18 Sept 2010
I’ve been doing quite a bit of traveling in the past month or so. I was back in Tana (the capital) at the beginning of September again to help train the new group of health volunteers that recently came into country. It was really great to meet all of them, especially the four new folks that will be coming to my area, the Sava region, although it was really cold up at the Peace Corps training site! I was only there for a few days and was already anxious to return to my site, where it is much warmer. The two who will be posted nearest to me are an education volunteer and another health volunteer. I’m looking forward to working with them in the coming months.
After only a few days back at site, I was off again, traveling to an environment volunteer’s site near Ambilobe. She lives way out in the boonies (ambanivolo be, as we call it in Malagasy) and her tiny village has very limited access to food. She requested me to come up and help her with a nutrition project in her village. The long trek up there was quite an adventure. When you look at it on the map, it doesn’t seem like her site would be that far from mine, but the road from Vohemar to Ambilobe is in terrible shape…and it doesn’t help that the vehicles are in bad shape too. On average it takes about 2-3 hours to get from my site to Vohemar, and then 10-12 hours to get from Vohemar to Ambilobe.
It actually took me 15 hours to get from Vohemar to Ambilobe, because the transmission blew out in the car I was riding in, just 1hr into the journey. Then we had to wait for three hours for someone to bring a new transmission, and then another hour for them to repair it (with no power tools). After that, a couple hours outside of Ambilobe, the engine started acting up, which delayed us probably another couple hours. The car kept stalling out every few kilometers, and then the driver would have to open the hood and tinker with the engine to start it up again. It was a nightmare. I really don’t think that tiny buggy-like four-seater was really meant to go on those roads. This is the kind of road that those absurd, giant SUVs that soccer moms in the states drive on paved roads are really meant for. We’re talking divots and potholes the size of a small Jacuzzi, a two foot layer of dust on some sections of the road, and boulders and rocks strewn across the entire stretch, just for added pleasure.
On top of that, I have a feeling that car I was riding in was very old, as I could see the ground underneath my feet through a few rusted out holes on the floor in front of my seat. At some points, dust and sand was spraying up at my feet and covering the bottom of the car. I’m guessing the engine was held together with paper clips and rubber bands, too. When I finally got to Ambilobe at 10:30 at night, I was slightly darker in color, due to the nice coating of dust all over everything and the three hours I spent sitting in the sun, waiting for the driver’s friend to bring a new transmission. Luckily, my fellow environment volunteer was there to meet me. We spent the night at her friend’s house and headed up to her site the next day. Before we left, we made sure to stock up on veggies at the nice big market in Ambilobe (cabbage, leeks, green beans, carrots, garlic, onions, papaya…they even had cashews!). Then we hopped in another bush taxi and headed north. It took maybe an hour to fill up the bus with people, and then probably another two hours to get to Martaolana. From there, we stopped for a quick plate of rice and then walked three and a half hours out into the desert and grasslands to her site. It was quite a shock to see how different the area is from my region. I am very fortunate to live in a lush, tropical, rainy setting with easy access to fresh fruits and a beautiful surrounding of dense forest. Up north, everything is deforested, so there’s a lot of desertification. Instead of green, brown is the dominant color here, with strong winds blowing dust and sand at you every few minutes. I can see why it would be hard for her village to access fruits and vegetables. Before I came, she warned me that the people in her community mostly eat just rice and beans…sometimes tomatoes or greens if they can find them.
When we finally arrived at her village, I was shocked to see how small it was. I live in a town of around 6-8000 people in a commune (kind of like a county) of 50-60,000 people total. Her village has maybe 50 people in it! Very quaint to say the least. It was so wonderful and refreshing, though, to be in such a rural setting. Everyone I met was so welcoming, also. The village borders a forest that is known for the “ankomba joby,” or, black lemur. There is a Malagasy NGO posted in the village that has been working to connect sections of the forest, which once used to be continuous but has quickly been diminishing due to logging for firewood and lumber. They have a pepenier going down in the village, so they can transplant native trees into the deforested areas nearby. There are sections of the forest that once used to play host to the black lemur, but are now empty because the lemurs cannot cross the deforested sections of their previous habitat. In addition to tree-planting, the NGO is also monitoring the lemur colonies population and movement. The environment volunteer there works both with the NGO, doing an assessment on land-use in the area and also with the people who live in the village to help improve their quality of life.
The first morning I was there, I met with all the mothers in the village as well as the village leaders and talked about proper breastfeeding practices, vaccines, the three basic food groups (starches, fruits and veggies and proteins) and Morenga, an amazing tree that grows here whose leaves have tons of vitamins, calcium, protein and iron. The next day we met with everyone at an empty plot next to the creek near the village and built a community garden. The men built the fence and the women prepared the beds. We talked about double-digging, companion planting and caring for the garden by weeding and watering. We planted beets, eggplant, bok choy, lettuce, tomatoes, radish, cucumbers and carrots. The NGO workers said they would also work on a Morenga pepenier and transplant the trees around the garden to make a living fence, once they were big enough. A strong fence was definitely a must, as there are lots of cattle that roam around the village destroying fences and eating up people’s gardens. We also stressed the importance of making up a schedule for who would tend to the garden each day, and the women were already discussing it when we finished planting! Overall it was a great success. I was really surprised, because I generally set very low expectations for even the smallest of projects as things tend to be really unorganized here and move much more slowly than we’re used to in the states. I just hope that the women can keep up their interest in the garden and tend to it routinely over the long term so that they can reap the benefits. In the very long term, the NGO is hoping to turn the area into more of an eco-tourist destination by building some bungalows and a restaurant/lodge for visitors interested in seeing the lemurs and staying overnight. They are hoping that if the villagers maintain interest in farming vegetables, they can even supply the restaurant with produce to get some money flowing into the community. It’s a lofty goal, but it would be really cool if it actually happened.
The day I left I was fortunate enough to have the chance to take a guided walk with a member of the NGO into the forest to see the lemurs. Some of them have collars on them so they can be tracked and studied. I was fortunate to get a close look at maybe five or ten of them. It was so cool! They were really cute. It was also really interesting to get a look at the different sections of forest and see how they were trying to connect them into one continuous chain…a great end to my visit up north.
On the way back, I managed to catch a bush taxi that was in much better shape than the first one, although everyone was really crammed in there for the long ride. Only 12 hours this time, and I managed to get a ride direct to my site instead of stopping in Vohemar, since the bus was going all the way to Sambava.
28 September 2010
The new volunteers were installed this week. One of them stopped by my house to pick up some furniture that was being stored for him here. His site is actually pretty close by…only about a four hour hike, maybe a 2 ½ hour bike ride. I and the volunteer 28k south of me are planning to bike there soon to check it out. It’s near the coast, and I’ve never been there, so I’m excited to see his site.
Things at my site have been going slower than I’d like, as usual. You have to be very very patient here in Madagascar when trying to get things done…and I think that probably goes for Africa in general and for Peace Corps too, for that matter. The three projects I applied for funding for are still waiting to be approved. I have gotten some things accomplished, though. I’ve been biking to the smaller, rural clinic 9km south of me and bringing their vaccines on my bike so they can vaccinate babies and pregnant women every Thursday. We recently got the swine flu vaccine, and all pregnant women are supposed to receive it along with their anti-tetanus vaccines now. When I bring the vaccines, I help by explaining the vaccine schedule to all the mothers and then recording the vaccinations in the clinic’s log book and in each baby’s or mother’s “karinem” (small personal notebook that holds all their medical records, which they are responsible for and need to take with them every time they come to the clinic). The nurse posted at the clinic is really great. He and his wife, who weighs babies on vaccine day as the village rep for the national nutrition organization, are very hard-working and are really great about including me in the activities that go on at the clinic. They always make me stay for lunch before I head back to my town in the afternoon.
In addition to working at the rural clinic, I also got a chance to head out to a village I’d never been to, that’s a 2 hour hike from my town. I went with one of the local nutrition workers whose sister lives out there. We planned to meet with the mothers in the village to talk about nutrition, weigh babies and do a cooking demonstration. I left the house at 5am that morning. We had headed out early, hoping to arrive at around 7:30, have breakfast there, and then meet with the villagers by 9am so we could start cooking by 10. As it turned out everyone was at church, so the town was really quiet until about 10:30/11…Africa time. At least I got a chance to meet all the village elders.
After chatting with the president of the village, I gave a talk on vaccines, breastfeeding and healthy foods, and then the nutrition worker started the cooking demo. It was probably around 11:30 at that time. Needless to say, the program took a lot longer than we expected. While the food was cooking (rice porridge with peanut butter and a milk and egg custard), we weighed all the babies at the village president’s office. It was really noisy and crowded. All the kids who were able to, stuffed themselves into the little house to watch us put the babies in big blue pants and hang them from a produce scale, so they could giggle and make fun of their little brothers and sisters being weighed. I will admit, the babies do look pretty funny hanging from those scales, but it was really loud and overwhelming with 50 people inside that one little room along with screaming and laughter and aggressive mothers pushing their babies’ “karinems” at me trying to get their kid weighed first.
Aside from the crowded weighing session, it was a really great day. The hike was absolutely gorgeous: through the woods, across a stream and past some rice paddies towards the mountains. On the way there, we stopped at a small village to pick up some fresh cow milk. I actually got to watch the guy milking the cow. The Malagasy were making fun of me because it was the first time I had seen a live cow-milking in action. On the way back, we were running a little late, and the sun had already set before we were half-way home. We walked by the moonlight, which actually wasn’t too bad, because the moon was really bright that night. There were a fair amount of people still out and about due to the moon’s illuminating glow. Even though I had never been down the path to that village, there were kids shouting my name at each village we passed the whole way there and back. Sometimes I feel like a celebrity or something. I was so exhausted by the time we got back at 7:30pm, since we had hiked a total of 4 ½ hours and had been awakes since 5am. It had been a really long but good day. I hope to do it again sometime soon.
Today I got a chance to meet with the parent’s organization at the local CEG (junior high school). I found out from the director of the school that they were meeting today to do some repairs on the school buildings, and I asked if I could stop by, because I’m planning to start a health club at the school this year. I wanted to let all the parents know so that they could encourage their kids to join. I also asked them to let me know if they had any suggestions for projects or health topics that we should focus on. I also let them know that there’s funding available for the club to do HIV/AIDS trainings or festivals if the kids are interested. All the parents there seemed fairly receptive.
I’m keeping my expectations low, but hoping that the health club can meet at least once a month to learn about a variety of topics, like malaria prevention, family planning, clean water and HIV/AIDS. I’d be really thrilled if we could do a program with the local radio station or do peer education outreach in the rural areas in order to reach the youth who have dropped out of school or who don’t study in town. I’m really hoping to focus on life skills and prevention of STIs, because there are so many kids who drop out of school due to unplanned pregnancies and a lot of STIs at the clinics too. I especially want the young girls to learn that they can say no to older guys and wait until they’re ready or negotiate condom use. If I can even get anyone to show up on a regular basis, it will still be really hard to talk about that kind of stuff in Malagasy. My language is improving everyday, and I have a few manuals on life skills and HIV/AIDS in Malagasy, but it will be challenging nonetheless. It’s difficult enough as it is discussing safe sex and how to make life choices in English!
That’s about it for now. On Thursday, I’m planning to do a cooking demo with the nutrition worker at the rural clinic where I help out with vaccines. Then on Sunday I’m planning to bike to another village just down the road with a different nutrition worker to do a cooking demo and weigh babies again. We’re going to go in the afternoon, though, so it doesn’t conflict with anyone’s church schedule.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
30 August 2010
So it’s been about a month at site and now I’m back in Tana again to help train the new volunteers. It was actually pretty uneventful the past month at site. I helped out at a few of the clinics in my commune, visited with friends at site, spent a nice weekend up in Vohemar, a larger town north of me on the coast. It has a really nice beach…wish I would have remembered to take my camera. I also helped the environment volunteer 25km south of me start to paint a world map on one of the buildings at the CEG (junior high school). We had some kids in her town help out, and it was a lot of fun, though I don’t think it’s finished yet. When I left for Tana, it was just a giant blue rectangle, but I’m sure it will be beautiful when it’s done, and I hope the kids are able to learn some geography from seeing it everyday when they go to school.
So many people here have no idea where different countries are located. They often think that the United States is in Europe and they have no idea what countries are in Africa, even though Madagascar is technically considered part of Africa. I have a couple maps in my house, and I’m constantly showing people who stop by where America, Africa, France and Madagascar are, so they have some concept of where I am from and where they are from in the world. I guess it’s hard though, when so many of the people here haven’t even finished middle school. It’s especially hard for the girls, who often get pregnant at age 15 and then drop out of school because they have to take care of their baby.
On another note, the fact that I’ve been traveling around a lot made me realize I’ve never talked about the transportation system here in Madagascar. I’m luck enough to be a “fly site,” which means that the road from my site to the capital is so bad that it can take up to three days by car and is often impassible during the rainy season. So every time I have to go to the capital for a training or meeting, I get flown down and spared the unpleasant long journey crammed in a taxi brousse (French for bush taxi, i.e. public bus system in Madagascar). I still have to take a 1.5-2hr ride in a taxi brousse from my site to Sambava to catch the plane, though, and that in itself is enough for me.
This time around I was crammed in an 18 passenger van with 30 other Malagasies. Granted, a few of them were kids, and Malagasy people are generally pretty small, but still, it was pretty ridiculous. The smell of fried food, body odor and bad breath permeating throughout the vehicle does not help with the discomfort. One time there was a live chicken tied up under my seat, clucking away and flapping its wings. There are often people sitting facing backwards, legs entangled with the people directly in front of them, some sit on other’s laps, sometimes someone has to share a seat with the driver, who has to reach awkwardly between their legs every time he needs to switch gears, and some of the seats get really hot, because they’re right over the engine or something. Many of the drivers hotwire the car every time they start it because they don’t have the actual ignition key. When they have to fill up the engine, it’s often from an old glass soda bottle filled with petrol from a shack along the side of the road. The windshields often have cracks in the glass. Some of the taxi brousses have tons of stuff piled on top…anything from 15 giant sacks of bananas or cassava to bicycles to suitcases. A lot of times, the worker who collects everyone’s fair and loads luggage on top of the car has to hang out the side with the door open since the brousse is so full. I’m always terrified they’re going to tumble to their death if the taxi happens to make a sharp turn or get in an accident when they’re hanging out the side like that.
From a public health perspective, I sometimes wonder if there’s something we should be doing about the taxi brousse situation, considering many deaths in developing coutries are due to traffic accidents as the infrastructure is so bad and the population concentration so great. Unfortunately I suppose the transportation issue goes along with law enforcement. There really should be a limit on the number of people allowed in certain types of vehicles, and it should be enforced. There are checkpoints along the national highways, and the gendarmes do often stop the taxis to check that the driver’s registration and license is up to date and to reprimand the ones who stuff too many people in the car, but I think there’s often some under-the-table transactions (i.e. drivers forking over a few Ariary to the gendarmes so they can continue on their way). It’s also hard when gas prices are so high, and the drivers are just trying to make a living. You can’t blame them for wanting to get as many passengers as possible to make their trips worthwhile.
Nevertheless, I always seem to make it safely to my destination, even though it may sometimes be several hours later than I had intended to arrive. I’m in Tana again now, and man it is so cold!! I want to go back to my site already and it’s only been a day. I’m such a whimp, I don’t know how I’ll survive the weather when I go back to the states. I’m so glad my site is up north near the coast where it’s warm all year around. Right now it is our winter, and it does cool down (low 60s) at night and in the early morning to be fair, but the highlands is so much chillier than the coast. I can still wear tank-tops and sandals at site, but I’m bundled up in a sweatshirt and thick socks here. Anyway, looking forward to getting back to site soon and continuing on my projects. I’ll be headed up toward Diego in a few weeks to help out an environment volunteer posted up there with some nutrition projects. That’s it for now!
So many people here have no idea where different countries are located. They often think that the United States is in Europe and they have no idea what countries are in Africa, even though Madagascar is technically considered part of Africa. I have a couple maps in my house, and I’m constantly showing people who stop by where America, Africa, France and Madagascar are, so they have some concept of where I am from and where they are from in the world. I guess it’s hard though, when so many of the people here haven’t even finished middle school. It’s especially hard for the girls, who often get pregnant at age 15 and then drop out of school because they have to take care of their baby.
On another note, the fact that I’ve been traveling around a lot made me realize I’ve never talked about the transportation system here in Madagascar. I’m luck enough to be a “fly site,” which means that the road from my site to the capital is so bad that it can take up to three days by car and is often impassible during the rainy season. So every time I have to go to the capital for a training or meeting, I get flown down and spared the unpleasant long journey crammed in a taxi brousse (French for bush taxi, i.e. public bus system in Madagascar). I still have to take a 1.5-2hr ride in a taxi brousse from my site to Sambava to catch the plane, though, and that in itself is enough for me.
This time around I was crammed in an 18 passenger van with 30 other Malagasies. Granted, a few of them were kids, and Malagasy people are generally pretty small, but still, it was pretty ridiculous. The smell of fried food, body odor and bad breath permeating throughout the vehicle does not help with the discomfort. One time there was a live chicken tied up under my seat, clucking away and flapping its wings. There are often people sitting facing backwards, legs entangled with the people directly in front of them, some sit on other’s laps, sometimes someone has to share a seat with the driver, who has to reach awkwardly between their legs every time he needs to switch gears, and some of the seats get really hot, because they’re right over the engine or something. Many of the drivers hotwire the car every time they start it because they don’t have the actual ignition key. When they have to fill up the engine, it’s often from an old glass soda bottle filled with petrol from a shack along the side of the road. The windshields often have cracks in the glass. Some of the taxi brousses have tons of stuff piled on top…anything from 15 giant sacks of bananas or cassava to bicycles to suitcases. A lot of times, the worker who collects everyone’s fair and loads luggage on top of the car has to hang out the side with the door open since the brousse is so full. I’m always terrified they’re going to tumble to their death if the taxi happens to make a sharp turn or get in an accident when they’re hanging out the side like that.
From a public health perspective, I sometimes wonder if there’s something we should be doing about the taxi brousse situation, considering many deaths in developing coutries are due to traffic accidents as the infrastructure is so bad and the population concentration so great. Unfortunately I suppose the transportation issue goes along with law enforcement. There really should be a limit on the number of people allowed in certain types of vehicles, and it should be enforced. There are checkpoints along the national highways, and the gendarmes do often stop the taxis to check that the driver’s registration and license is up to date and to reprimand the ones who stuff too many people in the car, but I think there’s often some under-the-table transactions (i.e. drivers forking over a few Ariary to the gendarmes so they can continue on their way). It’s also hard when gas prices are so high, and the drivers are just trying to make a living. You can’t blame them for wanting to get as many passengers as possible to make their trips worthwhile.
Nevertheless, I always seem to make it safely to my destination, even though it may sometimes be several hours later than I had intended to arrive. I’m in Tana again now, and man it is so cold!! I want to go back to my site already and it’s only been a day. I’m such a whimp, I don’t know how I’ll survive the weather when I go back to the states. I’m so glad my site is up north near the coast where it’s warm all year around. Right now it is our winter, and it does cool down (low 60s) at night and in the early morning to be fair, but the highlands is so much chillier than the coast. I can still wear tank-tops and sandals at site, but I’m bundled up in a sweatshirt and thick socks here. Anyway, looking forward to getting back to site soon and continuing on my projects. I’ll be headed up toward Diego in a few weeks to help out an environment volunteer posted up there with some nutrition projects. That’s it for now!
Friday, August 20, 2010
6 Aug 2010
Wow, the past month has been really busy! The beginning of July, I was still at site doing the usual…teaching about health in the clinic in town and the rural clinic 10k south of me, working with local community organizations on projects like building public wells and latrines. I got to hike to a rural village to see where a women’s group was planning to build a well since there’s no access to clean water out there and many of the kids suffer from schistosomiasis and diarrheal diseases. I am planning to help the women’s group get money to build two public wells in that village.
I also had an unexpected visit from an American traveling through Madagascar on a bike! He had actually come across some of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers who live closer to Antananarivo, and had biked northwest up to the coast of Madagascar. Then he took a plane up to Sambava and passed by my site. He was asking about the road up north and looking to visit Diego. It was really cool to have a random English speaker stop by my house on a quiet Saturday and to hear that he had seen some of my friends in other parts of Madagascar. He had all of his belongings on a small cart-thing that was attached to the back of his bike (probably a technical term for this, but I’m not a savvy biker, so I don’t know).
The second week of July I headed back down to Tana. There I had a couple meetings and business things to take care of, and then I went to Ambatondrazaka/Lake Alaotra with a bunch of other volunteers to participate in a bike tour around the lake and do some festivals to raise awareness about AIDS. We stopped in 9 towns around the lake (7 of which were Peace Corps volunteer’s sites) and taught about methods of prevention against AIDS and about what Peace Corps does here in Madagascar. We also sang songs, danced, showed videos on a projector complements of the NGO Population Services International and generally had a good time. I had so much fun partying it up, seeing another part of Madagascar and hanging out with all my fellow volunteers again. I also got to see Lake Lemurs. How cool!
Now I am back at site again. At first it was a little difficult to go back, because I knew I would miss all my fellow American volunteers dearly, but I was excited to see some of my Malagasy friends back at site and to speak my dialect of Malagasy again. The official dialect spoken near the capital is difficult! It took a few days but I got back into the swing of things. I’ve jumped back on my own bike back at site and have been visiting all my friends and colleagues and working at the clinics again. I love the weather so much better up here. It’s not quite so cold as down in Tana (it is winter here in Madagascar after all). After doing all the AIDS festivals in Lake Alaotra, I’m inspired to do one here up north for World AIDS day on December 1st.
Sometimes I feel kind of conflicted when talking about AIDS though, because we often run out of HIV tests here in Madagascar and testing is such an integral part of AIDS prevention. It’s also so hard to get people to use condoms, since most of the men here are totally opposed to them and some even consider STDs to be a sign of manliness (I guess since that means they have slept with a lot of women). Most women are convinced that their husbands or boyfriends would never use a condom if they asked, yet so many people here have STDs. I saw a newborn baby at the clinic last week with swollen/infected eyes, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was because the mother had syphilis. When we did have syphilis tests and were able to test pregnant women, at least one would test positive every time we tested each week at the clinic. Again, I get so frustrated sometimes when the majority of problems I see are systematic ones that I can’t change from my position as a volunteer in another country (ex: availability of syphilis and HIV tests, accessibility of clinics, availability/price of medications). Still pluggin’ away, though, and looking forward to seeing some new health and education volunteers up here at the end of September. I hope they will be good people to work with.
I also had an unexpected visit from an American traveling through Madagascar on a bike! He had actually come across some of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers who live closer to Antananarivo, and had biked northwest up to the coast of Madagascar. Then he took a plane up to Sambava and passed by my site. He was asking about the road up north and looking to visit Diego. It was really cool to have a random English speaker stop by my house on a quiet Saturday and to hear that he had seen some of my friends in other parts of Madagascar. He had all of his belongings on a small cart-thing that was attached to the back of his bike (probably a technical term for this, but I’m not a savvy biker, so I don’t know).
The second week of July I headed back down to Tana. There I had a couple meetings and business things to take care of, and then I went to Ambatondrazaka/Lake Alaotra with a bunch of other volunteers to participate in a bike tour around the lake and do some festivals to raise awareness about AIDS. We stopped in 9 towns around the lake (7 of which were Peace Corps volunteer’s sites) and taught about methods of prevention against AIDS and about what Peace Corps does here in Madagascar. We also sang songs, danced, showed videos on a projector complements of the NGO Population Services International and generally had a good time. I had so much fun partying it up, seeing another part of Madagascar and hanging out with all my fellow volunteers again. I also got to see Lake Lemurs. How cool!
Now I am back at site again. At first it was a little difficult to go back, because I knew I would miss all my fellow American volunteers dearly, but I was excited to see some of my Malagasy friends back at site and to speak my dialect of Malagasy again. The official dialect spoken near the capital is difficult! It took a few days but I got back into the swing of things. I’ve jumped back on my own bike back at site and have been visiting all my friends and colleagues and working at the clinics again. I love the weather so much better up here. It’s not quite so cold as down in Tana (it is winter here in Madagascar after all). After doing all the AIDS festivals in Lake Alaotra, I’m inspired to do one here up north for World AIDS day on December 1st.
Sometimes I feel kind of conflicted when talking about AIDS though, because we often run out of HIV tests here in Madagascar and testing is such an integral part of AIDS prevention. It’s also so hard to get people to use condoms, since most of the men here are totally opposed to them and some even consider STDs to be a sign of manliness (I guess since that means they have slept with a lot of women). Most women are convinced that their husbands or boyfriends would never use a condom if they asked, yet so many people here have STDs. I saw a newborn baby at the clinic last week with swollen/infected eyes, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was because the mother had syphilis. When we did have syphilis tests and were able to test pregnant women, at least one would test positive every time we tested each week at the clinic. Again, I get so frustrated sometimes when the majority of problems I see are systematic ones that I can’t change from my position as a volunteer in another country (ex: availability of syphilis and HIV tests, accessibility of clinics, availability/price of medications). Still pluggin’ away, though, and looking forward to seeing some new health and education volunteers up here at the end of September. I hope they will be good people to work with.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
30 June 2010
I’ve been back at site for a month now, and things have been going really well so far. The new environment volunteer who’s 25km south of me seems like she’ll be great to work with, and I’ve met up with her a couple times since I’ve been back. We’re thinking of doing some bio-intensive gardens with the nutrition organization here to encourage people to use kitchen gardens to improve their food security. We’re also planning on getting funding for some public wells and latrines in rural areas, building some improved cookstoves and possibly painting a large map of the world in one of the primary schools as part of Peace Corp’s World Map Project.
Lately I’ve been biking or hiking out to the more rural areas to carry out health education activities. I really enjoy getting the exercise everyday and meeting new people. So far I’ve taught at four different primary schools and have been carrying out a training program for health educators at another primary school. I’ve also brought some materials to construct hand-washing stations at a few of the schools I have taught at. Sometimes it’s a little overwhelming, because there can be as many as 80-100 kids in a class, but it’s still really fun. The kids really enjoy the pictures I draw on my health posters, and the songs about healthy foods and hand-washing are a big hit. Malagasy love to sing, no matter how tone deaf some of them might be (some are really talented singers, though). I also often work with a doctor posted at a much smaller rural clinic 9km south of me. I go there at least once a week and help out with family planning or vaccines. I really enjoy talking to the people who visit the clinic about their daily struggles and about different options they have to improve the health of their families. It’s so beautiful out in the countryside of Madagascar, so even just traveling out to the different villages is an amazing experience in itself. I just need to remember to bring my camera more often! My garden is starting to come along too. Ive got tomato plants, onions, eggplant, cilantro, green beans, cucumbers, carrots and radishes already growing. The tomato plants already have little tomatoes on them. Hopefully we'll be able to use the veggies for cooking demos with the nutrition organiation.
I’ve also been doing some informal English lessons on the side. I’m more about the health education than English, but there are so many people here that want to learn and it is a nice way to make friends. I also end up picking up a little more Malagasy and French too, and I often get “voandalanas,” or, gifts for the road (cucumbers, bananas, coconuts, etc.).
June 26th was Madagascar’s Independence Day, which is a huge celebration here. The past weekend was really fun. A couple of friends had me over for meals, I participated in a bike race, watched a parade through town, watched a soccer match, heard a speech given by the village president and went to a dance party on Saturday night. Needless to say I was completely exhausted on Sunday, but it was a really fun experience. The Malagasy really know how to party!
Quite a few people have TVs here, and there’s electricity in town from 2pm-12am everyday, so I’ve even been able to catch some of the World Cup action. People here really enjoy watching Brazil (like everyone else). When I’m not able to make it over to a neighbor’s house to catch the games, I listen on my radio. The local Malagasy station in town runs commentaries on the matches every evening. It’s hard to understand a lot of it, since they speak so fast (like commentators in the U.S.) and it’s not in the same dialect, but once in a while I can figure out what’s going on, and it’s a good way for me to work on my language.
My Malagasy has been coming a long much better now that I’ve been back at site. I find that when I’m listening in on other’s conversations I can understand a lot more than I could before. I’m able to mix the dialects a little better now. Even though I was trained in the northern dialect, Sakalava, the people in this region speak a mix of several different dialects. In addition to Sakalava, there’s also Betsimasaraka, Tsimihety and Antandroy. Many people take words and expressions from multiple dialects, and when I travel from village to village (even if it’s only a few km away) there are clusters of groups, so I’ll find people speaking more Betsimasaraka than Sakalava or more Tsimihety than Betsimasaraka. I notice that some of the villages I go to, I really have a hard time understanding them because they tend to use more of one dialect than another. It’s a real challenge. Some days are really frustrating, because I feel like I’m back at day one, but then other days are encouraging because I feel that I’m really picking up on the language.
This weekend I’ll be meeting up with the other three volunteers in my region to celebrate 4th of July and watch a little World Cup. Then in mid-July I’m headed back to Tana (the capital) for a meeting and a training session since I’ll be helping train the next batch of health volunteers that come in August. I’m also going to help out with a bike tour against AIDS that some of the other health volunteers are organizing up at Lake Alaotra. I’m really excited to see everyone again and to help out with the bike tour. It should be a lot of fun. Hopefully somewhere in there I’ll be able to get the funding straightened out for the public latrine and well projects that I’m working on. It’s been a challenge since a lot of the US gov. funding has been cut for aid/assistance with projects in Madagascar. That’s about it for now. My next post will probably be from Tana in a couple weeks.
Lately I’ve been biking or hiking out to the more rural areas to carry out health education activities. I really enjoy getting the exercise everyday and meeting new people. So far I’ve taught at four different primary schools and have been carrying out a training program for health educators at another primary school. I’ve also brought some materials to construct hand-washing stations at a few of the schools I have taught at. Sometimes it’s a little overwhelming, because there can be as many as 80-100 kids in a class, but it’s still really fun. The kids really enjoy the pictures I draw on my health posters, and the songs about healthy foods and hand-washing are a big hit. Malagasy love to sing, no matter how tone deaf some of them might be (some are really talented singers, though). I also often work with a doctor posted at a much smaller rural clinic 9km south of me. I go there at least once a week and help out with family planning or vaccines. I really enjoy talking to the people who visit the clinic about their daily struggles and about different options they have to improve the health of their families. It’s so beautiful out in the countryside of Madagascar, so even just traveling out to the different villages is an amazing experience in itself. I just need to remember to bring my camera more often! My garden is starting to come along too. Ive got tomato plants, onions, eggplant, cilantro, green beans, cucumbers, carrots and radishes already growing. The tomato plants already have little tomatoes on them. Hopefully we'll be able to use the veggies for cooking demos with the nutrition organiation.
I’ve also been doing some informal English lessons on the side. I’m more about the health education than English, but there are so many people here that want to learn and it is a nice way to make friends. I also end up picking up a little more Malagasy and French too, and I often get “voandalanas,” or, gifts for the road (cucumbers, bananas, coconuts, etc.).
June 26th was Madagascar’s Independence Day, which is a huge celebration here. The past weekend was really fun. A couple of friends had me over for meals, I participated in a bike race, watched a parade through town, watched a soccer match, heard a speech given by the village president and went to a dance party on Saturday night. Needless to say I was completely exhausted on Sunday, but it was a really fun experience. The Malagasy really know how to party!
Quite a few people have TVs here, and there’s electricity in town from 2pm-12am everyday, so I’ve even been able to catch some of the World Cup action. People here really enjoy watching Brazil (like everyone else). When I’m not able to make it over to a neighbor’s house to catch the games, I listen on my radio. The local Malagasy station in town runs commentaries on the matches every evening. It’s hard to understand a lot of it, since they speak so fast (like commentators in the U.S.) and it’s not in the same dialect, but once in a while I can figure out what’s going on, and it’s a good way for me to work on my language.
My Malagasy has been coming a long much better now that I’ve been back at site. I find that when I’m listening in on other’s conversations I can understand a lot more than I could before. I’m able to mix the dialects a little better now. Even though I was trained in the northern dialect, Sakalava, the people in this region speak a mix of several different dialects. In addition to Sakalava, there’s also Betsimasaraka, Tsimihety and Antandroy. Many people take words and expressions from multiple dialects, and when I travel from village to village (even if it’s only a few km away) there are clusters of groups, so I’ll find people speaking more Betsimasaraka than Sakalava or more Tsimihety than Betsimasaraka. I notice that some of the villages I go to, I really have a hard time understanding them because they tend to use more of one dialect than another. It’s a real challenge. Some days are really frustrating, because I feel like I’m back at day one, but then other days are encouraging because I feel that I’m really picking up on the language.
This weekend I’ll be meeting up with the other three volunteers in my region to celebrate 4th of July and watch a little World Cup. Then in mid-July I’m headed back to Tana (the capital) for a meeting and a training session since I’ll be helping train the next batch of health volunteers that come in August. I’m also going to help out with a bike tour against AIDS that some of the other health volunteers are organizing up at Lake Alaotra. I’m really excited to see everyone again and to help out with the bike tour. It should be a lot of fun. Hopefully somewhere in there I’ll be able to get the funding straightened out for the public latrine and well projects that I’m working on. It’s been a challenge since a lot of the US gov. funding has been cut for aid/assistance with projects in Madagascar. That’s about it for now. My next post will probably be from Tana in a couple weeks.
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