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
Labels:
Peace Corps Journal,
Peace Corps Service,
Teaching
‘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.
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