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.