Yesterday, 26 Juin, was Madagascar's Independence Day, which is a huge annual celebration here. They give much more importance to it than we do our own July 4th. Especially since rice harvesting season has just finished and vanilla season is beginning, people are starting to have money again, so they begin planning several days or sometimes even weeks in advance for the big event of "vignt six." As I mentioned in the last entry, the doctor's family and I had outfits made for our dance performance at the talent show called "podium" leading up to 26. We've also been having dance rehearsals at my Malagasy counterpart's (the doctor's) house, where we have been practicing our choreographed moves complements of Oriana, the doctor's youngest daughter, to several popular Malagasy music videos. I had agreed to perfoming a set of 4 dances with the doctor's family and neighbors and then two dances with the local women's group, which included songs from such popular Malagasy artists as WaWa and Jerry Marcos.
Overall the performances went really well, and I had a lot of fun. Our outfits turned out great--bright orange haltertops with ruffly black skirts. I might actually wear the tank top out again on other occassons. The "podium" for 26 spanned over three nights. The first night we didn't go, because we were still practicing our dance moves. On the second night I performed the two dances with the womens group and two of our four dances with my counterpart's family and friends. I think the community got a kick out of seeing me up there dancing. We got a lot of cheers and took in a decent amount of money from the crowd. Malagasies have a great tradition here for "podium" of giving money to the performers up on stage. If you are part of the audience and really enjoy the performance, you can walk up on stage and give the performers a small amount of money, typically 200-500 ariary (the equivalent of 25 cents). Sometimes people from the audience will even dance with the performers up on stage for a little bit before giving their money.
Our women's group took in about 10,000 Ariary and our other group, which the doctor's wife decided to name "Group Maya" took in around 5,000. Much more important than the surprising amount of cash we earned was how much fun it was to be up there dancing together with the women in my community and participating in the Malagasy cultural event. It also seemed to mean a lot to the doctor and his wife that I partcipated, because they said they would really miss me on New Years since my 2 years will already be up and I wont be there to participate in that "podium" with them.
Besides participating in the performance, I also enjoyed watching the show and the whole celebration in general. My counterpart did a great job as one of the emcees for the show, since he's an awesome community leader and everyone in the village loves him. Some of the performances were impressive. One very petite young man brought a bicycle wheel rim up with him on stage and did dance moves and tricks where he contorted and squeezed his whole body through the wheel rim at an incredibly fast pace. Another kid came up on stage with a large wooden pounder (pestle?) that they use for pounding rice and was picking it up by it's edge with his teeth! Another crippled guy in the community, who's legs are deformed to the point that he has difficulty walking, came up on stage and did an amazing dance performance using his knees, upper legs and arms, twisting up his body and doing moves almost like break dancing. I thought it was really awesome that he was able to turn something that most people would think of as a challenging handicap into a gift and a talent, and that the whole community was so supportive of him and truly appreciated his contribution to the "podium" celebration. One of my favorites was a traditional Malagasy "orchestre" made up of two hand-carved, wooden guitars, some hand-made cowhide drums and an incredibly talented vocalist. There music was very coastal African in nature, and it was really neat to see the hand-made guitars up close, as I had a great seat up on stage behind the performers.
On another, perhaps more exciting note, the solar panel installation is finished!! On wednesday the doctor, village treasurer for the solar panel and I went to Sambava and delivered the money to the local solar panel provider for our 100W, Italian made solar panel that will power the lights at our village clinic and the community satellite dish for daily one hour viewings of the Malagasy national news from Antanananrivo. The installers came up the next day and worked over the course of two days so that the panel, lights and electrical cords would be in place for us in time to celebrate the illumination of the hospital and the operation of the satellite dish for the 26 celebration. As is typical of the Malagasy culture, there were several community meetings and many speeches over the few days leading up to 26, most of which consisted of them thanking me for facilitating the "fampandrosoana," or developlent, that I helped bring to the village. So I'm relaying that onto those readers/family/friends who supported the project. The community itself did an amazing job of gathering their 25% of the funds and supporting me throughout the process. I have to say, it was wonderfully satisfying to have the installers leave on Thursday evening and then turn on a light switch at the clinic to see the doctor's office and the hospital porch illuminated. That evening someone came to the clinic to give birth, so the panel is already being put to good use. There are even community members that didn't give to the 25% community contribution and still wish to contribute, so the treasurer is going to continue collecting funds and set them aside for when a repair is needed or the battery has to be replaced, which will inevitable happen in 2 or 3 years. Thanks again to all those who helped out!
Monday, June 27, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
4 Juin 2011
So I have come to the conclusion that my community is really awesome. After about one year in Peace Corps, I had started to really feel at home in my host country, Madagascar. Now I’m finding that after one and a half years in (once you only have six months left), I almost don’t want to leave! It’s kind of sad realizing I don’t have much time left here, and I still have so much to do. Having finally become fluent in the language and having made so many friends will make it even harder for me to leave, as well.
My well project still isn’t finished, because we ran across several obstacles building the second well including a very deep water table and soil erosion when digging the second hole. The community had to re-dig the second well twice and ended up having to use much more cement than expected. I’m hoping we will be finished with this second well soon! Everyone is working really hard to get it done, so I have faith that the project will still be a success regardless of the frustrating obstacles and delays.
My solar panel project for the rural clinic in my village was funded very quickly, so now we are just waiting on the community to gather their 25% of the funds before we can purchase the solar panel in Sambava. The doctor supplied the head of each neighborhood in our village with a receipt book, so that we could keep a clear record of who has donated to the project. People in the community have been really great about contributing their share, and it won’t be too long before we will be able to make the purchase. Some neighborhoods are already out of receipts, and the community is having a meeting today to see how close we are to reaching the total. The mayor of the commune also announced that he would pledge half of the 25% community contribution out of his own pocket if the village members were able to contribute the other half. I was really impressed with the mayor’s generosity, especially given the general global perception that there are many problems with corruption within African governments!
My Healthy Teens Club has been going really well. We have been having great discussions about HIV/AIDS and Teen Reproductive health at our meetings lately, and are hoping to hold an AIDS prevention festival in late June or July with testing and an outdoor movie projection about HIV/AIDS. It gets tiring biking the 10km from my village into town to meet with them every week, though, as there are many steep hills in my area. I am in really great shape now for sure!
I have also been enjoying working with the local nutrition workers. The one in my village who is also the doctor’s wife has been great about counseling the mothers of young children on nutrition, weighing babies every week and holding cooking demonstrations. I have assisted her with the health education and weighing both in our village at the clinic on vaccine days and in a neighboring village we walk to once a month to meet with the mothers. Yesterday I also biked 10km into town to meet one of the other nutrition workers in my commune; we hiked for an hour into the woods to weigh babies and hold a cooking demonstration with mothers in another rural area. It was an exhausting day, especially since it has been raining non-stop for the past few days and the path was absurdly muddy and slippery. The hike through the forest was still absolutely beautiful, and the work was rewarding.
Many of the babies we weighed that day had lost weight from the time the nutrition worker weighed them last month, which we were surprised at as it is harvest time. Theoretically the mothers and children should be getting enough food now that there is so much new rice around. After talking with the mothers, we discovered that many of the children had had diarrhea during the last month, which makes sense as it has been very rainy lately. There has been a huge spike in malaria cases as well, even though we just had insecticide treated bed net distribution not too long ago. I have a health talk on diarrhea prevention, stressing hand-washing with soap, boiling water for consumption, exclusive breastfeeding for children under 6 months and rehydration for those children suffering from diarrhea. We also individually counseled mothers on nutrition and feeding strategies, especially for those children who had lost weight or were already underweight for their age. Overall it was a successful and rewarding, yet very tiring day.
I’ve also been staying busy with goal 2 of Peace Corps, learning about the culture of one’s host country. Rice harvesting season still isn’t over, so everyone has been working extremely hard, picking, drying and pounding rice (vanilla season is coming up soon). The other week, one of the women in the village gave me a rather large quantity of rice that she had picked from her field. It was really sweet of her, and it was a great opportunity for me to learn how to dry the rice in the sun and to pound the rice by hand in order to get the husks off. Thankfully I had neighbors and kids that helped me with the whole process, as I have never farmed rice before and am clueless about how the whole process works.
After setting the rice out in the sun on a mat one morning, it was dry enough to pound. Then I and a bunch of the young neighborhood girls who often come to visit pounded the rice. It was really fun learning from them, and I also took pictures, which they absolutely loved. They were very amused by both the picture-taking and my lack of proficiency in the rice pounding and winnowing. Rice pounding is hard work, but it didn’t take as long as I thought it would to pound all of my rice. It was very satisfying when I was finally able to cook my first batch of white rice that I had dried and pounded myself! I also gave a cup each to the girls who had helped me and promised them that I would bring them back developed pictures that I took once I go to Antananarivo in August.
26 June, the big celebration of Madagascar’s Independence is coming up, too. Everyone is preparing for the huge party that lasts almost a week long. The doctor’s wife has already requested me to perform with her, her daughter and some of our neighbor lady friends in a song and dance competition called “Podium.” We will be rehearsing several dances to some current, popular Malagasy songs and then performing them over the course of a few evenings in front of the whole village, along with other contestants. We are even getting matching outfits made for the occasion. I had to meet them in Sambava to buy the cloth and get fitted at the tailor. I think it’ll be a lot of fun, even if I do make a fool of myself dancing in front of everybody!
My well project still isn’t finished, because we ran across several obstacles building the second well including a very deep water table and soil erosion when digging the second hole. The community had to re-dig the second well twice and ended up having to use much more cement than expected. I’m hoping we will be finished with this second well soon! Everyone is working really hard to get it done, so I have faith that the project will still be a success regardless of the frustrating obstacles and delays.
My solar panel project for the rural clinic in my village was funded very quickly, so now we are just waiting on the community to gather their 25% of the funds before we can purchase the solar panel in Sambava. The doctor supplied the head of each neighborhood in our village with a receipt book, so that we could keep a clear record of who has donated to the project. People in the community have been really great about contributing their share, and it won’t be too long before we will be able to make the purchase. Some neighborhoods are already out of receipts, and the community is having a meeting today to see how close we are to reaching the total. The mayor of the commune also announced that he would pledge half of the 25% community contribution out of his own pocket if the village members were able to contribute the other half. I was really impressed with the mayor’s generosity, especially given the general global perception that there are many problems with corruption within African governments!
My Healthy Teens Club has been going really well. We have been having great discussions about HIV/AIDS and Teen Reproductive health at our meetings lately, and are hoping to hold an AIDS prevention festival in late June or July with testing and an outdoor movie projection about HIV/AIDS. It gets tiring biking the 10km from my village into town to meet with them every week, though, as there are many steep hills in my area. I am in really great shape now for sure!
I have also been enjoying working with the local nutrition workers. The one in my village who is also the doctor’s wife has been great about counseling the mothers of young children on nutrition, weighing babies every week and holding cooking demonstrations. I have assisted her with the health education and weighing both in our village at the clinic on vaccine days and in a neighboring village we walk to once a month to meet with the mothers. Yesterday I also biked 10km into town to meet one of the other nutrition workers in my commune; we hiked for an hour into the woods to weigh babies and hold a cooking demonstration with mothers in another rural area. It was an exhausting day, especially since it has been raining non-stop for the past few days and the path was absurdly muddy and slippery. The hike through the forest was still absolutely beautiful, and the work was rewarding.
Many of the babies we weighed that day had lost weight from the time the nutrition worker weighed them last month, which we were surprised at as it is harvest time. Theoretically the mothers and children should be getting enough food now that there is so much new rice around. After talking with the mothers, we discovered that many of the children had had diarrhea during the last month, which makes sense as it has been very rainy lately. There has been a huge spike in malaria cases as well, even though we just had insecticide treated bed net distribution not too long ago. I have a health talk on diarrhea prevention, stressing hand-washing with soap, boiling water for consumption, exclusive breastfeeding for children under 6 months and rehydration for those children suffering from diarrhea. We also individually counseled mothers on nutrition and feeding strategies, especially for those children who had lost weight or were already underweight for their age. Overall it was a successful and rewarding, yet very tiring day.
I’ve also been staying busy with goal 2 of Peace Corps, learning about the culture of one’s host country. Rice harvesting season still isn’t over, so everyone has been working extremely hard, picking, drying and pounding rice (vanilla season is coming up soon). The other week, one of the women in the village gave me a rather large quantity of rice that she had picked from her field. It was really sweet of her, and it was a great opportunity for me to learn how to dry the rice in the sun and to pound the rice by hand in order to get the husks off. Thankfully I had neighbors and kids that helped me with the whole process, as I have never farmed rice before and am clueless about how the whole process works.
After setting the rice out in the sun on a mat one morning, it was dry enough to pound. Then I and a bunch of the young neighborhood girls who often come to visit pounded the rice. It was really fun learning from them, and I also took pictures, which they absolutely loved. They were very amused by both the picture-taking and my lack of proficiency in the rice pounding and winnowing. Rice pounding is hard work, but it didn’t take as long as I thought it would to pound all of my rice. It was very satisfying when I was finally able to cook my first batch of white rice that I had dried and pounded myself! I also gave a cup each to the girls who had helped me and promised them that I would bring them back developed pictures that I took once I go to Antananarivo in August.
26 June, the big celebration of Madagascar’s Independence is coming up, too. Everyone is preparing for the huge party that lasts almost a week long. The doctor’s wife has already requested me to perform with her, her daughter and some of our neighbor lady friends in a song and dance competition called “Podium.” We will be rehearsing several dances to some current, popular Malagasy songs and then performing them over the course of a few evenings in front of the whole village, along with other contestants. We are even getting matching outfits made for the occasion. I had to meet them in Sambava to buy the cloth and get fitted at the tailor. I think it’ll be a lot of fun, even if I do make a fool of myself dancing in front of everybody!
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