The Bad Week

My house, with Jacquino and Faniry left and right.  Their friend Toky is in the middle.

Pascaline sifts rice on the upstairs porch.

A fisherman's catch in St. Luce.

Geese meander along the beach.

Sam puts up her mosquito net with Jouvenal, a passing Azafady worker.

Mary reposes in Sam's Mexican hammock.

A girl holds a freshly caught stingray.

The road from St. Luce back to Mahatalaky.

Written May 15, 2012
Fort Dauphin

    Last week was the week things almost fell apart completely.  Last week I almost gave up.  Last week I almost went home.
   
Monday

The morning of the seventh was tranquil and sunny, with a soothing breeze off the ocean.  I had offered to help out the pair of new Volunteers who had just arrived in the south.  I broussed into the city, played some Age of Mythology at Israel’s house, and then walked to the Fort Dauphin hospital.  I planned to meet with the directors of SanteNet, a UN-backed Malagasy organization devoted to fighting malaria, about restocking the mosquito nets for the CSB in Manambaro.  Neither of the doctors were there, but the assistant who was suggested I talk to the Médecin-Inspecteur about the nets.
    The Médecin-Inspecteur is the regional head of medical affairs.  The one whom I met when I arrived in Manambaro was a slight, bespectacled man with a nervous laugh, who spoke remarkably smooth English.  We only talked for ten minutes, but I liked him immediately.  So I was confused when the man in the head office turned out to be stocky and raucous-voiced, more basketball coach than professor.
    He greeted me, explained that he was the new man for the position, and invited me to sit down.
    “Éric,” he said genially.  “I’ve heard about you.  You’re not doing your job.”
    And with that he launched into a demeaning, patronizing lecture about how I’m always absent from the CSB, I don’t file reports the way I’m supposed to, I only focus on malaria instead of a range of issues, and generally how I’m utterly failing in my duties as a Peace Corps Volunteer.
    I was stunned.  No one, absolutely no one, from Peace Corps or from Manambaro, had given me any reason to feel less than proud of my work, and I told him so.
    “This is the first time anyone has said any of these things to me.  You have no right to be angry with me.”
    He smiled, pleased to have gotten a reaction out of me.
    And the mosquito nets?
    “The next distribution’s in November,” the Médecin-Inspecteur said gloatingly.  “There won’t be any new nets in this region until then.”
    I left the hospital with a feeling of frustration like few I’ve ever experienced before.
    I walked down the hill to the hardware store where Monica was waiting with the new Volunteers, Samantha and Mary, and Franka, one of the Peace Corps language teachers.  I put aside my anger and helped them get towels, cooking wares, mattresses, mirrors, washtubs, everything you need to live this life that we’ve chosen.  It took the rest of the day for them to complete the trial by fire that each new Volunteer has to go through, going back and forth between stores, haggling with conniving merchants in the wrong dialect, always unsure if they’ve remembered everything.
   
Tuesday

    I met them bright and early in the Tanambao marketplace.  Franka had hired a 4x4 and driver to take us to Saint Luce, Sam’s site.  I put my hiking backpack in the back of the car, on top of a large cardboard box, closed the trunk, and squeezed into the back with the girls.  I kept my camera in my lap to shoot out the window on the way. 
    When we got to Mahatalaky, we opened the trunk.  No backpack.  We searched around the box in case it had fallen.  No backpack.  Monica, Sam, and Franka went into the mayor’s office to make the necessary courtesy visit, while Mary and I stayed with the car.
    I was dismayed and fuming with anger at whatever thief had reached into the trunk, and at myself for not closing the trunk properly.  Fort Dauphin, even its market, is usually a dozen times safer than any street in Tana.
    “You know, I got that backpack during my semester in Paris,” I growled to Mary.  “I thought I’d have it for the next twenty years.”  Great support system for hiking, peerless German workmanship, handles to carry it all different ways, even a sleeve for my laptop, which, thankfully, was sitting safe back at Israel’s.
    I called Johanesa, the Peace Corps head of security, to report the theft.  He agreed with me that there was nothing to be done.
    So we continued on to St. Luce.  The road from Fort Dauphin to Mahatalaky is bad, pitted in places, flooded in others.  Typical, that is, of roads in the south, far from the benevolent graces of the island’s Capitol.  But the road from Mahatalaky to St. Luce is quite another matter: the only road is a track, parallel lines in the dune grass from the tires of 4x4s.  It fords a dozen streams and marshes.  The trip takes an hour, and if the dune country weren’t so serene, with the mountains in the background and the smell of the sea, I would hate it.
    The village of St. Luce is scattered into a few separate neighborhoods.  We stopped at one, to introduce Sam to the town officials, then moved on to hers.  It was within sight of the water, with plenty of palm trees.  The houses were piled close together, giving a cozy feel.  Sam’s own house had four rooms and a fully fenced yard, luxurious by Peace Corps and Malagasy standards.  Now that I think of it, it may have been the house that all those kids in Mahatalaky were drawing...
    Sam’s going to love it, and I’ve no doubt the villagers are going to love her.  As beautiful as her site is, she might as well have scored a place in Peace Corps South Pacific.

Wednesday

    The first thing to do was to file a police report about my backpack.  Franka and Mary had to leave, because they were on a tight schedule.  It takes five hours to get to Ambovombe.
    No matter.  I wrote out the report in French (Knew that degree was good for something!) before I went to the station to save time.  As I entered, I couldn’t help noticing that the codes of uniform for police were somewhat lax by American standards.  Some of the men were in tracksuits.  On the other hand, a tracksuit is perfectly acceptable semi-casual office wear in Madagascar.
    It was when a guy in a red tracksuit showed me into his office that I noticed the sword-and-rice-stalks police emblem on his chest.  So the tracksuit was his uniform!  He was a secretary, not a beat cop, but still, I should really stop being surprised by things like this.
    I walked out with a full police report, no problem.  Caught a brousse back to Manambaro, and I was ready to put my troubles behind me.
    That afternoon, as I was coming back from the market, I heard someone behind me shout “Vazaha!” in a very insulting tone.  I don’t mind if people call me that when they’re talking about me, but if someone addresses me as vazaha, it’s a little irksome.  Usually I’ll tell them it’s bad manners, that I have a name.  Someone using the word as an insult really gets under my skin, because it’s like they’re challenging my right to be in this country at all on the basis of my race.
    I turned and saw two kids, both about 14.  I asked them, “Did either of you call me vazaha?”
    They stared at the ground, sniggering a little.  “No,” they replied.
    But one’s voice was a dead match with the shout I’d heard.  I started yelling at him, screaming, really.  The shout had annoyed me enough, but to have the two boys lie to my face made me even angrier.  I wasn’t in a blind rage or anything, I still knew exactly what I was doing, but anger was holding back the reasons why I shouldn’t be doing it.
    I asked him again if he’d spoken.  He said nothing, thereby confirming his guilt.  I demanded that he apologize.  He did so, unconvincingly; I turned away.
    Then I noticed that we had attracted attention.  A few dozen people were watching from their houses and storefronts, watching to see if the evil foreigner was going to beat the stuffing out of an innocent youth.  Foremost among these were thirty or so men at a gambling ring just across the street.  Bored, half-drunk, and now I’d piqued their bloodlust.
    As I turned home I heard several men shout behind me, “Vazaha!”  Then more, “Vazaha!”  Then a crescendo: “VAZAHA!”  Trying to provoke me to fight.  Nothing to do but ignore it, keep walking.
    I shut my door and sat there in the dim light from the gaps in my windows, wondering, Did I just ruin everything?  Did I just alienate a huge percentage of the town?  Did I mark myself as a foreigner forever?
    Should I go home?

Thursday

    This is why early man invented damage control.  Had to’ve been one of the early civs, right?  A Pharaoh throws a statuette at the Babylonian ambassador, what do the viziers do?  Damage control.
    I called Tovo, my boss at Peace Corps, to find out what I should do.  He assured me that the situation wasn’t that serious: all I can do for now is keep my temper and focus on rebuilding a good reputation.  So I ignore the packs of town urchins who think it’s a game to call me vazaha behind my back and then run away.  I ignore the shouts from the gambling ring; it’s just a diversion for them now, they don’t really want to fight at all.  And I also ignore the women in that neighborhood who have now decided to taunt me by asking for money.
    I took the afternoon off to walk around in the fields with Fafa and Rodin.
    I was cooking dinner when I started to feel a chill.  That’s odd, it’s not that cold.  But the chills increased.  My temperature tested normal, but I definitely felt feverish.  I noticed a sore on my left ankle was hurting, and had gotten larger than when I’d last checked it.  By the time I finished dinner and crawled into bed, I was shivering uncontrollably.

Friday & Saturday

    My temperature climbed to 101.8.  I called Dr. Chad at Peace Corps, and he narrowed the causes down to malaria or the infection on my ankle.  A quick CSB malaria test was negative, so he started me on antibiotics for the infection.
    I laid in bed for two days, recovering.
    But I reached a decision: I’m not going home.  Madagascar doesn’t get rid of me that easily.