Real Job/Language

The political stalemate continues, and so I continue to reside at my consolidation point. I'm clearly not up to much since I just blogged, but technically I'm on a kind of house arrest anyway. There's currently a 9pm curfew by Malagasy law, but according to current Peace Corps policy, I am not supposed to be strolling the streets at an hour. So I am not feeling guilty about not working…which may leave you wondering…what is my job anyway?

Well, this is how I understand it. As a community health worker, I'm trying to spread health messages that raise awareness and (even better) inspire behavior change, focused particularly on mothers and children. As a Peace Corps volunteer, my predominant purpose is really based around the cross-cultural exchange, the promotion of peace worldwide. Now, that sounds like a really nice, liberal notion – the promotion of world peace by sharing my culture with the people here, and then sharing their culture with those I return home to in two years. But, what does that really mean? What am I really learning except odd things like I should sleep facing north or west because only the entombed dead here rest facing south or east…or that, for example, when you eat sweet potatoes for lunch and crushed sweet potato leaves for dinner, you're sure to be violently sick that night (learned that one the hard way). Are these really lessons I'll bring back home which will bring the human race to greater mutual understanding? Also, I'm 23 years old. Didn't I get that cross-cultural exchange experience when I studied abroad or took that self-realizing backpacking Europe trip that's pretty much become a rite of passage for every (fortunate) adolescent today? Shouldn't I get a real job? Well, I'm being facetious, but I've got news for those of you still in doubt (and perhaps I'm really just clarifying all this for myself because if you are reading this, you probably don't hate the peace corps mission/idea).

#1 – I left the Western World before the economic crisis really hit, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't get a 'real' job right now if I tried.

#2 – Obama supports me – Back in November, I heard his acceptance speech over the radio in a room crowded with 18 other American Peace Corps Trainees hanging onto or shedding a tear at his every word. He said at one point, "to those huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world" (does an 11 hour difference from home on an island in the southern hemisphere of the Indian Ocean count?) More applicable to my overarching purpose in this rambling defense of my job here, Obama said "if our children should live to see the world next century…what change will they see? What progress will we have made? This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment…to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace…" Well, the change I'd like to see is a convergence rather than widening gap between the rich and poor countries of the world. I think the Peace Corps is only going to help in this vain. At least, for me personally, it's going to get me thinking about inequalities, and put me on the right path to….oh I don't know…being the change I want to see in the world? That's a bit hackneyed, but I do trust that what I will learn here in my little role in grassroots development will teach me a bit about what works in the field, and how best to approach major development issues in the future. Of course, I'd like to leave some small indelible, not 'mark,' but positive change here, even if at the end of it, all I can say is I've made some good friends.

#3 – On a lighter note, maybe I still like learning the simple cultural differences that on their own aren't going to contribute to greater peace and prosperity. Did I mention that my Malagasy friend rearranged my bed so I would stop sleeping facing west like the ancestral spirits in the family tombs? Oh, and that when she finished turning my bed around, she plopped my pillow down underneath my mattress! Apparently, some people sleep like that here.

On the language front...

One of my top priorities in life is learning Malagasy. That sounds funny, I know, but honestly, getting a grasp on this language is the key to every aspect of what I've defined as my job here. So here's a bit about this language I'm learning.

I think in a previous post, I touched on the origin of the language and how incredible it is that despite the diversity of the people (Indonesia, Africa, etc) and the relative isolation of different regions from each other across the island, a relatively consistent version of the language is spoken. Anyway, let's fast forward a bit. A few British missionaries actually created the first comprehensive writing system for the Malagasy language. Radama I was ruling at the time (early 1800's) and he is the one credited with uniting the island under a single monarchy, and perhaps less fondly remembered for opening up the island nation to the rest of the world...particularly to the European powers. He forged particularly close ties with the British, which included warmly welcoming in the London Missionary Society. He didn't care much for religion, but the missionaries established the beginnings of an educational system and taught valuable artisanal trades. So of course they wanted the Bible converted into Malagasy and I suppose that was probably the main motivation for a complete written language. The missionaries supposedly convinced the Malagasy king against using the Arabic writing system. The king obliged, but insisted the language not contain any redundant letters or spelling. The Latin alphabet was employed with consonants similar to the English pronunciation and vowels more or less using the French pronunciation. Perhaps thanks to the king's demand (and perhaps since the system is relatively new), words are phonetic – for the most part, words are actually pronounced as they are spelled (unlike languages such as, let's say Danish, in which people tend to pronounce very little of what is actually written…I pick this example because they are the worst offenders in this respect of the languages I've encountered...no offense to my relatives- you all know how much I wish I could be fluent). In Malagasy, there are just three tenses, no gender differentiation, and no verb-subject agreement. Thus, I would say that overall it's a relatively easy language to learn. That said, I'm struggling. One hard part is that people speak in the passive voice, and I believe we, English speakers, use the active voice. For example if I were to say in English "A man tried to steal an ox, but the owners caught him and killed him with a blunt piece of wood," in Malagasy, one might say "An ox was stolen by a man, but he was caught by the owners and he was killed by a blunt piece of wood." That actually happened in the town next to mine – cattle theft is common here and the repercussions severe. I think that might be a terrible grammatical example, but hopefully you get the gist.

The other difficult aspect for me in learning Malagasy is that I don't have a natural ear for languages (my brother took that gene from my mother before I came along). But, as a former soccer coach once wisely told me, the one thing you can always control is your effort. I think it was meant in the sense that when you're having a shitty game (e.g. your touch is off), you can at least hustle to the ball and work hard on defense. But, I like it and I try to keep it in mind for my everyday life. So, in application in this scenario, I walk around all day writing down new words on a scrap of paper, that I'll transfer to an ongoing language journal, and study later that evening. Unrelated to my little self-motivational quote, but in the spirit of "reduce, reuse, recycle," the scrap will later serve as toilet paper (I haven't yet located any rolls of tp at my site anyway).

For how frustrating it can be not being able to express myself well or partake in group conversations, I also kind of enjoy the challenge. It's fun and culturally revealing. For example, today I learned the word for 'snack' or the food that you eat between meals = hanin-kotrana. In everyday usage, it refers to sweet potato, the cassava root, a corn concoction, etc. But, literally it translates as 'any food inferior to rice.' Rice, of course, is the preferred base of each meal. That's not as funny now that I write it, as it was when I discovered the literal translation. But let's continue…often, when I am grappling for a word, I might be able to make a pretty good stab at what it might be. For example, animal = biby, long = lava…so what is 'biby lava'? It's a snake of course.

I know there is no such thing as a 'superior' culture or language, but I worried in the beginning over the lack of variety of words. For example, the word 'volo' I believe means 'hair,' 'feathers,' and 'bamboo.' If that's the case, then how do you scientifically classify a bird? Just kidding around, but take the word for 'bad' in English and think of its various synonyms such as 'evil,' 'awful,' 'vile,' and 'wicked.' We'd probably all agree that these words have subtle differences and that we use them to more accurately describe something depending on the context. But, if you look up all these words in Malagasy, all you get is 'ratsy.' I couldn't help, but be reminded of Orwell's 1984 concept of 'Newspeak.' Specifically, I remember how part of Winston's(?) job was to systematically remove synonyms from the language so as to limit people's ability to express themselves (thereby increasing the power of the totalitarian state). I know I have to acknowledge that my concern was unfounded based simply on how little I know of the language. But, even better, I have since had a new breakthrough. This language is deceptively simple and it's all in the saying 'it's not about quantity, but quality.' Ok, so the Malagasy language hasn't had the 1,000+ years of turbulent history of development and change like the contemporary spoken English language (an effect of the various kingdoms that have ruled the island nation of GB, from its W Germanic language origin with the Anglo-Saxons, to the additions of N Germanic language elements when the Danes ruled a large area of the island (they were refered to as 'Danes' in original sources though they were vikings from different areas of Scandinavia probably) , and then the vast overlays of Norman French when they sailed over - Michel Thomas estimates 60% of English words are derived from French). But, what I'm trying to say is that perhaps history has created an English language with an immense inventory of words, but the Malagasy language has its own way of expressing creativity in the way the language is used. Quick disclaimer here, I don't know anything about poetry, but I think Malagasy is actually quite beautiful and poetic in the way it uses language. For example, the word for 'dusk' is 'maizin-bava vilany' or 'darken the mouth of the cooking pot.' The word for 'sunrise' is 'vaky masoandro' or 'the eye of the day splinters or breaks.' If I was more poetically inclined, I might recognize more of these examples. Then, there are the dozens of Malagasy proverbs and expressions, which I really shouldn't get started on because they are way too much fun (and sometimes, by fun, I mean just culturally revealing). For example, the other day, I dressed/clothed a newborn for the first time (which was actually quite a special moment, I found myself staring in awe at this tiny little thing in my arms, this fragile little life blinking softly and helplessly straight back at me - I was so scared I was going to drop it). So I carried the baby carefully over to the mother and delivered the culturally appropriate expression, "Arahabaina fa nahazo mpatsaka na mpanetsa." Translation, "Congratulations, you've acquired a girl to fetch the water or transplant the rice." If it were a boy, I would have said, "congrats, you've acquired a laborer of the land, a tiller of the soil"…something to that effect. Proverbs are another example of the way language is used creatively. Here's a sample proverb: 'Tondro tokana tsy mahazo hao" = you can't catch a louse with one finger (cooperation is needed). I like this one because it's practically a favorite past time here to go through a kid's hair breaking lice eggs, and it includes a nice message about teamwork. It's also one of my favorites because a fellow PCV is seriously considering getting that one tattooed on the nape of her neck (she caught lice during in country training).

Well, I could go on and on, but maybe I'll just stick to subtly squeezing in a pertinent proverb in later postings. As they say here, "Raha lava ny ahitra, very ny kisoa. Raha lava ny teny, very ny soa." "If the grass is too long, you lose your pig, if the speech is too long, it loses its interest." Ok, I swear, I'm really done now:)

Political Crisis

I know there hasn't been too much in the international news, but many may have heard that there's a bit of a political crisis ongoing here in Madagascar. I need to write this without expressing my personal political views so I'll try to give a brief impartial account of what's going on with a bit of my own personal ground level reporting of the situation (don't get too excited...recall that I live in the boonies). So last week, the mayor of Tana (the capital) called for a general strike, which turned into a call for a new government and, over a couple days, into a contagion of looting and burning in many of the bigger cities around the island. In the capital, the state television and radio stations were burned, a number of supermarkets were looted and burned to the ground, and there have been up to 100 deaths I believe (a few shot amidst efforts to stem the chaos, many more found charred in burned buildings).

The president has been accused of undemocratic behavior; it was highly unpopular when he bought himself an airplane, he's been accused of monopolizing many industries (such as dairy and cooking oil, I believe he owns many of the supermarkets that were targeted as well), and there have been other unpopular business dealings (like potentially leasing a large area of land to South Korea). The violence quickly died down, but now everyone has to deal with the ensuing economic effects and continued obscurity of the political situation. In the economic sphere, some have lost their jobs, such as the supermarket employee I met last night who was visiting a PCV to see if she could borrow some English books: all her materials for learning English were destroyed as the supermarket burned down. Not sure why she kept them stored at work, but nonetheless she wants to keep studying while she waits to hear if she can work at the company's factory while they rebuild the supermarket. Banks were closed for a bit, gas stations ran empty, Peace Corps advised us to stock up on food. The prices of major commodities such as petrol, rice, and cooking oil have already increased (I suppose as work and transportation are interrupted, the resultant scarcity of such staples drive their price up – you economists can now go ahead and tear that sentence apart). Politically, it's still very unclear to me what is going on. Last Saturday, the mayor declared himself in charge of the country, which I believe was a huge shock to the Western media coverage (the little that there was). The 34 year old mayor, who looks a boyish twenty-something, is also constitutionally too young to be president. But, after talking to some folks here, they say that his words were misinterpreted to mean he was calling himself president, when what he was really saying was that he's taking charge of the situation to democratically arrange a new government. He called for a 'Dead City' on Monday, Feb. 2, in other words, for everyone to strike, but I've heard most people in Tana appeared to go back to work. The President has since fired him based on dereliction of duty, he's refused to step down, and has planned another rally this weekend (I believe he plans on announcing an interim government, and if that doesn't draw crowds, the famous Malagasy pop singer he's invited to perform probably will).

To summarize what I've heard expressed by people in my area of the country, I'd say that while recognizing the president did a lot of good for the country in terms of infrastructure and education, they sympathize with the mayor's accusations. I've read in Western media coverage that the 'old politicians' (such as the current president's predecessor, who's uncle was also president during the socialist era) are manipulating the situation, using the mayor as a fresh-faced young charismatic figure to get the crowd riled up (as a former disc jockey, I suppose he's well-qualified for the role). But people I've talked to seem to think the old politicians are just following behind the mayor. It's hard to find an opinion on a solution to the ongoing political stalemate. I'm told that people don't want this conflict; they are sick and tired of these power struggles that hit the poor the hardest and force the country to 'start over' right when things are about to take off (from a development point of view). I hear from many that they want the two major figures involved to sit down and talk, but then I'm also told that this won't help because the constitution needs fundamental changes and they need a new leader altogether.

There was an interesting 24 hrs for me, in which all the radio stations were down, my phone was dead, there was no electricity in my district, and consequently no way for anyone to reach me. Of course, I wasn't worried. I was safe and sound in my quiet, little village. You can imagine my surprise then, when at 10pm, the middle of the night here for me, a couple acquaintances came to my door in whispers telling me to lock up, not to answer the door to anyone during the night (duh), and to carry a whistle to call for help just in case. Why? What was going on? They answered, and I'll translate directly, "There are thieves coming from Tana in the President's cars." Before, I could ask for a bit more clarification, some far off neighbors started yelling for help. The two women looking out for me went sprinting into the darkness back to their homes, and their kids. I quickly locked up as I heard some cars pass by (which is rare on any day, but particularly unusual when it's dark). I let my adrenaline run for a bit, though there was still that little rational voice in my head telling me that there was nothing to fear. The daylight brought some more clarity to the evening's episode. Turns out, there were a few guys who stole a huge truck belonging to the president's dairy company filled with stolen food supplies such as rice and flour. They were from my area so accordingly returned home with the goods. I was busy asking people all morning if they thought the men were making a political statement by stealing a truck from the president's company. When I found a few hundred people gathered to raid the abandoned truck, hoarding off their share of the stolen staple foods, I realized I was asking a very silly, irrelevant question, showing how totally out of touch I still am with real poverty. This wasn't political; these were poor people taking advantage of the lapse in order to steal some basic necessities…turned into a bit of a Robin Hood 'take from the rich, give to the poor' affair in my book.

So all in all, my only real, constant fear has been the possibility of getting evacuated. I've been worrying that I'll be sent home when I feel perfectly able and safe to continue here. But, I know there are a host of other factors Peace Corps has to consider even now when the violent aspect has disappeared, not to mention the things beyond their control (I am after all working for a US government agency). For now, I have been 'consolidated' to a larger city to ease evacuation if that becomes necessary. I hiked out of my site again to the nearest volunteer a few days ago. I was told to remain there for a few days until being told to move into my current location. In that particular town, I made the 'vazaha' or foreigner count a total of three (the other two, the PCV and an Italian missionary) so I guess I shouldn't be surprised when people stopped me in the street addressing me by name. My name and line of work had been announced over the local radio shortly after my arrival. It's not surprising that during those few days of complete idleness coupled with the unwelcome prospect of evacuation, I started to drive myself a bit crazy so I embarked on a little solo hike. A couple girls around my age said hello to me on my way up the first hill. I asked them the 'gasy equivalent of 'what's up' and one girl responded, 'nothing, just watching you.' I chuckled and continued on my way. Two hours later, I passed them on my return and they invited me in. First, I was eating boiled cassava with the two sisters outside their hillside home, soon I was drinking orange classiko at their eldest sister's house in town, later I was eating a mashed banana and rice concoction at their parent's mud, thatched home an hour's walk outside of town. Oh, I was also given all the beans we had picked together from their field. But, of course, what I ate is not important. I'm simply shedding light on an example of the kindness and openness of these people; the kind of thing that makes me love being here.

Of course, there are interactions that I find less than agreeable. But I realize that they are probably not attacks on me personally, but at what I represent to them. I've only just begun to understand the cultural/psychological impact that the more than sixty years of colonization has had – at least in relation to my individual experience as a white foreigner. For example, there's little harassment in my town, but when I hiked to the town nearby, I immediately began to encounter such greetings as 'Bonjour vazaha.' (Hello foreigner). I am too new here to be as annoyed by it as other volunteers are. Sometimes it can be used in jest, but for the most part it's meant in a derogatory way, which I can perceive from the tone and know, simply because people I trust tell me not to respond when people say that to me. My current reaction is to ignore it or to say 'Hello Malagasy.' Then, there are also many requests for money and gifts, often singling me out to beg because it's assumed that I have a lot of money. But sometimes, people ask for 'fruits of the road' or gifts when you return to town and this might be culturally appropriate here. It's still awkward for me because of course asking for gifts is considered quite rude by American standards – what American kid hasn't learned that when they want something, the last thing they should do is beg their parents for it? While visiting the little village of the parents of my new acquaintances, about twenty kids stood watching me hidden behind corn stalks. As I approached, they fled with fright…later, one of new acquaintances found it pertinent to point out that the kids are afraid of me because of the colonial history. Yesterday, I went to the bank and was waved in front of thirty or so patiently waiting Malagasy people before me. That was highly embarrassing. I didn't want to cut the queue as if I were special.

So I can classify three types of disagreeable interactions I have encountered thus far: being insulted (e.g. vazaha), being feared (e.g. by some children), and being given preferential treatment (e.g. at the bank). All are results of a colonial past in my opinion, and not to be taken personally. Plus, for every fleeing child, for every person asking me for money, for every testy adolescent with a sly comment, there are the genuine cultural exchanges such as the day spent with my 'new acquaintances' that by far outweigh the few negative interactions.