New News from Erin - Enjoy!

Bob Dylan sings of a series of dreams… here is my real life version from Madland:

All compiled during December 2007 and January 2008 – My first two months at site

Painting the picture of my little paradise…

In my little village and the 30sq miles surrounding it that I am exploring grow the most unique and stunning flowers in brand new colors and shapes and smells and among them, an array of light and fragile butterflies of hundreds of types flying faster than my eye can almost capture their beauty. The same goes for trees, fruits, chameleons…

Madagascar is not your typical Africa, if there ever was such a thing.
Further, the North of Madagascar is nothing like the rest of the huge island. Every inch of this country has its own very special features; I am becoming most familiar with our wonderful Northern peculiarities.
We hold a treasure of national parks and rainforests boasting more flora and fauna than most of the world combined. We have a wide peninsula and bays filled with quaint and deserted islands of white sand and turquoise waters filling their puzzle and separating the Mozambique Channel from the Indian Ocean, a space which once was the pirates' most favorite haven. We drape ourselves in cool and colorful lambas (tropical-patterned cloth dresses and scarves), sway and shake to rhythmic tribal dances and songs, and turn the soles of our feet redder than Georgia Bulldog red from our deep and sandy clay. I am so grateful I get to call this place home! I have finally realized that I am blessed to be living in poverty. Granted, my poverty is in paradise and it is merely a poverty of things. Well, sometimes I feel like it's more than that – when I’m homesick and missing y’all. But, being so far away from so many things has been a wonderful gift so far – it opens your senses to so much more and trains your mind to be happy with little stuff but lots of learning and love.

It's not 9 to 5 but it sure is work…

It should not be called work, because I love almost every second of it, but it is work and it is 24/7.

What I teach about and why:
1. Malaria prevention and treatment – because my little region of Northern Madagascar has one of the very highest rates of malaria in the world. I promote the hell out of mosquito nets and I follow my village friends home to make sure they are sleeping in them properly.
I beg the mothers that bring their children sick with tazo moka (mosquito fever) to our rural clinic to make sure they continue to take the full dosage of medicine even if they feel better so they do not become immune to it.
2. HIV/AIDS and other STD prevention – because Madagascar is so lucky!
We only have a 0.9% rate of AIDS. We need to keep it that low through mass education and empowerment. Volunteers and (Non-Government Organization) NGOs across the island are holding big awareness festivals which I cannot wait to get more involved with! We do have a very high rate of syphilis though which makes catching AIDS much easier. So I do a lot of telling people it's good to get tested.
3. Family planning – because women have a choice, and it is free here.
The growth rate and cyclical poverty is such a problem that the government has remarkably made birth control free to all women. But, many are scared of it or uneducated about it. I tell them everything they want to know and hope they will choose the right path for themselves, one that, hopefully, will allow them to have only the number of kids they want, spaced in a healthy way and able to feed and educate each one well.
4. Clean water – because diarrhea kills tons of precious babies here.
We do not have clean water. We fetch water from taps and wells in large buckets. Animals and dirt and microbes and mosquitoes and dirty farming hands love these buckets. Drinking, washing and cooking with clean water are simple though. I explain the two choices: boil or filter and bleach and use soap. I got this fun, cool jerry-can from PSI which keeps the water inside and clean, the kids helped me decorate it and they come by my house at least twice a day to wash their hands and they even tell the rest of the community about when it is important to wash your hands, it's precious, I love them!
5. Promote child and mother vaccines and breastfeeding – y’all can figure this one out; we do it in America, too.
6. Planting organic gardens with healthy food – because they can afford this and they enjoy gardening and it provides their entire family with the nutrients and vitamins they need to live healthy lives. My site-mate, Erin, and the whole elementary school just finished a huge, beautiful model garden… I might finally be able to get food in Sakaramy other than fruit!
7. English – because I know it. Madagascar just added English as its 3rd official language but students do not begin learning it until high school and a tiny percentage of Gasy make it even to elementary school. They are expanding their tourism industry (you should all come!) and want much more American/ Aussie/ British business. Teaching my friends and children in Sakaramy gives them a huge leg up at the cusp of this new trend.

Population Services International:
I am so lucky to get to work with PSI here in Diego. It is a USAID funded NGO but the whole staff up here is the most mazoto (hardworking) group of Malagasy. They have a cinomobile which rides out to the rural villages to show films on AIDS, malaria, nutrition and clean water. They have peer educators for the youth and for the commercial sex workers and I get to hang out with, learn from and help all of them! They mass-promote and sell affordable mosquito nets, water purifying bleach, jerry-cans, malaria treatment meds, STD meds, birth control etc. They also have these great, totally not fady (taboo) clinics all around the city which are super successful. They are awesome!

How a mango tree taught my community…

The more creative I get the more fun it is for me and the more receptive my community is. To talk about family planning, I drew a mango tree with the rainforest and mountain in the background and all the crazy flowers that grow around our paths so it looked just like Sakaramy, a comforting site for a new and uncomfortable subject. The roots of the tree were the problems associated with having too many kids. The trunk is the solution, all the methods of family planning they have to choose from. And then there are the branches, leaves and fruit which are the positive results. We go through to mark the tree together and talk so openly about a subject which just a couple years ago were totally fady (taboo). I can see the light bulb go off in each person’s mind. A few days later, one of the sweet young moms in my class came back with her sick children. After the doctor finished helping them she picked up a packet of medicine for herself… it was birth control pills! She explained to the other young mothers I had gathered and was talking with all about family planning (everything she had learned from the mango tree) and told them why the pill was good but even added that if they were suspicious their husbands were cheating or if they had multiple partners (which many folks around my village do) they should use condoms because that would prevent both pregnancy and AIDS and other STDs. I was floating on cloud nine in happiness! I reached out my fist to give this angel a donakely (quick little fist punch, like guys do back in the States, too – we all congratulate each other this way up here), and then, all of a sudden, felt like I was in one of those creepy laugh-houses of the old school fairs because the entire room exploded in laughter of my oh so very Gasy gesture. Within 5 minutes I had accomplished three of my greatest goals: 1) to make people laugh in their own language; 2) to educate my community in a way they really grasp and act on it; 3) to help in a sustainable way where when I leave I know they will keep improving and developing on their own. Pretty awesome moment!

Big yellow school bus never seemed so luxurious…

Taxi-brousse (bush taxi) rides are a huge and very regular adventure.
They pack you in to a little car or van like you are the last gumball they are trying to fit into the gumball machine. It's not just people they pack, its live chickens, goats, babies breastfeeding, boys fist-fighting, cartons of eggs, giant and prickly jack fruits, sacks and weaved baskets full of litchis oozing, piles of long sugar can sticks. Nothing would surprise me in a taxi-brose. If the car is made to seat 5, they will fit at least 14 people in it. If the van has 9 seat-belts, 25-30 of us will pile in all right in some David Copperfield magic trick type way. These overly intimidating rides are actually a wonderful time and place for me to preach about health, the environment, community. My co-riders find it hilarious and beyond belief that I speak Gassy, better yet, their very specific and isolated dialect of Baklava…which is great, once the laughter and hooting stops; because they will actually listen to and believe everything I tell them. I have made good friends on these close rides who I visit at the bus stops around Diego.

I pretend I am in a waterfall…

My shower lies in my backyard. It is inside four wooden planks, on top of smoothing rocks filled with black widows and poisonous red centipedes. If I close my eyes and pour the water over my head just right, I can sometimes pretend I’m in the beautiful sacred waterfall up the road at Amber Mountain. But then I quickly have to reopen them to make sure nothing deadly is climbing on me.
My toilet is right next to my shower. Inside four corrugated metal sheets. It is a simple hole in the ground with your usual flies and spider webs. Fancy. But since everything in Sakaramy is beautiful – even the flies are an iridescent June-bug green, but they bite.


Goodbye!

One of my all time favorite kids is six-year-old Celio. He is happy sitting in my lap all day giggling the world's cutest laugh. He has the biggest, brightest smile and wide eyes. Celio has a good chance in this battle of a world that is one of the planet's poorest nations.
His dad is the new Mayor of Sakaramy and our three surrounding villages, he used to be the doctor, he is who requested a Peace Corps volunteer. Celio is the youngest of nine children and lives with his big brothers and sisters in Diego during the week where they go to a decent school. On weekends and holidays, he runs to my house to say "goodbye!" That is the one word Celio always remembers in English. I am really close with the whole family and consider Stephanie, the 17 year-old daughter, to be one of my best Gasy friends. She is great at English and wants to be a journalist and to go to college in America.
I really hope I can help make this wish of hers come true!

A few realizations on nature…

Nature is so strong and literally awesome! A few weeks ago I was hiking with Stephanie; we were working on each others colloquial English, French and Gasy skills. We hiked four hours through cow pastures, creeks full of women washing colorful clothes and children swinging from vines with mangos in their mouths. Past naked kids running to jump in the cool water hole, up mud redder and juicier than a blood orange and passed by baobabs with their ultimate presence of strength and old African wisdom. We talked our way through maize fields and stopped to visit a family friend of hers who lived in a forest of papaya trees with his whole family in a tiny palm-thatched tee-pee. He shared some sweet potato and guava for our trek. We even passed by a lookout where we could see miles away to my friends little fishing village in a bay off the Indian Ocean, the closest other PCV to my town.

Where we would ultimately end up was the coolest part of all. There are four villages in my Commune – mine is at the center with the rural clinic, mayor's office and elementary school. This village we hiked to is the farthest away, way off the beaten path, but has something very special of its own: the first ever wind-energy generator in Madagascar. A Swiss NGO installed three wind generators and this tiny village of 700 people has electricity! It's pretty cool – the power of the wind. My village is hoping the NGO will expand and plant some wind-power for us as well. This is a huge step of energy progress here. Madagascar is so special and about as unique as a single snowflake but its environment is quickly being raped of its natural resources in unnatural ways. My site mate, Erin, is an eco-tourism and environmental education volunteer. She built us the coolest thing – a solar oven! It's simply a cardboard box painted black inside with some aluminum foil reflectors and a piece of glass on top. She's already made peanut-butter bread and chocolate chip cookies in it – all masiro! (delicious). The sun is pretty amazingly powerful, too.
Without it, I would never be able to listen to my Ipod or talk to y’all on the phone!

F*R*I*E*N*D*S

It's only been a couple months at site but I already have some very special and helpful friends. I can't wait for my Gasy to get good enough to be able to form closer relationships! These are the people I will be mentioning in my letters and emails and updates…

Stephanie – Already mentioned her in the hiking/Celio stories

Maria – She has the sweetest disposition but is also so much fun! She comes over every day to hang out in the shade or go for a walk under the clouds. She is great about teaching me about fomba (Gasy culture).
We help each other with out Gasy, French and English skills. She loves going to morengy (bare-knuckle boxing matches where there is a DJ and tons of people gather to watch the fight and catch up with each other since they live in far-off villages). Maria has three kids – Danie, Fiaed and Estelle. Danie is 21 and also a good friend of mine but she has a 6 month old baby boy and a 3 year old daughter who take up most of her time. Danie is beautiful – she could be a super model in the States but is stuck living here taking care of two children and she's a year younger than I am. It's weird that almost all of the girls my own age are already well into supporting many babies and kids. That's something we take for granted back home – we are all very lucky to have the dreams and chance to achieve those dreams which detain us from early motherhood and set us right away on a totally different life path. Danie's daughter is Roberta, who is inseparable from Estelle, Maria's 3-year-old daughter. It's a little like Father of the Bride Part II. Estelle and Roberta are so adorable! They love to give high fives and then run off giggling. Fiaed is Maria's son – he is 17 and was building a fence around our house but then he stole Erin's harmonica. It is so sad that he gave up that trust and money we were paying him, to steal something he doesn't even know how to use. That's how life is here for many people though – they are so desperate to survive. Maria was married before I got here to a teacher named Modest. Being a teacher, doctor, or in the gendarmerie are the most secure jobs in the village. However, he got greedy and stole a neighbor's cow, took all of him and Maria's cash and ran away to the incredibly rugged and almost unsurpassable tip of Madagascar north of Diego. Villagers do not have bank accounts, so Maria was left with nothing. She is a great Gasy cook and talented at sewing traditional lambas and lace so Erin and I are trying to motivate her to open a roadside stand because so many tourists pass by everyday between Diego and Amber Mountain.

Tahiry and Noel – A married couple in Sakaramy that I love! They are 28 and 32 and don't have kids yet because they have goals they want to accomplish first – which gives me a lot of hope. Tahiry works for ANGAP – a USAID funded NGO which runs most of our national parks. Noel works for the gendarmerie (police, army, and navy - all in one) and is working really hard to be one of the few chosen to go study and work for eight months in America next year. I am working with both of them on their English as well as American cultural awareness.

Madame Tantely – This 60 year old spitfire acts with the pure wisdom of Maya Angelou and my precious grandmother. She has three adoring children and six grandchildren. Her husband was a teacher at the elementary school – but she was the director. She embodies natural empowerment, dignity, might and grace. She has so much energy, compassion and ambition. She now helps a French NGO, Matansaka (Sakalava for strong) teach about gardening. She has a model farm with medicinal plants, banana, mango, papaya, pineapple and moringa trees, green beans, tomatoes, onions, garlic and carrots growing strong all in an unbearable climate and soil where no one else manages to grow much of anything other than rice, beans, coconuts and peanuts. She also takes care of the rain forest behind her house where she's laid paths to see the lemurs. She used to have a restaurant and bungalows for tourists to stay but cyclones ruined them and now she is trying to save money to reopen after this rainy season. To do that, she sells her good food and embroiders traditional Gasy tablecloths, curtains and pillows and also makes delicious fruit jams and sakay (hot pepper mix) to sell at the market in Diego. Her dog just had puppies so I go play with them every day and soon she is giving me my favorite girl to keep! Everyone here loves Bob Marley; he's like common ground for us musically, so I am going to name her Marley.

Fandrama – He was kind of with me since I landed in Madagascar. He has been my favorite artist to listen to on the radio from day one. His music is like a mixture of Caribbean Reggae, Sakalava Salegy, and John Mayer meets Jack Johnson meets the Hanson brothers pop/jam rock. It's fun, pick-me-up, I want to dance but also chill at the same time, gifted music. During training I learned that this great musician is also the Deputy (Congressional Rep to Tana for Diego region). He is only 28 and basically one of the most celebrated and amazing people on the island. Fandrama comes from a village near mine and worked incredibly hard to get to where he is today – still working super hard. He's as charming as my brother and as good at selling himself (and also mosquito nets and water purifying bleach – he helps PSI!) as Paris Hilton. I have gotten to go on some fun adventures with this special Gasy pop-star and politician and look forward to working with him in the years to come. I am writing songs for him in Gasy about malaria prevention and he is making them cool and singing them on the radio. He is also helping with some other amazing projects I will tell y’all more about as they unfold…

Kamar – see Pillsbury doughboy story

Good Reads:

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert – Audrey sent this to me, thank you! (but it has not gotten here yet after 4 months… so I listened to it on tape) - a story of how one wonderful writer learns to see the world through her heart but keep her feet on the ground. Amazing!

Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman – Jeb gave this to me before I left, thank you! - reading it made me feel like I was elevated on a cloud, feeling way better than content, like a peaceful happiness and tingle had taken over my mind. It's calming, interesting, beautifully put together. I always think about time, but this book gets you really appreciating each second before it passes you by.

They Poured Fire on us from the Sky – Liz Gibbs brought me this on my last night in the US, thank you! Anyone interested in Africa, the human loss from war, innate strength and hope should read this wonderful story of three Lost Boys from Sudan.

The Pillsbury Doughboy…

My all-time favorite cultural exchange thus far was with my friend Kamar, who is already super mahay (knowledgeable/great) at American culture. He is the Peace Corps representative up here for the entire North of Mkar (Mkar = short for Madagasakara – Gasy name for the island, remember this alphabet is missing a few letters, including C).
Kamar is amazing! He takes care of our little Peace Corps transit house/office (the Meva – paradise) and drives around important American diplomats and Peace Corps staff when they visit our isolated part of the island. He is super helpful and always has a smile on his face. And I swear he knows every single person within 400 miles of Diego. His wife has this great little Gasy restaurant by their house out near the airport with the best natural fruit juice in the entire world! Anyways, we were at the Meva one afternoon and everyone was working really hard on different projects and joking around to ease the air, making even the most tedious grant proposals fun and handling them with laid back ease is a wonderful quality we learn as PCVs, and I poked Kamar in his belly and he popped out with the perfect Pillsbury doughboy laugh. It was hilarious! As educated on American pop-culture as he is, there was no way he had ever seen or heard of this cute little cartoon. We all took a long break and in our best Gasy tried to explain this American commercial phenomenon and now whenever I see Kamar we poke each other in the belly and make the precious giggle.

Little town where little baobabs grow… Ambolobozokely AND the rainforest in my front yard… Amber Mountain

Right before Christmas, a sweet lady from the PC-HQ in DC came to visit Madagascar. It was such a great Christmas present – candy treats from America and all! We went to visit our closest neighbor a couple hours south-east of Sakaramy in a tiny fishing village. The drive was beautiful with small colorful little villages, palm made huts stacked high on stilts, creeks rushing down from Amber Mountain. Then we turned onto her dirt path and the rollercoaster ride began. The perfect tangible way to reflect my quick changes and surges of emotion here in Madagascar (homesickness one minute followed by a pure joy of realizing someone's life is going to be better after learning how to keep their baby healthy from me). At the beginning, the land was vast and open, I could see for miles on end. Then, instead of fences separating land and keeping animals in or out, they had planted the prettiest spiny and flowering cactus. A few miles further, banana and coconut trees lined the path. As we got closer we passed tons of zebu (strong and horned Gasy cows/bulls) and a bunch of short and squat baobab trees. The village was beautiful, nestled right in a rocky little bay off the Indian Ocean and full of long lakanas (fishing canoes). There were trees leaning into the water like my favorite tree from childhood which we would climb and dangle our toes into the Chattahoochee River. It was so fun to get to see another volunteer in her village.

We also all went back past my village to Amber Mountain National Park in Joffreville. Every ten minutes it felt like we were in a different rainforest with brand new sites to awe-over and try to take the perfect picture of. Pictures cannot do this wonderland justice. There was actually a point where I felt like I was literally in Alice and Wonderland – the trees shot up so high and the variety of ferns and orchids and shades of green sweeping across the rainbow of flowers, the crazy swaying of trees bending over to reach the sunlight for their strength – it was like a 1970s concert poster. We saw Crowned and Samford lemurs with babies on their backs and with crisp white beards, the world's smallest chameleons, huge and neon colored Panther chameleons, Strangler Figs, even the Ramy tree which my village is named after. My favorite part was the Sacred Waterfall which is so gorgeous and after thousands of years of being prayed and worshiped in, you can feel the good spirit and love.

Faly Krismasy ndreky Tratry Taona Vaovao – Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Christmas morning we woke up early in the Diego Meva and made sugar and cinnamon Christmas cookies! I was so lucky that a super cool group of environment volunteers from the group about to be done with their service decided to spend the holidays in Diego. We spent the whole day at the Grand Hotel resort pool where we swam, sang Christmas songs at the swim-up bar, had meaningful and uplifting conversations, played volleyball with a blow-up snowman, and enjoyed a real Christmas lunch under a tropical Christmas tree. We even ran in to the US Embassy doctor and his family on their holiday vacation which was a nice taste of home for me with their Southern Louisiana accents.

The next day we rode out to Ramena Beach all along the coast of our big, peacock blue, Diego Bay. We hopped on a dinky lakana with a sail and headed off to Emerald Island, a journey I can only compare with the sheer beauty of the Whitsunday Islands in Australia – these two sailing trips are by far the prettiest and most free-feeling experiences I think one can ever have. We sailed through the deep sapphire waters of the Bay and then passed an old French WWII base with two lighthouses still standing strong against the rock and wind.
We crossed through the channel of crashing waves between rainbow colored sand cliffs, black tsingy and green thorn forests, The water became crystal clear and we could see the coral right below the surface. By the time the sister of the Captain finished fully braiding my head, we were out in the wild Indian Ocean – a bright turquoise water filled with little green islands lined with bright white sand and lipstick red bush flowers. We sailed right to the shore of Emerald Island where we saw flying fish and dolphins. The Gasy Captain jumped off the boat with flippers and a spear. He came back with four huge types of tropical fish and he and his younger brother and sister made us the most delicious lunch right there in the sand!

That night we went out for pizza and hung out at this tavern near the Meva. I looked around and felt like I could be anywhere in the world inside this tavern – Ireland, Austin, Athens, NYC, Charlottesville, Charlotte, Atlanta, LA, San Francisco, London, Berne, Johannesburg, Melbourne, Diego… it reminded me of how much I missed all of you back home but also of how this is one single world and wherever we are, there we are, we should soak up all that moment has to offer and then move on to the next moment with grace.

For New Years I had a bad bee sting and so I waited to celebrate a few days later with Fandrama. He was holding a huge party in Diego that first Saturday of the New Year and invited me to come spread the word all day. We went to all the radio stations across Diego which was perfect because it helped me connect with them so now I am training my friends in Sakaramy about health messages and they are going to have shows on these stations. Radio is by far the best way to reach people here since so many are illiterate and have no money or electricity for TV. We even went to the one TV station up here which was like being at a sketch, rural filming of Bin Laden with the look of the place, but it's better than nothing! It's amazing to have this chance to merge all of my passions for media, music and service here! We went to his friend's house and had a lunch party where I got to meet his sweet wife and adorable 9 month old baby girl and all of his friends. Riding in his truck was so fun because he would wave out the window to all the kids running alongside and chasing the truck yelling his name and keeping us afloat. We all talked about American culture and music and they were dying to know the difference between rum and whisky, it's so funny the things people wonder about us in America!

Back alleys, bright nightclubs and the crazy bottle lady

Diego is such a pleasant, perfect place on first glance. Just like many American cities, it's natural beauty, tropical tourist feel, and development hides the sheer poverty lying just behind the glam hotels and posh shops. Poverty is looming in the alleys and dressed up at the fancy restaurants in the form of commercial sex workers. I had my first night out with the PSI peer educator, an experience I will work on two nights a month. We go to talk to the girls in the evening before they begin to work with their clients. This work is legal here and therefore very organized and relatively safe, but still so sad.
Step one is to get these girls healthy and practicing their work in a safer way. Hopefully after they trust me, have been tested and understand and use protection, we can work on empowering them to find better jobs. It is so sad because many young, pretty Gasy girls are kicked out of their village home at 14 and sent to find money in Diego, this is their only means. They asked startling questions and I am really looking forward to getting to know them and hopefully instilling behavior change and hope in their hearts.

Another product of this poverty is the bottle lady. Everyone from the tourists to the Mayor to the market sellers and especially the Peace Corps volunteers around Diego know her. This is another sad part of the developing world. There are so many crucial priorities, such as clean water, basic hygiene, elementary education, ahead of taking care of the mentally handicapped. In the US, this lady would have gotten help from a young age, but here she runs around the whole town knocking people on the heads with her plastic bottle and yelling at them in gibberish. A lot of the sad things we see, we have to turn into jokes to be able to mentally manage them. On the surface, she is a funny break in the heat, but in truth, it's sad and it makes you realize that there is no way to help everyone right now. This is why every single person who has anything to offer – wisdom, finances, love, toys, pictures, smiles – needs to share it with the world.
Together, we can make a huge difference but alone it sometimes gets overwhelming. Still, we tread on.

Animals who think they live with me

Bats, rats and cats… ain't cool.

Boogie Woogie… how music and development are coming to my town!

I was so inspired by the Music Resource Center in Charlottesville that I wanted my kids to have one, too. My whole community has been meeting a few times a week to plan and write our proposal which I am sent the US Embassy here for their special self-help fund. My village is going to build the building and hopefully we will get the grant and be able to buy tons of traditional Gasy instruments and also some others from America and around the world. It's going to be MRC/youth development.
So we are also hoping to have a small library (none of the kids or school has books!) and also have a way for the kids to learn English.
It's going to be totally sustainable because the kids are going to make and sell crafts and CDs to all the tourists which pass by! I am praying so hard this works out. The committee is already planning a huge Easter party so they can raise money for the building materials.
So cute and exciting!

Caterpillar Tractors

A few days ago this super cool American film crew got a flat tire near my village and I helped translate for them and they came over to my little village. They are making a documentary for Caterpillar (the big yellow CAT tractors) because the United Nations and CAT built the road which connects Diego (which used to be like an island within the island) with the rest of Madagascar. It's a really cool story and they filmed my precious kids singing and dancing and interviewed us about loving the PC Madland life – it was really fun!

Wow! That's a lot… enjoy! Write me soon all about what you are up to!
Let me know if you have any questions or need clarification since I have to type these up so fast. I love and miss y’all!


xoxo,
Erin



PS = thank you so much to all of you who have been amazing about writing letters and emails, sending packages and CDs and praying for me and our work out here! HUGE thanks to you, mom, who wants me to come home more than anyone but is still amazing and encouraging through the rough nights to help me realize how good it is for me to take a step back and stay… I love you!

Here’s an addition to Erin’s e-mailed blog addition – I just spoke with Erin:

Erin was on her way back to Sakaramy after being in Diego. She was feeling a little sad and the sky opened with a storm…adding to her sadness. People already stare at Erin just because she looks so different…with this pouring rain and her wearing a white t-shirt, the scares intensified. Without going into more detail, she was feeling pretty miserable when suddenly, along her walk, she could hear Bob Marley letting her know “everything will be all right!” Every home she was passing had their radio on and “Everything is going to be all right” was heard from every home…this brought that wonderful smile back to Erin’s face and heart…THANKS BOB!!!

As always, Erin went on and on about hearing from y’all…THANKS Y’ALL!!! Each of you brings hope, happiness, encouragement and strength to Erin. Please realize your importance… Erin’s and my tremendous appreciation for each of you…PLEASE KEEP UP ALL Y’ALL ARE DOING – writing, e-mailing, sending surprises, calling. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

What Erin has been up to since Jan. 1

Erin hopes that everyone is enjoying a very healthy, happy new year! She knows y’all have been very busy and GREATLY appreciates the time you have taken to write, to send packages, to e-mail and to call. Each of you is very special to Erin and your keeping in touch means to world to her…and she’s a world away in so many ways!

Erin, too, has been busy. It’s the extremely hot, wet season…so Erin especially enjoys a change for the heat and the humidity. Besides her usual work to help improve health in her village and in the surrounding villages, Erin has had some added excitement. A Peace Corps Volunteer who has extended her 27 months has befriended Erin. This young lady is INCREDIBLE! She has built a successful radio station from scratch…and by “scratch”, I mean that she put it together with sticks and debris…with her amazing dedication and grant money, the radio station is now a permanent working structure providing jobs and information. This remarkable young lady is also creating a national park. At this point, the area has been declared a national reserve and she has had the village build an ego-lodge proving jobs in the lodge and the restaurant for the villagers along with providing environmental protection – pretty astonishing – just one young lady made these enormous differences…WOW! What a great mentor for Erin! You can be sure; Erin has a few ideas of her own taking shape in her mind! Erin enjoyed a delicious dinner with the second in command at the US Embassy. She was asked to accompany him to a meeting which was a delightful experience for Erin. This past Saturday night was a very new and different experience for Erin!!! She spent the evening educating the prostitutes in Diego. (O.K., y’all…y’all can stop laughing.) Sexual tourism is rampant in Diego. These young girls, some as young as 10 years old, are unaware of the health risks and how to minimize them. Prostitution is legal for girls 18 and older; however, they, too, need to know how to protect themselves. Erin worked with the PSI (Population Services International) – another organization helping throughout the world. The work really saddened Erin – realizing what some have to do in order to survive and to help their families survive – however, PSI had asked that she do this twice a month and she will. Next week, the director of her Peace Corps program will be up in Diego, so Erin is looking forward to working with her.

Erin wanted me to share this information – “some of my fav fruits…pls put the links on my blog so everyone can see what I eat! xoxoxo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_fruit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litchi “
She eats a lot of rice, but she didn’t give me a link for that!

I’m hoping that the technology specialist at school will be able to add some pictures to this blog. Here are explanations for the pictures –

Erin's Peace Corps Training group (probably Sept. 2007)

Erin's PCT group on a field trip to a national park (probably Oct. 2007)

Erin and a couple of PCT's walking down a path near the training village (Oct./ Nov. 2007)

Erin and another PCT in Lac Mantasoa a couple of days before swearing in 12-02-07

Erin and Franka - her Sakalava instructor - the day before swearing in 12-03-07

Boys playing near Erin's village in northern Madagascar 12-16-07 (very different in the north!)

Orchid Erin saw on a walk 12-21-07

Lemur Erin saw on a walk 12-21-07

Erin and Celio - a favorite child in her village 12-22-07

Erin in Diego at Christmas with other PCV's in other villages 12-25-07

Erin and Celio on a walk near her village 12-30-07

Notice how very different it is in the northern region where Erin lives and the plateau region where she was trained.

Pictures from Erin - WOW! The Tech man at my school is GREAT!!!

Finally, Erin can share some pictures from Madagascar with y'all...thank you Ken! Hopefully, I'll be able to write an explanation next to the pictures; otherwise, I'll figure out a way to let y'all know what y'all are seeing. Here goes...I'm having difficulty getting the pictures on here. I'm fixing to push a button to see if that helps, so if this shows up on the blog without any pictures...OOPS!!!

I forgot something funny!!!

I cannot believe I forgot the cutest thing that Erin said!

She was telling me about how she's adjusting...they braid her hair and she wears a lamba...the traditional dress. Erin went on to say that she "looked Malagasy." When I laughed and repeated that she "looked Malagasy", she said..."OK, like an albino Maligasy!" Isn't she cute!?!

Faly Vaovao Taona! (Happy New Year!)

OK...y'all caught me! That's Happy New Year in Malagasy, not Sakalava...I left my Sakalava word list at school and I'm on winter break.

Wishing y’all a very happy, healthy new year and hoping that everyone had a joyous holiday…and wahoo – boohoo!!! (UVA lost to Texas Tech in a heartbreaker!)

Erin has been in her village, Sakaramy, for nearly a month now. Sakaramy is in northern Madagascar where it is quite warm! There’s no electricity or running water; however, Erin adapted to her host/training village without those “luxuries”, so she’s doing fine without them now, too. She does get to go to Diego (Antsiranana) every so often where she stays at the Peace Corps House. Diego is the 5th largest city in Madagascar and the city runs on a generator so they have electricity most of the time. Erin says that Diego is beautiful! There is much beauty around her village, too. Her village is near the base of the Amber Mountain National Park. When she takes hikes near her village, she sees remarkably beautiful flowers and various sights. The villagers proudly share the magnificence of their country. Erin’s enjoyed some special adventures already!

The Peace Corps sent someone from DC to visit. Erin was thrilled to enjoy the company of another American. They went to visit another volunteer at a site on the coast. Erin saw many gorgeous sights on their drive. (I think the other site was only about 20 kilometers away, but it took 2 hours to get there.) There’s only one paved road in northern Madagascar, so travel is difficult. Erin truly enjoyed visiting with another volunteer and seeing the achievements made by the hard work of the PCV’s. Erin found it interesting to see that some cows, zebos, were enclosed by beautiful flowering cacti plants rather than by fences. They also enjoyed a meal from the ocean which was a very pleasant change from rice and/or peanut butter. (Erin makes great peanut butter – she actually shells, cooks and crushes the peanuts herself!)

Over Christmas, Erin went to stay at the Peace Corps House in Diego. There, she met some other volunteers – two married couples and two girls. They all decided to take the taxi-busse to the beach. At the beach, they met a wealthy Malagasy man and his family. Erin and the other PCV’s got to go sailing with the family. On their way to an island, the boat’s captain drove overboard and speared a bunch of fish. When they got to the island, the crew prepared a delicious meal for everyone. Erin felt like a tourist instead of a poor PCV. She said the island was incredible…and so was the food!!! On the other day that she had in Diego during her 2-day Christmas Break, she and the other PCV’s when swimming at the hotel next to the Peace Corps House and enjoyed the Christmas brunch the hotel had. There, she met a doctor for the American Embassy and his family. They are from New Orleans and are leaving in Antananarivo for two years. He was at Erin’s swearing in ceremony.

After an exciting two days, it was time for Erin to return to her village…the taxi-busse ride brought her back to her reality…27 people piled into an old (1930’s) French station wagon meant for seven passengers…Erin was on the lap of an old man with a pregnant lady and child on Erin’s lap and a mal-nutrientioned girl on Erin’s other knee…you get the picture…and three baskets of chickens and two goats tied to the top of the vehicle!!!

When Erin called the next day, she sounded very settled and content. While she was out with some of the villagers, her site mate, Erin Cross, had made a solar oven out of cardboard and black paint. Erin C., an environmental volunteer, had actually cooked 4 loaves of peanut butter bread in two hours. This is really thrilling!!! If they can find a way to cook without destroying the rainforest, this would be fantastic! Cooking without burning all the wood would also help tremendously with health issues. All the smoke is unhealthy for the people as well as for the environment. Y’all, this could be great!!!

There are so many health issues! Erin is still amazed when she’s working with young women who are only 25 or 26 and have 7 or 8 children already…and are pregnant with another!!!

There’s so much to tell; however, I just noticed that I’m already on page three…and y’all know I must get in my little plea(se)...and thank you. Thank you to all of y’all who take the time out of your busy, busy days and evenings to write to Erin and to send surprises. The first thing she tells me when we talk is that she’s received letters and/or packages…y’all, hearing from each of you is what gives Erin the strength and courage to do what she’s doing. Y’all are a MOST IMPORTANT part of her journey! So, thank you! thank you! thank you! and please keep it up!

Remember, too, that I am here to help y’all in any way I can. Please know how appreciative I am of each of you!!! I hope this new year is filled with excellent health and much happiness for each of you!