Goodbye SAVA

A few months ago I mentioned that I was trying not to think about my last few months at site. I had no idea that the month of April and early would throw so much of the unexpected at me that it was a shock to return to Andapa with less than two weeks left.  

I hurt my leg and was out of commission for about three weeks in early April. The leg healed fine and seems to be getting better. Then I was brought to Tana because there was a security issue and so I was out of site for a few days (thankfully it didn’t really affect my family who was visiting).  It was when I was in Tana that I should have realized (after three years) it’s never good to be in a rush.

The night before my flight I noticed that I was coming down with a slight fever. That’s not too crazy. I’ve had a lot of fevers in this country and for the most part I take an ibuprofen, drink some water and sleep it off; the next day I’m fine. Well, this started the same way, the fever broke for the most part during the night and I felt a lot better in the morning. I went to the airport and waited to board my flight.

As I was waiting my head really started hurting and I could feel the fever coming back. When I took some more medicine it didn’t really do anything and I just forced myself to get on the plane and tough out the travel. The plane was extremely uncomfortable, but after about two and a half hours I arrived in Sambava and went to look for a car to Andapa.  By this time the fever was pretty bad, I had a horrible headache and it went all the way to my eyes so that any sudden eye movement hurt. I managed to get onto a taxi and tough out the 3-hour ride by just sipping water and counting the kilometer markers.  I finally made it back to Andapa I thought that a night in my own bed might just make it pass.

I didn’t really eat the entire day, but threw up that night once I was home. I took some more medicine and managed to fall asleep even though I still wasn’t feeling great. The next day I woke up feeling a little better and I thought that I was moving in the right direction. However, after I ate breakfast I just vomited it all up and was feeling nauseous even when I tried to drink water.  Before noon I had thrown up 6 times, drank almost no water, eaten no food and had a fever around 107.6 degrees.

When the thermometer read that high I knew it was time to talk to the Peace Corps doctors again and they told me which hospital I needed to go to and really helped me along. I managed to make it to the hospital and met with a doctor. I got a malaria test, twice. Both confirmed that I tested positive for malaria.

That day and the next I think would qualify as the two most painful days of my life. Even filled with medication, with an IV, I still felt sick. My mouth was constantly dry and I had to sip water carefully so that I didn’t just vomit it up. There’s no way for me to know what dying feels like, but I would say that having malaria is a pretty close second to it. There really was a sense of helplessness in a way.

So I spent two nights in the Andapa hospital. The people, for the most part, were great and the doctor that was in charge of me was a Saint. He was constantly checking in on me, he brought me fruit one day, and he even let my friends use his kitchen to make some soup for me. The facilities were another matter. The bed and blankets were clean and nice and I slept for about three days straight. But the IV was connected to the worlds heaviest metal post and so every time that I needed to urinate I had to get a friend to hold my IV fluids and walk with me to the toilet, not too fun.  Altogether I had 5 IV’s, 5 shots and a few suppositories more than I would have ever liked to take in my life.

So after the hospital I got in a car and went back to Sambava and flew back to Tana to see the doctors that know me and that can watch over everything so I got completely better. I managed to spend a total of three nights in Andapa before returning to Tana. Had a known, I should have just stayed in Tana in the first place.  As far as timing goes, I think it was very impressive that I came down with malaria on World Malaria Day. My stay in Tana lasted a week only because of plane issues.

What made me a little sad while I was in the hospital was realizing all of the special treatment that I got because I was a foreigner and obviously could pay the bills. It makes me wonder if all of these Malagasy people are simply dying of malaria because they are too late or if they are dying because they can’t afford a night in the hospital and all of the medication and IV’s. If it’s the later than that is something that is very sad.  Yes some people are privileged and have money, but it makes me more curious about the medical aid and NGO’s in Madagascar. I’m sure there is something that I’m missing or the funding would just be too much or maybe they’re worried that if people have access to medical care then they won’t use a mosquito net, I don’t know, but whatever it was it didn’t seem like it was as prepared as it should have been for a regular person to come in with malaria.  I also realize why people bring money to someone who is sick. It isn’t a gift, it’s to help the family buy the medicine or pay a bill that very day. They knew I would pay them and so I wasn’t forced to pay for anything up front. Altogether, the bill came out to about 300,000 Ar. Sad to think that a lot of people die in this country because they don’t have 300,000 Ar.

I finally made it back to Andapa and it felt strange to be back after being gone for a so long. It was also weird to think that I would be leaving shortly after returning. To make things worse, I was completely stressed by everything that needed to be wrapped up as well. I had a bunch of things to clear up with my house, electricity, bank, all of my work, cleaning, etc., and really didn’t feel that I had enough time to do it all.  However, after a few days of freaking out and running around I finally got everything squared away. It wasn’t until I sent my bike that I really felt like I was leaving; it wasn’t until I sent my bike that I realized how much I loved my bike.

Really, I use a bike all the time and need it to make it out to my work. I managed to borrow one bike, but after having to 3 things and then just have more things break before I even left Andapa, I decided to bail on that bike. The second bike that I borrowed was way to small and had old tire cuttings place around the weak spots on the tire. It was quite the uncomfortable bumpy ride, but it got me where I needed to go and so I just toughed it out. It lasted a few days until I was able to borrow another Volunteer’s bike.

Because I was stressing so much during my first week back, the second week was a little easier. I was able to close my bank account, finish work, remove trash and clean my house and say goodbye to people. The owner of the house tried to screw me over, but didn’t. However, her younger brother did because he didn’t pay me for the electricity he was using. Kind of sad to have left with a bad taste in my mouth, but I never really considered them close friends (they were just neighbors).

I spent the last three days in Andapa just going around and saying goodbye. It took a lot of time and energy out of me. I have to say that I will probably never have to say a goodbye like this ever again in my life and I am truly grateful for it.  There were so many people that I wanted and needed to talk to before I left. It was really hard on my last day and it was basically 7 hours of holding back tears and me saying goodbye, and getting choked up. I’m honestly going to miss a lot of those people and I really hope that I get to see them again.

So, what’s next? I really don’t know, but I’m completely at peace with that. I finish my Peace Corps service at the end of this week and will hopefully find a job in the next few weeks. If I find a job that I like and I feel is enough so that I can support myself financially then I will take it. I’m not going to take a job in Madagascar just to have a job in Madagascar. That means that I don’t know when I’ll be coming back home to California. If I don’t find any work that I like quickly then I will most likely travel for a few weeks and then fly home. There are positives and negatives to both and I know that I’ll be happy with wherever I end up.

 

 

 

Walk It Out

My leg is getting much better as each day passes. I got the stitches out and I really felt like that improved the mobility in my knee. The next day I was able to ride my bike, although it was a bit awkward. After that I just increased the amount of exercise each day to see if it could get stronger. Right now the swelling is almost all the way down, but the bruising is just beginning. I’m going to try running this next week and just taking it nice and easy. Rehab is never fun, but it’s way better than waiting until your healed and then you realize all your strength and energy is lost.

I went to Sambava to say goodbye to one of the volunteers in the area who was going home. It’s crazy because she came to Madagascar a year later than I did so I really feel out of the Peace Corps loop. However, my time is winding down here so it isn’t too bad. It’s crazy to think that in my time as a Peace Corps volunteer I will have seen 9 different groups come into Madagascar; that’s a lot of volunteers!

I’m making more plans with people about my future in Madagascar. Really, everything is still up in the air and I only have about a month or so left of my Peace Corps service. To be honest, I really wish that I already had something set up. I don’t like the last minute scrambling, but that’s just how life works sometimes. I am looking to get a job in Madagascar (at this point anywhere in the country) that is environment related. I really don’t think I could do any kind of foreign service or government related job and actually enjoy what I’m doing. However, if nothing comes up or there isn’t a job that I find appealing, I guess I’ll go back to the United States.

It’s hard to think about coming back to the US just because I feel like I have more solid work experience here in Madagascar. I worked throughout college and after graduating, but I don’t feel like it was the same experience. If I go back to California I’m sure I’ll figure it all out, but it is a little daunting.

But, now that my leg is healing up, and that I’m still here, I needed to ride around and chat with people and check on all of the projects we have going on. There was a lot that happened without me knowing, but that’s ok and there were no major disasters, which I was very happy about. However, there are still a lot of things that I see and ask about that other people involved aren’t, and that does worry me a little about the future of the projects. However, I’m sure there may be an over-reliance of others on me that will fade away when I’m no longer in the picture.

I was thrilled to have my dad and step mom visit me in Andapa. It was nice to have some visitors and share my world for a few days. It was weird though because I’m feeling more comfortable in Andapa, have all of my old friends in Matsobe, and I’m almost feeling like I’m caught in between the two areas. I don’t know really who to introduce or what to share and I didn’t want to take the time to share everyone and everything. Regardless, I think they enjoyed their trip to the basin and seeing all of our projects and all of my friends. They even picked up a little bit of Malagasy, which I was very happy about.

So that’s that. Not a whole lot going on, or at least not that I wanted to write about. Maybe the next two weeks will be more exciting…

 

 

One Year Older, But Not One Day Smarter (Maybe A Little Tougher)

Well, I needed something to talk about. In the past two weeks my work seemed to slow down a bit and things have begun to wrap up. However, I wasn’t really thinking that I needed to ring in my 27^th birthday with a trip to the hospital, but that’s just how some things happen.

No, I wasn’t drunk. I almost wish that I was so that I could maybe blame my stupidity on the intoxication. I’m just another year older and not in the tiptop shape that I used to be. I can still stand on my hands and walk on my hands, but it was clear this past birthday that it might be a while until I join the American gymnastics team.  I was showing some friends a handstand and walking on my hands; the problem was that I did it in my house. I walked out of my kitchen and lost control (I got going to fast) and then fell over into a door that is inside my house. Now, if it were just a solid wood door, we wouldn’t have a problem, but of course this door has glass panes and when I fell, my knee shattered one of the panes and gave my knee three gashes.

My first thought was, ‘Shit. Now I’m going to have to fix the damn door.’ Then I looked at my knee and saw the white tendons staring back at me and realized, wow, that’s probably my first priority and fixing the door could be a close second. Thankfully, I had my friends around me and they helped cover the wounds and stop the blood flow. They also helped track down a taxi for me so we could go to the hospital.

So I came hobbling into the hospital and felt like a huge idiot having to explain how I cut my leg. My major consolation was the respect I got from the wounds, as most people didn’t think that it was anything major when I came in (of course I took a picture).

Then the stitching up was a pretty weird experience in itself. There I am lying on the operating table and these doctors just seem to want to chat me up. I’m sure they were trying to keep my mind off of the entire stitching going on, which they did, but it did feel a little casual at times, maybe too casual. I’m hoping that they were still paying attention, but you can never be sure.

I managed to make it out and was able to get home. What really sucked is that I couldn’t ride my bike and walking wasn’t the most fun either. Not to mention that I would hobble about 20 feet and just have to tell someone else how stupid I am and how I got hurt.

However, it was time that I took a bit of a break and this definitely made me. I spent three days just hanging out in the house (although during that time I went to the bank, market, printed photos for people, got my haircut, returned to the hospital for a scheduled bandage cleaning, looked for seeds for our nursery and followed up with another meeting from someone who works with MNP).  It would have been done really quickly if I could just ride a bike.

Which brings me to my name. Over the years I’ve acquired quite a few ‘nick’ names and Andapa has proved to be the same. What’s funny is that not everyone knows me by all of the names. A friend of mine was telling me how she told her friend she was going to visit me and they kept asking who Nicolas is (my name in French). That was until she described me as Nicolas Biciclety (bicycle) and then it was common ground. I guess taking a few days off the bike is even robbing me of my identity!

But before this whole mess, I was able to have a few good things happen. These are the few things that happened before I looked at the inside of my leg.

I learned how to sow clove seeds. A friend of mine had just finished visiting a training on planting cloves and I was really happy that he seemed so eager to teach me and help plant. So we prepared the seeds and then sowed them. We should move them into plastic pots before I go, but even if we don’t I think I’ll have the general idea.

I had the meeting that I mentioned in the last blog. I really do hope that it comes to something in the future, but I’m not really sure what the timing will be like. I’m still not sure where I’m going to end up and so it would really help to know where I’ll be in June to know how much I want to push. However, he’s putting together a new budget and we are going to try and figure out how we could put together the best possible project so that it can be successful as well as appealing to donors.

It had been a long time since I just went biking into the countryside to look for someone, but last week I got another chance. I managed to track a guy down who lives in a village that I managed to never see in the past 3 years and organize a date for him to bring seeds for our tree nurseries. It was kind of fun just biking out to the middle of nowhere and not having any anxiety about it. I feel comfortable with the language and my overall direction in the Andapa Basin and so really I just needed to make sure that I spoke to someone who new the man. I eventually found someone who knew him, found his house, and then found the house that he recently moved to. We talked about possible seeds and we chose a date for me to collect him. Sadly, he called me later and said it wasn’t ready, but I should be able to get the seeds on Monday.

I was still going to the Reserve and clearing land for the trees that will eventually need to be planted. It was just nice to have some time to relax and go home when I was tired and not keep working because I was worried that it wouldn’t get finished.  As always, the land clearing is a nice physical, non-mental, task that lets me think about my work while working, which I’ve always appreciated.  The weather has been way too dry, but I think we will be able to complete the majority of the planting in the next few weeks, even if I’m not physically there to help plant.

I’ve become much more social in the past few weeks and I really don’t know why the transition happened. I’ve started hanging out with the people who live on my compound a lot more and just talking with them. As always, I’m surprised that the majority of my friends seem to be older women and kids, but I’m not complaining. It’s been nice to have some people to hang out with and talk when I feel like my house or work is too quiet. I was really surprised at how comfortable they seemed with me, as some of the topics they chose were rather racy subjects.

However close I’m becoming to my Andapa friends, the countryside will always be where my first group of friends are. For that reason, I spent Easter Monday in the countryside partying and eating it up with all of my friends who used to live so close. It was a lot of fun and the best part was that even though I hadn’t spent a lot of time with them in the past few months, it didn’t feel like there was any gap in our relationship and everyone just had a good time. I was jealous that they were already home and I still had to bike back to Andapa when it was over.

Finally, I’ve started teaching a friend of mine how to use a computer. I take my knowledge of computers/electronics for granted and so it can be a pretty stressful task at times. It just seems so simple because it’s a machine that I’ve grown up with my entire life. However stressful it can be, I’m giving him time and trying to stay as patient as possible while teaching him. I know he wants to learn how to use how to use a computer so that he can get a better job, and because his wife is pregnant, I can really respect his decision and him asking me to help.

I get my cut cleaned tomorrow and then the stitches should come out Wednesday. We’ll see how long it takes for me to get mobile after that!

 

 

 

 

 

 

This and That

These past two weeks have been somewhat strange, and, the more I think about it, I think that I’ve been saying that my life here has been rather strange of late. I think it might have to do with the fact that I’m leaving and it gives me a new perspective on everything. I’m starting to pay attention to things like I did when I first arrived in Madagascar, but this time around, I’m viewing it with the knowledge of three years experience. I’d like to think that I’m viewing it all with a sense of understanding (as if anything could make sense), but maybe I’m just viewing it more comfortably.

But there are some things I’ll never understand and Malagasy people still have a long way to go when it comes to understanding the ways of the road. I know I’ve mentioned this in a few previous blogs, and I’m saying once again: people who walk the streets will rarely keep to the right, or outside of the middle of the road, they don’t listen or watch when walking or crossing the road and they seem to wander about clueless for the most part. That’s not the biggest issue though. If people are just walking there are rarely too many head-on collisions. The real problem happens when people on bicycles and motorcycles have that same sense of awareness and they get thrown in the mix.

Almost two weeks ago, I was coming back to Andapa from Matsobe. I wasn’t too tired and so I was going a pretty good speed on my bicycle. I noticed that a motorcycle got close behind me, but for whatever reason he didn’t seem in much of a hurry and for a while didn’t pass. After about a mile, he did pass and I realized that the guy was just soaking in the scenery and not really paying too much attention to the road. That would soon become a problem.

As we got closer to town, I was still trailing him and I saw some people shout to the road. Whether they were shouting to the guy on the motorcycle or not, I have no idea. Regardless of who was calling, the guy looked over at them and did not keep his eyes on the road. At the same time, another motorcycle was going faster than the driver was probably comfortable and he was heading right in the direction of the other motorbike.  Of course, it was inevitable that the two crashed into each other. Thankfully, neither was going that fast and so nobody was injured; mostly because the guy coming from Andapa laid down the bike and jumped off and the other guy just ran into his bike.

Moral of the story, keep your eyes on the road and try to be a little considerate to the positions of others around you. The population of Madagascar is growing quickly and people are going to need to get used to having a lot of people on the road…or they can keep doing what they’re doing and potentially play their own role in population control…

In the last blog I said that I thought I had worms. I spoke to the doctor and made a case for me taking the medication, so they approved. I think I had something, or it was a placebo, because my stomach did some strange things the day I took the pill and then following that I’ve been feeling hungry a lot less after my meals. I probably had something small, but it was intensified by the fact that I’m doing a lot of physical labor.  Needless to say, I feel like I’m eating a normal amount and might have even put on a tiny bit of weight.

Planting is still continuing and I’m pretty much making sure everything keeps moving, regardless of trees and stuff that we have. I’ve become very efficient with planting and it is almost second nature to go out and plant 150 seedlings in a day. We recently got some Raffia seedlings that are in really big plastic pots and were a real pain to transport and plant. Of course, I had to go out by myself one day and see how much I could plant in a morning and then figure out from their how much people should get paid to plant the trees. We use to pay per 50 plastic pots, but with the bigger pots we decided to scale it down to 35. The work is just as intense, maybe even more so for me as I’m not use to carrying things on my shoulder. I’m making progress though.  We hired three people to help plant one day and I took the day off and just monitored them. It was quite relaxing and now I know what most people think of me when I say that I’m going to plant trees.

However, this work has really worn down my uniform. I’ve been wearing mesh shorts almost everyday for the past 3 years. I didn’t really where mesh shorts outside of the house or gym back in California, but here, it is the most practical clothing. They are easy to wash, they don’t get dirty with all of the mud on the bike (I can wash my legs off when I shower), they dry quickly, and they are light in the hot weather. Two pairs have been with me for the long haul, and they are both torn to shreds. The past few weeks almost disintegrated one pair and made me realize that I can probably let them go to short heaven. They’ve done their job. I still have enough shorts in store so that I can keep planting with what’s left. We just have a few hundred more trees from Sambava and then maybe another 500 trees left in the Matsobe nursery as well. I’ve already started talking to people about collecting more seeds, even though I might not be planting them with the nurseries in the future. As for where I will be after May 24^th of this year, that is still undecided, but I hope to have a better clue in the next few weeks.

I spoke to a friend of mine from the Madagascar National Parks Office in Andapa and he mentioned he wanted to start a local group and then maybe an NGO in the future. I’m going to try and meet with him and see what he has planned and organized and how feasible it could be to create something like what he wants. If it seems reasonable and I’m still living in Madagascar, I think I will give it a go (regardless of whether I live in or near Andapa). However, if I’m back in the United States I will not be able to check up on anything at all and I already know that would be a failure on my part.

We had the last volunteer meeting that I will attend as a Peace Corps Volunteer. It was always nice to see everyone, hear what they are doing and get some information from the office in Tana. For the most part, it was just a social occasion, and I know when I was serving my first few months here, it was really great for my sanity. It’s also made me realize that my Peace Corps meetings and visits will be coming to a close soon. I think I’ll be okay, seeing as I haven’t left the region in the past 7 months.

I wanted to get my haircut the other day and my normal dude wasn’t around/ the power was out in his district of town. So, I went to this guy who lives close to my house in Andapa. When I lived in Matsobe, I always went to the same guy in Andapa because nobody in Matsobe had electricity and so it was easiest to just go to the same guy. Also, he speaks good English, became a really good friend of mine and is just a really nice guy overall. However, because I couldn’t go to his shop, I went to the new dude. Epic fail.

Well, not really. You can’t really mess up shaving a head. As long as you get all of the hair then you’ve pretty much done your job. I don’t know if I caught this guy on a stressful day or if he just really wanted to do a good job, but he came after my head with a real intensity. I winced a few times as he pressed the clippers against my head and then that night I saw there were a few red spots and cuts. I think next time I won’t need to tough it out, but I’ll just explain that he doesn’t need to kill my hair. My body is already removing the hair on my head on it’s own. He just needs to trim what’s left.

We have a Petsay (Bok Choy?) garden at the fish farm that I’ve been helping to oversee. It’s a good thing that I’m here to monitor things because they weren’t measuring the beds or really thinking about the project in general. Sadly, I wasn’t there the whole time so they didn’t make any walkways in between the beds, just giving themselves more work when they have to water everything. It’s a really cool terrace though, behind the house of the fish farm guardian, nice picture too. It’s one of those things that would be really easy if you could just set up a drip system. Instead someone will be carrying watering cans up and down the terrace everyday. I don’t think they used enough manure, but people don’t want to listen to me about everything and we planted some seeds and then sowed others so that we can transplant. I’m not a Bok Choy specialist so I’ll just wait to see what happens. Just another thing that I’m learning as I go.

And for the most part, all of this went on with a stuffed nose and burning eyes. I think that because my work slowed down just a little bit, my body decided that it could give up. I had an annoying, but not awful cold that just lingered around for two weeks. I’m almost healthy now and that feels a lot better.  But health comes in waves so it seems at times and with my cold gone I acquired some lower back pain. I’m hoping that it isn’t kidney related, but I’m keeping that in mind. No symptoms at the moment are clear-cut to point me in any direction. I guess I’ll just deal with the pain, drink lots of water and be optimistic; it almost sounds like a Kelly Clarkson song.

 

 

Efficiency

As I monitor my work and everything around me on a daily basis it becomes clear to me that efficiency is something that I value. I think it fits with my minimalistic attitude or is the reason for me being so minimalistic. No wasted energy or time, pure function. It explains why I’m impatient at times, a bit particular with other things, thrifty in spending as well as hard working. I think that if one is efficient then they have found quality.

That’s why I like organizing and arranging things, so that when the time comes everything happens like it is supposed to, because I’ve made it that way. Granted there will always be factors that are unaccounted for, but if something is efficient it will still be able to do its job. With my reforestation work I feel like I’ve become efficient. And, through this efficiency, I feel that the project has really become something special and a whole lot less stressful.

Similarly, when things aren’t efficient, it makes me a little frustrated. For example, when a government official was two hours late for a ceremony I decided to go home and blow off the whole thing rather than waiting around and seeing when he would show up. Although I had wasted my morning, I wasn’t going to waste my afternoon. It really was a waste of my time and I’ll have to think twice about considering any invitations for future events. In addition, I’ve seen a few other projects happen in the past few weeks and I can see that it really is a mess. It’s unorganized and unplanned and so when the time comes for it to play out, it can be a waste of time, money and energy. Yes, sometimes things get done and the outcome is the same, but if you need more resources or if completing the task becomes a struggle then something isn’t right. As work continues (or life in general) I’m always learning about how things work and what is a good use of my time, as well as a bad use of my time. Hopefully, if I can do things right, I will be nothing but efficient in the future.

I suppose that this blog should talk about my life the past two weeks. Hopefully, I can be efficient and effective in explaining what has happened. It’s nothing too new, so I’m sorry if I’m boring all of you who read this with the same old stuff. I promise, there are a few new developments, but life has been pretty static as of late.

I need to talk to the Peace Corps doctor because I think I might have worms. I’ve been eating a ton of food lately and I haven’t been gaining any weight. It’s nice to eat, but sometimes I’m a little shocked at how much I was able to put away. Granted, I’m doing a lot of physical labor and putting in a lot of time riding a bike, but I don’t think that I’m burning that many calories. Also, I’m never going to stop eating if I’m not full. One day I decided to buy a bag of candy to help satisfy my constant eating and I made the poor decision (not in regards to taste) of buying a type of candy that has coffee extract, and I’m pretty sure, caffeine. I obviously ate a lot of these little candies in one sitting and I could really feel the effects later on. I don’t know why my body is so receptive to caffeine, but it just reminds me why I don’t drink coffee and try to stay away from caffeinated sodas. This was very strange to the Malagasy people who were helping to move seedlings in an ox cart at 4am because I didn’t drink coffee with them before hand. I like to think that my life is independent of substances, even caffeine. In a way, I think it makes me feel like I have a loss of control (yes, I’m a minor control freak). And, regardless of caffeine intake, I’m very happy to see that each time that we transport seedlings, it becomes more and more efficient.

About two months ago I got a game file from another Peace Corps Volunteer. It has hundreds of games for Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, and Sega Genesis. You would think that I would be spending all of my waking time playing the things (and there was a time in my life when I’m sure that would be true), but I haven’t. To make things even stranger, I’ve started playing computer chess instead. I have to say that I’m getting better, but I’m nowhere near becoming a Grand Wizard (or whatever the chess term is). I also have to say that the computer has cheated. Not cool. Despite it’s cheating it has won the majority of the time so I just like to think that I would win if it didn’t cheat; small victories.

I’m planting trees so often that I think people don’t know what to ask or they think that I’m starting to lie. The people in the market see me shop early in the morning and I think there starting to be like “dude, are you still going out there? Again? Crazy white kid…” We’ve planted over 4,000 seedlings so far and we should have around 5,000 by then end of this next week. It’s cool to kind of see it come along and think that we really are planting a forest of sorts. I’ll have to come back sometime in the future and see what it looks like once all of the trees are grown.

The nurseries are winding down for the most part. Because of late rains a lot of people are still working in the rice fields and there aren’t a lot of people going out in the forest to look for seeds. I hope to have the majority of the seedlings planted within a month or so. The Andapa nursery will hopefully have more trees as I’ve planted Corosol and Aramy. I’m not sure if the Aramy will grow, but we’ll see. What I really like about the nursery in Andapa is that it’s so close. I’ve gotten so accustomed to riding my bike to work this past year that I really forgot how nice it was to be able to work so close to home. It makes checking on things so much easier and if I have a little bit of free time I can just pass by the nursery and look over everything.

We had students visit the Fish Farm. I didn’t organize it, but I checked it out anyway. I think that it is overall a good idea, but that we should be choosing students from a different school and structure the program a little bit more. I’m not really sure what they had planned or what they thought it was suppose to accomplish, but I think that if it gets a little bit more direction then it will be moving in the right direction. I also think that just having visitors is good publicity for the fish farm and our projects in general. I’m sure that everything will straighten out in the future visits (if there are any).

March 8th is International Women’s day. We don’t celebrate it in the United States, maybe because we have supposed equality. I’m not really sure of the purpose here as well other than it gives people a reason to celebrate. This year, the regional ceremony was held in Vohemar (which is kind of far from Andapa) and so I didn’t go. I’ve been in Madagascar for 4 of these holidays. The first one I was still in training and didn’t even know it was a holiday. The second was when the regional ceremony was held in Andapa in 2011. The third was last year when I didn’t do any type of celebration at all. And then finally this year, when I just had drinks with a bunch of guy friends of mine. Yeah women!…or something like that.

I think that the holiday is good and could be positive, but it really doesn’t seem like it’s empowering anyone. I don’t really see any gender equality here nor do I think that people really try to make the most of the holiday. It’s just about taking a day off, which can be good and needed, but really just a party and drinking. I’d be curious to know what happened in Vohemar because all of the previous ceremonies just had a bunch of men talking as well, which never made any sense to me. Andapa is going to celebrate on the 15th (never want to miss out on a day off) and so maybe I’ll see if any women actually speak or say anything, or if it’s just the regular men who are high up and in power.

Also, if a bunch of women getting drunk is their way of replicating the men in this country, then it shows some greater issues as well. I would love for the holiday to have a really positive message because I do think that things are changing for the better in this country. I think that a lot of girls are going to school and becoming educated and they could respond to some real positive leaders. Sadly, we might have to wait until the girls who are still in high school become leaders farther down the road before anyone really takes charge and some real gender equality happens. Then again, I’m just a guy, I don’t know what women want and I’ve never made a claim otherwise.

Picture time is back. Although I love giving people pictures and seeing how happy they are when they get the photo, I still hate taking people’s pictures and then having to take the time to print them. However, I just don’t know how to say no. As long as they have the money to pay for the picture, I take it and then print it in Andapa. It always goes in waves, so I’m sure my picture taking will go down in the future. I’m thinking that it might be cool to make some kind of photo/art project using only the photos that people have asked me to print. In a way they would be the real pictures of Madagascar, the pictures that each generation will see, not the five million pictures I have of rice fields, forests and animals that everyone from back in the States might think looks cool. With such a strong sense of community and family in Malagasy culture, how could I say no to preserving an image of someone for generations to come?

Just Keep Going

It’s been a rough two weeks. It seems as if all of the little things that have been happening over the past few months accumulated and then exploded in the background of my life. Yep, the background. Really nothing major has happened, no real arguments or breakdowns. It’s just that all of the little things that have been bothering me or correspondence with people just reached a level that really upset me. It’s been hard, but despite everything coming in from the outside, all one has to do is just keep going. And, for that reason, I’ve stayed busy, kept waking up early and getting out there and making sure, despite interference from others, that I do my job and I do it as well as I can.

It’s crazy to think that this Sunday will mark my three-year anniversary in Madagascar. March 3, 2010 was when my ‘Best Stage Ever Stage’ landed in Madagascar. We were 25 altogether and right now there’s only 3 of left on the island, including myself.

I’ve been here a long time. And in that time, I’ve put in a lot of effort. Albeit cliché, these past three years have been filled with blood, sweat and tears; but also a lot of smiles and laughs. I’m constantly meeting new people and thinking of new ideas and possible projects that could work over here. It’s really become my life and a part of who I am as a person. It’s work that doesn’t feel like work, but is just enjoyable and for the most part feels good.

That’s why, over the past two weeks, I’ve been a little down. I’ve felt like a lot of people don’t get it. I also am wondering if all of my hard work was a waste. Not only for how everything was done in the past, but how things might be done in the future.

I know I will not be living or working in Andapa by the end of May. That I know for certain, but where I will be or what I will be doing, I still don’t have a clue. I’m okay with that, not quite stressing about my future just quite yet, but I think that’s where some of the hardship and sadness comes into play. As it gets closer to me leaving, I realize that I have to say goodbye to a three-year chunk of my life and the people who have made this opportunity so great. On a positive note, I’ll get away from all of the negative people who are involved in my work. I suppose there is balance in the Universe from time to time.

Despite this sadness, I know that I need to move on, move onto other projects, other places, other people and other opportunities. Knowing this is the easy part, dealing with it and watching the direction that it will take without me in the future is what’s difficult. I can only hope for the best and know that I did all that I could. And even more so, I can only hope that those who follow me will some day feel the same and put in as much of themselves as I’ve put in for the past three years.

Despite the emotions, irritability and people meddling with projects, I still live my life as always and this is more or less what happened in the past two weeks. It’s been busy, but not a lot of variety, just the normal grind.

It was time for all of the students to get their trees from the Andapa nursery. It was a little embarrassing because almost none of the Acacia grew. I guess I found out that it really does need more sun and the location of the nursery just wasn’t ideal for the tree. That, and there were tons of bugs (possibly because of the shade), it was located in the city…and then you can never count out the problems that chickens cause. Hard to define a cause and effect relationship, but there was definitely a negative correlation from the area and number of Acacia that grew. However, the Tsara Ravina and Mandrorofo all grew.

But my embarrassment was the least of my problems. I needed the students to show up!

I was really worried at first. All of the trees were ready and all the students had to do was swing by the City Hall and pick up their share. They didn’t come. I started to think about trees and why the students didn’t want to get them.

All of these thoughts flew through my head as I sat on a porch, next to a bunch of seedlings waiting for the students that would never come to arrive and take their trees. As I sat there exhausted in the heat, squinting at the people playing basketball in the midday sun, these thoughts went through my mind:

First I thought, well maybe the teachers really are useless. Maybe none of the info was passed along or someone forgot and really I couldn’t blame the students, but those higher up on the food chain. What’s there problem? What can’t they get it together?…pretty sure the guy who just shot the basketball got fouled.

Second, I thought, maybe they just don’t care. This would be heartbreaking, but it would also need to be something that would need to be discussed should it be true. I suppose, a tree isn’t very sexy. It doesn’t really scream cool. I like planting trees and the thought of reforesting a hillside seems cool to me in many ways, but I kinda get it. You can really only look at a tree, for a really long time, until it’s time to harvest it. And then, even then, it makes furniture? Firewood? It has many applications, but doesn’t really give a lot of excitement. Whoo Hoo look at this plank! Yeah, even I can’t get on board with that…these kids must be tired because they aren’t making any of their shots…

It wasn’t until three days of more or less failure and thoughts running through my head that I realized (despite my asking all of the schools) there was a school holiday and none of the students were around. I thought it was a bit odd that I wasn’t seeing the masses crowding the streets. The teachers were only to blame because they are disorganized and the students like the trees, but vacation is more appealing.

So all of this, combined with me not constantly reminding everyone, led to the trees being moved around quite a lot, but we were finally able to send them all off to the students. And, despite it not being sexy, they were all really excited to get their trees. There wasn’t one negative comment from one student, which really surprised me as well. Why aren’t more people planting with students?!? I was even impressed by the organization of some of the student groups because they were planning to sell some of their trees to get money for the club. I think Madagascar is going in the right direction if the youth is organizing things that some of the adults can’t get together.

What’s left of the nursery was kind of a disaster after the students got their share and I shipped our share off to the Reserve so we could plant them. I spent an afternoon cleaning up the area and rearranging all of the plastic pots so that I could plant some things in the future. I still have some Aramy seeds and I’ll probably plant something easy like a fruit tree called Corosol. I hope to get a few trees grown in the next few months and then just give the trees to the students who participated in the program, the people at the City Hall who have been so nice and accommodating to me over the past few months that I’ve been working on their land, as well as take some for us to plant as well.

As far as our own trees and our own planting, well, it’s just become second nature. I keep telling myself that I’m going to be in really good shape by the end of all of this and just need to keep pushing through. Physically and mentally, the work and planning has been quite demanding, but everything seems to be running rather efficiently and trees are getting put in the ground. We are also incorporating more people to give more work as well as get things done quickly. It’s really been a learn as you go type of experience, but I think that I’ve worked out the kinks for the most part and I should be able to apply this knowledge to just about anything. If only I could control the weather, that would be pretty sweet…

The Ambodivohitra nursery was infiltrated by pigs. For a lack of better words, it sucked. The nursery has been a slight let down for the past few months because they really have just stopped working, but I think that because they haven’t abandoned it completely means they can still improve and keep going in the future; but they will need more structure. The pig destroyed a lot of trees. It sucked. Its sucks. Ugh.

With all of the planting, I haven’t been playing basketball. However, I do get to see all of the guys play for a bit when I have to pass out the trees. I really do want to keep playing, but I just don’t have the time. I don’t think it is an early retirement quite yet, so I’ll keep you posted on my miraculous come back in the next few weeks.

The Americans who will live in my house after I leave will have hot water. I’m just happy for the construction to be over. It has been endless hassles and wasted water and time, but the new water heater is in, the pipes are clean, and the leaks are closed up. Too bad it’s too hot to want a hot shower. I suppose this is something that a girl or someone who has hair would find more exciting. Maybe I can hand wash my clothes with warm water. That way it would be more like a washing machine? I’m trying to get excited about it! The other day the pipes were hot from midday sun and hot water came out anyway. I thought it smelled like wet dog. Not a real self esteem booster to think that I smell wet dog while I’m showering. No one said anything after I showered so I can just assume the smell passed.

I finished reading Spark and I feel like I’m set to use exercise throughout my life to help monitor my brain activity and mood. I’ve now moved on to a book called Going Solo. It’s about America’s shift to having more and more people live alone. I’ve always liked being alone and being social when I wanted to be, not having either forced on me, so it makes sense. I definitely think that I can be so social and outgoing with so many people here in Madagascar because I do have a lot of time alone. However, living in Madagascar was the first time that I really lived alone. I think once a person gets use to it that it really does have it’s advantages and going back to group living becomes a little less appealing.

Change

It’s inevitable. No matter what we do things just change. Sometimes we think these changes are good, sometimes bad. I think it depends entirely on our outlook. I might have something change in my life that seems bad, but overall could be very good, or could allow for better things to come in the future. An initially bad change could open up the door for something really good so to speak. It’s hard to know when more change will come and how we will meet these changes. Ultimately, we always have a decision and we can choose to change or we can try to stay the same (staying the same can be good too). Maybe, through our actions, we will be able to make good decisions (good changes) and feel a little less helpless as the world and people change around us. I feel like a whole lot of changes happened in my life over the past few weeks, more on a personal level rather than anything, and I’ve really been trying to be aware of my decisions and how my actions affect my life and others around me (if you haven’t started singing the David Bowie song ‘Changes’, now would be a good time to start).

For New Year’s I said that I didn’t really have a resolution. However, I back stepped on that somewhat and decided that my non-resolution was actually a rather difficult resolution in itself. When I got into a heated argument with the Guard of Antanetiambo one Saturday afternoon it made me realize that I wasn’t taking that goal to heart and that I had to rethink a lot about how I was interacting with others and myself as a person.

The Guard of Antanetiambo had been frustrating me for a full week (if not longer) before the explosion. I’d found his attitude, work and overall interactions with others and myself disrespectful and unnecessary. I thought that he was trying to take advantage of us and that he was being lazy. However, those are merely criticisms and not solutions. Although my explosion let a lot off of my chest, it wasn’t the most productive way of handling the matter and it made me realize that I needed to think back to my resolution and to my goal of trying to be aware of who I am and how I can improve at all times; and then do something about it.

No one’s perfect, and although I’m late, I feel that I’m on the right track. Lately, I’ve tried to be much more conscious and patient with everything going on around me. I’ve also decided to slow down a bit and just take in everything that is going on. I think the major reason that I got so stressed was that I was trying to do too much by myself. I really needed to manage what I could and let other people play their roles or let some things wait a little longer, until the time was more appropriate (and just let some things not happen at all).

In doing so, I’ve managed to become a little more mellow, a little happier, much clearer of mind, and hopefully, a little wiser. That being said, I’m still far from perfect.

Here’s what’s happened since this reflection…

I think I should just get a tent and move to the forest. I’ve been in the Reserve pretty much every day of the week. However, the lands getting cleared and we’re getting trees in the ground. We got 50 litchi trees from a tree nursery in Sambava as well as 400 hard woods from MBG. At some point, we’re going to run out of land that is okay to clear and we’ll have to find some other place for the trees. It’s not that the trees wouldn’t fit; it’s just that we don’t really want to clear the entire Reserve all at once. It’s good if visitors have something else to look at. Sure we can explain to them that we are removing invasive species and planting some really good trees, but who am I kidding, tourists want pictures and a bunch of cleared land with seedlings planted is nice, but not the most photogenic, especially when you tell the people back home that it’s a ‘Nature Reserve’.

I’m also pretty proud of my planting skills at the moment. If there was a top chef equivalent for planting, I’m pretty sure I could make it to the final round. I seem to intuitively know how many trees and how many holes I need to dig. The other day I didn’t count how many trees I took to plant. Then, when I started digging holes, I didn’t count either. When I stopped digging holes and started planting the trees I was only off by 2 holes (I dug extra). It’s still exciting now, but I have a feeling I might start to burn out when hit the 5,000 mark. The weird thing is that my body really doesn’t mind the planting. I can only hack away for so long with a machete before I get tired or board with the work. But planting, I just seem to fill the baskets, dig the holes, and keep repeating until my body says, “let’s eat lunch, so that the next meal you eat isn’t dinner.” I like to think that this means that I like to create more than I like to destroy, but sometimes I really like to destroy…

Another cool thing about planting and clearing all of the land is that I get to see all of the bugs. I’m not a big insect person and I’ve always hated spiders. However, there are some really cool looking and cool colored insects and spiders crawling around out there. I do feel a little bad when I’m taking a break from the slashing and I see them scrambling around. It’s kind of like I just brought a tornado on their home. Granted we’re planting and giving them a new home, so maybe it’s more like a home makeover…they just have to wait a while for the construction to finish.

Deciding and giving the dates for all of the students to collect their trees from the Andapa nursery was much easier than choosing the dates and organizing everything so that they could plant their trees. In just two afternoons, I was able to meet with the 10 schools involved, meet with the teacher/principal who is responsible and get dates for the students to collect their trees. I think it helps that they all know who I am and the work that I do, so they are not freaking out at the sweaty white guy who just came into their office and doesn’t know how to speak French. In the next two weeks all of the students should have their half of what we all planted and then I’ll just need to figure out how I’m going to transport the other half to Antanetiambo.

We had a really good meeting with Antanetiambo about the future and direction of the Reserve. I don’t know if any changes will really happen, but we can only hope that everyone will play a much bigger role once I’m gone. It’s hard doing Peace Corps work/development work because you can really only do so much. Thinking back I almost wonder if I’ve done too much on my own. At some point, people just begin to rely on the work that we do and then we leave. Really, we need to get as many local people involved and invested in our projects as we can. It’s a hard thing to do though and really hard to sit back and let something fail as well. I’m always working with people and the majority of them understand everything and keeps going, but I think I’m a big motivator for them. I’m the one that keeps them in line and says, “It’s not quitting time yet!” I’ll try to figure out how much is the right amount of pushing, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to slow down, or watch anything fail.

Following that note, somewhat, I’ve had an ongoing battle with the daughter of the owner of Antanetiambo. She has decided to quit school. Yeah, I’m not going to let that fly. She’s already in high school, and should she finish the next 3 years she will have her high school degree and her future will have that many more possibilities. However, I think that she, like many Malagasy women, are content to just sit around the house and do simple chores and not much else with their lives. I also think that the Malagasy culture isn’t harsh enough to whip some sense into her. She still has a house and food and is taken care of by others. I think if she really had to provide for herself then she might realize that going to school is actually a pretty sweet gig.

I spoke to her this past Monday for the first time because it was first that I had heard she quit school. Apparently, I’m last on the totem pole and it turns out she hasn’t been in school for a month. At one point she was sick (not debilitated though) and then there were some family issues that brought her mother away and left her as the only one to watch the house so both of those reasons made sense. Also, both of those reasons got drawn out and took much longer than they should have.

I don’t know if there is something else going on, but I can only think that there is some other issue that she doesn’t want to share. We chose to speak again this past Thursday after our talk on Monday and it was clear that nothing changed. To make matters worse, I was talking to her the whole time, but she wouldn’t talk to me at all. For about 90 minutes I felt like I was just talking to a tree. However, I put in my time and I showed her I cared. It turns out that she was going to school less and less before Christmas break and so maybe she can’t catch up. I think if she needs to take the rest of the year off, that’s fine, but it shouldn’t be easy. You can be sure that the two Peace Corps volunteers in Matsobe aren’t going to let her next 6-8 months be anything close to a vacation; if it were up to me that girl would work so hard she’d be happy to be sitting at a desk and filling up a notebook!

A cyclone passed by Madagascar a few weeks ago. It was good for Andapa because it gave us a lot of water, no flooding and not too much wind. Basically, it made it so a lot of people could plant and it didn’t destroy anything. I’ve been hearing from locals that say they think that maybe 2 more cyclones might pass by Madagascar in the next month, but I really have no way of knowing the validity of their statements. I’m not too worried about my house and flooding. I’m just worried how crazy I’ll go if I have to sit inside for 3 days or so.

In the wonderful world of reading, I’ve moved out of the Game of Thrones books. I finished the fourth book, which I liked, and I don’t have the fifth on my kindle yet, so I decided it was reason enough to take a break from the series. I’ve started reading Spark, which is about exercise and brain activity. It’s really cool to think about all of the positive effects exercise has on the brain and learning. It’s really crazy to think of exercise as being a supplement for all of the drugs that companies seem to be selling these days. It’s also cool to see how it can give someone added control in their life. It makes perfect sense to me, as I’m exercising all of the time, and has even given me some ideas so that I could change this exercise a little to enhance my learning ability. Maybe Peace Corps should incorporate some morning workouts while we are in training so that we can acquire Malagasy more easily?

I’ve made my return to basketball (I took about 2 weeks off because the work was exhausting me and I didn’t have any time) and really happy to be on the court again. I’m not so happy that I let the team borrow my basketball. I could ask for it back, but it really doesn’t make that much sense because they can use and enjoy the basketball much more than I can. However, it is a bit annoying when I get to the court at 4:30am and nobody is there…and I don’t have a basketball. We’ve started working on more drills and getting our skills better, which I’m really happy to see. I think that some of these kids are really on to becoming good players. If nothing else, they seem to enjoy playing the game and that’s all that’s important. I’ve decided to run every other day to offset the basketball practice and keep me in shape as well. Carrying 50 trees at once in two baskets across knee high water keeps me strong, but it isn’t really as aerobic as I’d like. Besides, after reading Spark, I realize that I need something other than just straight aerobic thrown in the mix (I think my 18km a day on a bike counts as aerobic exercise).

On another positive note, some players on the team expressed interest in helping me plant trees. I think it’s a mixture of, they want to see Antanetiambo and whatever plants or animals they can see, they want to learn how to plant, they want some physical training, and finally, last but not least, I think they are somewhat interested in the work that I’m doing. As always, I’m happy to share what I’m doing and get more people involved, so maybe some weekend in the future I’ll get some of the guys out there and see if they can match me in trees planted (I know, I need to be a little less competitive).

As for a fun fact, I walked by some people the other day and they said that if you didn’t see my face, you’d think I was Malagasy by the way I spoke. I guess my language skills do keep on improving…or maybe people just need something to talk about.

And, in case you were wondering, everything is cool with the Antanetiambo guardian and me. We aren’t fighting and I think we are even closer than before. I see the guy 6 days a week; of course I was going to get over it and I’m happy he got over it as well.

Dirt, Sweat and Food

Our nurseries are finally at the point where we can plant the trees! It’s been a lot of work these past 5 months putting everything together, searching for seeds, monitoring seeds/seedlings (as well as people) and more than anything just making sure that everything didn’t fail. Now, the weather is starting to rain consistently, the seedlings are tall, and we’re ready to plant.

But it can never be that easy. Of course, I like to think that Antanetiambo Nature Reserve has a wonderful plant diversity, but the hard truth is that there are a lot of invasive and unwanted plants (that’s why we’re planting trees). So, lately, I’ve been in the Reserve with the guardian hacking away, taking out the bad so that we can plant the good. So far we’ve planted Jack Fruit, Raffia, Tsara Ravina and Antohiravina. We have some hardwoods coming in a few weeks as well as some seedlings from Sambava. In a few weeks other trees from our nurseries will be ready to plant as well and it will continue. I think that I’ll look forward to the day that I can take a break from swinging the machete. However, it is good exercise, and I always come up with the best ideas while I’m swinging away. Major plus – I can always find a pineapple to eat while I’m working. Major minus – one day I got stung 3 times by wasps on my head. Something to think about – I realize how much (or how little) our Guard really works. I’d like to think that it balances out, but I’m not really sure.

To get those trees to the nursery we had to count the ones and distribute them. The system provided 60% of the trees for Antanetiambo and 40% to those who work in the nursery. Every day that we worked I took attendance and only those people who showed up on time received credit. Now that we have come to the tallying of names people realize that I wasn’t joking around. I totaled everyone’s attendance and then put it into their 40%. If you worked 10 days then you get quite a few trees, if you only showed up for 2 days then you’re not getting a whole lot. But that’s the point. It doesn’t make sense for some people to work hard, but for everyone in the group to get an equal amount. I could tell by the faces that the people who didn’t show up were a little upset and the people who did show up were very happy that they were rewarded for their hard work. More than anything, I think people know that we’re serious and they might be showing up at the nursery a little more regularly.

We had the wonderful experience of dividing these trees and transporting them to Antanetiambo so we could plant them. It was a huge hassle (as always) bargaining prices and finding the right people to help. I really wish that more Malagasy people didn’t try to take advantage/cheat the vazaha every time around. This time I had to threaten to just carry baskets full of trees on my own by bicycle before I could get down to a decent price. Long story short, I left Andapa at 4:20am to make it to Ambodivohitra at 5:00am. I was very impressed at how well I could ride the dirt road with such limited light; I guess my body just has the muscle memory. Anyway, I wake the guy up so we can take his ox cart (the cows are gone in another village like he said before so it was just three of us who were going to pull the cart). I round up everyone else and we are only about 15 minutes late – not too bad. So we push the cart fill up trees, push the cart, fill up trees and then drop them off at the Reserve. We do this twice. In the process I manage to sweat out about a gallon of sweat as well as fall in a thorn bush while we are trying to wrestle the cart through a rice field so that we can get closer to the drop off point for the trees. It was a long morning, but just a morning nonetheless and it was finished. The craziest part was after the fact I realized that we pushed that damn cart a little over 10 miles all together; a little farther than I originally thought it was.

With all of this hard work, sunscreen and the wonderful world of dust that seems to constantly surround my life, I’ve managed to get pretty dirty these past few weeks. Every time that I shower I’m amazed at how dirty the water is. It makes me wonder if something has changed or if my shower water was always this dirty. Back in Matsobe I showered in an outside shower and so the water just went down to stones or dirt. Now, I’m showering in a real shower and it goes down to white porcelain. Maybe it’s the contrast and I’ve been this dirty all along. Either way I seem to be collecting a lot of dirt and I’m happy to be able to wash it off daily.

I’ve also been doing some work that was a little less dirty. I was asked to write an article about all of my tree nursery work for the upcoming Duke Lemur Center Newsletter. I was actually very excited to have a chance to share my project with more people other than those who read my blog and Peace Corps. The article is just a four paragraph summary of the project and why we’re so excited about it. It’s still being edited and put together, but I think it should come out in the next month or so. I’ll be curious to hear what kind of feedback we get from the article and if we can get any more support for conservation efforts in the SAVA region.

We’re thinking of building a footbridge to enter into the Reserve. I think that it is a really good idea. The trail to get into the Reserve is pretty bad and pretty much any point of entry requires going through some rice fields. I’m sure there would be an easy, quick solution, but that’s probably not for the best in the long run. However, I’ve spoken to 2 people to get estimates for the construction and it’s looking to be around $11,000-$15,000; that’s a pretty expensive piece of construction. I’m still trying to ask some more people, but I think we might just have to find some money to pay for it. The real question is whether Antanetiambo is ready for a project that requires this kind of expenditure.

I haven’t talked about food in a while so I’ll enlighten you all into my magical world of food, which as of recently, has expanded quite a bit. I’m still eating eggplant. Pretty much everyday and I really wouldn’t have it any other way. I still love it, think it goes great with my rice and I’m kind of stuck in my ways. However, I’ve started branching out a bit. Lately, I’ve been on this real yogurt kick. It’s kind of disgusting to think about how much milk I’m consuming along with the yogurt, but it tastes so good! I can easily eat 3 glasses worth of yogurt in one day (though I try not too). Needless to say, I have it down to a science now, so maybe when I’m done with Peace Corps I’ll open up a yogurt shop. I’ve also started making juice (both the juice and the yogurt are a product of me having a refrigerator). I have to say that homemade juice is way better than the ones on the street because I can make it to the exact strength that I want it to be (I also know that the water is clean). Plus, now that it is super hot all the time, it’s great to have something a little different than water from time to time. I’ve also started making peanut butter again. I know, it’s like I’m living back in America.

After over two and a half years I finally had to replace the tires on my bicycle. The back tire was actually shredded from overuse and I had to have them place part of another tire inside while I was waiting for a replacement. I’ve been thinking about all of the biking that I’m doing lately and I think that TREK should put me in an add or a commercial. I’m always riding out in the country, sometimes with a machete sticking out of my backpack, rain or shine, visiting people, and working. I put together a rough estimate of the average number of kilometers that I bike each week and it comes to a minimum of 126 kilometers/week for the past month or so. If I were to average that for a year it put’s me over 6,000 km. That’s a lot of time on the bike. So TREK, if you’re reading this, I’m your next campaign. You’re welcome, I’ll take the royalties when I’m no longer a Peace Corps Volunteer and I am allowed to make money. As for now, the new tires are awesome and I seem to go a lot quicker than before. Amazing how well I bike works when all of the parts are working correctly or are in proper condition.

Oddly enough it seems to be lemur-stealing season. In the past two years in Matsobe nobody ever approached me with a lemur or asked to sell one to me. However, in the past two weeks we had two incidents in Matsobe (neither of which I was directly related to) that regarded people selling or taking lemurs to be their pets (it’s illegal). The first incident involved a mouse lemur. Thankfully, one of the guys who attends the English Club in the Matsobe Library noticed some kids from his village playing with the lemur and so he told them it wasn’t okay and brought it to us to try and figure out what to do. Then a few days later, some people walked by the house in Matsobe and tried to sell a dwarf lemur, but we just took it instead and they ran off. Kim, the Peace Corps Volunteer in Matsobe, went to the Water and Forest office and asked them what to do, but they didn’t help too much and just said that we should try to release it back in the forest, so we took both lemurs to the Reserve and hope that they will be okay. I just hope that the trend doesn’t continue. More than anything, I hope that other people don’t buy the lemurs so that people quite stealing them from the forest.

I forgot how nice and quiet my house could be now that school is back in session. A lot has changed since I moved in at the end of April 2012. When I first moved in, there was nothing and the neighborhood was nice and quiet. By the end of May 2012, a new hotel opened and they have a karaoke night. When that happens, the sounds (and bad singing) carry all the way to my house. There’s always been a CEG across the street. When they are on vacation it’s lovely. When they’re in session, I here Bonjour Miseur every morning and on and off screaming until 6pm if I’m home. It’s really not that bad, it’s just noticeable after a vacation time when there are no students around. Finally, a new disco opened up a few houses down. I should be happy, but the lighting in that place is so crazy that it just gives me a headache. I ate soup there once and had no desire to ever go back. A little more ‘ambiance’ than I want, but it’s really not that bad. The thing that really worries me is all of the houses on my compound. My house is a fortress and I’m not worried about people breaking in and I’m such a light sleeper that I hear everything. However, I don’t really know if the drunk idiot banging on the wall of the house next door lives there or is family there, or if they are trying to break in. It’s hard to know how much I should get involved. Don’t worry, I’m not planning to jump out of my window with my machete and go all Jet Li on everyone anytime soon. More likely, I can just turn on my lights and start asking who’s out there.

I finally got my new computer. My new Mac is so awesome! However, it’s almost too awesome. I’m still trying to figure out everything on the operating system so that it doesn’t automatically check for updates and search for things. When I try to use the Internet the Mb’s just come up too quick and I go through more credit than is reasonable. However, it’s a small price to pay and the keyboard is everything that I’ve dreamed of after the past few months of the Frankenstein netbook.

Vazaha Lehilahy Tsy Mahay Mitsambikina (White Men Can’t Jump)

It’s been a while since I’ve posted my blog. It hasn’t been because of a lack of things to write about or internet issues; I simply didn’t feel the need to write. Maybe I thought the world would end and so why bother writing another blog, but who knows (yes, the last blog was posted before the world ended…or didn’t end). It’s weird how I think about how I never had any interest in blogs or blogging before I joined Peace Corps. Now, I post a blog almost every two weeks. However, sometimes I just don’t feel like writing. But now the slump is over and I feel like talking about my life in Madagascar over the past few weeks. For all those of you who actually read this thing, I hope you had a great New Year and that 2013 is treating you well wherever you are.

I’ve spent yet another Christmas here in Madagascar. I like how all three of my Christmas’s in Madagascar have been completely different. My first Christmas was spent with other volunteers from my group, away from site. We did some work related stuff, but a lot of it was just relaxing. My second Christmas was in Andapa with Malagasy friends and we just hung out and celebrated. This past Christmas was a mix of the two previous ones, I went to church (thankfully Christmas is only one day a year) and then made a huge meal with both Malagasy and American friends. It made me think about going to church as well. I really would prefer to only pray in the winter because it is just to hot to be covered in pants, long sleeve shirt and tie. Not to mention that this past Christmas didn’t show the slightest signs of wind.

Just like Christmas, New Years seems to be changing each year as well. As always, the festivities can start as early as the 26th of December and they go on through the 8th. A bit long, even by my standards, but it is fun to say the least. I must admit that during this two week period I wasn’t integrating into the festivities, but actually working. However, when the real party happened, I was sure to make an appearance. This year I had quite the mix of hanging out with Americans/Vazahas, going into the Malagasy countryside and just hanging out with Malagasy friends in Andapa. I feel very lucky to have such a loving community to support me here in Madagascar, and I know that it is all of those people that I work with and who I spend my free time with that really make my time in Madagascar enjoyable and worthwhile.

My only concern is that this year I have no resolution. I would like to think that I have reached the peak of excellence and therefore don’t need to improve on anything, but we all know that that isn’t true. I usually I have something lined up, albeit serious or wacky, I usually have something in mind that I want to try and strive for. 2013 didn’t give me anything. Therefore, I will take someone else’s advice and say that resolutions are stupid. You shouldn’t wait for January 1st to decide to improve who you are as a person. For me, 2013 does have a resolution (a catch 22 of sorts) and that is to try and be more aware of my faults and weaknesses and grow from them rather than fighting them; to take care of each issue as I become aware of it, never waiting. I don’t know how I’ll monitor my progress with this, but wish me luck.

The holiday season wasn’t all fun and partying. I managed to come down with the Andapa stomach illness. It turns out that me and about half of the people that I talked to in the Andapa basin had stomach issues. Mine lasted a little over a week and was very annoying. It was the kind of thing that wasn’t horrible so I couldn’t really stop working and take a break, but was bad enough that I felt pretty lazy and overall unpleasant. However, the illness passed and I seem to be fine now, so I guess I’ll have to wait until 2014 for another go.

It’s planting time! We’ve finally had a bit of hard rain and it’s been ideal weather for planting trees in the Reserve. The weather is still unseasonably dry, but we’ve had enough rain for the past few weeks that we’ve been able to put some seedlings in the dirt. It’s a lot of work to go out there everyday and cut back weeds, dig holes and plant, but I find that I enjoy it. It gives me time to really think about everything. My body just goes into autopilot and I physically go through the motions of cutting or digging, but my mind is somewhere else. It’s kind of cool when I think about it – and I’m not digging while I write this – and it makes me think about how people who work in office jobs might benefit from cutting the office lawn. The other day I was cutting some weeds back and I was never informed that the leaves can cut your skin. It took until my hands were bloodied pretty bad that I realized I needed to create a different form of attack. Seeing the look on people’s faces when they see my hands is pretty priceless. I also go to think about a lot of the things that were going on while I was swinging that knife away.

My Malagasy counterpart proved last month that he would prefer to be MIA rather than working. Also, he apparently thinks that if he creates more projects but never finishes anything that that is a good thing. Then he has decided that lying to me and others will help the situation. Long story short and much less emotional, the two of us had quite the argument.

He does have a lot of work, but not too much. His main problem is that he doesn’t want to work, but people give him work to do. I think he would rather just be popular and sit around. I guess you can’t really blame him.

However, the issue is that I end up doing a lot of his work and I know that I won’t be working with him forever. Someday, there isn’t going to be any outside help and who knows what will happen to his Reserve and all of the other projects. I’m worried that our relationship might be strained to say the least, but it won’t stop me from doing my work and I can only hope that it can inspire him to do a little more. It makes me realize that the majority of problems that I run into in my life are a result of communication, or rather, with people who communicate poorly. People really do need to talk and explain things in order for anything to happen.

One project that he didn’t get together in the past two months was to order signs for the limit of Antanetiambo Nature Reserve. It really isn’t the most complicated thing and our options of metal workers in Andapa are pretty limited so it wasn’t the most time consuming of tasks.

It took me a little over one week to order signs, get them painted and then have them installed. My counterpart should know how to do these things. Any person should be capable of doing these things – if they want to work.

We finally had a litchi grafting training. It’s been a long time overdue and should really help the Reserve to get some added income, have more litchi trees and it was a cool thing for me to learn how to do. Litchi seeds don’t produce good fruit and so all litchi trees need to be grafted. Seedlings are pretty expensive to buy and people pay good money for them.

We learned how to cut back the bark, add moss, tie it on and then that’s pretty much it. Obviously, there are a few particulars that are important, but it is something that is simple. That’s what was the biggest problem organizing the training. Everyone tells me that they know how to do it, but none of them are willing to do it and think that it will be successful. Then, when you ask them questions, their responses seem to change. Two weeks later we cut the branches and planted the branches in plastic pots. The leaves looked a little withered the other day, but hopefully they grow.

Now we now… and knowing is half the battle (I hope you get the reference).

My search for seeds has blossomed yet again. I’m talking to anyone and everyone as we are set to plant in the nurseries again next week. I’m really hoping to get some good trees as the people seem to be eager to keep planting. I’ve also had a lot of compliments from people in Andapa who walk by and see the nursery that was planted by students. They always seem so surprised that the trees are growing. I try not to take offense, but I do wonder if they thought I was just setting up a project that was going to fail miserably…they don’t know me at all.

I cleaned up the Matsobe nursery the other day as well. The weeds were starting to grow into the beds and so they had to be cleared. It was nice to just be there alone and cut stuff back and clear my head. It also looks a lot better now that it’s cleared. We will start back to work in the nursery this week. We will start to plant some of the trees as well.

The worst thing about 2013 is that Obama, my puppy, died. Yep, he only lasted around a month and a half. To make things worse is that he was probably poisoned. He got sick really quickly, wouldn’t eat anything and then just disappeared. When we found him he was already dead. The reason why I suspect that he might have been poisoned is because another puppy on my compound had the same problem and died just a day later. I know it could be a number of things, and I really hope that it was just something natural, but I’ve seen so many people do horrible things to dogs (and to my dogs here) that it is very hard to rule out the possibility. I’m going to wait and see where I’ll be in June before I even consider about a replacement. Maybe I should get some people from PETA to come live in my house and educate the community.

I got some new neighbors. We haven’t really talked much yet, but the adults seem fine. The kids on the other hand are a bit of a handful and think that my house is a playground. Of course, I told them nicely the first time that they can’t just run around on my porch and look into my house. When it happened the second time I was about as angry and mean as I can be. I think they will at least wait until I’m not home to run again. It really shouldn’t be a problem that kids play on the porch, but the problem is that they don’t respect other people’s things and too many times kids have ruined things or damaged the house. I know they aren’t going to pay to repair anything and I’d really rather not pay to repair anything either.

A little over a month and a half ago the basketball hoops near town hall were taken down and moved to a new location. I was a little upset because my house is so close to the town hall and so I didn’t need to go very far if I wanted to play basketball. However, to my surprise, the hoops came back and so did basketball.

One morning I was out there pretty early shooting around and some guys came and wanted to play. They were involved in a basketball tournament that was going on and they wanted to practice a little. I ended up playing a pick up game with them and it was a lot of fun. As I was leaving they said that I should play with them in the next game. I was a little shocked and shy because I haven’t played basketball in forever. That was the first game I had played in years. I just laughed and said that I’d maybe come out.

That night I went to watch some of the games from the tournament and I saw some of the guys who played in the morning and they told me that I should play basketball with them the next night. So, the next day, I showed up to the games, night really sure what was going to happen. But, the team showed up and put me on the roster.

I was embarrassingly nervous. Not only was I the only white person out there and getting stared at and having people make tons of little comments about the vazaha playing basketball, but I only had two mornings of practice!

I played decently in the first game, mostly helping them on defense and we won. The next day I was exhausted and I think I wasn’t able to help them as much in the next game and we lost in the semi finals. We played two games after that just on our own and we won one of them and lost the other. One game was on a dirt court with some pretty janky baskets, so I think the other team had a pretty good home court advantage.

What I’ve really enjoyed about the basketball, besides playing a sport that I actually enjoy, is that it has introduced me to a whole different peer group in Andapa. Until now, I would really have said that a majority of my friends were still in the countryside where I lived for two years. Now, I’m getting to know more people that are my age. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to know police, government officials and shop owners, but it nice to just have friends to hang out with and joke with.

The best thing for me is that Malagasy people aren’t that tall. I’m not at all the tallest person on the court, but here in Madagascar I at least have a small chance. Now if only I could get them to really show up and practice rather than just shooting around; we might actually get better. We have been playing some mornings and some nights and more then anything it is just fun to get out there. As for my skills, I have a long way to go before I become Michael Jordan, but I might not be too far away from a Scottie Pippin.

War of the Keyboards

The last month and a half seems to have passed really quickly. I’ve been super busy, as I always seem to be at this time of the year. It’s always good to have something to do and to be a part of something, but I’ll be happy to sleep in past 4:30am in the next few weeks.

My computer was killed by water, but thankfully I still have my net book so I’m not totally crippled. The only problem is that the net book has its own issues and so it really doesn’t fill the gap of the Mac that drowned. It has a broken keyboard and so it makes typing difficult to say the least. I managed to track down a QWERTY keyboard and adapter to plug into it so that I could theoretically type like a normal person again. However, that would be too simple if that really worked. Turns out that the external keyboard only works from time to time and I’m still forced to use the broken keyboard on the net book. However, I’m better off with the external plugged in because I can use the numbers and shift key from it. However, I still can’t be excited about anything just quite yet – the exclamation point doesn’t work.

So as I type anything, or this blog, I am typing on two keyboards just so that I can express clearly what’s been going on in my life. It’s when I think about things like this that I realize I’ve come a long way in the past two and a half years and I’m not really sure if much or anything can slow me down.

The nurseries are slowly coming to a halt. I am still collecting seeds, and finally came across some Ebony and Foraha seeds. Of course, Ebony, is a great hardwood, and then Foraha produces an oil or sap that can fight cancer; so they are both highly sought after trees to plant or sell.

The Matsobe nursery has come just shy of 6,000 plastic pots. However, because some seeds didn’t grow and some seedlings have died, we are still filling in the gaps. They have clearly been getting bogged down with work and the quality of their work has plummeted a bit in the past few weeks so I think stopping for a few weeks will do them some good. I hope by the end of January to have all of those plastic pots filled with seedlings so there are no gaps and we can really start planting.

The Ambodivohitra nursery seems to be trucking along steadily as well. I still need to do a massive rearranging of their nursery as well to see what isn’t growing and what has died. However, they are at around 3,200 plastic pots for their nursery. They still seem eager to work and plant seeds, so I think we should be able to get around 5,000 plastic pots total out of them after the holidays. With all of the plastic pots filled with soil and seeds that should be a lot of trees, and more then I expected or projected for them.

The Andapa nursery has finished planting and I couldn’t be happier. It was really great working with the students, but it was a lot of work to make sure that everything went smoothly. Altogether, we worked with 10 schools and 293 students from high schools and middle schools in Andapa to plant 2,500 plastic pots. The students really did seem to enjoy everything and they got to learn a little bit of English, learn how to plant seeds and build a tree nursery and be told, yet again and again, the importance of planting trees and thinking about the future. The students that planted later were really excited because they got to see the trees grow from the earlier student visits and so I think they had more confidence in their planting and my instruction. I’m going to be really excited to see their faces in February, when they see that all of the seeds have grown and we give them half the trees. The other half will be planted in Antanetiambo Nature Reserve.

As we take a break for the holidays we’ve planted over 10,000 plastic pots worth of seeds between the three nurseries and should be able to exceed our original projection of 11,000 trees. Amazing that we have done everything so far on just about five hundred dollars and nobody seems to hate me or anything. I really hope that someone makes an effort to continue this project after I’m gone.

We have been cutting down weeds in the Reserve so that we can start to plant. We have a bunch of seedlings that were bought in Sambava that really need to be planted. We have had two days of hard rain recently, so planting might be feasible in the next few days. I hope to have the 800 seedlings planted before the end of this month. It really depends on the water situation, because the rains have been really late.

I dug a canal with the guardian for the fish farm. He was worried that when the rain does come the stream might rise and wash out the sides of the fish farm. We spent one morning digging pretty hard so that if the water does rise it will go into the canal and not touch the sides of the pond. I hope that the canal never needs to be used, but at least it is finished so if flooding does happen we won’t be too late.

My biggest task at the moment is to try and figure out how to make this fish farm sustainable. A lot of money is being poured into it, but we haven’t made any money from it. We have a lot of costs in food and salary for the guardian, but there is a possibility that we can figure something out. We should have around 20 ducks there in the next month to help give us a little bit of income generation. The most important thing is that we need to know how many kilograms of fish we can get each year and then figure out a raising cycle for the ducks that we can sell eggs and grown ducks without ever being at a loss. I think a few major things might have to change, but we have time to figure it all out and really see what happens.

Litchi season is coming to a close and I think it is for the best. I have been eating more than a healthy amount of litchis and I think it is best that there time passes. I can’t even imagine a world wear litchis were ripe all year around. I think I would have to go to a counseling group because I wouldn’t be able to stop eating litchis.

My puppy, Obama is still doing well. He’s getting bigger and the jerk little kids seem like they don’t want to piss me off so they haven’t been torturing him anymore. As he gets bigger he seems happier and happier. I think it was a good thing that I got him early only because his mother had quit giving milk, so he might have died. But he was so small to begin with that I really think he had a rough first few weeks at my house. Now, he seems quite settled and is running all over the place and chewing on way more things than I would like.

It’s December again [in case you didn’t know]. I was riding my bike the other day and I was thinking, wow, this is a really bad day. It seems like every idiot has come out today and decided to shout some unnecessary comment at me while I ride my bike. As I thought about it more, I remembered the past two years and realized that at this time last year and the year before I had the same issues. I really don’t know what it is, but this time of year really does change some people’s personalities. I don’t know if it weather, money, work or some other factor, but the number of jerks that I come in contact with on a daily or weekly basis is always high in December. Merry Christmas?

However rude these Malagasy people can be, I’m at least thankful that many Malagasy people don’t own guns. When I heard about the tragedy that happened in Newton, CT I was extremely saddened and surprised. It’s clear that our country, yes, I’m in Madagascar, but I’m still American, needs to do something in order to stop mass killings and any murder for that matter from happening.

I will be disgusted if the American Government doesn’t do anything after the Newton, CT shooting. These types of mass killings just seem to be more and more common and we need to make some change in order to stop them from continuing. I don’t think that any American should let the public or our Government walk away from this event without trying some major change. If we are wrong, then so what? At least we tried. But it is just shameful to sit around and do nothing.

The majority of the arguments have been for gun control and mental health care. If that’s the case, then I really think we need to get onto something. I hate it when people say there is a problem, but don’t offer any possible solutions, so here we go…

Gun control. I have lots of friends who own guns. I shot guns as a child and absolutely loved it. I think that guns can be fun and if used properly, there is no problem in having them. I think it is absolutely necessary for police and military to have access to firearms. I do not think it is necessary for the greater public to have such easy access. People should still be able to carry guns, as is there constitutional right and because to many people would cause a fuss if we banned guns. However, we can limit those who have access to guns.
The majority of my friends who have guns are somewhat educated. That’s a good thing. I think we should limit gun ownership to those that have a minimum of an AA degree. If you haven’t put in those extra two years after high school, well, then, I guess you’re going to have to use a sling shot until you can master statistics. But seriously, the more educated a person is, the better decisions they make and more importantly, they are more marketable for job opportunities. If they have a job, they might have a more stable way of living and be able to avoid some of the circumstances that could occur from simply being unemployed and having no money. Furthermore, they will be easier to track should they prove a problem in the future.

As far as Mental Health concerns, I completely agree that people need better access to mental health care. I also know, as I was a Psychology Major, that psychology is a very popular major across the country in many Colleges and Universities. I also know that a lot of people with this major get degrees but might not get jobs. If all the gun owners in the world were required to past a mental health exam every year then it would provide jobs for those people and make sure that the majority of people who own a gun legally are somewhat sane.

So that’s my two cents. But why should we worry that much anyway? I’m pretty sure that even half way around the world in Madagascar I’ve been told that the world is going to end on Friday. I wonder if I should cancel my plans for Saturday…