So the last entry I posted was actually written back before hot season started. I no longer have to use a sleeping back at night...sometimes I even a light sheet is too much. Now I go running at 5 because its already too hot by the time I get back at 6. And its harder to be active in the afternoon, since Im pretty much dripping with sweat in my house until 4pm. Its not even the peak of hot season yet (thats in January) so I cant even imagine what its going to be like this year!
It hasnt been raining hardly at all, so everyone is struggling with wells and rivers drying up. Even in the big towns where there is running water/public taps like Vohemar and Andapa, the water keeps going out. People have been going out to the fields to clear their land, so it's almost time for rice-planting. Im wondering if some will wait, though, in case the rains still dont come for a while. Last year the rains were late as well, and many lost their initial crops that they planted in November.
I think the heat has brought fruit season early this year, though, which is perhaps a silver lining on the cloud. There are already bunches of pink leechies popping out of the mess of green forest along the roadside and mangoes are already showing up in the market. My neighbor asked me for a container so she could make me some leechy jam from the fruits of her tree near her rice field, which Im greatly looking forward to. Pineapples will be coming soon as well.
It's been difficult for me to get projects going, as I've been gone from my site a lot recently. I just got back from a wonderful week of vacation visiting my father in Rwanda, and then spent a week in Tana at Peace Corps' Close of Service Conference. Though I am planning to extend my service until May of next year, the COS conference was still really helpful and it was great to see all my fellow volunteers with whom I went through my initial training in Niger and then again in Madagascar.
During COS we talked about job hunting strategies, the readjustment process going back home, how to document our skills that we have gained over the past two years and how to say goodbye to our communities with whome we have spent two years of our lives with. We also had to say goodbye to each other, as many of us are leaving the country at different times and may not be able to meet up until possibly when we are back in America. There are four or five other fellow volunteers from my group, who are extending, so I look forward to possibly still running into them in the coming months.
It's been great to be back at my site and to reconnect with everyone. It's going to be a challenge to plan short-term projects that I can finish before january, though. Although I am extending, I will be switching to a different location in Madagascar after the holidays, so I still need to think about wrapping up and saying goodbye to my community up here in the north. Im still planning to do some small activities though, like a kitchen garden with the village mothers, a financial literacy class (how to save/how to budget/family planning) with the womens group, a scholarship project for disadvantaged youth at the local secondary school and some health education in the local schools as well. Hopefully Ill get to play some more soccer with the women too, although one of our balls is already busted!
Friday, October 28, 2011
A good day in the life of a PC Mada volunteer...
It's 4:30am. The house is still pitch dark. The crow of a lone rooster and the chill of the 60° winter morning air pull me momentarily out of sleep. I grab my light sleeping bag and throw it over me for extra warmth in my semi-conscious state.
At 5:30 the chorus of crowing roosters arouse me again and my bowels send me walking outside to the pit latrine to empty my "po" (plastic bucket Malagasies use as a chamber pot) and do my morning routine. As I walk the 50 meters back to the house, the village awakens with the echoes of rhythmic rice-pounding,the whining of drowsy babies and the quiet chattering of women starting their cookfires and fetching water.
It's still quite chilly, but I throw shorts and a tank top on and head out the door for my morning run. Most families are still waking up and cooking breakfast as the sun rises, so the path out of the village is almost empty. I pass a few early morning travellers as I jog slowly up the steep, 1km hill to the main road.
The wind brushes a delicious fragrance of tropical, blooming flowers as I crest the hill, bringing with it the faint memories of childhood trips to visit family in India. As I reach the tarmac, one of the small roadside shacks emits rich wafts of roasting, earthy coffee and sweet, drying vanilla, sending my thoughts back to Madagascar. I run three and a half kilometers down the southbound road over rolling hills,, past ricefields and patchy, tropical forest. Then I head back home, a sprinkle of cooling rain and a beautiful rainbow archway celebrating my return.
A few fellow villagers call out to me as I pass, and I invite them to join me, though I know they never will. Their lives are too full everyday with hard physical labor. They have no energy to spare for my purely whimsical, recreational exertion. I reach the path descending back into the village, my lungs and gut rejoicing, but my knees and hips dreading the relentless pounding of my weight on them as I jaunt down the hill in my four-year-old sneakers that have no shock absorption left to lessen the blow.
At last I reach my wooden hut after greeting my neighbors. I chug some water and take a refreshing, shockingly cold bucket bath in my 3-sided, roofless shower made of Traveler's Palm leaves. Then I bundle up with a light sweater and get ready for a morning of weighing babies and teaching mothers about nutrition and family planning. Around noon, I am back at my house. I make rice and cucumber salad for lunch and then read lawily into the afternoon qs the nighborhood kids come over to color and play cards on my porch. Some of them even offer to fetch my water, knowing they will receive a marble or a sticker as a small "thanks" for their help.
Around 3pm some of the neighborhood women come to my gate and beckon me to come join them on the soccer field. Though I'm somewhat dissuaded by the afternoon heat and tired from my morning run, I put on some shoes to go play, knowing it will be really fun and good opportunity for me to bond with the village women.
After we finish playing and I take another bucket shower, I head to the elementary school to see if any of the motivated adults in the village have come to learn English at our weekly classtime. I teach them body parts and the "Hokey Pokey," which we all thoroughly enjoy, laughing at each other as shake our left arm or right leg or butt and dance in circles. At dusk we wrap up the session, as it is too dark to see in the unlit classroom.
I take a walk through the village to buy some produce for dinner (usually tomatoes and some kind of green leaf). Then I cook before it gets too dark. I read and write letters by the light of my solar-powered lamp to pass the time and eat a quiet dinner listening to the BBC Africa News program on my shortwave radio. After I clean up and get ready for bed, I listen to the sounds of people outside chatting as they take their evening walk through the village. The faint chatter of my neighbors' Malagasy radio or a good book I happen to be reading finally lull me to sleep at around 8.
At 5:30 the chorus of crowing roosters arouse me again and my bowels send me walking outside to the pit latrine to empty my "po" (plastic bucket Malagasies use as a chamber pot) and do my morning routine. As I walk the 50 meters back to the house, the village awakens with the echoes of rhythmic rice-pounding,the whining of drowsy babies and the quiet chattering of women starting their cookfires and fetching water.
It's still quite chilly, but I throw shorts and a tank top on and head out the door for my morning run. Most families are still waking up and cooking breakfast as the sun rises, so the path out of the village is almost empty. I pass a few early morning travellers as I jog slowly up the steep, 1km hill to the main road.
The wind brushes a delicious fragrance of tropical, blooming flowers as I crest the hill, bringing with it the faint memories of childhood trips to visit family in India. As I reach the tarmac, one of the small roadside shacks emits rich wafts of roasting, earthy coffee and sweet, drying vanilla, sending my thoughts back to Madagascar. I run three and a half kilometers down the southbound road over rolling hills,, past ricefields and patchy, tropical forest. Then I head back home, a sprinkle of cooling rain and a beautiful rainbow archway celebrating my return.
A few fellow villagers call out to me as I pass, and I invite them to join me, though I know they never will. Their lives are too full everyday with hard physical labor. They have no energy to spare for my purely whimsical, recreational exertion. I reach the path descending back into the village, my lungs and gut rejoicing, but my knees and hips dreading the relentless pounding of my weight on them as I jaunt down the hill in my four-year-old sneakers that have no shock absorption left to lessen the blow.
At last I reach my wooden hut after greeting my neighbors. I chug some water and take a refreshing, shockingly cold bucket bath in my 3-sided, roofless shower made of Traveler's Palm leaves. Then I bundle up with a light sweater and get ready for a morning of weighing babies and teaching mothers about nutrition and family planning. Around noon, I am back at my house. I make rice and cucumber salad for lunch and then read lawily into the afternoon qs the nighborhood kids come over to color and play cards on my porch. Some of them even offer to fetch my water, knowing they will receive a marble or a sticker as a small "thanks" for their help.
Around 3pm some of the neighborhood women come to my gate and beckon me to come join them on the soccer field. Though I'm somewhat dissuaded by the afternoon heat and tired from my morning run, I put on some shoes to go play, knowing it will be really fun and good opportunity for me to bond with the village women.
After we finish playing and I take another bucket shower, I head to the elementary school to see if any of the motivated adults in the village have come to learn English at our weekly classtime. I teach them body parts and the "Hokey Pokey," which we all thoroughly enjoy, laughing at each other as shake our left arm or right leg or butt and dance in circles. At dusk we wrap up the session, as it is too dark to see in the unlit classroom.
I take a walk through the village to buy some produce for dinner (usually tomatoes and some kind of green leaf). Then I cook before it gets too dark. I read and write letters by the light of my solar-powered lamp to pass the time and eat a quiet dinner listening to the BBC Africa News program on my shortwave radio. After I clean up and get ready for bed, I listen to the sounds of people outside chatting as they take their evening walk through the village. The faint chatter of my neighbors' Malagasy radio or a good book I happen to be reading finally lull me to sleep at around 8.
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