Catching up

Hey friends and fam!  Welcome back!  Sorry it’s been so long.  My computer's back in working order thanks to Nat and PCV Liz V., so I can finally fill you in on all that’s been going on here.  Here’s a smattering of what’s been going on.  Running out of time with internet, so this post will be disjointed and unfinished, but enjoy!

I’ve officially been here 6 months, so a lot of my life has gotten fairly routine for me.  The first few months at site have been going fairly smoothly.  I haven’t been getting significantly sick or injured (a rarity in Peace Corps.  We affectionately call simultaneous vomiting and diarrhea “Double Dragon”).  But I'm back from training, and starting projects; keeping really busy and productive.  More "job" then "adventure" these days, but still enjoying myself here.

Something you guys should know about the experience of being here is the Vazaha (va-ZAH) effect.  Vazaha most literally means “foreigner,” but tends to mean French, white, rich, educated, tourist.  It can be a term of respect depending on context.  I, however, make a great effort to disassociate myself from Vazaha whenever possible.  First some history.  Madagascar was a French colony until the 60s, which is always greatly appreciated by local populations.  In 1947, there was a rebellion for independence.  The French put it down with mass executions, totaling over 30,000 Malagasy, including my host mother’s grandfather.  These days, most foreigners are tourists, blowing loads of money in front of impoverished people, making no attempt to learn the language or culture.  Quite often, with tourists and expatriates living here, you’ll see older men take advantage of underage prostitutes, girlfriends, and wives.  I fortunately don’t have to witness much of that; I’m content to just scowl at the busses of Vazaha passing by on the paved road.  So, whatever positives come with being associated with Vazaha, they’re definitely not worth it for me.  Of course, I am white and foreign, so it’s not something I get to escape.  Though, in my own town, if you call me Vazaha, you’re gonna get a speech.  There are very few people who still do that.

Treatment of Vazaha.  On the negative spectrum, Vazaha are targets for crime, receive perpetual requests for money and gifts, and receive sneering comments from passersby (and aggressive come-ons if you’re a girl).  On the “neutral/moderately annoying for an American” spectrum, children will walk up and stare at you, or shout French greetings repeatedly, and adults will often continue speaking French to you after you explain that you’re not French and can actually understand a lot of Gasy.  On the positive, you can get a lot of trust and preferential treatment.  I’ve walked into a town commune office looking for a map and the Mayor stopped what he was to come arrange transportation for me.  PCVs have taken money out of the bank without any kind of I.D.

Food.  I just heard the words “French fries” in a song, and a pang of longing shuddered through the core of my being.  Fooooood.  American fooooood.  I want a lasagna.  I want a double barbeque bacon cheeseburger, medium rare if you please.  Twelve styles of burrito in one place.  Sure, SOME of it can be found at Vazaha restaurants in the cities, but it’s never quite the same (and WAY too expensive to eat regularly.  I could eat at site for 2 days for the cost of a side of fries, let alone a vazaha meal).  I want to get hungry, and have a burrito in my hand 5 minutes later INCLUDING travel time.  THAT’s America.  Also, I listened to that overplayed Adele song today, and it’s finally good again.

In August we had a 2-week In Service Training back at the training center in Montasoa (near Tana).  On the trip up, I finally bought a guitar.  Major milestone.  I’d been missing it a lot.  Occasionally at site I’d come across a person with a guitar and ask to play it, only to find it unplayable; all warped, strings older than me, no chance of ever being in tune.  Understandably of course.  Guitars are a pretty high ticket item here, and replacing strings costs half as much as a decent guitar.  Having a solid guitar around has been great for my sanity, though it attracts a lot of attention.  I tell people it was a gift sent from the U.S., so I can still present the image that I don’t have THAT much money.  Vazaha problems.  As luck would have it, immediately after spending all of my cash on hand on the guitar, I lost my bank card.  Literally moments after.  I was still in the checkout lane when I noticed it was gone.  Ridiculous.  On the whole, the day was still a positive, ‘cause, ya know, guitar!  Rock!

Anyway, the 36 of us were brought back together after 3 months at site, most of us pretty deprived of American company, and not having much or any news of each other in that time.  So of course, our first night back, we all… went to bed early.  My taxi-brousse ride to Tana was about 11 hours, and mine was among the shorter trips.  People’s sites are as much as 2 days travel from Tana.  Pretty grueling.  On top of that, it was freezing in Montasoa.  Winter, high elevation, overcast and rainy weather, tree cover, wind off the lake, and a lack of indoor heating came together to make the first week miserable.  We were in 12 hours of trainings every day, wrapped in blankets and huddled around fires.  We each brought a Malagasy counterpart from site to train alongside us for the first week.  A lot of them only had sandals on their feet; felt terrible making them sit through that cold.  At least the trainings were good; when I got back to site later, my counterpart was excited and ready to get started on a fairly ambitious program.  More on that later.

Here is where I would’ve talked about my vacation.  In short: saw a national park, went to the beach, saw/fed/fist-bumped some lemurs (all true).

                Here is where I would’ve have talked about the Americans vs Malagasy soccer tournament PCV Antoinette arranged.  In short, Americans suck at soccer.  Playing games with Gasy kids is awesome; taught them duck duck goose, simon says, and Frisbee.

                Work-wise, in brief, I’ve been hunting down water sources so I can build pump systems.  The (intended) eventual effect will be that instead of hauling dirty water ½ km uphill from the source to their house, many towns will have a pump in the middle of town providing filtered, treated water.

                Work brief pt. 2- I’m touring towns and reviewing their latrines.  Showing them how to build them better, or build them to begin with if they don’t have them, to help prevent spread of disease.  As mentioned in previous posts, I talk about shit a lot, professionally.  In particular, I talk about how communities without latrines eat their own and their neighbor’s shit every day.  Shock tactics we learned in training.  So far, this is going very well.

This week I broke ground on a large-ish garden next to my house.  The area was actually a cement slab, which I got to destroy as violently as I wished.  Started with a neat chisel but quickly moved on to two-handed, overhead mallet-swinging.  I brought my ipod and speakers outside and blasted my music to make the work go by and, lo and behold, a bunch of kids came over to help me out.  Got them all nodding along to the likes of Daft Punk, Air, and The Strokes.  Day 2 of demolition went a little slower.  Only the more loyal of my little minions came to help me haul rocks and chunks of cement into piles.  A few kids joined in right as I was wrapping up for the day, but just kept on going without me.  I brought out my Frisbee after a little so they’d take it easy.  One girl tried to get a game going, but this tiny 5-year-old girl Aurelia was like “No!  We’re not done helping you!” and then they kept right on going.  It was adorable.  The point of all this, by the way, is to support the SEECALINE, an organization of women with young children that deals with education on proper nutrition.  If all goes according to plan, the produce from the garden will be used for cooking demonstrations, and possibly sold to raise funds for building subsequent gardens.  Fences, guys.  Fences drive me crazy.  There are chickens roaming everywhere.  They’ll tear up whatever you want to grow, so you always need to get funds and materials together for fences.  People seem to want home gardens, but they can’t afford the fences.  It’s ironic that fences are such a barrier.  Har har.

That’s all for now.  Fret not, I’ll be seeing you all soon.  I just booked my ticket home.  I’ll be in the U.S. from Dec. 12-29^th.  Take care ‘til then!