, Training, break, Training, lunch, Training, break, Training, dinner and free time

This is my daily schedule during the week. There is a lot of training! In the morning the focus is on language. The first few days was “survival Malagasy” to get through our nights with our homestay families. We have started to learn numbers, bargaining at the market, family, professions and expressing needs. The way PC teaches is really efficient and we’ll be able to communicate pretty well by the end of training. I guess the nice thing about Madagascar is that even though there are something like 10 different dialects all the sentence structure stuff is the same, so all Malagasy understand each other which I guess doesn’t happen in other African countries.
In the afternoons we have technical training. For all the Health trainees out main focus will be women’s and children’s health along with reproductive health in youth. We have been learning a lot about vaccines/immunizations and malnutrition which are big issues here in Madagascar. The sessions can get pretty depressing for me anyway because there issues occur often and can end in death but there are very simple solutions, preventative actions, they can take to avoid them but a lot of people just don’t know about them. Our role is to try closing the gap which hopefully will save many lives.
I have already found out where my site is going to be! I will be in the southeastern highlands. My village is Sahambavy which is just southeast of Fianarantsoa (Fianar for short). Here is what I know about it so far:
-Approximate population: 17,000
-Cold March through August…But I hear it is dry which I really hope it is!
-Spoken dialect: Betsileo. I have already started to learn it rather than standart Malagasy but the switch doesn’t seem to like it will be too difficult.
-I’ll have pretty reliable transportation to Fianar, Tana and Manakara. Taxi-Brousse and train.
-Sahambavy is known for it’s tea industry.
-People come to Sahambavy from Fianar to have picnics. I hear it is really pretty and I am lucky to be placed there!
-My house is one big room, built out of brick and concrete I think. I’ll have a kitchen, latrine, fence, a well (hopefully close) but no electricity which is totally fine.
Next week on Friday we leave to go to our individual site visits! I am actually not sure what that week will look like but I am pretty juiced about it!

: Po Corps: I’d give you 10.000 Ariary if you could top this fady..!

Day/Date: Sunday July 25, 2010 (about 4 days into my homestay)
Time: Sometime before dinner, between 6 and 7:30pm
Location: Homestay house/my bedroom
Description: I commit a major Malagasy

So at my homestay we do not have a toilet, we have a kabone. This is a brick structure built around/over a huge hoe dug in the ground. There is a floor built over that too with a much smaller hole, where you do your business…there are pieces of wood or bricks that you use while you squat (balance, aim and thigh strength required) This is behind the house a bit and is only for daytime use.
What do people do at night? --You may ask…
Well since it gets really dark and can get slippery they don’t use the kabone at night but a po instead. A po can be used to spit in after brushing your teeth, it can be used to wash your hands off a bit, it can be used to shave (if you are skilled enough not to spill outside of it) but it’s main use is for #1 and #2! The po is a bucket with a lid. You use it, empty/rinse it out in the morning, let it “air out” during the day and put it in the corner of your room at night.
It is a very personal item…
One night, the night of the 25th, I am studying Malagasy with my host family in the common room. It is starting to get dark and I have to tinkle so I go use the po in my room, and come back to continue studying…
“Knock, knock”
Oh what a surprise! It is our upstairs neighbors…they usually do not come over around that time. They begin to speak Malagasy with my mom and I hear a familiar word…”po”..! Turns out…I brought the wrong po into my room!!
I was mortified!!! They all thought it was hilarious and of course I laughed along with them! Their po was next to my family’s po outside, and it is blue just like mine but in a different shade..! My po was in my Ladosy (shower)… They kept telling my that their po is manga (blue) and that mine is mangamanga (bluish). While I kept trying to ask if I could wash it out before giving it to them, without actually saying I had already used it!!! But that didn’t happen…so they took their po…with my pee in it…
Me = Dumb American. I am so thankful the joke only lasted for 2 days but who knows how many people in out village heard about it!

Oh diggity I’m in Madagascar! Here’s how it’s going…

As of August 3, 2010:

So I have been in Madagascar for about two weeks now! I met the other 41 trainees in Washington D.C. and had a short orientation. We sat on a plane for about 20hours, stopping in Dakar to refuel and landing in Johannesburg, South Africa for the night. The another 3 hour flight the next morning to Antananariva (Tana for short), Madagascar and stayed a night there. All our training is in a village called Mantasoa. This was a 2ish hour, bumpy as hell, 14 person packed van ride. As soon as we got to Mantasoa (just southeast of Tana) we met our host families and had out first night with them! Tad bit intimidating but we all survived just fine.

My host family:

I live with a woman in her 50’s who I call Neny, which means mom. She farms rice and raises chickens. Her daughter also lives with there. Her name is Nomena, she is 18 and has the same birthday as me! They are both super nice! They teach me their lifestyle here and are eager to help me learn Malagasy. This is their first time hosting a Peace Corps Trainee (PCT) and I’m hoping they are having a good experience… I am for sure!

I taught them how to play Go Fish last night. It went over pretty well! Explaining the rules was a bit rocky but we got it and had fun. I tried to explain “beginner’s luck” when Nomena won but my language skills are not quite at that level yet haha I may have to start introducing more games though because we played like 25 rounds tonight…Go Fish is only entertaining for so long!

How about a bit about my lifestyle out here??

Contents of my room:

A desk, a chair, a bed, a mosquito net, a water filter ( I have to treat all the water I drink with a chlorine solution), a trunk for safe keeping, a trash basket, a broom, a bucket for fetching water/showering, a po (see Po Corps blog for a hilarious story) and all the stuff I brought with me from home. It is simple but I have a good amount of space and I have a door directly to the outside. This is nice because I have more “me” space than it seems some other trainees do with doors connected to other rooms in the house.

My daily/weekly activities:

-I eat all three meals with my host family and let them know where I am going/what I am doing. It is interesting being in the family setting again, with people you do not know very well.

-I walk about 300 meters to get water for a shower. The path is sometimes slippery and muddy and I have to carry a bucket full of water back that distance.

-I make my bed every morning and usually sweep my floor too. I use the “brosy” (not sure of the spelling, but it is half a coconut shell) to break up the dirt on the floor first and then sweep it out the door.

-I wash my clothes in a river, and hang them out to dry. It’s pretty cloudy and sometimes rainy/drizzly here right now so it can take 3 days for clothes to dry sometimes. I have to be strategic in what I was since I do not have many clothes.

-Electricity is expensive so we use candles at night.

There is definitely more but I will share that throughout the coming weeks when I get the chance