The End of an Era

Back in Winter 2009, when I first came to Madagascar from Niger as a confused little Peace Corps Volunteer, I was fortunate enough to be greeted and taught by several veteran PCVs - volunteers who had come to Mad in 2008 but were evacuated in March 2009 due to the riots and violence associated with the coup in Antananarivo. These volunteers waited and worked in the states until November of 2009, when the program re-opened and they came back to finish their service. Most completed and left over the last year, but one crazy gal (shoutout to Brit!) stayed for another year and is heading home after three years living all over Mad. The last of the zoky group - that officially makes me one of the PCVs who have been here the longest. I put this random story in because I simply cannot believe that two years have passed since I came to this island. There were times in the first three months when I honestly believe that time stood still. I had days when I did not think that I could possibly live here for two years - my language would never improve, I would always be afraid of the CEG (middle school) kids, I would never become a true part of my community.

Two years later and I can't believe that soon I will be leaving this place - my town where I have finally mastered the art of sarcasm in malagasy, where the CEG kids come by my house and ask for english lessons, where I am intruduced by certain wonderful people as their daughter. Peace Corps has given me the opportunity to try and help people, to teach new farming techniques and assist in english programs, to share american culture, cook american food and cheer on the US soccer team as we watched the world cup together. More than anything, though, Peace Corps has shown me that no matter where you are in the world, and where you are from, you will find people who will give when they have next to nothing, who will overlook your many, many, many grammatical mistakes and still work through conversations with you, and who are more like you than they are different.. well, in certain ways, that is.

Again, not to sugarcoat Madagascar - it has its problems, just like anywhere, and I still have days when I want to throttle certain people.. just as I'm sure that there are heaps of times that people wonder what is going on with the crazy vazaha in their town. I have cranky days, and I am looking forward to leaving site and startng my six months working with the American Corner and the English Teaching Center in Mahajanga. I have been looking at old hiking and skiing photos and I am ready to go back to that life next summer. But I will be ever grateful to this small town for the two years that they took me in. Irkoy beri! (a throwback to my Zarma buddies back in Niger). Here's to the next six months, and then a return to my mountains.

"...but the compensations have been great - certainly more than I deserve. I have had the world lie beneath my clumsy boots and have seen the red sun slip over the horizon after the dark Antarctic winter. I have been give more than my share of excitement, beauty, laughter and friendship." -Sir Edmund Hillary

(I still haven't been atop Everest or on Antarctica.... but i have run up many a mountain with Lori, and have not-so patiently waited for the dark winter days in Alaska to end. If anyone has the itch to go to the Himalayas or the South Pole, though.. you know where to find me!)

xoxo, chan

Strong women come from Madagascar

Yesterday (Wednesday) I was at my friend's house helping her cut, tie up, and haul bundles of rice up to her house from the fields below. The rain was starting to fall gently and she was worried that it would start dumping and we would lose a huge part of her harvest. For five hours, from 7am to noon we went back and forth, back and forth, until our arms were tired and we were dripping sweat. Of course, when the work stopped we still had to de hull some rice, clean and winnow it, cook it, gut, clean and cook fish, and then finally stop for a brief rest. Now, a lot of people work hard every day doing manual labor.. but did I mention that she was eight and a half months pregnant with her seventh child at the time?

I say 'was' because this morning at 4:45 am I awoke to her standing on the road outside of my house calling my name. I groggily awoke to go outside and hear her say calmly "The baby's coming; hopefully I'll have it today and be home by tomorrow. Just wanted to tell you!"

Did I mention that she lives about an hour away and walked in by herself at 4am to find the nurse?

Two hours later I was having coffee while I waited for a boat to Mahajanga when I mentioned to another lady that Mama ny Nanta was in labor. "Oh, she already had the baby - a girl" she replied.

She'll probably still beat me out to the rice fields tomorrow.

xoxo chan

Ramadan, take two...

Another year, another Ramadan. For those of you that had the (mis)pleasure of talking to me during one of my daily mid-afternoon hunger rants, you know that this Ramadan was much harder... probably because I did the whole month this time, and didn't have a visit from the lovely Emily to save me at the end of the month as I did last year. That being said, I am so glad that I did the whole time and got to celebrate Eid yesterday, my new favorite holiday (mainly because you get to eat food again).

My friend Jojo did a good job explaining Ramadan to me (probably as he noticed the longing in my eyes for breakfast one morning): "Chantel" said he, "Ramadan is not a time for suffering. It is a chance to relax and cleanse you body of everything bad. You abstain from over eating, you avoid bad music and sights to cleanse your eyes and ears, and you devote your thoughts to Allah. Look, we're sitting on the beach talking and watching the boats come in. Not a bad time, eh?*"

Although I still complained about being hungry every day around 4.00, it did help to think of things his way. On another note, my friend Faida told me that the women still always suffer during Ramadan bacause they still have to clean and cook, while the men get to sit around and relax. Different points of view.. luckily as the weird white person hanging out here, I get to do whatever I want, so did a bit of cooking, my house is super clean, and fit some boat watching in as well.

Sorry no photos to add today this cafe is sloooow but will try tomorrow morning. Or next month. We shall see. Tratra ny Eid, al-humdelallahi!

Bisous

p.s. On Eid (the holiday after Ramadan where you eat lots of bread together and everyone is REALLY happy all day) the men at the mosque had me take a photo of them together, and I was told to send it to Barack Obama. I love my town.

*He may not have actually said "eh", but I'm hoping it will catch on here in Katsepy...

on the road again...

You know those weekends when you take a taxi brousse to a town 155 km away and it takes six and a half hours to get there and you arrive covered in bruises all up and down your spine and then you get to your room and the faucet is… missing... from the sink basin so no running waterbut you still pay full price for the room because the mean patron tells you that all white people have lots of money and then you take a boat trip that leaves at 6 am instead of 5 am (the time you agreed on and were waiting at the dock in the freezing cold) and then you head home back on the road again and the trip that took six and a half hours two days ago now takes thirteen so you arrive home at 6 am tired and hungry and not sure if you should sleep or not because it’s your friend Laure’s last two days in Madagascar (bye Laure!!) so you drink coffee and stay up and decide not to take the first vedette to Mahajanga because, hey, there are two more but then they both leave on special trips so you get stuck on the big slow ferry leaving in the afternoon and when you finally get to Mahajanga you can’t get off the ferry because they tied the cows right up against the stairwell on both sides so people are climbing around on the outside of the boat and the nice lady from the church tells you not to do it because it’s dangerous so you wait which is good because when the cows are gone a lady makes you carry her child down the steep stairs (please oh please don’t drop her you think) tonga in the city, have a good night finally get some sleep and up in the morning to send your newly acquired bed (thanks Brian!) on the boat to Katsepy while you run some errands and when you get back the bed has been returned by the pous pous driver because he couldn’t find the guy who was waiting at the port so now you’re stuck not sure what to do except write a blog consisting of one long sentence?

It’s the same weekend that your friends showed up in your town and convinced you to go to Soalala so you hopped on a brousse where the lady sat on the hood for the last three hours and the sweet lady at the hotel took you on a tour of the town to find the swimmable beach and you saw them painting the new mosque to ready it for the holidays and then you spent two days taking lakana trips across the bay to see lemurs and turtles and eating delicious freshly caught shrimp and fish and drinking beers with two of your favorite girls and the people of Soalala were so nice and happy and you saw lots of Katsepy friends here and there and you and Maya ate liver cooked up on a grill at 11 pm in the middle of nowhere and got back home at 6 am and were so happy to see all of your villagers and spent the morning playing with children on the beach and eating coconuts and then took the slow ferry to Mahajanga but, hey, who cares because you got to spend more time with your friend who is heading back to France tomorrow (bye Laure!!) and sure, your bed didn’t get delivered but it will happen this afternoon because these things always work out and because this country is just pretty darn amazing? Just another weekend in the Boeny. Bisous!

mmm, lodsi mena (red beans)

I had a piviotal moment in my Peace Corps experience the other day... put my beans in a pan, warmed the water and left them to soak. Upon return, I opened the lid, pulled one out with a spoon to taste, decided they were good to go... and then saw the cockroach in the pot. Hmm. My first thought - was it DOA, or did it die when I heated the water? Upon reflection I am not sure what difference that would have made, but at the time it seemed crucial to the moment. Next step was throwing the roach out, and draining the water. Only when I had added new water in and gone to light my stove did I think "Is it weird that I am not phased by the roachy bean situation? Is there some sort of disease I should be worried about? I mean, if nothing really kills those suckers I would assume it could be harboring a pleathora of germs that then soaked into my beans, just waiting to be ingested by an unsuspecting human..." I have to admit that I felt like a bit of a pansy when I threw the beans out and ate a can of tuna instead. It was Happy Tuna, but I was too ashamed of my food wasting to enjoy the smiling fish on the can. Next time...

Love from Madaland!

Bisous

Happy Birthday dear Zokyko!

In Malagasy, you refer to your younger siblings as "zandry", and your older siblings as "zoky". The "ko" is the possesive (my). So, a very happy birthday to my dearest OLDer brother.... who somehow keeps aging, while I stay youthfully fresh. That sounds a bit like a deodorant ad...


This photo is from a fundraiser that we had at the local private EPP (elementary school). I think Tony (center) is the cutest kid EVER, and yes, Mahamoud always rocks those pink crocks. This photo makes me think of a really interesting conversation I had the other day; I was sitting watching Lalaina braid Sola's hair, and some vazaha tourists were walking up the road, taking photos as they went. They stopped to photograph some kids that were playing int eh road, and Lalaina snorted (she really did snort), "Those vazahas are going to take the photos home and say 'ooh look at how poor the malagasy kids are. They don't even have clothes. They're so dirty.'" Then she and Sola both turned to me, "right, Chantel?" The funny thing was that it made me think of how differently I see everyone after being here for a good bit of time. Yes, the children ARE dirty, but it's because they're out playing all day. No, they don't have clothes, because it's so hot that some days I think I may actually melt. Trust me, if I could run around all day in just my underwear, I would. Unfortunately I get enough attention just because I'm white; I try to keep a good amount of skin covered. They are "poor", but for Malagasy standards my town is pretty well off. I won't be bringing photos home to show how hard life is here, but to show how much fun I had hanging out with kids who love to shout "GOODMORNINGHOWAREYOUGOODBYE" into the phone to my very patient parents on the other end.

With love from my second home,
chan xoxo








sunset at the beach in Mahajanga.

Misoatra Betseka!

A HUGE thank you to all of you who donated funding to my Peace Corps Partnership - the money has all come in, and I am in Mahajanga today to start work on purchasing lumber for the desks (along with my school district "super"). It feels really great to be working on something that will be in my adopted town for years to come (Insh'allah), and I couldn't have done it without your help! I will be putting up photos and updates as we progress.

On a seperate note, life is great. Can't put it any plainer than that. I absoluely love the people in my town, in my pseudo-site (Mahajanga), and the PCVs in my region who remind me of the American things that I forget about, like iced coffee. Delectable. Work has been a little slow lately, but it has giver me a chance to spend time with people that I hadn't really connected with before, and I have made some great friendships in the past month.

I tend to forget a lot of the time that I am different from everyone around me (until someone points out how white I am), and how different my life here is from life in America. Take for instance, my trip to Mahajanga this morning: I woke up at 5.30 because my friend Andry swore that we would leave in the speedboat by 6.00. Well... we left at 8.30. And I travelled with eight other people and sixteen pigs. When the pigs started to try and climb over the side of the boat, people shifted positions to counterbalance the weight change,and the handlers pulled them back down by their ears. (Don't worry Peace Corps, there were lifejackets for everyone!). Got to Mahajanga half soaked and with a huge smile. Life is good.

Sorry for the random topic changes; I'm running on far too little sleep combined with far too much caffiene. In May I will be back to post photos and updates on the library and desks. Hope that life is good in America, Russia, Mexico, Australia, Austria, Ecuador and wherever else my lovely family and friends are off exploring these days.

Besos! chan

just a quickie

Hanging out with my favorite kid at my favorite cafe! Yeah I say that about all of the kids and cafes in Katsepy.. life is good!

In the midst of some crazy stormy weather here, hoping to be able to get home on a boat tomorrow; you never know at this time of year.

Lots of love from Mad, sorry in a rush but thinking of you all and hoping that things are going well wherever you are!

Mary - got your card today - thanks!!! :)

xoxo chan

p.s. Books you should read:

Catch-22
Any PJ Wodehouse book
Shadow of the Sun
Let the Great World Turn

Why this has been the best week ever...

It's always hard returning to "normal life" after a vacation... even if normal life is a bit out of the ordinary, as small towns in Madagascar seem to provide. It is also hard to switch gears from speaking english and immersing yourself in an american bubble for a few weeks, then to throw yourself back into isolation (and usually quite a bit of confusion). Therefore it was with a bit of trepidation that I caught the baka home last Thursday and started to do my usual walking circuit of Katsepy. Luckily for me, a LOT has changed since my last vacation, and the rewards have been tremendous!

1 - I CAN actually speak a little Malagasy! I am by no means stellar at the language, but I really enjoy sitting at breakfast, chatting with the fellows that work on the boats and the ladies that make and sell breads and coffee. Today I got to tell them that I HATE how people poo on the beach (and they told me I should do a teaching on why that is bad, so now I have that scheduled), and then when I said (for the 1 MILLIONTH time) that I didn't want a malagasy boyfriend because they're all "maditra" - aka they have a tendency to have multiple girlfriends, without informing the girls of the fact, I was informed by my friend Buda that "If a Malagasy guy has a vazaha girlfriend, he won't cheat on her". This made the lady eavesdropping next door laugh harder than I've seen her laugh before. All in all a great morning.

2- The kids aren't afraid of me.. this is both good and bad. Good because they drop by my house all the time to chat, practice their english, look at pictures and read books. Bad because they drop by my house ALL THE TIME. I kicked the last one out at 8.30 last night, which any PCV knows is waaaaaaaay past bedtime. Just before that though, my favorite english student ( i say that about all of them) came by, wrote the Arabic alphabet on my wall for me, practiced the letters and then read a passage from the Koran in Arabic. One of those great moments that I'll hang on to forever.

3- It's rice farming season, and my counterpart is really excited to try the new techniques! It's great to tell people about new and improved ways of farming but unless they want to learn, not always useful and sometimes frustrating. Now I just hope that things go well and we get enough rice for his family to last through the entire year. Fingers crossed!


On a sad note, the Niger Peace Corps program had to be evacuated due to increased kidnappings against international workers and tourists. Not only is this a blow to the people being benifited by the work of the PCVs, it is heartbreaking for the Nigerien staff who work so hard to keep PCVs safe and on the ground. And of course, disruptive and sad for the PCVs who have formed bonds with their communities and were mid-project. Please keep all involved in your thoughts or prayers.

Hope you all had a great New Year!
xoxo chan

It's library building time!

**sorry this is the same as the email I sent out - yahoo erased all of my contacts so I could only reach a couple of people**

Hi! Finally after a long exercise in patience my Peace Corps Partnership proposal has posted to the website and is available for funding. I am very excited to get back to site and start working on the library - I already have a few books donated by the US Embassy, and am working with Books for Africa to aquire more. Please DO NOT feel that you need to donate anything, but if you would like to donate money you can follow the link below to the Peace Corps website. Feel free to pass this link on to others who may be interested.

As an alternative to money, I will still be looking for book donations, so if you have any laying around - elementary to middle school level french or english - let me know and we will brainstorm various ways to get them here. Thanks again and hope that everyone is having a great new year!

love, chan


http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate
project # 684-097