Stomping Out Malaria: World Malaria Day in Mantasoa

April 25^th is World Malaria Day, and because Peace Corps volunteers of all sectors are heavily involved in malaria prevention efforts across Africa and Asia, our training group participated in a special event today in Mantasoa.

Last Saturday we gathered there to paint a mural on the wall of the fokontany building (kind of like a town office), which illustrated the dangers of not sleeping under a bed net. Although malaria is not as prevalent here in the chillier highlands than it is in the coastal area, there were 2 cases reported in the area last week. Many people have a false idea that they can’t get tazo moka (the Malagasy word for malaria, which translates to “mosquito fever”), so a lot of education is needed. Today’s event presented the mural to the residents and lehibes (town authorities such as a the mayor, chief of the fokontany, head of the gendarmes, etc), as well as the press. The director of the malaria initiative at USAID gave a speech about the goals for eradicating malaria in sub-Saharan Africa and in Madagascar specifically, and there was also a demonstration on how to make natural mosquito repellant using the neem plant, which grows wild all over Madagascar.

The completed mural!

Peace Corps’s malaria prevention efforts work in tandem with PMI (President’s Malaria Initiative), which is a program started by President Obama. All volunteers are supposed to incoporate malaria prevention activities into their work, and for me, it will be especially important because my site, Vangaindrano, is in an area with high malaria rates. I’m really excited to incorporate tazo moka education and neem oil training into my projects at site.  

Peace Corps Passover

            When I joined the Peace Corps, I knew I’d have to make some sacrifices and adjustments to the lifestyle that I’d been accustomed to— chief among these was how I practice Judaism and observe holidays. From conversations with my Peace Corps placement officer I knew I would have to tread carefully since I’d be living in a country where most people probably don’t know what Judaism is. And, let’s be honest, I wasn’t really expecting to be able to find matzoh anywhere in a country like Madagascar. One thing I did know for certain, however, is that I didn’t want to lose the Jewishness from my identity, because among other things, I credit its influence with helping me be the person I want to be—someone who serves as a Peace Corps volunteer, quite honestly. In fact, my short answer to the oft-asked question of “why did you want to join the Peace Corps?” could probably be two words: tikkun olam, which is the Hebrew phrase for the Jewish ideal that translates to “repairing the world”.

            So when I realized at the end of March that Passover was coming right around the corner, I knew that I wanted to do at least something to observe it.  Obviously it wasn’t going to be feasible to observe the dietary laws when I still have to eat whatever they serve us at the training center, so that part was out of the question. But as fortune would have it, I discovered during our tech trip that one of my fellow volunteers, Emma, is also Jewish and was hoping to do something for Passover as well. So, on the second night, we held a very modified seder at the training center. One of our non-Jewish friends also joined in, and we had a fun time making the best of it given our limited resources. I made a Peace Corps-version seder plate using, among other things, cooked potatoes in place of matzoh, and sakay (hot pepper relish that’s popular in Madagascar) in place of horseradish.  My crowning achievement, however, was my Macgyver-ed “wine” for the 4 cups, which I made using vodka and water mixed with Cran-Grape drink mix packets. Hey, you have to work with what you’ve got.

Cups of "wine"

            After the seder, a few more friends joined us at the table and Emma and I ended up talking about Judaism and Jewish holidays with them—trying and failing to remember any Passover songs, and making plans for celebrating Rosh Hashanah together, somewhere in Madagascar.  The night ended up being perfect, and just what I needed to help me keep some bit of connection to my Jewish identity and my life back home. I haven’t had that many moments of homesickness since being here, but when I got to thinking about not being able to celebrate Passover (or any other holidays) in New York with my close friends, it all hit me at once. Realizing that I could keep up some sort of observance during my time here was a balm that smoothed some of the rough edges of that little bit of homesickness.

            At the end of the seder, after we said “next year in Jerusalem” (but let’s be honest, it’s more likely to be “next year in Antananarivo”), we went around the table and talked about what Passover meant to us being here. For me, I have a very distinct connection between Peace Corps and Passover, because it was while I was at my friend Jesse’s parents’ house for a seder last year that I got the phone call from Peace Corps saying that I was finally medically cleared for service.  So it was a great moment to be here in Madagascar, exactly one year later, celebrating the holiday with new friends yet remembering everyone back home, and reflecting on my good fortune to exactly where I am right now.

To Market, To Market (aka Iron Chef Madagascar)

Because I’m a Peace Corps volunteer within the CED (Community Economic Development) sector, my technical training during PST has been focused on applying business principles to developing countries, and specifically to Madagascar in some instances. We’ve done numerous projects to help us practice the kind of work we’ll be doing at site, such as meeting with and consulting on existing small businesses in the town of Mantasoa (where we lived during homestay). One of the more memorable projects, however, was when we had to create an IGA (income generating activity) for the market at Manjakandriana, the big market town an hour’s drive from Mantasoa. The intention of this was to help put us in the shoes of a typical Malagasy person who we’d be helping.

The 14 CED volunteers were split up into 4 different groups, and we had to brainstorm something to sell at the market, then determine how the business would operate and what our expenses would be, then buy all the materlals and figure out how to price our product. My group members and I decided that we wanted to sell a food item, and make it something that would be somewhat familiar to Malagasy people but with an American twist. Out of our initial 3 ideas of Rice Krispie treats (because rice is the most widely eaten food here), corn on the cob, and french fries, we settled on fries, also known as “ovy frites” in Malagasy. Emma, Monica, and I spent the day before the market washing, peeling, and cutting 4 kilos of potatoes and getting everything ready to take to the market. Peace Corps told us we had to be in charge of getting ourselves to the market (to further simulate a real-life experience), so we all “reserved” spots in a taxi-brousse (similar to a bush taxi and how probably 90% of people here get around) for 5 AM, in order to get to the market by 6:30 when we could start setting up.

On market day I got up at 4AM, and my host family did too—they insisted that I needed to at least have some coffee and bread, so they got up to start the fire and brew the coffee, and then my neny (host mother) and sisters walked with me to the taxi-brousse station in the pitch-dark early morning. (This was one of the moments during which their kindness astounded and humbled me.) All 14 of us waited around for an hour with no sign of the taxi-brousse, which at this point we had been prepared for due to the cultural indifference to timeliness here. At 6:00 AM, a truck with a covered bed pulled up, and two guys from our group inquired if it was the taxi-brousse to Manjakandriana. The driver told us to get in—and we stopped to debate it for a minute. It didn’t look like a taxi-brousse, which are more like maxi-vans. But we had been waiting for so long, and we were already running late. So we proceeded to pile in, which ended up becoming a clown car experience as we tried to fit 14 people plus materials for 4 market stalls (tables, groceries, etc.) into the back of what was essentially a large pickup truck. Midway through trying to cram everyone in, one of the volunteers who was squished in the back started to have a panic attack because her claustrophobia was setting in.  A small amount of chaos ensued as we tried to get her out of here plus get more people in—and then all of a sudden the truck pulled away, leaving 6 people behind. Those of us in the back of the truck stared at one another in shock for about 10 seconds, then burst out in nervous laughter as we realized that we were on our way to the market in a truck of questionable safety standards, and there was nothing we could do about it. There were 8 of us crammed in the back of the truck, plus another passenger as well as the driver’s assistant. I was wedged in next to the hitch and was just praying that it wouldn’t open during the trip. To make matters more interesting, there had been an epic rainstorm the night before, and the roads to the market was even worse than normal (which is still really bad.) What should have been an hour-long journey took 2 hours, and at one point the truck got stuck in the mud and we had to all get out so the driver could get it unstuck.

But, we made it to the market at long last around 8AM, and the rest of the group made it about a half hour later (the real taxi-brousse showed up shortly after our truck left.) We set up our ovy frites station, which involved using a fatana-charbon (portable charcoal stove), and started cooking. I began calling it Iron Chef Madagascar because it was hands-down the most stressful cooking situation I’ve ever been in: I had to haul a heavy stove from my host family’s house, on a truck that should have been a taxi-brousse, then set it up in the middle of a crowded market, light the charcoal and keep the fire going, and cook french fries as crowds of Malagasy people stood around me, staring and telling me I was doing it wrong. Yes, it was a difficult morning. The french fries were really slow to cook, and I realized after the fact that I should have used a different pan and more oil. Needless to say, our group was not the most profitable of the 4. We sold all the french fries we cooked, but we didn’t break even on our expenses (mostly because we bought ketchup to serve with them, which is really expensive here, and because we spent more money on cooking oil than we should have.) But the true lessons there were about how to deal with failure, which unfortunately happens often as a Peace Corps volunteers, and how to approach daily challenges, like what to do when the taxi-brousse doesn’t show up? I also reminded myself to think of the small victories: I managed to figure out how to cook french fries in the middle of a crowded market in Madagascar. I’d like to extend that challenge to Bobby Flay, or any of the other Iron Chefs. 

Team "ovy frites"! Thanks Leslie for the pic. (It was

"I'll write you a letter tomorrow. Tonight, I can't hold a pen."

[Note: I've decided to title my blog posts with lyrics from whatever song I've been listening to a lot lately. 'Can't Hardly Wait' by the Replacements has been on heavy rotation lately, and the first lyric is ringing true for me. Exhaustion comes more quickly here in Madagascar, with the extra exertion required of living in a foreign culture, and at night my grand plans of letter writing often gives way to a 9PM bedtime. So, please know that I am thinking of each and every one of you, even if you haven't seen a letter from me yet.]

With my new friends Sarah, Christina and Amy in Sandrandahy

Internet access at last (albeit just for a few hours), and how can I begin to sum up the past five weeks in Madagascar? My life has changed so utterly and completely over the last month that it’s impossible to even begin to describe it.  I’ll offer a few favorite moments to color in the lines: goofing off and dancing to Europe’s “The Final Countdown” with my host sisters while doing dishes. Getting pineapple (mananasy) juice on my Malagasy notebook because I brought it to the dinner table to practice sentences. (The pineapple here is the best in the world.) Taking a truck of questionable safety standards to the market in Manjakandriana with my fellow trainees, and then having to get out while the driver worked to get it unstuck from the rainstorm-ruined muddy road. However, probably the most Peace Corps poster-girl moment was when I sat with my host sister eating cassava sweetened with the Vermont maple syrup that I’d brought my host family as a gift.

To get to Madagascar, you fly to the edge of the earth, and then you fly even further. It is unfathomable to think about how far away from home I am now. After a day of staging in Washington, DC, the 30 of us trainees boarded a plane in Dulles to start the long journey to Mada. After 10 hours we landed in Dakar, Senegal for refueling, and then promptly lifted back up into the sky to continue our trip, arcing over the coast at sunrise as the small Senegalese fishing boats set out from the beach in search of the morning catch. After an overnight stay in Johannesburg, we boarded another plane to Madagascar, and all felt our hearts jump as we began our descent over the lush mountain ranges in Madagascar’s highlands.

The most immediate feeling I had upon arrival was that of relentless uniqueness. From the black worms that I accidentally crunched under my sandal twice in one day, to the green burrs that clung to my jeans when I walked around the training center campus, everything is new and different here. I remember listening to birds calling early in the morning as I law awake with jetlag insomnia on my first night at the Peace Corps—what bird was crying out? My constant companion during my month-long homestay was an electric blue butterfly that flew along with me everyday as I walked down the hill from my house, its wings beating in a shade of blue I’d never seen before in nature.

It’s hard to shake the feeling that I am simply not designed to be in Madagascar; my fair Scottish-Eastern European skin and blue eyes require constant applications of sunblock and donning of sunglasses and hats, and my ample height causes me to constantly whack my head on low ceilings in the houses that are designed for the very petite Malagasy. The country seems to know I don’t belong here, too, and has been exacting revenge for my transgression in the form of constant insect bites (mosquitos and fleas), searing sunburns after just an hour of exposure (even when wearing sunblock), and intermittent gastrointestinal distress (which is to be expected anywhere, of course). It’s a bit ironic that the two items helping me most to survive here are a British water filter and extra-strength French sunblock—funny how colonialism breeds ingenuity.

But despite that, I’m walking up relentlessly happy every morning, and I’m beyond thrilled to be where I am and doing what I’m doing. Someone asked me last night if it felt weird to not be sitting behind a computer all day, and I have to say that I am loving it. The month-long internet diet that was forced upon us actually felt very liberating and freeing, although I am nevertheless thrilled to be back online for a short bit. The strangest part of pre-service training has had to be the change in scale of my life. What I mean is that I now find everything in life to be magnified—things that would not be a big deal at home are suddenly gigantic here. For example, my biggest stress lately was a small Malagasy language test. Would a somewhat insignificant language test cause me to wake up with anxiety every morning back in the US? Probably not. Additionally, there are some other stresses and anxieties that come with being thrust into a fishbowl, where you’re suddenly paired with 28 other people you’ve never met before, and everywhere you go, people stare/laugh/point/yell “vazaha!” (white person) at you. But I think I’ve been handling it as well as can be expected.

Our month-long homestay ended last week and we’re currently on a 6-day tech trip visiting current volunteers to get a sense of what it’s like “in the trenches”. It’s been a whirlwind but generally a lot of fun, because we’d all been itching to get out of Mantasoa and see a little bit more of Madagascar. My homestay family were just simply awesome, and I feel that I really lucked out. Not only did they live on top of a hill with the most beautiful view in town, they were probably the kindest, most loving people I’ve ever met. I can’t even begin to describe the fear I felt on my first dinner with them, when I’d only been studying Malagasy for 2 days and suddenly had to communicate with them. But the days got easier as my Malagasy got better, and I was able to sit around the table and have short conversations with them after just weeks of study. As one of my friends remarked, we learned more Malagasy in one week than he did in an entire year of French class at home. On my last night with them, the family presented me with a birthday gift: a beautiful lamba hoany (traditional Malagasy printed fabric) as well as some inexpensive jewelry. Tears welled up in my eyes from the sheer magnitude of their generosity. This is not a wealthy family by any stretch of the word, and the gesture was both humbling and overwhelming. I once read a piece of advice from a former PCV which said “let people be generous, no matter how poor they are”, and it was what ran through my mind as I tearily thanked them for welcoming me into their family for a month.

With my host family on my last day in Mantasoa.

Language note: my favorite Malagasy words are “skoubi-dou”, which means flip-flops, and was undoubtedly started by someone who had a pair with Scooby-Doo on them; ”mitsangatasangana”, which means to take a walk for pleasure-- this I mainly like because I can finally say it; and “umby” (oom-beee), which means “cow”, because it just sounds cute. However, I now need to start learning my specific dialect, Antesaka, which requires me to turn all my S’s into “sh” sounds. (Example: “salama” becomes “shalama”.) This causes all kinds of hilarity among my fellow trainees.

My dialect is one spoken in the Sud Est region (“Oh yeah, Sud Est yeah!”) in Madagascar’s southeast coast. Yes folks, this means I’m going to the beach! I’ll be serving in a town called Vangaindrano and will be working with an organization called COLDIS to help spice producers improve their exports—so my projects will involve cloves, cinnamon, ginger, and other spices. YES! I’m really thrilled that I will get to use my culinary background, and I’m already brimming with ideas. I have one more month of pre-service training, and then I head down there (a 2-day journey from Tana) around May 5^th. I’ll be joining an (in)famous group of tight-knit volunteers down in the Sud-Est (with the aforementioned slogan), so I am looking forward to beach bonfires, eating lobster for Christmas dinner, and gorging myself on the thousand different kinds of local fruit that’s available there.

I’ve been cobbling together memories and vignettes from the past month, which is giving this blog post a smorgasbord-esque feel. I apologize for not being more concise. It’s just nearly impossible to sum up a month that has seen my life swing in such a different direction. I hope that future blog posts will help do it more justice.