Call me slightly upset and the new rain man

As many people already know, a lot of my Peace Corps Service has been spent educating others in water sanitation and hygiene and building latrines. 

As many people also know, I haven't had my own private latrine for the majority of my service. 

I know, why wouldn't I just take some of that grant money and build my own latrine? Well, because other people needed it. I won't go into how or where I shit for the large amount of my service but I will say that it was NOT in the coffee forests. Because that would be wrong as I am educating others to not open deficate. 

Anyway, as Peace Corps staff came to visit and reminded my community that their part of the deal is to give me a house, a fence, and place to shower and shit, and they give the community a volunteer for two years, some chatter began to happen. 

It was like a house of matches set ablaze.  They became afraid that after me there would be no other volunteer.My house was deemed "unsafe"because of a major leak in the roof that is weakening my rotting ceiling and that the walls were peeling back, making it easy to break in with a dull butter knife or a sharpened stick of sorts. So, peace corps sternly (I'm using that word lightly) told my community that things need to change. Their words exactly, "Kelsey might be use to these living conditions but the next person will not." An I'm thinking... Okay, thanks...? 

So, I have the whole community come and check out my house, I didn't really enjoy this but I figured hey, better see it with their own eyes. 

It was decided they would fix my roof. 

And then, a day came when the adjoint to the mayor gave me a piece of paper with materials and prices to fix my house and build a latrine. 

I've implemented the construction of many latrines, did these people think I was a moron with money to dish out? The answer was yes. 

Although it wasn't my money, it was Peace Corps I felt disrespected as they are supposed to be supplying these amenities for free and now are over pricing me for them. Ha! Well here came masiaka Kelsey. But then I realized that the men had already begun digging the hole for the latrine and well when I see people taking action I'm not going to stop them- ever. 

But then they stopped. They said they were done. I peaked down into the hole, only one meter deep. As my friend said upon me telling her the cost they demanded and the depth of the hole she said, "one meter? I can fill that in a week!" Well that might be an exaggeration but exactly!

 For people that don't know, one meter would leave a splash factor in, I'd say three months time. Don't know what the splash factor is in a latrine, well just imagine it for awhile and if ya still don't know, we'll talk later.

So, I simply said "no, no, keep going".

They argued.

"The ground is too hard."

"This is deep enough."

"We agreed to this."

"We're tired."

Ok, gotcha. But no, no, keep going. Please.

I said, better we make it deep and strong this time and then five years down the road we build another. See here, a document saying that latrines should be at least two meters deep. Why build it poorly now and then have to build another in a few months? 

So, they heard my voice raise, I said some things that surprised them, made them think. They probably thought I was going to straight up and leave I was so ticked off. But I stayed and just threatened to call Peace Corps on behalf of them being vetsivetsy (too tricky). 

When I came back I noticed they were still digging. And they eventually made it a two meter hole and I paid them in full. 

But there was still a problem, it was early afternoon and the hole was done. Great! However, since it's afternoon and no one has time to build the actual structure today well we needed something to cover the hole. It is nearing the raining season and by that I mean, it rains every night. Every night. Let me repeat, every night. So, I'm standing there arguing with the adjoint to the mayor about the weather forecast. I'm saying it will rain. He says no, not today. As he points to the sky he says, "see there, the clouds, the wind, the sun over there, no rain today."

What are you some kind of rain man? 

I was also thinking, what's going on today? is this laziness or just the sake of arguing to argue? 

Part of me, for a minute, felt bad about arguing the rain patterns with an elder, an African man, as he should know about the rain of his country the rain that nurtures his crops. 

However, I wasn't backing down. I am no metereologist. However, when it has rained everyday for the last three weeks I think I have some authority in saying, it's gonna rain today. 

I was played a fool too many times in one day. I walked home thinking about how I was going to make a banana leaf barricade for my hole so that no damn water was going to fill my newly dug two meter hole. 

And as the clouds that had brought in my bad attitude all day started to clear in the time I was planning the real clouds started to roll in along with a little bit of thunder. And so the adjoint to the mayor returned to my house to grab his axe he left behind, he said he was going to cut down some banana leaves to cover the hole. As he walked by and scuffled that I had been right he had laughed a little too, a small chuckle.  I couldn't help but laugh a little too, because I needed a little bit of recognition that day an a little bit of laughter too. 

Pictures to come soon of my new latrine :) 

A day of rice and getting work done

I used to work in a children's museum. And not the kind of museum that you look at art work. So I know how to do work in loud hectic places. 

However, I was extremely impressed with the community health workers last week. These working conditions were ones I hope to never be faced with again.

It was partially my fault. I waited until the last minute to gather the women to prepare our radio program. This weeks program was about respiratory infections and the two community health workers were from a village across the way and they happen to be having a party on the day that we had to prepare out program. 

(Respiratory infections are quite an issue in the villages of Madagascar because I the methods of cooking over fire in the house or in right quarters.)

It had to be done. So, I marched over to the party, dodging drunk men and attempting to dodge the drunk women as well. But in the attempt of not being welcomed into houses, I lost my way. 

 Fenoarivobe is one of the larger villages I work in and so the very similar houses are placed closely together creating a maze like establishment. I needed help. But with people dancing and singing and drinking and playing dominos, I felt as if I was interrupting but luckily being the only one not celebrating, people caught on and escorted me to my destination. 

Once finding the community health workers we sat in a house overflowing with eager children and work began immediately, as if nothing was going on. 

The two of them created an educational story to tell on the radio while men came tumbling into the homes, children pulled on their clothes, and chickens ran in and out of the house. They greeted people that came by, they were cooking dinner for handfuls, they were teaching me about the festival and getting the job done. They finished the program in an hour or so and the doctor happily approved of the health message. 

I'm impressed with these women not only because they can work in noisy situations but because they didn't even hesitate to say yes to working during a village party. They didn't tell me to come back later or say "maybe tomorrow". They happily invited me into their homes, to join the celebration, to get the job done and done well. 

I was amazed that these two women wore multiple hats in one afternoon, of mothers, friends, hosts and health workers, and that is why I'm impressed, proud and honored to work with such wonderful people. 

The party that day is in celebration of harvesting their rice as a village. They fold their green rice into small folders made out of leaves and give them to friends and family for another year of good harvest and pour rice on their heads to bless them and of course eat rice, for one entire day! 

Heaven, or as they call it, The Goat Farm

With 150 goats, 10 sheep, many many chickens and rabbits and a handful of donkeys, it's safely decided that I will one day have a farm of my own. 

My best friend and I went to "The Goat Farm" 6km north of Ambohimasoa. Not only did we go, we biked up the intense incline which is the only road to get there. 

I guess us getting there was all apart of the adventure. So, I'll start with me at site, sitting and waiting for my friend. We were going to bike to Manakara, catch a brousse to Ambohimasoa and once arriving at 1 in the morning, find a hotel in the dark and bike to the goat place the next morning. 

But I received a text explaining that she got picked up by a Peace Corps' car. What a pleasant surprise, because well, I've only been in a peace corps' car a handful of times going in the direction of my choice. 

Even though we were crammed in the back with two bicycles and a trunk we made it from my site to Ambohimasoa before our brousse would have even left Manakara, and this is with stopping and visiting 3 other Peace Corps' Volunteers on the way North. The only bad part about us taking the quick route was that I didn't get to go to the bank- which became a larger problem later in the trip. 

Side note- on our way North we stopped in Kelilalana and met the co-founder of Friends of Madagascar, Peter Balaski. A great guy with a welcoming accent placed somewhere in The States that I just can't quite decide on but I knew I liked it (and is a Montana home owner). He started the organization 8 years ago and has executed some mighty fine projects here. 

He was so eager to show us his new library tree house for the high school and really we couldn't say no to going on a tour because there doesn't seem to be anything cooler than that. 

And later, I'll tell ya'll about how we met him again and had some Sweet Baby Rays! 

But moving Northward. We took a short cut from Ranomafana to nearly Ambohimasoa, going off road and seeing the nice countryside of the Highlands (a land I'm not so used to). Peace Corps dropped us off at a bank (not my bank unfortunately) and we almost instantly found some bungalows to stay in. Our expected night search for a bed was then transformed into us finding a place at 4 in the afternoon and then wandering the streets of a small big city with nothing else to do. The place was nice, don't get me wrong but when you're on your way to a secluded goat farm with nice South African wine in stow and fresh salads with goat cheese waitin for you, this place looked a little dumpy. So, we had dinner by 6 and then were in the room by nightfall (because we're smart, or because we were scared) listened to a podcast about sushi, day dreamt about sushi and talked about the US. 

The next morning we were ready to go by 7! On our bikes with our bags strapped on. I distinctly remember a man asking "handeha midina sa miakitra?" Are you going down or up? And I'm not sure what the hell direction I thought I was going because I said down, we're goin downhill with a huge ass grin on my face. I was wrong. Severely wrong. We were going uphill the entire 6km to this peaceful little goat farm. Sounds easy when you come from a region known for it's intense bikers (shout out SudEst) but no, we had bananas for breakfast, we were in a higher elevation- harder to breath-duh, and we just don't like hills. I'm not good at biking hills, never have ne'er will. So, I got off my bike twice to walk and enjoy the view, as we put Ambohimasoa behind us and it sank into 

the distance below. 

We got slightly worried on the way as well because when biking on an incline, you think you've arrived at the 6km mile marker on multiple occasions. But never fail, we arrived, to drag our bikes up a countless amount of stone steps and be stared at by Malagasy youngsters and French men buying goat cheese by the barrel. 

We immediately went to go look at the goats (and sheep) being set out to pasture. Whatever the hell that means/ I just learned what that meant. It was cute. As many of my friends and family know, I love baby goats, which I think are called "kids", and so seeing nearly 50 baby goats jumping around, frolicking if I dare say, brought me insurmountable joy- as my friend simply stood there watching me watch the goats. 

We went back for an overpriced yet amazing lunch! Enjoyed it while drinking wine and then for dessert it was goat cheese with chili powder and honey. Sounds like a ridiculous combo but let me tell you, the best of ridiculous combos ever invented. 

We then found out that we under priced our two night visit and as I said earlier didn't go to the bank. So, our two night stay simply became one night and we cut out a hike to see lemurs, been there done that, who needs to see stinkin' lemurs?

We played cards in the afternoon while drinking more wine. Banaz helped me discover I am terrible at rumi/rummy(?). And then we watched a bunch of foreigners roll in and feed some nearby lemurs(!) a ton of bananas. 

Dinner was absolutely amazing again, we were eating goat oddly enough, our spectacle of the day became the dish of the day, which should bug me because I love goats so much but the scent and taste clouded my emotions. This is either before or after we drunkenly tried playing darts. 

The owner heard our change of plans do to monetary issues and the next morning offered us free breakfast and lowered the amount for the hike in the woods. When he asked if we would like to see lemurs on a hike, I forgot about my freaking lemurs comment and was like, "yay! bring on these lemurs!!" We spent the morning looking at chameleons and lemurs on our knock-off roll-back hiking price. (Pictures to come later, none on my phone, the phone I write all these blog posts on).

To top it all off, a nice gaggle of Germans offered us a ride to Ranomafana for FREE! Banaz and I have already saved 25,000AR and add another to it. These nice folks took us all the way down the mountain in which we came! Our luck had not run dry. 

Upon arriving in Ranomafana we instantly got on or bikes and kept heading South. Riding through rainforest is quite nice and we had plans to stop to say hello to our knew friend, Peter Balaski. 

He was not there, he was still in Kelilalana, but nice people offered us cold Coke and some oil for my chains. They were prepping gross amounts of food for a party they were off too. I was slightly jealous.

We were off again, planning on spending the night at another volunteers' house in Kelilalana, "the nicest Peace Corps' house", is what Peace Corps told us. And it was. It had not only four sturdy walls and a roof but running water and electricity! And to top it all off, we found good ol' Peter Balaski, the party with gross amounts of food, a grill fired up with thick chicken legs bathing in Sweet Baby Ray sauce, live music, and rum, lots of rum. We had only biked 15km that day, this was an insane surprise. 

We ate and drank and sang and sent Peter off, as that was his going away party (until he returns again in February). 

We had a great time, including the Malagasy who weren't quite sure why we were all so happy about the BBQ sauce.

It was glorious! And that was the first time I'd ever played Boggle, fun game! 

The next day Banaz and I set off for another 50km bike ride, hoping to arrive at Sambatra, with nearly 40 PCVs already there. But I'll tell you all about that leg of the trip in the next post.

Oh man... Kids do the darnedest things

A child picked some flowers for me. I told her they would be pretty in a glass (acting as a vase) then she shoved them all into the glass one by one, crushing them to fit them all in. I guess we weren't one the same page... How dumb of me to assume a child in Africa knew what a vase was to display pretty flowers. 

Gettin' at it. A florist in the making. 

Here she is, all proud and posing. (Ask me why they always pose with stuff in front of their faces so we can't see them fully, and I have to answer for you). 

A cat in heat

For the love of God, never get a female cat.

Ya, this post is not about felines in the heat of day- as in temperature. 

It's about female cats and their body changes. 

My 6 month old cat, Laoky, helped me eat my dead chicken the other day and then started acting weird. I thought maybe that was a curse, to have your pets eat your pets, kind of like a branch off of canibalism or something. She wasn't eating anything for days, she just slept all the time and when she actually was up and about, she would roll around and make loud noises. One night she left and didn't come back, I thought she went off to go die, like I always hear about animals doing. 

But she came back an so I thought she had worms. I self diagnosed her. I thought for sure it was worms. I biked 7km to the farm school and they were out of medicine. I went to the vet 3km away, and he wasn't there. I sent out texts messages in all directions to fellow volunteers and friends to send me some deworming pills before she died. I was kind of in a panic. So, when every option failed, when nothing went right, I went left, I bought her human deworming pills. Any animal fanatics- continue reading before you accuse me of animal abuse. 

I bought one pill for her and to be completely honest, one pill for me, because you just never know over here in Africa. I broke it in half (and only gave her half because it's for grown up humans, not 6 month old kittens) and smashed it up and dipped pieces of beef in the smashed pill. She wasn't eating anything I cooked her so I got carry-out (ha) and she of course gobbled it up. 

Then I thought, what the hell, I should have Googled that first. At least I should have Googled her symptoms! But now having been here for nearly 20 months, Googling shit isn't the first thing I think to do when I don't know something. 

So, I'm sitting there, worried about my cat that I self diagnosed and attempted to treat and dark thoughts came into my mind that maybe she was just acting weird and I actually am killing her by trying to cure her! 

My neighbor said she was just tired. My friend said she must have eaten too much chicken. And so, I bought Internet on my phone and Googled her symptoms. 

Damn. My kitten is becoming a cat. My cat's in heat. Her new affection towards me, her loud moans, her loss of appetite, her licking herself (you know where) and her going out late at night and not coming home til morning were large, bold, might of well have been colored red arrows that all pointed to her being "in heat". Not worms. Not possessed or cursed. 

What do I take away from this lesson? 

Oh, there are many things.

Don't ever become a vet.

Never get a female cat. 

Never get a cat. 

Never self diagnose/treat a cat (with human medicine). 

Don't over react when a cat is acting weird (they're mainly always weird anyway).

Don't text all your friends about your dying cat.

And always use Google when you don't know something.

The stairs of life and the emotions we carry

Madagascar has taught me a lot about death. In a way it has helped heal many wounds of past deaths, it has not only given me a new perspective on death but of course that of life too, but it has been difficult to let go of how I express my feelings towards both. 

Danicia was a good friend of mine. She was 11 years old, eager to learn, always so helpful, kept the smaller kids in order and never fought with the older kids. It sounds like I'm fluffing up an obituary for her, but I'm not, honestly she was the sweetest Malagasy child around.

She always came over to learn how to draw something new or to read what she could. She was 5 days away from finding out she passed the 5th grade.

She was always quite sick. Her brother Danisio and her had to frequently go to the private hospital 7km away for blood transfusions. But her death took us all by surprise. 

Her death took place a few months ago but I'm finally willing up the strength it takes to write about her and figuring out my thoughts of how her death and those of many here affect the Malagasy people. 

When I asked the Adjoint what was "vaovao" on the day that Danicia died, he told me there was news. This is odd because the automatic response to "what's new?" is always nothing. I was hanging my clothes up on the line when he told me in a whisper from the distance of my porch to the fence where he stood that she had gone to sleep and simply did not wake up. I asked again as if I heard wrong, which I have noticed that I have done for every death of a family or friend. It's something you just can't understand hearing and so you ask again, but hearing it again hurts worse than the first time. Tears came immediately and just at that moment my Malagasy mother came up to me and asked me to go with her to visit Mama Danicia. 

No hugs, no soft warming response to stop my tears from anyone to me nor to anyone else. I softly let tears fall from my face while I walked through the town while children called my name as they normally do. I tried to stop crying because I knew that was inappropriate and it scared the children. 

When we arrived at their house there were a group of women sitting beside Danicia's body wrapped in white sheet with her hands over her chest and her sweet face pointed upwards. She simply looked as if she was sleeping peacefully. 

Her mother said some words to Danicia about me and our relationship that we had. She told her to never forget how we used to play games like 'wah' and draw pictures until we couldn't even see the paper in front of faces it got so late into the evening. Our 'slumber parties' and how I brought her fruit all the way from the Capitol that weekend before. She said words that of course I didn't understand, I'm not even sure I wanted to know them. I wasn't even sure I was hearing correctly because all I could do was look at Danicia through my teary eyes and wonder why no one else was crying. 

I'm assuming there did come a point where my reaction/behavior/demeanor became inappropriate because when I couldn't speak a word and the tears wouldn't stop the older women told my mom to take me home. 

Danicia's younger siblings came with me too, which I thought was inappropriate because they only wanted to play. 

We arrived at my house and they were giggling and goofing around while I sat and watched in disbelief. We watched many people pass by in their traditional 'going to a death' attire with their heads wrapped in cloth and their lambas around their waist. 

"Maty i Danicia! Te mamangy i Danicia indreo," (Danicia is dead and they are going to visit her) said her younger brother Danisio. 

"Fa maninona tsy milalao i Kelsey?" asked sweet 5-year-old Danicelle. 

So, I put aside any work I had that day (as if I could concentrate on it anyway) and we put together puzzles for the remainder of the day. 

I stayed as happy as I could, because I didn't want to be sad for the kids and it was quite confusing why they weren't upset by what had happened. 

The next day I was walking with my Malagasy brother and he told me that their just too young to know exactly what happened, which is understandable for kids younger than the age of 10. It did make sense that they weren't mourning the death of their sister. 

However, my brother couldn't give me an explanation on why no one else was crying either. He and I both thought that maybe it's just too common here and that expressing emotions is not a way of dealing with death. 

Before coming to Madagascar, I was told and had also read that the Malagasy are one the cultures that show the least amount of emotions in the entire world. I guess this situation would suffice that is the truth. I've only seen an adult cry once because of stolen goods. I see children cry when they are physically in pain. Neither from a loss of a loved one or of emotional reasons tied to others. 

Death really does happen every day. I know that from losing loved ones. I've certainly seen and experienced it more in this country than ever before. I've seen countless amount of dead bodies and hear and see the happenings of funerals nearly everyday. But what has it taught me? Have I learned to appreciate life more from seeing so much death? 

I'm still mulling it all over and while I'm doing that-death just keeps happening. 

I was once told that life is like walking up stairs; we learn how to walk, and over time it's just a habit, living, walking up these stairs is a simple act that we slowly stop to think about but just do. But when death of a loved one occurs it is as if we missed a step in the staircase, catching us off guard and making us take a minute to gain our balance and think of what we must do again to continue on with life. It makes us think about life and the unexpectedness of death. 

It has taken me a long time to get over the loss of loved ones in the past, and I do believe I will never fully heal, however, the Malagasy have helped me see a new perspective. I don't, nor will I alter my noticeable emotions to mimick theirs but I also see the benefits of quickly learning how to walk up the stairs again, of moving onward. I now know that if life is a set of stairs that we must all go up, then it must be a long one and there are bound to be some missed steps and those steps will be ones that I will always remember. 

Although I had to deal with my emotions alone and there was no one to share my tears with, I have grown from this experience. There are parallels in my culture and the Malagasy of how we deal with death. I know that mothers lose sleep over the death of a child but when they do sleep, dreams of their child will come. I've noticed it takes awhile to get back to work. Their is some confusion of what happened and for what reasons. There's then an empty place. Tears are certainly not a common denominator but sharing stories of lost loved ones is and I can happily report that a smile will cross their face in remembrance of that person, as I have one while writing this.

Danicia (on the far left) after working in the garden.

Danicia, age 10. 

My 25 birthday in Mada

A huge thank you to all my friends and family for all the warm birthday wishes! I honestly smile with every post, text, and phone call!

 I'm a birthday kind of person, not the kind that needs a  'birthday week' but I surly do love a good birthday! 

My 25 birthday wasn't what I expected. Which was to eat an amazing meal that I didn't cook and have a glass of wine/Gold 8 ;) with some friends and maybe go out dancing until the sun came up. 

But I had an average (yet rainy) day, which consisted of doing my own laundry by hand, cleaning my house, and met with my girls' club, which we do every Wednesday. But I got a nap in (and who can honestly complain about naps?) and girls' club karate lessons were exhausting (yet fulfilling) and we had a good laugh at our coordination skills. We danced and hung out- not until the sun rise but at least until the sunset that day. I received a wonderful banner and a hair scrunchy from my family and the girls! 

So, in a day I had a perfect balance of time alone to clean and read and then I spent the day with people who I truly care about that don't even celebrate, let alone know when their own birthday is.

My 25 birthday was an average day for me in Madagascar, but when everyday is pretty great I guess I couldn't ask for anything more. And I guess these are some of the little lessons I learn with age.

Thanks again everyone! I really do appreciate all the birthday love!  

Girls' group with karate teacher, Ygaya! 

My Malagasy mom and brother with the banner they gave me. "Lord, my life relies on you." 

Tsirisoa took a picture of me trying to get some birthday love from Laoky! Obviously that wasn't happening...

And last but not least, I had this little ball of sunshine right by my side nearly the whole day through! I love little Tsirisoa- who teaches me to be better person with every passing day! 

The end of the chicken era

I came back home after a week long trip to the Capitol and just got off an awful 22 hour taxi brousse ride to find out that I have one less responsibility in life. 

I'll translate the conversation in English.

"Welcome Kelsey! How are you?"

"Hi! I'm fine, happy to be home! What's new here?!" 

"Ohhh, no news, no news."

Five minutes into nonsense chit chat. 

"Okay, bye!" And as my neighbor walks away she says, "and your chickens died. All of your chickens." 

And I guess it was in that second that as a matter of fact there weren't any chickens at my feet waiting to be fed, there were no chirping sounds. This is also when I guess it hit me that that time in life was fun, when I had chickens...but now I don't. And then I got extremely sad. Not because I left and all of my chickens died but because I let them die and took on too big of a task in thinking I could raise that many god damn chickens in the first place. 

Sorry chickens, with my next batch (whenever that may be) I'll be a better chicken raiser! 

Mama Fandra with her 13 little chickadees, may you rest in peace. 

Fandra in her prime years. 

WASH Parties!

With some left over money from my latrine construction project the communities celebrated the completion of the latrines with a water sanitation and hygiene (WASH) party! We gave diplomas to the men that went through the construction training, acknowledged and thanked them for their hard work. There were four stations with different activities for the kids (and turns out the adults liked it too) to teach them about hand washing and to celebrate good hygiene practices. Here are some photos of those parties. 

Hands and what to do with them when dirty! Photo by Marcelo Morinigo

Banaz singing the hand washing song with the kids. Photo by Marcelo Morinigo

Nice posters given by GRET to educate the community on cleanliness. 

Giving diplomas! Photo taken by Marcelo Morinigo

Making tippy taps!

Learning to make tippy taps!

Marcelo teaching about the importance of washing hands and using tippy taps.

 Manicures by Banaz!

Manicures by Marcelo!

The cutest and most grammatically correct gift I've received by the community! 

OH, and big thanks to all PCVs that helped with the parties!! I couldn't have done it without you!

My service is officially full of shit

Imagine, if you will, that you have a morning routine of taking a nice stroll into the quiet coffee forests, finding a peaceful place and dropping timber (number 2) and then some foreigner comes in and tells you that’s not okay, for multiple obvious reasons to her. And now she’s telling you to go into a building to do your morning relief practices (number 2), where other people may be waiting to do the same thing, and this just seems absurd because, wait, “everyone shits (takes a number two) in the same hole?”

Building latrines is a feat but thanks to some wonderful people in the States we have been able to do it, thank you all again for your contribution. Now it’s time to fill you all in on what my end of the deal was/is through this short yet sweet blog post.

The community health workers and I have been working hard on our end, because the people in my community are used to going out into the forest to shit (number two) so getting them to use the latrines is a bit tricky.

So, you can imagine how much energy my community health workers and I have put forth to educate and “sensitize” the community on the importance of using these new places.  And so, with many meetings and trainings and just some casual chit chat at markets, churches, schools and other public gathering places, I am happy to say that this very peculiar way of living is now happening right here in Vohitrindry.

(Another blog post to come on our WASH parties)

 After trainings with Welt Hunger Hilfe and community health workers from other locations we have had a successful construction of 26 individual latrines, and have fixed 16 existing latrines at 4 elementary schools in the area. I’m proud to know that I will be remembered as the foreigner that really “liked” to talk about shit, where to do it, how to do it, and maybe even talk about some shitting complications you may be having. Because hey, that’s my job here, and with these latrines fillin’ up, it feels oh so good to take a stroll through the woods and not to worry about stepping in shit.

Community members building a latrine during practicum.

Finished product!!

While squatting, people can read how and when to wash your hands! Educate yourself, at all moments.

Community health worker loving the new latrine.

WHH Technician checking out the finished latrine. 

The finished his and her latrine :)

Welcome to the world little Fabriella

My counterpart through Peace Corps has become a very close person to me during my service. She invites me to events, family dinners, and is a very motivated person to work alongside. And through that relationship I met her daughter, Brianne. The same as her mother she is very motivated, a great student, and an even better translator when a miscommunication is happening, she is the same age as me and eventually she turned into a close friend of mine.

The birth of her first child took place just last month and I had the honor of being present. She went to the local medical unit (my workplace) on a Friday because of back pains. I visited her each day in hopes she would soon be out of pain and in the presence of her new child, however it wasn't until that next Tuesday while I was helping with vaccinations that I heard the commotion and was called back to take place in this event. 

For people who don't know, I'm not good with people in pain/blood/newborn babies. On multiple occasions throughout the weekend Brianne and my counterpart, Brunette, told me I had a scared look on my face. Shit, I thought I was better at hiding my emotions. 

But I held my breath and walked into that room, I wasn't the one giving birth, so I figured I ought to get my shit together because she wanted me there. 

So, I stood there, watching. Not smiling because that'd be weird, not biting my nails because that might worry her, I thought, okay I'll take pictures with my iPhone (many photos will not be posted/have been deleted from my phone). 

Clearly that was the photojournalist in me coming out or the awkward- I've never seen a live birth before and was trying to occupy myself. 

Then all of a sudden they're asking if I brought my bike and if I could bike quickly to the pharmacy in town. Uhhhh, ya, no need to ask twice! 

I rode like I've never rode before and returned back just in time for the baby's arrival into the world. Brianne was a champ and little Fabriella is as cute as can be. 

Difficult to see but this is my doctor helping with the labor of my friend's first child. Nothing to help the pain yet she didn't even make a sound, amazing! 

Little Fabriella sitting on the hospital bed.

Sanitizing the medical equipment. Light it up.

My counterpart with her new granddaughter. 

Beautiful Mama with her new baby girl! 

Big events are happening that have taught me about myself, such as owning my first kitten and then witnessing a live birth; now I can confidently say, no way in hell am I ready to have my own children! 

:) 

Latrine project: Transportation complications

This blog post is specifically about the transportation of all the material for my community's construction project. 

So after all the purchasing, we have to somehow get nearly 1,000 4 meter wood planks, over 100 kilo of nails, bamboo, tin roofing, and barrels into the countryside. I already knew that hauling that stuff by swinging it over their shoulders would be insanity, even though they insisted. 

So, we rent large camions (trucks) and apparently you have to know somebody who knows somebody in order to rent one of those ancient rusty insanely loud automobiles. 

But luckily, I knew somebody.

How many camions does it take to deliver goods on terrible roads into the countryside?

In my case, 6.

And then the Malagasy military got involved.

But luckily, I knew them too. So, after discussing what kind of 'goods' I was delivering, they actually got me one camion for free! Which was awfully nice of them because they were running our funding dry. 

How does a community react when my many cars driver through? 

Lots of people show up to help move their drying rice aside for the vehicle.

What does a drive on a terrible road look like? 

Well I can't post videos (I guess) and I'm not willing to describe it but let's just say it was terrible and... It rained the day before, creating large puddles and much more mud than needed. 

Post about shit and my work involving it

One of my large projects during my Peace Corps service has to do with sanitation. 

I wrote a grant to help me with the funding for the latrine building part of my project and thanks to friends, family, and many strangers in the US we raised over $4,000, nearly a million Ariary.

My community and I have been busy with discussing what the actual problem is within the area. We came to a conclusion that people were just shitting (open defecating is the proper term) in the coffee forest all day everyday. And this of course is a very large problem. 

The community members asked for latrines. A place to defecate, in peace and quiet, where it is clean and safe for everyone. 

After discussing the problem, and them asking for a solution of course I asked them why they didn't build the latrines themselves? If they knew the problem and knew the solution then why the heck aren't they doing anything about it? 

I received many answers! Many strange answers, some reasonable answers, and then many of the same answer that brought me to write my grant. 

They told me and I also witnessed myself, that the river next to their villages simply wiped out any latrines they've ever built when flood season comes around. So, those latrines didn't really keep the shit contained as much as they had hoped. And in my opinion, latrines, toilets, outhouses, WCs, whatever you wanna call it, that's their job, to keep the shit in one place! 

The Malagasy's effort was for nothing with these old ways and these old latrines built from Ravinala leaves and branches. 

We thought the best thing for the community and the overall health of everyone and everything would be to build new, strong, and elevated latrines! Not only that but to have technicians come in and train the men how to build proper, durable latrines to last through even the toughest of floods and cyclones. 

Through many months of searching, researching, writing, planning, raising money, bargaining, buying, arguing, discussing, delivering, we are finally onto the training with the ever so wonderful technicians from WHH (Welt Hunger Hilfe)! 

Here's to a cleaner and healthier environment, one where you don't have to look down and watch your step! :) 

Wish us luck in this next stage of our project! 

The struggle is real

This is a photo of my lap top battery percentage. I use my lap top to charge my iPhone. Above the photo of my screen you will see the percentage of my iPhone battery. This little amount needs to last me until I reach electricity, which will be in another day or so...

This is what it's like to live in 'ambanivolo', the countryside. 

Which way should a door swing?

As some of you know, I've been working on a sanitation project in my village. And as of late, am realizing it's a big project. 

All of the funding has arrived (thanks again donaters!) and we have found the time to begin! 

We started purchasing some of the materials needed for the 25 latrines a few days ago, and that in itself was complicated. 

I took two health workers with me to the near by city of Manakara to purchase the smaller items, like 25 handles, locks, 75 hinges, 100 kilos of nails, stuff like that. I thought it'd be easy sorting the particulars out because the health workers understood what was needed and spoke fluently the language being spoken. No. We (they) spent 30 minutes arguing which way a door swings open. Now, don't get me wrong, this I overlooked and is very important, and for someone who thought 6+6+6+8=25 (me) it was good to have along people who were interested in the particulars. Hinges, check. Locks were fairly easy, inside the latrine not outside, this was a public latrine, why lock people out/in? We want to lock it from the inside enhancing privacy (something the Malagasy people lack). Locks, check. 

Nails. I was told from the technicians that we needed roughly 4 kilos of nails for each latrine. I brought a calculator out on this one and then knew for sure we needed 104 kilos of nails. The technicians also said that we needed 10cm sized nails. Have you seen a 10cm sized nail? It's 10 centimeters! They're huge. And I was convinced when the storeman said that it would split the wood. So I made a executive decision to buy 8cm sized nails, hopefully that's alright and the latrine won't fall apart do to those 2cm. 

Nails, check. 

Now that all of the small items were purchased it was time to go on a hunt for  barrels. The barrels are to elevate the latrine off the ground for the villages that live near the water (for flooding purposes). So, every barrel we saw we walked up to, felt if it was empty and then tried bargaining it down to a decent price, only to tell them we'd be back at a later date. And for some reason, finding empty barrels for a low price in a city is pretty difficult. Hot commodity those old used barrels. 

With a large budget and huge project ahead of me it feels good to finally start spending and collecting for the final project! 

No pictures yet, because who wants to see boxes full of nails? 

No one. 

Everyone writes about rats...

Well here it goes.

Rats are the scariest animal to me.

They eat through Tupperware, enough said. Still not scared? Okay, they eat through the toughest of Tupperware.

That was a lid covering my oatmeal. I hope they enjoyed the plastic and hard oatmeal, they probably didn't because they shit in it. Assholes.

They eat my food, shit in my food, keep me up late at night, wake me up in the middle of the night. There's no such thing as 'rat hours'. For these guys, it's whenever the hell they want. 

Am I the only person that didn't know rats could climb walls? What kind of freak animal is this? 

When they're done 'playing' in my kitchen area they'll come climb on the walls right above my head. I know they're only fabric netting, but thank god for bed nets, I feel safer sleeping underneath one. And I'm sure it'll only be a matter of time before they eat through that too. 

So, I got a kitten. She's only five weeks old now, so only slightly smaller than the rats she is supposed to kill. I've been playing rough with her, teaching her how to hunt and kill (I'm probably not doing any of that correctly). But I'm giving her until she's big enough and then no more sleeping under my bed net safety bubble with me. It's time to kill little kitten. 

Horrible iPhone photo of my little kitten attacking my hand! Training in the night! 

Hard to get up, keep up, and move on

It's hard to write blog posts during hard times... And when blogging doesn't come naturally. And also hard to write about yourself, having a hard time. 

The last few months would be marked on the lower end of the emotional roller coaster of my Peace Corps service. (I think Peace Corps actual gave us a sheet of paper that said this would happen.)

Nothing drastic or tragic happened to me or my loved ones. I just think it would have happened in do time anyway, the challenges of living abroad, away from friends and family, good food/comforts of a first world country. Or maybe it was deeper than that. And of course there is the general overall question I ask myself everyday, what the hell am I doing here? So, life has been eating away at me and I've been a little low these last few months.

I went to Mauritius, as a vacation after being in this country (Madagascar) for over a year. I thought what better thing for my mood than to leave the country? I thought I'd come back and be refreshed for my next year of service. 

Mauritius was gorgeous, clean, friendly and had amazing food...and warm showers and the list goes on and on. It was a wonderful trip with wonderful people! But something still wasn't quite right with me. I didn't express the fun I was having the way I used to, the way I wanted to. My emotions were still in the gutter while in Mauritius ( but let me say, if they were literally in the gutters of Mauritius, my emotions would have been in the cleanest of gutters). 

On top of feeling strange, there's nothin like a wake up call that you've arrived in a third world country than the airport itself. A highly disfunctional airport, that has roaches crawling around, lines that never seem to shrink and the employees that are oblivious to what their job title actual entails. 

Shit. I wasn't feeling so refreshed. I felt tired, annoyed, and anxious trying to remember how to speak Malagasy again. 

With that long month behind me, after being in Antananarivo with volunteers ending their service, and the Peace Corps training center with trainees just beginning their service, and then Mauritius, I thought the best thing for me (now) would be getting back to my village (where there are no airports).

I arrived in the morning after a long brousse ride through the night. The kids were still on Easter Break and so they welcomed me with smiles and assisted me by hauling my bags up the hill.  Things were going well! It felt good to sleep in my own bed, alone. It was quiet, the air was clean, the sun was shining over the river and it brought me warmth. This country is beautiful and the people are very welcoming in a special sort of way and with all the problems this country does have, I still enjoy being here.

The next month was the beginning of my project with my village. Which kept me fairly busy, busy enough to somewhat keep my mind off of how I was feeling. I got a kitten. I spent time with the kids, I visited the surrounding villages, met up with some friends. I started to get into the flow of things. But the everyday question stills lingers, what the hell am I doing here? 

Eventually I realized that I was absorbed in myself and how I felt, I let my conscious get the best of me and stopped looking at the bigger picture, about life around me.

I was so self absorbed. I felt guilty for having more than others, for maybe not giving it 100% each day, for taking that fancy vacation. I was anxious all of the time. I was worried about what people thought of me. 

I also realized I was waiting on letters that would never arrive from friends back home. I was so worried and concerned of losing my old relationships that I stopped developing the ones I had and was making here. 

 I stopped living in the present moment and was reminded when I was telling a friend about my continual downward slope that my emotions were on and he told me that if living from day to day is hard enough, why not try living from hour to hour?

So, I've been working on that, being actively present in each moment and trying not to look too closely at the past and not too far into the future or what it may bring.

But if I ever wanted to look into the past I guess I can read this blog post. Because don't they say that's what blogs are for? Yourself and looking back. I'm writing this because I know that I lost myself during those couple of months but I am certain that a stronger me has emerged.

We've got malaria

Madagascar isn't really known for having many cases in HIV/AIDS but we do have all four types of plasmodial species of malaria infecting all humans all over the country.

It is highly unusual in other countries affected by malaria to find all four species in the same region but in Madagascar it is quite common. 

We have it for sure. I've seen it first hand. I've given the rapid diagnostic test in my own home ending in positive (or what I like to call actual negative results). I'll be sitting with the doctor during consultations and people don't even know they have it and whelp, we've got ourselves another positive test result. 

Positive

However, some things are a little misinterpreted about malaria here. 

Through surveys, home visits and discussions with doctors many Malagasy people have some misconceptions regarding malaria and how they become infected. 

Some Malagasy people believe they get malaria by eating fruit. This is not such an outrageous claim. During and shortly after the rainy season many people have malaria. With rain comes much growth and fruit production. With rain and puddles near homes, comes mosquitos. And so, fruit brings malaria. When really, it's those f'ing mosquitos.

Some Malagasy believe that if you sleep under a bed net each night, you will never get malaria. People in my village are shocked when they see me scratching a bite because they know I sleep under a net. But they don't know which mosquito brings about the parasite. Which is the Anopheles (in Greek means "good-for-nothing"or "useless" -ha), for those of you who don't know. They are the larger female Mosquitos that hang around in the upper walls of households. Are quite active during dusk and dawn and in fact do NOT make the annoying buzzing sound that we often familiarize mosquitoes with. So just because I have an itch, does not mean I have been bitten by the beast that brings malaria. Although, I hate all mosquitos whether it brings malaria or an itch alone. 

Uhhh, here's a photo, kind of interesting...although way over my head.

So, I (and other volunteers) go around and educate others (as I hope to be doing now) about malaria, the disease that is preventable and 100% curable. We tell people what brings malaria, the symptoms, the tests, the medicine, the preventable actions they can take, such as going indoors at dusk, sleeping under mosquito nets and planting tomatoes near doors and windows (mosquitos don't like tomatoes). 

But at times, I think Malagasy are fully aware of the symptoms and when they know they have it they go to the doctor for medicine. They don't necessarily go the "preventative route" as much as the "cure it route". So, we're working on that here.

Over 200 people tested positive in my village alone in January. It's hard to keep records of but 15 people in my district died in the same month. That's not a number I like to hear, especially when malaria is completely curable. 

We've had such poor reports of malaria that a doctor from the capital has come to talk with the communities. 

As Peace Corps' Volunteers we are given malaria prophylaxis that we take everyday during our service. Although Volunteers too get malaria from time to time. 

So in April, the PCVs in my region are hosting a huge parade an event focusing on malaria! Photos to come! 

Malaria day is April 25 for all of you that don't know!