I'm still alive!
Trip Start
Nov 02, 2003
1
46
70
Trip End
Feb 14, 2006
Banking town,
Madagascar
Monday, October 11, 2004
I think that the last time I wrote, I was preparing for the Life Skills training, which was held at the end of August. We had 10 trainees for the week: 6 youth leaders, the adult president of the youth organization, and 3 teachers at the Catholic high school. I was nervous for many reasons: the Peace Corps guy running the training can be a jerk; the Catholic teachers could have walked out if we mentioned condoms; the youth might have been unable to take conversations about sex seriously; I wasn't confident in my ability to discuss the symptoms of various STDs in Malagasy, etc. All of these things worked out nicely, though, and the Peace Corps guy said that it was one of the best training's he's done. Additionally, my close friend Fran was there the whole week, and we had a wonderful time together. Since the training, the youth group has put on a play about "sugar daddies" (older men who give young girls money and gifts for sex), and the youth who came to the Life Skills training, who are also the middle and high school sex-ed teachers, have already started adding Life Skills to the curriculum.
My course (on complex humanitarian emergencies, through the University of Connecticut) has been going really well: the professor's thoughtful, helpful, and kind, the material is fascinating (my term paper is on the crisis in East Timor in 1999), and it's the perfect amount of work for me right now. I don't think I'll be able to complete a master's - I'd have to double-up on courses and I really don't have time - but doing one a semester, I'll earn a certificate in humanitarian services by the end of my Peace Corps service.
Things with my 'sipa' (Malagasy for 'boyfriend') are great. I think that my parents are terrified that I'll decide to marry him and stay here (in their minds, that would be only slightly better than my contracting debilitating malaria, which has terrified them from the beginning), but we're just having fun - nothing serious. I really really didn't think that I'd find anyone here, though (some PCVs only require 'shoes and teeth,' but my standards are a bit higher), so it's exciting.
Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish new year) was fabulous. Katherine's a very good friend of mine, and though our brands of Judaism are different (she's from Virginia and is quite reform), we had a wonderful time together. Our celebration wasn't quite traditional - we spent the day giving measles vaccines to toddlers - but it felt right. And we did manage to make matzo ball soup and challah (traditional egg bread), so we couldn't have been too far off. :c) Katherine lives on the shore of the largest lake in Madagascar, and an additional highlight of my time at her site was paddling across it in a dug-out canoe - there are still no motorized watercraft on the lake.
I didn't really feel homesick and Jewish community-sick on Rosh Hashanah, but definitely did on Yom Kippur (the day of atonement) - my first away from a synagogue. I spent the day reading, reflecting, and playing and talking with the kids in my neighborhood, but it felt much more lonely than spiritual. I did have a cool experience as Yom Kippur was starting, but I wrote about that in detail to my friend Nate and will let him post the letter when he receives it.
There are two new education volunteers in my area, Rachel and Jessica, which is fun. Their installation was awful, though - Caitlin, Sara, and I were taken to our banking town and sites by one of Peace Corps' doctors, who helped us with all our shopping, translated for us (as good as we thought we were in Malagasy at the time, we still needed a lot of help) and made sure we were settled into our sites before he left. Rachel and Jessica had only a Peace Corps driver, who spoke limited English, and their work counterparts, who spoke no English, to help them. Additionally, their counterparts are regular Malagasy folk who were somewhat horrified by the amount of money Rachel and Jessica were spending. I could pretty much feel them thinking, "Why do you need to buy a bed? Just put a straw mattress (a large plastic sack full of straw) on the floor like everyone else." And Rachel's counterpart was clearly astonished by the amount of money she deposited into her bank account - about $150 US. Sometimes you have to wonder what Peace Corps administration is thinking. I hope this doesn't sound terribly conceited, but it's a really good thing that Fran and I were able to come in to our banking town to help them with their shopping. I saw Rachel 2 weeks ago, though, and got a letter from Jessica, and they're both doing fine (given the hell that is the first month at site). And I've been able to talk to the training director, Lucie (one of my very favorite Peace Corps staff), and she likes the idea of older volunteers doing the new volunteers' installation in the future.
So everything is going well: friends, sipa, course, health (despite having been sick this week) - except work, the reason I'm here in Madagascar. A large part of the problem is that I've been away from site so much lately, between the week at Katherine's site and the week in Tana, but I also just keep seeing more and more examples of how I'm not needed. For example, there's a nation-wide measles vaccination campaign going on now, and most health PCVs are integral parts of the campaign in their area. I'm one of about 50 people working on the campaign in my town, and no one notices or cares if I show up or not. It's kind of disheartening . . . . but another part of the problem is that I keep thinking like this, so I'm going to try to be more positive and proactive about finding work at my site. The one project I can start working on right when I get back to my site (I'm in my banking town now), in addition to reworking the sex-ed curriculum as part of the follow-up to the Life Skills training, is preparing for the cook-stove insulation training (in 3 weeks! Again, my friend Nikhil, an environment volunteer whose site is on the west coast, is going to come teach people how to insulate their wood and charcoal stoves so they use much less fuel.) I'm also planning an election party, where volunteers from all over the central part of the country will come to the hotel that serves as unofficial PC headquarters in my banking town to watch CNN, eat pizza, and drink enough beer to either celebrate appropriately or drown our sorrows.
Finally, two appendices: something I wrote for the humorous PCV newsletter, and something a friend of mine is sending out to her friends and family.
Love, Jessica
"You Know Your Village Doesn't Need a PCV When ...."
1. Female villagers look down on you for not wearing jewelry and make-up
2. As a health volunteer, no one tells you about the major AIDS conference your town is hosting
3. Your site boasts 4 commercial copy machines, 3 DVD rental stores, and an office supply store that rivals a small Staples
4. The women's organization at your site wants training in email use
5. People worry that your living allowance [salary] isn't enough to get by
6. As a health volunteer, people see you buying loaka [rice toppings] and tell you it doesn't have enough protein
7. You're considered ignorant for not knowing the goings-on of Secrets de Famille, the French soap opera
8. When your installer has trouble, neighbors help you connect your new gas stove
9. Villagers pity you because your laptop plays only VCDs, not DVDs
10. As an education volunteer, people tell your new health site partner that they hope she's not an English teacher, because your town already has too many
11. Neighborhood kids beg not for coins but for duct tape
12. When you agree to take someone's photo, they're disappointed that your camera's not digital
13. The definition of a poor person is one with no TV
14. You typed and printed this list at the computer center at your site
A PSA from a friend:
Hi All,
I'm stuck in Tana on med hold because of some heinous blisters, so I have a lot of time on my hands to think. I have to confess that with the election about a month away, I'm getting a little nervous. People in my village ask me everyday about what's going on in the campaign, or they catch me up to speed. It amazes me that in my small village with no phones, newspapers or televisions everyone is fully aware of American politics. The BBC just reported that a poll done internationally showed that fewer than one in five people around the world would vote for Bush, I think that says an awful lot about the direction our country is going in. Everybody in my village is concerned that I won't be able to vote in the election, and I've promised them that I will make a special trip to the embassy if my absentee ballot doesn't come through in time. Why would I spend time and money I don't have to take an 18 hour round trip ride to place a vote when Connecticut's electoral college votes are most likely not going to go to Bush anyway? Because it matters to the people that I live with, and I haven't figured out how to explain the electoral college system in Malagasy (isn't it interesting that even Indonesia now has direct elections?)
So why am I writing this? Well, I regularly get e-mails from you all about the good things that I'm doing and the difference I'm making. Well, I'm turning it right back at you; by taking a little bit of time out of your lives to vote, you can make an even bigger difference. In fact, you could even use your lunch hour and drive some elderly liberals to the polls. I know that a few of you on this list lean a bit to the right, and that some of you live in those all-important swing states. Please think about what it means to the world to have Bush in office for four more years. After you rapidly delete my e-mail, take a few seconds to check out www.aclu.org or www.moveon.org; if you are still thinking about voting for W., let me know, and I'll have amazon send you a copy of Michael Moore's Stupid White Men -- yeah, I know he's biased, but I challenge you to find contradictions to all his points.
I hope to see y'all in 2006, but I might just have to stay in Madagascar if W's got 4 more years.
*****
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.
