Somewhere Over the Rainbow

 

A few weeks ago, I got the chance to visit my future site in Fort Dauphin for two weeks.  An hour and a half flight away from Tana, lies the southern region of Antanosy, and a wonderful city of Fort Dauphin.  This Madagascar site visit was the second time Peace Corps has provided trainees the opportunity to visit their site before actually moving there.  Besides getting a head start on integration, this site visit gives trainees a physical sense of future life and puts a face to a name, or in this case- place.

A few days before we left for site visits, our stage got assigned individual host families (different than the ones we are staying with in Mantasoa) for our future sites.  Host families came from all across the country to Mantasoa, spent a few days in training, and carted us off to the sites where we would stay for 2 weeks.  As we all got carted off to the capital Tana where we were to stay a night then begin our journey to different places, excitement filled the air.  A final dinner with a few friends and a short sleep later, my stage departed ways with their host families.

My taxi ride to the airport from the hotel was eventful, to say the least.  The taxi ride was about an hour or so, give or take 30 minutes to the airport- no big deal, right? Well, about halfway through the ride, I got pulled over by the police, as is normal in the country.  After my host mom talked with the officer for about 15 minutes and a short car inspection later, we were finally on our way again.  Not even 10 minutes later, the taxi broke down, not once, but twice.  A short waiting for another taxi ride later, a quick hour and a half plane ride, and a quick trip later, I was finally settled into my cozy room in Fort Dauphin.  The next two weeks were filled with being carted around town, introductions to the Chef de Region (basically the mayor’s boss, the head person in charge of my region), and police introductions.  Besides introducing myself to the town, I was also introducing myself to my school, the proviseur (school director), getting acquainted with the English language school in my town, and best of all- seeing beaches and LEMURS.

My actual view from my backyard where I’ll be living.

My future home is an old storage closet (actually) in my school with literally the best view ever: the beach is my backyard.  When all is said and done and I officially install as a volunteer and move to Fort Dauphin permanently move there, I’ll post pictures, but for now, just trust- it’s a really nice, beautiful view.

I’m grateful to have a site mate from my stage, so we were able to hang out and spend some beach days together, and also visit a newly opened park.  I’m not fully sure if it’s considered an actual National Park, but for the purpose of this, lets just say, sure, why not.  This park had lemurs who had previously been in captivity and weren’t fully used to humans yet, so weren’t the nicest lemurs.  Actually, they were quite mean and violent and tried to kill me (not really, but kind of) but I suspect it’s because of the sole fact they aren’t used to human snuggles and cuddles. A few lemur selfies, meeting important people, and exploring later, site visit quickly came to an end.  Those two weeks flew by quickly. A complicated flight later (with me, there’s no such thing as a smooth trip- always a few hiccups) I made it back to reunite with my stage mates in Tana for the night before heading back to Mantasoa for a final 2 weeks with my original host family before moving back to the Peace Corps Training Center for the remainder of PST.

It is Malagasy tradition to bring back a souvenir when you return from a trip, so to keep up wth culture, I brought back some imported Nutella chocolate from Fort Dauphin.  Imported anything are a tough find unless you’re in Tana, or in my lucky case, Fort Dauphin.  Like normal imported items, Nutella was a bit of an expense, but worth it to see my family’s excitement of trying this delicious hazelnut treat for the first time.

Yesterday, I moved back to the PCTC for the remainder of PST, but luckily I live within walking distance of my family’s home so I can visit them whenever I want too.  I was also able to be a part of a wonderful cultural exchange: an exhumation.  An exhumation is a huge part of Malagasy culture and is a time where families come together to honor a past loved ones.  This is known as a happy event, filled with days of preparation, a night of dancing, a day of eating, and a celebratory blessing where an ancestor is taken from the tomb, honored, and rewrapped in nice cloth.  It was so magical and you could feel the happiness and energy in the air.  I was extremely happy to be a part of this event and will forever remember it.  It was the father (dada-be) of my host mother   (neny) who was exhumed.  I was able to take pictures and some videos but it’s hard to fully capture just how amazing this all was. Friday night, was a night of dancing with a room FILLED with people.  We all danced to Malagasy music and a picture of dada-be kept being raised to honor him.  The next day was an all day event, 10-6 where I started off eating, I swear I do more than just eat here.  My host family had made a special arrangement for me to eat chicken, since I don’t eat pork or beef.  Everyone else had plates and plates of beef and pork, and people kept coming by to fill our plates back up. Oh, and of course, we had rice- tsy vary, tsy voky (a Malagasy saying meaning you aren’t full until you eat rice).

After I gave myself a full on food baby, a few other trainees who were also part of this event and I walked over to dada-be’s tomb where family members said a few words to everyone there.  As music played by a live band (6 men wearing red hats, playing handmade recorders-I wish I could post a video, but I got the free WordPress, so look on my FB or Instagram but you can see the video HERE), family members rewrapped dada-be in a new white cloth, over and over again.  After this ceremonious stage went on for what seemed like at least an hour, they rose up his body and danced along to the continuous music playing.  I was able to get a brief video of them raising and dancing along- taking pictures and videos was really encouraged, and others were very willing to let me know this. After the day had ended, it was time to move back into the Training Center.

My little host brother slaying it in the 90’s top

Grab yo spoon, grab yo food

Dada-be being honored

It’s been a long day

PCTC (Peace Corps Training Center) is a luxury: hot running water for showers, some Western style food at meals, and time with friends; it feels good to be back.  I was so excited to have time to spend with my friends and even doing trivial chores, especially laundry, seems more fun-time passes by easier with good namako (friends). As I finished washing laundry- quick note, washing laundry is a half day event.  It’s not one of those throw-laundry-in-a-machine-and-do-other-things type thing.  Laundry is an Olympic sport.  Normally, you have to go fetch water from a well, scrub your clothes, then repeat two or three times until the water is no longer the color of cow poop. Luckily, today, at the PCTC, I don’t have to go well gathering, but instead am blessed with running water, but still washed, scrubbed, and repeated my hearts desire. Anyways, as I was finishing my laundry, I came to the realization My time as a trainee is quickly coming to a close.  By the end of this month, September, I will swear in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer, move to site, and begin my 2 years of service.  The reality still hasn’t kicked in fully, and I’m sure it won’t for a while. Here’s to future uncharted territories and my last month as a trainee.

My adorable, (but adala-crazy) host sister, Faniry

My Mantasoa Host family and I

 

Story of My Life

Written July 25th, 2016. 

I’ve decided I’m going to try and make each title of my blog postage name of a song lyric or a pun depending on what I’m going through at the moment. It’s pure irony the song I’m listening to (“Story of My Life,” by One Direction) flips on as I’m typing this. The title is pretty self explanatory. 

Thursday, July 28th will mark exactly one month since moving here. It’s so hard to convey the two different feelings of “it’s only been a month,” because some days it feels like I’ve been here months, and other days I can’t believe such little time has passed. 

I have become accustomed to a certain routine we (my stage and I) have set for us. Language learning every morning – or afternoon, depending on the day, and technical training when we aren’t learning language. I think I can speak for the majority (if not all) of people in our stage when I say Thursdays are our favorite days of the week. Thursdays, aka “spa day,” is a day when, although we are in training all day, it’s a day when we go to our training center, get to all have lunch together, and the best part: HOT running water showers. 

Because I, like the others, have no running water, we take bucket showers. My shower, or ladosy, is outside and when I want to clean myself, I gather water from my well a few feet from my house, fill up my bucket and add some hot water my host mom, neny in Malagasy, heated up for me. It’s a process, so ladosy day is a big thing for me (and other volunteers)! Basically, showering only happens like 3 times a week- which definitely puts things into perspective and miss all those showers I took for granted back home. 

We are advised not to use our outdoor kabone (outhouse) at night just for safety reasons- it’s just the way it is, don’t read too much into it, better safe than sorry. Since normal humans can’t control our bladders, Peace Corps gives us these lidded buckets called a “po” to keep in your room for when you really have to go. Everyone jokes about it, until it saves you- seriously, just trust me on this. My po has turned into one of my favorite things. 

On an fresher subject (pun intended), the other day I found out my site placement, where I’ll be for the next 2 years: Fort Dauphin. I have limited Internet so I’ll leave it up to you to google it-I’m pretty excited about it. Fort Dauphin is a bigger city near the beach and I’ll have another volunteer -actually, a good friend!- at my site. I’ll have a site visit soon and get to see my future town which will be sweet! 

I’ve been busy with language learning, especially because there are different dialects depending on the region. It’s exciting (I need to find another adjective but it is exciting!) to see myself and others progress and to understand more conversations! Our first language test is next week and we’ll have a few more throughout service. 

Besides that and TEFL/ technicial training, I’ve been on a steady rollercoaster of activities. After what seemed like months, my stage and I went to Tana to get SIM cards – and we got to eat (chicken) burgers, fries, a coke, AND ice cream. It was so expensive but so worth it. You guys, you don’t know how much you’ve missed something until you’re deprived of it. 

One last note before my phone dies: to return to Montasoa from Tana we all had to take a taxi brousse- easily put, it’s a small van usually for 8 people, but like 16 ride in them– not even exaggerating. Even though we were packed in like sardines, it was the most fun and overwhelming experience, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. 

P.S. I’ll post more pictures in future blogs. 

First Thing’s First (I’m a Realist)


Manohoana!!

July 5, 2016: As I write this (published later, because, Internet), it’s been exactly a week since I said goodbye to America for 27 months and departed on my Peace Corps journey. It was a bit difficult to say my farewells but an amazing  feeling overwhelmed me when I finally got to meet 30 of the newest trainees we now call our ohana. 

I left for staging in Philadelphia on the 25th and after 2 days of all day training, we got our official title of Peace Corps trainees- we have the photo to prove it.  I found out our Stage is part of Michelle Obama’s, “Let Girls Learn” initiative, which is totally amazing.  Staging was more or less of an orientation of what is to come, group collaboration, icebreakers, and of course, stuffing our faces with everything we’ll miss. 

Flash forward a 14 hour flight to South Africa and a 3 hour hopper to Madagascar, we finally arrived in Antananarivo, Tana for short. Greeted by tons of PC staff, I immediatly felt welcome. Through sleep deprivation, jet lag and nerves, I was quite antsy of what’s to come. Having lived in other countries, I had an idea of what to expect – which was to expect the unexpected. 

What felt like a 5 hour van ride later (it was more like 3ish), we arrived in Montosa, home of the PCTC (Peace Corps Training Center). Being night time, we were all sorts of messed up with the days and time, but were welcomed with warm smiles and welcoming speeches.

Our days were scheduled in such an organized manner and even though they were longggggg they flew by. After a few days (I can’t even remember how many, maybe 3 or 4), our ohana was split up into different areas and we all went to live with our individual host families for what’s known as Community Based Training (CBT). We’ll be here at our host families for the entire time during PST (Pre-Service Training) with the exception of a couple weeks here and there before we go to our sites for 2 years. 

It’s totally exciting as it sounds. Everyday I have to remind myself how amazing this is that I’m here. I still can’t believe it!! Also, living with a host family (my family is totes adorbs, I have a 4 year old girl, and 6 & 10 year old boys along with the parents. Kiddos = all the emoji feels), has improved my Malagasy TREMENDOUSLY.  Besides the 4 hours of language lessons daily, total immersion is the best way to learn anything. Just think, last week I didn’t even know how to say hello. Now, I can introduce myself, and say where I’m from- I’m not afraid to brag about how proud I am. 

Side note, one thing I did not realize nor was I prepared for is how cold Montasoa is in the winter. I’m a baby about cold but this is COLD, cold. Like see your breath cold. This isn’t a ski lodge, there’s no heater (or indoor plumbing) but I’ve seemed to manage so far- thank you Target and your blanket wall.  Winter in Madagascar runs from June (I think) until August (1 more month of this).  Although I am used to developing country living, I will need to get used to winter being a thing again. 

I’ve been in an Internet blackout since coming here to Madagascar. I wrote in my journal the other day about how I missed it, but now, it doesn’t seem as important. Right now, learning Malagasy is the most important and so is integrating with my host family and the Malagasy people (and the ohana). 

A week in and I feel great about being here, you know, aside from the normal jitters and anxiety of learning a new language. I know I’ll get better with time and training, but other than that, there’s not too much to blog about. Our village is beautiful- cobblestone main road and dirt paths, ladosy and cabone- outdoor squatters and shower, rice fields, farm animals (lots of omby-cows)…it’s a very simple and wonderful lifestyle. Also, holy stars at night. I’m so used to seeing intermittent stars, if any at all. But here, the stars light up the night, so fetch. I haven’t seen stars like this in almost 17 years. 

I’m writing this in my electricity-less house at 8pm (past my usual 7pm bedtime) and couldn’t be happier with how far I’ve already come and changed. As mushy as it sounds, it makes me feel all unicorns and rainbows on the inside. And on that note…

(I’ll try and post at least once a month, or every 2) 

Veloma!!

The Countdown Begins

The plane tickets have been reserved, things are starting to get real.  It’s hard to believe I will be leaving America (again) in less than a month.  After almost a year of applying, an interview, an invitation, medical tasks and more medical tasks (seriously, those took forever), I can proudly say, I will be leaving for staging in Philadelphia for a quick two days before jet setting off to Madagascar (no, not the movie).

For those who don’t know, Madagascar is an African island off the coast of Mozambique.  Home of the lemurs, this country’s main languages are French and Malagasy- which I’m really excited to learn.

I’ve created this new blog for my Peace Corps life and experiences, but I will continue to use my other one for my personal travels and witty banter don’t you worry.  I don’t know where I’ll be in terms of living there for the next 2 years, but I’ll find that all out when I get to Mada and get further in to my few months of training.

As the excitement draws closer, I don’t think it’ll actually hit me until I have my Peace Corps passport in hand and I’m sitting on that airplane heading to my home for the next 2 years- which is when I’ll probably update this next (not 2 years, but when I’m in Madagascar).