Blog #7- Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and more

Blog #7- Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and more

Hello everyone!! I apologize for the INCREDIBLY long delay in updating my blog. I hope the plethora of pictures and the stories I am about to tell will make up for any anxiety/anticipation/disappointment. 
The last time I wrote was before Thanksgiving, right around Obama’s victory, and I was in Mahajunga with other Peace Corps Volunteers. Well, to say the least, SO much has happened since then, and I am in Mahajanga again,(this time for the inauguration, later today)
Some of my favorite comments ( and by this I mean thought provoking/insightful/stereotypical questions thought about the U.S. from a perspective of a Malagasy person) after the elections:
“So Obama is Malagasy?! He looks just like us!”

“So Obama isn’t REALLY American right? Because his father is from Kenya”
“No, he IS really an American. An African-American”
“So what does that make you? Your parents are defiantly not from AFrica”
“No they aren’t. I’m an American too, just like Barak.”
“So you are a real American, and Barak is just an African-american?”

“I bet a lot of white people are mad, right?”

“Do you think someone will shoot him?”

“How can he be president when there is still slavery in the U. S.?”

Yeah, the elections were amazing, interesting and people here were SO happy that Barak won. But, the best part about it was the thought provoking discussions I was able to have with my students and with people in my community about the United States, about the history of the U.S. and about the diversity that exists at home. Lets just say, people are not politically correct here in their speech. There are French (aka Vazaha, or anyone else looking white) Malagasy, and chinese. And they put people in categories accordingly unless you take the time out to explain to them the many different types of people and where they live etc. it was exhausting, but it was such an important and exciting discussion for me to be able to have with people. Dear Barak, thank you for being president and even ALLOWING conversations like this to take place and for barriers to be broken down little by little. Yeah.

Ok, Let’s start with my ThanksgivingS now (yes, that is plural).
My first Thanksgiving, I spent the weekend BEFORE the real thanksgving (date-wise) with three other PCV’s (Peace Corps Volunteers) at my friends site. Everyone brought something. Most of it was packaged food from home, but it was DELICIOUS!!! Stuffing, mashed potatoes (thanks mom) cranberry sauce, gravy, I brought the chicken and killed it and made fried chicken, green beans, the whole deal. We spent two days eating.
After I got back to my site, my school decided to have a training, I was not part of this, so I went with my friend to the country (deeper into the country than I already am) and lived/farmed with her and her family in the rice patty. Wow. This was something. She asked me if I wanted to walk. I love walking I love hiking, so I was really excited about it… 30 freekin kilometers of mud, rocks, and no shoes (impossible to walk on shoes in that kind of mud) we arrived at her grandmothers palm hut in the middle of a flooded rice field (which by the way I found out later is known as a nesting ground for local crocodiles). Yeah. It was intense. My feel were swollen for two days. We hung out with her grandparents, helped in the rice, walked around the area, went to a really beautiful lake and hung out with some kids, and cooked. It was such an amazing experience. I was there on what happened to be the “real” thanksgiving, and I was explaining to my friend and her family about my family traditions for thanksgiving… the turkey, the food, the football games (that one was a little difficult).
The next morning (thanksgiving morning) I see a turkey tied to one of the wooden poles outside of the house. They bought a turkey for me! And, the grandfathers birthday was that day too, so I make some tortillas and salsa, we killed the turkey, and had a feast (of course, rice was involved, as usual). It was so amazing how wonderful these people were to me. And they taught me so much about rice farming, about culture in the rice patty (appropriate times for planting, cutting, drying, de-shelling) about “fanafody gasy” (Malagasy medicine- people believe that there are mpamosavy’s or witchdoctors, in which one type can poison people and make them fall in love with them, kill them, make them very ill, etc). it was amazing. On the way home, we decided NOT to walk (also because we had to carry HUGE sacks of rice back to my town with us, and that would have been impossible for 30 km.) but to take a Sarety (a zebu-cart/ox-cart like thing… see pictures). AMAZING. It was a fun ride. Things are so much simpler here sometimes…
When I got back home I taught at school for a few weeks. Which, was really getting difficult. Some difficulties included: lack of student participation. Lack of students to have ANY creative thinking skills. Lack of parent appreciation for education. Lack of food and the kids are so hungry they aren’t even concentrating. Lack of seeing a purpose for learning English (hell I cant blame them. Why would they want to learn English when many of them wont ever have the opportunity to use it!) Lack of motivation. Lack of electricity at night to study lessons after a day of school and a day of working the farm/cooking. Yeah. These kids have so many obstacles in the way of their education. They are so beautiful (yeah obnoxious too sometimes, but all kids are) and have so much potential, but no one feeds into that, and addresses that, or praises that. I am doing my best.

The beginning of January, all of my Stagemates (the other volunteers I spent training with last summer for 2.5 months) and I were called together for an in-service training (IST) in the capital. So, we all went to the peace corps house in Tana, and got to see each other, have fun, blah blah, and then have sessions all day/week about our sites/experiences so far etc. I wouldn’t know how any of that went, because I was double dragoning the entire time. Hmmm double-dragoning, what is that? Well let me tell you. It involves liquid/solids/liquid-solids coming out of both ends, if not simultaneously, than one right after another. It was enjoyable. I didn’t even get to go to the training, but was in tana in the medical unit for most of it. I was sick. Im not sure what was wrong, the doctors never gave me an answer, but I got some shots, some medicine, some rehydration salts and I slept for a few days. Oh yeah, and I had some de-worming medication too the week before. I think maybe that’s what it was. Anyways, lucky for me, the day I “revived” and could stand up and walk again, it was time to hit the road for vacation. So, I hauled my luggage into a taxi brusse (a van stuffed with people) with 7 of my stage-mates and we headed south of Tana to Isalo national park.
We stopped in Isalo for three days. The most incredible scenery ever. Hiking. Beautiful. The environment, wicked. You’d be walking and then suddenly there was a little hidden natural spring or waterfall. Or scorpion or lemur. The lemurs were at our campground and came out in the mornings usually. It was really cool. We had an amazing trip there. At nights, we built fires, drank some wine and exchanged songs with the porters and our guide. Actually, it was more like they sang and we listened, cuz we don’t have songs like they do to sing that everyone knows. Lol we all joked at our lack-there-of of culture.
After Isalo, we continued South for a tour-guide training in Tulear. We spent five days there doing that and had Christmas camping on the beach with other PCV’s. We killed a goat, enjoyed the sun (NOT!!! IT WAS SOOO FREEKING HOT) and had some beer. At night, people brought crackers and chocolate and marshmallows, so we made kinda s’mores. It was such a great time…
Coming back north after everything was done was exciting too. The drive was beautiful. We stopped in another large city south of Tana and spent New Years there before heading back to our sites. We went out dancing and had a nice dinner… happy New Year!!!
So when I finally got back to my site, I was sooo happy to be back. My dog got HUGE. My next door neighbor has been taking care of her and she is so happy coming back and forth between the houses (which is a relief to me, cuz it is horrible for her to be all alone the entire time I am gone) and the little boys in my neighborhood LOVE her. They really take care of her and treat her kindly, unlike most dogs around town who are street-dogs and get rocks thrown at them. Once again, people are afraid of dogs. No idea why. Also, people are terrified of chameleons and that is another mystery to me. A grown man screamed the other day when he saw a chameleon. Chameleons are the slowest moving creatures, and they don’t bite, don’t bother, don’t make noises. When I asked why people were scared of them they said because they have ugly faces. Well shit, I know some people with pretty ugly faces around here, and I don’t see you screaming when they walk by ! yeah ok that may have been rude, but they laughed… Also, people are afraid of Owls. They think that the owls are the mpamosavy (witchdoctors) pets and they help them curse people. Interesting. Its all very interesting.
Being back at site after the holidays has been amazing. People have been so warm and welcoming and inviting me to New-year parties. Yeah, so apparently new-years parties happen during the entire month of January. It involves awkward traditional dancing (well actually its really beautiful and fun to watch, its just awkward for me when I am asked to dance and have no idea what I am doing!) beer/soda and a treat called “Kaka-pigeon” (pigeon shit, its some kind of fried flour in little pieces, like cheetoes but no cheese and harder). They have been a lot of fun to go to. Students at the high school, students at the CEG, students at the Nunnery, Teachers at the high school, teachers at the CEG, teachers at the Nunnery, the office staff, each “ethnic” group in my town, all have had separate parties. Its been a really fun past couple of weeks.
One of the difficult things being back at site is that it is January. This means rainy season. This means poor season. People physically look thinner. At the market, there is never meat, and barely any vegetables (I mean, certainly enough to live off of, no problem, just not like before. The market has even shrunk in size!). people are, im pretty sure, eating just rice now, for the most part. Its really hard to see. I have had a lot of people asking for money, asking for help etc. which is so difficult for me, because my job as a PCV is not to give money out to people. And doing so would/could cause some difficult repercussions in my community aka, people always coming for me/thinking I am loaded, increased risk of robbery/burglary, another barrier of actually becoming a member of the community, instead of this foreigner…. Its so complicated, and I wish it didn’t have to be. But, I have been offering my body instead. No not like that. I have been helping people farm their fields. It’s the least I can do. Plus I enjoy it, and get the good gossip in town. 
One quick story about an amazing moment teaching…. I gave my students an assignment to create a dialoge in groups of two-three using vocabulary from the “likes/dislikes and borrowing/lending” vocabulary we just did. One group of three boys gets up and this is how their diagloge went (may I just add they made no grammatical mistakes in their speaking I WAS SO PROUD OF THEM, I GOT TEARS IN MY EYES!!!) ok and first some background information, I did a section with my high school students on American music/culture and used Will Smiths “Fresh Prince of Belaire” song to teach about media/music for a week. We took the vocabulary and I explained a little of the “slang” that they would come across if they ever meet an American aka “gonna vs. going to”, “chill vs. relax/hang out”, “to shoot hoops vs. to play basketball”…things like that… they loved it. (and they are crazy about basketball here, so the terms they were able to express made them so excited and happy!) also, I have been sharing information about the elections with my students, about the two candidates about democrats vs. republicans, in the most unbiased manner I could think of… yeah, probably could’ve tried a little harder with that… and have been showing them pictures from the elections in the magazines (thanks mom, again) I have received.
Ok so here is the dialoge they made up:
Hey! Will Smith, whats up, how are you?!
Hey John MCcain! , not much, I am fine, how are you.
Who is your friend.
This is my friend hamado.
Nice to meet you!
What can I do for you Will Smith?
John McCain, I like you. I need to borrow your ox-cart. I need to go somewhere.
Oh I am sorry. I need it.
Oh. Well ok then.
See you
See you later.
Simple, short, but it was sooooo funny, and so cute, and they TOTALLY had the expressions down perfectly and they way they were creative and integrated what we have previously talked about in class was awesome. I was proud. Maybe its hard for you readers to understand why I would get so excite ( I just re-read the dialogue and realized its not that impressive AT ALL lol) but its little moments of victory like this that make this entire experience worth it, a thousand times over.
Until Next time…. Lauren
ps, “next time” wont be until March… its rainy season, my roads are almost already impassable. Ill be blessed to get back to my site within a day of travel tomorrow…
pps. I am officially moved to my new post box. Don’t forget to send mail there
B.P. 200
Mahajanga 401
Madagascar