Fatana Mitsitsy: Mission Accomplished!

I've been traveling so much, I barely feel like I've done anything at site lately. I'm really looking forward to heading back to site tomorrow, this time for more than a week. I should hopefully get home by Monday.

My training session went really well with the new group. We built several cookstoves, which I think people really enjoyed. They're all heading to check out their new sites now, and I'm catching a ride close to home with a Peace Corps vehicle heading my way. I haven't quite figured out how to get home from where the Peace Corps will be dropping me off, but I'm just going with the flow.... if I have to hang on to the back of a pick up truck for the last leg of the trip, so it goes...

I'll be back online sometime toward the end of May. Until then, peace out.
Oh, and also, my new cell phone # is: 011 261 55 302 61 Peace

MIA: cell phone!

I'm not sure how or when it happened, but all of a sudden I realised I no longer had my cell phone last night. Perhaps it fell out of my pocket? Maybe it was stolen? In any case, if you're trying to call and can't get through, this is why. No need to call DC, I'm still alive and well.

I'd buy a new cell phone, except that the cheapest phones I can find here in
Tana cost 200,000 Ariary... which is about half of my monthly living allowance. I guess I could just skip out on rice and beans this month. Or maybe I'll wait until I can find a cheaper phone.

Tomorrow I'm on my way to train the new environment trainees for the week and I'll be out of cell phone range anyway. Interestingly enough Rob Brezsny has this to say about how the stars are aligned for me this week:

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): It's an excellent time to seek out new allies,expand your social network, and make connections with influences that will motivate you to grow smarter and stronger. Here are the kinds of connections you might want to be on the lookout for: 1. hard workers who find everything funny; 2. down-to-earth idealists who place no emotional value on having expensive possessions; 3. nerds who are cocky in mysterious ways; 4. humble perfectionists who obsess over the integrity of every little thing they do and then mock themselves for being so conscientious; 5. couples who hold hands and jump into big puddles with their nice clothes on; 6. sympathetic listeners who will kindly kick your ass if you need it.

I hope those are all descriptions of the new group.

I'll be checking in again online next week before heading back to site. I'm actually really looking forward to getting back to site this time. All this traveling has been exhausting. Madagascar is not an easy country for traveling.

on the road again...

I just arrived in Tamatave this morning at 3am. Usually we stop and sleep somewhere along the road, but this time we drove straight through for 19 hours from Mananara. The road is so intense sometimes on the edges of cliffs overlooking the ocean hundreds of meters below with the forest so thick you have to duck inside the vehicle to avoid being impaled by tree branches coming through the windows. At one point we had to time the vehicle to avoid ocean waves crashing over the road. "The road" which was really more of a beach than a road.

But I made it here alive... and I still have another 10 hour trip to the capital ahead of me.

I love it too that there seems to be no running water at the moment in Tamatave when all I want in the world is a hot shower. Why oh why!!!! So instead I'll pine away on the internet and catch up on all I've been missing in the world, and hope that the people in the internet cafe don't mind that I haven't showered in three days... actually I can't even remember the last time I had an actual hot shower with running water.

This was a memorable trip though, driving past villages that were really hit hard by Cyclone Ivan last month. Some places looked to have been completely abandoned... as if people just gave up on trying to rebuild their houses in the same place. Whole neighborhoods of houses with no rooves and missing walls. Some houses were still under water. Massive trees uprooted or torn in half and lying on their sides near roads. It's amazing the damage wind can cause at that intensity.

My village of Soavinarivo was not hit as hard as I had expected. The road suffered some damage and some of the trees... but for the most part, the Mananara region made out okay. My shower structure came down, so my counterpart rebuilt it into the all new deluxe edition shower hut. It's much nicer than my previous shower, so thanks Ivan.

I won't get into all the details of my trip home after the cyclone a few weeks ago. I got stranded for five days in Maroantsetra waiting for a boat. I ended up taking a vehicle finally, and arrived home completely soaked from the rain and covered in mud from head to toe, which is how I often arrive places in Madagascar. I wish I were kidding.

Oh, so here's an interesting article I found recently. Forbes magazine reports on the world's dirtiest cities. Apparently the capital of Madagascar made #3. Antananarivo, the third dirtiest city in the world. Way to go, Madagascar! At first I thought, really? Tana doesn't seem that dirty.... which then led me to think, I've definitely been in this country way too long if Tana doesn't absolutely disgust me anymore.

Alright, just checkin' in. I'll try to post something more positive next time....

oh Madagascar...

A word of advice to traveler's out there... Avoid Madagascar in February. Probably March and April too.

Here's the thing. I thought since I'm already in the capital, and I can't get home yet because the road's out... might as well go on a little trip and see a new part of the country.

So I headed south to Fianar, which is a beautiful little historic city in the south-central part of Madagascar. I've really been enjoying my time here meeting some of the volunteers who live in the area, and waiting for a train ride. Unfortunately, it looks like I won't be going on the train ride, as originally planned. The train still isn't going, also because of cyclone damage. Instead I decided to check out one of the nearby national parks, Ranomafana, thinking that would be a straightforward trip. (I keep forgetting where I'm at.)

We arrived at the park and asked one of the guides if they could take us to a waterfall we had heard about. Oh no, he says, as he points to a huge group of Malagasy men pulling a massive log up the mountainside. That's to fix the bridge that leads into the park which came down during the cyclone. Just lovely.

This is where the bridge should be.



So we got to see the beautiful "Ranomafana National Park" sign on the highway, and that's about it.

I'm a little disappointed.... but you know, it's not so much of a surprise anymore when nothing works out the way I plan.

update on Cyclone Ivan

The cyclone did end up hitting Madagascar yesterday morning. I'm not sure the extent of the damage at this point, but from the satelite images I've seen, it looks to have gone straight through my region. I've spoken to people back home in the village and they describe depressing scenes. My backyard seems to have been destroyed... all the trees I've planted have been uprooted... My shower and latrine have blown away. Somehow my house made out okay, but my next door neighbor was not so lucky. She's living in my house until they can repair the damage. I'm not sure about the road yet either.

That's Madagascar underneath the big tropical cyclone there. It's barely visible, but we're okay down there. Don't worry about us...

I'm still planning to go on the train ride to the southeast this coming weekend. Hopefully the weather will have cleared up by then.

Alright, anyway, just a quick update today. I know cyclones in Madagascar don't make the news in the states. The storm has calmed down since yesterday. It's still really windy and rainy, but nothing like yesterday.
I'll check in again next week after the train ride from Fianar to Manakara!

a post for 2008!

Just checking in online again for the first time this year! Happy New Year! 2008, a year I will spend entirely in Madagascar. Happy Valentine's Day too. And hey, while I'm at it, Happy Easter and Thanksgiving too, 'cause who knows when I'll be online again.

So let's see... the news. I'm on a business trip in the capital with a lot of the other environment volunteers. The new group of trainees will be arriving any day now, and the group before me is on their way out. We have been busy planning the training for the new group. I will be training them to build clay stoves with chimneys, which should be fun!

I'm heading on a trip next week with some of the other volunteers to go on a train ride to the southeast coast. But first I think I need to wait out tropical cyclone Ivan, which is currently heading towards Madagascar and apparently not far from my village. Luckily (I guess) I'm in the capital... But I'm worried about my friends at site and my house and my kitten. Not to mention the "road" back home...

If you're interested in tracking the storm, check out this link: Tropical Storm Risk

Other news... DON'T SEND PACKAGES TO MANANARA!!!
I no longer trust the postal employees at my local post office after several incidents of packages either not arriving or arriving with items missing. So sadly, I can only receive packages in the capital at the following address. No worries though, I've learned to cope with what I can find here in the country, and there's nothing that can't wait. But if there is, I'll let you know. Letters are still okay to send to Mananara (and very much appreciated).

Today I'm heading to the Cookie Shop.... a lovely establishment in the capital which is the closest thing to a coffee shop in maybe the entire country. They have delicious bagel sandwiches and espresso milkshakes and you have no idea how happy that makes me. It's the little things... don't take it for granted!

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing's going to get better, it's not...." said the Lorax

It's already December? I've managed to stay busy enough at site to not get out much to see the rest of the country yet. It was time for a break before I got too burnt out, so I ended up going over to the west coast for some vacation time.

I spent the last week in Morondava, a laid back little beach town on the Mozambique Channel. All the boats look like pirate ships, the people are from the Sakalava tribe and speak a slightly different dialect of Malagasy than the one I'm used to, and it's hotter there than you could even imagine. I've never sweat so much in my life without even moving, but that's what I get for going to one of the hottest parts of Madagascar at the hottest time of year. There are a couple of PCVs living in Morondava. Molly, a volunteer that was in my group during training, and I spent a night in the Kirindy Reserve where you could barely step without seeing an iguana or a gigantic snake and bright blue and turquoise butterflies led the way on all the hiking trails. We spotted six different kinds of lemurs. My favorite was the sifaka that jumps around on the ground and through the trees. We even got to see a fosa... but unfortunately no giant jumping rats.

We also made it to the Avenue of the Baobabs right in time for a gorgeous sunrise. I think baobabs might be my favorite tree ever. Somehow I feel a bit like the Lorax working in Madagascar saving the Truffula Trees.

Anyway, now I'm back in Tana, doing some business in the capital, and waiting for the next plane to Maroantsetra on Monday. I have to fly to either Maroantestra to the north or Tamatave to the south to get back to my village. And from either airport it's a 2 day taxi-brousse ride on a terrible road with several ferry boat crossings. I chose Maroantsetra this time so that I could visit another volunteer's site and help her paint a mural before heading back to my home in Soavina hopefully in time for Christmas and New Years.

My next trip will be in February when the new Environment trainees arrive. I'm hoping to be one of the trainers. My specialty at site has been building cookstoves (which I've now built over 40 with several cooperatives in the Mananara region), so I'd like to train the new volunteers on some of the techniques I've learned. I'll probably take another vacation in the southeastern part of the island while I'm already out of Mananara. There's a train ride to the coast that sounds like a fun adventure. But who knows, plans are always changing, and I'm still practicing my patience and flexibility every step of the way.

Cyclone season is coming up here soon. I'm not sure what that means for me considering my house is made of sticks and leaves and I'm only about 3 miles from the Indian Ocean. But don't worry, I've got a sturdy umbrella.
No, but seriously, it is possible I'll be stuck at my site for several months because the "road" washes away into the ocean. There is a sturdy building in my banking town where I can go if my roof flies away or something.

Right now though it's lychee and mango season. There are lychees everywhere on the east coast. Yum! Everywhere you look someone is eating a lychee. People carrying branches full of lychees as a snack while they walk to the rice fields is a common sight. There aren't as many mangos where I'm at in the east, but there's a ton here in the capital and over in the west. So I'll be thinking of you all over there in the states freezing your butts off while I eat my tropical fruit and lay out on the beach. ;-)

Stay in touch. No really, I mean it. I miss you....
Where are all those letters you people promised?!

Here's the address again, in case you haven't scrolled down:
B.P. 36
Mananara-Nord 511
Madagascar

a quick update...

I'm in Tamatave now after a hellish two day taxi-brousse ride on a road that vehicles honestly should never attempt... it's nice to take a break from my site, see what's up on the world wide web.
A group of volunteers are all getting together for an early Thanksgiving dinner this weekend in a nice beach resort town just north of Tamatave called Foulpointe. We'll probably all get drunk and complain about Peace Corps... ;-)

Life at site has been going well. When I'm not planting, weeding, transplanting, harvesting, drying, cooking, and eating rice, I've managed to keep myself fairly busy with lots of other projects in my village of Soavinarivo.

I think I lucked out with a village of really hardworking motivated people. I feel like my site is the perfect place for me. And despite being completely remote and isolated from the rest of the country, I feel lucky to be where I'm at in the Mananara region.

My main project lately has been working on building cookstoves with a group of women. I have lots of photos (and not a lot of time to explain), so check back in when the photos are uploaded (hopefully next month). I've lost count as to how many stoves have been finished in the last few months, somewhere between 10-15. And we just completed our first stove with a chimney. I'm hoping this will become an income generating project for the women I've been working with as their technique has improved with practice and they are already confident enough to build the stoves without my help. It's great to see so many people using their new stoves and saving a noticable amount of fuelwood.

I'm still gardening a lot too. Right now I'm growing pumpkin and corn and squash and sunflowers and watermelon. It's almost summer, and it's starting to get really hot, but not unbearably so. The weather has actually been really gorgeous since I've been here, other than the occasional downpour.

What else? I have three baby ducks and a kitten. Hehe. Check back soon for photos...

Yeah, anyway, that's it for the update. I probably have more profound things to share, but I'm not used to sitting in front of a computer these days, and it's a gorgeous day outside in Tamatave, and I need to feel the sunshine and see the Indian Ocean. I'm also craving coconut ice cream. ;-)

Stay in touch. Who's coming to visit??????

back to the forest I go...

Our In Service Training (IST) conference is over, and I'm my way back home now. It was great to catch up with my group from training and the other environment volunteers in the country. Now hopefully we'll all go back to our villages with new inspiration and motivation to do some amazing things within our respective communities over the next 21 months of our service.

Our next conference together is not until May of 2008. In my own village, I plan to continue my gardening and composting projects. I'm also hoping to build more advanced cookstoves with chimneys to help people eliminate smoke in their kitchens. And I'll continue planting trees and teaching people to love and appreciate their environment.
There are also plenty of projects to get involved in around the country. Every year there's a bike race to raise HIV awareness organized by Peace Corps Volunteers. I also hope to make it to the east coast early next year to do some work counting sea turtles on a small island. And who knows what else is in store for me... I'm just taking it day by day.

If you feel like getting in touch, I have a new cell phone number... call anytime, I actually have service at home. I'd love to hear a familiar voice. Conversations in English are few and far between for me these days. Text messages are great too.

Here's my new number:
011 261 32 49 251 50

Here's my mailing address:
B.P. 36
Mananara-Nord 511
Madagascar

And if you're thinking about visiting, you should definitely get in touch. I only have so many vacation days, and I need to plan ahead... 2 years will be gone faster than you think.

Right now as many of my friends are heading out to the playa for another amazing time in the Black Rock Desert, I just want to say, have fun, be safe, enjoy the synchronicities, follow your hearts, and "burn burn burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..."

Life in Madagascar

Where shall I even begin? Has it really been six months since I moved to Madagascar?

I'm all settled in my new home on the northeast coast in a sweet little village called Soavinarivo right outside Mananara, where I'll be living for the next two years, in fact.

My village is gorgeous, on the edge of the Mananara Biosphere Reserve and bordered by the beautiful Mananara River. The streets are lined with coconut trees and palms. The houses are made of bamboo with thatched leaf rooves.
My house is great (check out the photos I just uploaded on my flickr account). But no, there aren't any lemurs.... however, I do have a mango tree, a lychee tree, and a coconut tree in my yard. And the ocean is a half hour bike ride away.
The people of my village are beautiful, sweet, and generous, and I have felt nothing but welcome and appreciated by everyone I meet.

Work is coming along fabulously, thanks to having a motivated counterpart in the community, as well as lots of hardworking, excited, and open-minded community members. So far, I've managed to build countless compost piles on farms and gardens in the area; I have a beautiful garden of veggies, which I share with neighbors and friends in Soavinarivo; I recently started a small tree nursery where I'm growing trees to be used for fuelwood; and when I'm not planting rice, I've been helping with the vanilla harvest. There's nothing quite like waking up in the morning to the smell of vanilla beans drying in my yard.

I won't be checking in online as regularly as I had hoped when I set up this blog, since there's no internet access in my region of the island. Chances are I won't get a chance to update again until December when I'll be taking my vacation in southern Madagascar near Fort Dauphin.

So keep the letters coming. Thanks to those of you who have made an effort to stay in touch, and thanks especially to my parents who have been most supportive and dedicated to staying in regular contact. I realise it's a hassle to send letters by post as opposed to e-mail, but it's appreciated more than you can imagine.

That's the news from me. Life is good. Better than good. Tsara BE!

Settling in... "Tamana tsara"

Today starts the next phase of this adventure.
As of this morning, I am officially a Peace Corps Volunteer!!

Here's my new address:

B.P. 36
Mananara-Nord 511
Madagascar

And my phone number:
011 261 33 07 45565

Hope to hear from you.
I'll check in again here sometime in August.
Have a great summer!

Almost a Peace Corps Volunteer!

It's nearly official! We moved out of our homes in Anjozoro yesterday. It was sad saying goodbye, but also a huge relief. The final presentations all went really well, and I passed my language evaluation. Now it's just formalities, and hopefully some time to reorganize and relax before being officially sworn in and dropped off at our respective villages.

Our swearing in ceremony is in just a few days. It will be held at the U.S. Ambassador's house in the capital, and the head director of the entire Peace Corps is coming to Madagascar to attend. I believe there will be a film crew, and we heard the President of Madagascar might show up for this one as well. It's all hearsay though. We never really know at all what the plan is until it actually happens.

I uploaded a few photos to my Flickr account. I wish I had time to upload more, but the computers here are an exercise in frustration. At least you can see my host family and some of the people I've been in training with over the last 10 weeks. These people have become like family. We've spent far too much time together, and it's going to be really sad to say good bye next week to all my new friends.

Oh, also, I have my new address thanks to the former Peace Corps Volunteers in my region. They're on their way out of the country soon, and left a post office box, so here it is. All future mail should be sent to this address:

Helen Graham, PCV, Peace Corps
B.P. 36
Mananara-Nord 511
Madagascar

This is not the address to send me packages though. Continue to use the Antananarivo address for anything substantial. Letters and small packages only, please. And I REALLY appreciate all the letters I've recieved so far. It means more than you know. Thanks for the love, keep it coming, 'cause it's going to be lonely here real soon when I'm on my own. Oh, and yes, I will also still be able to send/recieve text messages in Soavina.

I may get one more chance to check in online before heading off to Soavina next week. Then after swearing in, I will not have a chance to check in again until August when I come back through Tana for In-Service Training. It's just snail mail and text messages in Mananara. No internet access for me, whatsoever. So please stay in touch. I hope to hear from you all.

Did I mention before, my house is on the Mananara River, and just a 20 minute bike ride to an apparently beautiful beach on the Indian Ocean. And from what I hear, there's a shaded gazebo and a coconut tree in my front yard.
Who's coming to visit?

LOTS OF LOVE FROM THE RED ISLAND
Wish me luck on making it green.

Week 8 of 10

I am counting the days until training ends... soon, very soon I'll be on my way home to Soavinarivo, Mananara. I'm dying in anticipation.

Right now, we're on a trip visiting Andasibe and Moramanga. Andasibe is one of the 7 national parks in Madagascar. It is home to many species of lemurs, including the Indri, which is the main attraction. We went on a night hike around the area last night spotting chameleons and lemurs hanging out in the trees all around. And this morning we hiked through the rainforest. The lemurs seemed just as curious about us as we were about them. And they doo like to "move it, move it" after all.

We also got our feet dirty yesterday transplanting rice seedlings in a muddy rice field. And we learned how to graft fruit trees. Fun stuff!

The main tasks over the next couple of weeks include our final presentation (in Malagasy) which I plan to do on SRI, an improved rice farming technique. We also have our final language test where we have to prove to be at an "intermediate high" level of competency, meaning we can speak about a variety of topics related to every day life using complex sentence structures. I think I'll do okay. It's amazing how much I've learned already. It's also amazing how much more there is to learn.

I'm starting to formulate ideas of what projects to do at my site. I've met some really inspiring volunteers since I've been here and I can't wait to get out on my own and integrate into this amazing beautiful culture.

That's all for now. Next time I check in I'll be on my way to swearing in.

Still in training...

I guess I left everyone hanging on my last update with the whole cyclone business. Internet access is hard to come by in Madagascar, can you imagine?

I never actually made it to Soavina on my trip a couple of weeks ago. I made it pretty far up the coast, but the "road" was washed away in the cyclone, so I ended up just being a tourist and hanging out on the beautiful beaches of the northeast. I ate coconut and lychee and all sorts of exotic fruit, which almost made up for me not getting to see my new home and meet my future community. I was able to meet some of the other Peace Corps volunteers in my region, mostly in the Health and Education sectors. It was great to see how people are living and making it work here in Madagascar.

The technical aspect of training continues to be fun and rewarding on a daily basis. I've learned a lot about the biodiversity in Madagascar. Our group built a new latrine for a local school in Anjozoro. We've made clay stoves and built a bamboo water catchment system. Every day there's something new. It'll be interesting to see which projects I end up taking on in Soavina.

Only one month to go in training before we're officially sworn in as volunteers. I'm really looking forward to getting out on my own, starting my garden, cooking my own meals, and getting settled in my new house (which I hear is made of ravinala leaves). Yeah, training is great, but the schedule is hectic, and I'll be glad when we're finished.

That's the update for now. I hope to check back in once more before swearing-in.

Oh, and for those of you who are wondering... no, I have not seen any lemurs yet. But as soon as I do, I'll let you know if they really like to move it, move it.

Call me in Madagascar!

Times have changed for Peace Corps volunteers in the developing world.
I just set up my cell phone, so if you feel like hearing my voice sometime, try me at 011 261 33 07 45565

For those of you in California, it's 10 hours later in Madagascar.

My trip to Mananara has been further delayed by Cyclone Ind'lala. I'm hoping to be able to leave Tana on Monday. Until then, I'm stuck in Meva. (That's Malagasy for "heaven"). Meva is the Peace Corps volunteer transit house. It's like having our own private hostel, with hot showers, a bathtub, toilets that flush, a communal kitchen, and an assortment of videos and books for entertainment. It's also near the Peace Corps headquarters.

There are probably worse places to be stuck than Meva...