23 March 2011

At the end of February I headed down to Sambava to meet up with the other volunteers in my region. Three times a year, the volunteers from each region are supposed to meet up and then each region sends one representative to a Madagascar-wide meeting in Tana, with the idea of facilitating communication between in-country staff and volunteers and to gather feedback from volunteers for improving the program. We had a nice time hanging out, although it was disappointing to find out that three volunteers from our region were unable to finish their service and went home early. We are down from nine volunteers to a mere six in our region up in the northeast! I hope we get some new folks soon.

I am always amazed at how much the other Americans among our group can eat. Whenever we meet up, it’s like a non-stop food fest for two or three days. I think we all get a little tired of the traditional Malagasy meals of rice three times a day and end up overindulging on specialties like ice cream, pastries, pizza, cold beer and french fries whenever we come to the big town (no matter how mediocre the Malagasy approximations of these American treats are). Unable to resist the pizza and cold beer, I myself took part in some of the gluttony, but my fellow volunteers went a little overboard—multiple pastries for breakfast and ice cream three times in one day in addition to a square lunch and dinner is too much for me! To top it all off, we had a food eating challenge on the last day.

During one of our breakfasts at the pastry shop, the lone guy in our group boasted that he could probably eat 10 pows (Chinese rice buns stuffed with meat and spices) in one sitting. One of the other volunteers challenged him to eat 20 pows in under 45 minutes. If he finished, he got a free, very large breakfast. If he lost, he would have to pay for the buns, and the rest of us (excluding me because I’m vegetarian) could finish the leftovers. After much hesitation and deliberation he decided to take on the challenge, so we put in an order for 20 pows for the next day. Leading up to the challenge, he was very nervous and unsure if he would be able to scarf down 20 of those large buns—each one approximately the size of a softball. The first 15 minutes in, he was doing well, eating about one every couple minutes. After about the 7th or 8th pow, he started to hit a wall, and in the last few minutes of the challenge managed to get to 10. The rest of the ladies in our group enjoyed a nice breakfast of pows afterwards! It was quite an amusing event.

After the meeting in Sambava I headed to Vohemar with the education volunteer who is posted up there, because she had requested me to teach about HIV/AIDS and STIs at her CEG (middle school) for six sections of one of her Malagasy colleague’s English classes. The English classes were supposed to have some health component to them this quarter, which is actually really great, as the public schools don’t have any formal health classes that all students are required to take like many American public schools do. I ended up teaching about 18 hours that week, which certainly kept me busy.

I had a lot of fun teaching the kids, as I had plenty of activities, games and songs to keep the sessions engaging and interactive. It was a rewarding experience, especially after teaching some of the sections that had really motivated and well-behaved students. Some of the kids asked great questions and did a wonderful job of participating and retaining the information I taught them. It was interesting to teach in a mix of Malagasy and English too, since I’m used to only using Malagasy in the rural areas where I usually work.

After I returned to site the next week, things were kind of slow so I have been getting a lot of reading done. I highly recommend Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, The Ukimwi Road and Botswana’s No.1 Lady’s Detective Agency. I’ve also gotten back into running and am happy to be up to 10km again. Work wise, I’m still helping out with health education at the local clinic every morning, periodically meeting with my healthy teens club at the middle school down the road, helping the local nutrition workers with cooking demonstrations and baby weighing and teaching about health at some of the surrounding primary schools. I’ve also been working on a proposal to get funding for a solar panel at my clinic, since we don’t have electricity and the doctor has to work by candlelight at night.

This past Saturday I headed to capital for a meeting with volunteer representatives from each region and the staff at the office in Tana. It was great to get a chance to see some of my fellow volunteers from the other side of the island that I rarely get to see. We had a great time hanging out, going for ice cream and beer and cooking together at the transit house. Now I’m headed back to site again, so I may not have internet for a while.