Death in the family
Here is a little story that happen a couple of months ago. Our pet lizard died. He was not really a pet. He ran free eating anything sweet. He particularly liked honey, but would nibble on fruit. It was a tragedy waking up and going into our “kitchen”, our other room, and finding our lizard friend in a bowl of water. It looked like he drowned, he was dead. We were saddened because he was a source of entertainment and beauty. Without effort, we provided food. Where there is food …. Sure enough another lizard moved in.
 
In other house animal news, we had a mother mouse move in. She would make a terrible rack at night. We finally found her nest in our cupboard. I reinforced the structure to discourage her return. We didn’t know at the time that she had a litter. When we found it we decided to move the younglings outside. She only moved three, the other three died. For a short while they were part of our family.

To begin with I just learned from a Malagasy how to prevent further spread of parasites. First to prevent them scrub your feet with a brush using soap and water every night. Make it a ritual. If you get parasites, take them out without busting the egg sack and after removing them put candled warmed oil on your freshly made wound. In other word not hot oil, don’t cause further damage.

With that being said I will describe how I evicted the squatters in my heel. These images are graphic so if you are weak of stomach do not read this entry

The landscape before extraction: Notice the three light colored circles with the dark dot in the middle. The dot is the mother and the round circle is the eggs. There are actually four parasites. The last one is hiding under thick heel skin.

Tools for the job: One lit candle to burn into oblivion the little sucker; one needle-like tool to break the skin and mine the parasite; one or many alcohol swabs. The tools are simple because the job is simple, but it takes guts to gouge yourself with a needle and pull out a living creature, so be strong. Actually it is painful for the little guy to live in your foot. The major motivation is getting rid of the pain.

Start breaking the skin, I use a scraping motion. But I have gone straight in, that is a mistake. You don’t want to break the egg sack and cause the parasites eggs to be released.

Pay dirt, there is the mother comfortable amid her eggs. Make sure to get the mother!

Gently squeeze the egg sack out of your foot. I am not sure what the best technique is.

Extract the unbroken egg sack, gently.

Take her to her fiery death. No mercy! If you feel bad for the little parasite, join parasite anonymous.

I had four in my heel. I made the mistake of breaking the egg sack when I pulled one out one a couple of weeks ago. I also didn’t know to put warm oil in the fresh wound. These techniques I will use next time. But to get to the last one I had to use a razor blade to cut away the thick skin. I hope it was the last one.

Here is the end result. Needless to say I am not going near pigs and I am going to brush my feet with soap and water at night.

In my investigation I walked into a store that sold various industrial appliances and inquired about the press. They said that the President of the house of commerce bought an automatic briquette press and it should be coming from China next month. Wow, I had a lead. I was excited and started to track the Prez down.

I simply rode my bike, actually I was barrowing it from Margo, down to his office after asking a few people where it was. Once I arrived I talked to his secretary, but he was not in, she said to come back. So I did three times, I got so lost trying to get there the following two times that I wondered if I was still in Tamatave. I had a map, but I was still confused. Even if you have the ocean on your left you don’t know if you are going south or west because Tamatave juts out to form a point.

On my third visit I left a note with my number and reason I wanted to talk.  He didn’t call the next day, so I went by. Nope still not there, during my wild goose chase I was going to PPRR to talk to the head cheese there. Yes, I visited them three times one day, hoping to get a word. I wanted to talk to someone that knew about machines used in production of various goods and services. The head duck was busy each time I visited. I was told to come back at this time and that time, but I was never allowed to enter into his office. Finally circumstances were favorable; I keep coming back so I gained respect from the secretary, I spoke Malagasy, it was getting late and I had a long bike ride home. Seems like those factors convinced the secretary to quietly pleaded my case and I got to see him. Later I had to ride back to Dave’s site in the dark, 10K, but at least I could cross an item off my list. I am still following up leads from that meeting, yea.

One morning I was getting ready to head to Tamatave from Dave’s site and my phone rang. It was the Prez of commerce, after getting over the shock; I said I would be there in an hour. I high-tailed it over and had time to spare. I sat down in the waiting room. I saw a short gentleman leaving an office next door and I asked him if he was the president. He said he was so we begin to talk. He was the president of artisans, his name was Xavier; I needed the president of agriculture. There are five presidents. He was very helpful; he called the president of commerce, college of agriculture. Before I knew it we were out on the street going for a fifteen minute walk to visit with the other president. We found him at a small fair based around raising fish. I set up a meeting with him at 3:00pm.  While I was walking around the fair I got a call from the president of commerce, he said it was 10:30am where was I. I was beside myself, what was going on, we got cut off. I called him back, I noticed the number was the same number from this morning. He was the real MaCoy.  Then who had I been talking to, who lead me here?

I could not understand him when I called him. I handed the phone to a lady I meet from PPRR. She was confused to, but I told him I would return to the house of commerce. I arrived and started to ask people who called me and showed them the number on my phone. I talked to one guy I met earlier when I talked to Xavier. He pointed me to an office opposite to Xavier’s. I was allowed to enter. This office was huge and had really thick nice furniture. There was an authoritative figure behind a large dark wooden desk. He didn’t look happy. He came to the office just to call and see me. I apologized many times and told him I thought Xavier was him and so on. He seemed to disregard my story and continued to say that there are no presses in Tamatave and not any of his Vice Presidents are purchasing any machines and if he comes across any information he will call me. That was it, I apologized again and left.

At 3:00pm I walked to the area where Xavier said to meet vice prez of agriculture. I asked around and was lead up some stairs to his living room. He was in discussion with another man. He was walking around in his boxers and the shirt I saw him in earlier. He was comfortable in his own home. He spoke English very well. He handed me printouts in English and French from the FAO website. It was about different briquette presses. He said that he bought a press from China to start up a business in Tamatave. He is going to make large briquettes for boilers and ship them to near by Islands. He is going to use sawdust from Moramonga. He should be up and running in a few months. Needless to say, it was not government business, hope I didn’t cause any problems. He was very nice and helpful. I got his contact information and after a short discussion about dried fruit and honey production I was on my way.

I was sitting and listening to the Doctor giving us instructions during training so many months ago. He was talking about various things we need to be aware of and take care of, malaria, skin infections, parasites, and things of that nature.  Our medical kits were stocked full of stuff from pepto to dental floss. Little did I know that besides taking the antibiotics to treat skin infections I would need the needle above all else. The doctor instructed us to use the needle to extract parasites. I thought he was crazy, but had heard stories. Volunteers that have been in country are more than familiar with these little guys.

I first got one after being at site for three months then another one a few weeks later. I did not know what it was, my foot hurt like I had a splinter or something. Our neighbor Séance was over and I had him take a look. It was a parasite sure enough. I handed him a needle and he went to work. It was on the bottom of my foot so I couldn’t see him work. He was very used to picking them out. He himself gets them. Actually it is very common. I have seen kids picking them out. Once he delicately plucked it out after digging a hole in my flesh he burned it over a lit candle. Death by fire is the only way. How did I get them? Was my health so weak that I am vulnerable to attack? Or is it wrong place at the wrong time. What about my skin infection I still have? Is that keeping me from finding off these pests? To make us more uneasy Frank, one of our many neighbors, told us that the parasites like to live under our bed, because they like dry places. UNDER THE BED! 

Martin, our language tutor, helped Faith extract her first one. She pulled out the other three all out of her pinky toe. By the time she got them all, her toe looked like an exploited mined field. The technique to evict these guys is simple. Dig down into the skin toward the little black dot with a little ring around it. The black dot is the mother and the light colored ring surrounding her is the egg sack. Yes, eggs. When you reach the nest you squeeze it like a zit and burn it all. The black dot is a little worm looking thing. When it is not gotten to quickly on discovery it can grow rather long. Yes, I have seen them long.

By the time I went to Tamatave in late October I had had four, which matched Faith’s count. We were neck in neck, a race for chocolate. At the end of November, who has the most wins a big box of yummy chocolates that I will pick up in Tamatave. Well, I took out five this morning. It was a blood bath. These guys needed to be taken out days ago. It was nasty, they were well developed, the parasites were long and thin, the eggs were individually identifiable a.k.a. in a later stage development. There was pus, blood, skin, eggs, and parasites. My toe was like a road under construction, skin mayhem. I was going for genocide, but I probably have more, actually there will be more. I haven’t seen the last of them. So, my count is nine to Faith’s four. I am in the lead, yea me, I rather lose.

I was told by a health volunteer that these guys like to hang out in pig feces. That is what we use in our compost. We have a new piggy friend living behind us. Armond, our Malagasy partner, raises a pig every year. He kills it and sells the meat on independents day June 26^th. Hearing that pig get slaughter at two o’clock in the morning was dreadful. Next year we will not be around. So there is a lot of pig manure around.

1.  What is your main job while in Madagascar? 

To put it simply, my job is to increase food security and decrease dependences on natural resources. Food security revolves around increase yield and food availability, but to do it in a sustainable way, a.k.a. without destroying the environment. This is a difficult topic because it involves the word sustainable. What does sustainable mean? There are definitions out there, but basically maintain a human inhabitable environment is the end reason. Of course we what to keep as many of our fuzzy friends, endangered species as an example, around to.

Are you going to be teaching or etc.?

I will be teaching simple techniques to intensify rice farming to get higher yields and food growing techniques so people can vary their diet. I have the advantage of the Internet and being able to communicate with other parts of the world.  So I have a responsibility to communicate what I find out to my village. Teaching is the main part of my work. I look at my job from different angles. I am a communicator, passing ideas in a manner that is understood. I am a scientist/engineer, experimenting with techniques and tools. I am a sociologist/psychologist, understanding the people and how they interact so that I can understand their culture. Above all I am a student, learning everyday. It sounds noble when I read it to myself, but it is what is.

2.  What simple supplies could you use?

I could use a charcoal briquette press if you have one to spare or an oil extraction press to make cooking oils. For simple supplies, I am not sure. What I need is motivation. We all have good and bad days, but it is the effort put forth over the long haul that counts. What do your students think I should be teaching the Malagasy community where I live? I will get more pictures on my blog. Here is a website from the volunteers we replaced. http://www.ftftrading.com/ They are focusing on fair trade, community development, and organic cultivation. We all have something to offer. The community where I live offers vanilla.

Here is a little background. My community has about a 10% malnutrition rate. They mostly grow vanilla, cloves and coffee. They fish in the ocean and also farm fish. They raise chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, gunnies, pigs and cows. There are about 4000 people, I am not totally sure. They eat rice three times a day, when there is enough of it, sometimes they go without. They cook over a cup of rice per person per meal. It is a lot of rice at each sitting. They make a sauce to go over the rice and give it flavor. The vegetables they eat are types of lettuce, tomatoes, onions, garlic, squash and/or whatever they find. There are a lot of tropical fruits to choose from, but very seasonal.

Here are some Madagascar fact sites.

3.  Are you going to be in contact with mainly adults, children, both?

Our village is like a small American neighborhood. Instead of driving every where we walk or ride our bikes. A simple activity is going to the local store. In the states I would drive to the grocery store or walk to the corner store. Same thing here, instead of a chain convenient store we have very small family owned stores. They have pens, pencils, batteries, lights, cookies, crackers, soda pop, peanuts, macaroni, tomatoes, onions, garlic, candy, petrol, vinegar and other little stuff. The bigger small stores run a generator so they have cold drinks from time to time. To go to the “grocery” store we ride our mountain bikes over an hour. It can be fun, depending on the mud. Every step of the way we talk to adults and kids. In this culture they like to chat. They talk about anything and everything. I never developed my small talk skills and I do not pick up foreign languages quickly. So I have two strikes against me to begin with. But I get out there and mix it up.. Faith teaches English on Sundays, kids for an hour then the adults. I like to be on the move and visit. We meet new people all the time and talk to our neighbors on a daily basis. There are not many physical barriers between people in our village and I mentioned they like to talk.

4.  What could we send to help you (or your wife)?

I am thinking about what we could use to help us at our job, but nothing comes to mind. I know your students would like to help us, I will keep it in mind.

I am north of Tamatave at David’s site. I am going to stay here for a night then stay in Tamatave. David works with some Indians, from India, not native Americans. They are heading up a religious organization effort in water and sanitation and teaching small farming technique and animal husbandry. They make water filters and toilets. Next year they are going to add cook stoves to their product line. I am getting some ideas about charcoal briquettes. Sylvester is an Engineer and speaks English. He has been a huge help. I have gotten a few tours of the plant and it is different every time. I got two tours today.

They are expecting forty 20-somethings in a week or so. This is will be the first six month farming and animal husbandry class at their new facility. There is a small farm fifteen kilometers away, but they have on-site work areas. I would like to be in the program it looks very cool. John, one of the Indians, took a trip to the small farm to see some of the cool things the students will learn. He was honored to see a pig castration. Oh, the fun the farmers get to have, that is sarcasm. I am not into the animal stuff, ducks, maybe.

They are talented cooks. The make really authentic Indian food I think it comes naturally. Last time we were here I did not want to leave. The accommodations were great and they are doing a lot of cool stuff. Learning cooking is an added bonus. I am looking to help them out by finding different kinds of rocks up in Mananara. They need a lot of different minerals to produce their porcelain products. Also, Brother is interested in charcoal briquettes. Brother is the friar that runs the place.

Dave is in Tana now, he gets back on Friday. I will get my goodies then. I will be able to take pictures of what is going on and y’all can get a view into my home away from home. We are so excited. Our camera is on vacation and refuses to respond. A special thanks goes to Mom and Dad. Thanks for the camera and solar panel. I also want to thank all the people that are writing us and sending packages. It is great to go to our mail box and actually have something. The boat comes once or twice a month. Here soon I should be getting lots of mail.

I signed up for a partnership program to exchange info with an American class. I was matched with a high school freshmen English class in Comanche Texas. That rocks. I am excited to correspond and see what there life is like. I have driven through there many, many times heading up to Abilene. I think I might still have family there. If so, shoot me an email bthaile@yahoo.com or if anyone wants our mailing address shoot me an email.

Back to the Indians, I just got done with dinner. I wanted to give them something as a gift of appreciation. John was excited when I handed him a third of a kilo of vanilla. It pales in comparison to the treatment I get here and all I have learned. For lunch I had a very nice simple bean soup, it is the delicate application of spice that I am learning. The bananas for dessert were a great companion. For dinner there was a savory vegetable pancake with an anise-liquor mixed with water to drink and tropical fruit, anpolybe for dessert. I will get a picture so y’all can check it out. Tomorrow I will leave this sanctuary to stay in town and jump on the information super highway and pick up Faith’s birthday present. Margo was so nice to pick up our post. For a reward we are giving her a kilo of Imorona’s finest vanilla.

Getting to Tamatave was not too bad. It was about 12 hours 4x4 then another 6 hours on good road. We had to change two tires that had slow leaks and one of the new concrete ferries had mechanical problems so we spent the night. They also did not move the boat to deeper water last night. When the tide was down we helped to push the boat. It was comical, 20 guys pushing a large flat that has the capacity to move over 25 tons. Anyway it took about an hour to get on our way.

We, the truck full of people, had to spend the night there. I shared a stick hut with a spider about the size of my left hand, I measured. We were joined by a couple of mice having a domestic dispute. They chattered for an hour starting at 3:00am, I checked my watch. I got up at 5:00am, so I would be on Gasy time and not get left behind. I am making two references here. First one, Faith and I were left at a ferry crossing while having lunch and had to take a dug out canoe to catch up with our party.

Second, the Malagasy people are early risers, this we know because of new neighbors that live five feet from our house chop firewood at 5:00am; every morning. They also have a small child who has a chronic condition called screaming. I say it is a problem, it might be causal fair for them, but at 5:00am it sucks. Between the dogs, roosters, and the new neighbors we do not get much sleep. It has been wearing on us and is taking its toll.

I got up in plenty of time to help get the boat unstuck and get on my way. There weren’t any problems after that.

Back to the waking up early thing, I am a cranky monster most mornings. People come by selling stuff before 6:30am. They get ignored. Our laundry lady came by twice at 6:00am. We had a little talk to straighten that out. I would be fine if people got the hint to come by after lunch. They might get a warmer greeting, unless they are begging for food or candy or want to barrow something they can just save their breath.

I think we have made a lot of mistakes that we have to overcome or maybe they were the right thing to do at the time. We will never know, we inherited downsides and a lot of upsides from the PCVs before us. It will be up to whoever follows us to decide. There are far too many things to mention.

My basic strategy is the “slow build” method. Basically don’t do anything but plan and do research for a while or so then taper off. Right now, I am putting together a basic business class using material I got from a Small Enterprise Development (SED) volunteer. It is barebones, but my main concept is investment. Resources dedicated today yields tomorrow. It sounds fun to me and people are interested. There are a lot of people that have followed the vanilla money to our town and region. Of course they are still looking for money because they don’t have any money. Sounds like a universal situation, but maybe I can give them some ideas to improve their situation. I am using the idea of making money to motivate higher rice yields using SRI and food security by drying fruits and vegetables and basic home gardening and other small things.

One guy has attempted bee keeping and fish farming but has failed. He is motivated and has resources. I think he can use the knowledge he already has to put his six kids through school. He needs to manage what he has, because he has a lot. He is a smart and educated guy. He has done SRI in the past and is open. I hope to get him back on the SRI train. He still has a fast rice field weeding tool. I forget his name, but it ends with savy, so I call him Savy. Savy is short, wirery, chipper and likes to talk. I can understand most of what he says. He knows how to talk to us white folk. We call it “Special Gasy”. Meaning he has a simple way of explaining things, like talking to a five year-old. I will keep y’all updated on him as time goes.

I have been talking to the soup places to get an idea of their operation. Basic stuff like, daily costs and daily-profits (potter pun intended). The soup places and the little “country” stores are a good way to get out and feel the pulse of the community. They are social places and I can come and go as I please and there are a lot of them. I have been getting a list of people that are known for growing and what they grow; who is selling in Mananara (the big town, 12 km north of us); and why other things aren’t grown.

Another plan is to work with the largest rice producer in Imorona and convert them over to SRI. That way they can sell their surplus and make some money. As a side note, the Malagasy can not meet their own rice demands, they have to import.

The various venders are in business to make money. There are people selling vegetables and fruit and imported rice. I think if they offered a more selection of produce and have an abundant supply of rice they will make money. That is my main thought thread. I am using their desire to make money to diversify their diet and increase food security. It is a little sneaky but don’t tell them.

In other news my left shin is still infected. I am on my third round of antibiotics. It gets better then a few weeks later an alien tries to exit through my shin. Puss and who knows what else is coming out of my leg. It is annoying and I have a health obligation to not die, so I take drugs.  I am cleaning it and keeping it bandaged and drying it out at night. I will keep y’all posted if I birth something out of my left shin or my leg falls off. I have been scared enough by my peers and doctors to stay on top of it. I have heard something about getting in the bloodstream or moving to the bone. I will keep you posted on my progress.

As work goes, I have been busy making earth stoves. I am still in search for the right mixture of clay, sand, ash and rice husks. The idea is to cut firewood usage in half. But the real idea is making charcoal or also called briquettes. I am shooting on making them out of rice husks. 

This language is still kicking my ass. I seem to be hitting road blocks in every conversation. It could be that I have not been studying very much. I have been taking the opportunity to heal up. I had an infection come back. It was actually always with me. The environment here is conducive for infections. This one has tried to take off my leg. I am back on antibiotics. It is a real pain because I don’t feel like doing very much and my concentration is weak. Studying is the last thing I want to do. Last time I had a health challenge I read “Harry Potter” book six. That entertained me for a few days. Now I am reading book seven. It is good by the way, but that goes without saying.

Now, I am in Mananara enjoying electricity. I have our laptop cranking tunes and I am typing away. Last time here Faith and I rented a movie. It was a foreign film with English subtitles. The joy of watching a DVD was the only thing keeping us watching. Back in Austin we would have passed it up on the foreign film section, but here it was a treat. But there are many things we enjoy here that we can’t get in the States. A flesh eating infection is not one of them.

In our small town, there is a very small house that has been converted to a movie theater in Imorona. They show various films a couple times a week. They have a generator which is conveniently placed in an adjacent room to maximize background noise, about five feet from the television. I had passed up the opportunity many times. They display the movie selection on the street. They show foreign movies I don’t recognize. Their main theme is action adventure. When Rambo was showing I had to check it out.

Movie time is 7:00pm, which really means almost 8:00. I had to wait for about ten minutes. Before the movie they show Malagasy music videos. It is an IQ reducer listening to it. I had to step away. I started to head home, but one of the door guys tracked me down. I decided to check out the movie. It was a nightmare; very crowded, very loud and hot. I had to step over people to get to my seat, which was front middle. There are advantages and disadvantages being white. This was one of those disadvantages. I was closer to the sound blasting system, like a bad rock concert. I did bring ear plugs, but I thought it would not be culturally sensitive of me. So, I chickened out. I lasted almost half the movie then made a run for it. So, yes there is entertainment offered in Imorona, but it can continue without me. I have learned my lesson.

In other entertainment news, next door to us is a bar, a very small bar. Our neighbors are well off. His name is Din. He and his family have their own compound with chickens, gunnies, doves, a truck, various workers, water catchments, dogs, and lots of electronics. They run vanilla and are doing well. I could image when the price of vanilla was three to five times as high as it is now. What you get for 30,000 ($15.00) AR was going for 100,000 ($50.00) AR a few years back. Well, Din must of put a lot of money into his sound system because it blares.

He always has a crowd when the music is going. It is like the kids need to get as much stimulation as possible, because they are hugged up to the speakers. I can barley handle it. The music is load and he plays the same four songs over and over. But it seems like the neighborhood loves it. I love that is stops around 8:00pm.

All and all, they are good people and I am lucky to know them. Din and his wife are friendly and edger to help us when we ask. They are good resources to have. Word on the street is he might run for Mayor. We will see in a few weeks. We do know that Martin, our tutor, is going to run. He has experience in politics and has a lot to offer the position. I am still learning what all a mayor does.

We have had some interaction with political figures around Imorona. I have talked to the president of Imorona. I had to ask for and pay for bamboo that was on common land. I wonder where my 1000 AR ($0.50) went. Faith had to ask the Chief Cartia’s permission to have a town meeting. There is a mayor and an assistant mayor. I don’t know what they do. The asst. mayor runs the commons tree nursery that Nat and Sarah started.  

One thing the asst. mayor should be doing is growing fruit trees. The tropical fruit is awesome. I have made myself sick off of the various sweet tastes that are offered here. Faith is all over the selection. We have people come to our door selling it; that is service with a smile.

Lots of things come by our door. People come by selling live chickens, bread, ready to drink tea, and a few veggies. We even had a little old lady come by and try to sell us an old radio. The veggies are what we are interested in, and the fresh sea food, but the vegetable selection is not varied there is only so much that is grown here and it is seasonal. We seem to be able to get onions and tomatoes and types of squash. We find some way to eat well. We can always get the basics at Mananara; carrots, potatoes, onions, garlic, some greens, green beans and squash. We also buy our dry goods, rice and beans in Mananara.

With whatever we buy, we are keeping our cooking skills sharp. All those cooking classes we took in Austin are paying off. We vary our cooking methods and cuts of veggies and use what spices we have. We brought two good cutting knifes and some other things, so it is like being in Austin cooking. Basically, we are frying a lot. Last week I fried up some squid. Calamari baby! Today I made something like fried vegetable wonton.

Recently, we barrowed a pasta maker and have made pasta. We mixed Moringa powder with the white flour and made green noodles and gave some away as a nutrient ploy. It was fun. Faith has been busy in the kitchen making kayo bread from fermented rice, sauerkraut and miso pickles from some radishes she grew with a friend. We are making a home here.

I am looking into making rice noodles. Wheat flour is expensive. They only have one kind and I am not sure how old it is, not that it has nutritional content to begin with. I think I can make a good rice noodle and the people will dig it. I will give it a shot. Maybe I can get some of the noodle places to use the rice noodle. I have been hanging out at the soup places making friends and chatting, or at least practicing. I practice Malagasy and they practice patients.

Basically the standard soup operation is one lady making noodles every morning then cooks them, puts them in a bowl, puts meat and an onion and a tomato in a pot of water and it cooks on the fire all day. When a customer orders soup, hot oily salty broth gets poured over the noodles and it is served. If they sell all there soup they make about 500Ar, in other words 25 cents. I am looking into ways they can increase their profit. Their top costs are flour and charcoal. I have tried four of the five places and they are radically different. With those few ingredients that is amazing. But there are a lot of different factors. One lady tried to kill me or at least wound me with salt. It was like inhaling the ocean. Another one was like drinking river water. The lady I like to go to makes an awesome bowl of noodles. That is the only “restaurant” in town, but I like to visit with them all so I endure a swamp bowl every now and again.

We just returned from visiting our friend, Melissa, who works with a group of model farmers on the plateau.  I say the plateau because there are distinct elevation differences here on the island (and because I can’t remember the name of her site and it wouldn’t matter to y’all anyway!). It gets cold on the plateau.  We arrived in Madagascar in February and so far, we have experienced seven months of straight-up cold!  Are we in Africa or did we get re-routed? 

It was a great visit and interesting to notice the differences among the Malagasy people. The Merina people, who live on the plateau, are lighter in color and look almost Native American. Many of them have long, straight hair and they are shorter and squatter than the Betsimisaraka people whom I live with on the east coast.  They speak Malagasy “official” whereas I speak a different dialect.  We learned a lot from the farmers there and hope to emulate some of their practices at our site.  We would have taken pictures if we had a camera but our camera has checked out to greener pastures.

So, it seems so far that all our good stories have to do with being on a taxi-brousse.  There are a couple different kinds of taxi-brousses. The taxi-brousses that frequently travel roads that aren’t completely shitty are like busses, and not the 4-wheel drive trucks that go to Imorona. The busses can comfortably seat 5 people per row.  So naturally, there were 8 of us.  I think my right lung has now been compromised from the weight of Tom’s body.  Anyway, that was on the way. One the way back, we were lucky enough to get a front seat.  Half way along the trip we stopped to relieve ourselves: OLOM-BELONA TSY AKOHO (literally: humans are alive, not chickens meaning, “hey driver, we have to pee!)   Anyway, everyone dropped their drawers and did their business.  I was indecisive and couldn’t decide if I had to go or not… So, right when everyone was loading back on the bus, I decided I better go.  Off I went, to the farthest bush I could find.  I got back on the bus and noticed that it smelled like someone didn’t get a full wipe in, if you know what I mean.  But alas, it was me!  I stepped in some poo. That’s never any fun. So, in front of a whole bus load of Malagasy people, I had to get out and wipe my shoe on some dirt.  Azafady indrindra… (really sorry!)

Ok, we are headed back to Tamatave today and after some business there, we’ll catch our taxi-brousse to home sweet home.  We have been away for much too long and are looking forward to getting back.  Thank you again for keeping in touch and sending news. As you know, we love to hear from you and we think of everyone almost everyday!

Lots of love,

Faith   

By the way, it is entirely possible that we will not have internet until late May/early June.  So, here is our address in case you have the sweet inkling to write;(and send yours along to so I can write!)

Faith Watkins

Corps de la Paix

B.P. 36

Mananara-Nord 511

Madagascar

Here is a woman weaving the silk.

Tom sporting a scarf I thought about getting my mom—didn’t get it, Mom, but cute, right?

A mosque in Morondava. 

Beach in Morondava.

Faith trying to figure out what the hell is in the market in Morondava. 

Faith and Tom ready for the ride to the Alley of the Baobobs.

Early morning light on the baobobs.

Baobob something or other. Can’t remember the name although it is one of the more famous baobobs seen on t-shirts.

Another twisty.

This is kind of what I thought my house would be like in the peace corps… real mud huts!

Wood carver in Marofandalia (a village about 40k away from Morondava).

Wood carver in Marofandalia.

The boutique in Marofandalia—a previous PC volunteer project.

Cool baobob.

Village shot

Sakalava tombs (The Sakalava are another ethnic group in Madagascar)

Getting closer to the Alley of Baobobs.

A chameleon.

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A group of kids near the Alley of Baobobs.  They usually carry around chameleons and solicit money from tourists to take the chameleon’s picture.  You can see some of their hair is turning blond from malnutrition.

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Ah, finally, the famous Alley of Baobobs.

Alley of Baobobs.

Alley of Baobobs.

Returning to Morondava at sunset.

Returning to Morondava at sunset.

Returning to Morondava at sunset.

So, we fly out tomorrow morning, May 3rd, to Tamatave, then we install Jessica. That will take a few days. It will be fun to see how the process is. Jessica is going to have the mud hut experience. She is very brave and strong, she has what it takes to be an awesome asset to her small village. I am eager to see how it goes. We are on the other end. We are replacing awesome volunteers and great people. There are still here in country. We have talked to them at length. We have a good picture of what we are walking into. Our site is close to a very nice clean beach that is protected by a natural reef, so there is no sharks. YES, I will be swimming very often and soaking up some rays. We are in vanilla and clove country so durring season the air is very fragrent. That we are looking forward to.

We have a semi-site mate, Helen lives about 35 km from us. She will be installed before us. So we will see the process again. We will finally be settled into our new home May 13th. We are going to have 10 days on the road. I will probably not get some reading done because the roads are so bad we have to crawl in 4x4. That is one reason we are on the road so long.

Training is over, here are some images to recap our adventure.

Friends have contributed to these images, special thanks goes to Jake and Erin and Helen.

This image is us arriving to Madagascar. This demostrates Madagascar's bigest export, its soil. Because of the deforrestation the soil has vacated the premisses.



Here is the 2007 Madagascar Environment Group. We are in the middle of training and learning to the point our brain is leaking out of our skull.



Lemur from our field trip in Andosy Be.



Large insect seen in Andosy Be.



Bee keeping field trip. Loads of fun and we worked ourselves up into a frenzy, the honey was awesome.



Nat and Sarah, the PCVs we are replacing.


Faith working hard thrashing rice on our field trip to Sakay.


We all picked corn at Sakay.


Pierre on the left, Mama's brother, Papa, Mama, Faith, Tom.

View from out PCTC, Peace Corps Traning Center, aka Country Club.

This is from the big red island of Madagascar.  It will be short as I don't have a lot of new news.... We are picking up the language more and more each day and we are growing to love it.  It is a very poetic language although there are at least a million syllables in each word.  We were supposed to visit our future home in Imorona last week but the cyclone has washed out all the roads. Apparently, the road is only accessible part of the year anyway. We are looking forward to seeing where we will live for 2 years.  We did get a whiff of the cloves though. |We will wake up to the smell of vanilla and cloves everyday. 

So, we eat a lot of rice here and sometimes there are small rocks in the rice. ONe of my crowns cracked on my back molar and I had to go to the dentist. that was no fun at all and it is not quite over yet. I have a temporary on now so hopefully by our next letter, it will be permanent.

Anyway, we are on a field trip now all week. We will plant and harvest rice this week and learn about solar cookstoves.  Tom helped prepare a chicken the other day that our Papa killed. He helped pluck feathers and clean out intestines. You know nothing goes to waste here. I hadn't eaten chicken in over 12 years and I know why. I just don't like chicken! The beef is good here though! We are really looking forward to cooking for ourselves in a month. We swear in as volunteers on May 2 and we'll head to our new home then.

Anyway, I don't have so much to say at the moment but just wanted to say hello to everyone and send our love.  Thinking of all of you all the time.

Lots of love,

Faith and Tom

We are in Tamatav. We never made it to our site. But we did get a tour of Madagascar, boy it is an awesome country. We visited with many volunteers and checked out their sites. They were health and education, so we did not get an env. point of view, except for Jessica's site. It was in the sticks, definitely rural. She will have plenty of projects to keep her busy. The cyclone wiped out her communities rice fields and there is a lot of mouths to feed. At the same time it was awesome to see where she is going to be living for two years. Very kozy, meaning very close to her neighbors, but they are still building the house. There should build her a fence.

We are going to head home tomorrow, March 23. Back to the our host mother's great cooking and a very peacful life in our small town. We have had a lot of excitment with broken bridges, cyclone damaged travel plans and just plain hot weather. We met lots of great people and volunteers that are doing great work.

We have sent out letters I am not sure how long it will take to reach America. That sounded funny, but yes we are a long way away. We are taking advantage of the great fruit and sites. It is like being on vacation, but it gets stressful learning and using the language, but it is coming. We will be back in training in a few days. Since we have not seen our site we do not have a visual on the terrain, so it will be diffecult to place the techniques we have learned and will learn.

We know that our counter-part is a vanilla famer and vanilla brings in alot of cash. The current PCVs have helped export vanilla and we will probably help that process along with growning trees. I am interested in rice farming and ducks. I will see if the interest is still there when we go off to site. We have gotten some great tech training and I am looking forward to putting it into practice. At our host parents we planted radishes, cucumbers, greens and tomatos. We also started a compost bin. We will finish up those projects in the coming weeks and see the fruits of our labor.

We are heading to get some ice cream and have a great meal and chil at a very nice hotel. We are living the good life in the big city.

Tom