After
leaving Tana I started to make my way back down towards the Sudest. Not wanting to go all the way back to site
just to turn around again a few days later to go back to Manakara for
Thanksgiving, I decided to take my time and do some site visits along the
way. So leaving Tana with Blair, we made
our way down to Fianar (Fianarantsoa).
Once there we tried to catch a brusse down to her site, but, it being in
the evening, there were only the long distance night brusses left so we decided
to stay the night at the Fianar meva and wait till the morning. The following morning we caught a brusse to
her site, Kelilalina, and she showed me around the town, her house (amazing
Where’s the rano mafana in Ranomafana?
I took a
vacation this week on my way to Tana/Mantasoa for IST (In Service Training) in
Ranomafana. Ranomafana is located in the
rainforest about halfway between Manakara and Fianarantsoa. I went there with two of my fellow Stage
Sudesters and meet with two others from my Stage. Once there, the five of us got a room at a
travelers hostel and started our plans for the next few days. It had started raining in Ranomafana shortly
after we arrived and the forecast showed that it was only going to get worst as
the week progressed; as it turned out, it only rained that day and the next and
was nothing but sunshine after that. So
fearing that the rain was going to get worst we
IST
The weekend
prior to Monday all of the volunteers from my Stage arrived in Tana as a
consolidation point to be taken back to the PCTC for our IST (In Service
Training). Upon arriving at the PCTC on
Monday evening we choose what room we wanted, most of us choosing the same
rooms we had during PST, and moved our stuff in. We came knowing we were going to have two
weeks of amazing food, hot showers, real toilets, time with our friends, and a
lot of classes; knowing that the first of these weeks would be spent with just
the volunteers and in the second we would be joined by our counterparts from
our sites. As expected a group got
together and planned events for each of the nights during the first week of IST
and I think, at least in the end, every night turned out
Ambohimanga
Today I got
the chance to go to Ambohimanga.
Ambohimange is a UNESCO World Heritage Site about 30 minutes north of
Tana and has been a cultural/historical site that I have wanted to visit since
I found out I was coming to Madagascar. The site itself is what is left of the
fortified city atop one of the twelve sacred hills of Imerina. The fortified palace area, which is the main
tourist attraction, and most of the gates are still intact, though many of them
are covered in dense vegetation.
Arriving by
brusse we made our way up the road to the small modern town of Abohimanga
The First Exam
Today I
gave my first English exam to my students and ended my first trimester of
teaching English in Vondrozo. I should
start this story on Wednesday and Thursday of last week though. On those two days I gave a practice exam to
my students so that they would know what would be on the test and how the test
would look when they took it. In this
practice exam I used the exact directions and the same format of questions,
although different question, they would see on the test. When made the test twice as long as the
review, 40 questions, but most of the answers were fill in the blanks
A Malagasy Thanksgiving
Before I
start, I know Thanksgiving is on a Thursday, but we are 9 hours ahead of the US
and it was the first time we could get most of the Sudesters together. The Sudest Thanksgiving was at a volunteer’s
house in Manakara. He and another
volunteer prepared the turkey and the rest of us prepared and brought the other
dishes; except me and Greg, we were not at home to cook so we just bought the
drinks. With the lack of an oven the
turkey had to be cooked in a different method.
So the way they prepared it was to dig a hole in the back yard, put some
coals in it, put the turkey (seasoned and wrapped in hemp) in the hole, add
more coal, and cover it back up with dirt; essentially creating a natural
oven. While we waited we snacked on a
gunny sack size bag of lychees
School Started Today; No tomorrow; No…Well Maybe Next Week
I was told
that Monday, 10/6/14, we
were going to have an assembly at the school and that classes would also
start. So having lessons prepared for
the week and ready to start teaching, I woke up at an early 6 am to get ready for the 7
o’clock assembly. At 6:45 I stood outside on my porch overlooking
the Lycee, with my friend Pascel and sitemate Greg, and awaited people to show
up; really anyone to show up since we were the only ones there. By 8 o’clock
only about 30 of the roughly 500 students had arrived, as well as only half of
the teachers. So at 8:30, things having not improved, the Proviseur informed me
that we would try again tomorrow.
The
following day did not fare much better.
Although the students had doubled to about 60,
The Kabone Guard
This is what guards my kabone at night, but lets be honest, it is really its kabone at night because I am not sharing a small, dark, enclosed room with that thing.
 |
| That is a broom stick in the corner, so you can get a size comparison. |
The Heavens Opened and the Angels Shown Down Upon Us
Here are some pictures of the night sky over Mantasoa, brought to you by David (stagemate).
Real First Week of School
Today, Monday 10/13/14, I started my first
real day of teaching in Madagascar,
as well as my first day of teaching English.
The rooms in my school are cement rooms with a blackboard on the wall in
front of the class and two windows on each of the walls perpendicular to the
blackboard. These windows are the only
source of light and airflow in the rooms.
The room is then filled with four rows of desks. Each of these desks is about 3’ wide with a
bench in which 3-4 students will sit.
Each room is has about 60 or so students and not all of them have a
place to sit; though I am told more desks are being made.
I have to say that overall my first
days went fairly well; far better than I truly expected it to.
Fara trip
Fara is my
banking town and is only 43 miles from me, but due to the condition of the road
it takes about 6 hours during the dry season and, I am told, 12 hours during
the raining season; which is fast approaching.
So at the end of each month I will be making the trip into Fara to
withdraw money and to buy anything I can not get in Vondrozo. This trip will, in the future, have to be
taken during the weekend since I will be teaching during the week, but since we
have had this month off to settle into our new towns I decided to take a
mid-week trip and meet up with all the other Sudesters from my Stage. For this trip I had a list of things I wanted
to purchase, a few items of furniture I wanted to
Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall…Wait, What Mirror?
I have gone
almost two weeks now without a mirror and without ever knowing how I look and I
have to say it is somewhat liberating.
For the first few days it was a little nerve racking trying to keep up
appearances so I could go into town to meet everyone and not knowing if I truly
was. Though after a few days this
feeling began to dissipate as I started to realize I could only do what I could
with what I had. The only problem lays
in my need to see myself to trim my beard.
This has lead to little ingenuity on my part. I have come to realize that the lid to my
water filter works as a fairly good mirror, till I find a real one, and by
hooking it to the door handle can serve as a mirror for trimming. And so, now after almost two weeks, I have
finally seen what I now look like.
Ode to the Volunteer Families
I have been
told by some of my Stagemates that they have been guiding their family members
to my blog. So this post goes out to all
of the families of Volunteers in my Stage that have been looking in and
following what we have been up too.
Your kid,
sibling, cousin, whatever they may be, is an amazingly awesome person. I feel privileged and am happy to have gotten
the chance to spend the last few months with them. Through the good and bad, ups and downs, they
were there for each other, if only in their own special way. Many great friendships were formed with them
that will undoubtedly last a lifetime. I
am honored to know them and to get to serve with them. They are going to be doing some awesome work
here in Madagascar
and helping so many people better their lives.
It takes a special person, I think, to leave
Cold Front…?
I feel bad saying this, but it is
really cold in Vodrozo right now. The
rain last night brought in a cold front, at least that is what we are calling
it. You know that you have become
accustom to the hot weather when it drops to 70 degrees and you have to pull
out a jacket because it is to cold outside.
1st Vac
This
weekend was my first VAC (Volunteer Action Committee) since I have been at
site. Each region has their own VAC’s,
every three months, in which the PCV’s in that region come together and talk
about what the news is from the national VAC and what is new with each of us at
our sites. For this VAC it was decided
that we would meet at a beachside ‘resort’ outside of Manakara, which was
listed as an ‘edge of the world’ location.
To get there most of the PCV’s rode there bikes, but a few of us did not
bring them so we took a moto posiposy.
Stacking all of our stuff in and on top of the moto posiposy, five of us
climbed in and started to make our way to the hotel. It turned out though that we were too heavy
for the posiposy to make it through the soft sand road and
Sambatra
Sambatra is
a huge circumcision celebration here in Madagascar. It only happens every three years, so I was
very fortunate to be in Madagascar
and living in the Sudest when it was going on.
I attended only the second to last weekend, but the festival itself last
the whole month of October. Circumcision
is an important event in Malagasy culture and all circumcisions are accompanied
with a party. Although most circumcision
celebrations are just with family and friends, Sambatra brings together people
from all over the region for one joint celebration; as well as people from all
over Madagascar
to witness it. The actual cultural
celebrations do not last all day, but are only for a few hours each day. These celebrations also differ each day. The fist day that I was there I witnessed a
The Dying Lemur
Today after
doing my laundry I was laying around reading when I heard a bunch of kids in my
backyard. Curious to what they were
doing, mostly out of boredom, I got up and walked to my backdoor. Upon seeing me, one of the kids held up his
hand in a motion for me to stay where I was and then ran around the corner of
my house. He shortly reappeared with a
small fury animal in his hand. As he
approached I was unsure of what it might be; a mouse or a squirrel I thought
possibly. When he got to the bottom of
my steps he laid it on the ground and I could finally see what it truly
Parasy….
I am a real
Madagascar Volunteer now. Today I was
able to check off another international ailment. Today I found out I had Parasy. Although not a disease, I am still counting
it. Parasy is a sand flea that burrows
under the dead skin on your feet and lays an egg sack. It causes a pressure feeling that is slightly
painful. It is easily removed though and
then you must just wait for the wound to heal.
1st Recorded Strava Ride
Today I
decided to go on another bike ride down the northern road out of Vondrozo to
the waterfalls/rapids. This has become
my favorite road to ride and is one that I have done a few times now. It’s a beautiful ride with amazing scenery of
rolling hills, forest, and rice fields.
It also has a few precarious ‘wooden bridge’ river crossings and ends
(well I stop) at a set of rapids on the river.
The whole trip is on a red dirt ‘road,’ that in most places is washed
out and rocky, but great for mountain biking.
Since my phone broke in Mantasoa I have not been able to record any of
my rides till now. I finally got a new
smartphone (thank you Elena) and with it my Strava app. So today, for
Received My School Schedule
I think a
bit of information about the Lycee (high school) is need here before going into
my schedule. There are only three grades
in the Lycee: Seconde, Premiere, and Terminale.
These grades are then separated into sections or classes. There are fewer sections as you go up in
grades due to the drop out rate. Now that the ground work is set, I had my
first teacher meeting this morning at my new school in Vondrozo. The Proviseur, sitting in the front of the classroom,
lead the meeting and the 15 teachers and I sitting in the student’s desk facing
him. He started by going around the room
and introducing everyone, as two of the teachers and I were new to the
school. After this he gave a
‘Wake’
This
evening, on the way home, Marolahy learned that someone in the Antefasy tribe
in Vondrozo had died and that there was a ‘wake’ being held in the Antefasy
house. I convinced him to take me about
the time we were passing the trail to the house, so we made our way up to the
house. Entering, we made our quick
introductions and then left to make preparations for our time at the
‘wake.’ During these events the people
in the house do not sleep the entire night.
To accomplish this they spend the whole night sitting around talking and
drinking. So leaving the house we made
our way to the bar where I bought a liter of ‘alcohol’ as a gift to the
family. We then went to Marolahy’s
The Long Walk Home
Yesterday
evening a Malagasy nature group out of the Highlands
came to Vondrozo. They were kids and
young adults, ages 15 – 25, from Fianar and Ansirabe, that were participating
in a summer camp that lead them here to see the Corridor and then down to Toliara
region. When they arrived at the Lycee,
we cleared out a few of the classrooms for them to sleep in and left them to
prepare the rest of their ‘camp.’ This
morning I was awakened by camp chants and as I made my way outside I saw that
they were all in a circle chanting, listening to speeches from the camp heads
about the day, and receiving backpacks as gifts. After all of their camp stuff was done and
they had
Barefoot Basketball
The Lycee
has a basketball court on its grounds and so today Greg, four neighborhood
Malagasy, and I went out to shoot around.
Nothing wrong with that, but where I made my fatal mistake was throwing
of my flip flops off when we decided to play a real game. The concrete is extremely rough and it was
not very long before I unknowingly acquired blisters on my feet, namely my big
toes. This too was fine till one was cut
open on a rock and left the bottom of my left big toe literally skinned. I had to return home clean and bandage my
wound and am now laid up waiting for it to heal.
First Bike Ride in the Sudest
I decided
today that I wanted to go on a bike ride and try to get back into cycling
shape. The Sudest is known for cycling
and most of the volunteers in this region are cyclist. So after I finished eating lunch, I got my
bike and headed up to Greg’s house to meet him for the ride. I could not have picked a hotter pat of the
day. I do not know how hot it was, but
it had to be in the mid 90’s and on a clear day that tropical sun really beats
down on you. But we went anyways. We decided to head down the southern road, a
road that I had walked partly down two days ago while exploring and one that
Greg had yet to explore. The ride was
beautiful. Vondrozo is a beautiful place
and, I think it can
Circumcision Fety
Circumcision is a huge event here in Madagascar
and is the reason for one of the big parties that the people here throw. Circumcision in Madagascar
is not done when the boy is a baby like in the States though. It is done when the boys are older (I am still
acquiring into the details of the ceremony, but I believe that it is done anywhere
between 5 and 10 years of age) and are knowledgeable enough to be scared and
try to run away. The party that I
attended was hosted by Mr. Marolahy, at his house, and was for his sister’s
son. The circumcision and party started
at 5 am this morning and consisted of
a few ceremonial acts. The most striking
was that the grandfather of the boy eats the foreskin on a banana. It is also customary, in all important
circumstances, to bring some
Finally Have a Home
Today was
spent assembling my bed and trying to put the furniture and everything else I
brought or acquired in country in its place.
This was done under the close supervision of some of the neighborhood
kids, who started by watching me work from their seat on the back steps, but
then slowly made there way into the house to get a better look at what I was
doing. Once I set up my bed, my kitchen
area, and had tried to find a place for most of the other stuff, I finally
pulled out my maps and laid them on the floor to examine. This was a delight to the kids and they came
over to also look for the places they knew.
After they were done pouring over the maps, they helped me decide how to
hang them on my wall. Unable to use the
push pins I brought on the cement wall or easily use nails either I resorted to
using duct tape, but this also does not seem to work as they keep falling
off.
I Finally Have Furniture
So I was
told that my furniture was finished and that it would be arriving today on the
taxi brusse, so the Proviseur, Greg, Marolahy, and I waited at one of the local
hotelys for it to arrive. When it
finally arrived at 9 pm this evening
it was already dark and the bed having arrived in pieces to be able to fit in
the brusse, was unloaded there in the middle of town. I paid the brusse driver the fare for the
shipment and then the Proviseur, not wanting to carry the furniture the long
distance back to the Lycee, hired three guys to haul it for us. Walking behind these guys carrying my
furniture, with my insanely bright headlamp lighting there way, made me feel
extremely colonial. Not a nice feeling
to have, especially when your new in town and everyone still thinks your French
because they
101
I do not
know how I managed to go for three months in Madagascar
without ever using a 101, but that streak came to an end today. For those that do not know what a 101 is, it
is a type of “toilet.” I use the word
toilet loosely here because there really is not a toilet and in most cases,
mine included, it does not flush, but is only a hole in the ground. It is called a 101 because it has two places
on each side of the hole for you to put your feet and so with those and the
hole it looks like the number 101. So
today was the first time for me to use one and I have to say I may never want
to go back to a western toilet again, though having a flushing 101 that did not
smell would be nice.
Installation
This
morning we awoke to the sound of a bustling early morning in Tana. A sound that would be deafening if not for
the music like attributes playing the song of Gasy life in the big city. It was almost tranquil in its confusion of
sounds; a reminder of where I was. This
though would be the last time I would hear such a bustle for many months it
seemed. So as I stood at the window,
over looking the city, I reveled in its sound.
This was not a feeling of dismay or regret, but a feeling of joy for
what was to come. And with this I
grabbed my bags and headed down to the car that would be taking me to the
Sudest. Upon loading up we said our
goodbyes to those of us at the hotel not going to the Sudest and Julissa, who
though going to the Sudest had to ride with a different group due to the
I’m a Volunteer!!!
Today was
crazy and there was a good portion of it where some of the hotel people could
not get there acts together, me included.
But let me start at the beginning where it was all going well. I’m a Volunteer!!! Well not yet in the story, we had to be sworn
in first; although we did already sign the document yesterday. So all of the hotel people were up and ready
before the car arrived to pick us up and take us to the U.S. Ambassador’s house
for the swearing ceremony. By the way,
the U.S. does
not have an ambassador in Madagascar
as of yet, since the coup, but that did not stop us from celebrating
there. The swearing in celebration was
really nice. It was set up on the lawn
with a stage for the honored guest a speeches over looking the audience in
front and us sitting off to the side at an angle to see both the stage and
audience. The whole event started out
with news reporters
End of a Chapter
Today ends
our time as Trainees in PST. This
morning we all loaded up all of our stuff in the Peace Corps cars and said
goodbye to the Training Center
for the last time till we return for IST (In Service Training). For most of us, this was a happy time. We have all been waiting for training to end
so that we could get to our site and start our lives as PCV’s. After saying our goodbyes and, for most of
us, taking our motion sickness pills, we started our long, bumpy, winding ride
to Tana. Once in Tana the stage would be
split again into two groups; one staying in the meva and the other at the
Zenith hotel a few miles away. I, along
with the rest of the Sudest group and a few others, were at the hotel because
we would be leaving the day after swearing in, where most of the people at the
meva
Final LPI
Monday, 8/18/14
Today we
took our final LPI to determine if we had the language level to continue our
service. To pass the LPI we had to
receive Intermediate Low, which is just slightly higher than what we needed for
our mid PST LPI. Going into the LPI I
was pretty nervous about the test, although I do not know why. After the LPI I felt fairly good about the
test, but we will see soon what I made.
Wednesday, 8/20/14
After
waiting all day we finally found out if we passed the test today. I failed… It turns out t
Field Trip to Tana
Today we
all loaded up into the PC vans at 7 am
and rode into Tana on a field trip to learn about PC Madagascar. Our first stop on our tour was the U.S.
Embassy. After making it through
security, which included a security guard feeling up my leg because the
titanium rod in my femur kept setting off the metal detector, we were able to
make our way to the main embassy building where we were to have a meeting with
the Madagascar Police, Gendarme, and the U.S. head of security in
Madagascar. This, all in all, was just a
security meeting in which we were told the protocols if something were to
happen and what we should do while traveling.
After the
meeting at the embassy we left and went to the PC Madagascar Office. Here we
I Got A New Bike!!!
I have been
waiting for today for a while now, most intently in the past few days, and it
ended on a very happy note for me. This
afternoon is when we got to pick out our new bikes that we would have for the
next two years. I say that I have been
waiting more intently for the past few days because just a few days ago we saw
the bike boxes laying out open on the ground and were informed that we would be
able to test ride the bikes this previous weekend. Unlike with many other things, of which we
have grown accustom, we had to wait for a later time than what we were
told. After lunch today though we were
able to go out and see all of the brand new bikes and pick the one that we
The Injured Lost
Today many
of the trainees and some of the LCF’s played a soccer game against some of the
people in the Mantasoa community. Little
did we know that we would be playing the Mantasoa soccer team. Not only that, but the field we were playing
on was horrible. Half of the field was
grass, but the other half was wet, hard clay that none of us could get grip
on. During the game the majority of our
players ended up becoming injured in one way or another. I myself ended up getting a big chunk taken
out of my ankle by a rock. In the end we
lost the game 4-0, but to our credit we did get a few good tries on the
goal.
End of Practicum
Today is
the official end of our Practicum.
During Practicum we were split into two groups so that we taught classes
every other day. For each class we were
given different class levels and lessons to teach, which we had to prepare our
own lesson plans for. This lasted for 2
½ weeks and on the third week we had to prepare a test and give a review for
that test. Today, the final day, we gave
corrections to our students for the test and then played games with them till the
end of our time. After that we all
gathered and sang our national anthems to each other. Singing the national anthem
You Can Never Be Ready to Teach Slavery in Africa in Africa
I think the
title says it all. You can never be
ready to teach ‘Slavery in Africa’ in Africa. But this is what I was assigned to teach for
today. All in all it went fairly well. We did a history lesson about Madagascar,
West Africa, and America. After that I taught them ‘The Drinking Gourd’
song and we did some language activities.
Immersion…
Today
started our language immersion at the PCTC.
Since we are back at the PCTC, PC and many of us were worried about our
Gasy being affected by us never speaking it since we had each other to talk to. So to combat this PC put in place rules for
language immersion in which we are unable to speak English during meal
times. During these times we all sit at
tables with other trainees and language trainers with our dialect. We were given 10,000 points to start the
immersion and if we lose them all we have to pay 500 Ar, but if we get up to
30,000 points then our trainers will do our laundry for us. The rules are if you are caught speaking
English during the specified times you will
Our Return to the PCTC
Today all
of the trainees moved out of our host homes and back to the PCTC. Everyone was very excited about this,
especially me. Being back at the PCTC
allows us to make our own decisions on so many things we were not able to do
before. We can choose if we want to eat
or not, when we go to bed, and so many other things that leave us with a
filling of freedom that we did not have at our host homes. We also are able to hangout with everyone
when ever we want. At our host homes we
were not able to do this as easily due to the distance between each of our
houses and having to be
Manasa Lamba
Today was
the first time I was able to do laundry in 2 ½ weeks. We were on Tech Trip for a week and then when
we got back it started raining and it has been raining ever since. Today was the first day that it has not
rained since then. This is a really long
time not to wash clothes seeing that I did not bring that many clothes to this
country. Dirty has taken on a very
different definition here Madagascar. Most things get worn multiple times before
they are considered ‘dirty’ and ‘dirty’ really only means that they are visibly
dirty and/or fail the smell test. You
also can not just wash your clothes when ever you want to. Here in Madagascar
we have to wash our clothes by hand.
This
Practicum
Today
started our practicum for our language teacher training. There will be two and half weeks of practicum
in which we will each get the opportunity to teach at least ten hours. The Peace Corps trainers have assigned us all
topics from the curriculum that we will lesson plan for and teach. We will all get to teach many of the
different school levels so that we have experience in each. On our teaching days, if we are not teaching
we observe the other students to both get ideas and give feedback to them.
Mefloquine Took a Turn for the Worst
Madagascar
is a malaria country so Peace Corps trainees/volunteers have to take malaria
prophylaxis to keep from getting malaria.
On the day that we got here Peace Corps started us all on Doxycycline,
which has to be taken everyday. After
two weeks of taking this and forgetting on multiple occasions I got the chance
and decided to switch to Mefloquine, which only has to be taken once a
week. This is so much easier to remember
and it also gives you really vivid dreams for a few nights which is pretty
cool. So I have been taking Mefloquine
for the past few weeks and it has been well till last night. Last night it took a turn for the worst. My
vivid dream turned into a nightmare
Tech Trip!
This full
week was the Tech Trip for all of the Trainees.
I am still trying to decide how to state and how much of the week should
be stated in this blog, but I will use this section to lay out the foundation
of what Tech Trip is. Tech Trip
ultimately is a chance for the trainees to visit and observe schools and to
talk to and ask questions of the students and teachers. It is also a chance for us to explore and
practice some of the things that we had been learning in our language
classes. This also would be the first
time that we were outside of the Mantasoa area since we have arrived. We have been unable to leave the area
because, until now, we had not received our official documents from the
“I’m Leaving on a Jet Plane, Don’t Know When I’ll be Back Again”
So I left today for Madagascar. Well it won’t actually be “today” when I am
finally able to post this so that you can read it. But on Tuesday, June 10, at 2:30 am I left the Hampton Hotel in Downtown
Philadelphia for what would be no less than a tiny, but long, adventure to get
to Madagascar. Leaving the hotel at 2:30 am with no sleep the night before would begin the
longest session of travel, including the longest airplane flight, which I have yet
accomplished and ever want to do again.
We all loaded into a greyhound bus outside the hotel and began on our
way to JFK airport where we were to catch our flight to Johannesburg,
South Africa, at 11:15.
Knowing it was just shy of a nine hour
I Have Internet!!!
So since my last post I have not had access to internet till
now and will probably not have it again for another month. So below are the all of the blogs that I have
written since I flew out from Philly on my way to Madagascar. I apologize in advance for any grammatical or
spelling errors, any places where it seems to jump from one topic to the next, or
any places where it is just point to point with no explanation in the
blog. All of these blogs were written at
different times during the day, most often while exhausted at night, and have
not been proof read. Enjoy!
Antefasy!
So today
everyone was put into new language classes and we started our dialect
training. There are 18 official tribes
in Madagascar,
each with their own dialect of Malagasy.
Up to this point all of the trainees have been learning Standard
Malagasy, which is the official language and is understood throughout the
island, and some of the Highland trainees are continuing
to learn it since that is what is spoken there.
As I mentioned in a previous post, my site is in the Sudest. The Sudest
has three different dialects, mine being Antefasy, but they are so similar to
each other that all of the trainees in the Sudest are learning together. The dialect so far seems fairly easy with
just some of the
Had My LPI Today…
So today I
had my first LPI, which is our test to see how we are doing with our Malagasy
language training. We had one today,
mid-training, then we will have another one at the end of training, which will
determine if we get to go to site or not.
This LPI is to determine where we are with our training and what aspects
we need help with. To pass this test we
had to have Novice High or higher, which basically means that you are able to
understand question words and put together simple sentences. In the days prior to the test I did not fell
very confident with my language ability and was dreading this day. We did though, the two days prior to the test,
have mock LPI test with our
Site Announcement!!!
Today is the day that everyone has been waiting for since we
found out we were going to be serving in Madagascar. It is the day we found out where our sites
were going to be for the next two years.
Before getting into the site placement announcement I should first give
a little background into the process. Madagascar
is one of the only Peace Corps countries that allow the trainees a say into
where their site will be. Whether there
is any weight to what the trainees say is questionable and it is relative to
each individual case. Peace Corps takes
into count what the Medical officers, placement director, and language trainers
have to say and then look at the trainees preferences. What is certain
Madagascar’s Independence Day!!!
The Independence Day celebrations here in Mantasoa went on
for three days and I was told that in the capital they went on all week. The actual independence day was on Thursday, 6/26/2014, but people started
celebrating the night before. When I
returned from our meetings at the PCTC, knowing that there were going to be
festivities going on that night, I asked my Neny what was going on and if we
were going to be doing anything. When he
answered that we were going to watch the fireworks in Tana on the T.V. I was
super bummed, but there was not much I could do. Fortunately
First Day at the “Big Market”
As part of our training Peace Corps took us to the market in
a town 40 km (or 30 minutes) away to practice our numbers and bargaining
skills. To do this they gave each of the
trainees 5,000 Ar (equivalent to $2.50) and a list of stuff that we had to
buy. We were informed that we could only
spend that money and if we had extra left over to buy whatever other food items
we wanted and that all of it would be prepared for us for lunch on Wednesday
when we came to the PCTC. The list I was
given to buy was as follows: 3 kilos of oranges, 2 cups of wet beans (fresh
beans), and a bunch of
My First Sickness
So I have just got over my first sickness here in Madagascar. Fortunately it was not a bad one, but only
the common cold (and not really that bad of a cold). The bad ones are still to come and there is no
doubt that I will be checking off a few boxes of international diseases while I
am here in Madagascar. This sickness all started a few days ago when
the weather turned for the worst and it started raining and continued to be
cold. I was not the only, nor the first,
trainee to get sick, nor was I the worst.
Although for the most part I did the same as I would have done in the
States (nothing) to
Church and Tourism in a Foreign Land
My host family is Protestant and today being Sunday, they go
to church. Previous to leaving for Community Based Training, many of the trainees had stated that they were not going to go to church with
their families this Sunday; me being on of them. It was the first day
out “in the real world” and we could not even answer a few questions from a few
people, much less a whole congregation.
As it turns out, not very many of the trainees were able to see this
through; me again being one of them. How
are you supposed to say no and politely explain why when you can not even
understand each other? So I went to
church.
This is not a ‘get in the
car and drive to church real quick’ kind of travel; it is a
First Day at My Host Home!!!
Today was probably the most nervous day, so far, for all of the
volunteers. At noon today we went to our host
home for Community Based Training! Everyone undoubtedly had an array
of different fears to contend with, but what was on everyone’s mind was the
lack of communication capabilities. We
had only three half days of language training and most of it we could not
reliably remember. So we were off with
what we thought we would need for a week and the very little language skills we
had acquired to meet our host family.
Arriving at the Commune we all piled out of the vans and stood around
waiting to be adopted by our new family. The Commune is a small compound which is the
Day 2
Breakfast was great.
They serve rice with every meal; it is the staple food in Madagascar. Lunch and dinner is just boiled rice, but for
breakfast it is always a specialty cooked or seasoned rice. All of the
volunteer’s plates are divided into the different foods that they give us with
what I would call an average amount of rice, but if you looked at the workers
and staff plates they had a mountain of rice with all of the other foods just
stacked on top of it.
This being my
second training day, it was a lot easier than yesterday. We started with a two hour language lesson
class, which was far easier than yesterday thankfully. I found out today that it will be our last
real lesson before we go to our host home tomorrow. That I think will be a shock. I am really excited to go, but I can not lie,
I am a little
First day of Training
Thursday, 6/12/14
So today was my first day at training and it was
a very long day, but at least not as long as yesterday. So getting up at 8:00 am for breakfast was a huge change in my old schedule. The breakfast was awesome though and well
worth it. They have honey here that is out
of this world and the peanut butter is more like homemade peanut butter and is
great. I also ate pink rice, ground beef
and eggs, but the honey on the fried bread is what made it.
Following that we had a meeting with the staff
and were introduced to them, our schedule for the day, and a little info about Madagascar and our training. I
Life in the Compound
Thursday, 6/12/14
 |
| Entry sign for the Peace Corps Training Center in Madagascar. |
Life at the training center compound is awesome!!! It is in the Mantasoa area, which is
amazingly beautiful. It lies on the
eastern banks of the highland area with rolling hills, beautiful tress, and an
awesome lake (we can not get in the lake for safety reasons…some parasite that
lives in standing water we are told). Being
at the compound is like being at summer camp.
Many of the people only share their room with only one other person, but
in my room I share it with five other volunteers and it is great. They are all awesome people. The rooms are much like you would see at a
camp in the States with comfortable beds, a shower (with hot water!!), toilets,
and a couch, but with mosquito nets and a ton of luggage that seems to be
growing by the hour with all the stuff they are giving us.
Im Leaving for a Place Far Far Away!!!
Many of you have heard me say for quite a while that I was going to keep a blog of my adventures in Madagascar time and time again. Well here it is! Although the blog has been up for a bit, this is my first of many blog post. I will be posting on here as often as possible about all of the stories of my adventures during my Peace Corps service. Until I get to my site (in about 11 weeks) I will not know how often I will be able to get online, but I do promise to update when I can.
Many of you have asked why I decided to join the Peace Corps. I am not sure if I can give a singular
Peace Crops Application Timeline
Joining the Peace Corps can be a big life changing decision. There is no grantee that you will get in, where you will go, or what you will be doing when you get there, but the rewards are far worth the effort. Although the process has changed a bit since I applied back in 2013, the timeline seems to somewhat the same. The timeline can differ from person to person and for each sector and country.
I have had a few people ask me about the timeline of my application process, so I have decided to post a bulleted version of it. What follows are just the events and dates that I found important. There were a few other follow up interviews and questionnaires that I had to also fill out, but I think the following gives a good idea about the time frame between the major events. If there is any questions about any of the events or anything fill free to comment or e-mail me.
2013
Applied to Peace Corps: June 4
Had my 1st interview: July 9
Nominated: July 15
Placement interview: November 20
Received my invitation: November 29
2014
Staging: June 8
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