Alright, so here is a small account of my life in the Peace corps so far. I am in the the middle of pre-service training currently in a small town an hour outside the capital Antananarivo. Madagascar is an incredibly diverse country, but right now I am living in a mostly merina area. In 'Tana', it is easy to see the diversity - people who look more Asian or more African. I live with a wonderful Malagasy family during this 10 week pre-service training. I'll head to my site in December.
I'm kinda like an alien that has landed in this country - At 5' 8" I am a head taller than everyone. I walk or stoop around around my house ducking under beams and squeezing through doorways. I am having to learn all the basics of being a human - how to go to the bathroom, how to cleanse myself, how to drink water, how to communicate (in Malagasy, that is). My body cannot thrive in this foreign land without ingesting a collection of pills and injecting various shots every week...for the HIB, HEP A, HEP B, typhoid, malaria, rabies, meningitis, yellow fever, dysentery, fleas.
So here is a typical day of pre-service training (quite structured and busy in fact, which will probably not be the case once I start at my official site).
I get up a around 5 a.m. and empty my 'po' in the kabone. Translation - when it is dark, I am not allowed to use our outside latrine because I have to be weary of the mpamosavy (witches who walk around naked with their hair in front of their faces 'Ring' style. These witches are crazy but crafty - they slather themselves in oil so that they can't be caught). There are rabid dogs around so I shouldn't be out after dark anyway. I use a bucket or 'po' to go to the bathroom which I empty in the morning into the pit latrine. I'll try to censor this a bit, or be less graphic - the pit latrine is abut 3 feet high. It is difficult enough 'aiming' in my pit latrine, let alone fitting inside it. So around 5:30 a.m. I might go for a run way above the rice fields that curve their way through the low valleys. At 6ish, my Neniko (Malagasy mom) has prepared some hot water for me so I can take a bucket shower outside. We have breakfast together, fried bread, honey, peanut butter (home made), bananas, and coffee. Then I clean the floor of my room, scrub it first with half a coconut shell and then sweep it up. I'm at school at 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. (with a 2 hour break to have lunch with Neniko. Our classes consist of language, technical and cross-cultural training. I'm already immune to many of things I found funny in the beginning. There are roosters and chicken that we constantly have to shoe out of our 'classroom.' The kids in the village often spend the bulk of their day watching us. We 'vazaha' or foreigners are apparently a constant source of amusement. Everyone knows odd details about us. This woman, who I had never seen before, stopped me in the street the other day and asked me if my foot had healed. I had a bug bite that I had scratched and it had become a bit infected. It was nothing though, and this random woman knew about it. Sometimes, a trainee will come to school and tell me that her host family told her that my stomach is doing better…basically, a family in a neighboring village knows about my bowel movements. After school, I usually hang out with some of the trainees, maybe Ill grab my soccer ball (the nicest one in the village) and play with some of the local kids, or Ill fetch water with my host family. At around 7 p.m, we dine again - rice, more rice, always rice and a vegetarian side dish.
Most everyone here is Catholic or Protestant. Clearly, from my witch example, the traditional beliefs are still held. Ancestral worship is ubiquitous. Exhumations take place annually. It seems like everyday I learn a new cultural taboo or 'fady'. My family is still incredibly accommodating - they are serving vegetarian food for my sake. They want to respect my 'fomba' or customs. I told them my fomba are not so resilient, but they will not hear of it.
Continuing, at around 8 p.m., I am in bed -if I am not too tired I'll do a bit of language or technical self study with my headlamp. My bed, draped with green mosquito nets on all sides, retains its romantic value - not yet trumped by the sheer obstacle it presents in having to re-tuck and re-fasten every time I get up during the night to use my 'po'!
During the weekends at the training site, I handwash my clothes in the rice paddies qnd maybe go to church for the cultural experience followed by watching a local soccer match. I've been fishing (including gutting and cooking the fish while simultaneously shoeing away the ravenous cats that are in fact need of more nourishment than white rice can afford them), farming/picking beans, climbing trees to fetch plums, and hiking.
Whenever I travel I am blown away by the kindness and hospitality I encounter in others who are practically strangers. Here, it is no different. The Malagasy I interact with on a daily basis are concerned, patient, and good humored. I may clearly be in a kind of honeymoon phase - but I am really happy to be a part of this right now. Everyone I am involved with (the Malagasy, PC, the trainees) have good intentions without naivety. I know the tougher times are ahead (such as when I get homesick or when I have to integrate into a community completely alone) but it is at that time that I need to just refer back to what drove me to do this in the first place.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
#1 Entry - November 2008
As this is my first entry, I feel obliged to give a short introductory history of the 8th Continent.
Madagascar is the 4th largest island (after Greenland, Papa New Guinea and Borneo) that was first settled 2000 years ago by a Malay-Indonesian population. It still blows my mind that the dominant theory (which I think Jared Diamond agrees with) holds that these people from Borneo (closest linguistic link) sailed directly here across the Indian Ocean. It was hundreds of years later that East African populations crossed the Mozambique Channel to settle here. Later, Arabic and Indian groups migrated here as well.
The first Europeans (Portuguese) arrived in the 1500's, but failed to colonize the island because of hostile populations on the coasts. There was a state of anarchy for a while - a safe haven perhaps only for pirates. The Malay-Indonesian 'merina' people created a centralized kingdom, and its legacy may be the relatively homogeneous language of Malagasy spoken throughout the island. Madagascar was ultimately colonized by the French (1896-1960). The British always had some influence here - there are Christian faith remnants of Welsh missionaries. I think it is interesting to note that in the late 1930's the Nazis stated in their Final Solution that Jews would be transported to Madagascar. The island would serve as a massive ghetto under the authority of Heinrich Himmler. The so-called 'Madagascar Plan' became an impractical solution for the Nazis by 1941 because of the British Royal Navy's command of the seas. Anyway, following 'independence' there was a messy era of socialism (or Kleptocratic rule by a French backed dictator). Now a market economy, Madagascar still has occasional political crises (the latest in 2002).
Today, Madagascar, is one of the poorest countries in the world (I believe ranked 143 of 177 on the UNDP human development index). I am always interested in what makes some countries rich and others poor so I am curious to find out more about why Madagascar is so poor. Certainly, there are geographic factors - relative isolation = high trade costs and the environmental degradation has had its impact as well (a ridiculously high percentage of the forests here have been cleared - It is quite evident even from the tiniest bit of the highlands I have seen so far). Other immediate factors for poverty include the lack of infrastructure and poor educational system. But, it seems to make the most sense to me to blame the political history - the colonial history, the usurption of wealth by the ruling elite, and the political coups that stagnate the economy every time it has potential to take off (e.g. 1992, 2002). The new president, Marc Ravalomanana, seems to be talking the right talk (emphasizing the importance of the environment, e.g.) so maybe the future will be bright. He has made English the country's 3rd official language after Malagasy and French - probably to keep in step with the globalized world. Later, a more micro-level look at Madagascar...ie my personal experiences.
Madagascar is the 4th largest island (after Greenland, Papa New Guinea and Borneo) that was first settled 2000 years ago by a Malay-Indonesian population. It still blows my mind that the dominant theory (which I think Jared Diamond agrees with) holds that these people from Borneo (closest linguistic link) sailed directly here across the Indian Ocean. It was hundreds of years later that East African populations crossed the Mozambique Channel to settle here. Later, Arabic and Indian groups migrated here as well.
The first Europeans (Portuguese) arrived in the 1500's, but failed to colonize the island because of hostile populations on the coasts. There was a state of anarchy for a while - a safe haven perhaps only for pirates. The Malay-Indonesian 'merina' people created a centralized kingdom, and its legacy may be the relatively homogeneous language of Malagasy spoken throughout the island. Madagascar was ultimately colonized by the French (1896-1960). The British always had some influence here - there are Christian faith remnants of Welsh missionaries. I think it is interesting to note that in the late 1930's the Nazis stated in their Final Solution that Jews would be transported to Madagascar. The island would serve as a massive ghetto under the authority of Heinrich Himmler. The so-called 'Madagascar Plan' became an impractical solution for the Nazis by 1941 because of the British Royal Navy's command of the seas. Anyway, following 'independence' there was a messy era of socialism (or Kleptocratic rule by a French backed dictator). Now a market economy, Madagascar still has occasional political crises (the latest in 2002).
Today, Madagascar, is one of the poorest countries in the world (I believe ranked 143 of 177 on the UNDP human development index). I am always interested in what makes some countries rich and others poor so I am curious to find out more about why Madagascar is so poor. Certainly, there are geographic factors - relative isolation = high trade costs and the environmental degradation has had its impact as well (a ridiculously high percentage of the forests here have been cleared - It is quite evident even from the tiniest bit of the highlands I have seen so far). Other immediate factors for poverty include the lack of infrastructure and poor educational system. But, it seems to make the most sense to me to blame the political history - the colonial history, the usurption of wealth by the ruling elite, and the political coups that stagnate the economy every time it has potential to take off (e.g. 1992, 2002). The new president, Marc Ravalomanana, seems to be talking the right talk (emphasizing the importance of the environment, e.g.) so maybe the future will be bright. He has made English the country's 3rd official language after Malagasy and French - probably to keep in step with the globalized world. Later, a more micro-level look at Madagascar...ie my personal experiences.
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