End of Service

So I'm officially an RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer)! I closed out my service this week at the PC bureau in the capital, Antananarivo, and now I'm headed out on more adventures, travelling around Madagascar for another week and then onto India before travelling home. The last few weeks have been kind of hard. I didn't have much going on at site, since the field staff I was supposed to work with were gone to meetings for several weeks. On top of having nothing to do work-wise, everything decided to break during my last week at site. My back brake and tire valve on my bike broke, all my flashlights broke or ran out of batteries, and most inconvenient of all, my phone broke. Aside from trying to fix my bike and relying candles as my only source of light at night, it was really difficult trying to coordinate how to leave site at the end of the month without having any reliable mode of communication.

Even though I didn't have much going on work-wise and was frustrated with everything falling apart on me, I still managed to keep myself a little busy with a few small activities. I carried out some household visits in the village, talking to neighbors and community members about clean water, handwashing and improved latrines, and I also built an improved cookstove with the local nutrition worker. The last few days at site were occupied mostly by packing, cleaning up my house and giving away my few possessions to the school, nutrition organization and friends and neighbors.

The last weekend before I left site, I scheduled a day trip with a guide to the local tourist destination in my area: a series of waterfalls and protected forest area. Though it was rainy and cold and the path was full of water and mud up to my ankles, knees or even waste at some points, the cascades were quite beautiful. It took us an hour in a canoe and then two more hours to walk through the mud to get there, but it was worth it to spend the day in the pristine forest and to get the chance to see the local tourist attraction near my site. It was quite an exhausting hike, and I was surprisingly sore for the next few days after that!

It definitely wasn't as hard emotionally to leave this site like it was leaving my last site up in the northeast. Since I was only in this new community for a few months and many of the friends I did manage to make were gone for long stretches of time to St. Marie, Soanierana Ivongo or Tamatave, I didn't really establish any strong connections with anyone. One of the young ladies in the village, who was a devoted member of the adult English class, was very sad to see me go. She got all teary-eyed and made sure that we exchanged pictures, phone numbers and addresses before I left. It was really sweet and I was sad to have to say goodbye to her. Even though it wasn't as difficult saying goodbye to most other people in the community, there were still definitely some friends, neighbors and co-workers whom I will miss. I do wish I had had more time to enjoy the gorgeous, deserted beaches along the coast just north of my village. The weather was just too cold and rainy to take advantage while I was there.

At the end of the month, I made the long journey with my heavy, metal Peace Corps trunk full of tech books, my bicycle (Carlton) and three bags of stuff (clothes, voandalanas, books) back to the capital. Luckily there was a big truck that passed through my site around mid-morning on the day I was headed to my banking town, so they threw all my stuff in the large, covered cargo bed in the back and hopped in the front cab. The driver and his two helpers were actually really friendly. They were familiar with Peace Corps, and we had a nice chat during the long journey down the sand road.

As always we had to wait for several hours at the first ferry crossing and then several more hours at the second ferry crossing before getting to the paved road. The distance from my site to Soanierana Ivongo, where the paved road starts is actually only about 30km, but because of all the sand and the long waits at the ferry crossings, it can take up to 5 hours to get there.

Finally we reached the paved road in the afternoon and were able to continue on to the small banking town of Fenerive Est. I was absolutely thrilled to say goodbye to the terrible, sandy roads and painfully slow ferries. It was freezing cold and rainy outside, and it still took us a few hours, because a chunk of the road had been washed away by the intense flooding that occurred during the month of April. The road had been temporarily, make-shift repaired with bound wooden planks. It was a little precarious, making the crossing on the rickety bridge over the crevasse that separated the two sections of road, but our huge truck somehow managed to make it to the other side safely and I arrived at my destination with all my stuff in the late afternoon-early evening.

The next day took care of some business in my banking town and made reservations for a bush taxi to travel to Tamatave and then Tana the next day. I ended up having to wake up at 4am so I could get to Tamatave in time to catch another vehicle to the capital. I amazingly managed to make all my connections without losing any of my stuff and got to the capital in the evening. The next week was filled with tons of paperwork, but I somehow got through it all and successfully closed out my service. It's hard to believe I am no longer a Peace Corps volunteer. On to more adventures, I guess!