. Nauseous, vomiting, no appetite, really tired…my friends would come over and make me eat, or bring me lunch from their house which was really nice. I finally called the doctors and they said parasites. Gross. So I got meds and I’m finally feeling better! I can eat 3 meals/day without vomiting…but like I said-its been a pretty shitty few weeks. But, life goes on. I’m mad at the burglar but thankful we didn’t wake up. I’m mad at the parasites, but I got my revenge. I guess this is just another story for the books….

Now I'm in Tana for a few weeks, going to training and helping to translate for an Operation Smile mission. Should be good.

TED Workshop

I spent the past week in Mantasoa, at the Peace Corps training center. I love that place….its beautiful, we get delicious food, and it reminds me of Northern Michigan. Myself and 7 other volunteers joined 15 PC staff for a 3 day intensive workshop to plan the training for the incoming volunteers. The regional advisor from PC, who oversees 15 different countries, came in from S. Africa to lead it. We worked really long hours (especially compared to our village lives), and we went a little crazy by the last day....but it was a really fun week.

PC Training Center...int he rain! 

It was really interesting to see the process PC goes through to design trainings, and it was a really good opportunity to make our own mark on training…since we’ve all been through it before!  Each sector went through the whole process of determining the KSAs (knowledge, skills, attitudes) needed for each program, deciding what competencies were needed after training, writing learning objectives and then sequencing them and organizing sessions around the learning objectives….it sounds really boring, but it was actually the most interesting workshop/training thing I’ve done here! (I also think I liked it because it was really, really structured and detailed…and I like those things!)  

PCVs who attended the workshop....entertaining ourselves with self-timer pictures. 

We worked long days but we still had a ton of fun. Everytime we are in Mantasoa, we get fed really well. So much good food. Snack twice a day. And a huge bowl of popcorn all day, every day. Staff knows how to get volunteers to work…bribe them with good food! (And do our laundry in a washing machine!) I also recently acquired the game Cards Against Humanity (thanks JENNA!) so that provided hours of entertainment. Especially when our regional advisor decided to play with us. Aside from the awkward moments of laughing at politically incorrect humor with our boss’ boss…it was really fun. And good bonding, you could say.

Excited about delicious food!\

Back in Tana, I did “big city” things…went to the grocery store, ate Thai food, and caught up on internet times. I’m heading back to site now, hoping that the cyclone that was hitting the E. coast yesterday, didn’t do too much damage! 

Home for the Holidays

I didn’t think 3 Weeks could go so fast…but here are some highlights from my trip home! Definitely worth the 20 hour flight… to say the least!

• ·         SNOW! – walking around in it, having a white Christmas, playing with my dog in it, then after the initial excitement wore off… looking at it from inside a heated house and car.
• ·         FOOD! – food tour of the US was a success: Sansu, Altus, Charlie Kangs, Panera, Red Haven Grill, Pearls, Café Sante, Shorts, Wendys, Chipotle, Taco Bell, Breuggers, Noodles & Co. , plus Trader Joes!, and so many bagels.
• ·         Torch Lake – laying by the fire bundled under blankets, with family all around, making gourmet food (Kraft mac & cheese) and reminiscing about all the good times we’ve had up there!
• ·         All the siblings together again-I think the last time we were all together was 2 years ago at Brad and Jennie’s wedding, so this reunion was long overdue
• ·         Holiday party-delicious food, friends and family, big xmas tree, lights, Christmas carols!
• ·         Xmas eve party at Sara’s-a tradition with amazing food, although still feeling the effects of jet lag, I fell asleep in a chair…
• ·         Movie on Christmas-the HOBBIT 3D IMAX…sensory overload. I’m used to watching movies on the tiny screen of my netbook.
• ·         Birthday festivities-amazing sushi dinner at Sansu, Harpers with lots of highschool pals and a late night Taco Bell trip, what could be better?
• ·         Columbus-DU reunion with all my favorite people, live music, good food and conversations about food (Noodles & Co. anyone?), cuddling, visiting campus (Aww P1) and Brews for old times sake.
• ·         Boston-so many good restaurants/bars, meeting all of Alyssa’s friends which includes pretty much the entire city of Boston, hanging out in her loft and walking the entire city in a weekend!
• ·         ….and everything was so clean. Even the gas station bathrooms....AMAZING!

It was such a great trip home, and thanks to everyone who made it possible! And now that its 2013 I can say….See you later this year!