Some of my new friends outside my house

View from my home stay window

Prosperer and Arivonimamo

As promised, I want to quick provide a bit of information regarding my new home town, my counterpart organization and some of the potential work that I’ll be doing for the next two years.  As I’ve previously mentioned I was assigned to Arivonimamo, a semi-urban town 48 kilometers from the capital city of Madagascar, Antananarivo.  Barring third year extensions I believe I may be the closest volunteer to the capital city and as I am working with a large national development agency as my counterpart, work will be much more structured and the pace of life will likely move at a faster clip than many people would traditionally associate with Peace Corps.  Arivonimamo is a replacement site, meaning there was a previous volunteer living here and doing similar work.  She was a very impressive volunteer I am told which creates high expectations for me, but I am looking forward to the challenge.  Peace Corps requires that during the first three months at site volunteers complete a Community Diagnostic Survey, which is essentially an in depth report on all aspects of the host community, ranging from health to education, income generating activities to cultural taboos.  As I am just over a week into my time at site there is only so much I have gathered, however I can relay a few of my observations.  Madagascar is subdivided into Regions, broken down further into Districts which are comprised of smaller Communes, made up of individual Fokontanys.  Arivonimamo is situated in the Itasy region in which there are currently four volunteers.  Anders, an education volunteer arrived over a year ago and I have yet to meet him.  The other two volunteers, Emma and Sarah, come from my stage, or training group, and live in Ampefy and Miaranarivo (the regional capital) respectively.  The district of Arivonimamo is comprised of more than 20 separate communes, and as I reside directly downtown in the district, my commune’s name is the title track of the district, Arivonimamo.  As I’ve previously mentioned the district is composed of an assortment of Fokontanys, many of which can be classified as ‘ambany vohitra’ or countryside, so even though I live downtown, I will likely be commuting on foot or by bike often to work in the rural villages.  The different communes throughout the region have different days on which they organize their large markets.  Here in Arivonimamo we hold ours on Fridays and for this upcoming market Friday, following a discussion with the mayor, I was able to procure a small spot near the commune building where I’ll be putting together a small presentation on Peace Corps, and hopefully doing some community integration activities.  I’m really looking forward to having such a large forum to introduce myself and I figure it will be a great way to gather some information about my community from a random sampling of Arivonimamo market attendees.

            The work I will be doing here in Arivonimamo will be in association with my counterpart agency, Prosperer but will be predominately self-directed.  Prosperer is a support program for rural microenterprises and regional economies. It is affiliated to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) under the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Economy and Industry and in collaboration with the Federation of Chamber of Commerce and Industry.  The organization works in five regions here in Madagascar with high population densities and partners with host organizations within each community.  Here they work in tandem with the Center of Information, Technology and Economics (CITE), with the principal objective of increasing the incomes of Madagascar’s rural poor by consolidating Rural Micro Enterprises at local and regional levels. Prosperer, as my counterpart agency, is the organization which put in the request for a Peace Corps volunteer so I have an obligation to work within their framework to a certain degree but as a Community Economic Development volunteer the focus is nearly identical.  I will be most closely working with those associations and cooperatives affiliated with Prosperer assisting in business planning, trainings, identifying market linkages and potential export opportunities.  There is a plethora of existing organizations I could choose to work with including sisal and raffia weavers, zebu horn sculptors, blacksmiths, carpenters, and silk weavers, who produce a particularly unique and beautiful product of Madagascar.  Arivonimamo has a very well established community of silk weavers who create a remarkable variety of products from a silk produced by a worm that is endemic to Madagascar and found in Tapia forests not far from the districts center.  I also intend to work with a youth fruit drying organization, which was registered as an official cooperative shortly before I arrived.  The president of the fikambanana (association) has already become a close friend of mine and I’m especially looking forward to that project.  I should also make note that all volunteers who are lucky enough to be partnered with Prosperer receive the benefit of very nice accommodations, since it is the counterpart organization that is charged with securing housing for the volunteers.  As such I live in a beautiful two story flat situated in the center of town, with 24 hour electricity and hot running water.  To be quite honest I feel more like an ex-pat doing development work abroad than a traditional Peace Corps volunteer. Still, I couldn’t be happier because as a result I know I’ll have the opportunity to engage in high profile work and cultivate skills that will serve me well when I return home.  The more I’ve thought about it the more I’ve realized that even though I’m not living in a mud hut and showering with a bucket, urban poverty is equally as devastating as rural poverty and I still have the opportunity to immerse myself in the very rich cultural traditions of Madagascar, which have in no way been whitewashed by the westernization that often comes with urban modernization.  What’s more, Madagascar is still one of the poorest countries on earth, a victim of rampant inflation and a stagnating economy, due in no small part to the political limbo that the country has been frozen in since the 2009 coup.  The evidence of economic degeneration is staggering and the political outlook is not promising so there will certainly be no shortage of work.

I’ll quick end by letting you all know that before sitting down this morning to write this blog post I was riding back from my banking town in a Taxi-brousse, which is the primary Malagasy form of transportation between towns and consists of 20 or so people crammed into a small van.  I was riding back and chatting with the guy sitting next to me, and though he was practically sitting on my lap for lack of space, we were actually having a pretty good conversation…. and then his baby threw up on me.  So that was pretty wild. 

I should also quick mention that between when I wrote the first part of this blog post and right now (evening) I’ve gone out with a few of my new Malagasy friends and was told that even though my skin is white, I’m already a Malagasy, which is something I’ve been striving for, and we made plans to have a small get together and kill a chicken this Sunday in my apartment. Until next time, veloma. 

A New Volunteer

I know it’s been some time since my last blog post, which hasn’t been for want of things say.  Instead, since I last wrote I have had access to internet once or twice and only fleetingly.  What’s more the last month and a half has been one of the most hectic periods I anticipate to have during my entire service.  My home stay situation ended, which meant that we moved the entire training operation to the Peace Corps training facility, said to be one of the most beautiful in all of Africa.  By my own account I’ve only seen our facility so I can’t adequately comment, but I would imagine ours would be difficult to beat.  Peace Corps rents a modest compound which consists of a dining hall, an assortment of bungalows of various sizes, a complex of dorm rooms separate for both staff and trainees, in addition to the ‘trano be’ (big house) which became a beloved late night hang out spot for all of us trainees. What makes the facility particularly beautiful is that our compound is situated on a peninsula jutting out into Lake Mantasoa, one of the largest lakes in Madagascar and a popular vacation spot for Malagasy people from the highlands.  To be quite honest the whole experience had a strikingly north woodsy cabin vacation feel, despite the fact that we were spending full days studying Malagasy language, culture and whatever technical training might be relevant to our first three months at site.  At times I wanted to pre-write a blog post so that there would be more continuity and flow to this blog but as I was living in such close proximity to the 28 other trainees as well as our language trainers to whom we all became very close, I couldn’t wrench myself away from everyone and everything.

The end of the host family situation was difficult as I’ve grown incredibly close to my family here in Madagascar, but I was able to go back and eat dinner with them three times after moving back to the training center, they came to the swearing in ceremony and I’ve talked to them a few times over the phone.  Phone calls are difficult still at this point as I’m not yet ‘mahay’ enough at Malagasy to carry out an intelligent phone conversation, for some reason it’s more of a struggle when I’m not speaking to the person directly.  Nonetheless my host mother here is persistent to say the least and I know I’ll be in contact with them for the rest of my service come hell or high water.

The second part of the training was a bit of a whirlwind.  We all worked very hard together as a little stage unit and then blew off steam together as a little stage unit.  While it was exhausting at points highlights included, but were not limited to:

1.      Early morning canoeing on lake Mantasoa

2.      Innumerable dance parties in ‘trano be’

3.      Late night guitar sessions with a few of the other trainees

4.      A talent show

5.      A final exhibition of Malagasy dance and music by the trainers

6.      Learning Ravoravo, a Malagasy song that we sang at our swearing in ceremony, and which I’ve had on repeat while writing this blog post

7.      Testing at Intermediate High, above the required language level (I’d mentioned earlier in the blog that we needed to reach Int. High but I guess only Int. Mid was required).  Testing at that level really means nothing more than I was having an ‘on’ Malagasy day, as opposed to an ‘off’ one.  Still, it did make me feel very comfortable and was just the confidence boost I needed heading into site.

I also had a chance to speak with a reporter from one of the Malagasy newspapers based in Antananarivo.  Unfortunately I didn’t find that particular paper the next day.  I did however find another one which also ran an article on the new batch of Peace Corps volunteers and quick bought it.  There’s a large picture of me along with a few other trainees so I’ll photocopy it and make sure I upload the picture so people can see it. It’s pretty surreal because after arriving at site I was chatting with a local store owner near me and all the sudden he pulls out the paper, his face lights up as he says, ‘hey, that’s you!’ (except in Malagasy).   Now that I’m at site I’m turning heads like you wouldn’t believe. Almost exclusively because I’m the only white person living in Arivonimamo as far as I’m aware, and most of the population still thinks I’m a rich French ‘Vazah’ (local word for foreigner. Different words in different cultures, but still the same concept and connotation).  This would be easier to dispel were I living in a smaller town but Arivonimamo is a LARGE town.  I haven’t figured out exactly how many people live here yet, but I’m guessing the district consists of 30,000 +.  I’m being tenacious about combating the vazah image though.  I’ve only been here a few days but I would guess I’ve conversed with 50 different people at least and told them to spread the word that I’m not French and that I have no money to speak of.  What’s more I’ve told them to spread the word that I’m living here for two years, want to learn about Malagasy culture, become Malagasy fotsy (white Malagasy), and help the people of Madagascar.  I’ve also met many of the individuals in the cooperatives with which I’ll likely be working and they’ve been a phenomenal asset thus far.  The remarkable thing is how little it takes to win over the respect of the people, all you need to do is try to speak the local language and people will be so thrilled and proud, not to mention surprised.  As I’ve gathered many people are flabbergasted when they see me speaking Malagasy because most white individuals who visit are either ex-pats who build up a separate existence divorced from the lives of most Malagasy people and therefore don’t need to learn the local language, or they’re tourists.  With the legacy of colonization, a wound that is evidently and understandably still very raw, French tourists/ex-pats have a rather negative reputation here for some Malagasy people.  I’ve already established myself in certain circles though and word is spreading.

I’ll leave off with one story that happened to me earlier tonight.  I set out around 1:30 this afternoon to explore the town, since I hadn’t had the opportunity to walk around the city and truly explore. I learned from the 5 weeks that Alex and I spent traveling around Europe that there really is no better way to first get acquainted with the character and flavor of a city than to set out and just walk as much of it as you possibly can.  I got pulled aside up by my future office after only about a half hour of walking and chatting with people.  There was a small broadcast happening for a local radio station and some sort of craft exhibition.  Technically Peace Corps says I’m not obligated to work for the first three months and I’m just supposed to integrate, but I’ve been going to the office because I figure, what better way to integrate than to work?  So either way, I wasn’t working today because it’s Saturday and I’ve only been here a few days, but I decided to sit and talk with some of the artisans.  I told them I was exploring the city and they suggested that they take me home with them so I could see the lake that’s close to my town, the countryside where they live and a bit more of the city.  So I ended up spending the next few hours walking and talking with a group of young weavers, roughly my age, as they showed me the countryside of the highlands around Arivonimamo.  I’ll post some pictures soon because it is absolutely stunning. After spending a few hours with these people that will likely become very good friends of mine I saw a few of them off at their houses and struck out for home with the young guy who was with us and a friend, though he wasn’t one of the artisans and actually worked for the radio station.  We had a good forty five minute walk back so as we walked he was taught me some Malagasy and I taught him some English. We both exchanged numbers and he told me that sometime in the future he would like to do some sort of radio spot or series focused upon cultural exchange. So, once my Malagasy is better I’m hoping we can set something up along those lines.  After that we got to talking a bit about what he wants to do with his life.  He insisted that he would like to learn English in order to continue to study in the US with the hope of someday owning his own radio station.  I told him that I could teach him English so that he could someday study in the US once he’d saved enough money and he could teach me Malagasy so that I could work with the Malagasy people. And he stops and turns to me and says to me in halting English,

‘Isn’t that beautiful.’

Again, I apologize that the blog this far has been so unfocused, but now that I am finally settled into life here a bit more I’ll be able to write with greater consistency and focus.  I’ll put together a more informative post to come in the next week or so that will tell more about my counterpart organization, my town and the work I’ll likely be doing.  Until then, veloma.