I Don't Bless the Rains in Africa

The rainy season has begun! Technically speaking it had already begun in November but lately it's actually living up to its name and giving us some water to deal with. This also means dealing with holes in my roof, because, in a sign of true integration with my community, I have mostly just moved things out of the way of the water until now. However, there comes a time in every man's life when he must make a stand and say "No! It is no longer acceptable for me to get wet when I'm trying to sleep!"

The rains also mean "rain days" at school. In the South East US they have "Hurricane Days", in the North there's "Snow Days", the West gets mudslides and El Nino, but here in Madagascar some nice heavy rain is enough to keep all the teachers and students out of the classroom! This is mostly due to the fact that all of the rooms leak to such an extent that anything more than a moderate rainfall causes most of the rooms to flood and become unusable for class. Cue the Alice Cooper and let's see what the photo replay shows...

Here is the view from under the eave of the school. I really wanted to get out there and get shots of the kids running through the puddles which were as much as knee deep in places, but I didn't think my camera would've liked me very much if I did so excuse the long shots!

Around this field is an olympic sized track made of dirt which is great when it isn't raining, but becomes a mud pit in a deluge. I took a page of inspiration from a teacher of mine in high school and since I couldn't teach decided to join the kids in playing in the mud pit. I tucked my valuables into my raincoat and put them in one of the classrooms and took off for the alluring vision you see here!

The kids were cheering me on because it's not an everyday occurrence for them to see a crazy white guy start running laps in the mud in a downpour, especially when that guy is your teacher. As I ran, I found a nice section of really squishy mud with no rocks along the track and made my move. I lined up, ran a little and dove for all I was worth. I arose, about 10-15 feet from my starting position, with mud in places that had not believed in its existence mere moments before. The kids all gathered around and had a go at the mudslide as well and all together it was a great experience!

The rains have also been affecting some other members of the community as well. Namely my intrepid puppy friend Snow! She has taken keen to naps on my porch, and when the rains start, if I am around she likes to hide out there to keep dry.

One day it was falling so hard that even the porch wasn't safe so she tucked herself into a little ball underneath my table. She didn't particularly appreciate the thunder that came with this storm though and showed her displeasure by peeing on my floor. I felt bad for her and kept her company so she wouldn't be as scared.

Here's a little video I took of her as she was curling up. After this I cut the video to give her some back scratching because she was not having any fun with all that booming going on outside!

Of course it doesn't rain all the time, and sometimes she just stops by to say hi, grab a drink of water and maybe even beg for that delicious looking food that I happen to be eating! What a beggar...

Here's a lazy afternoon nap time when Papa came along to sample the delights of my porch to see if they lived up to the hype. I think he approved!

Dogs aren't the only animals we have here in Sadjoavato. We also play host to a menagerie of reptilia like this here chameleon. I saw him crossing the road and went to inspect closer and all of the people near me ran screaming as I approached. As I found out, chameleons are fady (fady = taboo) animals here in Madagascar just like snakes. I don't particularly understand why since neither animal is particularly dangerous - none of the snakes on the island are venomous - and plus these guys look awesome!

 I've also been helping to house some other local animal life. The volunteer living nearest me is doing a project with rabbits and needed a place to store them, so we are constructing a rabbit hutch. It's still in assembly stage, but here are a few pictures before I post the finished thing next month... hopefully!

Here's the back side with the proud owner holding it up!

 Naturally construction of this sort has made me desire to expand my tool collection and as I found some spare Ariary I've finally been able to acquire the last few major pieces of equipment needed to tackle some of my planned projects. Above we see my hanging tools: rope, tape measure, wire, handsaw, protractor and squares, plane, drill bits, combo pliers, hacksaw, and hammer. Not pictured on my nearby shelf is my drill, wood glue, RS-20 (WD-40 competitor), jars of nails and screws, machete, and screw drivers. As soon as I locate a nearby source of wood I'll post pictures of projects that I complete!

 I don't just construct with wood though, I also happen to take a turn creating in the kitchen every now and again too. Here is a red bean and vegetable soup that was absolutely delicious! Red beans, hot peppers, tomatoes, green beans, carrots, onions, green onions, garlic, and a healthy helping of salt, cumin, coriander and ginger. As the Malagasy say "Matsiro be!" ("Very delicious!")

All that food fuel helped power me up to the top of the big hill right near town. I took two panoramic shots and pasted them together to make a 360 degree picture. Sorry about my lack of photo editing, I was feeling lazy when it came time to do the photoshopping and you can still get a good idea of whats going on in the picture!

That's all for this month. I love it more everyday here even with all the little challenges and bumps in the road, but it's hard to resist a place with the beauty and charm of Madagascar.

Bonne Année!

December was a great month. I wrapped up teaching and headed out for a few days of R&R at the beach. I returned home for a wonderful New Years dinner and party. Of course, there was work to be done too, but I had a little help in that department this time around too. Enough talk, now lets see the photographic evidence!

I spent my first Christmas away from home and family on Nosy Be with a group of friends. While my hotel itself was not on the beach, it still had a spectacular view!

Thats not to say that I didn't get to the beach, because what would Christmas in Madagascar be without coconuts to drink while lounging in the sand...

Or a nice cold Blue Moon cocktail while watching a relaxing sunset...

Or a Punch Coco right before nap time...

But Christmas and R&R can't last forever, sometimes you have to return to reality, even if you take a detour along the way.

To the lovely port city of Ankify, gateway to Nosy Be. We spent a fun afternoon at the beach here as the storm clouds rolled through keeping it cool and breezy.

 It also made for some great sailing as these Malagasy fishermen found out on their return to port.

Here's another pair coming in. It was a great day at the beach and I really enjoyed watching them sail these boats into the harbor.

After that it was back to site for New Year's festivities!

Here is the spread that my neighbors made for dinner on New Year's Day. Rice, Goose, and Cucumber salad. The food was very delicious and we enjoyed it in the traditional Malagasy style, outdoors on a woven straw mat called a tsihy.

As for the work portion of my month, with the start of the rainy season my yard has gone from dirt patch to overgrown weed field in about two weeks! I bought a lawnmower, my first ever to help take care of the problem!

Here she is! Handmade by my local blacksmith and ready for use, my very own lawnmower! I sharpened it up and mounted it on a stick and got to work.

 Here's where it started...

And here is the aftermath. The remnants were about an inch or so high, and after a day all of the cut stuff was so shriveled it looked like a freshly mown yard!

Here's my lawnmower fresh off of its maiden run!

Of course the weeds all came back stronger than ever in about a week, so this time my neighbor suggested that the local kids take care of it for me! I'm not about to turn down labor that works for sugar, so in they came, and out went the weeds for a second time. They even had assistance from the local puppy squad too!

A brief pause in the weeding to try and get a good picture of Papa and Snow...

 But Snow doesn't like to sit still too long!

 Unless of course I'm trying to leave my house! She has now taken to pulling this stunt every time I try to close my gate, and it takes physically lifting the dog out of my yard to be able to close up my fence! If only she wasn't so cute...

But she knows that she is, and she manipulates me with it! Not that I'm complaining mind you, but look at that face!

School starts back up in a few days and I'm excited to get back to my kids and see what they remember, and how I can help them grow even more. Also, now that the holiday season is finished I'll get to spend a nice long time at my site really moving projects along that I've been trying to get started for a while. Hopefully there will be big things to report in the coming months, stay tuned and find out!

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!