The First Month

Written August 13, 2011
Peace Corps Training Center, Mantasoa

    It seems there’s one flaw with keeping a blog.  Ya need the Internet.  And merely to record the entries for the blog ya need electricity.  Not a problem when you’re in the US, France, Austria, etc.  Fa eto amin’ny Madagasikara, misy olana.  But here in Madagascar, there are problems.
    So right now the plan is to post this update when we get online access, probably during our Tech Trip to Tamatave.  We’ve heard tell of a French wine bar with plentiful WiFi.  And if that option don’t work out, there’s the Peace Corps Transit House in Tana.
    What have I been doing in the mean time?  I feel like I could write a short novel about the past four weeks, starting with the goodbyes at Union Station and ending with the party last night.  Be good to end with a party, gives things an uplifting note for the future.
    And since I’m not going to write a novel, and anyone reading this blog wouldn’t have time to read it, here are the most exciting parts:

1. Staging in Philadelphia.  Same hotel, same ceremony, even the same Staging Manager, Jessica.

2. Getting to know my stagemates.  We have a fantastic group here.  Definite pangs of nostalgia when I realized once again that Niger will not be repeated.  There’s no Carolyn here, no Elizabeth, no Andrew, no Isis, no Dave and Judy.  But on the other hand, there’s Ellen.  There’s John.  There’s Steph and Monica and Kimball and Ava and Sam and all the others.  And they make things better.

3. The fifteen-hour flight to South Africa.  Twice the length of a flight to Europe, and boy did it feel like it.

4. Arrival in Madagascar and the three-hour bus ride through Tana and up into the mountains to Mantasoa.  The landscapes here are gorgeous; pine forests, craggy peaks, placid streams, and many, many idyllic rice paddies.

5. Meeting Robert, the Peace Corps Training Manager, and the rest of the Training Staff.

6. Finding out our host families and moving in with them.  Mine were a farming couple, Joseph and Bakoly, whose son and daughter are at university in Tana.

7. Moving in with the host families in the rice-farming village of Lohomby (“Cow’s Head” in Malagasy).  Joseph and Bakoly’s house is two stories, with the first being a barn for their cows.  Ellen and Mariana were my neighbors, to either side of me.  Lohomby itself is built on a series of hills with rice paddies in between, with eucalyptus forests on the higher elevations.

8. Malagasy classes!  We all started out learning Standard Malagasy; shortly after learning our site placements we divided into different classes to learn our regional dialects.  Peta and Edwina were great teachers for Standard, got my language level from Nil to Intermediate Low in just four weeks!  Now Rigobert is my teacher for Antanosy Malagasy.

9. Learning our sites.  Where do they speak Antanosy?  In the southeast of the island, around Fort Dauphin.  My town is Manambaro, not far at all from the city, Internet access, and some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.  My living quarters will be one room in the former mayor’s compound.  The town seems relatively well-off compared to others that are stricken with AIDS, malaria, or severe malnutrition.  According to my Site Description my main responsibility will be to educate the townsfolk on improved sanitation, safe sex, and family planning.  There’s also a CSB Deux (medium-level government-run clinic) and a Lutheran Hospital.  No word on where the Lutherans hail from, so my guess is the US or Scandinavia.  Things ought to be informal enough that after IST I can show up at either of the health centers and get to work weighing babies, or giving vaccinations, or even just translating what patients have to say.

10. Technical Sessions with our Associate Peace Corps Director (APCD) Tovo, and some of the current Volunteers who’ve come back to help train us.  Tovo usually takes a pretty relaxed approach to the sessions; one gets the impression he’s saving his energy to help us as much as possible once we’re in the field.  Sometimes we get sessions led by Boda, Tovo’s sister, who orchestrated Peace Corps’ arrival in Madagascar back in 1993.  Boda is officially retired now, but she still does a lot of work with Peace Corps and other relief organizations.  She’s an incredibly charismatic speaker, always making sure to remind us that we hold the keys to saving and improving dozens, hundreds of lives here.  She seems to know exactly what level of ceremony will boost morale, but never is pompous.

11. Actually living with my host family in Lohomby wasn’t particularly exciting, but it certainly deserves mention here.  Joseph was incredibly friendly and curious about life in the States.  Bakoly was less easy to get along with.  She obviously missed her real children terribly, and lavished so much attention on me that it became suffocating.  She must have come into the process with a preconception of how fragile and naive we trainees would be, and then she wouldn’t abandon that notion.  When I volunteered to chop sticks for the cooking fire, Joseph and Bakoly were at first confused, then delighted.  I explained that I’m from the country in Virginia, and I insisted that I like chopping wood so they wouldn’t think they were imposing a chore on me.

12. And finally, getting back to the Training Center was pretty sweet.  Last night we had a dance party in the dining hall, alternating between Malagasy dance music and American pop.  On Tuesday we’ll be leaving for Tech Trip to Tamatave and the coast.  Things are looking good for our stage.