Peace Up A-Town Down (Yeah!)

My village starts with an ‘A’ so I can say that now. In fact the pastor of my village wears an Atlanta Braves hat everyday, so I really feel like I’m in A-town. Haha In case you don’t know what I’m talking about A-town is Atlanta and that phrase comes from an Usher song. Anyhow, no real big news over here it’s getting colder and has been raining a lot. In a little over a week I’ll be heading to the capital for IST which means that my stage has been at our sites for 3 months! I can’t believe it and as of August 22^nd we’ll have been here for 6 months! Craziness. It really has gone by fast. For this months update I just have some little blurbs about things I find interesting living here and maybe you will too. (I hope so) Keep in mind I don’t have the internet or TV for entertainment anymore. Haha

Clothes

So, t-shirts here are fun because they are usually in English so the wearer doesn’t know what their shirt says or care really. Clothes are just clothes here, which is nice. For example: There are a lot of Bob Marley shirts, Malagasy singers ( I own one of the Malagasy ones and it says “I love you” on it so I think its funny), wrestling people (John Cena) whoever that is but his shirts are everywhere here, football jerseys, Echo, and even a few Osama Bin Laden shirts haha. They are just fun to see and most of the time they don’t make sense in English so it’s funny as well. Here though clothes are just clothes and it’s not uncommon to see little boys in dresses because they have an older sister so its hand-me downs. Its great not having to really worry about what you wear either. I could wear the same thing for a month and nobody would say a thing because they probably are too. Clothes don’t define you and it’s so great to be away from home and really realize that. I think too often we as Americans let me define us instead of our character and actions which is sad. Clothes are just another material thing that you don’t take with you when you die. My dad is a good example of already knowing this and I’m learning a lot of things he’s always said and taught me so thanks dad! I hope to keep all my lessons learned here when I return home.

Music

Music here is great and I love it! it’s fun to dance to although I don’t know what they’re really saying. Before and after we watch movies we watch music videos which they love. Usually it’s the same ones every time because they aren’t big on change or variety here. I bought a Mika & Davis DVD so maybe that’ll change it up a bit. Mika & Davis are kind of a reggae style group here. They are really good and we met Mika at a karaoke night in Tana before we went to our villages. None of us knew he was so famous at the time haha. Anyhow I asked my one friend if I could make a CD of American music that he liked since he owns the generator. I got to make it, but it wouldn’t play on his DVD player so we couldn’t listen to it during our dance party. A few days later however I was over at the ladies house that also has a generator so I tried it on hers and it worked! I was excited to share our music with them. They were like “where are the videos?” haha so I tried to explain that we don’t watch music videos like they do and they thought that was weird. They watch tem like TV since we don’t have TV haha. We did list to Michael Jackson blaring while eating dinner though. It doesn’t get any better than that! In case you’re wondering the CD has Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, Justin Timberlake, Sean Kingston, Beyonce, Mariah Carey, Britney Spears, UB 40, 50 Cent, James Taylor, and Snoop Dog. They really liked Justin’s music and liked to dance to it. Britney Spears is popular here and I hate that we share the same name haha. Celion Dion is popular as well as James Blunt. Too bad I didn’t have any Celion on my Ipod. Oh, darn.

Movies

Malagasy movies have to be the worst movies ever. They don’t really have a plot or ever really have an ending. They make them like TV shows, but TV shows you can tune into every week and these just end haha. I always watch them thinking they will get better, but so far they haven’t. I bought the movie Madagascar here dubbed in French so some of them could understand it. They think it’s so funny that animals are talking especially ones they have no idea what they are. It’s such a foreign concept to give animals human characteristics to them. I think they enjoyed it though. They liked the lemurs and knew what those were. I got some other kid movies in the mail with talking animals so maybe they’ll get used to them then. Earlier this month when I was in Fianar we found where the movie theatre was. We happened to be walking past when it was showing a movie so we decided what the heck lets go. They have 2 different movies every weekend. It only cost like a quarter or something if you convert it to dollars. I wasn’t expecting much since this is Madagascar and everything is different. The movie was Casino Royale dubbed in French but we figured we could hand not knowing what was being said since it’s mainly an action flick. When we walked in to our surprise it was pretty nice and bigger than I thought it would be. It even had a bathroom which is a big deal here. It made me feel like I was home at the movies, too bad there wasn’t any popcorn though.

Jeans

So when I was packing to come here I was like hmmm….should I bring jeans or not? It’s a tropical island. Alas I brought 2 pair because they were on our packing list and I’m so glad I did too. Especially now that it’s winter and chilly but when we go to dinner and hang out its nice to have normal clothes as well. They are great here too because you don’t have that problem of them shrinking a little in the dryer. There is no dryer! Haha so that takes care of that. I’m not sure if they’ll last for 2 years here with the way they wash clothes and by over use but you can buy some here for like 4 bucks.

Coloring

So my Mom and MeeMee sent me coloring books and crayons for the kids, but I like to color too. It helps me to relax and its fun to do with the kids. I even drew a picture the other day. They were all amazed! Haha every Wednesday is coloring day and 10 kids get to come over to my house and color. I tear out a sheet for them so they get 2 sides and get to take it home when they’re done. They love it! I had to put a limit on kids because when word got out then everyone wanted to cram in my house so now they know only 10 are allowed. I also have bubbles and balloons. At first they were afraid of the bubbles haha. It was pretty funny but now they love them. They don’t know how to blow up the balloons and will try and then hand them to me but I can’t once they have already blown on it. The one boy can do it though luckily so he blows them up and I tied them. I had to put a limit on the balloons too haha. I wouldn’t suggest sending me any more though because they just end up as trash when they pop and the whole not being able to blow up them too.

The Moon

The moon here is awesome. If it’s not cloudy then even a half moon can cast shadows on houses like the sun. It’s so cool and then you can still see. It’s like having a huge built in flash light. Its crazy how bright it is because we don’t have a lot of smog and aren’t close to a city so it’s great.

Teeth

When I show people my pictures they always comment on how nice everyone’s teeth are. Most of them are missing some or a lot and some have gold caps. Some do have good teeth but I found out that is mainly due to them having fake teeth. On day I went to talk with the one girl in my village and she smiled and was missing some of her front teeth. I asked her what happened because she had rally nice teeth and she told me that her and her mom had fake teeth haha. Who knew that it was possible here to have fake teeth much less in my little village? Haha

My Translators

Apparently I still haven’t gotten the language down as good as I thought. When I talk to people they just stare at me then they look to my ‘translators’ a.k.a my 2 best friends at site for the translation. They say pretty much verbatim of what I had said but then everyone is like “oh, haha she meant this…” haha it can be frustrating sometimes but I’m just glad I have them to help me out.

Marriage

I’m not weird enough having white skin but I’m not married either. Oh my gosh! That’s a question you get a lot here, but not so much in my village. I told them I’m not getting married until I was 30 haha. I get it a lot from guys especially if I’m on a taxi or something because I’m usually alone. Some girls here have 2 or 3 kids by the time they are my age of 23. I didn’t tell them that some of my friends are married and some have kids too haha. That’s just too much for me to have to explain to them haha. We have 3 married couples in my stage so I’m sure their sites love that.

Peace Corps

So, here is a brief overview of PC for those who don’t know or forgot. When we arrived in country we each lived with a Malagasy family for 10 weeks and trained during that time. After that we sore in as official PCV’s (Peace Corps Volunteers). During training we were still PCT’s (Peace Corps Trainees). After a big celebration for most of us the next day we went to our villages with PC cars and PC employee that speaks English and Malagasy. So you get to site and then the PC car leaves and there you are in your village with limited language skills. It can be intimidating at first. For the first 3 months you are supposed to find out how your village dynamic works and everything. Making sure you like it and feel ‘tamana’ or well settled. So you just kinda take it easy to take it all in, maybe you start a project or are continuing one from a volunteer before you. Most of the people in my stage that I’ve talked to at least haven’t really started much yet.

The 3 goals of Peace Corps are:

1. To help the people of interested countries in meeting their needs for trained men and women.
2. To help promote a better understanding of American on the part of the peoples served.
3. To help promote a better understand of others peoples on the part of all Americans.

For now I’m working mainly on goals 2 and 3. I tell people little things everyday about health, gardening, brushing your teeth everyday, washing your hands with soap haha. Its basic stuff we take for granted, but they don’t know. For example: one day all the kids had gum, so I told them after you chew the gum or drink a coke you should brush your teeth because the sugar is why your teeth go bad. I thought they knew this but even the adults that were around didn’t seem to know this. It’s really the little things I try to talk about when given the change in everyday settings. I don’t want to come off as an expert because I’m far from being an expert of anything. During our first 3 months and last we are not supposed to take vacation. We can go to our banking and market towns but should really be in our villages all the time. After the first 3 months at site we have IST which is In-Service Training. Yay more training! Haha No I can’t wait for ours then I get to learn about new stuff for my site and see all my stage mates! I’ve only seen or talked to a few of them since going to our sites so it should be a good time! I can’t wait! After that some or all of us for all I know are going to take a vacation for a few days. It should be awesome! I can’t wait to see everyone, they are like my family here and I’m so lucky to get to see a few of them each month when banking. I’m it’ll be overwhelming! Haha That’s what village life does to me, anything different than it is there is a little overwhelming at first. I can’t even imagine coming home right now it would be such a huge difference! So, after IST the next big meeting/training we have is after our first year at site called ASC. We’ll get dental and medical exams then as well. After that before you are done you have your COS or close of service conference.

Another thing to know is that in a site once they have a volunteer they can request to have to up 2 or more after them. That’s up to 6 or so years of having a PCV in that area. Some sites even have 2 volunteers from different sectors as well. I’m technically the first volunteer at my site so they could have 2 or more after me. I say technically because Courtney was here for the last 6 months or so of her service because her previous site was unreachable because of the roads. It worked out for me thought since she had a lot stuff so my was pretty stocked when I moved in, so thanks Courtney! Well that’s the low down of PC Madagascar in a nut shell.

Shaving

One thing I said before I came here is that it would be nice not to shave for 2 years. I mean this is the time not to, right? Well, my first month or so here I was still shaving then I stopped. I haven’t shaved in almost 5 months now and it’s great! I use less water and spend less time in the cold shower. Plus the extra hair keeps me warm at night haha. don’t go all gross on me; I still shave my armpits people, so no worries there.

Trees and Food in my village besides rice

We have bananas, oranges, pineapples, mangos, litchis, vanilla, beans, persimmon, something close to spinach, peanuts, rice of course, some tomatoes, and other leafy things we don’t have in the States. We have a lot of fruits but not so many vegetables so I plan to introduce potatoes, corn, carrots, lettuce, cauliflower, peppers, and tomatoes. Hopefully it’ll all work out! Trial and error I guess. Today in fact I got our first pineapple of the season and it was delicious!

Being Sick

The other week for 5 days or so I pretty much just lay in bed. When I didn’t show up for church they knew something was wrong so afterwards they came over to check on me. I explained I had a fever and didn’t feel well and needed to rest. Malagasy culture is to sit with the person who is sick and more or less watch them or talk about them in front of them haha (naturally) so I tried to politely tell them after the 3^rd day that in America we like to be left alone when we’re sick and that what I’m sick with you can get by being close to me. when they were here it was like a creepy image of being at my own funeral or something to me. They prayed for me and made the pastors wife come over to pray for me as well. I think they were really worried, but I tried to assure them I would be fine in a few days but I needed a lot of rest. That seemed to work because only 2 people came over to visit the day after that. It is nice that they care though. I just wished they had Campbell’s soup here and you didn’t actually have to make home made soup haha. I’m all better now though, so no worries.

Did you know a world outside of Madagascar exists?

Of course you do, but here in my village they have no concept of that at all really. Even with my huge world map in my kitchen it probably just looks like a huge piece of paper with color on it and that the world is flat. I love brining the world to them and even letting them know about Madagascar as well. A lot of them will never see the ocean (even though we’re only 70k away). They may never see other villages even that are close by. I love talking about American with them and the world for that matter. I get Newsweek every week provided by PC so when I’m in Fianar I get a lot at once and when I’m done reading them I usually give them away after explaining what they are to them and keep some for others to look at. I love that I have that to share with them and they love hearing about America and looking at all the pictures. Whenever I know one of you is traveling somewhere around the world then I show them where on the map too.

Hugs

I’m not sure if I’ve talked about this before or not, but whatever. Malagasy people are very affectionate and don’t really have a thing we call ‘personal space’. They like to sit close to one another, girls hold girls hands and boys hold hands with boys as well. It’s natural to them. They all grow up really close to each other. Most of the houses in my villages don’t really have beds so the kids and parents all sleep in the same room on the floor together. Can you imagine sleeping in the same room with your whole family everyday? Probably not, but that’s life here. Most of the time they girls walk hand in hand or arms around each others shoulders. Hugs however have not made it to the island yet. That’s why I’m here though! Haha this one girl in my village gives me hugs all the time now and its great. After I returned to my village from the 4^th I was a day later than what I had told them because there were no taxis. When I arrived I went to shake the one girls hand as custom and instead she gave me an awkward Malagasy hug! Haha I was shocked and happy as well. I told the people of my village when I’m gone and come back that’s my culture to give a hug then. So we’ll see what happens and if they remember that when I go back in a few days. They were like, “when your family comes we should hug them!” haha like they figured it out themselves. I told them yes, so watch out family you could be getting a lot of hugs when you get here. Not a day goes by that we don’t talk about my family or friends coming to visit.

So as I mentioned I had been sick and hadn’t been out of my house really at all which is really unusual for me. Anyhow, after I wrote all this about hugs I went our for the first time and was talking to people. They told me one of my best friends and she ran out of her house and gave me a big hug! It was great! She said she had been sad since I was sick and was praying for me. These people are so sweet to me. I really love them all. They really have greeted me with open arms since I arrived. So know I’m in good hands!

Our IST starts August 10^th, but I’ll be leaving my site August 4^th, so for a few weeks after August 4^th I’ll be able to get phone calls and texts as well. So if ya feel like giving me a call, then do it!