Authenticity

This post is not a general update; it is about the idea of authenticity.

I should explain. I was reading a fellow PCV's blog a few weeks ago, and was intrigued by its argument. The author wrote about how glad he was that he doesn't have electricity at his site because he feels he has had a better or more real Peace Corps experience without it.

As a PCV in an urban setting, with electricity, running water, and access to the Internet, I find this type of argument a little unsettling to say the least. Actually, I was a little offended by the implication that I am having a lesser Peace Corps experience because I do have access to more "luxuries" than the author. I guess the irony that he lamented the spread of technology in Peace Corps life in a blog post was lost on him.

The idea of the "real Peace Corps experience" is not a new one, and is similar to other claims of authenticity. You aren't a real Lakers fan because you aren't from LA. He isn't a real black man because he "acts white." Some of these claims are obviously more benign than others, but comparing them can get you thinking about which are reasonable and which aren't.

I have two aunts and an uncle who were PCVs in Senegal from 1969-1972, before the Internet and even cell phones. They are blown away that I can Skype with my parents so easily and have commented on how much the Peace Corps experience has changed since they were volunteers. They were certainly not blogging, though the "real" PCVs of today who live without electricity still can when they are in larger towns (every PCV goes at least once a month for banking).

There is no question that having electricity and running water makes my life easier here, and that being able to talk with people back home is really nice. But the hardest part of Peace Corps is not the separation from electricity and running water, or even the Internet. The hardest part is being away from everything that is familiar and comfortable: friends and family, American culture, your native language. I have just as hard a time being away from these things, the important things, as any other volunteer. Plus, the difficulty of PCV life shouldn't determine how authentic one's experience is (though it certainly earns the respect of fellow PCVs like myself). I think I will get just as much out of my Peace Corps experience being plugged in as I would have had I been completely off the grid, thank you very much.

But I think what really bothers me about calling some Peace Corps experiences more real or authentic than others is that the standard for a "real" experience seems quite similar to Western notions of the "real" Africa. The "real" PCV lives in the village, without modern amenities, cut off from the rest of civilization, just like "real" Africans do. The ones in the cities, with electricity and nice homes, the ability to satisfy their every need, are not "really" Africans or PCVs. They are imposters, coddled Westerners who just happen to live in Africa.

The point is that what makes a PCV a PCV or an African an African are not superficial things like electricity. In the case of Africans, the idea of citizenship should be used in place of culture or ethnicity in determining who is African (if you are a citizen of an African country, you are African). For PCVs, living for two years in an underdeveloped country far from home with the goal of educating and empowering individuals and communities is a sufficient standard.

I taught two classes of 60 students today and struggled with Malagasy language and talkative kids, though I now feel incredibly good considering it is the Monday of the first week of school after Christmas vacation. Now I'm blogging about it, and I'm really glad I can share my thoughts and experiences with you.

Arabaina tratra ny taona daholo! (Happy new year everyone!)

Brick Oven

I've mentioned my oven a few times in previous posts, but I haven't gotten a chance to write about it properly until now. So here's the story!

During the first few weeks of training, most of the guys in our group were pretty much starving all the time. We also had to sit through some boring and only semi-useful training sessions, during which I began designing a brick oven to build once I got to site. I would sit near the back of the classroom at the school we used for our sessions, mouth watering over the thought of eating a homemade, brick oven-fired pizza, while my friend Anders daydreamt about buffalo chicken calzones. 

I arrived at my new house a month and a half later to find over 200 bricks and a bag of cement left by my predecessor, (thanks Tom !). I bought a mortar spreader at the market, but other supplies were a little harder to procure. I needed two pieces of sheet metal cut to specific sizes and sand to mix with cement. When I asked people where I could get the sheet metal, they would say "At the market," yet the market area here in Ambato is really the entire downtown area. Eventually, I tracked down a vendor who sold sheet metal and would cut it to my specifications. Score!

Sand was another story. In the US, of course, I would have made a trip to Home Depot and gotten all my supplies at once, including a bag of ready-mix mortar. But this is Madagascar, and there are no Home Depots. So you have to mix cement with sand to make concrete or mortar. I asked my friend Eddy where I could get some sand. 

"You can go get sand down the hill from here."

"So you can't buy sand? Because in the US we just buy sand when we need it."

"No, you don't have to buy sand here, you can just go take it."

Ah what a nice reminder of how much we Americans value convenience that buying sand was the preferred option for me. In any case, I looked "down the hill" from my house, near the rice fields, but did not find any sand. I asked a man who I saw on the road, who told me his son could take me to go get sand that Saturday. I told him that would be great, bought a large bag to carry the sand, and showed up ready to go as planned.

I followed his son, a student in his final year at the high school, about half a mile or so into the rice fields before we got to the drainage ditch/dried up creek area with the sand. We loaded up probably 30 or 40 pounds of sand into the bag, then headed back. It was a regular hot day under the harsh, high in the sky, tropical sun in Ambato, and I began sweating profusely almost immediately. It didn't help that the sand was really damn heavy. He volunteered to help, so we traded off carrying the bag until we got out of the rice fields. I carried the sand up the hill to my house alone, suffering all the way up. I immediately jumped in the cold shower upon arrival. I was really missing cars and their trunks that day.

But I had all my supplies, so construction could begin! I set up some bricks without mortar to see what the oven would look like, then took all but the last row down and started mixing cement.

I got the first row plus the floor done on the first day, though I did encounter a speed bump. I looked up the ratio of cement to sand, which was supposed to be 1:3 or so for mortar. But that ratio was terrible and nothing stuck together. I had to use a ratio of 2:1 cement to sand to get it sticky enough, possibly because the cement wasn't very good, possibly because I couldn't read the bag of cement very well. In any case, after day one:

I got a nice sunburn on my back that first day, so I was careful to only work really early in the morning thereafter (by about 6:30 the sun was too high for me). But this meant that many days I was just too lazy to get up at 5 and work. Slowly but surely, I added bricks to the oven, and installed the wooden door I would use to add wood to the fire.

I then put in the internal piece of sheet metal which serves as the oven rack, followed by a few more rows of bricks and a sheet metal capstone. And voila! My oven during its maiden voyage:

You may notice the absence of a door in the door area. When the rains came, the wood expanded so much that I had to take the door off the hinges to even get it off. I also found out that the one door was not nearly sufficient for enough air to come through, so the fire always went out. I had to use my hammer and chisel to break holes into the two sides, and now the air flow is pretty good. The wooden frame on the door catches fire on occasion, and the smoke from using firewood can be a bit much for some dishes (like cookies), so I might be switching to charcoal in the near future. I also want to build a barbeque attachment to be able to grill on my oven. But for now, I'm proud of my work... and craving pizza (which, by the way, turned out really well when I made it the first time!).