27 Juin 2011

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!