It is
going to be incredibly difficult to adequately capture my first month in
Madagascar. It’s hard to believe but
since my first blog post I’ve already lived a month with a host family, which
may not seem a long time, but given the intensity of the first month in
country, they’ve begun to feel like my family and they’ve made a point to treat
me as a son. I’m experiencing an odd
sort of cognitive dissonance when it comes to intervals of time here, which I can
only assume is common for most other volunteers. Even though the duration of each is the same,
I feel as if I’ve lived in Madagascar forever, that the stay with my host
family was over in the blink of an eye, and that I’ve known these other
volunteers long enough to feel as if I have brothers and sisters here in
country. What’s more, I know that two
years will be over vetivety (quickly), as my host mom always reminds me, even
though the timing feels daunting when I think that I’ll be living here in Madagascar
for just over half as long as I was a student at Olaf. In short though, I couldn’t be happier with
where I am, who I’m with and what I’m doing.
I feel at home here. One thing
that is been shocking has been how quickly the language has been coming. I’m far from ‘mahay’ at Malagasy (a word that
means good at or skilled, or any number of positive things that I’m still
identifying. A pretty good catch all
word), yet I am astounded at how rapidly I’ve been picking it up. After only one month I’m already sitting
around in the kitchen with my host family and able to chat for hours on
end. Granted my host family is
incredibly patient with my ‘special gasy,’ a term volunteer’s use for their
particular brand of the language. In
addition, after roughly four hours a day of language class and three of
technical or cross cultural training I come home and have a host mom who has
made my language proficiency her singular occupation anytime I enter her sight
line. Exhausting at first, but
incredibly rewarding. I’ve pushed myself
to spend as little time in my room as possible and as much as I can with the
family when I’m not sitting through the Peace Corps classes. As a result I’m able to carry a conversation,
albeit in broken, broken, broken Malagasy, and with the aid of a dictionary,
but Malagasy nonetheless.
Because
I haven’t had access to internet in the past month I’m forced to distill the
entire experience into a single blog post rather than present each individual
experience with its due reflection.
However I’ll mention a few of the most striking moments that will
hopefully do justice to my first month as a volunteer in training and provide
some semblance of a portrait:
1.
The
Host Stay: To sum up the host stay experience I’ll first say that I live with
an incredible family in Mantasoa, the village/town where the Peace Corps
training center is located. My father
Marcellin is a fisherman and does some small scale ag farming while raising both
chickens and pigs. My host mom, Laurette, when she isn’t occupied by teaching
me all things Malagasy, takes care of the house, helps with the family farming
and spends time with Bebe, the grandmother who also lives with us. My two siblings, brother Dinasoa, and sister
Mirah, are eighteen and fifteen respectively.
Both have been great to get to know and I can unequivocally say that I
couldn’t be happier with my host family. We have electricity, though it amounts
to a few incandescent bulbs strung from the ceiling and it shorts out
sporadically. We fetch water from a well that’s roughly 150 yards from the
house, and use a pit latrine, which is a small shack down the hill from the
house, roughly chest high on this average sized American male. I’ll spare the
details. I shower in an enclosure made
of tarp strung over a frame of sturdy sticks using a bucket and smaller liter
sized scope called a ‘zinga.’ We also
cook outside of the house in a corrugated tin hovel over an open wood fire,
which creates and traps smoke in a uniquely treacherous fashion. I would be hard pressed to design a method
for cooking that would result in a greater degree of smoke inhalation. So I’ve been learning to cook while at the
same time degrading my lung quality such that they’re now likely akin to those
of Tom Waits. I’m more worried about my
family though as they cook this way every day. Oh and I had fleas too. First time in my life, and hopefully
last. So that was an experience. Most of the other trainees had a period of flea
infestation so I wasn’t alone. There’s
so much more I could say but I’ll end by expressing how lucky I have been to
have had the chance to live with this family and learn about Malagasy culture
from them. I know I’ll be seeing them often for the next two years and I’ll be
in touch with my Malagasy family for the rest of my life.
2.
Fomba
Malagasy: This is a tragic circumstance that serendipitously coincided with my
host stay at a time when my language skills and confidence were just high
enough to permit a glimpse into fomba Malagasy (Malagasy ‘way’ or
‘customs’). Roughly one week ago a
neighbor passed away. He was only 30
years old. He passed at roughly 5 am on a Thursday and the Malagasy funeral
ceremonies subsequently commenced that evening.
So on Thursday evening when I returned from class my family informed me
of the news, and I asked if it would be acceptable and polite for me to
accompany my host family as they participated in all the community events. They
said it would be, so that Friday morning I had my first tangible experience
with fomba Malagasy. First though, I
should mention that the night of a death, at least one representative from as
many families as can make it from the community gather at the house of the deceased
person’s family to sing songs and drink…. a lot it seems. It begins around 7 pm and continues until
roughly 3 am. It seemed odd to me how
jovial the atmosphere sounded, (I was privy to most of the concert as a result of
my room’s proximity to the neighbors and my thin walls) yet in a sense I
understand and appreciate the need for camaraderie that this custom must
provide. Regardless, the next morning at roughly 7 am, it is customary for
families within the community to put together a small gift, often money in an
envelope, and to present it to the family in their house, where the close
relatives sit around in a room with the dead body laid out on a table. We entered the room, my host mom, gave a
short speech, we presented our gift and I expressed my condolences while shaking
the hands of each family member. That
night there was a community-wide reprisal of the previous evening’s merriment,
including more songs and drinking, this time extending from 7 pm until 4 am,
which I was not able to attend, as it would likely have been culturally
inappropriate at this point. I was
however awake for most of it despite my best efforts. The following afternoon my host family and I
gathered together with much of the community for the actual funeral
proceedings. There were roughly two hundred
Malagasy in attendance and I was struck by the apparent similarities between
the Malagasy ceremony and the American funerals I’ve attended. In retrospect I suppose I shouldn’t have been
so surprised, as roughly 50% of the country self-identifies as Christian and
I’ve thus far only seen Christian funerals in the States. There was considerably more singing however
with intermittent bible verse readings interspersed, and a moment when each
individual in the community approached the body one at a time and sprinkled the
body with water using the stem of a rose.
I can honestly say that it was the only nerve-racking moment of the
experience. I felt entirely out of place
as the lone white male, towering a good 6-8 inches over the next tallest
Malagasy man while showering the dead body of a man I’d never met with rose
pedal drippings in front of the Mantasoa community. To wrap up the funeral proceedings the entire
procession follows the body, wrapped in cloth and carried on a stretcher of
lashed together tree branches, to the family tomb, where the body is laid to
rest while a speech is given by the president of the municipality. As I mentioned earlier I had expected greater
differences between a Malagasy funeral and those I had experienced in
America. I’d mostly developed this
preconception because I’ve been informed that despite the advent of
Christianity, I believe as a result of French colonization, animism and
traditional belief structures are still deeply rooted here in Madagascar,
particularly surrounding death. One such
custom that has persisted despite the proliferation of Christianity is the
‘turning of the bones,’ but I can discuss that at a later date. I’m glad I participated even though it felt
as if the spot light was shining extra bright on the vazaha (foreigner) at
points. I like to think that it was the polite thing to do and an appropriate gesture. I’ve certainly learned thus far, and this is
a good lesson for once I arrive at my site, that as far cultural immersion
goes, it often feels as if you’re blindly walking a very fine line between
appropriate and inappropriate. As I
understand it so far there aren’t specific ceremonies I would be barred from
participating in as a foreigner as long as I make it known that I consider
myself, and would like to be considered, as part of the community. However,
Peace Corps can only teach us so much during our pre-service training so I’ve
been thinking that if an opportunity presents itself to participate in a
community ceremony/event I’ll jump at it and hope I’m not intruding.
3.
Mpivarotra
any Manjakandriana: I don’t have space or time to compose an entry that would
do justice to my experience as a vendor in Manjakandriana. I’ll quick sum up the experience and say that
in groups of four, CED (community economic development) volunteers rented stand
space and were vendors for a morning in a large town market, roughly 1.5 hours
by taxi-brousse from Mantasoa. We
decided to sell Fondue and I have an incredible story about our failed
marketing campaign. If you want the
details you’ll have to send me an email at ericjrahman@gmail.com and ask about it. In short, a
high school Malagasy friend of ours helped translate our marketing slogan for
the business, yet, unbeknownst to us, what seemed banal and cheeky in English
ended up being very dirty in Malagasy, which our Malagasy interpreter
inexplicably failed to mention. It’s a
good story so email me if you want the details.
4.
Arivonimamo: I’ll
write more on this later but I should quick mention that I have been assigned a
site for the next two years. I’ll be
living in Arivonimamo. More details to
come.
Thanks
for reading, Veloma!
