P.O. BOX!!!!!: A Small Triumph in the Midst of Setbacks

SUCCESS!!!! Shayla and I just opened a P.O. box that we’re going to share here in Morondava. I’ll only be able to get my mail when I come into town to do banking, and I don’t know yet how frequently I’ll be doing that. But at any rate, you can now start sending my mail to:

Kristen Walling
B.P. 294
Morondava 619
Madagascar

It’s such a relief to have done that. We did it completely on our own (without the help of our Malagasy installers), and almost exclusively in the Malagasy language. After a rather frustrating and exhausting week, it was good to realize that we can in fact accomplish tasks on our own here. START SENDING MAIL!!!!

Which is good, since I’m finally almost ready to actually be out at site. As you may have read in my post a couple days ago, myself and the other two volunteers in my region have had quite the time trying to get situated at our respective sites. Sure enough, they hadn’t finished the construction on my latrine and shower when I tried to move in. (Rather, they’d hardly even started—they had dug the hole for the latrine but that was it.) It’s apparently finished now, though. I moved most of my things in yesterday but as everything wasn’t 100% finished, I couldn’t stay. I had a couple more courtesy visits to the police and such in Morondava to finish up today anyway. As it would turn out, I actually got pretty lucky that I couldn’t move in right away.

I’ve had a pretty nasty struggle with what the doctor assumed is acute food poisoning since Saturday night. For the first 36 hours I was making excursions to the bathroom every 20-30 minutes. Even though I’m not staying in the most posh hotel in Morondava, I definitely appreciated having a flush toilet for the experience as opposed to a hole in the ground. (Although the couple of drives to and from my site trying to get things moved in were certainly…..interesting, shall we say.) After a while the doctor put me on an antibiotic which started to turn things around pretty quickly. I’ve been improving very rapidly for the last 24 hours. I tried to eat a good meal last night but ended up just nibbling at the food. I finally got some more substantial food in me today. (Mom, I know you laughed at me for saving those granola bars I received in the package a month ago. But boy am I glad I did! Breakfast this morning was utterly delightful.)

The schedule’s still tentative because Shayla still can’t move into her house. I’m assuming at this point that I’ll be dropped off by my installers at my site whenever they are completely done with everything and ready to head back to Tana. They have to drive through my site anyway. But, depending on how things go, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just decided to go out there and drop me off tonight. Who knows. Go with the flow.

This week has certainly epitomized what I expect much of my life to be like for the next two years. Ups and downs abound (a lot more downs this week than ups), and it’s going to take a lot of willpower to stay committed to being here. But despite all of the challenges, there are still many moments of great joy. On Saturday night we walked out of our hotel to head to dinner right as the head of government’s motorcade drove by. All the windows were down, and he WAVED TO US!! FROM 15 FEET AWAY!!!! It was pretty cool . . . I’m pretty sure I’ll never get that close to any American President. And when I was moving my things in yesterday, all the kids and women in my neighborhood started crowding around my house to watch the whole production. They seemed very excited that I was moving in. So, it’s the memories like these that I need to hold on to during the moments (or days, or weeks as it may be) when I’m struggling. As the Malagasy would say, “Mazotoa!” (Enjoy!)

Love love,
Kristen

ALSO I think I got this picture upload to work. So here's what the pictures are: 1) me with my host family during training, 2) my host family enjoying the s'mores I taught them how to make one night after dinner, 3) my host family's house, 4) me giving a demonstration (in Malagasy!) to the neighborhood about clean/safe water, 5) me at swearing in, with the Malagasy and American flags behind me

More Pictures and a quick update

Greetings from Morondava!

Due to a slew of problems installing myself and the other two volunteers in the western part of the country, I find myself with a free afternoon at an internet cafe. The internet is fast enough for pictures, I hope. But it is costing me 100 Ariary per minute. My breakfast today cost 600 Ariary. By the time these are up I will have sacrificed at least 6 breakfasts. Also I'm using a French keyboard. Which is a challenge. Please forgive typos and lack of punctuation as they may appear. Point is....I expect mail from all of you to be on its way. Unfortunately I still haven't opened a PO box...angamba Latsinai (maybe Monday). In Malagasy "angamba" means maybe. But you often say it when really it means no. Same as in America.

Hmm...nevermind. Pictures seem to still be a no go. I will try once more but if not, sorry. Here's an excerpt of an email I just sent to my parents, to give you an idea of why installation is such a fiasco:

Peace Corps Washington has just altered the payment system so our money wasnt deposited to our accounts on time. Then the banks here took forever to process them. I spent 3 hours at the post office yesterday afternoon, was there till it closed; and almost still had to wait till Monday. Customer service is nonexistent here. Luckily I finally got it. Brenda, who we were supposed to drop off near Miandrivazo is still with us because she couldn't get money till yesterday either. We tried to install Shayla today. There is a family living in her house, allegedly getting evicted as we speak. So either she's making a family homeless, or she has to live in a temporary house for a month. Great. I drove though my site yesterday but we didn't stop to do anything. As of site visit I had no shower or latrine...I'd be willing to bet a lot of Ariary that they still don't exist. Also the "president" of Mcar, as well as Jerry Marcoss (biggest pop artist here) are both in Morondava this weekend. Shopping and getting around have been insane. I think I have almost everything I need though...at least to get by for a few weeks. Anything else I'm hoping I can get at my site or do without for a while.

Done With Training!

Important alert in the event that you get bored and don't read all the way through the post.....but I have a new phone #. The provider I had for training doesn't have service at my site, so I had to switch. My new number is 032 844 9699.

Woohoo! I have finished training and am now officially sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer! And tomorrow marks the 2 month anniversary of my arrival in Madagascar! I wish I could tell you that the time has flown by – but that would be a lie. It seems like training has taken FOREVER . . . but here I am, finally, trained and ready to go. So, here’s what I’ve learned from training:

1. The Malagasy people are extremely hospitable. A staff member shared with us a Malagasy proverb that says “We are not like the Ikopa River who turns red when other rivers come to join us.” The people in my training village have done nothing but prove this to be true—they have been incredibly welcoming, friendly, and helpful. I’m always invited into people’s homes while walking down the road, and the Malagasy people are always delighted to engage in conversation. My host family has been absolutely wonderful, teaching me to cook Malagasy food, playing games with me, and trying their best to explain things to me when I’m confused (which is still about 80% of the time.)

2. Malagasy numbers and quantities will probably continue to baffle me for the duration of my service. The Malagasy people say their numbers in the opposite order from English, they specify each digit individually, and there are no abbreviations. For example, the number 428763 is recited in Malagasy as the equivalent of “three and six tens and seven hundreds and eight thousands and two ten-thousands and four hundred-thousands.” You would think such a large number would never be an issue . . . but the exchange rate is currently about $1.00 = 2100 Ariary, so I do deal with large numbers on a pretty regular basis. Describing quantity is also a bit of a challenge for me. Saying a word twice means you have less of it. At times, this is pretty straightforward. (i.e. “adola” means “crazy,” as in a person is actually crazy, but “adoladola” is how you might describe your silly friend; “mitovy” means “the same” but “mitovytovy” means “like” or “similar to”) However, this gets challenging with “kely” (“small”) and “kelykely” which is actually LARGER than small because it’s like saying “less small than small.” Very confusing when your brain still functions in your dominant language of English.

3. Peace Corps is a very humbling experience. My host family, my trainers, and people in my training village repeatedly tell me “efa mahay,” meaning already experienced/already knowledgeable. This is a lie. My 4-year-old host brother can chop up firewood with a machete. My 9-year-old host brother can build a fire and keep it going; even after two months of practice, every time I blow on embers to get a spark going again, I end up just blowing the fire out completely. Women carry buckets of water up mountains like they’re running a marathon; I still have to switch hands every couple of steps and am completely out of breath when I go less than 100 meters from my well to my house.

We finished up training by moving out of our home stays and staying at the training center for a few days. We had a few final sessions, mostly on administrative and logistical stuff, and packed up all of our luggage. On Friday all of the host families came to the training center for a thank-you celebration. Two of us trainees gave speeches - one on behalf of the education trainees, and me on behalf of the health trainees. I threw in a lot of jokes, and everyone actually laughed! A lot! I'm starting to move from being funny because I don't understand the language or culture, to being funny because I actually know how to tell a joke in Malagasy! It's a nice feeling. (Although, admittedly, most of the jokes were poking fun at myself and the other Americans.)

We came to Tana for our swearing-in ceremony this morning. Normally it's done at the Ambassador's Residence....but as there is currently no American Ambassador here, that was out of the question. But we did have the ceremony at the Peace Corps Country Director's house, and there were representatives present from both the American Embassy and the Malagasy government. It was a pretty short ceremony, but very well done. The Malagasy and American government officials alike were encouraging. It's quite the journey I have ahead of me for the next two years, and I'm feeling very anxious about it all suddenly becoming real this week. But I'm still eager to get to site and get settled in.

Tomorrow I'll start making the permanent move towards site. There are two other volunteers who will be traveling with me and getting installed before me. But by Saturday/Sunday I should be mostly settled in.

A few notes on mail/packages. I definitely appreciate everything - ESPECIALLY letters. I've received things so far from Grandma and Grandpa, the Hummels, Greta, Clara, Rachael, and Maggie. If you've sent something that hasn't arrived yet, I will get it eventually, but probably not till mid-December. The address I originally gave you will be good for the duration of my service, but now that I'm moving out to site I'll only get mail sent through there when I'm in the capital (once every several months at best). I'm planning to open a PO box when I get out to my site - hopefully I'll have the address for that by the end of the week (though no promises). Mail will also take MUCH longer now that I'm a couple days from the capital. Many of you should have mail coming to you from me already.

I have no idea what my internet access will be like over the next several weeks. But keep the emails coming, keep the letters coming! Hopefully you'll hear from me again soon!

Love love.

PS: I may try to put up a few more pictures again. But the internet and my computer are being very finicky at the moment. And quite frankly I'd rather try to use skype and call some of you than put up pictures.