Defining "NORMAL" & 5 Reasons I Hate the Rain

A year and a half in, and things look pretty much the same. It’s been awhile since my last update, mostly just because things have been so NORMAL that I haven’t felt that I had anything compelling to write. But then I realize that my “normal” isn’t actually normal, so here I am again. In my last entry, I talked about attending a Malagasy savatra, or circumcision party. After that, I headed off to Tana for my Peace Corps Mid-Service Conference. It was a great time catching up with my old Peace Corps friends, and refocusing a bit on the Peace Corps goals. Then I rushed back down to the South for my second cultural education in as many weeks…a wedding! And who doesn’t love a wedding?!

In this case, the bride was my friend and fellow Peace Corps volunteer Jess, who married her longtime boyfriend Haja. We ventured out to a small village called Faux Cap, about 170km west of Fort Dauphin. Naturally, the drive took the better part of 10 hours. But it was worth it. Faux Cap is situated on the 2^nd most southern tip of the island and is probably the most beautiful and isolated place I have ever been. Jess and Haja had a traditional Antandroy wedding that we all were honored to participate in. Probably the most unusual part of the whole ceremony, besides the fact that the bride is basically bargained off by her father to the groom’s family, was when the groom had to refuse each of the bride’s sisters. It reminded me of Goldilocks and the Three Bears…each of us “sisters” was presented, and Haja refused each of us in turn. “No, not her, she’s too tall.” “No, not her, she is far too short.” “No, not her, she talks to much.” (Guess which one was mine!) Finally, Jess came into the room, to which Haja exclaimed “Yes, that one, she’s the one!” This whole exchange kept the entire room in gales of laughter, and was only slightly demeaning to us lowly bridesmaids. The ceremony was complete when we carried all of the bride’s possessions to the groom’s house, where we had a big meal and a party to celebrate. I was struck by the simplicity of the ceremony and the joy with which each part of it is carried out. Haja’s family welcomed us Peace Corps volunteers like we were Jess’s actual family, and put so much care and happiness into even the smallest detail of the event. From our hair and makeup, to the way we carried Jess’s belongings back to Haja’s house (on our heads of course!), his family instructed us on it all. The wedding was so fun and I feel so special to have been a part of it.

After a week of hanging out on the beach post-wedding, I headed back to Mahatalaky. Things here were and still are very normal. So what’s this “normal”?? I get up every day to the sounds of kids playing and roosters crowing and go to sleep every night not too long after the sun goes down. I work a few days a week at the health clinic teaching women about prenatal care and malaria and helping the nurse in whatever ways I can. On my off days, I hang out. I read, I make collages, I go for bike rides, I paint my nails, and sometimes I just sit and think. I eat a lot of rice and speak a lot of Malagasy. I get excited about fruit seasons. I both plan ahead (in my brain its already February 2013) and look back at what’s already passed (how has it already been 16 months??). I still learn a lot almost every day. That’s what my normal is here. Sometimes it’s boring and I feel like there’s nothing to do, and then sometimes it’s crazy and I wish that it would just even out! Madagascar is constantly throwing me for a loop, and although I had hoped that after this long I would be better equipped to handle it, I’ve learned that sometimes things just are the way they are. I feel so content and settled here that my whole perception of “normal” changed. Someone crashed a moped into my hut? Normal. Five frogs are hopping around inside my house during a rainstorm? Normal. A woman gives birth across the hall from where I work at the health center and is so quiet I don’t even notice? Normal. I haven’t washed my hair in a week? Oops, normal. Even all the animals are normal now, but I still hate them. I’m not really sure when things stopped feeling new and just started feeling regular, but it happened, and I like it, although it does make me question my ability to ever assimilate back into the Western world. So that’s why, in a nutshell, I didn’t really feel like I had anything to blog about. I’m working on a new malaria education and prevention initiative in Mahatalaky that I’m really excited about, but the details are still a little in the works so I’ll hold off on introducing it. Let’s just say for now that PHELT has been reincarnated and my dream lives on! Now here’s to hoping that ‘STRIKES’ don’t become a “new normal” in 2013, haha!

One thing that is trying to become “normal,” but I refuse to allow to, is persistent rain. This time last year, I was sweating it out in the most tropical climate I had ever experienced. This year, I am still in leggings and most days the sun doesn’t even come out! It’s like an infinite rain cloud settled over Mahatalaky and refuses to go away. A month ago, a steady 3-day downpour washed out the road and almost prevented me from attending my good friend’s going away party. Yesterday, I soaked through my hand-me-down raincoat running the five-minute’s distance between my house and the church. You heard it here first, global warming is real and it is happening! So without further ado, here are my top five reasons why I hate the rain:

1.                    In America, when it rains you curl up with a cup of hot cocoa and your favorite movie, and relish the excuse to stay inside. In Madagascar, you actually can’t leave the house, even if you wanted to. The movie option is out too, due to lack of electricity. So basically a persistent rain leaves you with a couple options: the first, stay inside and read. I already do that all the time. The second, stay inside and stare outside wishing that the rain would stop. That’s usually what I do: sit in my doorway and stare forlornly outside and dream of last year when I spent every day wishing it would be just a little bit cooler. Remind me of this post in a few months when I write a “Top 5 Reasons I Hate the Sun” post.

2.                    Rain disrupts everything. School, work, transportation, cell phone service. The kids have nothing to do, so they come bother me. They just stand in the door and stare, or they try and scare me. The latter is the worst, because oftentimes they are successful and then I am really embarrassed.

3.                    The road gets washed out and then no one can come or go. Namely, me. I hate the feeling of being trapped somewhere and when the roads gets washed out I am reminded of how rurally I live. The worst part is when it stops raining because the bad weather has actually made a terrible road more terrible. Oh Mother Nature, you fickle being.

4.                    Persistent rain or drizzle means getting used to constantly feeling a bit damp. My clean clothes are damp, my dirty clothes are damp, my blankets are damp, even my hair is damp. You might as well just forget doing laundry, because it will never dry. So its just weeks of wearing semi-damp, semi-dirty clothes day in and day out.

5.                    When you move to an island, you have certain expectations. Those expectations usually include beaches, sun, ocean, and surfing. I am lucky enough to hit three out of four (I still haven’t miraculously developed an ability to surf), but I can’t enjoy any of them when it rains all day and I have to content myself with sitting inside. Rain, rain go away, come again some other day, little Moni wants to play!

And that just about wraps it up. I wish everyone in the U.S. a happy and healthy Thanksgiving. If all goes according to my plan, I will be baking my first ever turkey all on my own! That will probably deserve a blog post, let’s be real. Here’s to hoping I don’t burn anything down! Bisous from Madagascar. 

Circumcising Things

Reflections: One Year Later…

After the craziness that was Operation Smile, I returned to Mahatalaky happy to get back to the quiet life. And oh what a quiet life it’s been! It’s my one-year anniversary of living in my happy little hut here in rural Madagascar. And what a year it’s been! To recap:

• ·      I’ve fallen into a rice patty aka a giant mud puddle.
• ·      I’ve fallen off a camion truck and injured myself.
• ·      I successfully weaseled my way into being part of a family here.
• ·      I completed a really awesome World Malaria Month project.
• ·      I got good at Malagasy.
• ·      I became an animal hater.

And that’s just a short list…its crazy to think how much time has passed. The past month in Mahatalaky has been very low-key. It’s still summer vacation here, so it’s kind of life a ghost town. Honestly sometimes I’m surprised I don’t see tumbleweeds blowing through the street in the wind its THAT empty here. The Health Center was also closed for a couple weeks and is only just opening back up. So I’ve really had time to just sit back and relax and remember what its like to live fulltime in rural Madagascar. But as always, I managed to find a way to occupy myself. I painted a giant mural on one of the walls of my hut slash bungalow, made some collages with the one-year of backlogged magazines I have in my possession, and visited my friend Sam, the volunteer (and Alpha Phi!) who lives 15km away from me. It seems like after one year, I’ve progressed in a cyclical manner and am once again just hanging out in Mahatalaky like I did in the first couple months after I got here! Not much has changed in 12 months. But look who’s also celebrating an anniversary! Happy 1^st birthday to Christiana! 

1 week old! 

1 year old!

I still remember the night she was born, I had been living in Mahatalaky less than 2 weeks, and I heard all the commotion in the middle of the night, but was too scared to go out and investigate what was going on. I met the little baby when she was just 2 days old! I was still confused about 98% of the time and knew next to nothing about Malagasy culture. For example, no party is complete without consuming liter upon liter of soda or beer. For a girl who doesn’t like carbonation, I’ve come a long way and I can hold my own drinking soda with the best of them now!

Circumcising

A couple weeks ago, I was lucky enough to get invited to a traditional Malagasy Savatra, or circumcision party. Circumcision is a major cultural event in Madagascar. Families will save for years to be able to throw a big savatra for their son. Typically, multiple boys and their families host an event together. In this case, around 10 boys ranging in ages from about five to twelve were celebrating. Some of the older boys were circumcised a few years ago and only just now had the money to celebrate a savatra. Hundreds of people are invited, and even more people just come to watch and celebrate. I had heard about these parties, but nothing could have prepared me for actually attending one. I went with Sam and a few Malagasy friends who work for the NGO Missouri Botanical Gardens. We drove out further into the countryside about an hour, and then forded two rivers in rickety canoes. The tiny village of Elodrato, situated right on the coast, hosted the Savatra. By the time we got there around 4pm, the party had already started; Loud music, lots of food, and even more alcohol. The village elders and male heads of family were holding court in one of the houses receiving all the partygoers. The women were preparing food and singing the traditional celebration songs. After we completed our requisite visit to the elders and family heads, we headed over the main area/dance floor/open field and staked out a spot on the grass. I perched myself there from about 5pm until I tried to go to sleep at 10:30pm. What a place for people watching! Pretty much everyone was completely drunk. Every single person, from littlest kid to oldest man, was dancing. Malagasy people really know how to party! Sam and I decided to turn in around 10:30pm, and the party was really only just beginning. I woke up periodically throughout the night, first around midnight, then 2am, then 4am, then 6am. At all these intervals, the music was still blaring, the people were still shouting, and the party was still raging.  When we finally got up the next morning at about 7am, there were still around 20 people on the dance floor. Commitment.

Day Two of the Savatra, think Picnic Day. You have all kinds of food ready to eat, the sun is out and shining, people are passed out on the grass, and yet the alcohol is still flowing. Someone cut these people off! By 10am the party was going full steam again. The boys were paraded in on the shoulders of their families and friends and marched all around displaying the money and alcohol they had received as gifts. The mothers and aunts and grandmothers of the boys wore special sarongs and money displayed on their hats or in their braids. Uncles shoot blanks out of a gun into the air. After the marching and parading, there was more drinking of the alcohol received as gifts, and lots of dancing. If you’re Malagasy, there can never be too much dancing, or too much drinking for that matter. Sam and I were pretty exhausted after 24 hours of the nonstop party, so when it came time to leave that afternoon, I was a little relieved. After one year here, I can definitely say that I CANNOT HANG with the Malagasy people when it comes to partying. I think it’s engrained in their genetic makeup to be able to consume insane amounts of moonshine without getting a hangover and dance all night without getting tired. I had never been so relieved to return back to my lonely little ghost-town village with all of its 21 inhabitants. Peace and quiet!

amateur

noob

 

As I look back on my first year in Peace Corps, I am reminded how lucky I am to have such a caring support network back home. My friends and family are endlessly thoughtful and patient with me, from the packages and emails they send, to the crazy person phone calls that they field from me…Thank you Bonnie for not hanging up on me when I called you during your labor screaming about how I was FREAKING OUT about the new baby! It’s a crazy life, but even on the worst day, I can look around and remember right away why I want to be here. There’s still so much to do and so much to see, and I’m excited and ready for my second year as a Peace Corps volunteer. 

Operation Smile 2012

Every year, Operation Smile South Africa sponsors a mission to Madagascar, and lucky for us work-starved Peace Corps volunteers, we get to help out with the translating! Back in early June at the beginning of all the strikes, I heard that Op Smile was coming and I essentially harassed my Peace Corps boss until he relented and let me participate. Like I always say, demanding things always pays off! A little bit about Operation Smile, it’s an international NGO that sponsors missions in developing countries to operate on and fix cleft lips and cleft palates for free. Doctors, nurses, dentists, child life specialists, speech therapists and many others all donate their time, skills, and resources to give this really amazing gift to children and adults born with a cleft lip or cleft palate. Basically, it’s a really cool organization that is doing good in the world. Publicized through radio, television, posters, and word of mouth, over 260 families showed up for the first day of screening. That was a crazy day! I really didn’t know what to expect going into it, so day one was kind of madness. The Operation Smile Team consisted of around 60 people, plus 20 Peace Corps volunteers, and a number of other Malagasy translators. So a lot of people! The initial days consisted of screening kids and adults with cleft lips and cleft palates on their candidacy for surgery. Our job as translators involved working with the medical staff to communicate to the patients exactly what was going on and to get the proper medical history to assess the patient’s priority level for surgery. Each part of the medical team had to assess every patient, so it took a long time. The first two days were very long and very hectic, but still pretty awesome. Families has come from near and far and waited upwards of 12 hours, just for their chance to get a surgery for their child or brother or friend. Commitment.

waiting......

Surgery week was one of the coolest and most magical things I’ve been privileged enough to be a part of, not only during my Peace Corps service, but also during my life. 136 patients were chosen from the 260 or so that were screened. The medical team operated on 30 patients a day for 4 days and finished up the week with 16 on the final day. I tried to do a little bit of everything, but spent the bulk of my time working in the Recovery Room and the Post-Operation wards. The Recovery Room was pretty much exactly what it sounds like: the place patients were brought to immediately post-surgery when they were coming out of the anesthesia. So it involved explaining to patients or parents what was happening: the surgery went well, there were no problems, you need to drink juice and hydrate, you can’t touch your mouth or the stitches, etc, etc. But the coolest part of that job was bringing in the parents from the waiting room to see their kids post-operation. Culturally, Malagasy people are not very expressive. They don’t hug, there are not public displays of affection, and they don’t get overly excited. But in the Recovery Rooms, moms cried with joy and cried with fear, some hugged every nurse, doctor, and volunteer they could get their hands on, and for the first time in the entire year that I’ve been here, they talked about their feelings. Moms no older than me tried to hold in all the emotion that comes with having to sit by and watch your baby get surgery, and watch him or her hurt, but not be able to comfort them, while at the same time knowing that this surgery will change their little life. Probably the most memorable conversation I had with a mother on this topic happened on day three of surgery. As she watched her child get led by the hand back to the Operating Room, she burst into tears. After a little coaxing by myself and another volunteer, she started talking. She told us how scared she was and how she can’t bear to watch her baby cry, but she knows that this surgery means everything for her child and how wonderful of an opportunity it is. She told us how the rest of her family disowned her and her child because of his severe cleft lip, and they’ve been on their own since. She said that they’ve been waiting for years for this chance, and even though she knew she shouldn’t cry, she couldn’t help it. I definitely got choked up listening to that story. But seeing that mother’s face when I brought her back to see her child post-surgery was magical. Joy mixed with confusion mixed with a desire to remain emotionless was splayed all across her tear-streaked face. BOOM. Life changed.

A happy mom

It was really cool to be that direct link between the medical team and patient, because a lot of the cases started to feel personal to me. Especially working in the Recovery Room and then the Post-Operation wards, I got to follow patients all the way through their experience with Operation Smile. From pre-surgery to recovery room to the post-operation wards and then patient discharge, I got to see it all! I even was able to observe a procedure! I followed this little guy all the way through, and look how beautiful he is!

The most amazing part of this experience was patient discharge, when everyone got to go home. What a lot of people don’t realize about cleft lips and cleft palates is that it’s not just cosmetic. Yes, there absolutely is a huge cultural stigma against cleft lips and palates all across the developing world. But, a patient with a cleft palate often can’t eat or speak properly. Imagine missing a part or most of the roof of your mouth…that’s a cleft palate. Now imagine trying to eat and talk and drink with that deformity. Food and water comes out of your nose. You can’t pronounce certain sounds and therefore words. Imagine trying to go to school and learn and socialize. Now think about how amazing and life changing it is to get that deformity fixed. BOOM. Operation Smile.

A patient with a cleft lip often can’t nurse properly. They have teeth that seem to come out of their nose because of their cleft. They can’t close their mouth. They can’t say certain sounds and therefore certain words. How would you communicate? How would you learn, or get a job, or find a husband or wife? Imagine a baby who gets his cleft lip fixed. He can nurse. He’ll be able to speak. Often, you won’t even be able to notice the scar. BOOM. Operation Smile. Now imagine an adult who has gone their entire life with a cleft lip. Now they can annunciate properly. Now they can socialize, and date, and get married without any cultural stigma. Now, when they look in the mirror, they don’t even recognize who is looking back at them. BOOM. Life changed. I assisted a nurse in discharging an adult patient on the last day of surgery. The woman was 30 years old, unmarried, and lived with a friend. She had spent the night in the hospital after her surgery, and was to be discharged the next morning. Part of the discharge process is cleaning of the wound where the lip was stitched up. A lot of times, blood and other dirty stuff collect on the incision area. This woman in particular had had a decent amount of residual bleeding that hadn’t been cleaned up yet. I explained to her what the nurse was doing, and she sat perfectly still and stoic while her lip was cleaned. And then we showed her a mirror. I couldn’t hold back my own tears watching this adult woman look with disbelief at her own reflection. Cleaned up of all the dried blood and such, there was a perfect little stitched up incision that was already healing nicely. She couldn’t even believe what she was saying and just kept repeating “Thank you, thank you, thank you” as she tried to control her tears. BOOM. Life changed.

Working with Operation Smile was a pretty awesome experience. The entire team is really committed and dedicated to what they’re doing and they all work very cohesively together, despite their different backgrounds. I feel very lucky to have been part of a project like this. I’m headed back south to Fort Dauphin today and am looking forward to returning to coastal life! Now that (hopefully) the strikes are over for good, my projects will be starting back up. PHELT lives on! And happy back to school week for everyone in the U.S., especially Ian who is starting his senior year. Wowzaaa.

Spreading positive vibes in the Post-Op Ward!

If you’re interested in the Operation Smile program I participated in, check out their website:

http://southafrica.operationsmile.org/help/donate/

Wisdom Learned from Peace Corps Unemployment

In my last blog, I wrote about the countrywide teacher’s strike going on in Madagascar that was messing with my master plan that I meticulously laid out starting this past February. Then all the health centers and hospitals went on strike as well. Cool. I asked for good vibes for the strikes to end and I am happy to report that after 2 months, I am going back to work this week! I’m sure everyone is dying to know what I’ve been up to for the past interim months. Basically just a lot of adventuring, fun, and learning. I dislocated my elbow falling off a camion, celebrated Madagascar’s Independence Day and watched a house get set on fire during the fireworks show, got my purse stolen with everything I owned in it, but then had it miraculously returned. I camped out on the beach, swam in an infinity pool that overlooks the Indian Ocean, and even stayed up all night once! These past two months in Madagascar have been among some of my hardest because I really had to look at my reasons and motivations for being here, minus work and projects and all the other Western things that have kept me busy in the past. But Madagascar is always teaching me new things and making me grow and reevaluate. I have some interesting things going on in the next few months now that the strikes are over, starting with being a translator for Operation Smile this upcoming August. I’ll write more about that experience as it happens. But here are some pictures to illustrate what I can’t put into words about my last couple months here. 

How Peace Corps Made Me Proud to be an American and Madagascar Surprises Me Once Again

My post-World Malaria Day life has continued on at a slower pace. A crippling countrywide teacher’s strike has shut down the entire education system here, and subsequently squashed my hopes to get my Peer Educator project (PHELT!!) off the ground any time soon. But after almost a year here, I’m no longer concerned with these Western notions of “time-frames” and “schedules.” So it is what it is. I’m working a few days a week at the health center, and spending a lot of time riding my bike around visiting the new Peace Corps volunteer and my old friends at Azafady. Also as anyone familiar with my Machu Picchu Peruvian trek would know, I can use all the extra bicycle-practice I can get. Jekka, I am happy to report that so far I have NOT crashed over any cliffs! Although I have found it very challenging to bike through sand, it’s literally not possible. And it’s very frustrating. But enough about that. 

Madagascar’s Quest to Always Defy My Expectations

Living every day in a Third World country really makes you thankful for what you have at home. I guess after so long here, I’ve developed certain desensitization to things, but I was really struck when I brought a group of 8 or so Azafady volunteers to see the health center. The health center of Commune Rurale Mahatalaky is very basic. It is made up of five cement rooms: an office where the nurse sees all sick patients, a maternity room/sick ward, a dispensary, a delivery room, and another office where the nurse does prenatal visits and family planning appointments. The maternity room/sick ward is made up of four metal beds. The dispensary has one fuel-powered refrigerator where we keep the vaccines on ice blocks. The delivery room has one bed with stirrups and a water bucket. The two offices have a desk and a few chairs. It’s very simple. I think it’s pretty nice! But taking these visitors there for whom this hasn’t become the norm was an eye re-opening experience. They were shocked at the lack of amenities.

“So what if something goes wrong during labor?” someone asked.

“Umm…then they get on the truck to go into Fort Dauphin, if they have enough money.” I replied.

The other day as the nurse and I were doing the standard 50 prenatal visits, a very extremely pregnant woman walked into the delivery room with her mom and grandma, her birthing team.

“She’s in labor!” exclaimed the mother.

My wonderful, hard-working, ever-patient nurse sighed and paused the prenatal visits and walked over to the delivery room to check on this mother-to-be.

“She’s not nearly dilated enough. Come back tomorrow” the nurse kindly informed the woman.

“But she’s in pain! She needs to push now!” the over-eager grandma-to-be said forcefully.

Throughout this whole exchange, the nurse had kept her cool, but after that comment, her cool slipped a little, and the animated and confident and adamant nurse I’ve come to know and love emerged:

            “Labor MUST hurt! It is painful work! COME BACK TOMORROW!”

I stifled a laugh, and the expectant mother and her team meekly headed out the door.

This is just a day in the life at the rural health center. One hard-working and committed nurse with her vazaha sidekick (me!) doing the work that an entire department would do at a Western hospital, with about 1/18^th of the amenities available at one. When I stop to look around at what I’m doing and where I’m working, it really is a learning experience. Waiting 6 hours for a prenatal visit in the rain? Women here do that every single month. Walking 10km in the early stages of labor just to give birth in the hospital? Normal. How lucky are we to live in a place where it is culturally acceptable for a woman to scream obscenities at her husband during labor? How lucky are we to live in a place where people are impressed at a mother who chooses not to get an epidural? How lucky are we to never have to worry about malaria? And these are just off the top of my head. Madagascar never ceases to amaze me.

America the Beautiful

I spend a lot of time hanging out with Europeans. The Peace Corps community in Southern Madagascar is small, but luckily enough for my sanity and social life, Azafady is around to keep me company. Among fellow Peace Corps volunteers, being a Californian is reason enough for ridicule. (You all just WISH you were from the Golden State!) But among my Euro friends, hailing from the Land of the Free is all the ammunition needed to make an average joke an excellent one. I don’t get it, obviously. I mean they’re all just jealous right? So I’ve come to the conclusion that America is the place everyone else loves to hate, but secretly wishes they could be from. Take that, haters! Where else can I get away using vocabulary like “holla” and “bummer” and “haters” and spelling things with a “z.” Additionally, living outside of the US makes you appreciate all the mundane inside the US. Boy, do I appreciate a sandwich now! And all those other little things you never realize you’ll miss until you do. For example, cuddling up under the covers on a cold morning, eating popcorn in a movie theater, and running down to Walgreens to pick up some Scotch tape. But seriously, there really is something so sweet about the companionship of a fellow American when you’re far away from home. They just GET me. I would also like to say that Arnold Schwarzenegger, the disgraced former governor of California, is one of the few Americans that are also famous in Madagascar. This list consists of fellow superstars Jackie Chan, Chuck Norris, and the one and only Barack Obama. You’re welcome World!

            I recently found myself sharing a Mexican dinner with a few of my awesome British friends on Cinco de Mayo. As we happily ate our bean burritos I commented on how glad I was to be doing something on Cinco de Mayo.

            “What’s Cinco de Mayo?” asked one ill-informed British person.

            “You know, Cinco de Mayo! Fifth of May! Mexican Independence Day? Cinco de            Drinko? NOTHING??”

I was flabbergasted. What kind of country doesn’t celebrate another country’s independence?? As it turns out, Cinco de Mayo isn’t even the real Mexican Independence Day, so that’s my bad. But I still caringly explained the joys of Cinco de Mayo to my poor, unknowing friends. To which they responded along the lines of “Oh how typical of Americans, any excuse for a party, celebrating a day that’s not even the real independence day of a country that’s not even them!” That comment was about the last I could take. I mustered all the patriotic fire I had and proudly declared:

            “CUT ME OPEN AND I'LL BLEED RED WHITE AND BLUE!”

             “Sooo…the same colors as the Union Jack then?” retorted my snappy British friend.

England: 1. Monica: 0.

But never fear, they may have won the Battle of Cinco de Mayo but I will win this war! AMURICAAAA!

In conclusion, please everyone send out good vibes that this strike ends soon so I can get back to work instead of sitting around all day musing about my love for America. God Bless the U.S.A.!

World Malaria Day!

It’s been a busy couple of weeks on my side of the world! A lot of things happened, including (but not limited to) the completion of my first secondary project, feeling stressed for the first time since I can remember, walking around more of my commune than ever before, and lots of fun hanging out in between.

World Malaria Day: The Good!

For those of you who did not know, Happy World Malaria Day (on April 25)! I wrote in my last blog about the plans I had to commemorate the event and I am proud to say that I successfully-ish completed everything I set out to do. It was a lot of work, but such a rewarding investment of my time and effort. I broke down my activities into three parts:

1.     Wall of Fame

a.      The week before World Malaria Day, I spent walking around with my camera, a full liter of water, and my malaria teaching aid pictures. I walked to every little village hamlet within 5 kilometers of the village I live in and talked to around 100 different people and families. In each small community, I showed the sketch of the mural we planned to paint and explained it to my little audience, highlighting why they should use a net, and also who should use a net. Then I inquired as to whom all already used bed nets within the little village. I would say generally about half the families in all the small villages I visited actually used a bed net to sleep under. I did hit the jackpot though in this little village community called Maromoky that literally means “lots of mosquitoes”…every family there uses a bed net! I took pictures of all the people and families with their nets and then invited them to Malaria Day on the 25^th where they would be able to pick up their photos. This was really effective in recognizing the people and families who used nets and making them an example to other families who don’t use nets. Photographs are very highly valued and so the fact that I was taking their pictures and then giving the photo back was a great source of pride for people. Canvassing the entire commune of Mahatalaky kind of felt a bit like campaigning for myself and my work, but it was a really great way to get out there talking to people about malaria.

2.     Dream Banners

a.     In Madagascar, Malaria is the number on cause of death in children under the age of 5. In fact, 1 in every 14 kids here die of malaria each year. This statistic in unacceptable. To get kids thinking about their futures, Peace Corps Africa came up with the idea of dream banners. Basically, all the kids who attended my malaria day activities were given paper and crayons and asked to illustrate their answer to the question “When I grow up I will…” This was my favorite activity of all the things we did on World Malaria Day. Creativity and individuality are not things that are valued here in terms of the education system. Little kids don’t color in their free time, and generally don’t even know how to hold a pen until they go to school when they’re 6 years old. In their first year of school, they study how to draw and then get tested and scored on their drawing abilities. So this whole exercise in creativity was something that all the kids had actually never done before. Asking them to wrap their little minds around the abstract idea of the future was really challenging, but I am so happy with the way things worked out. They drew big houses and farm fields and flowers and happy families and cows. They wrote their names in huge letters and asked if they were allowed to keep their masterpieces. When I asked some of them to explain what they drew, their responses were simple: This is my house that I’ll live in, this is my family being happy, this is the flower that will grow where I live. I was really proud of the fact that all my kids were able to grasp what I was asking them to do in imagining their futures. It also made me so happy just to provide the opportunity for them to have this small creative outlet. Watching this small army of kids walk home clutching their small drawings created with the one color crayon I handed out per kid made me feel more validated than all the other activities I did on World Malaria Day.

3.     Malaria Skit

a.     Thanks to my great friends at ONG Azafady, I was able to enlist the volunteers in their Pioneer program to help with the various activities of World Malaria Day. One of the biggest challenges with malaria education is that a lot of families use nets, but only the parents or grandparents sleep under them. The kids who are most susceptible sleep on the floor or somewhere else. The other challenge is the fact that parents often wait a long time before bringing their sick child into the hospital for treatment. The volunteers and I acted in a skit that addressed these two main obstacles with malaria work in Madagascar. It centered on a Peace Corps volunteer (me!) going around a village doing malaria counseling and education. The volunteer (me!!) comes across a family who uses a net, but where only the parents actually sleep under it. Their baby gets sick with malaria and the parents try herbal remedies and visit a witch doctor before I finally tell them they need to visit the hospital for treatment. The whole skit was well acted and very clear and all the kids loved it! The volunteers did a great visualization of malaria transmission from mosquitoes and how a net works to protect you, which I loved, and all the kids really understood. It was a lot of fun.

World Malaria Day: The Good But Difficult!

1.     Malaria Mural

a.     This was so hard! I completely and totally underestimated the amount of work, time and skill that needs to go into successfully completing a wall sized mural. These things coupled with my lack of art skills made the whole thing way more stressful than it needed to be. It was really challenging for me to find myself in a situation where I needed to be kind of laidback and calm about things. I really wanted the mural to be perfect and a masterpiece on par with the Sistine Chapel, but obviously that was impossible. By the third day of work on the mural though, I reminded myself that I wanted this whole thing to be a community project, not just “Monica’s project.” So, yes, that meant imperfections and crooked lines and cartoon-looking people, but I am proud to report that the community of Mahatalaky loves and adores their kind of strange looking malaria mural! Furthermore, it is effective and clear as a malaria teaching tool, which at the end of the day, is all the mural really needs to be. But I will say that I do not intend to paint anything for at least another year!

And so completes the first part of my first big project! I consider it a huge success because I spent basically two weeks talking about malaria with everyone I came into contact with and it was also just a lot of fun. Right after World Malaria Day was the long-awaited grand opening of the secondary school built by Azafady in Mahatalaky. The whole community celebrated together which was wonderful and so amazing to be a part of. There was an all-night party Thursday to commemorate the school opening, and I had a great moment where I just looked around at my community gathered together dancing and having fun, and thought to myself how happy I am. :)


[Sidenote: I tried to upload some photos with the post and it just failed miserably, everything froze right before my uploads finished and I'm so sad. So anyone who hasn't seen the photos I already posted to Facebook can follow this link here to this album! http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150766217943232.436937.518898231&type=3&l=f3e5f83eda]

Every Child Deserves a 5th Birthday: My Next Big Thing

I am proud to finally reveal My Big Peace Corps Project [working title]! In addition to my work at the health center in Mahatalaky, I’m starting work on my secondary project at the end of April. So without further ado…

Phase I/Health Curriculum/CEG Mahatalaky/April – May

        April 25 – World Malaria Day Project 
Phase II/Anti-SIDA Club/CEG Mahatalaky/June – July

Phase III/Peer Health Educator Leadership Training/Fort Dauphin/September

I’ll be teaching a Health Curriculum at the middle school in Mahatalaky, starting in a couple weeks. There’s about 250 students ages 11-18 that study there. The month long curriculum will cover general health with a focus on HIV/AIDS, STI’s, and good sexual practices. There’s no traditional cringe-inducing ‘birds and bees’ talk that kids have with their parents here. Sex is not talked about at all. I hope that my curriculum will provide the students with some very basic knowledge so that they can make better decisions for themselves, and provide motivated students with leadership opportunities.

The kickoff event to my curriculum and this 6-month project is World Malaria Day, April 25. Over 90% of all deaths from malaria occur in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Madagascar, malaria is the number one cause of death in children under the age of 5. In fact, 1 in every 14 kids here die of malaria each year. I’ve blogged about malaria before and how shocking it is to see a child so sick from an illness that is so preventable (Malaria in Madagascar), but this month I’m joining with Peace Corps Africa to support the President’s Malaria Initiative goal of “halving the burden of malaria in 70 percent of the at-risk populations on the [African] continent (i.e., approximately 450 million residents)” by 2013. More than any other illness I’ve seen in my community here, malaria is the most preventable and the most ignored. So on April 25 in partnership with the CEG Mahatalaky, and my new Peer Health and Leadership Program, I’m organizing a community-wide event to raise awareness and promote education. We’ll be painting a mural illustrating proper net usage and creating a “Wall of Fame” to recognize the community individuals and families who practice malaria preventative measures. I’m so super excited about this project, and I can’t wait to update you all on how it goes, complete with pictures and illustrations! For now, I’ve posted the sketches of the mural’s we’ll be painting in Mahatalaky.

This is an illustration of a pregnant woman taking her malaria prevention medicine. Only 23% of pregnant women in Madagascar are receiving the necessary 2 doses of the medicine. 

This illustrates a couple things: proper net usage, and caring for a malaria-affected child.  Last year in Madagascar, 56% of children with a fever did not seek any treatment. 

After the Health curriculum ends around June, I’m starting the new Anti-SIDA Club! Until the end of the school year, the club will mostly just focus on Youth Development, i.e. hanging out, playing soccer, and talking. Hopefully we’ll have time to do a couple community activities, maybe around World Environment Day or something. I figure maybe around 30 kids will be interested enough in Health to join the Anti-SIDA club. From those 30 kids who stick around, I’m going to pick 10, the best of the best, to be trained as Peer Health Educators.

The gem of the entire project is my Peer Health Educator Leadership Training. I even gave it an acronym, PHELT, which I’m totally trying to make happen! For example, all the emails I send to my boss about it I label “PHELT Project Proposal” or “PHELT Budget.” He didn’t really get it at first, but I still hope it catches on! With the help of the NGOs Azafady (www.madagascar.co.uk) and PSI (www.psi.org), the training will take place during school’s summer vacation, most likely in September, and will focus on developing the leadership and communication skills of the 10 selected students. The goal is for the trained peer educators to teach a health curriculum at the CEG again in September, just like I’m doing now in April. In this way, I hope to achieve project sustainability. At the very least, I hope that even just one student will learn some skills to help motivate them to work and educate themselves beyond the scope of the rural village they live in.

I am ridiculously excited about this project. I hope that it becomes the cornerstone of my Peace Corps experience, and I really feel like with this goal I really have a chance to make a difference in some lives here. If you are interested in anything I’ve written about in this blog or have any questions about my project or malaria, please feel free to comment or email!

I’ve told you my plan, now how will you Stomp Out Malaria in 2012?
           http://stompoutmalaria.org

How Peace Corps Made Me an Animal Hater and Three Other Ways I’ve Changed Since I Got Here

[I’ve been here eight months, so it seemed a fitting time for a list-style post.]

1.     Animal Hater

           While I won’t pretend that I was ever a passionate PETA supporter and I’ve never called a bearded dragon my child (Grace..), I’ve always liked animals. Really, who doesn’t? I’ve had fish and cats as pets since I was a kid, and Addie the dog is probably the most valued and beloved member of the Skelton family. But since moving to Madagascar, any love I ever felt for animals in the past has been extinguished. I hate all animals. Chickens, roosters, ducks, goats, dogs, cats, cows, mice, rats: you name it, I hate it. And before you condemn me as a heartless rhymes with witch, please refer back to some of my former posts (read: Monica Eludes an Escaped Cow)! I think part of it is the fact that I live in a village where the main industry is agriculture, so barnyard animals are always roaming around. Sometimes to amuse myself, I just throw rocks at the chickens and see how long it takes me before I hit one. Lucky for the chickens, I have pretty poor aim. And WHY would a rooster crow not only at 4 am when the sun is rising, but also at 3 pm in the afternoon when I’m trying to do something?? Because roosters are stupid. Many of you may not know this, but a goat is one of the most irritating animals on the planet, because it’s bleating sounds extremely human. It’s unsettling. Google “goat that sounds like a man” and you’ll see what I mean. Imagine living with that. I don’t want this post to become a rant on animals, so I’ll end it with this: I recently got a mouse as a roommate. EXCELLENT!

2.     Nature Lover

     Ok, I have always liked nature, probably more than the average person. But, after 8 months living in the most beautiful place in the world, it still takes my breath away. The green of the rain forest, the enormity of the mountains, the blue of the ocean.. I could write poems about it, if only I knew how to write poetry. Take today for example. I’m here in Fort Dauphin to work the cultural center but also primarily to finally finish writing my health curriculum and project proposal for the Peer Health Ambassador program I’m trying to start. I was lamenting to a Malagasy friend of mine about how I had no good place to stay, and she kindly offered me a bed at her house. She told me the neighborhood it was in so I knew it would be nice, but she never told me it would be inspiring! She lives in a roomy bungalow right on the seaside cliffs of the Indian Ocean. Literally, the windows to the room I’m staying in open right out to the ocean. It’s amazing. Nothing compares to the beauty of the completely un-developed ocean side property that is all of Fort Dauphin. I love it.

Photo credit to my friend Amy Stephens, an Azafady volunteer who worked in Mahatalaky. 

3.     Happy Waiter

       I believe I’ve written before about the notion of “Malagasy time.” Someone says be there at 9am, they really just mean sometime in the morning. Someone says a restaurant is open for lunch, they really mean it’s closed from 12-3pm. A bush taxi driver says the broken down car will be fixed in a little, he really means after at least 4 hours. This has all become the realities of my life here in Madagascar. At first, it would drive me crazyyy. Like bang-your-head-against-the-wall-scream-your-head-off crazy. And then I just got used to it. In fact, I can now say that I depend on waiting anytime I ever go anywhere! I always bring a book, and since I’m currently in the middle of the epic that is the Game of Thrones series, I actually look forward to these time lapses because I have an excuse to read! Yay!

4.    My Relative Role

      Every Peace Corps volunteer, whether they admit it or not, wants to save the world. Even if it’s only in the littlest way, it’s still part of the reason you join Peace Corps. But moving to my tiny village in rural Madagascar has really changed my perspective, not only on what it means to “change the world” but the role one person can play in making a difference. I used to think my success as a volunteer would be based on the number of projects I completed or the number of wells I built here. After 8 months here, I measure my success based on how my community values and perceives me as one of its members. I am currently working on the proposal for the project I want to base my entire service around, and I am so excited about it. I really feel like this is an idea that my whole community can get behind, and an idea that I can potentially take to many more small communities around the Antanosy and Antandroy regions of southern Madagascar. I’ll keep you updated as this idea comes to fruition, hopefully I will have the proposal completed in the next week!

In other news, work at the Health Center continues and my responsibilities there continue to grow. My English Club is flourishing; I’ve really found a lot of joy in teaching kids who genuinely want to learn! My camera broke (sad!) but I’m trying to get in the habit of taking pictures on my iPod so I can keep up to date with photos. I should be able to post pictures of the cultural center in Fort Dauphin, my English Club, and the health center in Mahatalaky next time! XO

Waiting for the Hurricane

I'm currently in Fort Dauphin right now waiting out the last bits of Hurricane Giovanna that's been tormenting Madagascar since last week. I'm working on a post, but here's a visual to tide you over: 

And this is a picture of the time my bush taxi got stuck in the mud on the road back to my village. It took 4 hours to dig it out, plus the 4 hours of actually driving the trip takes when the road is washed out. Fun!