Leaving This Island

Self-portrait, October 15, 2012.

Written October 24, 2012

Dupont Circle, Washington, DC

    About a year ago in Fort Dauphin:

    Israel hummed to himself as he graded Seconde tests.  Harry lay stretched on Israel’s bed, dead asleep under the shroud of the yellow mosquito net.   Paul and Monica sat across the table from Israel, and I was on the couch, examining photos from the VAC meeting the night before.  Clear white sunlight poured through the windows, enhancing the pink and blue of the concrete walls.

    “You know sometimes you just think about leaving?” Paul mused.

    “What?” I said, faintly alarmed.  “You mean you’re thinking of ETing?”

    “No, not seriously,” he said.  “Just, in theory, you ask yourself, ‘If I called up Peace Corps right now, how long would it take before I got back to the States?  How long before I could go from sweating in my house in the desert, to... sitting on the couch in my parents’ house, watching football, with a big bowl of ice cream?’  Ya know?”

    How long?

    Fifty-three hours.  Two days and five hours to get from my site to Tana to Paris to Dulles and past American customs.  And then the drive home, so I guess fifty-four hours before I could technically recline in front of a TV with my dessert of choice.

    Yep, Peace Corps really pulled out the stops to get me home.  I guess it made sense for the staff to use the day as a drill in case something were seriously wrong.

    The first step was leaving on the very first flight out of Fort Dauphin.  The first person I informed was Desmond, as he was feeding the pigs at sunrise.  He was surprised, but bore the shock with typical Gasy stoicism, nodding gravely.  He went upstairs to tell the others.  I overheard them,

    “Éric’s going back to America,” Desmond said, but met only skepticism.

    “What, Desmond!  He is not!  How easy do you think we are to fool?”

    “Go ask him yourself,” Desmond said indignantly.

    But no one came until Mme Josy left for work an hour later.  I told her I was leaving and she got an expression I’ve never seen anywhere else: one of incredible somberness, colored with anger, and just sheer strength, the strength one feels when looking at a cliff face, or a gigantic cast-iron bridge.

    And I reflected on my year having known her, and it all reaffirmed my belief that she is the strongest person in all of Manambaro.

    “Mampalahelo,” she said simply.  It makes one sad.  And she was very sad, I think, but it wouldn’t be proper to let it show.

    I talked to the twins too, as they were leaving for school.

    “Don’t worry, Éric,” Fafa said.  “We’ll be back for lunch and we’ll say a proper goodbye then.”

    But we didn’t, because I left the house at 9:30.

    I stopped by the market too, to see Jeannot and his wife and Marie, who sold me greens day after day.  Jeannot wasn’t stoic about it at all, the shock spreading across his face like cracks in a frozen pond.  But then he recovered.

    “Éric, you remember you promised to send me that photo you took of me?”

    “Yes, I remember.”

    “And a TV.  Right?  A nice American TV?” he joked.

    He’s one of the few villagers who knows where the line is about asking me for stuff, how to actually kid about it.  I’ll really miss his humor, his perceptiveness, and his generosity with his wares.  The first time he gave me a free egg, just one egg, I was touched.  And the eggs and tomatoes and beans and onions and ginger continued from there.

    And then I was on the taxi brousse, a yellow one, my backpack and my camera bag stacked on my lap so I couldn’t see directly ahead.  I noticed that for some reason the driver boarded people four to a row, instead of the usual five.  A small blessing, but it makes a world of difference.  We left Manambaro at ten, which is when I started the count.

    I met Monica at the Kaleta.  She came from Mahatalaky as soon as she could to see me off.  We headed to Paul’s, which used to be Israel’s, the house in back of the lycee with the Peace Corps logo splashed seven feet wide across the doors.

    And the three of us hung out for half an hour, soaking up the sunlight and breezes of this wonderful beach town.

    Monica and I both went to the airport.  On the way the taxi had to navigate through a herd of scraggly zebu.  The afternoon was aging by the time the plane arrived from Morondava.  We hugged goodbye, and the south was behind me.

    Dodo, a Peace Corps driver, met me at Ivato Airport to get me to the office as quickly as possible.  Sheila and Chad whisked me through the formalities at the office, warmly and efficiently, and another driver took me right back to the airport.

    I had a dinner of brochettes at the airport restaurant, with a milkshake, that turned out to be a strange French concoction of fruit-flavored milk.  That’s one thing I won’t miss in the US, French interpretations of American dishes.

    Boarded the plane to Paris, and up, and over Kenya, South Sudan, Chad, Libya, and the toe of Italy.   The France I could see out the airport windows was dreary, but refreshingly familiar.  Oaks, not palms.  Nicely paved roads, tidy buildings, square fields, the spire of the Eiffel Tower somewhere out in the mist.

    And on the next flight the Americans were chatting in English and any French were silent.  The food was excellent, typical in every way of Air France.  British Airways is very good, SAS is terrific, Lufthansa is wunderbar, but I think Air France may be my favorite airline, simply because of the cuisine.  And the wine, which the flight attendants will literally dispense like water.

    Over England and Ireland, then Newfoundland, and back into American airspace.  The orange-red sky was dimming as we descended to Dulles.

    My father met me at the gate.

    Route 7 heading west was smooth as silk.

My Decision for Medical Separation

Written October 19, 2012

Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris

    I have decided to leave Madagascar.  It is not likely that I will return in my capacity as a PCV.

    I have weighed the consequences of this decision carefully.  It pains me severely to leave behind my friends, my community partners, Peace Corps staff, and especially my fellow Volunteers.  However, I do think that Medical Separation (“med-sep”) is the best option for me at this time.

    I wish all the best for Peace Corps Madagascar, especially the Volunteers in the south of the island.  My heartfelt thanks go out to Tovo for helping me with my Health duties, and also to Leif and John Reddy for running things so well, day after day.  I’d also like to thank Dr. Chad and Sheila for guiding me through the medevac process, and staying at the office long after hours to see me on my way.

    I’ll miss all of you.  It’s time for me to go now.

The Peak

Felicia and Solavy hug halfway up the north slope.

The view of Fort Dauphin's northern bay from the summit of Pic Saint-Louis.

This was one of the last raspberries growing by the side of the trail.

The grasshoppers here are as luridly colored as the ones in Florida.

Wind erosion has shaped some of the mountain's rocks into unusual forms.

Christian and I try not to get blown off the top.  Photo by Felicia.

Felicia and Wes stand atopthe very highest part of the summit.

From here you can see the unpaved road, designated as a national highway, that goes north all the way to Vangaindrano.

Written October 12, 2012

Manambaro

This post is dedicated to Andy Kiser and Marion Chamberlin.

A while ago, on my father’s advice, I wrote a list of places I want to see in Madagascar before I leave here.  Most of them are in the south, since I’ll need considerable time and coin to get north of Mahatalaky or Antanimora.  Since I’ve already determined that I’m not going to be able to see the whole island, I might as well focus on getting to know my own area thoroughly.

So when Felicia, in town for a post-COS surfing extravaganza, invited me on a climb up Pic Saint-Louis, the mountain that towers above Fort Dauphin, I jumped at the chance.  It also gave me a chance to spend a few days with Wes, “guy time,” as he calls it.

For the rest of Tuesday and Wednesday we just relaxed in the Mahavoky Hotel, and watched movies while Felicia got her fill of surfing at Monseigneur Beach.  Thursday morning we got up at five or so, had a breakfast of street pastries, and met up with four Gasy guys.  One was our designated guide, Christian, only 17 or so.

It took us a while to even get out of town from the hotel.  The sun broke rosy pink over the beach.  We took the road towards Mahatalaky, approaching the mountain from the north.

We might have missed the trailhead if the Gasy guys hadn’t been so familiar with the route.  It was little more than a path that led into the sugarcane by the side of the road.  We fairly sprinted up the trail in our eagerness, despite it being pretty steep, through head-high grass, over boulders and along watercourses that had been carved into the earth.  It was easy to see how a tourist, or anyone unfamiliar with trailfinding, could get lost on this face of the mountain.

The view became more and more astounding as we climbed.  I slowed us down by stopping to take pictures.  Unfortunately, seeing the town from on high means that you get a full view of how much QMM, the titanium-mining concern, is working behind the scenes.  They have three different... settlements?  sub-divisions?  bases?... let’s call ‘em housing areas, with immaculate streets, manicured lawns, and rows of identical houses, just like you’d find in America.  Of course these areas are surrounded with trees and chain-link fences to hide them from view of the general population.  It’s just a touch sinister, how artfully they hide their business of turning mountains inside-out.

Not this mountain, though.  As we approached the top, the trees thinned out, and the wind came upon us in full force.  I had to secure my hat to my backpack so as not to lose it.  The summit itself is a bare dome of rock, with decades of climbers’ graffiti scrawled on it.  The wind was so intense we had to shout to hear each other.  But the panorama from the top is unparalleled.  You can see all the way to Saint Luce to the north, all the way to Italy Bay to the southwest, and a good ways past Manambaro to the west.

We descended the lee side of the mountain, a longer route, but not quite as steep.  The trail goes along a spine of smaller peaks and delivers you an easy distant away from the town’s streets.  We passed raspberry thickets and plenty of traveler’s palms.

Once in Fort Dauphin, we all parted ways.  Wes and Felicia were planning a luxurious lunch at one of the vazaha restaurants, and I had to get home.  After a quick meal at HK, I got on the taxi brousse and was on my way back.

There are still more than a dozen destinations on that list.  Evatra Peninsula, Faux Cap, Andoahela National Park.  How does the song go?  Climb several mountains, ford one or two streams?

NO!  EVERY MOUNTAIN, EVERY STREAM!

And now you’ll have The Sound of Music stuck in your head.

The Sea of Emmess

This board represents the opening of the combat scene from Blight World.

We had a fire a safe distance away from the Trano Be building, which has burned down twice already.

Ellen with the guinea pigs she bought in downtown Tana.

Written October 8, 2012

Manambaro

Update: This situation of not being able to post my blogs normally is driving me out of my head.  Blogger keeps telling me I can’t save or publish anything, but when I keep trying it looks like my stuff actually does get posted, but I keep getting the same error messages saying it isn’t posting...  So whatever.  I plan to e-mail all future posts to myself and then post them from an Internet cafe, instead of the Kaleta.  This may mean that posts will become less frequent.

Halfway there.

Of course I said I was halfway there when Kelsey left, and September 16 was the exact midpoint of my service, but one event concretely marks the median of Peace Corps service: Mid-Service Conference.

I flew out of Fort Dauphin on the 23rd.  Seeing my stagemates at the meva was great, as was having some decent bandwidth for a change.  Only a few people went out that night, since we had to get up early for the trip to Mantasoa.

That place doesn’t seem to change.  Same sturdy buildings, same almost-American-quality food.  Same summer camp smells of earth and pine trees and lake water.  So clean and boreal that the mosquito nets on the beds are almost an affectation.

Instead of the usual schedule of tutorial sessions, the staff introduced us to Open Space Sessions, where everyone is free to show up to the sessions that interest them.  We were free to leave at any time, and to attend as many sessions as we wanted, or none at all.  At first I dismissed the idea as a load of hippie nonsense, but it actually works quite well.  I went to sessions on fruit-drying, gender equality, behavior change theory, and raising chickens for meat.  

All of the lessons were interesting; the fruit-drying seems like it would be the most attractive to the people in Manambaro.  Every year bushels of mangoes go to waste because people simply can’t eat them all.  We could construct solar driers cheaply from wood and plastic sheeting.  Unfortunately, the mangoes need to be pre-treated with a honey mixture, and honey is expensive around here.

If I can price all the components, construct a solar drier of my own, and some examples of the finished product, then I plan to talk to three families who sell fruit in the market.  There are many stories of Volunteers teaching everyone in their town about making and selling some new product; when it comes time to sell the product, it’s almost worthless, because everyone has already made some.  These three families should be adventurous enough to try building the driers for themselves.  From there, the knowledge should trickle outwards to other fruit merchants and other towns, like the knowledge of cake-selling that started in Ampasia.  In fact, if the three families don’t take to the mango-drying I might try to interest the women in that village.

There’s not much time, either.  Unripe mangoes are filling the markets already, for people to make a kind of salad out of.

Having our entire stage back together in Mantasoa meant that I could finally debut Blight World, the tabletop role-playing game (RPG) I designed.  I drew it up back in April, when the thunderstorms kept me inside.

So you don’t know what a tabletop is?  Think of Dungeons and Dragons.  Don’t know what D&D is?  Okay, think of it as playing pretend like you did as a child, only with rules so that everything flows smoothly.

The setting I chose is post-apocalyptic America.  The nine players role-played exiled soldiers of the Army of the Republic of Texas.  They started in Waterloo, Virginia, and decided to head south to seek favor with the Queen of Carolina.  On the way they had several treacherous river crossings, and then, outside of Lynchburg, they were ambushed by a horde of cannibals.  They escaped the savages, but Kimball’s character died covering the rear.  That was probably the most hilarious part of the game, when Private Farris was getting mauled and the others were blasting away trying to mercy-kill him, only they kept rolling the dice so badly they kept missing.  After a turn of that, he whipped out his pistol and committed suicide.  Just as well, he was losing so much blood he’d have died the next turn anyway.

After the battle we called a halt, but we picked up the next night.  The characters came to Greensboro, the Carolinian capital, and ended up foiling a plot to assassinate the queen.  Ellen came in as a non-player character (NPC) to be the assassin, and Sally provided the denouement as the gracious queen.

I had never expected that I’d get the maximum number of players, let alone that the game would go as well as it did.  So now it looks like it’s on me to make up another one for COS Conference.

Thursday afternoon we went back to Tana.  All our mandatory sessions were at the Peace Corps office there.  Along with the standard Financial and Safety and Security sessions, we had two guest speakers from the Embassy come, to inform us about the general situation in Madagascar.

In short, things ain’t good.  I’m sure I can’t go into very much detail without stepping on some State Department toes, so I’ll just leave it at that: things ain’t good in the land of rice and lemurs.  They’re not, ya know, horrible, or Peace Corps would already be gone, but still...

The weekend was pretty relaxed.  I tried to stay at the meva and not spend too much money, but I did anyway.  It’s hard to be among a group of friends like that and still live like a monk.  Saturday night we went to a Thai restaurant, and followed it with a fancy Sunday brunch at a French place.  The brunch was delicious, though.  It was worth it just for the berry smoothies.

On Monday I had my dental exam at the Seventh Day Adventist clinic in Tana.  The dentist there, Dr. Luis, is Brazilian, and one of the best dentists I’ve ever been to see.  He wasn’t patronizing when giving me teeth-cleaning advice, just matter-of-fact.  No cavities, by the way.

I could make up a poem, “Whence the Adventist Dentist?” but it’s too hot to be witty right now.

I got back to Fort Dauphin on the 2nd, and planned to head back to Manambaro immediately.  But as it had for the past few days, the need to be social got in the way.