Heading to the beach!
Trip Start
Nov 02, 2003
1
37
70
Trip End
Feb 14, 2006
Banking town,
Madagascar
Thursday, April 29, 2004
i won*t have much work accomplished at site to show them yet, but they will come listen to me give one health presentation at the nutrition non=profit and one at the hospital = i*ve been presenting at one place or the other every weekday for the past couple weeks. it*s a little bit of preaching to the choir = these are the people already motivated to come to a health center or organization = but i am able to tell them some stuff they didn*t already know, and reminders are always good. additionally, it*s just too early to start searching out, for instance, the parents of all the blond kids in the village for a lesson on protein deficiency.
i did start to do some work, though, in the form of hunting my site for homeless people to interview as a preliminary to building houses with habitat for humanity. my guardian and i searched the entire downtown/market area from 7:30 to 10 pm tuesday night, but found no one. if this means that there really aren*t homeless people in my town, then wonderful, but i*m afraid that they exist and we just didn*t find them...
i*m especially excited to go to these warm places in the north and east with my family because the past week has been downright cold. malagasy people are starting to wear blankets and ski masks over the 4 or 5 layers of clothes that they wore all summer, and i*m soon going to have to put my sandals away. oranges are in season, and there are even poinsetta blooming around my house. the calendar says late april, but we*re definitely entering winter (being in the southern hemisphere), which feels even stranger than i expected. i*m feeling jealous of my friend scott, who worked it out perfectly: US fall and winter in chile, then back to the US for spring. ah well.
when i talked to my parents last week, they had some disturbing news. apparently a few of you readers out there were concerned by my descriptions of easter festivities and other occasions when i*ve been with drunk men, and decided to contact my parents to express those fears.
first, to clear things up: on easter, all the men were drinking, with the exception of the 2 drivers; i would never go with a drunk driver under any circumstances. there were women and children present with caitlin and me at all times, not just drunk men. when i spend time with the alcoholic pizza restaurant=owner themis, we are always in the presence of his wife, other staff, and patrons. when i describe lans, my would=be suitor, as *emotionally unstable,* i mean that he cries at the drop of a hat, not that he is threatening in any way.
your calls to my parents were upsetting to me for a few reasons. first, you presumably all know my parents well enough to know that they worry enough for all of you and more. they are perpetually scared about what evil might befall my sister and me, much more so now that i*m in a developing country, and your calls only made them more terrified than they normally are. (i love my parents dearly, but most of you are also aware of their overprotective tendencies, to put it mildly. case in point: when i was in estonia, i called them to let them know that i*d sprained my ankle; my father made an ER doctor call me back to discuss with me the possibility of blood clots after taking tylenol, which i*d told my dad i hadn*t planned to take.)
though i understand how what i wrote could have scared you, please remember that i didn*t lose my maturity or common sense when i came to madagascar. (you may point out that i tried to perform cpr on a dog, but that honestly occured out of panic, not bad judgment.)
i know that many of you consider my desire to live and work in madagascar to be a form of insanity or poor judgment, but i can*t help thinking that if you care enough to call my parents, you should know me better than to think that i*d go with a drunk driver.
i really do appreciate the love and consideration driving your actions; i*m sorry if this complaint gives any other impression. in the future, though, please give me the benefit of the doubt, assume that my parents are taking care of it (believe me, they were upset enough about my descriptions of easter celebrations on their own), or email me directly. thanks.
anyway, i*m in my banking town for another malagasy lesson with my fantastic new tutor (recommended by my fulbright friend rachel), who was able to explain the extremely complicated passive tense better in 3 hour=long lessons than peace corps did in 3 days. i actually feel pretty proficient at this point (though, as with everything, the more i learn, the more i realize i don*t know).
best to everyone,
jessica
