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!
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