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!
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