The Atandroy Ghost Serpent of Arivonimamo

Thus far in my writings I’ve been conspicuously silent on the subject of my beloved town, Arivonimamo.  In the beginning I listed a few of the essential statistics and peppered my writing with anecdotes from around town, but I’ve tended to focus on topics other than the daily deeds in the town of a thousand drunks (literal translation of Arivonimamo). Yet, in the past few weeks there has been an intruder amongst us in Arivonimamo causing quite the kerfuffle. Arivonimamo is now besieged by a menace so insidious, ghoulish, so outlandish, that the story must be told.

I first caught wind of our new interloper when the group of children who normally bumble around outside my house came knocking franticly at my door, ostensibly with some very urgent news. I ushered them inside, they hustled up my stairs and, once the door was securely locked behind them, launched exasperatedly into the tale of Arivonimamo’s Antandroy ghost serpent.

To paraphrase: A few days before someone had discovered a giant snake here in Arivonimamo. Now, this was no ordinary snake according to the girls, oh no. This snake, they told me, was six meters long (roughly 18 feet) and had a head the size of an ox cart.  What’s more, this snake was currently living down on the soccer field, located a couple hundred yards from my house, and the word on the street was that the night before he had eaten a drunkard and left only his head down on the field. 

Now I was incredulous at first, of course. I’m very much a ‘see it to believe it’ type of guy and mythic serpentine monsters have yet to cross my field of vision.  I played along with the children though and decided to ply what information I could from them. 

Allegedly the local police force (Gendarme) had bravely ventured down to the soccer pitch the day before only to come face-to-face with the slithery terror. The intrepid foot soldiers engaged the creature, guns a-blazin’ yet tragically, and bafflingly, came up empty handed.

I then pushed the children on where on earth this serpent may have come from, and what in the name of all that is holy, Arivonimamo could have done to bring this fresh hell down upon ourselves. To that they gave me two seemingly incongruent stories, which only thickened the plot. 

The first explanation was that an old vazah (white person), who lived up on a hill outside of town, was raising this snake as a pet.  The vazah supposedly skipped town a few years back but must have forgotten to fortify his serpent pens because one of the little buggers escaped and ate what I can only assume was a dozen cows to grow himself into the monstrosity terrorizing my soccer field.

Here’s where it gets weirder. The other story begins with an Atandroy man (one of the 18 ethnic groups of Madagascar), who had been living and working for a number of years in Arivonimamo. When this man suddenly died, he was laid to rest in one of the tombs on the high ridge to the Southeast of town. Sometime during the night, this Atandroy fellow broke free of his Merina burial shrouds (ethnic group in my area) and turned into a giant snake. The snake busted out of the tomb, but not before devouring a few of the other bodies around him. Sometime that night he must have slithered his way down to the soccer field where he was residing at the time the children told me the story.

My favorite part is that when the kids told me about the man turning into a snake they must have noticed a hint of doubt in my expression, because they gave me the, ‘Eric you’re so dumb,’ look that I’ve come to know so well. Apparently it’s common knowledge here that whenever an Atandroy person dies, they turn into an animal. I’m always the last to know I guess.

So it could be either story. We’ll never know.       

Anyway, I assumed that an active imagination had gotten the best of the children and I decided to investigate. Astonishingly, as I roamed the streets of town that morning, asking people to tell me what they’d heard about the newest resident of Arivonimamo, every single person I talked to knew about it. Every. Single. Person. 

The Gendarme shoot-out: most people had heard about that. The vazah with the pet snake: very plausible most people thought. The Atandroy thing: Oh duh Eric, of course, it’s definitely an Atandroy guy turned serpent, that makes sense. 

I did get a lot of variation on the story from different sources. Some people disputed the size, saying it was only a meter or so long. I later checked with the Gendarme who told me that they didn’t know anything about the shoot-out but that they had heard of the snake and heard it had moved down the hill where someone saw it drinking water. I even met a few people, notably younger individuals from the capital, who told me they had a hard time believing the story.

Nonetheless, I was advised not, nay forbidden, to head down to the soccer field by my neighbors and all the little kids that I basically run a day-care for here in Arivonimamo.

I did anyway though and low and behold, no 20 foot snake. After coming back from a run down at the field I stopped over at my neighbors to tell them I’d been down looking for the serpent but couldn’t find him.

‘That’s because he’s part ghost. When he sees you he can choose to hide and then strike when you’re not expecting it.’ They explained to me.

I was then informed that there is a very good possibility that this ghoulish creature can also take human form and may now be walking amongst us in the streets. At this point one of the ladies who was sitting and having coffee with us rolled her eyes and exclaimed how the whole thing had been blown out of proportion and how this kind of gossip is so typical of Arivonimamo:

‘If we had grasshoppers come into town by the time they got here, they’d be dogs, and by the time they made it to the bottom of the hill, they’d be people.’

My friend James stopped into Arivonimamo around the time this was all going on and over lunch, while we were contemplating taking my Tsimahety sword (another ethnic group) down the field to hunt snake, we came across an article in one of the national newspapers that we had bought to read:

‘Arivonimamo: Bibilava hafahafa hoe? Toy ny olona ny lohany,’ meaning, ‘Arivonimamo: A strange snake? His head is like a human.’

 So thanks to the hard hitting journalism of ‘Gazetiko’ I found another piece of the puzzle. Supposedly the snake has a human head.  The article did mention that there were a number of rumors flying around town and nobody seemed to know the true story.

Unfortunately, there isn’t some dramatic climax to this story. Somehow the snake never re-surfaced, Arivonimamo wasn’t stormed by hordes of zoologists looking to document a new species of man-snake, and the buzz around town seemed to fizzle out. A week or so ago a little shop owner across the street told me that a Gendarme officer had stopped by his store and mentioned that the Gendarme had seen a few-foot long, harmless snake somewhere in the rice fields outside of town and decided not to bother with it. So at this point it’s beginning to feel as if Arivonimamo is finally safe from the Atandroy ghost serpent.

But then again, who knows, maybe he’s still walking among us.

Until next time,

Veloma.

Counting the votes in Ankeniheny (a town in Arivonimamo)

Politics - Madagascar's Recent Election

News may have trickled back to America that there was recently an election here in Madagascar.  Though Madagascar is just the tiniest little blip on America’s diplomatic radar and the country has about as much influence in the international community as Sarah Palin does in the Obama administration, in this corner of the world, in this part of town, it was a big deal.

I should actually clarify that, it was sort of a big deal, but I’ll go into that more later on.  First, the CliffNotes version of Malagasy political history since independence:

In 1960 Madagascar gains its independence from France and Philbert Tsiranana becomes President of Madagascar’s First Republic (they had French overlords for a long time so they do the multiple republics thing). The Malagasy people had given independence a shot back in 1947 when they attempted to rise up against their French colonial masters but France, fresh from getting licked by the biggest bully of them all, Nazi Germany, stroked its wounded ego by kicking the bejesus out of the Malagasy people. On June 26^th 1960, when independence finally was granted Mr. Tsiranana was elected and was in power for a full twelve years. He was considered by many however to be a stooge for the French government and be beholden to the will of France.

In 1972, tensions had mounted and though Mr. Tsiranana was declared the victor in another round of elections, popular protests percolated to the point that his administration was deposed and power handed to his successor.  This changing of the guard failed to appease the public and demonstrations continued. The turmoil persisted until 1975 and the interim period witnessed the deposition of yet another leader, the assassination of a President and rule by a military directorate.  A new government was finally formed and the crisis was ended when Didier Ratsiraka came to power.

Now Ratsiraka is an important name to remember because he became a pivotal figure in Madagascar’s political history, ruling for nearly twenty years, though not consecutively.  Since this is a brief over-view of the political goings-on in Madagascar I won’t delve too much into the machinations of Ratsiraka’s regime but it is important to know that Ratsiraka’s rule was characterized as Madagascar’s revolutionary socialist period.  In response to deteriorating socio-economic conditions towards to the end of 1980’s Ratsiraka began to institute a number of economic and political reforms, not unlike Gorbachev was attempting in the Soviet Union, and not surprisingly the reforms had similar effects in both locations. 

After a protracted period of power jostling, elections were held in 1993 during which the opposition, led by professor Albert Zafy (I imagine this is probably the shortest Malagasy name ever), took power.  Mr. Zafy ruled for 3 years, ending with his impeachment, was succeeded by a short interim government, and elections were held once again in 1997 to return Ratsiraka to his familiar role as head of state. 

Enter Ravalomanana.  A man of Merina descent, the central highlands tribe that unified the island, Marc Ravalomanana boasted that home-spun American dream-esque backstory that would make David Plouffe salivate.  Purportedly Mr. Ravalomanana began by peddling around his town as a young man selling yogurt off the back of his bike and with a little ingenuity and elbow-grease transformed himself into the dairy mogul of Madagascar whose dairy dynasty made him one of the richest men in Madagascar.  This power was leveraged into political clout and he made a run at the Presidency in the 2001 election cycle against Ratsiraka. 

The results were contested and the ensuing struggle eventually vaulted Ravalomanana to the Presidency in 2002 and sent Ratsiraka fleeing into exile.  It should be noted that the struggle was violent and turbulent enough that Peace Corps suspended operations and pulled all of their volunteers out of the country (we came back obviously)

Ravalomanana is considered by many to be a friend of the Americans.  One important gesture he made was making English one of the official languages of Madagascar, but trust me, someone forgot to clue in the Malagasy people because as far as I can tell that official decree has yet to translate into English language competency for the majority of the population. That aside, he instituted a number of important economic and political reforms and could boast 5% annualized GDP growth during his time in office.  In fact, during the Ravalomanana years there was buzz of Madagascar being a model for development in Africa.  It is important to note however that the coastal/highlands socio-political divide was still a very large part of the political fabric at the time and many coastal ethnic groups had mixed feelings towards Mr. Ravalomanana.  Amongst their grievances were alleged corruption, racism, and exploitation by Ravalomanana’s Merina-dominated government. 

Whatever the case may have been, tensions escalated once again. Ravalomanana was deposed in a 2009 military coup which installed former disc jockey and mayor of Antananarivo, Andry Rajoelina, as head of the High Transitional Authority and sent Ravalomanana into exile in South Africa.  I should mention that this coup also sent Peace Corps packing once again (and once again we came back shortly after).

This was the situation when I arrived in Madagascar in March of 2012.  Madagascar was 3 years deep into the political crisis. Foreign aid, which had previously comprised more than 40% of the government’s budget, had been cut off and the Malagasy economy had stagnated.  As I mentioned previously, we did have an election here so I sort of spoiled the ending, Madagascar eventually got itself out of political limbo.  However, the two years that I served here as a Peace Corps Volunteer were set against the backdrop of the final two years of the crisis and were some of the most desperate years in Madagascar’s history, with more than 90% of the population living below the poverty line on less than $2 a day.

During Madagascar’s nearly 5 year political crisis a number of provisional election dates were batted around, with schedules and terms negotiated, decided upon and invariably delayed. The crisis had its share flashpoints and drama as well.  In fact, one particularly tense standoff occurred right as my Peace Corps cohort was flying into country. Mr. Ravalomanana had chartered a plane and attempted to return to Madagascar from exile, crossing the Mozambique Channel right around the same time as I was, only to be informed that if his plane were to land he would be arrested immediately.  Since Ravalomanana was barred from returning to Madagascar and Rajoelina, the head of the transitional government, was barred from running, the presidential election battle between these two titans of Malagasy politics had to be fought through proxy candidates.  There were a number of false starts including Ravalomanana’s wife sneaking back into Madagascar under the pretense of visiting her ailing mother only to declare her candidacy for President, Ratsiraka returning from exile to stake his claim as a candidate and Rajoelina flirting with the idea of saying to hell with the law and running for President anyway.  All three were emphatically rejected by the international community as well as Madagascar’s special election court, and when the field of a whopping 33 candidates was officially codified, those three names were left off the list.

The two most prominent candidates ended up being Hery Rajaonarimampianina, the Finance Minister during the transitional government who became the official candidate of Rajoelina’s team, and Dr. Jean Louis Robinson a former Minister of Health in Ravalomanana’s administration who was chosen to represent Ravalomanana’s party.  Now as I alluded to earlier, Madagascar has its own version of the red state/blue state divide, but based upon ethnicity and geography, more so than ideology.  Here in Madagascar the division is predominately between the coastal tribes and the Merina ethnic group, located in the central highlands.  Much of the animosity stems from a history of tribal wars that culminated in the Merina king Andrianapoinimerina defeating the Sakalava kingdom and unifying the island.  To this day the majority of coastal tribes allege that they continue to be slighted by the Merina and that during the rule of Ravalomanana a number of reforms and infrastructure changes were made to benefit the Merina populations in the central highlands region at the expense of the coastal people.  Due to the fact that Robinson was in the Ravalomanana camp and Rajaonarimampianina was attached to Rajoelina, another Merina administration, many on the coast felt disenfranchised and generally apathetic about the whole electoral process.  In fact, back in October when I was in the North of the island in the Antsiranana region I asked a few people about their impressions of the political situation and the upcoming election. Most responded that all of that political stuff was just Merina business and it didn’t really concern them up North.            

Consequently, when the final Election Day arrived voter turn-out was a modest 4 million roughly out of a country of 22 million.  Coastal apathy likely contributed to the depressed turn-out but it is also important to consider that further out in the rural areas of Madagascar, which constitutes much of the country, people are living at a very basic subsistence level and state authority is virtually non-existent.  It would have been very difficult to convince a poor, illiterate farmer to disrupt his daily life to participate in a process that is of no tangible consequence to him.

There was however the nearly 4 million individuals who did cast votes and in what has been verified as a free and fair election by the international community Madagascar elected Hery Rajaonarimampianina with 53% of the vote to be the new President.  This was a historic moment for Madagascar, a nation that has been disrupted by coups and assassinations and which has been plagued by systemic corruption in its brief history of political independence.  This election, this stable and democratic election, could be a pivotal moment for the Malagasy people who have, despite the many challenges yet to be overcome, made a strong showing of political self-determination, just over 50 years after their country shook off the yoke of French colonial subjugation. 

With the results officially declared an inauguration ceremony was held for Rajaonarimampianina on a sunny Saturday afternoon at the Mahamasina stadium in the center of the capital city Antananarivo.  Looking poised and Presidential, Rajaonarimampianina approached the podium to give his first speech as the President of Madagascar.  Tragically what came out was a nearly verbatim recitation of Nicholas Sarkozy’s inaugural address when he was elected as the President of France in 2007. 

It turns out Madagascar may still have a ways to go. 

Until next time,

Veloma.     

                   

 

        

GLOW Camp

Often times during two years of service Peace Corps Volunteers end up doing a project that steps outside of their normal day-to-day responsibilities at site. Over the years they’ve proven to be productive opportunities for volunteers to collaborate and break up the monotony of plodding along on primary projects while alone at site.  One of these Peace Corps project mainstays is a GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) camp.  Essentially the idea behind a GLOW camp is to equip young Malagasy women who show potential for leadership with the necessary skills to make healthy life choices as well as advance their personal, professional and academic goals. The premise is that in most developing countries gender roles are much more rigid, in some cases to the point of being institutionally oppressive. In most cases the deck is stacked in favor of the men.  I’ve mentioned previously when I talked about family and gender roles that as far as Madagascar is concerned, there are certainly countries that score worse on the equity barometer.  Madagascar currently has a number of women running for President (out of 33 candidates). However, Madagascar still has a ways to go and there’s no way, no  how that a country is going to climb its way out of poverty if it’s dragging the dead weight of a marginalized population.  So with that in mind a group of five volunteers, myself included, decided to organize a GLOW camp.

We had five towns represented: Miarinarivo, Ampefy, Sandrandahy, Kianjandrakefina and Arivonimamo.  Five towns for the five volunteers in the central highlands region who came to country together in the same training group. In theory we were each supposed to select four young women each, ages of 13-16, and one adult chaperone to attend the camp.  Per usual though, preparation for the camp and finding the participants didn’t quite go according to plan.  I would say Madagascar threw me a curve ball, but it’s more like I stepped up to bat and pitchers began materializing to all lug curve balls in my direction simultaneously. 

Emma and I worked together to prepare the grant, which went off without a hitch.  Then came my part in Arivonimamo.  It was imperative to catch the girls before the school year ended so early one morning, the first week of June, I loaded up on applications and flyers and strolled across the street to meet the Director of the public middle school.  My first impression was that he was thrilled by the idea and he quickly agreed to call a meeting of all the middle school girls in the specific age group.

‘Alright,’ I thought, ‘this should be pretty simple.’

I turned up two weeks later, and was ushered into a classroom full of roughly 20 girls by the Director.  Rather than follow me into the room the Director quickly pulled me outside so that we were standing in the doorway and dropped this bomb on me as if he were telling a joke:

‘So I forgot to tell the teachers about the meeting thing and we didn’t really get all the girls together.’

‘Oh…ok. So who are they?’ I cocked my chin towards the interior or the room, and squinted in at a room full of 13-16 year old girls.

‘I just talked to two science classes and asked if they wanted to spend time with the vazah.’ (foreigner)

Great.

Despite the inauspicious beginnings I forged ahead with my little spiel about what GLOW camp was and why these girls might consider enlisting.  Thanks in some part to the less than productive introduction by the Director, many of the questions centered not upon women’s empowerment but rather my marital status and whether I can teach English.  I did notice a few girls who were listening with rapt attention and made sure to reiterate the importance of the camp to them personally as I handed out application forms.

And then the girls went on vacation.  I needed four girls and every time I would pass by the middle school office I would get the same response.  Two applications had been turned in, nothing more.  ‘It looks like those two are going,’ I thought.   The problem was, with school not in session, many of the students in Arivonimamo return to their rural villages, often times miles away down terrible roads with spotty cell service.  After some time I was forced to concede that one of the girls had disappeared into the black hole of highlands countryside. That left only her friend Lanto as my sole student. 

With only one girl of four picked out I was in a bit of a bind.  So, as is often that case when I’m in a bit of a jam here in Madagascar, I went to my buddy Jean Claude.  Turns out his sister is 15 years old.  Pretty lucky, huh?  So I asked him, ‘do you think she’d be interested?’ He enthusiastically said yes so I pushed a little further, ‘do you think she could find a friend to come with?’  Yup.

Then, with three of the four girls picked.  Or at least one picked, and with Jean Claude on the case, I figured I would be able to spend the next three weeks finding the perfect candidate to be the final GLOW camp girl.  That’s when the biggest curve ball of them all clocked me upside the head.  I came down with pneumonia and a pleural effusion in my right lung.  That story is for a different time but the doctors said it was likely a microbe that got into my lung and one theory is that I got it when I had entered a tomb at a recent exhumation ceremony.  Regardless, it laid me up in the hospital for about nine days followed by a little over a week of extra recovery afterwards in the Peace Corps medical unit.  With my health finally somewhat intact I scrambled back to site on Saturday morning, with the GLOW camp scheduled to begin on Monday and still one girl short.  Chanthiah! I thought.  Of course, why didn’t I think of her before?  A student in my computer classes for over six months Chanthiah had proven to be one of the most dedicated young women I’d worked with in Madagascar. Only problem is that she’s nineteen.  A bit outside of our target market.  I decided that desperate time called for desperate measures so I made the call.  Chanthiah was onboard without a moment’s hesitation once I’d explained the concept to her. With our four girls assembled and an Arivonimamo chaperone in tow we hopped a taxi-brousse for Tana that Monday morning. 

We had planned three topics to tackle over three separate days. Health, professions, and higher education. The first day, the arrival day, would be relegated to introductions and getting settled so as not to overwhelm the girls, many of whom had never been to the capital before and had certainly never had the experience of a week-long sleep away camp.  Two of our delegations were trekking up from pretty far down South and they weren’t expected to be in town until close to dinner. Upon the arrival of our Kianjandrakefana and Sandrandahy groups we herded everyone into the dining hall/activity space for a round of introductions.  Drawing upon our collective camp knowledge we framed the introductions as such: your name, your grade in school, where you’re from and the aggravatingly vague yet ever popular, something unique about yourself.  Now this presented an unusual challenge for these young participants.  As products of an education system that treats independent, critical thinking as something to be avoided, and a culture that shuns individuality in favor of the collective, I observed looks of confusions and an uncomfortable shifting in the chairs of many of the girls.  Thus as we went around the room introductions went something like a game of telephone, where one girl would decide to say her favorite color as her unique fact, a trend which would continue down the line for ten girls until one intrepid soul ventured the number of siblings she had, which then became the theme of the moment. 

As I previously mentioned, this pattern of behavior stems from entrenched cultural norm that is hardwired into most Malagasy people.  The difficulty that the GLOW camp presented us, and in some senses it could be seen as a microcosm of Peace Corps in general, was to find a way to tease out the leadership abilities for these girls by drawing on an entirely foreign cultural framework.  In America, a culture predicated upon individualism, there are certain understood attitudes upon which one can draw when teaching leadership skills.  The right conditions can exist too in Madagascar, one just needs to know where to look and what to appeal to culturally.  So how do you teach a group of young Malagasy women, who struggled to put forward a unique fact about themselves, to be leaders and to take stake in their own future?  Bring in other Malagasy people.

The first day was the health day and we put heavy emphasis on reproductive and sexual health. We had two Malagasy organizations come in to lead the sessions.  The first, PSI which stands for Population Services International, sent ‘peer educators’ to come and speak to the girls about the importance of protection and all things you need to know about sex.  When I first greeted these ‘peer educators’ they struck me as aloof Tana hipsters, which are the bane of my existence, but that’s neither here nor there. Besides, I didn’t even have a chance to see their session since most of the days discussions would revolve around sex, Nick and I, the only two men in the vicinity decided it would be best to recuse ourselves from the proceedings and go take care of some camp logistics around Tana.  Nothing could guarantee that these 14 year old Malagasy girls would clam up and fail to ask important questions about sex like the presence of two 25 year old white guys.  So Nick and I took care of printing the completion certificates, which we realized we’d printed incorrectly once the girls pointed out the incorrect date (a win for the Y chromosome, huh).  We also took care of buying bananas and condoms for the condom demonstrate that was led that afternoon by our second Malagasy organization, MAHEFA.  Again, Nick and I didn’t have a chance to see the MAHEFA session but rumor has it that they knocked it out of the park, teaching the girls about nutrition, reproductive health and, thanks to Nick and my superior condom and banana buying prowess, how to properly put on a condom.     

Our second day of activities, the third day of our camp in Tana, was our big ‘professional aspirations’ day, which for fun and because we could, we held at the American Embassy.  Needless to say the girls were floored by the grandeur of this little slice of America which happens to be the nicest building in Madagascar, think of that what you will.  After a slightly confusing security check in which the security detail tried to acquire identity cards from a bunch of 15 year old girls who live in mud-brick houses in the rural countryside guess what guys, they don’t have them.  We won that stand off and were all ushered into a side room where we were greeted by a senior diplomatic elf with a handlebar mustache and a green blazer.  He gave a quick introduction before ceding the floor to the group of Malagasy women, half who worked at the Embassy and half from a professional women’s association that we had scheduled to join us.  I honestly could not have been happier with the way things went.  Each woman spoke for roughly twenty minutes explaining where they worked, what they did on a daily basis, and what it was that led them to their position.  Team Arivonimamo asked a few good questions too so I’m counting that as a win.

We followed up our professions day with a stop at the University of Antananarivo where are professor at the school of agronomy who has worked with me previously was nice enough to meet with us.  The heat was blistering and though the Malagasy girls seemed to be putting up with it fine I was melting so we moved into the shade and sat on the grass to learn about higher education.  The professor, Fanja, happens to be one of the most impressive people I have met here in Madagascar.  She currently holds a doctorate from Cornell in the States which she earned while studying on a Fulbright scholarship.  Despite her plethora of commitments she was somehow able to set aside half a day and gather a group of students to speak with us and give us a tour of the University.  That afternoon the girls visited an English teaching program and passed by a center dedicated to helping Malagasy people study abroad in America.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend the afternoon’s activities.  The combination of scorching heat in the morning and infected liquid I still had sloshing around my lung (I’d only been out of the hospital about a week), made it so that I was too wiped out and needed to rest in the afternoon.

The final day of the camp was designed to reward the girls for attending the camp and working so hard all week.  Since many of them had never been to Tana and those that had likely didn’t get to explore the big city much we made the day into a field trip around the capital.  We passed through Analakely, the premier shopping hub in Tana, where the teenage girls treated us like their not-so-cool parents and told us to hang back, since presumably the presence white people make things more expensive.  The day also included one of the most touching moments that I’ve experienced thus far in Peace Corps.  Back in the epoch of kings here in Madagascar, Antananarivo was ruled from the Rova, a castle perched on the highest hill overlooking the city. Naturally we felt this would be a neat place to take the girls but as we approached the front gate we noticed the entrance fees.  500 Ar for Malagasy people and 10,000 Ar for vazah (foreigners).  We’d budgeted for the entrance fee of 500 Ar but the 10,000 Ar for the five of us volunteers was a bit of a slap in the face.  To give some perspective, 10,000 Ar is roughly $5.  We make $4 a day.  So while $5 may not seem like a lot imagine spending more than what you make in a day to get into a museum.  You might decide there’s a better way to spend your day.  So, we turned to the girls and explained that, the five of us volunteers are just going to wait outside and the rest of you can go tour the Rova with the chaperones, we’ll cover your entrance fees and be here when you get out. That plan didn’t stick.  The girls were absolutely resolute that they didn’t want to see the Rova if they were going to charge the volunteers such a high price.  We tried to haggle with the desk attendant; our chaperones even stepped in, but to no avail.  I am sympathetic to charging slightly higher prices for foreigners in a country as desperately poor as Madagascar.  The people here should be able to afford to visit their own attractions yet at the same time tourism needs to generate sufficient income to contribute to the nation’s development.  However, we’d just completed a diversity and prejudice session with the girls the night before so they were acutely sensitive to discrimination.  By this point in the week they understood that we were volunteers living here, working on a relatively meager salary and that 10,000 Ar was nothing to scoff at.  The girls were incensed by the price difference, some of them so upset that they were moved to tears and in a unified act of defiance decided to refuse to enter.  So, in a very moving gesture of solidarity the girls led us back to the tour bus and we left the Rova to head back to our training center.

We held our closing ceremony in the dining hall shortly after dinner that night.  As parting gifts we bought nice purses for the chaperones and English-Malagasy dictionaries for the girls, along with pictures from the camp and certificates of completion for all the participants.  The overhead lighting was dim and everyone sat on benches arranged like pews in the center of the dining hall.  Each girl was called one by one to the front of the room to receive their parting gifts and had their picture taken while the rest of the girls clapped enthusiastically.  The atmosphere in the room was buoyant and familial, in a way only really found in the moment of anticipation before the end of an intense bonding experience.  Following some parting words by the five of us Peace Corps Volunteers, one of the girls stood up and explained that she had been designated to speak on behalf of all of the camp participants and proceeded to offer a thoughtful kabary (speech), thanking us for the experience. 

As we closed in on 8pm we sent the girls up to their room on the third floor and settled in for the night in our second floor room. The five of us were comfortably piled onto our pushed-together beds and about halfway through the movie we were watching we started hearing a faint cry from outside.  At first we put it out of mind.  We were exhausted, beat, we’d successfully pulled off the camp and it was probably just the girls playing around on the stairwell like they had the nights before.  Then it came a second time.  This time louder. 

‘Actually, maybe that’s bad,’ Emma said as she glanced over at me, alarmed and already pushing herself up off the bed.

The five of us quickly rushed into the hallway where I found two of my Arivonimamo girls, one cradling the other, on the stairwell.  They were surrounded by a few of the other girls and one of the chaperones who looked up at me with a mixed look of concern and panic.  One of my four girls, Sandatra, was collapsed in a heap on the floor, cradled by Iana.  With sweat on her brow and her eyes rolled back in her head she was alternating between a piercing wail and a possessed, hyperventilated breathing.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked Iana as I placed my hand on Sandatra’s head to check for a fever.

‘I don’t know, I don’t know,’ she explained breathlessly. ‘She just started screaming and crying.  I think her heart is on the wrong side.’

‘Wait, WHAT?!’

‘You know how it’s here on us,’ Iana pointed to her heart, ‘well I’ve heard it’s here on her,’ she moved her hand a few inches across her chest.

So naturally I was in a panic.  One of the chaperones suddenly appeared with a glass of water and handed it to me.  We splashed some on her face and Iana tried mightily to force her to drink some but Sandatra continued to thrash and wail, which by now I was convinced meant her heart was exploding.  Her body felt feverish and one of the girls from Ampefy suggested we strip off her sweater to try to cool her down.  One of the chaperones then proposed that we take her outside so I threw her arm around my shoulder and carried her down the two flights of stairs and we slowly shuffled into the yard. 

Immediately, once Iana the chaperone and I sat her down on the concrete ledge outside Sandatra’s breathing begin to slow and she collapsed, exhausted, against my side as I tried to hold her up.

‘Eric,’ whispered Emma and Nick from the doorway, ‘Eric, come in here.  You have to come in, she just wants your attention.’

‘I can’t, I think she’s really sick,’ I said  

‘Eric, seriously, come inside.’

I propped Sandatra up, leaned her over onto Iana, and slipped back into the building.  Turns out, Emma explained to me, that this girl just wanted attention. My attention to be specific.  Or at least that is what the other chaperones and some of the girls were saying.  Now in Sandatra’s defense, at least two of the other girls were also having these episodic attacks and hyperventilating as well up in their room.  Some of the adults pulled us aside to explain that most of these girls hadn’t had experiences as intense or similar in any way to what they’d just been through at our camp and the idea that it was coming to an end was too much for some of them to bear.  I have Iana to thank for nearly giving me a heart attack but it turns out the ‘Sandatra’s heart is on the wrong side’ thing wasn’t true.  She was just heartbroken about leaving.  The chaperones weren’t impressed though.  She did it by your room so that she’d get your attention, they assured me.

Needless to say, the events of that final night threw me into a bit of a funk.  I was overwhelmed and unnerved by the whole thing to be honest.  The GLOW camp turned out to be an amazing success yet, despite leading a Girls Leading Our World camp, it turns out I don’t know much about teenage girls.        

Until next time,

Veloma