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!