Five months has officially begun and I still feel like I am going just as strong as before. Actually, possibly even stronger. As I finish my school year and am preparing the final lessons and exams for my classes I am also planning trips for my grand vacance- both work and pleasure of course! Well, in truth, its pleasure even when its work since I am able to travel and experience more and more of this beautiful country. Coming up I hope to find myself visiting volunteers in the south, explaining my national book drive project to them and relevant members of their communities while seeing what the south of Madagascar actually looks like. Then, with my dad visiting after my 27th birthday I will get to show him my home and coastal town while also taking a few actual vacation days to the north to go DIVING!!!! Manta rays, bat rays, whale sharks, and giant reef fish await our eager observations! So that’s very exciting and helps me get through the more rough days. Telling everyone about my travels has prompted many a question about my family, everyone stating they want to meet my dad, and my students even asking to come home to America, as a joke of course. My response is IF I go home, they have to be able to fit in my luggage. This creates a bunch of laughter from all of us as they mime the suitcase and every gesture I have just made. Kids here like to mimic and mime me which at first was incredibly annoying but noy is a kind of entertainment and I figure, at least they are learning English at the same time. 
Chance gets bigger and bigger every day and has settled into a combination of alikaa gasy and vazah- that is to say she’s spoiled like a dog in the states but roams free and scavenges like a dog here in Madagascar. Only difference is she wont starve to death since she has a human that feeds her. Healthy and happy she has her roam of the school and is starting to spread out into some of our local mini communities where she stays when I am out of town. Apparently she invites herself over even when I’m not with her and many of my friends give her their food scrapes- which I told them has earned them a repeat customer. At home though her favorite thing is to snuggle against me, especially in the colder mornings, and nuzzle her head under my chin and into my throat. It tickles but the gesture is so loving I cant get myself to move. I stroke her head and she snoozes. In the mornings she has started to wait for me to finish waking up, then she bursts into action and jumps on my hips, mouthing my hands, pressing and snuggling against my back, jumping in and out of bed until we go out for our morning bathroom trip.
As my dog and I have our own bond and she gets larger its hard to ignore the starving puppies that are dying next to my friend’s house., Since I have decided I cant actually take another puppy- both because of money and the fact that my dog is the ONLY queen of the realm, I have decided to get these puppies adopted and top inform everyone that has a dog that neutering is a possibility for all of their animals. It kills me that as I am feeding five skin and bone month old puppies the people around me are exclaiming in surprise as the starving animals start to guzzle the powdered milk I have prepared for them. What surprise is there when the only true surprise is that we can look upon this small lives with complete indifference as they come and go just as quickly in this sometimes cruel world.
So I have all five out of the five going to good homes this week. A good bath to get rid of parasites and a bag of powdered milk(their mother is starving and so has no food for her puppies)
and they will be good to go.
A painting project for our school map and an idea to get a room dedicated to English and thereby helping me start a true English club are in the works. Since I have travel and my book project in the works I am aiming to do our school map project in September but it is nonetheless another exciting plan in my future. Here is Maevatanana we have an issue with underage girls getting pregnant and dropping out of school. Since I am planning on writing a blog about children’s life in our town I wont go into details yet but it is a known and decently accepted fact among our local population, although no one approves of it there is nothing in the works to create some sort of way to ebb the tide. So I have come up with an idea of a series of girls camps on Saturdays. We will be discussing AIDS, STDS, pregnancy, sex, options, and do a series of self esteem activities. My goal is not only to attack the pregnancy situation and concerns of safety with unprotected sex, but also to create a strong network of peers among the girls, including myself and some teachers in the community, so that girls have people to turn to with questions or fears, or concerns and feel they have a safety net. I am very excited and passionate about this project idea, and hope to have it ready to begin for the next school year, after the cyclone season. The children in this community just have such a small selection of role models and no idea of where they are going. So few have any sort of goals for their lives, beyond marriage, boyfriends, family, and gold mining or farming that they see very little need for school, language, and applying themselves to anything. We are also working in a culture where the man does continue to run the house and has his way when he exerts it.
Although women here are incredibly strong and important members within the community, we still have the hierarchy of, sometimes, non working males with visions of superiority. This has to leave girls feeling as though they have no options. My goal is to get them to realize they have far more options than they have ever considered.
Every night I find myself doing art which is an awesome unwind for the evening. With the arrival of my parent’s care package came beads and hemp lacing and so a piece of jewelry is made every evening and distributed to a friend the next day. I love it, experimenting with the knots and beads to make patterns. I’m still not very good at it but the end results are pretty and always appreciated. Soon I will be painting a new baobab design on my walls and Joanna’s ( a possible tattoo design for her) and designing some sort of pattern involving chameleons and baobabs to do around my house. Its hard work but time consuming. Its just hard to find the supplies and more difficult to figure out when you can afford them.
I have felt the need to re-nest myself and so am having the carpenters make me a set of book cases- small, one for my kitchen as a pantry and one for my actual books in my bedroom- this will hopefully free up space so I actually have a table to use as a table and have a book case to put my books and notebooks and art supplies. I hate living out of a trunk.
My community is becoming more and more familiar with me. I have a few Malagasy friends here and in the capital that I walk and hang out with often, getting a chance to have meals at their house or relax and watch some Malagasy tv is a real treat. I have promised to let my friend Bridgette and her gaggle of daughters do my hair in complete braids, the thought of which
thrills them to no end. New markets, new epiceries, and new neighbors constantly remind all of us that our town is not only a cross-roads but a growing and developing place. I constantly am surprised by what I see has sprung up in my absence.
With our independence day coming up everyone is preparing for parties. I already have a new and considered “sexy” outfit of a shirt dress and tight pants- all the fashion here and fine with me! Hopefully it is comfortable while I am dancing. More than likely Ill be wearing flipflops since it is almost impossible to find women’s shoes here above a size 8. Gives me quite the frustration when we go shopping for anything! Cake drives, pizza selling and other fund raising activities will be held, along with a big fete in the town square which we will be dancing and singing in again with the Dongadonga women, as well as an even larger fete that night. The drinks and food will begin around 11am and carry on long through the night I am sure. It will be a great chance to be a part of my community, students are already asking and responding with happiness when I tell them I will be here for the fete. They always get a kick out of dancing with me or seeing Joanna and I dance. As though we are all that different. Sometimes I fell like half our job here at Peace Corps is proving that we are all very much the same.
On the home front I have begun to ad more art for my house, creating new projects on walls as well as in the cooking category. I definitely feel a home feeling whenever I return from the capital which is nice to have after so long of a wait. A mouse fell into my shower bucket the other morning and I had to chuck it out the door then stop to watch the sunrise as my dog went bolting after the waterlogged creature. Frequenting basketball games is a nice break from life at home and the monotony that can set in( and does at times) and gives us a chance to bond more with everyone else. I have a little girl I have absolutely fallen in love with and need to get a picture to post of her. She is absolutely adorable and loves to sit and play with my hair and my fingers as we watch basketball. Her older brother is just as gorgeous as she is and at the last music concert in Maevatanana Joanna and I sought refuge from the men asking for dances with those two. Only coming up to our stomachs, we whisked them across the dance floor, taking a picture with their family and switching partners to do it all over again. The smiles on their little faces were the most amazing. It could have been black as an abyss and you would have seen the light beaming from their faces.
I write letters to friends and family and dread going to the post office but I will have to go this week. Now there are too many! So expect it people!!!!!
Thank you all for your continued support. Your letters and cards cause great amounts of happiness and end up on my walls or my journal. Care packages are a truly wonderful thing and I love getting the chance to write you all letters back. Hope all your lives back in the states are going smoothly and without to much upset and thank you for continuing to keep me in them!
Love you all!
Chance gets bigger and bigger every day and has settled into a combination of alikaa gasy and vazah- that is to say she’s spoiled like a dog in the states but roams free and scavenges like a dog here in Madagascar. Only difference is she wont starve to death since she has a human that feeds her. Healthy and happy she has her roam of the school and is starting to spread out into some of our local mini communities where she stays when I am out of town. Apparently she invites herself over even when I’m not with her and many of my friends give her their food scrapes- which I told them has earned them a repeat customer. At home though her favorite thing is to snuggle against me, especially in the colder mornings, and nuzzle her head under my chin and into my throat. It tickles but the gesture is so loving I cant get myself to move. I stroke her head and she snoozes. In the mornings she has started to wait for me to finish waking up, then she bursts into action and jumps on my hips, mouthing my hands, pressing and snuggling against my back, jumping in and out of bed until we go out for our morning bathroom trip.
As my dog and I have our own bond and she gets larger its hard to ignore the starving puppies that are dying next to my friend’s house., Since I have decided I cant actually take another puppy- both because of money and the fact that my dog is the ONLY queen of the realm, I have decided to get these puppies adopted and top inform everyone that has a dog that neutering is a possibility for all of their animals. It kills me that as I am feeding five skin and bone month old puppies the people around me are exclaiming in surprise as the starving animals start to guzzle the powdered milk I have prepared for them. What surprise is there when the only true surprise is that we can look upon this small lives with complete indifference as they come and go just as quickly in this sometimes cruel world.
So I have all five out of the five going to good homes this week. A good bath to get rid of parasites and a bag of powdered milk(their mother is starving and so has no food for her puppies)
and they will be good to go.A painting project for our school map and an idea to get a room dedicated to English and thereby helping me start a true English club are in the works. Since I have travel and my book project in the works I am aiming to do our school map project in September but it is nonetheless another exciting plan in my future. Here is Maevatanana we have an issue with underage girls getting pregnant and dropping out of school. Since I am planning on writing a blog about children’s life in our town I wont go into details yet but it is a known and decently accepted fact among our local population, although no one approves of it there is nothing in the works to create some sort of way to ebb the tide. So I have come up with an idea of a series of girls camps on Saturdays. We will be discussing AIDS, STDS, pregnancy, sex, options, and do a series of self esteem activities. My goal is not only to attack the pregnancy situation and concerns of safety with unprotected sex, but also to create a strong network of peers among the girls, including myself and some teachers in the community, so that girls have people to turn to with questions or fears, or concerns and feel they have a safety net. I am very excited and passionate about this project idea, and hope to have it ready to begin for the next school year, after the cyclone season. The children in this community just have such a small selection of role models and no idea of where they are going. So few have any sort of goals for their lives, beyond marriage, boyfriends, family, and gold mining or farming that they see very little need for school, language, and applying themselves to anything. We are also working in a culture where the man does continue to run the house and has his way when he exerts it.
Although women here are incredibly strong and important members within the community, we still have the hierarchy of, sometimes, non working males with visions of superiority. This has to leave girls feeling as though they have no options. My goal is to get them to realize they have far more options than they have ever considered.Every night I find myself doing art which is an awesome unwind for the evening. With the arrival of my parent’s care package came beads and hemp lacing and so a piece of jewelry is made every evening and distributed to a friend the next day. I love it, experimenting with the knots and beads to make patterns. I’m still not very good at it but the end results are pretty and always appreciated. Soon I will be painting a new baobab design on my walls and Joanna’s ( a possible tattoo design for her) and designing some sort of pattern involving chameleons and baobabs to do around my house. Its hard work but time consuming. Its just hard to find the supplies and more difficult to figure out when you can afford them.
I have felt the need to re-nest myself and so am having the carpenters make me a set of book cases- small, one for my kitchen as a pantry and one for my actual books in my bedroom- this will hopefully free up space so I actually have a table to use as a table and have a book case to put my books and notebooks and art supplies. I hate living out of a trunk.
My community is becoming more and more familiar with me. I have a few Malagasy friends here and in the capital that I walk and hang out with often, getting a chance to have meals at their house or relax and watch some Malagasy tv is a real treat. I have promised to let my friend Bridgette and her gaggle of daughters do my hair in complete braids, the thought of which
thrills them to no end. New markets, new epiceries, and new neighbors constantly remind all of us that our town is not only a cross-roads but a growing and developing place. I constantly am surprised by what I see has sprung up in my absence.With our independence day coming up everyone is preparing for parties. I already have a new and considered “sexy” outfit of a shirt dress and tight pants- all the fashion here and fine with me! Hopefully it is comfortable while I am dancing. More than likely Ill be wearing flipflops since it is almost impossible to find women’s shoes here above a size 8. Gives me quite the frustration when we go shopping for anything! Cake drives, pizza selling and other fund raising activities will be held, along with a big fete in the town square which we will be dancing and singing in again with the Dongadonga women, as well as an even larger fete that night. The drinks and food will begin around 11am and carry on long through the night I am sure. It will be a great chance to be a part of my community, students are already asking and responding with happiness when I tell them I will be here for the fete. They always get a kick out of dancing with me or seeing Joanna and I dance. As though we are all that different. Sometimes I fell like half our job here at Peace Corps is proving that we are all very much the same.
On the home front I have begun to ad more art for my house, creating new projects on walls as well as in the cooking category. I definitely feel a home feeling whenever I return from the capital which is nice to have after so long of a wait. A mouse fell into my shower bucket the other morning and I had to chuck it out the door then stop to watch the sunrise as my dog went bolting after the waterlogged creature. Frequenting basketball games is a nice break from life at home and the monotony that can set in( and does at times) and gives us a chance to bond more with everyone else. I have a little girl I have absolutely fallen in love with and need to get a picture to post of her. She is absolutely adorable and loves to sit and play with my hair and my fingers as we watch basketball. Her older brother is just as gorgeous as she is and at the last music concert in Maevatanana Joanna and I sought refuge from the men asking for dances with those two. Only coming up to our stomachs, we whisked them across the dance floor, taking a picture with their family and switching partners to do it all over again. The smiles on their little faces were the most amazing. It could have been black as an abyss and you would have seen the light beaming from their faces.
I write letters to friends and family and dread going to the post office but I will have to go this week. Now there are too many! So expect it people!!!!!
Thank you all for your continued support. Your letters and cards cause great amounts of happiness and end up on my walls or my journal. Care packages are a truly wonderful thing and I love getting the chance to write you all letters back. Hope all your lives back in the states are going smoothly and without to much upset and thank you for continuing to keep me in them!
Love you all!
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