Travels and Travails

Previously in Madagascar... Our beloved hero was waylaid with a mysterious illness that required medical intervention! There was a dramatic training event scheduled for the near future! And somebody shot JR!

To answer the questions you no doubt are asking, the doctors confirmed that I did indeed have a massive allergic reaction! They also didn't tell me what caused it, but through tireless testing efforts of my own, I have determined the cause... Mangoes! So, no more mangoes for me, which is unfortunate, but doable...

Now that the boring health stuff is out of the way, lets get to pictures!

Stuffy Pants! So the whole group from training was back again at the training center for another two weeks of training and of course that meant getting to see two of my favorite dogs again. Stuffy, true to form, slept the majority of the two weeks, and apparently one of the staff said he killed and ate a neighbors piglet recently which would explain how he kept his figure while we were away!

Killer! Such a cute girl, and she looks so much better now that she isn't nursing nine puppies! Unfortunately the puppies have all been relocated to new homes, but Killer's sweet enough to make up for it.

During our training event our Malagasy counterparts from our sites came to have some training and learn how to work with the Peace Corps more efficiently. When they first arrived I was introducing myself to one of them and Killer walked over and so I took the opportunity to introduce her as well. The counterpart looked frightened and backed away until I ensured him that Killer is a great name, but not in any way indicative of her temperament!

Each stage that comes to this country is given a name by the previous stages, and I am proud to report, we have a name... Puppy Stage! I couldn't be happier, I love puppies and dogs, and now we get to be Puppies for life! We created our artwork for the training center walls which every stage does, and with expert drawing skills provided by our very own Sheona, we each got our very own puppy doodle! Each puppy is customized to represent everyone as accurately as possible. Also, each person got their site marked by paw print, their site and name; that's me second from the top!

My Puppy is fishing! And wearing my sneakers too. He's in the bottom left of the big picture above. Around the edge, as you can see, is another of our stages great accomplishments, po puns. The po ("po" said like Edgar Allen "Poe") is a device in almost all Malagasy homes for when you need to use the facilities at night and can't or don't want to go outside to find the kabone. The equivalent in English would be chamber pot, or something very similar. Of course this is a ripe situation for jokes, so we created literally hundreds of po puns, and some of the cream of the crop made it as our border!

Speaking of ripe, did someone cut the cheese in here?

That's right, we did! Here is the first appetizer from our recently ingested Thanksgiving feast - Baked Brie by Kim! After training I returned to Diego with some other local volunteers to celebrate the wonderful American tradition of overeating amazing food with friends and family!

 Appetizers part 2 - Deviled Eggs by Aaron! Perfectly spiced too, delicious!

 The whole feast! Here's the spread before we sat down to have at it! From lower right there's Dirty Rice made by Lacey (a Louisiana specialty), Beet Root Salad by Chris and Idalia, Quiche also by Chris and Idalia, Baked Bananas provided by our Comoran friends, Roast Chicken by Maryse, Roasted Fish also by the Comorans, Mashed Potatoes by Jacob, and Stuffing by Kim!

 From another angle! There was Cranberry Sauce somewhere on the table too which was shipped direct from the USA... Thanks Mom and Dad!

Close up of the Quiche. Very tasty and it went quite well with everything else!

 My plate for round 1 with a little of everything!

 Desert! Pumpkin Pie by Kim, freshly whipped Whipped Cream by Chris, Oreo Pie by Michael, and Vanilla Ice Cream supplied by yours truly! Overall this was a feast to remember, and even though it's hard being away from family for my first time ever at Thanksgiving, its a lot easier when you're surrounded by great friends and such wonderful Malagasy people here who really are eager to learn about America and all its crazy traditions!

After Thanksgiving it was back to Sadjoavato for me, but I still had some fun things to do!

 This is my bike. There are many like it, but this one is mine! The Peace Corps issues volunteers who want one a bike upon moving to site, and I just got my request for a bunch of parts in to get it ready for trips! I added a water bottle holder, front and tail lights, rear rack and saddle bags! I'm really lucky already because this bike is awesome, but now that I can go for extended trips on it I'm super excited!

 Here it is with the saddle bags off and the lights on so you can see it with them in action.

Also, here is a visitor I had the other day while doing some work. He hung out there for about 15 minutes or so while I made some lesson plans!

Now I'm headed back to school to finish up the first trimester and after that, Christmas Vacation! Stay tuned for the next installment...

Learning Experiences

I feel I've had a trying second month at site, but it has also proven to be rewarding in terms of what I have learned about living here in Sadjoavato and Madagascar in general.

 I tried my hand at fishing the waters around Diego finally, but I don't think they're going to be a very fruitful location for fishing. Extremely strong winds rip through the bay very frequently making for difficult casting and the shore is very rocky. I'll definitely give it a few more tries, but I think I'll be looking for a better fishing destination soon.

 Being on my own also means cooking all my food. As I have no electricity, that also means everything is bought fresh daily unless it can keep without refrigeration. It's been a process getting to figure out my way around a kitchen environment such as this, but I am happy to show you one of my many successes, I call it Spicy Beef and Rice Stew! Pretty easy to make, and I can get three meals out of a pot so less cooking on my part!

Of course there are real learning experiences going on too. Here are some of my students walking out of school at the end of a day of studying. I enjoy teaching them very much, but it is still frustrating for me to come against their ingrained educational habits that involve nothing but writing what the teacher wrote on the board and parroting it back. I could go on for hours about how the system here is night and day different from the US, in negative and positive ways, but the real thing I struggle with the most is trying to motivate them to be interested in English. For some it's a breeze, but for a majority of my students learning English only seems like an extraneous burden to their life. I'm going to stop there before I get really Debbie Downer on everybody and point you to a positive achievement!

 The SEC has arrived in Madagascar! That's right, the Sadjoavato English Club officially exists, and you are all welcome to attend for FREE!* I started this club because of the overwhelming population of people in my town who desired to learn English but were already past middle school age. I'm hoping that it becomes a self-sustaining club during my two years so that the commune can support the club even after I'm gone! Also, SEC is a kinda catchy name, I think I should trademark it before anyone else gets to it...

*Travel, lodging and food costs not included in the free offer. In fact nothing is free except the English instruction, but if I had a dime for every time someone asked me how much the club was going to cost I could probably pay for someone to get here from the US, and that's why it was necessary to include said line on my poster!

But not all learning is done in a classroom, and that's why I went to Ankarana National Park with the Regional VAC group this past weekend! VAC stands for Volunteer Action Committee, and it meets three times a year. Before the meetings, a representative from each of the different regions arranges a meeting of all the volunteers in the area at a fun location and conducts a business meeting. After said meeting we do things together like hike through a park, or sit on the beach, or whatever happens to be amenable to our VAC location! Afterwords the regional representative voices our concerns and suggestions at the VAC meeting.

 Because we were at Ankarana we went hiking! I the morning we went to see the tsingy, but before we could get there we ran across some interesting wildlife. For instance, this chameleon hanging out in a tree.

 Here is one of the 11 species of lemur that lives in the park. He was disturbed by our traipsing by and woke up to see what was going on, so we got a rare sighting of a nocturnal lemur. Only two of the species in the park are diurnal, so this was a great treat.

 Finally we reached the tsingy! A tsingy is a limestone formation created over millions of years from acid rain creating channels in the rock and sharpening the tips to scalpel like precision. The word tsingy comes from the Malagasy word "to go on tiptoes" because the original habitants of the area had no shoes and to walk on the extremely sharp rock could cause a serious debilitating injury, so they had to walk on tiptoes to avoid it!

 Underneath the tsingy the water runs into channels which also created a very amazing set of caves too. The cave system here at Ankarana National Park is the largest in all of Africa!

 What hike would be complete without a treacherous tension bridge? This one even had very helpful signs reminding you to go one at a time only!

 After a quick respite for lunch, we were back on the trail again and ran into a pack (group? school? tribe? I honestly have no idea...) of crowned lemurs. Here we see a mother with her baby clinging on!

 I've just been informed that the SI for lemurs is a troop! So this troop of crowned lemurs was quite photogenic and let us get fairly close too before bounding off.

 The goal of our afternoon hike was the bat cave! Here is a shot from just inside the entrance so you can get a feel for the sheer size of the awesome structure.

 And what would a bat cave be without bats? Here we see a bat flying over a stalagmite shaped eerily like a human being. It was quite difficult to get pictures in the cave environment because a camera lens is not as complex and intense as the human eye, but suffice it to say the caves were breathtakingly beautiful and smelled like guano!

 As a parting gift we ran across one more mom and baby on our way out of the park. A well timed whistle as I pulled the trigger on this picture netted some curious looks!

Finally, the last learning experience of this past month was don't be all high and mighty, because you can fall to your knees from something you can't even see!

 This is the Diego PC Office and Transit house, AKA Diego Meva. I have been staying here for the past few days under doctor's orders suffering from an allergic reaction. I'm fine, it wasn't that bad of an experience, but I definitely don't want to repeat it anytime soon! (side note - hives is not fun) Here we see the office and volunteer lounge area.

 Here is the kitchen and free stuff table.

Finally the dining room with the two bedrooms straight ahead and the bathroom off to the left past the stairs. The stairs lead to the PCVL (Peace Corps Volunteer Leader) apartment.

I'm heading to the capital, Antananarivo, for a training event and a doctor's appointment to determine what I'm allergic to exactly, so hopefully by next month I can fill everyone in on exactly what not to do if you don't want to test your allergies in Madagascar!

My First Home...

And I already understand why my parents don't want to move into a newly constructed home again! All Joking aside though, my house is wonderful and tiny (3.9 x 3.3 meters) and centrally-located in town and, most importantly, mine!

Here is the view of my house from outside my gate!

This is just inside the gate. The roof is layers of palm fronds tied to a support structure underneath.

Here is the backside of the front door looking at my kitchen. The tall silver guy on the left is my water filter.

This picture is taken from the same spot turned 90 degrees left looking into the next room. There's a map on the wall to the right of Madagascar.

 This is my bedroom. My bed and mosquito net are on the right, and straight ahead is my set of shelves where I store my junk.

This shot shows the underside of the roof so you can get an idea of how the palm fronds are secured down. Also, vaulted ceiling because I'm fancy!

 This is the view out my back door leading to my WC! The pathway is great and has a nice little roof to keep me dry and clean coming out of my shower.

 This is my kabone (malagasy for bathroom). In my time so far in the Peace Corps I have come to the conclusion that everybody poops in a hole in the ground in this country, but I do have to say that I poop in a very nice hole in the ground!

This is my ladosy (malagasy for shower). In the hanging baskets are my toiletries and on the ground just out of sight on the right are my two shower buckets. To date I have yet to miss hot water when taking a shower!

 But naturally I can't not want to improve my house, so here are a few projects I've finished so far:

My door needed a handle to aid in the opening and closing process so I whittled one using a Gerber multi-tool given to me as a gift before I left that has a great little knife on it!

 The entrance to my house can get really dirty and muddy and gross, so I thought a good idea to help alleviate some of that would be pavers. The stones were just laying around nearby so I took them and laid them out.

 Here you can see the finished product, and off to the right near the gate you can see the shovel I used. The ground is somewhere around concrete hard, so with that shovel as my sole tool it took me six days of work to get this all finished!

Here is a little spice rack I made out of some scrap wood laying around. I only wish I had a drill and some screws to secure it a little better, but now that the glue is dry its pretty solid so it shouldn't be too big of an issue!

Of course as I get more tools, I will start tackling some bigger projects, but for now that's about all I've got accomplished.

So what else did I do in my first month in Sadjoavato? I'm glad you asked. I joined the Sadjoavato Volunteer Fire Brigade!

Here's the brigade on the side of a local hill determining the best course of action to take in containing the blaze.

 And here is another shot of the hill taken after most of the work was finished. The primary method of fire fighting here is taking a branch with a bunch of leaves on it and beating the fire with it until it goes out. Of course you can't extinguish a raging brush fire like that, but here the main goal is keeping it away from people and houses.

Lets take a look at some of the local animal population now!

 Here is a gecko. These guys are awesome! I have about 10-20 of them that live in my WC and house. They eat cockroaches and other gross bugs and things. Also, they look pretty sweet.

And here is the neighborhood puppy squad. These three little guys were born a few weeks before I arrived, and now I get to play with them and watch them grow up!

 This one is my favorite. I've named her Lime, but the locals don't name dogs, so its just what I call her. She is super cute and rambunctious and a biter, so watch your fingers and pants!

 She has taken a liking to me because I've given her some food every now and again, and also I pet her and play with her. Just the other day we played a fun game of Chew-My-Gate which she excels at!

 I'm not here for just fun and games and firefighting and puppies though. I also teach at this school, CEG Sadjoavato! We have a pretty great little school with four rooms and two offices. Three of the rooms are in the building above and the offices are at the far left side.

And here is the fourth classroom for the 6th graders! Its definitely got a better breeze than the other rooms!

On my walk to school everyday, I'm lucky to be able to pass by this magnificent little piece of Malagasy engineering! Keeping fields irrigated is very important so the locals designed this water bridge of natural materials to keep water flowing to where it's needed. When there's too much water on the bridge it overflows so the field doesn't flood and it turns this little bridge into a spectacularly beautiful waterfall too!

That's about all I've got for now. It's been a great first month at site getting to know everyone and I can't wait to see how this town will develop in the coming two years!