Hi everyone! I hope your holiday season is off to a great start! I am typing this quickly on a French keyboard, so I am sorry for the errors and if I missed sending this to anyone. It is also on my blog... this is my latest entry; I encourage you all to read it when you have a chance.
www.themasoandro@blogspot.com
My mom tries to update it for me every week or so. I miss you all and wish you the happiest of holidays! I am thinking about and praying for each of you all the way over here.
Dec 17th, 2007
Hey yall! I miss you each so very much! I've been at site for about 2 weeks now and I really like it most of the time. I have definitely broken down to my mom a couple times because it's really the most challenging experience of my life, but I get through those moments and the next day, or even just a couple hours later, I feel great and remember why I am here.
My village is absolutely beautiful! I literally live in paradise. I don't really have a "typical" day but I usually wake up around 6, eat something, take my malaria meds, and hang out until school starts at 7:30 with my site mate and around 40 little 5-16 year old boys before they go to their elementary school. We practice English and Gasy, throw a ball around my front yard of bright red dirt, play cards, or just pick fun at each other and laugh a lot. I also really enjoy making homemade peanut butter… some of the boys will bring by peanuts to sell and I shell them, roast them, skin them, then pound them in my mortar with my pistol – yeah, that's right – I have a mortal and pistol! HAHA! Then I add a little sugar and salt and oil and pound away, it's a great way to get out the frustration of the begging children and utter poverty I live with. I've been making a lot of food with the peanut butter – one of my fav meals is peanut butter and hot sauce pasta, I think I may even eat it back in America. But who knows, those lines are so blurred by now. I cannot even image what it is like to be able to put something in the microwave and eat it 2 minutes later and feel full. It blows my mind how easy it is to make food at home. We have to catch and pluck and kill and clean and cook a chicken over a fire before we can even think about how "good" it’s going to taste. Anyways, I hope my community will catch on to my peanut butter making because it's a decent source of protein for them to add to their sole rice meals.
One of my other favorite stress relievers is my daily runs or hikes with the boys. The little girls are really shy still, but hopefully next time I write I can tell you about the progress I'm making with them. Before it gets too hot out, or once the sun begins to set but in the special middle time before the mosquitoes perpetrate, they take me just a few minutes away to the most beautiful places I've seen in my life, more wonderful than any scene I could have ever dreamt up. I also enjoy going to the small market and hanging out with all the women, most of whom are pregnant, I have a lot of family planning to teach, and just letting my eyes enjoy the sparkling colors of the tomatoes, the limes, the papaya, mango, crazy jack fruit that tastes like starbursts, the rice bread and coconut candies, and the flowing in the delicate breeze lambas the women all wear around their little bodies and their heads with weaved baskets and water buckets pilled high. The ground is the brightest red, even redder than Georgia clay, and the sky is huge and the blue of so many of your eyes that I miss, and the thousands of different palm trees and flowering bushes are every kind of green… but this market just bustles with life and color among the otherwise scene of blue, green and red. Sometimes I feel like these parts of my day, which sometimes go on all day, are just a playground for my eyes – it's all so new and lovely. I have never seen flowers like the ones in my village. Near the water pumps there are a plethora – I am going to send my mom home with a CD full of pictures when she comes in June so yall will all finally be able to see the graceful wonders soon! Then, on the hikes, the flowers are even more unbelievable. Yesterday we hiked for a couple hours through this dry grassland packed with huge strong zebu cows and ended up stumbling down these huge red boulders all the way to this massive lake surrounded by a swamp filled with big Australian type swamp birds, crocodiles and these lily pad/orchid hybrid flowers floating throughout the muddy green bullet-type thick leafy grass bubbles – they were huge, the size of my forearm, and bright purple with white inside full of yellow spots that looks like stars dancing inside them.
These people I am living and working with may be some of the poorest in the world, but G-d's presence cannot be doubted with this sheer beauty all around us. Even the little boys gasp and enjoy and frolic in the fairyland just down the road from their little shacks. It is so cool to be able to enjoy these moments of freedom and happiness with them when so much of their life is about barely getting by and simply trying so hard to survive. Erin, my great, laid-back, amazing with these boys, thoughtful and so helpful site mate, and I play soccer with the boys most afternoons. Well, they play, and I try to get a hold of or block the ball, I have a lot of progress to make with both the art of Gasy soccer and language. I work, too, I swear, it's not all amazing hikes and games. I work three days a week at the rural health clinic. My doctor speaks French to me, which I don't understand, still need to learn that better, too. But, despite our lack of clear communication, we've been working pretty well together. I hope it grows and improves. We give vaccines once a week with a cooler full from Diego since we have no power to keep them cool all week. He gives the vaccines and I explain them to the moms, kids, or pregnant girls. We also give out mosquito nets and explain how to use them, how important they are, and we help them clean and re-medicate them, too. A lot of my work there is while the young ladies and babies are waiting for the doctor. Gasy time makes it okay for him to be late, it's just the culture. I give little speeches and demos about cleaning water, family planning, getting tested for AIDS, preparing cheap but healthy foods, brushing teeth, mosquito-proofing their homes etc. Let me know if y'all have any fun ideas for me to teach them!
Once a week I come in to Diego. It's just like New Orleans – both good and bad points. It keeps me in touch with yall, lets me get a cold drink or ice cream, and reminds me that Madagascar is progressing and I need to work hard to help my village improve, too. Today is my first day to work with PSI (Population Services International) so next time I will tell you more about how great it is. It's an American NGO funded by USAID. Everyone who works in the Diego office is Gasy, they speak French more than Sakalava, too, so I really need to improve both languages – one for my village and one for the city. Any pointers are warmly welcome! I will be working with them and their peer educators who help empower the tons of young commercial sex workers. Diego is a huge tourist town, and everywhere you turn, you see a precious 14 year old Gasy girl with a 65 year old French man. I'm not trying to be hard on the French, it's just a fact of life here – there are many great French people here, too. Anyways, I will work on helping these girls realize that they are better than that, that they should value themselves more, and find other ways to make money. Many families kick the girls out and they have to fend for themselves and this is the easiest way. It's so sad, this sexual tourism, and I am thrilled to be a part of fighting it.
Lastly, there are a few projects I am really looking forward to making happen here. I have become friends with a couple of the big musicians here and I'm hoping to work with them in some cool ways. I am not supposed to start planning big things like this until after 3 months at site, evaluating their needs etc… But I do have a few goals that I hope work out and I know will do a ton of good. Just something to pray and think about in the meantime. Let me know y’all’s ideas… I am writing songs in Gasy with health, environment, community messages in them and Fandrama (y’all should all check him out, he's a rocking artist and also a government rep from Diego and only 28!) is hoping to be able to sing them… not sure if it will actually happen as I hope, but I wrote my first last night and it would be so cool because thousands of people go to his concerts and everyone listens to him on the radio – radio is the best way to reach Gasy people because so many are illiterate and almost none have power for TV etc. Erin and I really love the kids in our community but they fight and beg so much, again, it's their culture. There are a lot of vacant and decaying cement buildings in Sakaramy because it used to be mostly French, I would love to start up some sort of music resource center for the kids and a kind of youth development center where they can hang out when it's raining or too hot or there's too many mosquitoes outside. (There is a great model of one in Cville!) Again, I cannot really start any of these projects for a few months, but please think about them and let me know any ideas you have, thank you! Lastly, soccer and music being the biggest two things here, it would be my dream to have an AIDS/Malaria awareness raising festival with soccer and music. There are a lot of wealthy vahaza (white folks from France etc.) in Diego so I'm hoping we could charge them to come, give out free AIDS testing, mosquito nets etc to the Gasy and use the money to help with some kind of safe house for the very young commercial sex workers. There are a few really cool orphanage/girls home type places in Tana and I haven't found one here yet, so I would like to help or help start one – or even just plant the idea because these wishes of mine may be much more than I can do in 2 years in this laid-back red island. Please let me know any idea you have, thank you so much!
Finally, a very simple and easy idea you can directly help with for almost free! Whenever you go to a fast food restaurant and get a free toy, please send the toys to me here or to my mom to send me and it can be the beginning of something for the kids to play with to keep them out of the street. Thank you so much! I love and miss y’all so much! I hope everything is going great back there for you! Have a very HAPPY HOLIDAY season and know you're in my thoughts and prayers.
Please keep in touch!
xoxo,
Erin
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Ankitiny from Erin Again (Really from Erin Again)
Hey y'all...I'm not sure why the last blog written appears twice!?!?! This time, though, you are not seeing double...the title is almost the same as a blog from a couple of weeks ago because this, too, is really from Erin. I received an e-mail today asking me to post this for her -- it's very current! (And current in Madagascar is quite unusual! You may notice Erin referring to the nearby city as Diego -- and you may not be able to locate Diego on a map. Diego's name was changed to Antsiranana in 1975. You can probably find Antsiranana on the map; however, change is slow in Madagascar and the local people still call it Diego.) Now for what you really want to be reading...ENJOY! (Remember, Erin is writing on a French keyboard so there could be some little oddities.)
Hey y’all! I hope you are doing great, had a very happy Thanksgiving and are now looking forward to the rest of the holiday festivities. This past month since I had internet to write you last has been quite a ride.
I would like to share my thanks as I missed that chance back home in the States with y’all:
THANKS…
For the constant amazement God lets me stand in
For my supportive friends at home, serving around the world and my new and priceless friends here in Madagascar
For the Peace Corps… this is the most humbling, exciting, exhausting, real, overwhelming, simple, inspiring, frustrating, empowering experience I have ever had. I love its mission and goals more each day – to foster peace and friendship in this world, to share our skills with those in need in a sustainable way together, to learn a new culture which is the best reflection of our own, and to share our American ways in which, thanks to Mr. Sabato, it is engrained in me that "politics is a good thing." I was afraid my idealism would get lost and flounder, but instead, in these 3 months which have flown by but in which some moments have felt like eternity, a sense of pragmatism and reality has been sprinkled among my lofty dreams in a way in which I will forever be grateful for the incredible Peace Corps training.
For the laughter and joy felt amid the expectations gone awry… the resilience and support and positive attitudes of my training group and our outstanding trainers, PC staff, host families and other rockin' volunteers.
For a clear mind as I walk into my new home tomorrow.
Of course, in the back of my rainbows and sunflowers mind I have some plans which I would love to have be a significant part of my service here (holding a huge soccer tournament and concert in which we raise tons of awareness about AIDS and Malaria for all the Malagasy in the Diego area, in which we raise money from the wealthy vazahs to open a safe house for learning for the overflowing amount of commercial sex workers who are precious 14 year old girls being pressured by their families to makemoney in order to merely survive, to teach all the wonderful children I meet how to actually speak English so they can have a chance at making an honest living as a tour guide and helping promote a greener Mkar so they can maintain their unbelievable landscapes and plant and animal life like nowhere else in the world, installing solar panels at a nearby rural health clinic so the villagers can finally get vaccinated, persuading people to drink clean water, use mosquito nets and plant their own gardens, helping with a country-wide PC effort with my friends through bike races, marathons, concerts and camps to help give the Gasy the knowledge to improve their own lives…) but this is not my job. My job for these first 3 months as a volunteer is to observe. To take it all in and try to grasp what my community wants and what they feel they need. I wish I could jump right in and see my great impact, but it's gonna be slow, it's also going to be something I only facilitate, they will do it all on their own, because they can.It's pretty awesome but also scary as hell.
For this beautiful country I now get to call home!
For the wonderful Peace Corps doctors who got my through my first tropical belly ache.
For Ellen reminding me that that there is no language barrier to a smile...and also for the success of immersion in Sakalava
For giving a 15 minute speech in Sakalava about Malaria prevention and treatment
For the conversations and encouragement among the volunteers and our Gasy friends as we all work together here
For the PC approach to development as we share our love, hope, passion and skills with these great but needy little villages… how we take the ingenious Gasy resourcefulness and encourage our new friends, students, Gasy families to work together to better their own lives.
For the relationships. A week ago I was thinking too much and becoming slightly overwhelmed. Julia reminded me that we need to work one person at a time. Building relationships is the key to stirring about a better knowledge, attitude and behavior changes.
For y’all's support and love across oceans, keep it up, I love and miss y’all!
Thought y’all may be interested in my journal entry and reflections as I walked away from my host family's home for the last time, into the amazing sunrise and future of 2 years serving in this special country:
"How do I feel so okay leaving this home, it's like looking back atall the beautiful places and people I left in Costa Rica, Australiaand other great vacations. Is my heart hardening as I learn to notexpect anything, as I grow frustrated but my mind and eyes open more widely with every step. Life really is a merry-go-round – a carnival – but this is more than a vacation. This is my life – this come and go and leave some hopefully lasting and helpful footprints along the way. I passed the rolling hills streaming up smoke as they burn what's left of their precious forests so they can plant more rice, the rice paddies that go on forever and are more shades of green than all of Ireland. Ireland, what a special place, special trip with my grandma. I think about all those I left at home. My beloved friends and family. I realize how much I miss everyone. I think about my friends also doing mission trips and volunteer work all across this world. We are so lucky, but there is so much need. Because we are so blessed, it is our moral duty to help others. Imagine what John Lennon was singing about – all the people living life in peace. I smile and look behind me, then beside and fast far in front of me. The young school children giggle, yell ino voavoa (what's up), giggle more, stop to quickly wash their bare feet in the dirty puddle and then scurry off to class wherethey will learn in the ancient French style of teachers writing on the board and they copy in their falling apart notebooks. The red dust flicks up and makes my legs look tanner than they actually are in these temperate highlands. I dream about my new site. The intense heat which will soon melt my heart up North. I refocus on the now and feel the cool early morning breeze on the back of my neck through my fully braided head. I begin to pass the homes which housed and comforted my dear friends. We all walk, one big white pile, down the hills which so acutely feel like the Virginia/West Virginia border. I remember our killer rafting trips and the good ole song of wahoowa. Back here, we laugh at our last nights amusements, our precious families and our final understanding of that tiny village which nourished us with rice3 times a day but with the patience and love of a real family, wevent, we stand amazed at the sky. I remember that its beauty is partly from the intense pollution. I remember why I am here. This is it, this is my life in Madagascar. But it's all abruptly about to change. I pray for peace, friendships, safety, health and more fun-packed adventures to come – most importantly, that I actually continue to make a great impact on these Malagasy brothers and sisters of ours."So, I'm off to site. I will write y’all again hopefully aroundChristmas. Please stay in touch! Also, let me know what y’all wouldlike to read about… what should I relay to my sweet momma for you?What questions do y’all have? And fill me in on all life where you are right now!Oh yeah! My site! Haha, sorry, that's probably the biggest thing y’all want to know… My village is called Sakaramy. It is named after the Ramy trees which used to be all over. There used to be these beautiful trees everywhere, as well as many lemurs. However, they burnt them all for need of wood and ate all the lemurs. Lucky, I have an amazing site mate whose focus is eco-tourism and environmental education. Her name is Erin, too. She's from Wisconsin and 25 and really great and laid back and helpful, caring and fun. I am so lucky and blessed to have someone to work with and really make a great lasting impact in our community. Sakaramy is a commune, so we have a mayor and 4 tiny villages around us. There are around 1,200 people that I will be reaching out to around my community. We are only a short 17 miles away (which takes about an hour on our roads) from Diego which is the coolest city I've been to in the world. It is colorful, clean, has great old French colonial architecture, a peacock blue bay, nice hotels and restaurants for the slight occasion in which we can splurge on ice cream and visiting a 5 star resort with a swim-up bar! The city is about 25 minutes away from a beautiful beach and 3 white sand bays on the Indian Ocean. I cannot wait to go there in a few weeks for Christmas! Sakaramy is right between this rocking city and another great little town called Joffreville. Joffreville is the base for Amber Mountain National Park. We are a 10 minute drive/hour walk andwill be working there and Diego a lot as well. Amber Mountain is an ancient volcano with a rain forest on top of it, waterfalls, lemurs and chameleons galore. From the top (which I will see any day now!) you can see all the tip top of Madagascar and where the Indian Ocean, Diego Bay and Mozambique Channel all meet in a beautiful, unique blue. We have 2 elementary schools right by our house and I will be working a lot with these kids on early empowerment and youth development. I will teach them about clean water, brushing their teeth, teach them some English, nutrition, gardening, malaria prevention, life skills through fun games… I will also be going to the middle and high schools and clubs around Diego to explain that AIDS is a real threat and weneed to prevent it while we have this special chance. I will help give confidence and facilitate peer education for the sexual tourism girls so they can continue and education and find a healthier, safer career. I am so excited about the next 2 years! It is going to be pretty rough at times… sometimes I just want a real shower, air conditioning in this intense heat (it's around 100 at day and 86 at night but there is no way to cool down at all), to be able to talk as often as I want to y’all, to hug y’all for goodness sake! But, my training has been outstanding, I am so grateful for the challenges I've already made it through and I am pumped for this adventure, this journey and this incredible way to make a difference. Thanks for all of the encouragement, I love and miss y’all so much!
Please stay in touch and keep me posted on everything you are up to! Come visit!
xoxo,
Erin
Hey y’all! I hope you are doing great, had a very happy Thanksgiving and are now looking forward to the rest of the holiday festivities. This past month since I had internet to write you last has been quite a ride.
I would like to share my thanks as I missed that chance back home in the States with y’all:
THANKS…
For the constant amazement God lets me stand in
For my supportive friends at home, serving around the world and my new and priceless friends here in Madagascar
For the Peace Corps… this is the most humbling, exciting, exhausting, real, overwhelming, simple, inspiring, frustrating, empowering experience I have ever had. I love its mission and goals more each day – to foster peace and friendship in this world, to share our skills with those in need in a sustainable way together, to learn a new culture which is the best reflection of our own, and to share our American ways in which, thanks to Mr. Sabato, it is engrained in me that "politics is a good thing." I was afraid my idealism would get lost and flounder, but instead, in these 3 months which have flown by but in which some moments have felt like eternity, a sense of pragmatism and reality has been sprinkled among my lofty dreams in a way in which I will forever be grateful for the incredible Peace Corps training.
For the laughter and joy felt amid the expectations gone awry… the resilience and support and positive attitudes of my training group and our outstanding trainers, PC staff, host families and other rockin' volunteers.
For a clear mind as I walk into my new home tomorrow.
Of course, in the back of my rainbows and sunflowers mind I have some plans which I would love to have be a significant part of my service here (holding a huge soccer tournament and concert in which we raise tons of awareness about AIDS and Malaria for all the Malagasy in the Diego area, in which we raise money from the wealthy vazahs to open a safe house for learning for the overflowing amount of commercial sex workers who are precious 14 year old girls being pressured by their families to makemoney in order to merely survive, to teach all the wonderful children I meet how to actually speak English so they can have a chance at making an honest living as a tour guide and helping promote a greener Mkar so they can maintain their unbelievable landscapes and plant and animal life like nowhere else in the world, installing solar panels at a nearby rural health clinic so the villagers can finally get vaccinated, persuading people to drink clean water, use mosquito nets and plant their own gardens, helping with a country-wide PC effort with my friends through bike races, marathons, concerts and camps to help give the Gasy the knowledge to improve their own lives…) but this is not my job. My job for these first 3 months as a volunteer is to observe. To take it all in and try to grasp what my community wants and what they feel they need. I wish I could jump right in and see my great impact, but it's gonna be slow, it's also going to be something I only facilitate, they will do it all on their own, because they can.It's pretty awesome but also scary as hell.
For this beautiful country I now get to call home!
For the wonderful Peace Corps doctors who got my through my first tropical belly ache.
For Ellen reminding me that that there is no language barrier to a smile...and also for the success of immersion in Sakalava
For giving a 15 minute speech in Sakalava about Malaria prevention and treatment
For the conversations and encouragement among the volunteers and our Gasy friends as we all work together here
For the PC approach to development as we share our love, hope, passion and skills with these great but needy little villages… how we take the ingenious Gasy resourcefulness and encourage our new friends, students, Gasy families to work together to better their own lives.
For the relationships. A week ago I was thinking too much and becoming slightly overwhelmed. Julia reminded me that we need to work one person at a time. Building relationships is the key to stirring about a better knowledge, attitude and behavior changes.
For y’all's support and love across oceans, keep it up, I love and miss y’all!
Thought y’all may be interested in my journal entry and reflections as I walked away from my host family's home for the last time, into the amazing sunrise and future of 2 years serving in this special country:
"How do I feel so okay leaving this home, it's like looking back atall the beautiful places and people I left in Costa Rica, Australiaand other great vacations. Is my heart hardening as I learn to notexpect anything, as I grow frustrated but my mind and eyes open more widely with every step. Life really is a merry-go-round – a carnival – but this is more than a vacation. This is my life – this come and go and leave some hopefully lasting and helpful footprints along the way. I passed the rolling hills streaming up smoke as they burn what's left of their precious forests so they can plant more rice, the rice paddies that go on forever and are more shades of green than all of Ireland. Ireland, what a special place, special trip with my grandma. I think about all those I left at home. My beloved friends and family. I realize how much I miss everyone. I think about my friends also doing mission trips and volunteer work all across this world. We are so lucky, but there is so much need. Because we are so blessed, it is our moral duty to help others. Imagine what John Lennon was singing about – all the people living life in peace. I smile and look behind me, then beside and fast far in front of me. The young school children giggle, yell ino voavoa (what's up), giggle more, stop to quickly wash their bare feet in the dirty puddle and then scurry off to class wherethey will learn in the ancient French style of teachers writing on the board and they copy in their falling apart notebooks. The red dust flicks up and makes my legs look tanner than they actually are in these temperate highlands. I dream about my new site. The intense heat which will soon melt my heart up North. I refocus on the now and feel the cool early morning breeze on the back of my neck through my fully braided head. I begin to pass the homes which housed and comforted my dear friends. We all walk, one big white pile, down the hills which so acutely feel like the Virginia/West Virginia border. I remember our killer rafting trips and the good ole song of wahoowa. Back here, we laugh at our last nights amusements, our precious families and our final understanding of that tiny village which nourished us with rice3 times a day but with the patience and love of a real family, wevent, we stand amazed at the sky. I remember that its beauty is partly from the intense pollution. I remember why I am here. This is it, this is my life in Madagascar. But it's all abruptly about to change. I pray for peace, friendships, safety, health and more fun-packed adventures to come – most importantly, that I actually continue to make a great impact on these Malagasy brothers and sisters of ours."So, I'm off to site. I will write y’all again hopefully aroundChristmas. Please stay in touch! Also, let me know what y’all wouldlike to read about… what should I relay to my sweet momma for you?What questions do y’all have? And fill me in on all life where you are right now!Oh yeah! My site! Haha, sorry, that's probably the biggest thing y’all want to know… My village is called Sakaramy. It is named after the Ramy trees which used to be all over. There used to be these beautiful trees everywhere, as well as many lemurs. However, they burnt them all for need of wood and ate all the lemurs. Lucky, I have an amazing site mate whose focus is eco-tourism and environmental education. Her name is Erin, too. She's from Wisconsin and 25 and really great and laid back and helpful, caring and fun. I am so lucky and blessed to have someone to work with and really make a great lasting impact in our community. Sakaramy is a commune, so we have a mayor and 4 tiny villages around us. There are around 1,200 people that I will be reaching out to around my community. We are only a short 17 miles away (which takes about an hour on our roads) from Diego which is the coolest city I've been to in the world. It is colorful, clean, has great old French colonial architecture, a peacock blue bay, nice hotels and restaurants for the slight occasion in which we can splurge on ice cream and visiting a 5 star resort with a swim-up bar! The city is about 25 minutes away from a beautiful beach and 3 white sand bays on the Indian Ocean. I cannot wait to go there in a few weeks for Christmas! Sakaramy is right between this rocking city and another great little town called Joffreville. Joffreville is the base for Amber Mountain National Park. We are a 10 minute drive/hour walk andwill be working there and Diego a lot as well. Amber Mountain is an ancient volcano with a rain forest on top of it, waterfalls, lemurs and chameleons galore. From the top (which I will see any day now!) you can see all the tip top of Madagascar and where the Indian Ocean, Diego Bay and Mozambique Channel all meet in a beautiful, unique blue. We have 2 elementary schools right by our house and I will be working a lot with these kids on early empowerment and youth development. I will teach them about clean water, brushing their teeth, teach them some English, nutrition, gardening, malaria prevention, life skills through fun games… I will also be going to the middle and high schools and clubs around Diego to explain that AIDS is a real threat and weneed to prevent it while we have this special chance. I will help give confidence and facilitate peer education for the sexual tourism girls so they can continue and education and find a healthier, safer career. I am so excited about the next 2 years! It is going to be pretty rough at times… sometimes I just want a real shower, air conditioning in this intense heat (it's around 100 at day and 86 at night but there is no way to cool down at all), to be able to talk as often as I want to y’all, to hug y’all for goodness sake! But, my training has been outstanding, I am so grateful for the challenges I've already made it through and I am pumped for this adventure, this journey and this incredible way to make a difference. Thanks for all of the encouragement, I love and miss y’all so much!
Please stay in touch and keep me posted on everything you are up to! Come visit!
xoxo,
Erin
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Feo of Erin - Feno Sary (The Voice of Erin - Full a Picture
The title is the best I can do for Sakalava to English word choice – limited words!
Hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving and have plans for a fabulous holiday season! Before taking y’all through Erin’s very eventful past 2+ weeks, I know Erin would first want to wish each of y’all a very healthy, happy new year!
Now, let’s go back to the Monday before Thanksgiving…
Erin got sick…REALLY, REALLY sick and had to be taken to Antananarivo (Tana, the capital). We still don’t know what she had…we do know that she was very, very dehydrated. Finally, by Thursday (Thanksgiving) she was re-hydrated, but the doctors would not allow her to leave Antananarivo, so she could not join her PCT group at the PC Thanksgiving celebration. Erin was disappointed and then…WOW! The head of PC Madagascar had some of Erin’s clean clothes delivered to her, she was cleaned up and she went to the Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy's home Thanksgiving. She said it was amazing! She learned so much – some of the information was disheartening. There are no factories in northern Madagascar which would provide jobs and help tremendously in this greatly impoverished area. One reason for this is to perpetuate the situation since this area of the country isn’t supportive of the current government. Can you imagine – lack of integrity in the government!?! Thanksgiving was a very unique and enjoyable experience for her! By Friday, the doctors decided that Erin was well enough to return to her host family. Erin was very pleased…her time with them would be ending soon.
The next week, Erin and the other PCT’s left their host families to go to Antananarivo for the last of their training. I think I had mentioned in earlier blogs that Erin had some serious concerns about her site placement. Safety and security are HUGE issues and the PC Security man agreed. The village had not built Erin’s house although they said they had done so…this is of great importance since it indicates the village is committed to having the volunteer - and the volunteer needs a place to live. (Saying that they had done do when they hadn’t is a big concern, too!) The PC wanted Erin to go to the site-the house was finally built- and try to open the new site. Erin was uncomfortable with this for several reasons. Her safety was her first concern. She was also uncomfortable with the idea of “trying” the site since commitment to the site is very important. To make a long story, actually a very long night, short…last Thursday afternoon through Friday morning…Erin’s returning home was a possibility. If Erin were given the ultimatum to go to the site or to come home – as heartbreaking as it would have been, Erin would have come home. (That’s how very seriously endangered Erin was!) Happily, Erin is going to another site. They, too, have not had a healthcare communicator. This site is also in challenging northern Madagascar. Most importantly, Erin feels safe in this village. The village has an environmental PCV – also named Erin. (I think her name is Erin Cross.) Our Erin is SO HAPPY!!!
This morning, I heard from Erin after her swearing in. She said the ceremony was incredible! She sounded as thrilled as she had been after her walk down the Lawn. She is enjoying her last evening with the other PCV’s (no longer PCT’s…officially volunteers, not trainees!), She’s also enjoying running water and electricity…as of 6:00 AM tomorrow morning – she’s off to Sakaramy where there is no running water, no electricity…back to poverty-life. And she will enjoy her two years of service helping her people to be healthier.
Y’all, please write Erin…including CD’s and small surprises is great, too! During her 10 weeks of training, she was with the other PCT’s…now she is quite isolated, so hearing from y’all is even more imperative. Remember, y’all are a tremendous source of inspiration, encouragement, strength and love!
There are several funny stories that I have not included out of respect for y’all’s time during this busy, busy time of year. Please feel free to contact me if you have questions/concerns/etc. (See previous blogs for my contact information if needed.)
Before I conclude, I want to take a moment to thank y’all for being here for Erin. Every time we speak, she first mentions y’all – missing y’all, appreciating y’all for the letters she’s received (and e-mails I’ve received – copied and mailed to her), talking to y’all, occasionally….THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! I do my best to reply to y’all, leave messages of thanks…and for anyone I’ve missed, I apologize. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU…from the bottom of my heart!!! I, too, wish y'all a new year filled with much happiness and good health!
Hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving and have plans for a fabulous holiday season! Before taking y’all through Erin’s very eventful past 2+ weeks, I know Erin would first want to wish each of y’all a very healthy, happy new year!
Now, let’s go back to the Monday before Thanksgiving…
Erin got sick…REALLY, REALLY sick and had to be taken to Antananarivo (Tana, the capital). We still don’t know what she had…we do know that she was very, very dehydrated. Finally, by Thursday (Thanksgiving) she was re-hydrated, but the doctors would not allow her to leave Antananarivo, so she could not join her PCT group at the PC Thanksgiving celebration. Erin was disappointed and then…WOW! The head of PC Madagascar had some of Erin’s clean clothes delivered to her, she was cleaned up and she went to the Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy's home Thanksgiving. She said it was amazing! She learned so much – some of the information was disheartening. There are no factories in northern Madagascar which would provide jobs and help tremendously in this greatly impoverished area. One reason for this is to perpetuate the situation since this area of the country isn’t supportive of the current government. Can you imagine – lack of integrity in the government!?! Thanksgiving was a very unique and enjoyable experience for her! By Friday, the doctors decided that Erin was well enough to return to her host family. Erin was very pleased…her time with them would be ending soon.
The next week, Erin and the other PCT’s left their host families to go to Antananarivo for the last of their training. I think I had mentioned in earlier blogs that Erin had some serious concerns about her site placement. Safety and security are HUGE issues and the PC Security man agreed. The village had not built Erin’s house although they said they had done so…this is of great importance since it indicates the village is committed to having the volunteer - and the volunteer needs a place to live. (Saying that they had done do when they hadn’t is a big concern, too!) The PC wanted Erin to go to the site-the house was finally built- and try to open the new site. Erin was uncomfortable with this for several reasons. Her safety was her first concern. She was also uncomfortable with the idea of “trying” the site since commitment to the site is very important. To make a long story, actually a very long night, short…last Thursday afternoon through Friday morning…Erin’s returning home was a possibility. If Erin were given the ultimatum to go to the site or to come home – as heartbreaking as it would have been, Erin would have come home. (That’s how very seriously endangered Erin was!) Happily, Erin is going to another site. They, too, have not had a healthcare communicator. This site is also in challenging northern Madagascar. Most importantly, Erin feels safe in this village. The village has an environmental PCV – also named Erin. (I think her name is Erin Cross.) Our Erin is SO HAPPY!!!
This morning, I heard from Erin after her swearing in. She said the ceremony was incredible! She sounded as thrilled as she had been after her walk down the Lawn. She is enjoying her last evening with the other PCV’s (no longer PCT’s…officially volunteers, not trainees!), She’s also enjoying running water and electricity…as of 6:00 AM tomorrow morning – she’s off to Sakaramy where there is no running water, no electricity…back to poverty-life. And she will enjoy her two years of service helping her people to be healthier.
Y’all, please write Erin…including CD’s and small surprises is great, too! During her 10 weeks of training, she was with the other PCT’s…now she is quite isolated, so hearing from y’all is even more imperative. Remember, y’all are a tremendous source of inspiration, encouragement, strength and love!
There are several funny stories that I have not included out of respect for y’all’s time during this busy, busy time of year. Please feel free to contact me if you have questions/concerns/etc. (See previous blogs for my contact information if needed.)
Before I conclude, I want to take a moment to thank y’all for being here for Erin. Every time we speak, she first mentions y’all – missing y’all, appreciating y’all for the letters she’s received (and e-mails I’ve received – copied and mailed to her), talking to y’all, occasionally….THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! I do my best to reply to y’all, leave messages of thanks…and for anyone I’ve missed, I apologize. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU…from the bottom of my heart!!! I, too, wish y'all a new year filled with much happiness and good health!
Feo of Erin - Feno Sary (The Voice of Erin - Full a Picture
Feo of Erin – Feno Sary (The Voice of Erin – Full a Picture)
This is the best I can do for Sakalava to English word choice – limited words!
Hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving and have plans for a fabulous holiday season! Before taking y’all through Erin’s very eventful past 2+ weeks, I know Erin would first want to wish each of y’all a very healthy, happy new year!
Now, let’s go back to the Monday before Thanksgiving…
Erin got sick…REALLY, REALLY sick and had to be taken to Antananarivo (Tana, the capital). We still don’t know what she had…we do know that she was very, very dehydrated. Finally, by Thursday (Thanksgiving) she was re-hydrated, but the doctors would not allow her to leave Antananarivo, so she could not join her PCT group at the PC Thanksgiving celebration. Erin was disappointed and then…WOW! The head of PC Madagascar had some of Erin’s clean clothes sent to her, she was cleaned up and she went to the Deputy Ambassador’s mansion for Thanksgiving. She said it was amazing! She learned so much – some of the information was disheartening. There are no factories in northern Madagascar which would provide jobs and help tremendously in this greatly impoverished area. One reason for this is to perpetuate the situation since this area of the country isn’t supportive of the current government. Can you imagine – lack of integrity in the government!?! This was a very unique and enjoyable experience for her! By Friday, the doctors decided that Erin was well enough to return to her host family. Erin was very pleased…her time with them would be ending soon.
The next week, Erin and the other PCT’s left their host families to go to Antananarivo for the last of their training. I think I had mentioned in earlier blogs that Erin had some serious concerns about her site placement. Safety and security are HUGE issues and the PC Security man agreed. The village had not built Erin’s house although they said they had done so…this is a big thing since it indicates the village is committed to having the volunteer. (Saying that they have when they hadn’t is a big concern, too!) The PC wanted Erin to go to the site-the house was finally built- and try to open the new site. Erin was uncomfortable with this for several reasons. Her safety was her first concern. She was also uncomfortable with the idea of “trying” the site since commitment to the site is very important. To make a long story, actually a very long night, short…last Thursday afternoon through Friday morning…Erin’s returning home was a possibility. If Erin were given the ultimatum to go to the site or to come home – as heartbreaking as it would have been, Erin would have come home. (That’s how very seriously endangered Erin was!) Happily, Erin is going to another site. They, too, have not had a healthcare communicator. This site is also in challenging north Madagascar. Most importantly, Erin feels safe in this village. The village has an environmental PCV – also named Erin. (I think her name is Erin Cross.) Our Erin is SO HAPPY!!!
This morning, I heard from Erin after her swearing in. She said the ceremony was incredible! She sounded as thrilled as she had been after her walk down the Lawn. She is enjoying her last evening with the other PCV’s (no longer PCT’s…officially volunteers, not trainees!), She’s also enjoying running water and electricity…as of 6:00 AM tomorrow morning – she’s off to Sakaramy where there is no running water, no electricity…back to poverty-life. And she will enjoy her two years of service helping her people to be healthier.
Y’all, please write Erin…including CD’s and small surprises is great, too! During her 10 weeks of training, she was with the other PCT’s…now she is quite isolated, so hearing from y’all is even more imperative. Remember, y’all are a tremendous source of inspiration, encouragement, strength and love!
There are several funny stories that I have not included out of respect for y’all’s time during this busy, busy time of year. Please feel free to contact me if you have questions/concerns/etc. (See previous blogs for my contact information if needed.)
Before I conclude, I want to take a moment to thank y’all for being here for Erin. Every time we speak, she first mentions y’all – missing y’all, appreciating y’all for the letters she’s received (and e-mails I’ve received – copied and mailed to her), talking to y’all, occasionally….THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! I do my best to reply to y’all, leave messages of thanks…and for anyone I’ve missed, I apologize. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU…from the bottom of my heart!!!
This is the best I can do for Sakalava to English word choice – limited words!
Hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving and have plans for a fabulous holiday season! Before taking y’all through Erin’s very eventful past 2+ weeks, I know Erin would first want to wish each of y’all a very healthy, happy new year!
Now, let’s go back to the Monday before Thanksgiving…
Erin got sick…REALLY, REALLY sick and had to be taken to Antananarivo (Tana, the capital). We still don’t know what she had…we do know that she was very, very dehydrated. Finally, by Thursday (Thanksgiving) she was re-hydrated, but the doctors would not allow her to leave Antananarivo, so she could not join her PCT group at the PC Thanksgiving celebration. Erin was disappointed and then…WOW! The head of PC Madagascar had some of Erin’s clean clothes sent to her, she was cleaned up and she went to the Deputy Ambassador’s mansion for Thanksgiving. She said it was amazing! She learned so much – some of the information was disheartening. There are no factories in northern Madagascar which would provide jobs and help tremendously in this greatly impoverished area. One reason for this is to perpetuate the situation since this area of the country isn’t supportive of the current government. Can you imagine – lack of integrity in the government!?! This was a very unique and enjoyable experience for her! By Friday, the doctors decided that Erin was well enough to return to her host family. Erin was very pleased…her time with them would be ending soon.
The next week, Erin and the other PCT’s left their host families to go to Antananarivo for the last of their training. I think I had mentioned in earlier blogs that Erin had some serious concerns about her site placement. Safety and security are HUGE issues and the PC Security man agreed. The village had not built Erin’s house although they said they had done so…this is a big thing since it indicates the village is committed to having the volunteer. (Saying that they have when they hadn’t is a big concern, too!) The PC wanted Erin to go to the site-the house was finally built- and try to open the new site. Erin was uncomfortable with this for several reasons. Her safety was her first concern. She was also uncomfortable with the idea of “trying” the site since commitment to the site is very important. To make a long story, actually a very long night, short…last Thursday afternoon through Friday morning…Erin’s returning home was a possibility. If Erin were given the ultimatum to go to the site or to come home – as heartbreaking as it would have been, Erin would have come home. (That’s how very seriously endangered Erin was!) Happily, Erin is going to another site. They, too, have not had a healthcare communicator. This site is also in challenging north Madagascar. Most importantly, Erin feels safe in this village. The village has an environmental PCV – also named Erin. (I think her name is Erin Cross.) Our Erin is SO HAPPY!!!
This morning, I heard from Erin after her swearing in. She said the ceremony was incredible! She sounded as thrilled as she had been after her walk down the Lawn. She is enjoying her last evening with the other PCV’s (no longer PCT’s…officially volunteers, not trainees!), She’s also enjoying running water and electricity…as of 6:00 AM tomorrow morning – she’s off to Sakaramy where there is no running water, no electricity…back to poverty-life. And she will enjoy her two years of service helping her people to be healthier.
Y’all, please write Erin…including CD’s and small surprises is great, too! During her 10 weeks of training, she was with the other PCT’s…now she is quite isolated, so hearing from y’all is even more imperative. Remember, y’all are a tremendous source of inspiration, encouragement, strength and love!
There are several funny stories that I have not included out of respect for y’all’s time during this busy, busy time of year. Please feel free to contact me if you have questions/concerns/etc. (See previous blogs for my contact information if needed.)
Before I conclude, I want to take a moment to thank y’all for being here for Erin. Every time we speak, she first mentions y’all – missing y’all, appreciating y’all for the letters she’s received (and e-mails I’ve received – copied and mailed to her), talking to y’all, occasionally….THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! I do my best to reply to y’all, leave messages of thanks…and for anyone I’ve missed, I apologize. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU…from the bottom of my heart!!!
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Ankitiny from Erin (Really from Erin...don't know "from" in Sakalava)
This is a letter I received from Erin on 11/26/07 that she asked me to post on her blog. (Mail is a little slow!) Erin sends this with her love and appreciation for each of y'all! Enjoy!
"10/22/07
…this is a compilation of why I love the Peace Corps and Madagascar…
WHY I LOVE PEACE CORPS MADAGASCAR:
1. Our trainers are amazing! Ex. Franka (my Sakalava
mpamplanatra [teacher]) figured out how to say “you rock” in
English so she could tell me that I rock – she is botrabotra-be
[so cute]. She also remembers everything…even if I only tell
her once. The first week I told her “ zoky-tanynaka pihira,
Eric anarany” [My older brother is a musician; his name’s Eric]
and when we get mail or a call from home, she always asks,
“How is Eric?” She has been miasa [working] for the PC efitra
taona [four years], so former PCT’s taught her the funniest
things – when she forgets something, she always says “brain
fart” – it’s precious!
2. As you can tell, I am finally beginning to think in “Gasy”. The
volunteers taking mefloquin (malaria prevention medicine which
gives you crazy dreams) are starting to dream in “Gasy”. The
PC does an unbelievable job with our language training. Y’all
better keep in touch mahay [super well] so that I don’t forget
English – HA! HA! Seriously, though, what really stands out for
me about the PC is the fact that we go into our villages speaking
their specific dialect. It’s such a great way to go to these “off
the map” places and really express how much we care about
them. They feel so worthy to have us come all the way bokany
Ameriky [from America] and work with them in their own
language. Many NGO’s (non-government organizations) here
only speak French although only the well-educated know French
and we can truly help the masses of illiterate people because we
can communicate with them.
3. PC totally knows when we are at our last wit and prevents us
from breaking down by being very thoughtful. For both
Halloween and Thanksgiving during training they are taking us
to a PC house with great American food, hot showers, lake we
can canoe in, etc. I can’t wait! Every Thursday during training,
we eat lunch as a group and Gaby, the Tana cook (who used to be
a chef at the nicest restaurant in Tana – but we stole him!)
makes us a delicious lunch. They make the transition very
doable. Also, once a month, when I get to my site, I will get to
go to the prettiest city in Madagascar for phone/email/hot
shower/bank/market/etc. I am so lucky to get to live near
Diego. By the time you read this, I may have already visited it
:-).
4.The volunteers across the country/across sectors work on
killer projects together. I can’t wait for the bike races, soccer
tournaments, etc. We get to go on “business trips” for these.
5. After a long hard day, on my walk home up the hills, through
the rice fields…I get to see a magical sunset – maty maoandro –
the sun dies – and I know that G-d is nigh because amid the
poverty, the lack of comforts, the stress of learning so much,
the pain of missing y’all, the adorable curious kids are
ambitiously wanting to always hand out with us, the super muddy
paths, the rain-soaked clothes, the dirty EVERYTHING, the
smelly kabone (the area where people go to the bathroom
outside), the rooster which crow way too early, the akoho we
have to learn how to kill [chicken] with our bare hands, the
setroko [smoke] which blazes all harivo [evening] and gives
every tsaiky [child] in our village aretin-tratra [ARI], I know
G-d is with us here; He’s everywhere. We are all humans and
neighbors and because He said we need to take care of each
other, it’s the greatest honor to me that I get to be here
learning so much about life, about the other (something that I
can’t read…sorry y’all!) of the world’s population sharing their
joy under the big blue sky.
10/24/07
6. I am so happy today! Three environmental volunteers from
around Madagascar came to talk to us. One named Erin, too,
lives only 15 miles away from me (when I move to my site)!
She told me all about Diego. It sounds great! There are 9 of
us who will bank there. (The nine are not from Erin’s
training group…they are nine PCV’s who are from another
sector.) There’s a nice hotel near the PC House where we can
use the pool! She also said the beaches and national parks up
north are incredible. She said you get use to the heat quickly
- plus I would much rather be in the tropical part of
Madagascar because the weather here on the plateau is not good. Diego has no electrical
towers – all of the power is through generators so sometimes internet/phones don’t work but
we are learning a lot of patience already so I will survive. I only get mail/phone/internet
once a month for 3 days and will only be able to mail y’all once a month, too, when I go to
Diego. Sorry you will have to wait for so long! Y’all better write a lot so I can take the letters
back to site and read them all month. It was so great to hear more about where I’m going!
The volunteers up there work together a lot which will be awesome! Emily, on e of the super
mahay [great] volunteers who trained us is almost done with her service and lives near Diego
so she left me a ton of her supplies – pots, silverware, etc. in Diego which is incredible! Oh,
and the music and the dancing up north sounds so much fun, too! I can’t wait for my site
visit! My new address is:
Erin Levin, PCV
Peace Corps Regional House
6 Rue Commandant
Marchard-Place
Kabary 201
Antsiranana MADAGASCAR
Please send mail there starting by Nov. 15! I hear we need more DVD’s, so feel free to send
those! THANKS!
7. My sister, Meltine, is adorable! She has a notebook where she writes down the song lyrics
she hears on the radio, radio is huge here, and half the songs they play are in English so last
night she made me sing them to the whole family and I had to try to explain what they mean
which was so hard! 1 – I don’t speak the same language as my host family – they speak
Malagasy and are from Merina – Indosian Island tribe – and I an living far north and speak
Sakalava – they are from south western Africa. 2 – I have a horrible voice. 3 – Some of the
songs are a bit dirty – lots of Shakira and Fergie, etc. It was hilarious – like something out of
Saturday Night Live. J (Y’all, I don’t know what kind of radio Erin is talking about since they
have no electricity…maybe some sort of transistor radio…y’all may be much to young to even
know what that is!)
8. We are already making a difference. I had a huge fear that I would get here and be totally
consumed with the poverty and become disillusioned. However, because we live in the
poverty, it becomes a way of life and we realize what we need to do to survive and can share
these skills mixed with our wonderful American educations and seriously improve the
conditions of life for all those around us. For example, my Mom is sitting right next to me
right now reading a newsletter I gave her in Gasy about getting vaccines for children and
where around our village, babies get vitamin A pills, weighed, etc. She will go tell everyone
around us what she learned! News here travels very fast somehow – especially when it is
something a vazah [white person] tells them. It’s really cool here, though, because our
families consider us real family now and not even vazahs anymore. Looking different, but
speaking their language, is the most advantageous way to disseminate information. People
flock to us and really listen to us. The challenge is really persuading and training them that
these behavior changes are crucial and good for them. Luckily, our training is the best and I
love talking to people – I’ve just got to take baby steps! Awww….my Mom just showed me
where is says that sweet potatoes and carrots have lots of vitamin A because that’s what we
had for lunch and she’s so proud! AND, my sister, Chantall, who is 22, just came in with her
botrabotra [very cute] 2 and 3 year old daughters who are in their church dresses because
they just went to the CSB [clinic] to get vaccinated! YEA! These are the moments when I feel
like here really has so much hope for this world to be better.”
(This is a letter that Erin wrote and asked me to post on her blog. Later this week, I will write
a lot from the conversation we had, so stay tuned…Erin is feeling much better – however, she
had been taken to Antananarivo – the capital – because she had to get re-hydrated after
getting very sick…still waiting for the lab reports to, hopefully, learn what she had. After 4-5
days of re-hydration, she’s back in her host village. There are lots of stories that go with this…
her Mom lamenting over her sick child that was taken away for 5 days and her sick cow! Hope
everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Please know that both Erin and I are so very
thankful for the support, encouragement and love y’all share through your letters/packages to
Erin.)
With tremendous gratefulness,
Erin’s Mom
"10/22/07
…this is a compilation of why I love the Peace Corps and Madagascar…
WHY I LOVE PEACE CORPS MADAGASCAR:
1. Our trainers are amazing! Ex. Franka (my Sakalava
mpamplanatra [teacher]) figured out how to say “you rock” in
English so she could tell me that I rock – she is botrabotra-be
[so cute]. She also remembers everything…even if I only tell
her once. The first week I told her “ zoky-tanynaka pihira,
Eric anarany” [My older brother is a musician; his name’s Eric]
and when we get mail or a call from home, she always asks,
“How is Eric?” She has been miasa [working] for the PC efitra
taona [four years], so former PCT’s taught her the funniest
things – when she forgets something, she always says “brain
fart” – it’s precious!
2. As you can tell, I am finally beginning to think in “Gasy”. The
volunteers taking mefloquin (malaria prevention medicine which
gives you crazy dreams) are starting to dream in “Gasy”. The
PC does an unbelievable job with our language training. Y’all
better keep in touch mahay [super well] so that I don’t forget
English – HA! HA! Seriously, though, what really stands out for
me about the PC is the fact that we go into our villages speaking
their specific dialect. It’s such a great way to go to these “off
the map” places and really express how much we care about
them. They feel so worthy to have us come all the way bokany
Ameriky [from America] and work with them in their own
language. Many NGO’s (non-government organizations) here
only speak French although only the well-educated know French
and we can truly help the masses of illiterate people because we
can communicate with them.
3. PC totally knows when we are at our last wit and prevents us
from breaking down by being very thoughtful. For both
Halloween and Thanksgiving during training they are taking us
to a PC house with great American food, hot showers, lake we
can canoe in, etc. I can’t wait! Every Thursday during training,
we eat lunch as a group and Gaby, the Tana cook (who used to be
a chef at the nicest restaurant in Tana – but we stole him!)
makes us a delicious lunch. They make the transition very
doable. Also, once a month, when I get to my site, I will get to
go to the prettiest city in Madagascar for phone/email/hot
shower/bank/market/etc. I am so lucky to get to live near
Diego. By the time you read this, I may have already visited it
:-).
4.The volunteers across the country/across sectors work on
killer projects together. I can’t wait for the bike races, soccer
tournaments, etc. We get to go on “business trips” for these.
5. After a long hard day, on my walk home up the hills, through
the rice fields…I get to see a magical sunset – maty maoandro –
the sun dies – and I know that G-d is nigh because amid the
poverty, the lack of comforts, the stress of learning so much,
the pain of missing y’all, the adorable curious kids are
ambitiously wanting to always hand out with us, the super muddy
paths, the rain-soaked clothes, the dirty EVERYTHING, the
smelly kabone (the area where people go to the bathroom
outside), the rooster which crow way too early, the akoho we
have to learn how to kill [chicken] with our bare hands, the
setroko [smoke] which blazes all harivo [evening] and gives
every tsaiky [child] in our village aretin-tratra [ARI], I know
G-d is with us here; He’s everywhere. We are all humans and
neighbors and because He said we need to take care of each
other, it’s the greatest honor to me that I get to be here
learning so much about life, about the other (something that I
can’t read…sorry y’all!) of the world’s population sharing their
joy under the big blue sky.
10/24/07
6. I am so happy today! Three environmental volunteers from
around Madagascar came to talk to us. One named Erin, too,
lives only 15 miles away from me (when I move to my site)!
She told me all about Diego. It sounds great! There are 9 of
us who will bank there. (The nine are not from Erin’s
training group…they are nine PCV’s who are from another
sector.) There’s a nice hotel near the PC House where we can
use the pool! She also said the beaches and national parks up
north are incredible. She said you get use to the heat quickly
- plus I would much rather be in the tropical part of
Madagascar because the weather here on the plateau is not good. Diego has no electrical
towers – all of the power is through generators so sometimes internet/phones don’t work but
we are learning a lot of patience already so I will survive. I only get mail/phone/internet
once a month for 3 days and will only be able to mail y’all once a month, too, when I go to
Diego. Sorry you will have to wait for so long! Y’all better write a lot so I can take the letters
back to site and read them all month. It was so great to hear more about where I’m going!
The volunteers up there work together a lot which will be awesome! Emily, on e of the super
mahay [great] volunteers who trained us is almost done with her service and lives near Diego
so she left me a ton of her supplies – pots, silverware, etc. in Diego which is incredible! Oh,
and the music and the dancing up north sounds so much fun, too! I can’t wait for my site
visit! My new address is:
Erin Levin, PCV
Peace Corps Regional House
6 Rue Commandant
Marchard-Place
Kabary 201
Antsiranana MADAGASCAR
Please send mail there starting by Nov. 15! I hear we need more DVD’s, so feel free to send
those! THANKS!
7. My sister, Meltine, is adorable! She has a notebook where she writes down the song lyrics
she hears on the radio, radio is huge here, and half the songs they play are in English so last
night she made me sing them to the whole family and I had to try to explain what they mean
which was so hard! 1 – I don’t speak the same language as my host family – they speak
Malagasy and are from Merina – Indosian Island tribe – and I an living far north and speak
Sakalava – they are from south western Africa. 2 – I have a horrible voice. 3 – Some of the
songs are a bit dirty – lots of Shakira and Fergie, etc. It was hilarious – like something out of
Saturday Night Live. J (Y’all, I don’t know what kind of radio Erin is talking about since they
have no electricity…maybe some sort of transistor radio…y’all may be much to young to even
know what that is!)
8. We are already making a difference. I had a huge fear that I would get here and be totally
consumed with the poverty and become disillusioned. However, because we live in the
poverty, it becomes a way of life and we realize what we need to do to survive and can share
these skills mixed with our wonderful American educations and seriously improve the
conditions of life for all those around us. For example, my Mom is sitting right next to me
right now reading a newsletter I gave her in Gasy about getting vaccines for children and
where around our village, babies get vitamin A pills, weighed, etc. She will go tell everyone
around us what she learned! News here travels very fast somehow – especially when it is
something a vazah [white person] tells them. It’s really cool here, though, because our
families consider us real family now and not even vazahs anymore. Looking different, but
speaking their language, is the most advantageous way to disseminate information. People
flock to us and really listen to us. The challenge is really persuading and training them that
these behavior changes are crucial and good for them. Luckily, our training is the best and I
love talking to people – I’ve just got to take baby steps! Awww….my Mom just showed me
where is says that sweet potatoes and carrots have lots of vitamin A because that’s what we
had for lunch and she’s so proud! AND, my sister, Chantall, who is 22, just came in with her
botrabotra [very cute] 2 and 3 year old daughters who are in their church dresses because
they just went to the CSB [clinic] to get vaccinated! YEA! These are the moments when I feel
like here really has so much hope for this world to be better.”
(This is a letter that Erin wrote and asked me to post on her blog. Later this week, I will write
a lot from the conversation we had, so stay tuned…Erin is feeling much better – however, she
had been taken to Antananarivo – the capital – because she had to get re-hydrated after
getting very sick…still waiting for the lab reports to, hopefully, learn what she had. After 4-5
days of re-hydration, she’s back in her host village. There are lots of stories that go with this…
her Mom lamenting over her sick child that was taken away for 5 days and her sick cow! Hope
everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Please know that both Erin and I are so very
thankful for the support, encouragement and love y’all share through your letters/packages to
Erin.)
With tremendous gratefulness,
Erin’s Mom
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Jijy miaro Erin (Conversation with Erin)
Fitiavana (love) from Erin to all of y’all! She is asking that y’all keep her in your prayers and that y’all, please; continue to be so supportive – she needs y’all now – more than ever! Erin is concerned about her site placement. She was up there last week and there are security issues. Erin is not certain that she – as a Peace Corps Volunteer – is really wanted in the village. Her house was not built even though they had told the Peace Corps that it was. (The building of the house/hut is important because it demonstrates their want and willingness to have the Peace Corps come into their village.) Without going into detail, Erin’s visit was nothing like when she first arrived in the village of her host family – and remember, she’s in that village without the other (17? or less now) volunteers who are with families in a nearby village where she goes for training. Please write letters sending encouragement – help Erin to maintain her incredible attitude; help her to ward off disappointment and disillusionment. Whether she is placed in Sadjoavato (where she is feeling fearful to go) or Sakaramy (where I think we are hoping for), there is SO MUCH work to be done. The northern region is even more impoverished than the plateau region we have described in earlier blog entries. The northern region is the poorest, most neglected area of this country – which is one of the ten poorest countries in the world. Erin said that with all the hard work she will be doing over the next two years, she will not even see a difference – she will be laying the groundwork for change. Giving so much of oneself and not seeing the outcome is difficult and Erin really wants and needs the encouragement, strength and love that y’all have been giving to her. She differentiated the plateau region from the northern region by comparing the plateau to the poorest areas of West Virginia – with rice patties, though – and the north to the Sudan. Erin asked that we help her to see the bright side – “this is much harder than I ever thought it would be. Everyone, please help!”
Erin was a little naïve…perhaps an understatement!!! She was upset to learn that prostitution is legal for those 18 years and older, that khat is legal and that there is corruption. When the taxi busse is pulled over by the “police” and the driver gave him money, Erin thought they driver was paying a toll…not a bribe because of something that was been done illegally! Seriously, thought, Erin is VERY concerned about the “sexual tourism”. Many YOUNG girls 11, 12, 13 year olds are being made up to look 18 and “sold” to French businessmen or tourists because they and their families desperately need the money. Erin wants to find a way to empower these young girls; she wants to help them find other ways to earn money and to break this horrible cycle. She is even thinking about establishing some sort of “safe” house for these young girls so they will be safe, they can learn a money-making craft/skill, and they will no longer have to prostitute themselves. Erin was hoping that some of you may have some ideas that you could share with her; that y’all may have some advice. (I know that WSB is going to have a segment on something similar to this right here in the Atlanta area, so I’m going to call them tomorrow to get a transcript.) Also, Erin is very concerned that most of the people in the north believe that AIDS is not real; that it was made up by governments to get money for drugs and that condoms were to be used to stop procreation and end their survivial. Erin wants to find some visual testimontials from other African nations that demonstrate the harsh realities of HIV and AIDS. Do any of y'all have any ideas to help Erin with this challenge? Please share whatever you know. Thanks!!!
And now for a little Erin humor…
Erin just completed an intensive survival course – starting a fire without matches, first aid, etc. For the last activity, the PCV’s were going to make their own “snack” according to the trainers. Erin had to catch a chicken, wring its neck, clean out the insides, pluck it and fry it…that was to be her snack! After doing all that she HAD to do, she no longer had an appetite for chicken!!! As gross as this is…imagining Erin doing all this may make you laugh…hey, I don’t eat chicken, anyway!!!
Please, please keep those encouraging letters, the CD’s she so very much enjoys and everything else coming to Erin. Y’all mean so very much to her and she is going to begin her MOST difficult challenge! Remember, if you’d like to send small packages, use the bubbled envelopes and don’t go over 3 pounds. Tape up the bubbled envelope to detour people from breaking into it. Send “religious books”, “educational items” and “personal, feminine hygiene items” if you have to fill out the little customs form. Her new address is:
Erin Levin, PCV
Peace Corps Regional House
6 Rue Commandant
Marchard-Place
Karaby 201
Antsiranana MADAGASCAR
If there’s anything I can do to help you help Erin, please, do not hesitate to call (770) 403 – 2141 or to e-mail me levinb@fultonschools.org or brl259@aol.com or write
695 Saint Regis Lane
Alpharetta, GA 30022
And, please know how very much I appreciate each of you for being the incredible friend you are!!!
With tremendous thanks!
Brenda
Erin was a little naïve…perhaps an understatement!!! She was upset to learn that prostitution is legal for those 18 years and older, that khat is legal and that there is corruption. When the taxi busse is pulled over by the “police” and the driver gave him money, Erin thought they driver was paying a toll…not a bribe because of something that was been done illegally! Seriously, thought, Erin is VERY concerned about the “sexual tourism”. Many YOUNG girls 11, 12, 13 year olds are being made up to look 18 and “sold” to French businessmen or tourists because they and their families desperately need the money. Erin wants to find a way to empower these young girls; she wants to help them find other ways to earn money and to break this horrible cycle. She is even thinking about establishing some sort of “safe” house for these young girls so they will be safe, they can learn a money-making craft/skill, and they will no longer have to prostitute themselves. Erin was hoping that some of you may have some ideas that you could share with her; that y’all may have some advice. (I know that WSB is going to have a segment on something similar to this right here in the Atlanta area, so I’m going to call them tomorrow to get a transcript.) Also, Erin is very concerned that most of the people in the north believe that AIDS is not real; that it was made up by governments to get money for drugs and that condoms were to be used to stop procreation and end their survivial. Erin wants to find some visual testimontials from other African nations that demonstrate the harsh realities of HIV and AIDS. Do any of y'all have any ideas to help Erin with this challenge? Please share whatever you know. Thanks!!!
And now for a little Erin humor…
Erin just completed an intensive survival course – starting a fire without matches, first aid, etc. For the last activity, the PCV’s were going to make their own “snack” according to the trainers. Erin had to catch a chicken, wring its neck, clean out the insides, pluck it and fry it…that was to be her snack! After doing all that she HAD to do, she no longer had an appetite for chicken!!! As gross as this is…imagining Erin doing all this may make you laugh…hey, I don’t eat chicken, anyway!!!
Please, please keep those encouraging letters, the CD’s she so very much enjoys and everything else coming to Erin. Y’all mean so very much to her and she is going to begin her MOST difficult challenge! Remember, if you’d like to send small packages, use the bubbled envelopes and don’t go over 3 pounds. Tape up the bubbled envelope to detour people from breaking into it. Send “religious books”, “educational items” and “personal, feminine hygiene items” if you have to fill out the little customs form. Her new address is:
Erin Levin, PCV
Peace Corps Regional House
6 Rue Commandant
Marchard-Place
Karaby 201
Antsiranana MADAGASCAR
If there’s anything I can do to help you help Erin, please, do not hesitate to call (770) 403 – 2141 or to e-mail me levinb@fultonschools.org or brl259@aol.com or write
695 Saint Regis Lane
Alpharetta, GA 30022
And, please know how very much I appreciate each of you for being the incredible friend you are!!!
With tremendous thanks!
Brenda
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Mbalatrara Jiaby (Hi everyone)!
(This is actually from Erin - sent via facebook since she didn't have gmail access, Please excuse any misspelled words, other errors and oddities - she used a French keyboard and did the best she could in a limited amount of time. Tomorrow, I will post another addition to this blog based on the conversation we had early this morning. Y'all, please enjoy this one from Erin and please read tomorrow's addition because Erin REALLY needs y'all! I hope y'all realize y'all's importance to Erin and that the support Erin receives from y'all truly helps her to help others. So, y'all, too, are making a difference through Erin's Peace Corps experience - MUCH THANKS!!!) ENJOY!
Thank you all so much for your letters, emails, calling me back when I can talk, thoughts, prayers, friendship and love. The past six weeks have been quite a ride…
I have:
-Checked my Gmail ONE TIME. I should be able to check it once a month when the weather is good and I can get to Deigo… but snail mail is still the best. Even better, email me then also print it and send it
to: Erin Levin, PCV
Peace Corps Regional House
6 Rue Commandant
Marchand-Place
Kabary 201
Antsiranana Madagascar
Don’t forget to write Airmail and Par Avion! If it is a package, please send it in a package envelope which is hard to break in to… the Antsiranana
(Diego) Post Office is known for breaking into boxes which are not over-tapped. In other communication news, I have a tiny, tiny bit of cell phone service when it is windy at my site! I will text message you and then you can call me back – yay!!! Phone Number: (must dial 011 to get out of states on some phones) 261-33-088-1952 and/or
261-32-514-0123
-Seen 6 types of lemurs (ankomba) which are so cute and totally worth a trip to Madagascar if I’m not a good enough reason… you all need to visit! This place is beautiful! Every few miles whole landscapes change. It’s so incredible that through the poverty there is this innate beauty here. Through the trash, smoke, shacks and millions of babies everywhere, there are the cool waterfalls, the volcanoes with rainforests on top of them, the thousands of miles of beaches with peacock blue (that’s right mom!) or turquoise or red waters. There are the plentiful fruit trees full of mangos, bananas, papaya, coconuts, lechees, jack fruit, and pibosy.
-Hung out on the side of the road with 30 Gasy (in a car which in America would hold a max of 12) because our Bush Taxi (taxi-brousse) broke down… 4 times and counting. This is actually REALLY fun once you get used to it. It’s a great chance to get to know folks and prove that you are not a vazah (foreigner). All the people in Mahitsitady (the village we live in with our host families), Ambatalona (the town on the main road near our village)… and now starting in Deigo (my AMAZING banking town) and hopefully soon in Sadjoavato (my site for 2 years) call me Gasy now. It’s really cute. Even today when I was visiting my site this weekend, I sort of found a host family there. I will be living behind the rural health clinic (they are building my house right now – it’s made out of palm – pretty cool, huh?) The mom and older sister and her fiancé (who is a rainforest guide so actually speaks some English) showed me all around and when the precious little kids would yell “Salute Vazah!” (Most white people are rich French businessmen), I shouted back “Mbalatsara Gasy!” which totally blew them away because “Hello” in Gasy is “Manao Hoana” but up here they speak Sakalava and the kids can not believe I do too, so by the end of the day they were all calling me Gasy too which made my day! It’s so hot here that by the end of 25 more months I may even look like one, but with white hair
-Seen a dozen types of geckos and chameleons which are really cool creatures, I kind of want one as a pet
-Learned a language, yeah a whole language, I am not quite fluent but I am shocked at how well I got by on this week on my own up here… thank goodness for our incredible Gasy PC staff and Franka, my amazing Sakalava teacher! Fa Mbala Mianatra (But Still Learning) Mbalatsara – literally means, “still good?!”
-Built a clay stove (fantana mitsitsy – improved stove) for my host family so they will have less smoke and less colds and use less wood and charcoal and save themselves and their precious forest which they are tearing away everyday by burning massive amounts of trash, slash-and-burning the land to plant rice paddies, etc. Here, the people live day to day. They work in the fields today to put rice on the table tonight. It’s very hard for them to think about tomorrow, needless to say 10 years from now. If they keep going this rate with slash-and-burn, their beautiful country full of lush rainforest, animals and plants which exist only here, will disappear way too soon.
(Just another reason you all need to hurry up and visit me). It’s so amazing that these small feasible actions, if taught to enough people and disseminated widely and actually implemented, can truly make them healthier, happier and sustain their lives and land.
-Learned to cook (mandoky) for the first time in my life and learned to make the best peanut butter (tutu-pistasy) ever!
-Slipped down cliffs of red mud (teny mena) and still sat through class all day
-Mastered the art of purifying water (rano madio – clean water)
-Begun to learn how to carry buckets of water and bags of rice and peanuts and veggies and fruits on my head… it is way harder than it looks
-Been constantly stared at and shocked many people when I burst out the Gasy
-Pretty much only used a “kabone” hole in the ground, and “ladosy” rock with a “lamba” cloth or kakazu “palm-type tree sticks – around it to go to the bathroom and bucket-shower. Oh and washed all my insanely dirty clothes in an even dirtier river/rice paddy… I will not be clean until I get home December 2009. BUT it’s totally cool. The no power, no water, no nothing was pretty easy to get used to. I think it took about 20 hours to feel comfortable enough with it. A huge point of the Peace Corps, and why it is working, is because we all actually live with the people we are working with and helping at the same level they are at.
Having so little is actually more rewarding to me than having so much.
It makes me feel equal to my friends and family here and hopefully it will hugely help me integrate into Sadjoavato. I am opening the site and they are a bit skeptical but I will hopefully win them over. It is the most humbling and challenging experience of my life and I have never felt God’s presence so strongly. Everyday is a rollercoaster but thankfully because our purpose here is so evident, it is worth it for me.
-Eaten rice (vary) three times a day every day… except on the rare occasion in Tana or Diego where there is pizza, cold cokes, ice cream etc
-Woken up every morning at 4:30am to the rooster… but it’s okay because there is nothing to do after dark so I’m usually fast asleep by 9:30pm (candles only last so long for letter writing/reading and there are only so many batteries and sunlight for the music…)
-Taught 46 seven and eight year-old how to brush their teeth and seen the biggest smiles on their faces when we got to give them tooth brushes
-Become a part of two new families – my host family in the Highlands and in Sadjoavato. I love them both dearly and it should warm all of your hearts to know the patience, kindness and love they have so openly shared with me. Compared to even a homeless family in the states, they have nothing, yet they find a way to share with me. Even if it is just teaching me how to pick a mango or jack fruit that’s ripe or find a place with shade and a breeze.
-Watched a soccer (labolle) match packed with an audience that would make up 5 surrounding villages on a cliff 3 miles away from anything… it was nuts!thanks again .)
-Had one of my good PC friends family’s cow have a baby cow and that night they ate the placenta for dinner (sakafo gasy – Malagasy food they say)
-Seen the most beautiful sunsets and stars of my life and been totally refreshed by them in a way I never thought imaginable
-Made friends with an incredible Gasy band called the Spesialista and had them teach me the Gasy drums, Velia and rain-shaker. Benja-Gasy, the lead singer got so excited when I said I was a PC volunteer and told me that he was one of the very few men in Madagascar with a vasectomy and that he is famous and will come tell all the men I want him to. It was pretty awesome and hilarious. I am going to buy a valia from him (it’s a very think piece of bamboo that’s about at long as my shoulder to elbow and has 20 strings around it, I love it!
-Rode on a ferris wheel moved by hand and made for people way tinier than I am
-Had this realization about what I am doing here: Because my new friends, neighbors, and family here do not quite understand seeing past today, it helps so much to empower them by letting them know how much we care. If they feel worth it, they will change their behavior to prevent STDs and AIDS and having too many babies too young, and they will take advantage of the free vaccines for their babies and the free vitamins and mosquito nets and because they are promoting eco-tourism so much back home, they will take my free English lessons so they can be tour guides and they will see the future and they will stop burning every tree so that their soil will not totally erode and their children can live a better life than they did. The ideal “American dream” is a possibility here and I am so grateful for the opportunity to help.
However, whatever “help” I am providing is nothing compared to what I am receiving from their everyday lessons of grace and humility and sharing and cheer amid poverty.
-Arrived at my site for a visit and there was no home for me. The one thing the community must do to prove to the PC they deserve and want a volunteer badly enough is build us a house all together. It was my first time crying since the first day here. It hurt so bad to think I was giving 2 years to them and they did not even want me. However, it’s been a great few days because of that. First of all, what I am giving is so small compared to what I am learning from the Malagasy people and my time living here. I saw Gasy time put in to action, it’s slow and laid-back to the core. I have this challenge to explain my purpose and prove myself to them. I am the first American they have ever met. I am trying to make yall all look good . I got to squeeze out the energy from my toenails and make everyone laugh with the few Sakalava jokes I can say. I got to introduce myself to the town in a meeting and have every man’s hand pop up to ask if I was married, have Jean-Claude (the great nurse) shout that yes I am and that my husband lives in America (haha) and every man said “that is far, she needs a boyfriend here” and Jean-Claude said my husband is strong, it was hilarious because only me and his great family knew the truth. Everyone asked Jean-Claude questions about me and it was so fun to understand them and quickly respond myself. I am learning to be tough enough to get by, patient enough to wait, kind enough to care, and hopeful enough to stay. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers that I can continue to grow in this way and stay healthy, safe and happy. Thank you
-And so much more… It’s been amazing, it’s been rough, it’s been dirty, it’s been peaceful, it’s been life altering and mind-opening and it’s only been 6 weeks. Here’s to the next 25 months… please be in touch often and stay well and enjoy your life to the fullest and keep me posted on it!
Sambitsara (both good, goodbye),
Erin
Thank you all so much for your letters, emails, calling me back when I can talk, thoughts, prayers, friendship and love. The past six weeks have been quite a ride…
I have:
-Checked my Gmail ONE TIME. I should be able to check it once a month when the weather is good and I can get to Deigo… but snail mail is still the best. Even better, email me then also print it and send it
to: Erin Levin, PCV
Peace Corps Regional House
6 Rue Commandant
Marchand-Place
Kabary 201
Antsiranana Madagascar
Don’t forget to write Airmail and Par Avion! If it is a package, please send it in a package envelope which is hard to break in to… the Antsiranana
(Diego) Post Office is known for breaking into boxes which are not over-tapped. In other communication news, I have a tiny, tiny bit of cell phone service when it is windy at my site! I will text message you and then you can call me back – yay!!! Phone Number: (must dial 011 to get out of states on some phones) 261-33-088-1952 and/or
261-32-514-0123
-Seen 6 types of lemurs (ankomba) which are so cute and totally worth a trip to Madagascar if I’m not a good enough reason… you all need to visit! This place is beautiful! Every few miles whole landscapes change. It’s so incredible that through the poverty there is this innate beauty here. Through the trash, smoke, shacks and millions of babies everywhere, there are the cool waterfalls, the volcanoes with rainforests on top of them, the thousands of miles of beaches with peacock blue (that’s right mom!) or turquoise or red waters. There are the plentiful fruit trees full of mangos, bananas, papaya, coconuts, lechees, jack fruit, and pibosy.
-Hung out on the side of the road with 30 Gasy (in a car which in America would hold a max of 12) because our Bush Taxi (taxi-brousse) broke down… 4 times and counting. This is actually REALLY fun once you get used to it. It’s a great chance to get to know folks and prove that you are not a vazah (foreigner). All the people in Mahitsitady (the village we live in with our host families), Ambatalona (the town on the main road near our village)… and now starting in Deigo (my AMAZING banking town) and hopefully soon in Sadjoavato (my site for 2 years) call me Gasy now. It’s really cute. Even today when I was visiting my site this weekend, I sort of found a host family there. I will be living behind the rural health clinic (they are building my house right now – it’s made out of palm – pretty cool, huh?) The mom and older sister and her fiancé (who is a rainforest guide so actually speaks some English) showed me all around and when the precious little kids would yell “Salute Vazah!” (Most white people are rich French businessmen), I shouted back “Mbalatsara Gasy!” which totally blew them away because “Hello” in Gasy is “Manao Hoana” but up here they speak Sakalava and the kids can not believe I do too, so by the end of the day they were all calling me Gasy too which made my day! It’s so hot here that by the end of 25 more months I may even look like one, but with white hair
-Seen a dozen types of geckos and chameleons which are really cool creatures, I kind of want one as a pet
-Learned a language, yeah a whole language, I am not quite fluent but I am shocked at how well I got by on this week on my own up here… thank goodness for our incredible Gasy PC staff and Franka, my amazing Sakalava teacher! Fa Mbala Mianatra (But Still Learning) Mbalatsara – literally means, “still good?!”
-Built a clay stove (fantana mitsitsy – improved stove) for my host family so they will have less smoke and less colds and use less wood and charcoal and save themselves and their precious forest which they are tearing away everyday by burning massive amounts of trash, slash-and-burning the land to plant rice paddies, etc. Here, the people live day to day. They work in the fields today to put rice on the table tonight. It’s very hard for them to think about tomorrow, needless to say 10 years from now. If they keep going this rate with slash-and-burn, their beautiful country full of lush rainforest, animals and plants which exist only here, will disappear way too soon.
(Just another reason you all need to hurry up and visit me). It’s so amazing that these small feasible actions, if taught to enough people and disseminated widely and actually implemented, can truly make them healthier, happier and sustain their lives and land.
-Learned to cook (mandoky) for the first time in my life and learned to make the best peanut butter (tutu-pistasy) ever!
-Slipped down cliffs of red mud (teny mena) and still sat through class all day
-Mastered the art of purifying water (rano madio – clean water)
-Begun to learn how to carry buckets of water and bags of rice and peanuts and veggies and fruits on my head… it is way harder than it looks
-Been constantly stared at and shocked many people when I burst out the Gasy
-Pretty much only used a “kabone” hole in the ground, and “ladosy” rock with a “lamba” cloth or kakazu “palm-type tree sticks – around it to go to the bathroom and bucket-shower. Oh and washed all my insanely dirty clothes in an even dirtier river/rice paddy… I will not be clean until I get home December 2009. BUT it’s totally cool. The no power, no water, no nothing was pretty easy to get used to. I think it took about 20 hours to feel comfortable enough with it. A huge point of the Peace Corps, and why it is working, is because we all actually live with the people we are working with and helping at the same level they are at.
Having so little is actually more rewarding to me than having so much.
It makes me feel equal to my friends and family here and hopefully it will hugely help me integrate into Sadjoavato. I am opening the site and they are a bit skeptical but I will hopefully win them over. It is the most humbling and challenging experience of my life and I have never felt God’s presence so strongly. Everyday is a rollercoaster but thankfully because our purpose here is so evident, it is worth it for me.
-Eaten rice (vary) three times a day every day… except on the rare occasion in Tana or Diego where there is pizza, cold cokes, ice cream etc
-Woken up every morning at 4:30am to the rooster… but it’s okay because there is nothing to do after dark so I’m usually fast asleep by 9:30pm (candles only last so long for letter writing/reading and there are only so many batteries and sunlight for the music…)
-Taught 46 seven and eight year-old how to brush their teeth and seen the biggest smiles on their faces when we got to give them tooth brushes
-Become a part of two new families – my host family in the Highlands and in Sadjoavato. I love them both dearly and it should warm all of your hearts to know the patience, kindness and love they have so openly shared with me. Compared to even a homeless family in the states, they have nothing, yet they find a way to share with me. Even if it is just teaching me how to pick a mango or jack fruit that’s ripe or find a place with shade and a breeze.
-Watched a soccer (labolle) match packed with an audience that would make up 5 surrounding villages on a cliff 3 miles away from anything… it was nuts!thanks again .)
-Had one of my good PC friends family’s cow have a baby cow and that night they ate the placenta for dinner (sakafo gasy – Malagasy food they say)
-Seen the most beautiful sunsets and stars of my life and been totally refreshed by them in a way I never thought imaginable
-Made friends with an incredible Gasy band called the Spesialista and had them teach me the Gasy drums, Velia and rain-shaker. Benja-Gasy, the lead singer got so excited when I said I was a PC volunteer and told me that he was one of the very few men in Madagascar with a vasectomy and that he is famous and will come tell all the men I want him to. It was pretty awesome and hilarious. I am going to buy a valia from him (it’s a very think piece of bamboo that’s about at long as my shoulder to elbow and has 20 strings around it, I love it!
-Rode on a ferris wheel moved by hand and made for people way tinier than I am
-Had this realization about what I am doing here: Because my new friends, neighbors, and family here do not quite understand seeing past today, it helps so much to empower them by letting them know how much we care. If they feel worth it, they will change their behavior to prevent STDs and AIDS and having too many babies too young, and they will take advantage of the free vaccines for their babies and the free vitamins and mosquito nets and because they are promoting eco-tourism so much back home, they will take my free English lessons so they can be tour guides and they will see the future and they will stop burning every tree so that their soil will not totally erode and their children can live a better life than they did. The ideal “American dream” is a possibility here and I am so grateful for the opportunity to help.
However, whatever “help” I am providing is nothing compared to what I am receiving from their everyday lessons of grace and humility and sharing and cheer amid poverty.
-Arrived at my site for a visit and there was no home for me. The one thing the community must do to prove to the PC they deserve and want a volunteer badly enough is build us a house all together. It was my first time crying since the first day here. It hurt so bad to think I was giving 2 years to them and they did not even want me. However, it’s been a great few days because of that. First of all, what I am giving is so small compared to what I am learning from the Malagasy people and my time living here. I saw Gasy time put in to action, it’s slow and laid-back to the core. I have this challenge to explain my purpose and prove myself to them. I am the first American they have ever met. I am trying to make yall all look good . I got to squeeze out the energy from my toenails and make everyone laugh with the few Sakalava jokes I can say. I got to introduce myself to the town in a meeting and have every man’s hand pop up to ask if I was married, have Jean-Claude (the great nurse) shout that yes I am and that my husband lives in America (haha) and every man said “that is far, she needs a boyfriend here” and Jean-Claude said my husband is strong, it was hilarious because only me and his great family knew the truth. Everyone asked Jean-Claude questions about me and it was so fun to understand them and quickly respond myself. I am learning to be tough enough to get by, patient enough to wait, kind enough to care, and hopeful enough to stay. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers that I can continue to grow in this way and stay healthy, safe and happy. Thank you
-And so much more… It’s been amazing, it’s been rough, it’s been dirty, it’s been peaceful, it’s been life altering and mind-opening and it’s only been 6 weeks. Here’s to the next 25 months… please be in touch often and stay well and enjoy your life to the fullest and keep me posted on it!
Sambitsara (both good, goodbye),
Erin
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