For Your Viewing Pleasure...

Quick luggage update: it did arrive, mostly in tact. It would appear a voalavo (rat) discovered it at some point and mistakenly thought the reason I packed crystal light mix and instant oatmeal was for the sole purpose of sharing with him. Such is life. I spent the weekend in Antsirabe for a regional volunteer meeting and will be heading back to site before too long. Since Morondava is so far away, Shayla and I rarely see other volunteers. It was really great to see friends and meet several of the new volunteers that arrived in March.

I made sure many of you saw this while I was home. But due to popular demand, I'm posting it here too so you always know where to find it. Tsiliva is a popular artist here in Madagascar. And yes, this is what passes for quality entertainment. Lyrics include such gems as "big Jesus, yes yes, big devil, no no;" "we all learn our lessons well;" and "it makes me sad when children are naughty, if you behave you won't have problems." Mazotoa (enjoy)!




Also, don't think I've talked much about this yet. I still don't have any major projects going at my site. But one of the things I have started to do is to try to take advantage of the fact that a ton of children think I'm the bees' knees and spend an enormous chunk of time at my house. I've started turning some of our play dates into opportunities to do some health education. I've started baking cookies and cakes with the kids, but making sure everybody washes their hands before cooking and eating and that we talk about good hygiene. I think once I'm back I'm going to start "Toothbrushing Time with Kristen" every day; we'll all gather and brush our teeth together. Here are some photos of the cooking fun, and another really cool one of a baobab tree.


Hand washing before cooking!



Fifa, Bana, Fetisoa (in back), & Fandry


mixing cake batter


wicked cool baobab

Until next time...Love love.

Apologies for this LONG-overdue post. I kept putting off updating, figuring that while I was at home I would have lots of time and free internet. Instead, I spent all my time stuffing my face with Chipotle burritos. But anyway, I'll try to give at least a brief rundown of the last several months.

I had started teaching health classes at the public middle school in my town. Many of the students are a bit older than middle school students in the states, partly because the French education system is slightly different from ours, but also because of the economic situation many families are in. Students often have to stop attending school for a swhile if they can't afford the fees (even the public schools require uniforms and basic supplies like notebooks/pens/etc.) So, I was working with the two oldest grades at the middle school, and most of my students are roughly in the 14-17 age group. Between the two grades, there are 5 sections.

So far, I've done an HIV/AIDS lesson with each section. I wanted to start small, and HIV/AIDS is a complicated enough topic that I figured it was enough to begin with. the lessons went really well and most of the students were very excited to have me in class. I'm hoping by next school year to maybe have a more regular time to meet with the students and teach about health. Also, I may start a Girls' Club over the summer and do activities that focus on women's empowerment, peer pressure, positive self image, etc.

In other news, if there were Tropical Disease Bingo, I'd probably be pretty close to having a BINGO by now. Shortly before heading to the states for my brother's high school graduation, I contracted amoebic dysentery. (Oregon Trail jokes aside, I can assure you, that was NOT much of a party.) But the doctors started me on meds and it all began to turn around. It still made for a pretty uncomfortable 36 hours of airports and airplanes over the Atlantic, but I made it home eventually. I got to spend 4 great days over Memorial Day weekend with my friends in DC, and then 2 weeks at home with family for Ryan's graduation. [And in case you hadn't heard yet, he'll be joining the ranks of the OSU Buckeyes this fall! Congrats Ryan!]

I'm sure many of you will be wanting an update on all of the heat rash issues. I went to the travel clinic while I was home to see if the doctors there had ANY other ideas for how I could treat the heat rash when it comes back during next year's hot season (as it most likely will). As I'm back in Madagascar, I obviously got all the clearance I needed to return. But now that I'm back, I've had conversations with medical and administrative staff. It's looking like I'm probably going to have to move sites, to the highlands which are SIGNIFICANTLY colder. Things are still a bit up in the air and it will be a few more months down the road, but I'm pretty sure that's what's going to happen. (Keep sending mail, though! I'm not leaving any time soon!)

The other debacle of the last few days is that my luggage didn't arrive with me on Wednesday night. Apparently it's here now though, and I can go pick it up at the airport in a few minutes. Then I'm heading south to Antsirabe for a regional volunteer meeting, and in a couple of days I'll be heading back to my village. I have a few more things to finish up while I'm here at the meva and have free internet, but I'll try to get a few more pictures up before I head out. It was so great to be home and see all of you! Keep sending mail! :)

Love love.

Poke the Pimple

There is a Malagasy game I'd like to tell you about. It is called Poke the Pimple, and it is quite similar to Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Although people use their fingers instead of paper tails, and there is no donkey - only the many pimples on my face. I'm still not sure of all the rules, but it seems to me the main objective is to see who can get their fingers closest to a pimple. 25 points if you notice it and point at it while whispering to your friend; 50 points if you point to the corresponding location on your own face; 100 points if you actually poke my pimple; 200 points if you muster the courage to ask me what it is. This game is extremely popular with Malagasy children, although adults are much better at it. Children usually don't jump out of the 25-point bracket, but market women consistently break the 200-point barrier. I believe I heard a rumor they're considering adding Poke the Pimple to the Olympic Games in 2020. If they do, I'm sure that Madagascar will sweep the medals and probably set several new records.

Other than playing that every day, there hasn't been too much going on lately. I've spent the last several weeks having repairs done on my house. A series of storms knocked my fence completely down, and I had reinforcements put on my windows and doors for overnight and when I leave my house for extended periods of time. Since I lived in the residence halls all through college, I've never had a place of my own where I was in charge of dealing with maintenance. It's been really funny to me trying to navigate all of that in a foreign language--I'm clueless enough with all that stuff in English. Placing orders for supplies and negotiating with the carpenter has been an absolutely hilarious adventure. I debated whether or not I even wanted to have the fence rebuilt, but ultimately decided yes for several reasons. Everyone around me has fences, and I really do feel like it's necessary for security. But the most important thing that influenced me was my role as a health volunteer. There are lots of cats and dogs in the neighborhood (generally not vaccinated), as well as chickens, goats, and other creatures that roam around. When I talk about hygiene, cleanliness, disease, keeping food and water clean and uncontaminated, I figured it might be helpful if I model a healthy lifestyle and clean home by trying to keep animals away from my living & cooking space. If I don't even do it, how can I expect anyone else to?!

I've been fairly frustrated with work lately. I am in a new site for Peace Corps - no PCV has ever been in my village before, though there have been volunteers from other organizations/countries. I can tell those groups had very different roles from me, though, and I have struggled to figure out how to explain why I'm there and what my role is in the community. Getting projects going outside of working at the clinic that also involve Malagasy people is very challenging. I really want my local counterparts to be involved in every step of the process so that things may continue even after I leave here. I've decided to try to stop focusing all of my energy on work and try instead just to live here. I'm hoping that if I spend more time with women at the market, start inviting people over to my house for dinner, and find other ways to build relationships, ideas might start to develop.

That being said, it is getting easier. More and more people recognize me (even if I have no idea who they are -- there are thousands of people in my village!) ... but I'm not just the vazaha anymore. At least not to some people. A lot of times I don't even have to explain myself - somebody else will jump in for me and say "oh, yes, she works at the hospital, she goes around and talks about health, I saw her doing this/that one day, etc etc." It's really reassuring to hear that.

International Women's Day was a couple of weeks ago, and my village had a festival for it. There was a parade of sorts in the morning, and then everyone gathered around all day for singing and dancing. Here's a picture of the parade up to the village commune:



All the women were also doing "yard work" in front of the commune/cleaning up the area. I decided to pitch in and help, figuring everyone would get a kick of the vazaha getting involved. Sure enough everybody thought it was hysterical and kept telling me I was doing it the wrong way. There is a right way and a wrong way to dig up weeds, didn't you know?



I kept hearing that the Prime Minister of Madagascar was going to be coming - to which I thought, "Seriously? Out of ALL the places in Madagascar, he's going to be in MY village?!" But after I had waited around for several hours, still with no sign of his arrival, I finally decided to leave. But I did stay long enough to see a lot of the singing and dancing, and enjoyed lunch. It was kind of like a Malagasy picnic with people sitting on mats on the ground!

Even though I've been here for several months, I had NEVER IN MY LIFE seen so much rice!!!!!! They had dozens of ENORMOUS pots of it, and it was scooped into gigantic water buckets to distribute. I unfortunately didn't snap a picture of the giant buckets, but here are some pictures of lunch & a couple women I ate with:




All in all, it was a very nice day, and it started generating some ideas to possibly implement later in my service. It reminded me that people love food and a celebration which has food will always attract people.....so maybe I can organize some educational festivals similar to this one. We shall see.

Well I think that's about all the news I have related to Madagascar. Before I sign off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY LITTLE BROTHER!!!! He turned 18 this week!!! AND he's gotten into quite the selection of colleges. Congrats, I'm so proud of you!

Love love.

All Clear

The rash has gone away and the doctors have cleared me to go back to my site. It's been cold and rainy here in Tana and is still really hot at my site, so there's a good chance the rash will resurface. But we'll cross that bridge if and when we come to it. I have a new ointment that hopefully will help stave it off.

I'm ready to head back. Being in Tana was actually pretty stressful this time around. There have been a ton of people in and out of the meva, and the internet has been TERRIBLE (hence why I didn't update all week). I was able to relax and watch a few movies, but I was sort of itching to get out of the city and back to my village. I'm still not completely acclimated at my site, but I felt like I was just beginning to make some strides when I had to come to Tana to deal with the whole rash issue. Hopefully I'll be able to get settled right back in and pick up with work.

Honestly I don't know what else to say. There haven't been many new things happening at my site. Just a quick word on mail before I sign off . . . it seems like mail delivery may be slowing down a little bit, both to and from Madagascar. Most things are arriving though so please keep sending stuff! So far I've received every package I was supposed to, and everything seems to be present. It seems like some letters aren't making it, or maybe they're just held up. Honestly I can't predict it - some things arrive in as little as 10 days, some things come 2-3 months after they're postmarked. There seems to be no rhyme or reason with the type of packaging or point of origin. So, please just keep writing to me and keep fingers crossed it gets here eventually! I love all the letters :)

Love love

My Life: Always a Fiasco, Part 2

"Never a dull moment, huh?" - part of a text from my mother last week. Never a dull moment is right. I've been battling a heat rash on my back since late November. It was annoying but tolerable for a while, and the combination of my travels in December in cooler parts of the country + some different meds helped a little bit. But ever since I got back to my site, the weather has been growing more and more miserable each day, as has the rash. Last week it flared up to an unbearable level, and did not improve despite the Peace Corps doctors increasing my med dosage and adding another medication. So, they told me I would need to come to Tana to see a dermatologist. So naturally, cyclone Bingiza decided to hit Morondava at the exact same time, preventing me from leaving my site and traveling to Tana. Then over the weekend the safety and security officer was sending out alerts about potential problems with demonstrations in Tana, especially around the airport. Apparently former president Ravalomanana (who has been exiled) thought it would be a good time to try to finagle his way back onto the island. So, getting to Tana was a bit of a challenge. Had it been an emergency, the situation absolutely would have been different, so to all concerned parties - have no fear. Since it wasn't an emergency, I was able to wait it out and am now in Tana. I'll be here at least through tomorrow, possibly longer. I'm seeing the dermatologist in the morning so we'll see how it goes. I'll be sure to post something longer tomorrow. For now, I have an early morning ahead of me and want to take advantage of the electricity and crawl into bed with a movie.

Here's a picture of my back one of the days last week. (Cooler whether has since helped the rash cool off, though it is still bothering me.)

Apparently I Am Now Ugly

Well, I have survived another month of village life. And apparently I am now ugly. When I came back to my site after traveling, I discovered that Floria and her family (my old neighbors) had also moved into a new house—one that didn’t have rent. I still swing by their new house occasionally, though it’s out of my way enough that I can’t go all the time. On several of these recent visits, Floria has been very distraught over my physical appearance due to my having lost a little bit of weight since my arrival. Not much, but enough to be a bit slimmer than I was when I stepped off that plane six months ago. (I attribute this primarily to the removal of Chipotle burritos from my diet, but also have to give a bit of credit to the frequent intestinal troubles which my mother so eloquently described: “well with all that diarrhea you’ve been having, you can hardly keep anything in.”) Anyway, Floria keeps telling me things which translate roughly to, “You used to be fat. Now you are skinny and your face has gotten really ugly. What kind of food am I supposed to eat so I can have fat arms like you used to have?” I try to explain that we value the opposite in America and that I would be considered more attractive now, but she insists that I am not healthy and I would be much more beautiful if I got fat again. Oh well.

In other outrageous news, due to my marlaria prophylaxis I occasionally have dreams that are either entirely ridiculous or incredibly frightening. Last week I dreamt that my brother Ryan had enlisted in the Navy and was killed in combat. I share this with you not to be dramatic, but rather because, surprisingly, it was a bit of insight into Malagasy culture. Even though I obviously realized it was only a dream, I was understandably shaken up by it and it was still bothering me a day later. I mentioned it to one of my Malagasy friends and she told me, “Oh, that’s really good!” I wondered briefly about which words I had mixed up in my explanation that she misunderstood my meaning, but then she added, “We believe that if you dream about somebody dying, he or she will actually have a very long life. So it is a good thing if you dream about people dying.” Apparently you should all hope that I start having dreams you drop dead very suddenly. Interesting, eh?

In terms of work, I am still struggling to figure out what to do at my site, but I am very slowly beginning to find ways to branch out beyond the clinic. There is a local nutrition organization that trains health educators throughout Madagascar to weigh children, do cooking demonstrations for mothers, and other nutrition-related activities. There are several people who work for them in my village, but one woman in particular has been incredibly helpful and welcoming to me. So for the last several weeks I have been going out one day a week with Madame Vao to help weigh babies and distribute and explain the children’s health notebooks provided by the Ministry of Health. (The notebooks have growth charts showing target weight ranges, and also have pictures and information about a balanced diet, good breastfeeding practices, vaccination, and other crucial information for children under age 5.) I very quickly realized that Madame Vao is really on top of her game and doesn’t actually need my help at all. But I enjoy working with her—she helps me learn more Malagasy language—and I’ve found it’s a good way for me to interact more with people in my community. So to make myself a bit more useful, I still help weigh babies and add information I think is important, but I’ve also started giving talks about other topics such as diarrhea or malaria. I figure while I have a crowd gathered, I may as well take the opportunity to deliver more health messages.

This week I realized I may be able to help more than I had thought originally. Several weeks ago Madame Vao had casually mentioned something about “ananambo” (moringa) growing by her house. Moringa is an incredibly nutritious plant and fortunately grows very well in many parts of Madagascar. I pulled out some information I had from Peace Corps about the plant and mentioned that the seeds and leaves can both be eaten and the leaves can be dried and pounded into a powder to add to the food of young children. Even a small amount of moringa can provide kids’ daily requirements of calcium; magnesium; iron; and vitamins A, B, & C, and it’s great for pregnant mothers or women who are breastfeeding. She knew it contained calcium but hadn’t realized just how nutritionally valuable the plant is. Anyway, after mentioning it I hadn’t really thought twice about it. But this week, Madame Vao asked to see the information again and copied it down. She told some of the mothers with underweight babies about it this week, and if I understood correctly, we’re going to do a cooking demonstration with moringa at her house next week. I’m really excited about this because it’s pretty much the first time since I’ve moved into my village that I felt like I was actually providing a knowledge or skill that wasn’t already here. If things go well next week, I’m going to see if Madame Vao can help me gather some other health educators in the area who might be interested in coming to learn about moringa.

I also had another great day for work yesterday. When I first moved in I met a man, Severino, who told me he did health education and had worked some with a couple of Japanese volunteers who lived here a couple of years ago. I couldn’t figure out if he was affiliated with any organization, and I’ll admit I was a little bit skeptical of his intentions since Malagasy men are usually not timid about their desire to have a vazaha wife. But I had seen him helping with mosquito net distribution in November, and he was very friendly (though not too friendly) when I bumped into him a couple times by the market. Since I’ve been feeling a little stir crazy spending a lot of slow hours at the clinic, I decided I’d see if he’d be interested in going around the area to do health talks. I’ve really enjoyed working with Madame Vao and thought I’d be much more satisfied here if I could do work similar to that on a more regular basis. Anyway, Severino and I agreed to go around to houses yesterday and talk about malaria. I had no idea how successful it would be, but I was incredibly pleased with the day.

All along, I’ve assumed that knowledge and practices related to health were probably better around where I live since the clinic is right here and therefore people are more likely to come to give birth, receive vaccinations, and seek treatment when they’re sick. This is probably true, and I’ve noticed that most of the people at the clinic are from fairly close neighborhoods. So I figured once I got more acclimated, I’d spend most of my time trying to get into areas that are much farther away from the clinic and not do a whole lot of work in the area immediately around my house. I did make the mistake of assuming that most people actually utilize these services since they’re so close. Going around yesterday, I realized this is apparently not the case and that there is still a lot of work that can be done in the area immediately around me (and I’m actually a bit frightened of what I might see when I do go farther out!) Despite the fact that there was a Ministry-of-Health-sponsored mosquito net distribution in November, there were still a lot of households that did not have nets. And there were an alarming number of families that had nets (multiples even!) but were not using them—they were stored in boxes or bags in a corner. Although the net distribution went really well, I’m not sure there was any follow-up after the fact to make sure people were actually using them. This is probably something I’ll try to initiate the next time a distribution happens. In addition to being able to see things for myself, working with Severino was great. He explained new vocabulary to me and helped me correct mistakes I made speaking Malagasy. He’s also a very good educator—he had people really engaged and laughing a lot of the time. It was also useful for me to see how he did the talks at the houses. I’ve been doing talks on the exact same information for the last few months at the clinic, but doing them at people’s houses added an element of visibility, and I hadn’t realized how helpful that could be. He was not at all shy about pointing out to people spots where they should sweep up messes or get rid of standing water or cover buckets in their house. I felt like the talks yesterday were infinitely more helpful to my community than the talks I’ve been giving at the clinic. And I don’t think at any point in time we were anywhere farther than a ten-minute walk to the clinic. We’re heading out again next Wednesday to go to areas we didn’t hit yet. I’m hoping he’ll be willing to do this every week so we can go really far and talk about lots of different topics, but we’ll see!

I also got some insight from him about possible future projects. I’ve been struggling for a while to figure out how the health educators are organized, what they’re trained in, who they are, etc. etc. Everybody seems to have a slightly different answer (which in some ways probably is an answer). But Severino said there used to be a lot of people who went out a while back, but things are disorganized because of the recent political struggles and people don’t want to work anymore since they’re not paid. This gives me some things to ponder with regard to how I can potentially help get a health educator system back up and running. There are clearly people who have knowledge about doing health eduation, and there are several organizations around Madagascar that help train and equip health educators to do work, so I’m hoping that during my time here I’ll be able to get a really good program going in my area again.

As usual, I’ve written an encyclopedia, so I think I’ll cut it off here. Haven’t taken any pictures lately, but I’ll try to get some for next time. Before I sign off I want to send special birthday wishes to my Grandmother Walling today and Grandpa Hanna tomorrow. Also, a rather belated congratulations to my brother Ryan who has been accepted at Auburn and Kansas University!! (Although the booger won't ever answer his telephone, so I had to find this out a couple weeks late via an email from my father. Sheesh.)

And to the new group of trainees arriving next month—WE’RE SO EXCITED FOR YOU TO BE COMING!! Hopefully my answers to some of your questions have been helpful. Looking forward to meeting all of you eventually!

Love love.

Bonjour Mary, Bonjour Elizabeth: Christmas, New Year's, and Some Fun Projects in the Highlands

Well, after a few weeks of bopping around and helping out with projects at friends' sites, I'm back in Tana and will be finally heading back to my own site in a couple of days. After my training, I headed south to Glenda's site, a little bit outside of Antsirabe, for a week. Her clinic has an outdoor kitchen area for the women giving birth. They usually stay at the clinic for a few days, so it's nice to have an area to cook food. The cookstoves that were already there were pretty rundown, though, so we decided to help build new ones. We've learned how to make high-efficiency cookstoves out of local materials such as dirt, clay, ashes, or rice flour. They help contain heat, using less wood or charcoal than simply building a fire, so the Malagasy term for them is "fatana mititsy" ("stingy stove"). We gathered all of the patients & staff at the clinic and explained the process for making the stoves and benefits of using them. Then we got them to help us sift the materials and make the mixture. A lot of people seemed very interested and were asking a lot of questions about the stoves, wanting to know what other kinds of materials could be used for the mixture. And of course, it was fun to play in the mud! Here, Monique, Glenda, and I are beginning to sift the materials and mix them together with water.





I also celebrated Christmas at Glenda's site, along with Monique and Erica. We made our best attempt at the "Peace Corps oven" (a fairly imprecise method involving sand, empty cans, and a very large pot over a gas stove) and baked some Christmas cookies. They sort of all ran together, but considering we've been in Madagascar for over 5 months, we thought they got the job done.





Glenda had also bought a "Christmas tree" (though, the Malagasy and American concepts of what shape a Christmas tree typically are seem to differ a bit). We did our best (thanks to Colleen for the decorations you sent in the package!) to perk it up it in an American fashion, though it still had an uncanny resemblance to the Charlie Brown Christmas tree.




After Christmas I proceeded on to Tisa's site near Fianarantsoa. We did a training with the health educators in her commune and taught them about the "hot box." In the same concept as the fatana mititsy, the hot box is a way of cooking over fire for a short period of time, and then moving the food to a box/basket/some sort of contraption that contains heat so the food can keep cooking without using up resources. We used woven baskets, fabric, and blankets-items which probably every Malagasy family has in their house. The cookstoves and the hot boxes are great for the environment and health - they cut down on smoke which causes respiratory infections. On subsequent days, we went out with the health educators into the villages further away to teach villagers about the technique. Figuring a demonstration would help, and knowing how much the Malagasy people love their rice, we actually cooked rice in the hot box so everyone could see it in action. It was a huge success! Tisa's going to go back out and follow up in a few weeks and see if anybody has actually started using the hot box to cook.




Even though it was already after Christmas Day, the celebrations were still in full swing at Tisa's site. One afternoon we went to a "Christmas Spectacle," which had an array of performances but featured a kids' Christmas pageant. The script told the story of the birth and included musical interludes in Malagasy, French, and English. I was especially moved by the part of the story where Mary and Elizabeth greeted one another ("Bonjour Mary, Bonjour Elizabeth"), and discussed the pending arrival of their sons. The mayor's son's rendition of Michael Jackson's "We Are the World" was also informative - I had not previously realized what a pivotal role that song played in the birth of Jesus Christ. Here you can see everyone gathered in the stable - complete with baby Jesus lying on the ground and Herod's soldiers (wearing pink glittery wizards' hats) standing in the background.



Tisa's site is also right near the enormous tea estate at Sahambavy, where Madagascar's famous vanilla tea is made. So we took a stroll one by the plantation and saw where the tea grows. In case you can't tell, Erica, Tisa, and I are spelling out "TEA" in the picture.



Finally, I reigned in the new year with a bunch of other PCV's in Fianarantsoa. Of course I put the New Year's hats and necklaces that Colleen sent to good use and made my American friends wear them around town with me all day. We attracted even more attention than we usually get just for being "vazaha," but I'm pretty sure the Malagasy people got a kick out of it (thanks again, Colleen!)



Tomorrow I'll be flying back to Morondava. Word on the street is I have a ton of letters and packages waiting for me; I'll be picking it all up and then hopefully head back to my site in the afternoon - thanks in advance for anything you've sent! Since I'm itching to get back and really get settled into the new house and start things all over again, I'm not planning on being in town any time soon. So it may be a while before I update again, but know that I'm thinking about and missing you all. Hope everyone had blessed holidays!

Love love.

In-Service Training

Last week I was back at the Peace Corps training site for several days of in-service training. After we've been at site for nearly 3 months, PC likes to bring us all back together to process the first few months and try to figure out where to go with projects now that we know a bit more of what it's like to actually be a volunteer. The schedule was pretty flexible so we got to help create our own sessions and get information about the things that we felt like we needed to learn and take back to our sites. It was also nice to see the other 37 people from my training class again - Shayla was the only one I had seen since I was installed at my site. We were all able to exchange horror stories about the mayhem we faced in our first few months at site and bounce some ideas off of each other for future projects.

I'm pretty pleased with how the week went because I feel like I have a little more direction for what I can do when I get back to site in a few weeks. At first I was flabbergasted at how many health-related activities are already going on at some of the other volunteers' sites. Although, many of these sites have had PCV's in the past or are in bigger, less isolated towns. My site is fairly removed from where many NGO's and aid organizations focus their work, and it's a new Peace Corps site. So there's not much going on in my area yet. After hearing everyone else's stories, though, I have realized I'm definitely NOT in the worst situation. While there's not much happening yet, I do have a pretty great clinic staff and a lot of excitement in the community so I think there's potential for things to develop.

Many villages already have many health educators who are trained in health topics and go out into the community to share knowledge and often provide basic health care such as vaccines. I either don't yet have them at my site, or they're not organized in a comprehensive and effective way yet. So when I get back to my village, I'm hoping to begin searching for people who are interested in doing health education and work with local organizations to conduct trainings and start getting people out into the more remote parts of my commune.

Perhaps what I'm most excited about, however, is a social marketing organization I may begin working with several days a week. They have organized many health campaigns and products for disease prevention, especially on malaria and STI and HIV/AIDS education. They do a lot of work on AIDS prevention and STI awareness among commercial sex workers, and that is definitely a major concern in the Morondava area. My Peace Corps supervisor introduced me to a couple of their employees who are hopefully going to get me in touch with their Morondava office so I can work with them when I'm back. I'm hoping that ends up working out because I think I could learn a lot by working with their office. Keep fingers crossed it works out!


Now beyond all the seriousness, as you can probably imagine, bringing together nearly 40 Americans who haven't seen each other for a few months results in a bit of ridiculousness and mayhem. In markets and roadside stalls all over Madagascar, you can find second-hand clothes from overseas; the Malagasy people call this stuff "frip." (I have seen about a trillion pairs of athletic shorts that say "Cleveland 23" on them - can't imagine why!) Anyway, a bunch of us decided to have an "Ugly Frip Party" during our in-service training, the idea being that we would all find the most outrageous frip we possibly could and have a dance party. It was pretty hilarious seeing what everybody was able to come up with. Here I am with other PCV's Christiane and Monique, and then Brianna. It was a fun night!




There was also a bit of chaos when we got back to the meva (Peace Corps transit house) in Tana. As the rainy season is beginning, we've had pretty heavy rain storms the last several nights. The meva is also at the bottom of a hill, so thanks to gravity water collects pretty rapidly and starts flowing into the entrance of the largest bedroom. This happened the first night we were back, but we got all of our bags off the floor and walked carefully across the tile floor. Two nights ago it rained again and we saw a ton of water pouring from the second-floor balcony, which we assumed was again from the rain. After it had stopped raining for a while, though, my friend Tisa soon discovered that the entire second floor was flooding because the tube to a water tank in the medical unit had broken and was spewing water everywhere. Several of us sprang into action, got the guards to help us turn off the water, called the PC duty officers and medical staff, and started a broom brigade to begin sweeping the several inches of water outside and over the balconies. JUST when I think I'm done with my days of being an RA - hah!

This is Lorin, aiming the still-spewing water into the sink so at least it wasn't spraying all over the med unit anymore.



Water gushing down the meva stairs.



Tisa and Monique moving dripping boxes of medical supplies off of the floor and to a more dry location.



Me, attempting to sweep up water.



There's just been all kinds of excitement these last couple of weeks!

I still won't be back at my site for a couple more weeks. I'm going to a couple of the other health volunteers' sites to help out with some projects. I'll be in the Antsirabe area for several days adding a kitchen & cookstoves onto the maternity room at my friend Glenda's site, and will spend Christmas there with her Malagasy friends and a few other PCV's. Then I'll be around Fianarantsoa at Tisa's site doing a training with the health educators. Tisa's site has 41 HEALTH EDUCATORS that do a lot of work in her community. Since that's something I want to start up at my own site, I'm excited to see how they work and get some ideas on how to begin.

I'm really not sure what my access to internet is going to be like over the next couple of weeks. I think there's a chance I'll have more access than I usually do at my site, but I just don't know for sure. I will be swinging back through Tana around January 2 or 3 before I return to Morondava, though, and I should have internet then that's fast enough for skype - so keep that in mind! Hope you all have a wonderful time for the holidays; I'm thinking of you all!

Love love.

A Malagasy Thanksgiving

This post is fairly late getting up here, but since everyone has been inquiring about my turkey/my Thanksgiving celebration, I’ll talk a little bit about that. The day was a huge success! Philbert Kely’s health problems continued, and I didn’t think it was a good idea to eat him for Thanksgiving dinner, so I was prepared to purchase a new bird closer to the day. Then he mysteriously disappeared, and when I inquired about him I got some suspicious answers from my neighbors. I’m pretty sure they may have sold him to a local Malagasy restaurant without telling me, though I haven’t been able to confirm that. Either way, we ended up eating a different bird for our Thanksgiving celebration.

Shayla, the only other volunteer near me, came over and we had green beans, mashed potatoes, STUFFING FROM AMERICA (thanks Mom!), and “sweet potato casserole.” A combination of foods being different colors/shapes/sizes here and my poor language skills resulted in me buying a million pounds of yams instead of sweet potatoes. And I did not realize this until after I had started trying to mash them up. I had marshmallows I had bought in Tana after swearing-in so I decided to see what would happen anyway. It ended up being DELICIOUS. We set up a buffet table in my back yard and let everyone prepare their plates.



My neighbors killed and prepared the turkey. I was pretty disappointed that I didn’t get to kill the bird myself, but apparently it’s taboo for women to kill animals in my region. There also wasn’t any feasible way to roast a turkey, but my neighbor’s sister cooked it in a pot with oil, curry, tomatoes, onions, and some other spices. Not your typical Thanksgiving turkey, but still amazing.

A bunch of my friends from the neighborhood came over for the feast. I’m not sure anybody really liked the food too much—there were some funny facial expressions and I had a sneaking suspicion most people were trying to politely force the food down. When I asked if everyone liked American food, many of them said, “Eka fa mbo tsy zatra,” which basically means, “Yes, we’re just not accustomed to it yet.” Here you can see the looks of hesitation on the face of Anniko, a girl who lived just down the street from me in my old house, and some of my other former neighbors.





Shayla and I, on the other hand, were beyond satisfied. It ended up being far closer to an American Thanksgiving than I ever would have imagined could be possible in Madagascar. During the meal I explained as best I could in my broken Malagasy how the tradition was started and why we celebrate the holiday. I certainly have a new appreciation for it after my first several months here in Madagascar. I told my friends I can relate to being the outsider who doesn't know how to speak the same language or find and prepare food, and that I've been grateful to everyone in my village who has welcomed me and tried to help me get settled in. It was definitely an odd way to celebrate the day, but I'm glad I was able to successfully share it with my community here.

A Break in Tana

Well, it's been a while since I've been able to update this, but it's also been a very hectic several weeks. I've been in Tana for a few days because I have in-service training next week and then will be doing business projects with some other volunteers. This much-needed break could not have come at a more perfect time. It's been nice to see all of my American friends from my training class and be back in a place with more amenities and connectivity to life off the island.

My housing situation had been growing increasingly problematic, mostly because of an overbearing landlady and many health issues. A combination of doctors' recommendations and my supervisor's visit to my site led to me being moved into a new house last week. I'm still in the same village, about a 2 minute walk from where my old house was. Luckily I don't think there are any hard feelings, and I still swing by the old neighborhood almost every day to hang out with my friends around there. I have still been eating with my old neighbors, but my work schedule and the new house have made it less convenient than it used to be so I may switch to eating with them only on the weekends now.

Here's a picture from moving day, which I thought was absolutely hysterical. I had to get assistance my friends across the street who have an ox-cart to move my furniture and other heavy things to the new house. My very own Malagasy U-Haul.



I had a great week in the new house, and I think it's going to solve a lot of my problems, making it easier to get acclimated to life here and get started on more serious work when I'm back at site in a few weeks. I'm RIGHT next to the clinic now, but I like it. Most of the other staff also lives in the vicinity, so I think it helps all the patients affiliate me with the clinic and health work when they see me around there even more frequently than before. Here are some pictures of the house: a view from the outside (mine is the room on the right; the other rooms are used by the clinic when staff comes from other towns to help out for a few weeks at a time); views of the inside; 2 of the 3 ADORABLE puppies that often sleep in the shade in my yard.







These last few days in Tana have been simply marvelous. Everyone from my training class has been trickling into town over the last couple of days - it's nice catching up with everyone and getting to explore the city a little bit. Even though I came into Tana several times during training, it was usually for half a day and was to take care of Peace Corps business; never had much free time. It felt kind of ridiculous that I've been in the country for almost 5 months and had no idea how to get around the capital city. But, I've been living a life of luxury here at the Peace Corps meva (transit house). I've had free internet, couches, flush toilets, hot showers, a kitchen, the ability to sleep past 4:30am since there are no roosters or village children in the compound, and the temperature has been in the 70's (MUCH cooler than the average day at my site).

And the RESTAURANTS in Tana are nothing short of DIVINE!! I've enjoyed Indian food, salads, paninis, and other delicious meals. The place that has just topped off the whole week, though, is an American-style cafe called The Cookie Shop. The Cookie Shop has things like bagel sandwiches, tuna melts, chocolate chip cookies, brownie ice cream sundaes, cupcakes, iced coffee, chai tea, and fruit smoothies. I had an utterly delightful Saturday brunch special there this morning including waffles topped with chocolate syrup and whipped cream. Another volunteer was asked, "Would you like your carrot cake to come with the luscious cream cheese frosting?" -- to which she replied, "Why, yes, I believe I would like the luscious cream cheese frosting." The wait staff speak English, and one of my friends was even sassed with American-style sarcasm by an employee, giving us a good chuckle. (Sarcasm is a concept that is usually entirely lost on the Malagasy people.) It probably goes without saying that I have been to The Cookie Shop every day since I rolled into town.

These last several days have lifted my spirits and renewed my energy and excitement for my Peace Corps service. It is still going to be a few weeks before I'm back in my village, but I think I'll be ready for it when the time comes. These last couple of months have certainly not been the easiest. But I'm looking forward to going back and starting fresh. I've actually been learning a lot about my town and many of the health and development issues that I'll be working on . . . I'll update about all of that soon.