From the
very beginning it seemed fated that Jean Claude would become an important part
of my time here, both as my closest friend and as the corner stone of all the
work I’m trying to accomplish. Before
arriving I spoke briefly with Binh, the volunteer I was replacing.
‘You can
do whatever you want, of course,’ she began, ‘but of all you could do, I really think you should work
with cooperative Taratra and Jean Claude.’
The day
of my installation in Arivonimamo arrived, just over a year ago, and waiting
for me by the door to my new home was Jean Claude. My Peace Corps guardians hadn’t a clue who he
was, but after a quick introduction during which I stammered out my a few basic
sentences and he explained in simple Malagasy that he had worked with Binh, he
promptly took hold of my trunk and helped us schlep my remaining belongings up
the stairs. The next day, as I was
considering for where to begin in my new town Jean Claude showed up, once
again, and hung around my apartment, listening patiently as I strung together
unintelligible non-sequiturs in my
rudimentary Malagasy while he thoughtfully assembled replies using the limited vocab
he knew I would understand. Months
later, well along in our work together and firmly established in our
friendship, I asked him how it happened that he should so fortuitously be at my
door at the very beginning of it all, at the exact moment I arrived at my new
home.
‘I don’t
know,’ he admitted as he stared out the window towards the patch of pavement
where Peace Corps staff had parked the day of my arrival, ‘I was just biking
around town when I saw this car and had a feeling that it must be you.’
Without
question, he’s an incredibly bright guy with an inquisitive mind and a
predilection towards day-dreaming of the brighter days ahead. He’s ambitious but certain factors have
coalesced to affect a number of external and internal obstacles I’ve watched him
stress over and struggle with during the past year.
Born in
the rural village of Tsimatahodaza within the town of Ambohitrambo, Jean Claude
grew up in a relatively poor farming family, ten miles outside of Arivonimamo
along a stretch of cratered dirt road.
With five sisters, he was the only son born to a strong-willed father,
whose penchant for control and quick-witted congeniality elevated him to Mayor
of Ambohitrambo when Jean Claude was roughly seventeen. Jean Claude was brought up under the tutelage
of a man who bought his very poor family a modest and relatively comfortable
life through steely determination and a conviviality that could flip on a dime to
an exacting sternness when there was business to attend to.
As the
lone son Jean Claude is in many ways assumed to carry on his father’s demeanor
and proclivity for leading people. It’s
a quality that I believe many of his peers presumed to be hereditary when they
elected him president of the fruit-drying cooperative. Jean Claude, however, is not his father and
is in many ways his foil. He’s confided
to me that growing up, though he looked up to and respected his father, he’d
always felt closer to his mother, the listener.
So while he exudes ambition, is keenly perceptive and quick to
assimilate new information in a way that few others are, I noticed when I first
arrived how he was cowed into silence when confronted by authority figures, and
often unsure of his words when leading meetings.
The
second contradiction I’ve observed is how bright Jean Claude truly is yet how
limited his education has been. It’s one
of the most troubling parts of his life and left him for many years feeling
stifled. It wasn’t for lack of
educational opportunities or family poverty that he was deprived of an
education, as is the case with many children in Madagascar. Instead, as Jean Claude describes it, during
his years in what would roughly be middle school, he began having trouble with
intense headaches. His vision would
shift in and out of focus, he told me, and in a fit of desperation he would
focus as hard as he could, trying to concentrate until a wave of pain would
wash over him and he was rendered unable to think of anything. This was his
condition for four to five years of his life as he tried to finish middle
school until, at his parent’s behest, he stopped going all together.
What
followed was a time of serious disconnection for Jean Claude. Disheartened by his inability to continue
studying, he drifted along, helping his family sell their pineapples in the
capital from time to time and trying to find a means to move forward in
life. He once expressed to me that he’d
considered working for one of the local taxi-brousse organizations that
coordinate inter-city travel. Without
diverging too much I should mention that in general, taxi-brousse ilk are a
crass bunch and most drunken brawls that I witness on market day in Arivonimamo
happen between juiced up taxi-brousse workers. Not the ideal crowd for someone
with Jean Claude’s disposition.
Discouraged
as he was by his truncated education, he and his family were determined to cure
his headaches and alleviate his burden.
Part of the issue however is context.
Jean Claude revealed to me at one point that he travels the ten mile
road between Arivonimamo and his home in Ambohitrambo so frequently because he often
feels trapped and claustrophobic in his rural village. In the ‘ambani-vohitra’ or rural countryside,
poverty is much more rampant, fewer amenities exist and opportunities to
stimulate your mind are scarce. Things
were easier and people were happier in the ambani-vohitra, Jean Claude tells
me, before they were exposed to all of the glitz and glam of the Western
world. Now that certain upper echelons
of Malagasy society have appropriated Western customs, acquired modern
amenities, and broadcast their circumstance for the rest of the country to see,
people have now begun to realize their
poverty. This new consciousness creates
unfulfilled desires that erode people’s contentedness, especially for the
generation of youth most directly exposed to the stark dichotomies in income
and lifestyle that exist in the world.
Such is
the condition that Jean Claude found himself in. Restless in his hometown and plagued by chronic
headaches that clouded his vision and kept him from studying. He tried
everything, he told me. His family took
him to doctors in town, he was taken to a traditional healer in the
ambani-vohitra and nothing seemed to work.
Until he began to pray. At that
point, he tells me, he began to feel the head pain recede. He prayed diligently and considered his way
forward in life until, as he tells it, he stopped having his headaches and soon
after received an invitation from my counterpart organization, PROSPERER, which
set he and I on the road towards meeting each other.
Back in
2010, PROSPERER added a new project to its development arsenal which entailed
gathering a group of young kids from a rural village and training them in a
new-value added production technique. The
town of Ambohitrambo was an easy choice because even though it’s tucked deep
into the countryside of Arivonimamo, it’s widely known that Jean Claude’s
hometown produces some of the best pineapple in the entire country. So the call went out from PROSPERER to the
town’s authority figures and group of eligible young kids was culled together
which included Jean Claude. They were
all sent two hours West of Arivonimamo, at PROSPERER’s expense, to the sleepy
lakeside town of Ampefy, home to an expansive training center for the express
purpose of drying fruit.
With
training complete, this group of young kids had seen the road forward but it was
a hard road from that point onward. The
volunteer prior to me worked tirelessly to help the cooperative shape its
organizational structure, register with the government, hold elections and
understand some basic principles of business management. It was during her tenure in Arivonimamo that
Jean Claude was elected President of the cooperative.
More than
two years have elapsed since Jean Claude first assumed the mantle and I’ve been
fortunate enough to be present and watch his evolution as a leader throughout
this past year. Prior to my arrival
things were at a standstill for quite some time with the fruit-dryers. PROSPERER in many senses saw the cooperative
as their shining star. It was a youth
driven development project they had catalyzed, and in keeping with that vision
they agreed to build a production house and provide certain tools. Unfortunately,
from the day promises were made to the day construction began and the tools
arrived, roughly two years passed. So
the cooperative sat idle, aside from the trainings conducted by the previous
Peace Corps volunteer, without which, certain cooperative members have said,
things would have fallen apart.
I
arrived at an exciting time for both the cooperative, but even more so, for
Jean Claude. This past year the
production house was completed, the tools arrived just this past month and the
cooperative began its first ever independent production trials. When I first
arrived, I could see in Jean Claude someone who was eager make things happen
for himself, who was dedicated, inquisitive, and contemplative, but who was also
discouraged by his seeming immobile station in life. What’s more, Malagasy culture has a very
hierarchical authority structure in which young people invariably defer to
adults and conflict is shunned at all costs.
These are fine cultural traits but in the context of these young people
attempting to start their own business, they were unquestionably
detrimental. Jean Claude and many of the
cooperative members were beginning to feel jaded and browbeaten after repeated exchanges
to no avail, with the numerous authority figures that buzzed around their tiny
cooperative while they remained suspended in limbo.
For the
first six months I watched Jean Claude churn tirelessly beneath the surface to
push things forward. He tried to hold
together the cooperative against an increasingly foreboding backdrop of
futility, but I watched his confidence collapse under the weight of it all as
would he try to lead meetings or approach important authority figures. The first six months I spent much of my time
trying to share his burden and bolster his confidence. I thought, maybe if he
didn’t feel like the lone soldier fighting the good fight, his confidence would
build and he’d become the leader that the cooperative needed. Turns out it worked. As things began to pick up pace Jean Claude’s
demeanor was transformed. I’ve been with
him most days, since the very beginning and now that the work we’re doing is
beginning to pick up steam I’ve seen a fire ignite within him. He has a new
found energy, a directness when conducting meetings, a plan, a will to push
forward. What’s more though is his will to push others forward. No longer in meetings are his words mumbled,
his eyes downcast, his opinions lost in the fray. He stands up straight, speaks directly,
makes swift decisions and approaches authority figures with a poise that didn’t
belong to him a year ago.
I want
to end with this: As I mentioned before Jean Claude became pretty spiritual
during the point in his life that he was dealing with his headaches and unable
to study. He confided in me how crushed
he was that he had to quit school and told me that deep down his dream had been
to study management or the economy. He prayed hard during those years he told
me, and is convinced that his prayers were answered,
‘All of
a sudden one day this Cooperative Taratra thing came along. And even though I can’t study and learn about
the economy anymore, it’s alright, because you came to teach me about it
anyway.’
It’s
worth mentioning too that, even though he can’t possibly understand the meaning
because he speaks no English, of all the American songs we’ve listened to
together in my house the one he always comes back to as his favorite is a
version of ‘I’ll Fly Away’ by Allison Krauss.
To me, it only seems fitting.
Until
next time,
Veloma
