Christmas has come and gone, though it doesn't feel like either actually happened. Since Malagasy people really don't get into the holiday spirit like Americans do, I was without family and in blazing hot weather, it felt more like a random day in August than December 25th.
The market here in Ambato was packed on Christmas Eve (one of the only ways you could tell it was holiday season), but the whole town has been dead ever since. I had a good time hanging out with Ava here, and got to meet my Ambato predecessor. But now, there's not much to do. School's on break, and the CISCO (like the school district office) is closed, so I can't really work on my work here. I should spend the free time cleaning my house, but that's no fun. So blogging it is!
One interesting thing about Christmas was killing and cooking my first chicken, a Peace Corps milestone. It was waaayy too expensive because everyone buys birds during the holidays. Carried it back to my house (felt really cool carrying a chicken around), boiled some water, then got the knife and did it. It only twitched around a little bit after it died. By far the worst part was gutting it. After I dunked it in boiling water and pulled all the feathers off, I started gutting it. It looked really easy in a YouTube video I watched before coming to Madagascar, but whatever trick they used in the video I could not figure out. I got the guts halfway out, but then couldn't figure out how to detach them from the inside of the body for like 10 minutes. Found out the chicken was female when I found the place where all her egg yolks were stored (kinda weird), and also found some undigested corn kernels from earlier that morning.
I finally got the guts completely detached and into the bowl when I realized I didn't know what to do with them. The same happened with the feathers, which are currently on my compost pile (might just burn them). But I read in our PC cookbook that PCVs often offer chicken guts to neighbors in return for gutting them, so I headed next door with the guts and severed head on a plate and asked my neighbor if he wanted them. He did, and appeared to be very happy to have them. Two minutes later, he came to my house with some meat in a little bowl. "Mihinana kisoa?" (Do you eat pork?), he asked. Yes, I replied, at which point he pointed to his ear, indicating that the piece of meat I had just accepted was a cooked pig's ear. Kinda wished he hadn't told me that last part, because while [parts of it] tasted good, the thought of eating an ear really took away from the pleasure of actually eating it. It reminded me of a study where different people were given identical food, but for half the food was a weird color, like blue french fries. Surprise surprise, the colored food group rated the food as tasting worse than the control group. Anyway, I ate a lot of it and fed the rest to the neighbor's dog (without telling him, of course).
I baked the chicken in my oven, but I'm probably not going to do it again. The skin got really cooked and dry and hard. But the meat still tasted good! I think I also need to use charcoal for some things I cook.
All for now, I'm going to head to the market and figure out what to cook today. My site predecessor Tom has been using my bike the last few days and is returning it today. So I think I'll go for a ride tomorrow morning. Then I'm planning on riding to Ava's site to visit after the first. Don't have new years plans yet, though there will be parties here in Ambato. Might go with some other PCVs in the area. Merry Christmas, happy new year, happy Hanukkah!
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Tana! And Other Stuff...
Wow it's been a while, sorry about that! I've been getting pretty well-settled into my life and work here. This will be a general update, then I'll write up some specific stories later.
So I guess I'll start with Thanksgiving. All but one of the other volunteers in my area came to Ambato and we had dinner with a Malagasy family that has been close with PCVs for a long time (they have a son who married a PCV ten years ago). They made geese (delicious, tastes like chicken), and the rest of us made different American Thanksgiving dishes (I made yam tangerine casserole, the amazing dish my dad makes every year). We had a great time and gorged ourselves like good Americans.
Eating geese also got me thinking- why not eat the Canada geese that live by Lake Merritt in Oakland? There are way too many of them and they're just sitting there waiting to be captured. So I looked it up, and other people have thought of the same thing in other parts of the country. And they've eaten the geese and they're apparently pretty good. So watch out Oakland geese, I'm coming for you in fall 2013.
The sad part of Thanksgiving weekend was saying goodbye to two of the volunteers in our region who have since gone back to the US (one is extending for one year in Mali!). We only had a couple of months to get to know them, but they will be missed.
I finished up the school term here a couple of weeks ago, meaning I gave and graded 400 quizzes in four days. Then did grades for the term. Luckily I was rewarded for my hard work with a trip to Tana! Ava and I left Ambato Friday morning (two weeks ago) on the taxi brousse. I hadn't been more than 25 km (16 miles) outside my site until then, so it was exciting to get out of town. The road wasn't too bad, and I had sort of enough room for my legs. Oh, to get an idea of how transportation works here: they told us to show up at 7, we showed up at 7:45, they told us we'd be leaving at 8:30, we left the station at 9:30, drove around town to pick people up who had sent family to hold their seats for them, and got out of town finally at 9:50. Stopped for lunch around noon, got to Moramanga (busy transit city) at 3. But traffic in Tana was bad and despite coming from the east, our brousse station is on the west side of town. So that sucked.
But we were in Tana and reunited with most of the rest of our training group! We went to a tex mex restaurant for dinner (the waitress lives in downtown LA and was visiting family, so random). Then had a liter of draft beer at a vazaha hotel followed by rum on the side of the street with some other volunteers who were in town (cheaper than buying it in bars haha). Brunch the next morning at an American-style restaurant-bakery called the cookie shop (first latte since coming to Mada). Explored Tana a bit, caught up with friends, and spent a third of my monthly allowance at two grocery stores (found gin!).
Our group headed up to Mantasoa that Monday for our training. It was great to see all the PC staff again. I really like and respect them, and the ones who I don't aren't working for PC anymore (they were contract employees). The training itself was okay, some sessions were better than others. Thursday we got to go visit our host families, so Sam Anders and I went together. Unfortunately, my whole family except for my Dad had already left for a family wedding in Tana! (The wedding for the couple whose engagement party I attended during pre-service training). But we still had fun hanging with the dads and Sam and Anders' families.
Oh, and I took an LPI during training too (the Peace Corps language test). It was optional, but I wanted to see how much Malagasy I had learned since training. Turns out a good amount. I went from intermediate high in September to advanced mid now! There are only two higher levels, advanced high and superior. Since one of the reasons I joined PC was to learn another language fluently, I am really happy to be making good progress this early on.
Tana again last weekend. Anders was invited to play on the US embassy's basketball against a Malagasy retired military team, so a few of us went to watch that. Anders was one of two white people on the team (the rest were Gasys who work for the embassy) and helped them win by 25 points. The guy from the embassy who played and drove us there took us out to lunch afterward and invited us to his house to watch the Super Bowl! If the Niners make it, I will be most certainly travelling to Tana for that.
Sunday I travelled across Tana to visit with the rest of my host family, which was really nice. We ate lunch, talked, and drank rum. I love having family here to visit.
Had to leave Tana on Monday, so I called to reserve a spot on the taxi brousse the night before. They said to show up at 8, and a friend said that she has never left before 10. I had to pick up some things from the PC office in the morning, so I showed up around 9:30. Aaaannnd the brousse had already left. And they said that all the other ones going to AmbatoAmbato, but the west side of Lake Alaotra. So when we got to the crossroads about 25 km out of town, my driver paid another driver to take me the rest of the way into town. All's well that ends well I guess.
I had bought four pounds of plums in Tana as voandalana (literally "seed of the road"- small gifts given to friends upon arrival from a trip), but half of them got smashed on the brousse. So I salvaged the good ones to give away, and left the rest of them overnight while I figured out what to do with them. Jelly? Seemed like too much work. But in the morning it hit me: booze! There's a recipe in our PC cookbook for homemade wine, so I pulled it out, pitted the mushy plums, boiled them with sugar, added yeast, and now there's wine fermenting in my living room! PC is making me very resourceful.
I've been back at site for a few days now, and this morning I went on a bike ride. I had just installed toe clips and inflated my tires using a new pump I bought in Tana, and they made a huge difference in ease of riding. I biked about 32 km round trip (16 miles), and I think I'm gonna be sore tomorrow. Oh, and I planted some more bok choy, some squash, jalapenos and basil yesterday. And I'm starting to turn a former volunteer's dog house into a chicken house. Yep, getting chickens soon!
All for now, look for some more posts about making a brick oven, killing a rat, and teaching in Madagascar soon!
So I guess I'll start with Thanksgiving. All but one of the other volunteers in my area came to Ambato and we had dinner with a Malagasy family that has been close with PCVs for a long time (they have a son who married a PCV ten years ago). They made geese (delicious, tastes like chicken), and the rest of us made different American Thanksgiving dishes (I made yam tangerine casserole, the amazing dish my dad makes every year). We had a great time and gorged ourselves like good Americans.
Eating geese also got me thinking- why not eat the Canada geese that live by Lake Merritt in Oakland? There are way too many of them and they're just sitting there waiting to be captured. So I looked it up, and other people have thought of the same thing in other parts of the country. And they've eaten the geese and they're apparently pretty good. So watch out Oakland geese, I'm coming for you in fall 2013.
The sad part of Thanksgiving weekend was saying goodbye to two of the volunteers in our region who have since gone back to the US (one is extending for one year in Mali!). We only had a couple of months to get to know them, but they will be missed.
I finished up the school term here a couple of weeks ago, meaning I gave and graded 400 quizzes in four days. Then did grades for the term. Luckily I was rewarded for my hard work with a trip to Tana! Ava and I left Ambato Friday morning (two weeks ago) on the taxi brousse. I hadn't been more than 25 km (16 miles) outside my site until then, so it was exciting to get out of town. The road wasn't too bad, and I had sort of enough room for my legs. Oh, to get an idea of how transportation works here: they told us to show up at 7, we showed up at 7:45, they told us we'd be leaving at 8:30, we left the station at 9:30, drove around town to pick people up who had sent family to hold their seats for them, and got out of town finally at 9:50. Stopped for lunch around noon, got to Moramanga (busy transit city) at 3. But traffic in Tana was bad and despite coming from the east, our brousse station is on the west side of town. So that sucked.
But we were in Tana and reunited with most of the rest of our training group! We went to a tex mex restaurant for dinner (the waitress lives in downtown LA and was visiting family, so random). Then had a liter of draft beer at a vazaha hotel followed by rum on the side of the street with some other volunteers who were in town (cheaper than buying it in bars haha). Brunch the next morning at an American-style restaurant-bakery called the cookie shop (first latte since coming to Mada). Explored Tana a bit, caught up with friends, and spent a third of my monthly allowance at two grocery stores (found gin!).
Our group headed up to Mantasoa that Monday for our training. It was great to see all the PC staff again. I really like and respect them, and the ones who I don't aren't working for PC anymore (they were contract employees). The training itself was okay, some sessions were better than others. Thursday we got to go visit our host families, so Sam Anders and I went together. Unfortunately, my whole family except for my Dad had already left for a family wedding in Tana! (The wedding for the couple whose engagement party I attended during pre-service training). But we still had fun hanging with the dads and Sam and Anders' families.
Oh, and I took an LPI during training too (the Peace Corps language test). It was optional, but I wanted to see how much Malagasy I had learned since training. Turns out a good amount. I went from intermediate high in September to advanced mid now! There are only two higher levels, advanced high and superior. Since one of the reasons I joined PC was to learn another language fluently, I am really happy to be making good progress this early on.
Tana again last weekend. Anders was invited to play on the US embassy's basketball against a Malagasy retired military team, so a few of us went to watch that. Anders was one of two white people on the team (the rest were Gasys who work for the embassy) and helped them win by 25 points. The guy from the embassy who played and drove us there took us out to lunch afterward and invited us to his house to watch the Super Bowl! If the Niners make it, I will be most certainly travelling to Tana for that.
Sunday I travelled across Tana to visit with the rest of my host family, which was really nice. We ate lunch, talked, and drank rum. I love having family here to visit.
Had to leave Tana on Monday, so I called to reserve a spot on the taxi brousse the night before. They said to show up at 8, and a friend said that she has never left before 10. I had to pick up some things from the PC office in the morning, so I showed up around 9:30. Aaaannnd the brousse had already left. And they said that all the other ones going to AmbatoAmbato, but the west side of Lake Alaotra. So when we got to the crossroads about 25 km out of town, my driver paid another driver to take me the rest of the way into town. All's well that ends well I guess.
I had bought four pounds of plums in Tana as voandalana (literally "seed of the road"- small gifts given to friends upon arrival from a trip), but half of them got smashed on the brousse. So I salvaged the good ones to give away, and left the rest of them overnight while I figured out what to do with them. Jelly? Seemed like too much work. But in the morning it hit me: booze! There's a recipe in our PC cookbook for homemade wine, so I pulled it out, pitted the mushy plums, boiled them with sugar, added yeast, and now there's wine fermenting in my living room! PC is making me very resourceful.
I've been back at site for a few days now, and this morning I went on a bike ride. I had just installed toe clips and inflated my tires using a new pump I bought in Tana, and they made a huge difference in ease of riding. I biked about 32 km round trip (16 miles), and I think I'm gonna be sore tomorrow. Oh, and I planted some more bok choy, some squash, jalapenos and basil yesterday. And I'm starting to turn a former volunteer's dog house into a chicken house. Yep, getting chickens soon!
All for now, look for some more posts about making a brick oven, killing a rat, and teaching in Madagascar soon!
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Weekend in Ambatosoratra and Andreba... More Lemurs!
The past weekend was Halloween in the US, but All Saints' Day vacation here in Madagascar. School was out from Friday until Tuesday, and many students were able to visit relatives over the break. And I got the chance to really leave my site for the first time since getting here.
I taught my class last Thursday morning, then packed and headed for the taxi-brousse station (the main mode of transportation here- generally old van-type vehicles that are packed with people and goods). Caught a brousse to Ambatosoratra, my friend Ava's site, and stayed with her for the next couple of nights.
I taught my class last Thursday morning, then packed and headed for the taxi-brousse station (the main mode of transportation here- generally old van-type vehicles that are packed with people and goods). Caught a brousse to Ambatosoratra, my friend Ava's site, and stayed with her for the next couple of nights.
Ambatosoratra is a lot smaller and quieter than my site, Ambatondrazaka. The market is very small and not very busy. But the people seemed just as nice and the landscape was just as beautiful.
On Saturday, Ava and I took a taxi-brousse a few km (a mile) down the road to Andreba, an environment volunteer named Jennifer's site. And later in the afternoon, all the other volunteers from around the Lake Alotra/Ambatondrazaka area arrived too. (There are nine of us total.) We were all meeting up for our area's VAC meeting (volunteer advisory committee, I tihnk?). We discussed best practices and areas we would like PC Madagascar to change, then business was over and the fun began. We cooked dinner, had a campfire, and made smores! So good.
Oh, and Jennifer's house is at Camp Bandro, where tourists can come to see the Bandro lemurs, which are found only on Lake Alaotra. You should check out the recent BBC documentary on Madagascar's wildlife if you haven't seen it already. They have some great footage of the Bandro and a behind the scenes look at filming on the lake, in which they interview the guy who is the main guide at Camp Bandro. In any case, our plan was to go out on the lake Sunday morning to see the lemurs.
But first, I would have to get through the night. We rented bungalows to sleep all but one of us, so I volunteered myself for the floor. This normally wouldn't be an issue, but I didn't have a mosquito net and the bungalows are not exactly impermeable. So I was lying there trying to go to sleep when I started hearing loud buzzing noises. Mosquitoes. Very loud mosquitoes. I'd hear them approaching me, land, and I'd smack them away. Sometimes they successfully bit me. In any case, I wasn't going to sleep anytime soon. I figured I would get eaten alive if I didn't stay awake swatting them away. So I did.
This lasted for a couple of hours, by which time I decided to figure out a different solution. I tried putting articles of clothing over all the exposed areas of my body, which was impractical and very hot. Eventually, the mosquitoes stopped buzzing and I figured it was safe enough to go to sleep. It kind of sucked at the time, but as I was laying there with a pair of boxers on my head trying to avoid the bites of blood thirsty mosquitoes, I thought to myself: Hey, this would make a great story for my blog. I chuckled in my head as I regained some perspective; I might be losing a lot of sleep because I'm sleeping on the floor without a mosquito net, but I'm doing it as a PC Volunteer in Madagascar and I'm going out on the lake in the morning to see the rare Bandro lemur. So I slept soundly on the floor that night, amazing considering how hard it was.
4:45 AM: Rise and shine! Time to see lemurs! Kind of. First, we had to walk about 10 minutes to the lake. We got in four canoes and pushed off, the beautiful sunrise at our backs and the anxious anticipation of lemur sighting ahead of us. We were heading out at the same time as the local fishermen, so we were a few canoes in a line of dozens going out on Lake Alaotra that morning.
It was smooth sailing until we turned out of the canal and towards the area where the lemurs live. Then we realized how shallow the lake is.
I wouldn't call it a bad decision, but I probably won't be doing it again. The water level was about six inches to a foot, but the mud level was another foot and a half below that. I was not much help with the pushing, so I just trudged along grabbing the canoe to keep myself from falling completely into the water. Soon, we could make out black dots in the reeds, and as we got closer we could make out the shapes of small, furry animals- the Bandro reed lemurs!
I was ecstatic. I had been seriously concerned that we wouldn't be able to see them, so when I finally did it was a huge relief. And they are awesome! Since I was already in the water, I got to walk around the reeds they were sitting in and get a behind the scenes look for myself. One of them was even carrying two baby lemurs! Then they jumped from reed to reed and made their way back home to go to sleep for the day. Awesome.
Then the return trip. The guides decided that they would try a different path through the mud, which was not a good idea. I think it ended up being even longer than the trip out. We didn't get back onto dry land again until 9:45, almost five hours after leaving the camp in the morning. I was very dirty and tired, but also tan.
I rinsed off back at the camp, and ate three large bowls of vary amin'ny anana (a wet rice with greens that is the most common breakfast here). Delicious.
All in all, it was a great weekend. I got to get out of town for a few days, see friends and lemurs, and meet some cool people. It also made me appreciate the electricity and running water (and shower!) at my house. Kind of like how this whole experience is making me appreciate how good we have it back in the states.
I'm off to the market now. And I'm planning on building my brick oven this weekend, so wish me luck! (I've never built anything out of bricks before... should be fun.)
Friday, October 14, 2011
Photos... of Lemurs!
Here are a few pictures! The first four were taken by my outstanding friend Anders in Andasibe this past August. (There were ten of us on the trip, why bring another camera?) The last six are from this week. Hopefully I'll get to see more lemurs in 2 weeks, in which case you'll get more photos!
The Parson's Chameleon - The largest in Madagascar, but it doesn't change colors.
Brown Lemurs huddled together in a tree.
The Indrindri (or Babakoto) - Largest and loudest lemur.
Common Dwarf Lemur - Crawled into this desk drawer to eat a banana peel.
My fence after a storm last week.
Some photos I took while on a walk a few km outside of Ambato:
And...
My next door neighbor :)
Settling In
Sorry about the delay in posting again. Been trying to settle into my new life here in Ambato, which can be tiring at times.
My new house is starting to feel more like my home, though I still haven’t done much in the way of decorating. Which shouldn’t surprise anyone who saw my apartment in Seattle, where David and I left the walls in our living room bare for two years. Figured out that there are no rats in the ceiling (yay!), just bats. And like, 30 or more of them. A little bit of their powdery poop falls from the ceiling, which sounds bad but it only falls near certain walls, so it’s pretty easy to avoid. Also, bat guano is supposed to be awesome fertilizer, so sometimes I just sweep it up and dump it into my garden.
Which reminds me, I started a garden! I planted rosemary, oregano, carrots, onions, and bok choy, about two and a half weeks ago I think. There are small sprouts, but still not sure which are what plant and which if any are weeds. My next garden bed should be better because I’ll actually have compost ready for it when I plant it.
The whole teaching situation has been a little bit crazy. School was supposed to start last week, but the schedule wasn’t ready until Thursday, then only some teachers taught Friday (I don’t teach Fridays). Monday, I taught my first two classes. I just introduced myself and talked a little bit about Peace Corps (in English and Malagasy), then had them introduce each other. Did the same with my first class on Tuesday, but after I taught it some of the students came up and said it should have been French class, not English. Turns out, the schedule I was given was wrong. My Tuesday classes are actually both on Wednesday, so I will be teaching four classes each Wednesday for a total of eight hours, yay. But I still have Fridays off and now I have Tuesdays off too. Looking on the bright side!
I also finally got out of the city on Wednesday. I was getting a little stir crazy and really wanted to explore a little. From my house on top of a hill, I can see really far. So I decided I was going to just walk out of town. I went about two miles out, turned onto a different road, passed through a couple of villages that clearly don’t see many white people, and saw a path up one of the big hills in the area that I will probably explore another time. Being limited by not having a bike is a little frustrating, though I’ll be getting one in early December. I’m also planning to visit a friend’s site in two weeks and go out on the lake to see the reed lemurs. So I’m looking forward to that.
Being here at site has been kind of challenging overall. I think I glossed over the hard parts when thinking about coming to Ambato and joining Peace Corps in general. Integration is probably the biggest challenge, next to language. I’m trying to work on both, but it’s a slow process. And while I’m thankful that my house is quiet and secluded (when there aren’t hundreds of students around), it means I have to seek out friends/people to form relationships with. And living in a big city (probably near 80,000) makes it hard to figure out exactly who I should be seeking out. One person who sells stuff near my house is nice, but kind of annoys me. And my closest “friend” here so far asked me to borrow money the other day, making me wonder if I was naïve in thinking he wanted to be my friend for my sake and not as a way to get things from me.
Luckily, two of the other English teachers I’ve met are really nice and one even invited me to go swimming. I think I need to give everything time and try to branch out and meet more people. Maybe when I start really teaching things will get easier.
I’ll upload some pictures soon, including some of lemurs :)
Until next time!
My new house is starting to feel more like my home, though I still haven’t done much in the way of decorating. Which shouldn’t surprise anyone who saw my apartment in Seattle, where David and I left the walls in our living room bare for two years. Figured out that there are no rats in the ceiling (yay!), just bats. And like, 30 or more of them. A little bit of their powdery poop falls from the ceiling, which sounds bad but it only falls near certain walls, so it’s pretty easy to avoid. Also, bat guano is supposed to be awesome fertilizer, so sometimes I just sweep it up and dump it into my garden.
Which reminds me, I started a garden! I planted rosemary, oregano, carrots, onions, and bok choy, about two and a half weeks ago I think. There are small sprouts, but still not sure which are what plant and which if any are weeds. My next garden bed should be better because I’ll actually have compost ready for it when I plant it.
The whole teaching situation has been a little bit crazy. School was supposed to start last week, but the schedule wasn’t ready until Thursday, then only some teachers taught Friday (I don’t teach Fridays). Monday, I taught my first two classes. I just introduced myself and talked a little bit about Peace Corps (in English and Malagasy), then had them introduce each other. Did the same with my first class on Tuesday, but after I taught it some of the students came up and said it should have been French class, not English. Turns out, the schedule I was given was wrong. My Tuesday classes are actually both on Wednesday, so I will be teaching four classes each Wednesday for a total of eight hours, yay. But I still have Fridays off and now I have Tuesdays off too. Looking on the bright side!
I also finally got out of the city on Wednesday. I was getting a little stir crazy and really wanted to explore a little. From my house on top of a hill, I can see really far. So I decided I was going to just walk out of town. I went about two miles out, turned onto a different road, passed through a couple of villages that clearly don’t see many white people, and saw a path up one of the big hills in the area that I will probably explore another time. Being limited by not having a bike is a little frustrating, though I’ll be getting one in early December. I’m also planning to visit a friend’s site in two weeks and go out on the lake to see the reed lemurs. So I’m looking forward to that.
Being here at site has been kind of challenging overall. I think I glossed over the hard parts when thinking about coming to Ambato and joining Peace Corps in general. Integration is probably the biggest challenge, next to language. I’m trying to work on both, but it’s a slow process. And while I’m thankful that my house is quiet and secluded (when there aren’t hundreds of students around), it means I have to seek out friends/people to form relationships with. And living in a big city (probably near 80,000) makes it hard to figure out exactly who I should be seeking out. One person who sells stuff near my house is nice, but kind of annoys me. And my closest “friend” here so far asked me to borrow money the other day, making me wonder if I was naïve in thinking he wanted to be my friend for my sake and not as a way to get things from me.
Luckily, two of the other English teachers I’ve met are really nice and one even invited me to go swimming. I think I need to give everything time and try to branch out and meet more people. Maybe when I start really teaching things will get easier.
I’ll upload some pictures soon, including some of lemurs :)
Until next time!
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Home for the Next Two Years!
September 20, 2011
Hello from my new pad in my new city! A lot has happened in the last month so I’ll try to write about some of it here.
We the education trainees taught English to students in Mantasoa for three weeks in Aug/Sep. It was really tiring but helped us all out a lot with our teaching.
Other than that, the second half of training was pretty uneventful until the end. We swore in as volunteers Friday (not PC Trainees anymore but Peace Corps Volunteers!). The country director and members of our host families were there, but it was in Mantasoa instead of Tana, which was slightly unfortunate.
Then the first one of us left for site, followed by a lot more Saturday morning and the final 8 of us Sunday morning. I went with three other volunteers, a driver and a PC trainer straight to my new city. Two other PCVs welcomed us by cooking us dinner, which was really nice of them.
I moved into my new house yesterday, which is on the grounds of the high school where I will be teaching. It’s a big house by PC standards, with four rooms and indoor shower and toilet space. The previous PCV left a ton of stuff for me too, including bricks, cement, a gas stove, and a ton of other random things (like condom demonstration supplies lol). Unfortunately, there are rats living in the ceiling, which sounds bad but is pretty common in PC. So I’ll have to take care of that soon.
Oh, and I found out that I have to start work next Monday, a week earlier than most of the rest of the country. So much for settling in time!
I will have internet access frequently here, so I won’t be off the grid for a month at a time anymore! I’m really happy with my site and PC in general right now. So yeah, hopefully you’ll hear from me soon!
August 17
August 17
First off, happy 25th wedding anniversary to my mom and dad! Here's to another 25.
We got back to the training center in Mantasoa last night after a fun weekend in Moramanga. A small enterprise development volunteer named Jackson hosted me and four others, while an environment volunteer named Sarah hosted five trainees in Andasibe, about 30 km east I think. Jackson called Moramanga a glorified truck stop, though I thought it was a pretty cool town. It is at a crossroads for people travelling to and from Tana, Tamatave, and Ambatondrazaka (my town up north). So I'll be passing through it every once in a while.
Jackson has a lot of friends at his site, which was cool because I got to practice my Malagasy a lot. Plus, speaking another language is always easier after a couple drinks, and they like to drink in Moramanga. A guy told us over rum and coke (and during Ramadan) that he was a Muslim, if that gives you an idea.
We visited the trainees in Andasibe twice over the weekend. Sunday, we all went into the national park where Sarah the PCV works and saw LEMURS! There were Indrindri (the biggest lemur species - the white and black ones with the loud calls) and brown lemurs. We also saw the Parson's Chameleon, which is the biggest on the island but doesn't change colors.
Monday, we went back to the park at Andasibe to have a party with the other trainees and the park staff. They brought loud music and we ate pizza, drank, and danced. Oh and a group of about 20 brown lemurs came right up to where we were to eat discarded banana peels right before we started the party. And a dwarf lemur was chillin in a drawer in the office (it had wandered in looking for food apparently), so we got to hold it and pet it, and it peed on Sally lol. It was cool to see since it's nocturnal, so we wouldn't have seen it on a walk in the park.
Those are the highlights of the weekend (that I can publish on a public blog). I really enjoyed the weekend because I could feel my Malagasy get so much better over just a couple of days. I also did pretty well bargaining and getting people to leave us alone. And when we got to the taxi brousse station in Tana, I got four cabs for us for 7,000 Ariary each (a good price), when the drivers waned 10,000 at first. I'm excited to get to my site and out of Mantasoa! Only 31 more days!
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