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Beautiful downtown Broomall,
Pennsylvania,
United States
Thursday, October 2, 2003
Hello, everyone! With exactly one month to go until my Peace Corps departure, I've hit crunch time. Since returning home from Camp Tawonga, the children's summer camp outside Yosemite where I've taught drama for two summers, I've been primarily shopping, visiting friends and family, studying for the oh-so-fun GREs and LSATs, and shopping some more. I'm constantly amazed by how much money is required to volunteer; in this case, it's going towards supplies like a heavy-duty raincoat (I'll arrive in Mcar during the rainy season), an MP3 player, solar chargers, nonstick camping cookware (scraping burnt rice out of the bottom of a pot every day for 2 years does not sound fun), and tons of permethrin (a chemical that, if applied to clothing, will repel mosquitoes through several washings.) I've also been trying to visit everyone I can: I've made trips to Boston and Washington already, and will visit New York, Providence (to see my sister at Brown), and Minneapolis (to see my mom's family) before I leave.
Many of you have been asking questions about Mcar and my service there, and I'll try to answer some of them here:
What languages are spoken in Madagascar?
Madagascar was a French colony in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and French is still spoken in some parts of the country (which is why the Peace Corps wanted me there -- I studied French in middle and high school.) However, the major language is Malagasy, which is based in Indonesian (the ancestry of the Malagasy people.) There was no written language before British missionaries and French colonists arrived, so Malagasy is written in Roman characters, which will make it somewhat easier to learn. However, like Indonesian, Malagasy features words with anywhere from 20 to 35 letters -- so becoming fluent will definitely take time. Fortunately, the first 3 months of PC service consists of language training.
What religions do people follow? (And how will you practice Judaism there?)
Officially, almost half the population is Christian, almost half is animist, and the remainder (about 7%) is Muslim. However, Malagasy Christianity is very much infused with animist beliefs, especially ancestor worship, and as far as I can tell has little resemblance to Christianity in the states. I intend to practice Judaism as much as possible (to the extent that I do - celebrating Shabbat and holidays without observing most restrictions) and am hoping to find a Jewish expat family (likely from France or elsewhere in Western Europe) in the capital or another larger city with whom I might celebrate holidays. Also, there are a few other Jewish Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) in my group (the group leaving Nov 2), so we might try to meet for major holidays.
What will you do as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mcar?
My official assignment is health volunteer, though the exact meaning of that position will depend on my specific placement, which I will receive after 6 weeks of training. All volunteers in Africa, whether they're in health or agriculture or whatever, teach about AIDS. A major Malagasy health problem is the death of children under age 5, so I will most likely be teaching my community about immunizations, nutrition, disease prevention and treatment, etc. However, another placement is possible: some volunteers work with prostitutes, some work with NGOs, and some I don't yet know about.
Where on the island will you be? What is the climate there?
The climate is vastly different all over the country. Mcar is huge -- it's the 4th largest island in the world (after Greenland, New Guinea, and Borneo) and is approximately the size of Texas. (For those east coast folks, it would stretch from New Jersey to Florida and from the coast to Ohio.) I could be placed anywhere in the country: rainforest, the high central plateau, desert, and everything in between.
Again, I won't get my specific placement (both in terms of geographic location and assignment) until after 6 weeks of training. At that point, I'll have an interview with PC leaders to determine my placement; the decision will take into account both my preferences and where Peace Corps feels I'm most needed.
What's the culture like? What will you eat?
It's hard to answer questions about culture without experiencing it myself, and will probably be hard even after living there for 2 years. The thing that I've been hearing over and over again is about the force of ancestor worship. The ancestors are consulted about every decision; taboos called 'fady' that they place on the living are part of all aspects of life. Many tribes (apparently not a derogatory term in Madagascar) even have ceremonies where they exhume dead relatives, bathe them and change their clothes, have a party for them, and rebury them with gifts. Apparently it's a huge honor for an outsider to be invited, so I'm hoping to see one during my time in Mcar.
As for food, the primary ingredient of every meal is rice. The ancestors of modern-day Malagasy came from Indonesia, and they brought rice culture with them. For breakfast, it's fried rice buns (though through the French influence, people in some areas eat baguettes); lunch and dinner are rice with sauce that might contain vegetables, chicken, seafood, or zebu, the Malagasy cow.
That leads to another question: will you continue to be vegetarian in Madagascar?
For the past four years, I have avoided eating meat (though I have eaten fish and seafood) because I object to the way livestock is treated in the US. However, in Madagascar, the things that I object to (pens too small for animals to move, hormones that make animals grow painfully large, etc) don't really exist. Therefore, I do plan to eat poultry and zebu if there aren't other protein sources readily available.
What kind of communications will you have?
Again, it depends almost entirely on where in the country I'm posted. I intend to request to be near a phone so that I can stay in close touch with my family, especially since some close family members have recently had serious health issues. However, calling will be extremely expensive. It's unlikely that I'll have regular internet access; even if I'm near some kind of internet cafe, it's also prohibitively expensive on a PCV's budget. LETTERS are the best way to communicate, and I hope to receive them from all of you! (For anyone who knows the joy of receiving mail at summer camp, imagine that scaled to 2 years away instead of a few weeks.) I will write back as fast as I can, of course.
I have been given an address for the training center but heard that most mail sent to that address never arrives. As soon as I have a more useful address (perhaps for my host family during training), I'll send that out.
Will you have any vacation?
PCVs accrue 2 days of vacation for every month served (after the 3 months of training.) That averages out to about 3 weeks of vacation per year. For one of the vacations, I'll come home; for the other my family will come to visit. (I can have other visitors too! I know that it's a long shot -- plane tickets from the states cost about $1500 -- but if you have a chance to come visit, please do!!)
Where can I find maps and information about Madagascar?
There are great resources about Mcar both online and in actual books (shocking for recent college grads like me, but good non-internet sources do exist.)
- the CIA world factbook entry on Mcar
- a website set up by returned Madagascar PCVs (not an official Peace Corps site)
- a large version of the map on the welcome page of my travelogue.
As for books, I've enjoyed Dervla Murphy's travelogue _Muddling Through in Madagascar_, a record of Murphy's time traveling around Mcar almost entirely by foot and bush taxi with her 14-year-old daughter. I've just started _The Eighth Continent_ by Peter Tyson, an account of the author's time looking for endangered species on Mcar, and it's great so far.
I hope that you're all doing well and I look forward to speaking with you in the last month before I leave!
love, Jessica
*****
And now, some legalese:
The opinions expressed and experiences described in this travelogue are those of one individual Peace Corps Volunteer. Nothing written here should be interpreted as official or unofficial Peace Corps literature or as sanctioned by the Peace Corps. I have chosen to write about my experience online in order to update family and friends; I am earning no money whatsoever from this endeavor.
