“Oh the sweetest winds they blow across the south”

(Lyric from ‘Oh My Sweet Carolina’ by Ryan Adams, which my friend James (http://frommemphistomadagascar.blogspot.com) and I sang at the PST talent show. I’ll always think of him and Peace Corps whenever I hear that song from now on, and although the song is about the American south, this lyric seems to be fitting as I find myself living in the southern part of Madagascar.)

I’m sitting here writing this at my kitchen table, cup of coffee next to me, and I’m thinking to myself that this is not so very different from how things might be in my apartment back in New York. Of course, the cup of coffee would probably be a latte from Starbucks that I picked up post-morning spin class, instead of mixed from a Starbucks Via packet. And instead of typing this up on Word in order to copy and paste it into Blogger once I can use an internet stick, I’d be buzzing around the internet, making good use of my home wi-fi that now seems like such an unfathomable luxury.

I’ve now been living at my permanent site, Vangaindrano, for almost 4 weeks. I am not ashamed to say that surviving my first week at site was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I am also not too proud to say that I cried every single day, sometimes twice a day, during that first week. I was overwhelmed by the quick and violent change of lifestyle, consumed by anxiety and insomnia over the rat infestation in my new home, and heartbroken for the absence of all the friends I’d made during training, most of whom are living laughably far away from me, all across Madagascar. I also had to contend with the reality of being the only vazaha (white person) in a town of 50,000 people, and the resulting attention (catcalls, laughter, staring, and cries of “bonjour vazaha!” due to the assumption that I’m French) that affords me. While many of my friends are replacing volunteers who just finished their service, and/or living in towns where there’s already a volunteer from another sector, I am the first volunteer here, so most people in my town have no idea what Peace Corps is, and don’t yet understand that I will be here for 2 years, living (essentially) at their level, cooking my own food, shopping in the market, doing my own laundry, and fetching my own water. My town has a few French aid workers that pass through every so often in their white 4x4s, but the difference is that they come for a week or two, stay in a hotel, and eat at a restaurant for all their meals. So it’s difficult for people to understand that even though I’m a vazaha, I’m a different one. I still get asked for money constantly, mostly by old women and children (some have sought me out at home because they ask around where the vazaha lives), and I have to tell them “vazaha iaho, fa tsy manam’bola” (yes I’m a vazaha, but I don’t have money.) But the fact that I can say that—speaking Malagasy—is the number one thing that sets me apart. For people who talk to me for the first time, it absolutely blows their mind that I am a white person speaking Malagasy, because Peace Corps volunteers are essentially the only vazahas who do—and so if they’ve never encountered a PCV in Madasgascar, this is a huge novelty for people.  An older gentleman came to my house the first week, along with his adorable granddaughter, because he’d heard there was a vazaha living there. When I started speaking Malagasy, he was blown away. “Incroyable”, he exclaimed in French.

My Malagasy is still pretty basic, and at first I could barely understand people because the dialect spoken here is so different. I’m getting better, but there are still two little girls who come over to my house every day, and I literally cannot understand a single thing they say to me. When I shake my head and say “tsy mahfantatra, azafady” (sorry, I don’t understand), then they go on to say the same thing over, but at the same time, which makes it even more impossible to understand what they are saying! When you’re not very proficient in a language but living in a country where it’s spoken, it’s incredibly difficult not being able to express yourself. For me, it’s even more difficult knowing that I can express myself the way I want to in French, but that I really shouldn’t speak it. A few men in the TIAVO office asked me, once they found out I speak some French, if I preferred for them to speak to me in French. But I shared a knowing look with my counterpart, Soanambiny, and we both said that even though I speak French, I ought to be practicing and honing my Malagasy. Some people here speak French, but not everyone, and when I work with farmers and people in the countryside, I need to be prepared to speak Malagasy. French is still the language of business, and it is used on documents in the office, so I’ll continue to keep practicing it a little bit. But my #1 goal for the first 3 months at my site is to get mahay (skilled/proficient) at Malagasy.

Since my first week, things have improved considerably on how people in town react to me and greet me. The children in my neighborhood, Ampasy, have finally stopped saying “bonjour vazaha”, and now say “akory aby”. Sometimes they still tack on “vazaha”, but I’m just happy to not be spoken to in French. I’ve been talking to people and reminding them of my name, telling them that I’m actually an American, and that I’ll be living and working here for two years. The next assumption that people make is that I’m an English teacher, so then I have to explain that I’m an economic development volunteer and will be working with TIAVO, the local microfinance institution, and COLDIS, its subsidiary which works with spice farmers to export their products. Slowly, people are beginning to understand and accept me, which has made all the difference in my comfort level here at site. Some of my happiest moments were the first time someone called me by my name (instead of vazaha) in my neighborhood, and when a little girl named Claudia, who lives near me, corrected all the other kids and reminded them that I’m American, not French.

My town, as described above, is big, with about 50,000 people, and is quite large and spread out. My neighborhood, Ampasy, is on the far edge of Vangaindrano and is basically the last part before the town gives way to rivers and tanam-bary (rice fields), opening up and becoming the countryside. It is incredibly beautiful here, with gorgeous fields and valleys all crowned with banana and palm trees. It’s about a 10-12k bike ride to the beach, which I need to explore some weekend. My house is situated in a nice spot, with jackfruit and avocado trees in the back, and lychee and mango trees in the front (I can’t wait for these to bear fruit). I have 2 rooms on the left side of a house that’s split into 3 aisles: I use the front room as a kitchen/living area, and the back room as a bedroom. It’s nice and breezy when I have all the doors and windows open, and it’s set back in the shade of some trees, so I have some protection from the sun. The problem is that when I have all the doors/windows open, I don’t get any privacy, because I’m on the first floor. And I can’t have them open at night because of bugs, and for safety reasons as well. This is killing me, because one of my favorite things in life is falling asleep with summer breezes coming through open windows, especially on super hot nights.  At this point my house is pretty sad because all I have for furniture is a bed, a small table for my cookstove, and (as of Sunday) a table and 2 chairs.  I’m trying to save money to get a food prep table and an armoire for my clothes, and then when a current volunteer in my banking town finishes his service in July, I’m going to get his bookshelf and desk. I will take some pictures once I finally get some furniture, but I won’t be able to post any pics until August when I can get wi-fi, because photos take too much bandwidth when you’re using an internet stick to get online.

My house isn’t fancy, but by Peace Corps standards it’s pretty much exactly what I need. I have a concrete floor, solid wood walls, and a metal roof, which is preferable to a house constructed of ravinala (a local tree, which isn’t the sturdiest thing when used for construction or roofing.) It’s basically like a souped-up summer camp cabin, albeit one with some animal residents: I have a friendly little gecko that climbs around the walls, and the other night I had to shoo a little frog out the front door. However, the animals that have claimed the most residence have unfortunately been rats. I knew I’d have to deal with this when coming to Africa, and I was prepared to deal with a few rats. But what I wasn’t prepared for was the veritable extended family of rats that inhabit the empty space between the ceiling of my house and the metal roof. The first night at site, I slept soundly because it was pouring rain and that was all I could hear. But the second night, I barely slept a wink because I heard the sound of perhaps 10 rats running around, fighting, and squeaking in my ceiling, all night long. I also heard them chewing through wood and envisioned them entering my house through the ceiling, which is made of cheap plywood and is full of rat-size holes that they can use as entry points. So I spent that entire terrible second night awake in bed, flashlight in hand looking nervously at the ceiling, anxiety racing and heart pounding, just counting down the minutes until dawn when I’d feel safe enough to get out of bed, knowing the rats would be asleep finally. My new friend Yu Sun, a health volunteer who lives 20k from my town, came to visit me that day, and I nearly collapsed in tears when she showed up. She slept over that night, after a day spent helping me acclimate to my town and shop in the market, and her confirmation that it was the loudest rat problem she’d ever heard helped allay some of my concerns that I was overreacting. As I mentioned, I can deal with one or two, but when it’s loud enough that the rats wake me up, through my earplugs and even after taking sleeping pills, that’s something I can’t deal with. After a week of this, I simply couldn’t take the anxiety and lack of sleep, and called the Peace Corps medical office for help. Dr. A helped me talk to my landlord and recommended a special kind of rat poison, available from veterinary offices, that is ideal for ceilings because it makes rats go out and seek water before they die, so they don’t expire in a building. The night after they put this poison in the ceiling, I got my first full night’s sleep in a week, and nearly cried from happiness the next morning. However, the problem has come back, and new rats seem to have taken up residence. I’m a little less anxious about it and able to deal with it a little better, but I’m asking that my landlord put the poison in again. It got so loud a few nights ago that it literally sounded like someone was breaking into my house. Also, as of last week I now have a kitten (named Maxwell), which I am hoping will help the problem. So, this will be an ongoing battle I think, but one that I am hoping to win!

Another issue I had with my house was that when I moved in, I didn’t have a kabone (outhouse) or ladosy (outdoor shower room). The PC staffer who installed me at site asked if I could be flexible for the first couple weeks while they were being built, which I agreed to be, but it was less than ideal having to walk to a neighbor’s house every time I had to use the bathroom or take a bucket bath. But last Sunday they were finished at last, and when my landlord handed me the keys, I was elated! After nearly 3 weeks of “being flexible” and going to a neighbor’s house, I now have my very own, clean, brand-new kabone and ladosy, which has made my life so much better. Funny what we consider luxury as Peace Corps volunteers.

So, I think a big part of my difficulty the first few weeks was not having a comfortable place that I could call home. This is the way I’ve always been: if I don’t have somewhere where I can come home and relax, I have a hard time dealing with other stress. Therefore, living somewhere that literally gave me anxiety attacks, coupled with the fact that I had no furniture, nowhere to shower/use the bathroom, and nothing that felt home-like, made those first couple weeks pretty difficult, because when just simply existing is stressful, you need to have a place to call home that makes you feel at ease. Even though the rats are still here, my anxiety has been better, and finally getting a kabone, ladosy, and table and chairs has made me feel a lot better. I know that in the coming months, once I have enough money to get a few more things and really get my home set up, I’ll feel much more settled, and then I’ll really be able to focus on the work I came here to do!

This post has become quite long, so I think I’m going to address the last few random observations and thoughts via bullet points. I’m also going to write a separate post about food and cooking, so stay tuned for that next.

·         Music: I think I would literally die (or at least quit) without my iPod- it is keeping me sane and happy. It’s to the point where I’m considering having a friend who is going home in November buy me a backup one and bring it back to Madagascar, just in case my existing, 4 year old iPod decides to stop working. Electronics can be finicky here because of the humidity, plus when charging things like laptops, the electrical current is not very high quality, so computers have a tendency to die. (God I hope that doesn’t happen to me!)

·         Cell phone: my cell phone is my lifeline, and I’ve been burning through a ton of phone credit. I went through 20,000 Ariary ($10) of credit in my first two weeks at site. Oh how I miss the days of unlimited plans! But I’m expecting my phone usage will go down a bit as I get settled and a bit more independent at site. However, right now, being able to talk to and text my friends all over the country has been such a lifesaver. I have no idea how the first group of volunteers in 1961 did it, with no way to communicate home or with each other except for writing letters.

·         Electricity: I didn’t have electricity in my house my first week at site, which was challenging although I know it’s how many volunteers live. My landlord had been waiting for JIRAMA, the utility company, to set it up since December. Finally he got sick of waiting and decided to just talk to a neighbor about sharing theirs, so a week into living here, he had someone string an extension cord from the neighbor’s house to mine. It’s a bit MacGyver-ed, but it’s been working, and being able to charge my phone/laptop and turn on lights has been a blessing. But, being that this is a developing country, the power is unreliable. There’s a tapaka (cut) at least three times a week, and it always seems to go out when you’re trying to cook dinner. My other neighbor got so fed up with them that he spent a lot of money to get a solar panel, which is something I’d like to explore from a business perspective.

·         Becoming  a hoarder: I literally save EVERYTHING now, from the plastic bag that my toilet paper comes in, to empty cans from tomato paste. Trash is so different here, and things that we’d throw away without a second thought in the US are often precious commodities when resources are scarce. For example, the other day I cut off these little ties on my pajama pants because they were annoying me. But instead of throwing them out, I repurposed them, and now I have a “keychain” for my friend Leo’s set of spare key, which I really needed. Also interesting from a trash perspective: there are mpivoratras (vendors) in the market who literally sell empty plastic bottles and tin cans. These are valuable because when you go buy cooking oil, you always have to bring your own bottle. People also buy the big yellow jerry cans that the bulk oil comes in to use for fetching and storing water. Since there is no “recycling” here as we know it, the market provides it.

·         Biking: Peace Corps thankfully issues every volunteer a super cool Trek mountain bike, and this has become one of my most prized possessions—I don’t know what I would do without it. My town is so big, and walking to the TIAVO office from my house takes 30 minutes, which is a pain is you’re going back and forth a few times a day. Biking has also allowed me to explore the surrounding countryside, and see a lot more of the town than if I was just walking. And, I take my bike with me on the taxi-brousse when I go to Farafangana, my banking town, so I can bike around town with the other volunteers and visit our favorite beach, about a 15-minute ride. My bike is brand-new, and I’ve now got it tricked out with a bell, rack, saddlebags, and water bottle cage.  I’m looking forward to taking it on some longer rides, such as when I go visit my friend Leo’s site, Mahtanga, which is about a 2 hour ride from my town. I have to be super careful about locking up my bike whenever I take it somewhere, and I leave it in my house overnight, because it attracts a LOT of attention. It’s definitely the nicest bike anyone here has ever seen—although tons of people here have bikes, mine is the only fancy American-style one. All the guys who run the taxi-brousses comment on it, and I get many requests to borrow it (which I never allow.) I’m careful about safety too, and always wear my PC-issued helmet. However, that didn’t prevent me from getting into my first bike accident here a couple weeks ago! I was heading to the taxi-brousse station around 7AM, when the roads are full of hordes of students walking to school. The roads in my part of town are unpaved and full of giant potholes and ditches that you have to swerve to avoid. That morning, I swerved to avoid a student, then had to turn to avoid another pothole, but when another student got in the way, I couldn’t move in time, and fell off and scraped up my knee pretty badly. Hopefully this won’t happen again now that I have a bell I can ring!

·         Water: as mentioned before, I don’t have running water at my house (like most volunteers), and my water situation is less than ideal. I pay monthly to share in a private tap that’s about a 50 meter walk from my house. The tap is only open from 6-8AM and 12-6PM, so I have to make sure to get my water then or go without, and this often means waiting for a while, because the tap is slow. The upside of this is that it’s allowed me to meet and talk to neighbors while waiting, and my banged-up knee has provided a good conversation starter. I usually fetch about 3 buckets of water per day. One I use for bathing, one I use for drinking/cooking (it goes in my water filter), and other one I use for washing dishes. It’s pretty amazing to think about how much water we use in the US, and then realize that I am able to get by with 3 buckets of water a day. I am a little nervous about my water situation, because we’ve already had one outage at the water pump, and I’ve heard that it happens more frequently during the dry season. So to hopefully combat any water shortage, I just bought a giant plastic barrel to use to collect rainwater. I need to clean it out and rig it up with a gutter from my roof, but once I have that working, my water situation will be so much easier!