Wednesday, June 30, 2010

30 June 2010

I’ve been back at site for a month now, and things have been going really well so far. The new environment volunteer who’s 25km south of me seems like she’ll be great to work with, and I’ve met up with her a couple times since I’ve been back. We’re thinking of doing some bio-intensive gardens with the nutrition organization here to encourage people to use kitchen gardens to improve their food security. We’re also planning on getting funding for some public wells and latrines in rural areas, building some improved cookstoves and possibly painting a large map of the world in one of the primary schools as part of Peace Corp’s World Map Project.

Lately I’ve been biking or hiking out to the more rural areas to carry out health education activities. I really enjoy getting the exercise everyday and meeting new people. So far I’ve taught at four different primary schools and have been carrying out a training program for health educators at another primary school. I’ve also brought some materials to construct hand-washing stations at a few of the schools I have taught at. Sometimes it’s a little overwhelming, because there can be as many as 80-100 kids in a class, but it’s still really fun. The kids really enjoy the pictures I draw on my health posters, and the songs about healthy foods and hand-washing are a big hit. Malagasy love to sing, no matter how tone deaf some of them might be (some are really talented singers, though). I also often work with a doctor posted at a much smaller rural clinic 9km south of me. I go there at least once a week and help out with family planning or vaccines. I really enjoy talking to the people who visit the clinic about their daily struggles and about different options they have to improve the health of their families. It’s so beautiful out in the countryside of Madagascar, so even just traveling out to the different villages is an amazing experience in itself. I just need to remember to bring my camera more often! My garden is starting to come along too. Ive got tomato plants, onions, eggplant, cilantro, green beans, cucumbers, carrots and radishes already growing. The tomato plants already have little tomatoes on them. Hopefully we'll be able to use the veggies for cooking demos with the nutrition organiation.

I’ve also been doing some informal English lessons on the side. I’m more about the health education than English, but there are so many people here that want to learn and it is a nice way to make friends. I also end up picking up a little more Malagasy and French too, and I often get “voandalanas,” or, gifts for the road (cucumbers, bananas, coconuts, etc.).

June 26th was Madagascar’s Independence Day, which is a huge celebration here. The past weekend was really fun. A couple of friends had me over for meals, I participated in a bike race, watched a parade through town, watched a soccer match, heard a speech given by the village president and went to a dance party on Saturday night. Needless to say I was completely exhausted on Sunday, but it was a really fun experience. The Malagasy really know how to party!

Quite a few people have TVs here, and there’s electricity in town from 2pm-12am everyday, so I’ve even been able to catch some of the World Cup action. People here really enjoy watching Brazil (like everyone else). When I’m not able to make it over to a neighbor’s house to catch the games, I listen on my radio. The local Malagasy station in town runs commentaries on the matches every evening. It’s hard to understand a lot of it, since they speak so fast (like commentators in the U.S.) and it’s not in the same dialect, but once in a while I can figure out what’s going on, and it’s a good way for me to work on my language.

My Malagasy has been coming a long much better now that I’ve been back at site. I find that when I’m listening in on other’s conversations I can understand a lot more than I could before. I’m able to mix the dialects a little better now. Even though I was trained in the northern dialect, Sakalava, the people in this region speak a mix of several different dialects. In addition to Sakalava, there’s also Betsimasaraka, Tsimihety and Antandroy. Many people take words and expressions from multiple dialects, and when I travel from village to village (even if it’s only a few km away) there are clusters of groups, so I’ll find people speaking more Betsimasaraka than Sakalava or more Tsimihety than Betsimasaraka. I notice that some of the villages I go to, I really have a hard time understanding them because they tend to use more of one dialect than another. It’s a real challenge. Some days are really frustrating, because I feel like I’m back at day one, but then other days are encouraging because I feel that I’m really picking up on the language.

This weekend I’ll be meeting up with the other three volunteers in my region to celebrate 4th of July and watch a little World Cup. Then in mid-July I’m headed back to Tana (the capital) for a meeting and a training session since I’ll be helping train the next batch of health volunteers that come in August. I’m also going to help out with a bike tour against AIDS that some of the other health volunteers are organizing up at Lake Alaotra. I’m really excited to see everyone again and to help out with the bike tour. It should be a lot of fun. Hopefully somewhere in there I’ll be able to get the funding straightened out for the public latrine and well projects that I’m working on. It’s been a challenge since a lot of the US gov. funding has been cut for aid/assistance with projects in Madagascar. That’s about it for now. My next post will probably be from Tana in a couple weeks.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Mantasoa and Andasibe national park (Jan '10)




pre-service training at Mantasoa Jan '10


In-Service Training/Antananarivo

It's been so strange to be away from site for such a long time! A little over two weeks ago, I hopped on an Air Madagascar plane along with the midwife from my health clinic in Antsirabe Nord to head down to the capital, Antananarivo (a.k.a. Tana) for in-service training. After arriving in town, I stayed at the Peace Corps hostile and then headed up to the Peace Corps training site 2hrs outside of the city.

The training site is a beautiful place next to a lake up in the mountains in the center of the island, but it is quite chilly and rainy there. It was so wonderful to meet up with the other volunteers in my stage, since we hadn't seen each other in so long. The first week was filled with training sessions on how to apply for funding for projects, how to work with our counterparts and our community, how to do community analysis and needs assessment, some hands-on bio-intensive gardening as well as some HIV/AIDS prevention education strategies. We also did a bit more language training, which was very helpful since I'm still not proficient in my dialect of Malagasy. At the end of the first week, the counterparts that we brought from our sites went home and just the volunteers stayed on for a second week of training. We did a little more sector specific training (health for health volunteers, business for business volunteers, etc.) and some strategizing for what we plan to do when we return back to site. We also managed to find a little time to hang out and have fun too :)

I was very excited to hear that there is a new stage of health and education volunteers coming soon, and some of us might get to come back to help train them during the months of August and September. I'm hoping I get to be one of the trainers, because I really appreciated the help and advice I received from volunteers in the field when I was a Peace Corps trainee. Another advantage of being a trainer is that Peace Corps would fly me down to Tana, and then I could also take part in an upcoming Bike Tour against AIDS that some volunteers are planning in the Ambato region. Otherwise, it would be too far and too expensive for me to travel from my site to where the bike tour will be held in July.

The past few days I've been hanging out in the capital until my flight leaves to go back to site. It's expensive here in Tana, but it is quite an interesting city. Sometimes it seems very crowded and overwhelming, but I'm starting to enjoy it more, now that I've been able to see more of the city. The public bus system has been quite an adventure to explore. There are hundreds of different bus numbers that go all over town, and it only costs 300 ariary (15 cents) to get on one. I've gone all around the city on it. The markets are so fun to look at, because there is so much variety here: tomatoes, carrots, persimmons, tangerines, pineapples, papayas, avocados, apples, bok choy, cabbage, lettuce, sweet potatoes, peanuts, many different kinds of rice, tons of used clothing (fripery), electronics, toys, handicrafts. It's like sensory overload after four months of rural life! The big city doesn't come without it's downsides though. There are lots of pickpocketers, pollution, children begging on the streets, seas of dilapitated houses and buildings all connected to each other in a jumbled mess... Part of me is definitely anxious to get back to site to start working with rural communities again. That's about it for now. A manaraka indray!