Playing catchup

I’ve been out of the office, working, or not having internet at work quite a bit the last few weeks, so there are a few different excursions to detail.  First off, I had a little adventure after getting back from Ifaty.  During the Success Stories Workshop, it was decided that the Tuesday after I got back from Ifaty (which was a Monday), I would take the train to Tolongoina to meet up with Bruno, who would take me to Ikongo en moto, and I would return to Fianar on the train on Wednesday.  Getting back late on Monday, I wasn’t able to check at the office to see if anything had changed, so I got up at 5AM on Tuesday to catch the train (after being in a taxi-brousse for 12 hours from Toliara on Monday…).  I got off at Tolongoina, and Bruno wasn’t at the station.  Having been to Tolongoina before, I walked over to the Maison Koloharena to ask if Bruno was around.  They said, “Oh, he went to Ikongo yesterday!”.  A guy there helped me find a pickup truck full of people that was driving to Ikongo, and off I went to meet him.  It took like 3 hours because the road is so bad.  I dropped my stuff off at the (1) hotel there, and headed to the maison KH in Ikongo to look for Bruno.  There, I inquired after his whereabouts again, and was told he went back to Fianarantsoa.  Great.  There not being transportation to much of anywhere till the next morning, I walked around town, met the Peace Corps volunteer there, and had a good crayfish dinner at the hotel.  At 5AM the next morning, I caught a taxi-brousse back to Fianar, which took like 11 hours despite the short distance.  The duration was due to the bad state of the road (until getting to the RN7), picking up/dropping off people, and a driver switch at a town where the two drivers seemed to be arguing about something for like half an hour.  It was all rather tiring and a bit annoying to have made the trip for nothing, but it was pretty there, and I made the best of it.  If nothing else, it made me realize that I really do feel comfortable here – I was able to figure out how to deal with everything on my own without any problems.

A few pictures of my short séjour in Ikongo:

 

countryside looking down towards Ikongo - beautiful region, but really fraught with deforestation...

 

the hotel I stayed at in Ikongo, and Schlofo, the owner's son who was in charge of showing me around

 

crayfish is abundant in the Ikongo region. I made a huge mess trying to eat this, but it tasted damned good!

 

people seem to get a kick out of this stuff, so yet another picture of a bathroom (at the hotel)

Mid-Internship Reflections

Well, I’ve been here for nearly two and a half months, and I come home in about 2 months.  I think Madagascar has gotten as used to me as I have to it.  In retrospect, I really didn’t like my first few weeks (maybe even close to a month) here that much.  I always felt lost, didn’t know how to react to people shrieking ‘vazaha’ every other minute, didn’t have a social circle, and had a hard time not focusing on negatives like the pollution spewing from vans on my walk home and missing Patrick.  I realized this morning that people don’t bother me so much anymore.  There’s still the occasional vazaha, but not so often as it used to be.  In the Old City when I come home, there are often kinds crowded around tourists to get them to buy greeting cards and take pictures, but they let me pass right though with nothing more than a ’salama’.  Last week, a guy was walking next to me on my way home, which always makes me immdiately suspicious, weary that I’ll have to ignore yet another flirting attempt.  Instead, he said, “Excuse me, do you speak English?”.  I cautiously said yes, and he walked me all the way up to the Old City so that he could practice some English.  It was probably the first time talking to someone in the street has lead to a positive experience.  

Especially after being out in rural areas, and around people who don’t really speak French, my comfort threshold is definitely higher.  I’ve also thought a lot about how wasteful and materialistic we are back home.  Now, I’ve gone on about that many times before, but it has a bit more perspective now.  Every day I have one bucket of hot water with which to bathe.  And it’s plenty.  I don’t even always use it all, even when I wash my hair.  After this bucket bath, I feel refreshed, clean, and warm.  It doesn’t take 20 minutes standing under running water to get the same feeling!  

I don’t have a refridgerator, and therefore spend a lot of evenings having egg and ‘vache qui rit’ cheese sandwiches for dinner.  Being the lover of food that I am, I do miss all of the food options back home and how easy they are.  However, on the weekends when I got out for pizza and beer, I appreciate it SO much!  It’s a special treat that I recognize not everyone around can take advantage of.

As much of a coffee snob as I am, I make coffee most mornings by putting coffee grounds and boiling water in my teapot, and then filtering it through  a cloth filter with a handle (looks a little like a tiny butterfly net).  (Granted, I asked Gabe if he would get me a French press in Tana this week if he happens to see one, as I’ve unsuccessfully scoured the shops of Fianar for one), and it works fine!  

I don’t have a single pair of fancy stilettos, nice dresses, or a TV, and it’s all fine.  The sad part of this is that when I get back home, I’d imagine I’ll fall back into my wasteful shower habits, taking food, refridgerators, and running water for granted.  I will continue to accumulate things, and probably buy yet another pair of $50 jeans.  It seems to me that unless we’re willing to go all ‘Walden’, this kind of hypocrisy is nearly unavoidable.  I do hope that my time here will in the future at least remind me how lucky we are concerning resources available to us.

Another reflection that I almost continually go back and forth on is living life abroad.  It’s different, it’s exciting, it’s a challenge, and sometimes I think I’d like to join the foreign service and get posted all around the world every 2 years or so.  However, at the same time, it’s friggin tiring!  After every field visit, I feel mentally exhausted just from having paid such close attention to things I don’t always understand all day.  Everyday things become difficult, and then there’s the feeling of missing things about home so often.  (Although, mosts posts through the govt allow people to live pretty comparably to how they would in the states, and don’t always come with the level of immersion I’m growing accustomed to)  So, I’ll go ahead and admit it.  Strong, Independant, can handle any stressful situation Callista misses Patrick, her family, routines like going to the gym, and grocery stores.  

Overall, I’m having a great experience, and even the frustrations all seem to have lessons.  I’m gaining valuable experience working in a foreign and developing environment, as well as learning a bit about USAID.  I’m spending almost no money compared to what I’d be spending in France ($2 for lunch instead of like 10).  I’ve made many friends and acquaintances, and can’t go much of anywhere in town without running into someone I know.  (There’re also a lot of people who know my name that I have no idea who they are!  Which is weird…and embarrassing when I can’t place where I know someone from)  I’ve developed more of an appreciation for many things back home, especially when I talk to people in my own age group.  Xavier, an older man who sells snacks along the Old City street, has gotten to know me fairly well.  He always says hello when I walk down on my way to work, and goodbye and have good dreams as I climb back up in the evening.  (When he asks what’s new, I also tell him of travel plans etc, and he always asks when I’ll be back.  If anything ever happens to me, at least someone will notice I’m gone!)  He saw a book in my hand when I was on my way up the other day, and asked if I had any novels in French.  I did happen to bring the 3 Musketeers with me (in French), so he was absolutely thrilled when I let him borrow it (he really likes reading it turns out.).  I think of my book collection back home, containing books I haven’t even read yet, and wish I would have brought the whole damned thing here to share with him.

This has gotten pretty rambly, so I think I’ll wrap it up.  I have to say, there’s a lot I’m looking forward to coming home to.  That said, I’m going to try to make the most of the my remaining time here.  I have the trip to Ifaty with Sophie, a few more field visits next week, a possible trip to Tana for the election, and camping in Andringitra for Thanksgiving.  That should be plenty to keep me occupied and always also looking forward to something.  That is all for now.

Wait, I lied.  I will shamelessly admit that I’m missing being in the US leading up to the election.  Now, I realize that I’m always totally sick of it by the time it actually happens, but I miss the excitement, the frustrations, the bullshit, and the comedy.  I’ve been able to see one of the Tina Fey/Sarah Palin skits, and it made my heart pine for the hilarity of SNL, the Daily Show, and the Colbert Report as they mock these silly politicians who take themselves and the whole process far too seriously.  I also miss bitching about all of it.  Perhaps my favorite part of politics is the bitching – and the solidarity felt with others who are bitching about the same thing.  Luckily, Gabe and Karen also enjoy this, so that’s a consolation.  I think definitively that I will be Sarah Palin for Halloween.  I just need some bangs (long ones so they’ll blend it), a brightly colored sportcoat, a lot of hairspray, and some lipstick.  Unfortunately, as Gabe has pointed out, my speaking accent is already on the way to sounding like her, so if I just exaggerate the Northern MidWestness of it, I should be good to go.  Karen and the girls have some sort of toy gun I can use as a prop, and I’ve been toying with the idea of either a spiked dog collar (if I can even find anything like that) and a pig nose.  We’ll see how it goes.  

just an update

I am no longer at all surprised about changes to plans at work.  I was supposed to go to Ambalavao today until Wednesday with a field agent (and I was going to get to visit a lemur reserve in the process…), but the training that was happening there has now been moved to next week.  That means that I get to be in Fianar till Wednesday (which will be good, as I can get some work done before taking off).   Next week will be a little crazy though.  Since I have Colombus Day off, I have been planning for awhile on taking some sort of mini trip this weekend.  I had my heart set on going to Morondava to see the Avenue of the Baobabs (cliché, but I really wanted to see all of those trees!).  Gabe was originally possibly going to go with me, but it turns out he can’t escape his job for that long, as he took about a month off at the end of summer.  I was trying to decide whether or not to go alone, when Sophie agreed to go!  She works for Karen’s Old City project, and has been wanting a vacation for awhile.  When she asked Karen for the time off, Karen consented, but was not crazy about Sophie traveling to Morondava (Sophie is apparantly 4 months pregnant!).  It’s a 6 hour taxi-brousse ride to Antisirabe followed by an overnight 12-15 hour brousse ride West to Morondava.  The last 100k apparantly take like 5 hours – it’s a really bad road.  So, plans have morphed into a beach retreat along the Mozambique Channel in Ifaty, which is a small fishing village 27km North of Toliara.  This way, it’s an overnight brousse ride from Fianar to Tuliara, and then just an hour or 2 from there to Ifaty.  There are white beaches, pirogues, little beach bungalow hotels, and fresh seafood.  There is also a small spiny desert nature reserve within walking distance where there are some baobabs, so it will be a great trip.  Karen’s loaning us snorkeling gear as there is lots of safe, non wavy reef there.  Apparently there is good diving, especially for sharks if you go out further with SCUBA gear, but snorkeling will be free…  So, we’ll stay Thursday-Saturday nights, then spend the night in Toliara on Sunday so we can catch a very early taxi-brousse back home on Monday.  I am pretty excited!

On Tuesday-Wednesday I’ll be going to Ikongo for a field visit (taking the train, so maybe more derailment adventure!).  And, my trip to Ambalavao has now been pushed to next week Thursday-Friday (I might also stay Saturday just for fun, we’ll see).  

Also, I was somehow unsurprised to come back from buying bread yesterday to find Sophie washing a tortoise in the courtyard.  Sophie, Zöe (and their younger brother who just moved it) now have 2 tortoises.  One they will likely keep as a pet, but theoretically the other is for eating.  :(

 

tortoise getting a bath chez nous

 

 

 

what a clean, shiny, post-bath shell!

Farmer Summer (spring/winter?) Camp

Last week Thursday I took off on taxi-brousse to meet the field agents and Sidonie in the village of Ranomafana where there were conducting a 3 day farmer field training.  I got to the taxi-brousse and saw that a few peace corps volunteers I’ve met were in the same one heading to Ranomafana Natl Park for a few days.  Weird, to get places and recognize people.  The farmer field training was sort of like a 3 day summer camp for farmers in the area.  There were different groups led by a field agent, each focusing on different things.  There was a group for apiculture, pisciculture, tanety restoration, communication, and various vegetable planting.

 

construction of a traditional beehive

 I mostly got to walk around and watch what they were doing and take pictures.  None of the farmers spoke French, so I just followed Sidonie around.  Everybody ate meals together, which were cooked by farmers’ wives.  Breakfast was always a kind of rice porriage (I think with some sweetened condensed milk added) and a couple little pieces of meat to chew on, and lunch and dinner were both giant plates of rice (vary) accompanied by giant bowls of meat, broth, and vegetables (laoka).  

I was never really able to eat more than half...

Since the rice is all hand sifted/deshelled, you get a rock once in awhile.  I have to say that I’m entirely sick of rice and tough meat, but I was more than happy to have meals with everyone.  There were 8 of us from ERI, and somewhere around 20 Koloharena farmers, so there were big tables set up to accommodate everyone.  

We (the ERI crew) camped in a field.  

Camp

I was staying 2 nights, 3 days, and on the first night, we made ‘punch’ to have around the campfire.

Punch Malagasy

Toka gasy (what’s being poured out of the clear water bottle) is a very very strong rum made from sugar cane.  It was added to a mixture of melted chocolate and sweetened condensed milk.  It was pretty damned strong, so I didn’t have that much of it.

One of the stations at the training was teaching farmers how to make a sugarcane press.  The idea is to extract the pure cane juice to make sucre malgache, rather than making toka gasy out of it…then again, we drank toka gasy at campfire the first night, so I’m not sure what the pressure to avoid toka is.  (I think that by making sugar out of it instead, it means they don’t have to buy industrialized sugar, therefore helping food security?)  While they were making the press, André offered me a piece of sugarcane.  He was able to peel his with his teeth, but I wasn’t so successful…

 

I was too clumsy with me teeth to peel it...

 

 

the newly built sugarcane press

In the morning, Sidonie and I went for a long walk to get the day started, and we all bathed in the river, which wasn’t too cold.  The second day the idea was to let the farmers do mostly their own work, but to be available to them if they had any questions.  We ate a lot of bananas, and had some fresh caught freshwater shrimp whenever we had downtime before or after lunch.  

You can just pop them in your mouth and eat everything, but I peeled off their feelers and shell a bit first...

During one of our meals, Volo commented that I’m very adaptable and not scared of stuff.  He was impressed that I wasn’t scared of bathing in the river or eating shrimp (with shell, head, eyes etc).  My response was that the river was rapidly running, and therefore not dangerous (plus I didn’t go all the way in, more like wading),  and that tasting new foods was fun.  I guess a lot of vazahas that visit are scared that everything under the sun is going to make them sick because they’re in a developing country.  Just have to use a little common sense guys…

During some downtime while sitting in the shade, we saw a parrot drinking from a ravinala.  Ravinalas are called Travelor’s Palms because they store water in the sharp things near the bottom of the fronds.

The same species, this one was domesticated and hung out in front of the house where we ate. I let him play bite my finger, and his jaws are really strong even when he's playing...

After we packed up our tents and were just about ready to go, it was suggested that they should help me with the removal of my ‘puce’.  We were going to stop in the village of Ranomafana for a drink because one of them is leaving ERI next week, and they could help me when we stopped.  (we wound up just heading home.)  I figured that if we were going to get it out, I should get my first aide kit, which was in my backpack on top of the car.  So, I climbed up to get it out so that our driver wouldn’t have to get my whole pack down.  Everyone seemed to think it was absolutely hilarious that the vazaha woman was willing to climb up top like a baggage handler or something, as can be seen in this picture of them all gawking at me and laughing.  Volo got out my camera immediately to document this apparently hilarious occurrence.  

note everyone on the right watching me while laughing

I rode on one of the motorcycles till Ranomafana (only 5 or 6k), and then got in the car for the journey all the way back to Fianar.  (And driving through the preserved area on the way back we saw a couple lemurs – one right in the road who bounded into the trees as we approached)

On the way into Ranomafana

 

another little gecko friend

 

these water lilies seem to be pretty common

All together a very fun trip, as the group really likes to have fun together.  There was a lot of Malagasy that I just had to listen to and smile once in awhile to signal I wasn’t bored out of my mind, but they usually explained it to me here and there as we went along.  

Also, an update on the ‘puce’:

Gabe and I had dinner with Karen on Sunday night and her house guard got it out for me – all the Malagasys know how to do it.  He used a safety pin to cut the skin a little and tease it out.  There were in fact some eggs, which is totally gross.  I don’t know what would happen if you left it alone until they hatched…  

Now there’s a little hole in my foot, which promises to heal quickly.  I asked Karen what it really was, since due to language I couldn’t quite figure it out.  It’s a sand flea, so ‘puce’ actually does translate to the right word.  I probably picked it up somewhere between Tolongoina and Manampatrana last week – you only get them when you’re out in the bushes.

Field Missions – Part I

Ca fait longtemps…  Last week I went on 2 different field missions – Ialamarina with André from Tuesday to Wednesday, and Tolongoina/Andrambovato/Manampatrana from Thursday to Friday with Bruno.  The purpose of sending me to these places was to allow me to learn about them, and thereby lend my own perspective to the Success Stories, and also to take care of photodocumentation.  This post will be longish since it covers a whole week, but I will detail events including, but not limited to:

• eating tongue yet again
• the derailment of the FCE train I took home on Friday
• going to a ball with some French people and the mayor of Manampatrana, who looks like Barack Obama
• riding on a motorcycle for the first time ever

So, to start from the beginning of the week:

Trip to Ialamarina:

On Tuesday, Christian (one of our drivers) took me out to Ambalaké to meet up with André, where we would start our journey on moto.  So, I’ve obviously met all of the field agents before, but their offices are in a separate building, and I certainly don’t know them very well.  So, it was a little weird to be like, “hey, André…I don’t know you much, but let’s hop on this motorcycle in the rain together… ” Yeah, it was raining.  I do have to say that I liked riding on the motorcycle though (never had before), and it is a lovely way to see the countryside.  It is less lovely with rain and mud everywhere, but overall a great method of transportation.  We stopped for lunch at a hotely in Sahambavy, which is also where the paved road pretty much ended, and continued along through the muddy, curvy, hilly ‘road’ for about 3 hours to get to Ialamarina, where we dropped off our stuff.  Originally André told me there was a building of some sort there that we could set up sleeping bags in.  What actually happened was that we stayed with a family who had ties with the Koloharena.  After dropping off our bags, we went for a ride a bit further to see the land of a Paysan Vulgarisateur in the area and take pictures of how well they were doing.  Apiculture (beekeeping) is quite a big new thing for many Koloharena farmers.  This facility had beehives, fish ponds, and off season white beans planted.  The house on top of the hill was in the process of being added to, demonstrating how well the farmer was doing.  It was a beautiful ride, and it quit raining for a lot of it.  Here are a few photos, as well as a photo showing the moto and the ‘road’.

where we had to leave the motorcycle before continuing to see the PV's field

seemed a little like motorcross sometimes...

one of the many beehives (producing eucalyptus honey)

The house we stayed at did have a nice spare room with beds.  However, it was quite a primitive accommodation compared to what I’m used to.  André showed me the small bucket on the back porch that was the ‘toilette portable’ for nighttime (the pit latrine was across the street and locked most of the time).  We had our meals at the house as well, so I had rice for like 4 meals in a row.  They were very accommodating and nice, but I can’t say that I really felt 100% comfortable there.

our dinner, hanging from the same back porch that contained the portable toilet

They spoke some French, but mostly it was André translating.  He is a nice guy – he much prefers being in the field to being at the office, which is where the field agents have largely been the last few months, in an effort to see what the effects of ERI’s impending shutdown will be.  In the morning, we were meeting with the Ialamarina Koloharena president for me to “ask my questions” and take some pictures etc.  I can’t say that I was looking forward with confidence to the meeting, but I wrote down a series of questions, and decided not to act like a pussy about it.  Rodolphe, the president, was absolutely wonderful it turned out.  He spoke French well, and was excited to tell a visitor about the evolution of the facilities there during the last 10 years.  After talking for 20 or 30 minutes, he said he would take me on a tour of the champs, a short walk away.  André had other business to attend to, but I felt totally at ease talking to Rodolphe, so off we went.  I have to say, that the field area was quite impressive – it’s a little like an example field that they use for farmer training, but also for harvesting from of course.  Here are photos of various crops:

a young pineapple

Rodolphe picking the best orange on the tree for me

Rodolphe chastised me for not bringing a big enough sac, as he just kept giving and giving me fruit.  He showed me the different species of oranges, picking one of each for me so that I could taste everything.  From one of the bigger orange trees, he made sure to find me the prettiest one, which was like the size of a grapefruit, and it was delicious.  These terraced plantings he hand dug with the help of just one other.  When I expressed amazement at it, he said they just did it little by little, and eventually it was done.  The same with the steps that lead down to the whole field – every time someone came down or up, they’d dig a step or two, and after a while there were steps.  After our visit of the field was over, he had me stop at his house to taste some of the honey that comes from the beehives there.  I thought it was excellent, so I asked if I could buy some.  It is a very high quality dense honey, usually sold to very nice bakeries apparently.  I could buy some, but he had a liter and a half bottle, that would be hard to transfer to something else, so I bought a liter and a half of honey…

He was so generous, and excited to show off his hard work in the field, and I had a wonderful time learning from him.

Part of the field that Rodolphe (Koloharena president in Ialamarina) gave me a tour of

press for extracting sugar cane juice - really hard to turn...

The juice is used to make ’sucre naturel’, which is sort of like candy.  Sugar cane juice gets cooked, molded, and dried, and produces a moderately hard substance, that can be chewed and eaten.  My understanding is that it is given to children/others who feel hungry to get hunger pangs to go away.  (But is also eaten as a sweet treat)

water lily near the field

During the ride, I had a moment of reflection where my approximate thoughts were, “How on earth did I arrive to be here, riding around on the back of a motorcycle through the deep rural countryside of Madagascar?”.  It was sort of a weird sensation.  Sometimes it’s just so interesting to see how situations evolve, and how we find ourselves in different places, or with different people.

After lunch, André and I took off, for him to take me back to Ambalaké to catch a taxi-brousse back into Fianar.  The route we took was shorter, but also really near some cliffs and hilly terrain.  I wasn’t really ever scared, as André was very careful about everything (and it wasn’t raining, so there wasn’t mud, which was nice), but it was a pretty intense road.  Arriving back in Fianar, I had had a great time, but wasn’t necessarily looking forward to setting off for the train in the morning for the next field visit.

Progress at Work

I must admit that the last few weeks I’ve been feeling that my ‘job’ has stagnated a bit.  I more or less finished the background reading and other articles I was given a few weeks ago.  So, I mentioned that to Haja (Mark’s remplacement), and he gave me some more recent reading from the Stocktaking meeting with USAID in Tana a few weeks ago, and promised that we’d figure out what I’d be doing for the few weeks before the workshop during which the Success Stories will be hammered out.  I was worried that I wouldn’t have much.  However, a meeting was had today, and I’m going to be going “out in the field” for most of the next few weeks.  I am not sure what exactly is happening at each site, but here’s the plan:

16-17 September: Lalamarina (will involve overnight stay in my tent)

18-19 September: Andrambovato/Tolongoina – I know there are a few ecotourism sites here we’ll be looking at

24-28 September:  Ranomafana (the city not the park I believe) – sounds like there is some sort of get together by the Paysan Animateur/Paysan Vulgarisateurs from the Koloharena farming movement

29 September – 1 October: Success Story workshop in Sahambavy – this is a town only a half hour or so from Fianar.  I believe we’re going there just to have somewhere calm to work (there are a lot of distractions at the office for those who truly work here).  My guess would be that we’re staying here.  As far as I know there aren’t really any other hotels there… 

At this point, I’m just extremely glad that the Success Story project is getting off the ground – I was beginning to feel bored, and therefore a little down, but having real things going on and being busy will be just the jump start I need.  Plus, after being in and out of town for a few weeks, I’m sure I’ll be happy to be hanging out relaxing in Fianar on the weekends.  Also, working over a weekend or two will allow me to not feel too bad if I take an extra couple days in mid October to visit the Avenue de Baobabs, a place I desperately want to go…  Here are some interesting baobab facts.

My job

On Tuesday, I had my first ‘field visit’. Most of the office is in Antananarivo for a USAID ‘stocktaking’, so it was just me and 2 field agents. They took me to Ambatovaky, which is a village very near the start of the Ranomofana-Andringitra forrest corridor (the one ERI Fianarantsoa is trying to protect). A farmer federation called the Koloharena has a very developed following/prescence in Ambatovaky, so we visited 6 different sites :
A maison Koloharena – which is a meeting room, small library, and center for trainings.
A Centre d’Approvisionnement – small store, run by the coopérative Koloharena that has seeds and farming tools.
A Farmer Field School – plot of land near the village where farmers can practice techniques they’ve learned at the maison koloharena
The forgerie – where villagers are forging farming tools
4 new vaches laitières – newly procured dairy cows, one of which is producing 14 litres of milk a day.
La Décortiquerie – an example of micro-credit in action – The Koloharena bought it at least partially on crédit, and can now sell rice at a higher price because it becomes a value added good – my translation of décortiquerie is – unshucking machine.

While all of this was very informative and interesting, it sort of seemed as though the field agents, and 3 or 4 Koloharena members who were helping show me around saw me almost as a consultant. They were very welcoming in showing me how their association works in Ambatovaky, and told me all about the various pieces that come together there. However, I really don’t know much yet, so it felt unclear as to whether I was supposed to be taking notes just for my own education, or if my notes were to then become the success story* of this region.

*In case I hadn’t explained yet, my job as an intern for ERI will be editing and formatting ‘success stories’. The field agents are supposed to do the initial write-ups, and I’m to add any perspectives I might have gotten from field visits, photos (that I take on the field visits as well), and edit the French and make it look pretty.*

We had lunch with a woman that Modeste (field agent) must have known, for less than a dollar each. A traditional Malagasy meal consists of rice and something that can go with rice. They also save the water from cooking the rice to drink, calling it ranopongo (I’m quite sure I don’t have that quite right…). After our afternoon visits I felt a little overwhelmed and very ready to go home. When the truck (which had taken another agent farther down the road) came back to get the three of us, the agents loaded a whole bunch of wood into the back. Fifteen minutes later we stopped, and Bruno started hauling it up a road just a little ways into a village. The driver, Modeste and I were just filling some bags with the remaining wood and letting Bruno carry all of it. When there were only 2 left, I took one and followed him to where it was going. I think they all got a kick out of the vaza doing grunt work. The wood is to build some new bee hives.

Wednesday and Thursday will consist of more background reading and putting my notes from Tuesday into some semblance of order, and then Friday I’m off to Ranamofana ! Christian (the driver who took me to Fianar from Tana, and who drove for our trip to Manakara) took me to the taxi-gare to make a taxi-brousse reservation to get there Friday morning. That means I’ll have all day Friday and Saturday, coming home on Sunday. I’m hoping to do a night hike to see a mouse lemur, and during the day will hopefully see a golden bamboo lemur, a chameleon, and maybe some colorful frogs and orchids. Hopefully no centipedes… It’s supposed to rain, but hey, it’s a rainforest right ?

Le travail commence

I have now been in Fianarantsoa for almost a week. The internet has apparently not been working for over a week, but just started back up today, so I’ll try to describe the events of the past week in one hopefully at least somewhat concise post. I have no idea if the internet will be sufficiently fast for me to post pictures, but I’ll try my best!

Friday: The original plan was for me to take a taxi-brousse from Tana to Fianar, leaving in the morning. However, Mark (my boss who’s last day is today…) and Karen (his wife who heads up the Save the Old City project and will be here another year) sent their vehicle to Tana to bring a British volunteer who injured his finger and 2 of his friends to the hospital there. Apparently the medical facilities in Fianar aren’t sufficient to handle a broken finger… When they were done at the hospital, they picked me up at the office, and we were out of town by 2PM. The three of them were very nice, and quite energetic. They’re volunteers for a program with the acronym SKIP (i forget what that stands for), and they spend a month both teaching children about health, sanitation, and nutrition (kind of a day camp), and building/restoring areas of the Old City market. The driver, Christian, seemed glad to get someone in the car who spoke French. Despite not being that far distance wise, it takes a good 8 or 9 hours to drive between Tana and Fianarantsoa. The road is very narrow, and full of curves, so you can never go that fast. We stopped for the night and stayed at a good hotel (that was super cheap), had a good meal, and made it to Fianar by about noon on Saturday.

Saturday: Karen met me at the Old City, and walked me up to my place. I’m essentially with a host family in that I have a room in their house. It has a separate entrance and everything though, so it’s more like an apartment. Here are some pictures: (if there are no pictures, i’ll post them later from an internet café)

The view from my porch, which is sunny in the afternoon is lovely.

There is a little café just below me (all part of the same building), where Mariette and Richard serve wonderful, cheap food, and the best juice I’ve ever had (Chinese guava, fresh made). In the evening, Mark and Karen invited me to their beautiful house to have dinner with them and some of their French friends. All of the talk about Malagasy politics went pretty much over my head, but I’d imagine it will make sense at some point.

Sunday-Tuesday:
In the morning, Sophie (my upstairs neighbor, who is Malagasy and works for Karen’s Project to Save the Old City (PSVV – Projet de Sauvegard de la Veille Ville), took me into town to see the market area, where she advised me to buy at hat for the sunny weather along the ocean. The market area is crowded, and full of people selling just about anything. All of the meat vendors have meat just hanging open air for people to choose, and there’s a big block where they chop it up according to what people want. Live chickens, ducks, and turkeys too.
In the afternoon I met Mark to start the journey to Manakara (on the east coast), where he planned to spend a day and a half meeting with various partners there to say goodbye and introduce his replacement. I tagged along and listened as he spoke of various projects with the Minister of the Environment, Forest, Water, and Tourism (I think this governmental post has changed names every year since it was created…), the Chef de la Région, the Manakara port master, some local business owners, and others. This ERI (Ecoregional Initiatives) project is gigantic!!!
We ate a lot of good fish.

Tuesday night, I had dinner at the Freudenberger’s again, with 8 or 9 of the SKIPs, which was quite nice. The British SKIPs were having a lot of intercultural problems with their Malagasy counterparts, so that was much discussed. A lot of drama for not much reason, probably caused by a couple of bad apple Malagasy SKIPs.

Wednesday – Friday have been spent at the office doing a ton of background reading about the whole ERI Fianarantsoa program. I am hopefully remembering half of what I’m reading. I’m really looking forward to this weekend – I’ll walk around town and get some groceries, getting a feel for the layout of the place. (Thankfully, it’s not really that big – Tana was totally overwhelming) The Brits have invited me to dinner on Saturday, and karoke on Sunday, so that should be fun.