The ABCs of Peace Corps Madagascar

A few months ago I was sitting on a taxi-brousse and feeling very bored, so I started writing this out in my notebook. Special thanks to Rory and Briana for giving me additional ideas.

A is for: akoho (chicken), ariary (local currency), ambani-volo (the countryside/bush), Airtel (cell phone provider) and akondro (bananas).

B is for: beaches, biking, brochettes (kebab-like meat skewers), and bucket baths.

C is for: cats (necessary rat protection), Cipro (a miracle drug when you have dysentery), cyclones, composé (sort of like pasta salad), Castel (a type of beer), coconuts, and chocolate (what we’re always craving).

D is for: dysentery, Dzama (cheap local rum brand), Delmonaco (ubiquitous sardines beloved by most PCVs), dahalo (Malagasy version of organized crime—cattle bandits), and Dahlia’s (our favorite hotely in Farafangana).

E is for: eggs (in many places, the best protein source there is).

F is for: frip (used clothing stalls), fish, fady (cultural taboos that vary from town to town), fomba (“custom”, or way of doing things), fiangonana (church, or that thing that noisily wakes you up every Sunday), and FYFG (inside joke with my stagemates.)

G is for: giardia, Gold (beer brand), and gony sacks (how pretty much everything is packaged and transported).

H is for: hard drive (where we store and trade all the media that keeps us entertained at site), hotely (small local restaurant), “How’s Life?” (rule to live by), and Happy (Rory’s favorite cookie brand).

I is for: iPod (don’t even think of getting on a taxi-brousse without one).

J is for: jus naturel (delicious homemade juices made with local tropical fruit), Jumbo (the super-vazaha grocery store in Tana where we tend to waste all our money on peanut butter and imported food), and jirofo (cloves, aka the thing that’s currently blowing up my town with money and buyers.)

K is for: kabone (latrine/outhouse), kaza (cassava—so unhealthy but extremely easy to grow, so people eat a lot of it), and kilalaky (really annoying type of local pop music).

L is for: lemurs, lychees (fresh, and only 5 cents a bunch!), Libertalia (pirate-themed beer brand), lambas (cloth wraps worn by local women), and laoka (the side dish that goes with rice... never enough at hotelys).

M is for: moka (mosquitoes), mangoes (10 cents each), mofo (bread), mud (welcome to rainy season), and meva (the PCV transit houses in Tana, Fianar, and Diego, where we like to camp out to use wi-fi and real showers).

N is for: nap (every afternoon during the post-lunch siesta period).

O is for: omby (cow), Orange (cell phone provider), and Outcool (one of our oft-frequented bars in Tana).

P is for: parasy (sand flea that lays its eggs in human feet, which then have to be dug out), pocanelle (aka the ice cream fruit), pineapple (the sweetest you’ll ever taste), paositra (post office), peanut butter (something we’re all addicted to and stock up on in Tana), and palm trees.

Q is for: quatre-quatre (4x4, and we feel like we won the lottery when we manage to score a ride in one instead of having to take a taxi-brousse).

R is for: ranon’ampango (tea-like drink made from boiling the burnt rice at the bottom of the pot), and ravenala (endemic palm tree that is used to build houses).

S is for: Sur’Eau (chlorine solution that we use to sterilize our water and wash our produce), solar charger (vital for volunteers without electricity at site), Skol (beer brand), Smecta (diarrhea treatment), sambos (samosa-like fried snack), shrimp (so cheap!), siesta (that time every afternoon when it’s acceptable to take a nap), Skype (what we live for whenever we get on wi-fi), and Sud Est (BEST REGION EVER REGION!)

T is for: Telma (cell phone provider), tenrec (hedgehog-like animal endemic to Madagascar), THB (the most commonly found beer brand), toaka (alcohol), taxi-brousse (decrepit, overstuffed, cargo-laden vans that are our main form of transportation in this country), and tacos (what we most often cook whenever there’s a PCV get-together).

U is for: USB modems (which allow you to get online almost anywhere) and Uvita (cheap Argentinean boxed wine that is somehow available here).

V is for: vary (rice, the staple food), vanilla, voandalana (souvenirs; literally translates to ‘fruit of the road’), vazaha (white foreigner—a word that all of us hate being called because it usually means tourist/stranger, which we’re not), voalavo (rats, which are in many houses, and are the reason that I have cats).

W is for: water (something we have to fetch from a pump every day), weaving (a common handicraft), Wi-Fi (a rare luxury), and worms (something most of us contract at some point during our service).

X is for: Xavier, the Peace Corps education program director.... the other programming staff are Stan, Lucie, Hoby, Jemima, Lova, and Tovo.

Y is for: yaourt (yogurt—locally made and so good!)

Z is for: zaza kely (little kids, our constant companions and dedicated fan club), zandry (younger sibling and also used to describe newer volunteers), and zoky (older sibling, or volunteers who’ve been here the longest).