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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)