My Worst Fear Realized

My house, like most houses in Madagascar, has, from time to time, bug problems. I have had, wasps, regular flies, giant flies, giant mosquito-looking insects, a weird crazy mini lobster looking bug that I woke up to one morning 4 inches from my face and spiders of various shapes and sizes. The most prevalent type of spider is the 2-D spiders, flat, usually bigger, spiders that seem to somehow enter my house in the fall and winter. For two years I have squashed them flat before they have gotten anywhere close to me. Sadly, this streak came to end on Wednesday, August 22^nd, 2 days before I left site. On that fateful day, a 2-D spider crawled up my leg. Worst. Fear. Realized. This spider was as big around as a top of a mug and I have no idea where it came from. I feel like it might have been on my clothes when I put them on, but that thought scares me too much to seriously consider. Plus it was trying to climb up my body, not down. I, needless to say, freaked out a little bit. I quickly flicked it off my body and crushed it, then proceeded to have a mini panic attack. Now, in fairness to me, I would have freaked out a lot more if I hadn’t been dealing with these spiders for 2 years. And it’s not like I hate them, or any insect for that matter. It’s when they pop up close to me, or on me, unexpectedly. Fun fact about wasps though, that I have learned here from knocking down their nests. Their larvae are bright, neon green.

I am currently in Tana, 5 ½ days away from leaving this country forever (well at least for a good long while. It is way too expensive to make a trip back any time in the foreseeable future). I packed up my house in Faratsiho (which my parents still cannot correctly pronounce. It’s Far-et-see-ooo), giving away all of my dishes/pots/school supplies etc. I am not being replaced and I didn’t know if anyone would ever be put in my site again so it seemed like a good idea. All my bedding/towels I brought to Tana for a PCV who is extending and moving to Tana and needed warm items, since he is coming from the southeast, where its hot and humid and even sheets are too hot to sleep under. It was very weird to see my house in the morning before I left, stripped of most of its possessions and looking so empty.

I had to drag all my stuff to Tana, which actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The bush taxi coordiantor at my site is awesome and helped me arrange helpers to get all my stuff on and off the taxi brousse, at site and in Tana. I was most worried about Tana, since the station there is known for its thieves. No problems however, though I did have to pay a high taxi rate since I had so much stuff. Oh well. As soon as I got in I cleared out my metal trunk then headed to the bank to close my account, one of my last admin items to check off. I start all my medical appointments on Monday and I am really hoping I haven’t picked up something weird. I don’t think so. My worms are gone (yay!) and I feel fine, but you just never know. I have a chip in my front tooth that needs fixing (damn rocks in the rice) and one of my fillings might have fallen out (I have really weak enamel and this happens a lot, so I wouldn’t be surprised. Thanks dad for the genes) but other than that my teeth should be fine. Knock on wood.

It is amazing to me that my 2 years on this island are coming to an end. It seemed to go both fast and slow, with ups and downs along the way. I have been all over the island, except the deep south and the Sava region, both of which are extremely hard to get to by car. I have seen at least 10 different kinds of lemurs, chameleons, snakes, a variety of insects (see first paragraph), birds, rats, mice, the mangiest looking dogs and cats I have ever seen in my life, and giant herds of cattle. I have watched forests burn, rice planted, rivers dammed, and roads disintegrate.  I have waited 4 ½ hours for a brousse to leave and been squished in a row meant for 3 with 4 other people. I have learned a bunch of new recipes and started working out, and I hope to continue both in America. I have read over 150 books (I haven’t counted up the exact totally, but its somewhere around or above that) and watched countless TV shows, including The Wire, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, Glee, Game of Thrones, and True Blood. I have taught over 500 students in middle school, high school and university and graded countless tests. Now this is all coming to a close.

I am sad and also happy. I know I will look back at my time in Peace Corps as a great experience that not many people get to have. I have many fond memories and some great stories. I also have a few awful memories about a few not so great times. I am happy to start a new chapter in my life and move back to America, but sad to be leaving a community of people I love. This blog, by a PCV in Ethiopia, says exactly how I feel about my PC experience. Just change gunfo to rice (BTW I agree with him about gunfo. I am not a fan. Too spongy for me). http://waidsworld.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/the-real-peace-corps/ . Read this, as I could never put my PC experience into better words.

I will be posting a photo blog in the next few days as well, so watch out for that. I will also be starting a new blog, one where I will post every few days, not every few weeks. It will be more of a lifestyle blog. More details will come later, when I have it fully set up. 5 ½ more days!

Books I Read

Water for Elephants

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

The Namesake

What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng

The Winter of our Discontent

Cold Mountain

No more pencils, no more books!

I am officially done with my primary Peace Corps assignment! I will never teach another class again! Ok maybe I shouldn’t say never, cause who knows what will happen in the future, but I can confidently say that teaching will not be high on my future jobs list. Peace Corps has made me realize that teaching is not a profession I want to pursue in America. I have great respect for the thousands of teachers in America and the tremendous job they do, I just won’t be joining them. Obviously teaching English in MADA, in a language I only speak a little of, is very different from teaching history (if I did teach, the subject I would want to teach) in English, but there are enough similarities for me to know that my skills lie elsewhere. A few of my PC friends have decided that teaching is for them after their 2 years here and are going home to get their teaching degrees. Mazatoa (means good luck).

I have about a month left, a little under, and I am just getting my life at site together. I found out a few days ago that I won’t be replaced, so now I have to deal with that. I honestly thought I would be. My school was one of the few that didn’t go on strike, I am located close to Tana, I have a big house with electricity and there’s plenty of work. The newbies this time got to have a larger say in where they live then my group did and Im sure my site didn’t spark much excitement. There is a 47km dirt road you have to go down and, since my site mate isn’t being replace until at least May of 2013, if not longer, than you would be all by yourself up here. There’s no beach or national park nearby. Faratsiho doesn’t have the cool factor that a lot of other sites have. I’m just not sure if this means they are closing my site down or if they will put someone here next time. The education sector leader is in the USA for the next week for a training seminar, so I won’t know until the week of August 13^th what the status of my site is. To be fair, 4 people didn’t make it to staging meaning they dropped out after they received their site placements, so maybe I would have been replaced if those 4, or even 1 or them, had turned up. I just have a lot of stuff that I was saving for the next person that now I have to give away or take to Tana to give to other PCV’s. Good thing I still have some time left!

My trip out to Morondava was good. The world map looks spectacular, if I do say so myself, and I had a lot of fun seeing the west side of Madagascar. I ended up staying at my friend Kimballs house throughout the project, as it would have been too hard to go back and forth each day to get to his site, even though its only 30km. You just never know when a brousse will actually leave so each morning I could have waited 2 hours just to get out there. Not worth it. Shayla and Mallory, another PCV who was vacationing out in Morondava, came out to help a few days. We did the world map a little differently this time. Instead of painting by continents (for example, Zambia, South Africa and Mali are all yellow because they are all part of Africa) we painted by countries (so each country was a different color within the continent). This made is harder and more time consuming, since you had to be even more careful about paint dripping and you had to make sure 2 of the same color didn’t touch each other. Europe was sort of a nightmare, but it was a nightmare when I was doing mine by continents too. Too many small countries!

Since Kimball is so close to the Avenue of the Baobabs, we went out to see them at sunset, the best time to go. For those who don’t know, the Avenue of the Baobabs is a place where a lot of Grandidier’s Baobabs, the biggest type of baobab, happen to grow. It’s an amazing site. We were there for about an hour, hour and a half, and watched the sun set over the trees. I got some amazing photos. I am going to post a photo blog in a few weeks, after I have finished taking pictures at my site, and I will post some photos of the baobabs. If you can’t wait until then, there are some on my facebook. We also saw Les Baobabs Amoureux, a pair of baobabs that are intertwined, and the Scared Baobab, which I never relaly got the backstory on. I have heard there are a lot of scared baobabs and I’m not sure why this one was scared. It was a really interesting trip and I’m glad I got to see the baobabs.

After my week in Morondava, I went to Tana, partially for short term leave, but also because I was not feeling well. My stomach was cramping all the time and I was going to the bathroom a lot. Turns out, I had worms. Round worms to be exact, which, according to Wikipedia, are one of the most diverse species on the planet. Joy. I am took 2 de-worming pills and I have 2 more to take on the 8^th. The good news is that it’s working. My tummy is not cramping and I am not making constant trips to the bathroom. The other good news is that is must have been a female worm, since there were eggs, which means that is was laying eggs and not trying to escape from my body, which would have freaked me out and scarred me for life. While I was in Tana, my friend found a worm trying to escape from his body when he woke up and dealt with it in a quiet, calm manner. That would not have been my manner. I would have screamed and woken up the whole place. Im not sure how I go them, since they are usually found in meat and I don’t eat meat all that much anymore, but the veggies I get at my hotely are cooked with meat so I’m thinking that is how I got them. I had been lucky so far, and worms are not that hard to deal with. It could have been worse.

I should be leaving site for good on August 24^th, but that could change. I still have a lot of packing/sorting/organizing to do, so I have  busy  few weeks ahead of me. Plus I have to eat the rest of the food in my house, finish a few TV series, and read. I won’t be bored.

It’s crazy to think that my 2 years here are almost over. I can’t believe it’s been 2 years. Soon I will be back in America, eating whatever I want and trying to find a job. I won’t have to use a latrine every day, wash laundry by hand, or be called a vazaha. It is definitely a bit scary to return, but I am ready for the next chapter in my life to start. I have a wedding to plan (though I have it pretty much all figured out already. I had some free time on my hands over here), an apartment to decorate, friends to see, a job to find and a wonderful fiancé whos time I will be monopolizing. America, watch out!

Book List

Eating Animals

When We Were Orphans

Dry

The Surgeon of Crowthorne

The Red Queen

State of Wonder

Trees? Who needs trees?

This is a question I feel gets answered, “no one needs trees”! The amount of deforestation I have seen in my two years here in mind-blowing. Every time I leave site I see a new section of forest cut down, sawdust flying through the air. I am never not depressed when I pass these sections, thinking of how it once looked and imagining the future state of Madagascars forest in ten years.

It has been said that Madagascar is something like 90% deforested. I believe it. As hard as it is to think about that high of a number, charcoal, a major reason the Malagasy cut down trees, is everywhere. Every home has a charcoal stove, even wealthier families. Some homes even have 2 or more. Charcoal is used every day, at every meal. I pass through two towns on my way out of site that’s main export is charcoal. The road, the buildings, the people, are all coated in a fine layer of black. Charcoal is stacked two stories high, just waiting for transport to Antsirabe and Tana. As you would guess, all the forest around these towns has been leveled. New segments further away are felled every day to meet the demand of the Malagasy people.

Another big reason the forest destroyed is for agriculture. Areas that were cut down last year are now terraced rice patties and corn patches. There is no replanting. Not where I live. You use the land that had been removed of trees. I don’t even know what people would say to me if I told them to replant and try and find a sustainable way to support their lifestyle. I tried to ask my English club last year, spent a whole class on it, and I never got an answer, since no one wanted to speak. Some Malagasys I have meet have acknowledge the problem, but who knows what will happen.

There is a glimmer of hope. There are multiple NGOs in MADA planting trees across the country. The old president, the one deposed in the last coup, was expanding existing national parks and creating new ones. What has become of those plans since his departure in 2009 is unclear, but it doesn’t sound hopeful, considering last year there was a huge rosewood scandal that brought down members of the national government. But the plans are still there, waiting for non-transitional government (the current title of the government currently in power) to come in and take control. Two PCV’s, a husband and wife team, are working on a pilot program to bring green charcoal stoves to towns in the SAVA region (right now, they are concentrating on high tourist areas, since the stoves are expensive up front). Deforestation can be reversed in MADA, but it will take a tremendous amount of willpower, from the government, the people, and NGO’s, a willpower I don’t see being embraced today. If something doesn’t happen soon, the Madagascar I know will be gone in 10 years. Maybe sooner.

I needed to point out deforestation in a blog. It’s too big of a problem to ignore and I get so mad and sad every time I leave site. It almost makes me not want to leave, in order to avoid seeing a new section of forest missing. They even destroyed this beautiful bend in the river, about 10 kilometers from Faratsiho, in order to make three more rice patties. That I just get angry about. It was so peaceful looking. I always watched for it when I left site and come back. And now its ruined. It’s just so aggravating.

In brighter news, I taught my last classes on Thursday. Now all I have left is grading. I don’t even have to give my final exams, because they occur when I am in Mantasoa for my close of service conference (COS), so other teachers are giving them for me. When I come back, I just have 95 tests to grade. I have already finished with my 2nde kids. I just have to actually turn in my grades. The papers aren’t ready yet, so I have to give them my grades when I get back too. It’s very exciting. I have discovered, in my two years, that I am not cut out to be a teacher. I can do it, adequately I think, but it’s not my calling. I have enormous respect for those who are teachers. I tip my hat to you. You have to have a certain type of personality to be a teacher day in and day out, for years, and I don’t have the personality. Which is fine. Not everyone was made to be a teacher, or a fireman, or a doctor, and that’s fine. I now know what I really want to do. I want to work in disaster relief/refugee assistance/IDP’s (internal displaced persons). I want to help people who have been through a war, a natural disaster, a man-made disaster, an ethnic conflict. Peace Corps helped me realized that this is the path I want to take. We will see what the future holds in a few short months!

That’s right. I have about 10 weeks left in country! While my PC experience has been amazing, I am ready to move on to my next adventure, especially since I am done teaching. I can’t wait to move in with Brian, into our own apartment, find a job (though I am terrified of looking for one), get married, watch college football. I am ready to begin the next chapter of my life.

I do have one last trip planned in MADA before I leave. It’s a business trip, but it will be really fun. I am going out to Morondava, on the west coast, to help my friends Shayla and Kimball paint a world map, like the one I painted at my site. they are the only two out there and they have never painted a world map and you really need someone who has. And having three people work on it is ideal. We are painting it at Kimball’s site, which is about 30km from Morondava. I think I am going to stay in Morondava with Shayla, but I am bringing a sleeping bag in case I am too tired to make it back one day and crash at Kimballs house. I will be gone about 10 days. That is enough time for me to get there, paint the map, and get back. It’s going to take a little longer than mine did, since it’s a lot hotter out there and we won’t be able to work in the hottest part of the day. If we did, I would look like a lobster and probably die of heat stroke. I am not used to really hot temperatures!

I guess that’s all the updates I have from here on the island. Below, as usual, you will find my book list. see ya’ll next time!

Book List

Fahrenheit 451

Infidel

Assholes Finish First

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference

Outliers: The Story of Success

Of Mice and Men

Olive Kittridge

Pride and Prejudice

Tuesdays With Morrie

The History of Love

See a baby being born. Check

About a week and a half ago I managed to see something I had been wanted to see for months. An event many other people had seen in Madagascar, yet I had not. It was the high on my list of things I had to do or see in MADA. I am proud to say, I finally saw a woman give birth to a healthy, baby boy.

You may wonder why this was such a big deal to me. As I would eventually like to have children myself, I was natural curious about the whole process. I also wanted to see how the birthing process was different from America. And boy, were there differences. I will get to them in a second. Overall, everyone who had seen a birth in Madagascar had had some sort of emotional response, ranging from “ewwwww” to “interesting” and I wanted to know where I would fall on that scale (I am more of an “interesting” kind of person). Also my site mate had seen several and since she had seen one, I wanted to see one. It was a very juvenile mentality but at least I know that and am being honest about it.

The woman gave birth on a Monday. I remember that clearly, since usually I tutor Monday afternoons and I remember being thankful that my student had cancelled. My site mate Christiane called me and told me come right on over, since the woman was supposed to give birth at 3:30pm (it’s was about 3:05pm). I hurriedly got my things together and went on over. We arrived about 5 minutes before the woman started pushing. The baby was making her stomach look like a cone. It was very odd looking. The woman tried to push for a few minutes but that baby just did not want to come out quite yet. The mom then rested, while we (the nurse, the 5 female relatives that where there, and Christiane and I) all stood around, waiting for the baby to drop into the birth canal. On a side note, the woman did not make any noise when she was trying to push the baby out. She wouldn’t make any noise the whole time. The only way I could tell she was in pain was from the big, silent tears running down her face.

A quick note on the room where this all was happening. It’s a big concrete room, with no heat or air conditioning. The room has one fluorescent light and no machines of any kind. No ultrasound, no heart rate monitor, no nothing. There was a concrete basin with a tap, a table with the baby weighing scale on it, and another table with all the surgical tools needed. The mom giving birth was on a metal table that looked like it belonged in an industrial kitchen or morgue. There are no stirrups, no mattress, no head part that moves to make sitting up easier. It’s just a metal table. They use a bed pan to catch all the blood and other liquids that come out. The recovery room is even drabber. It has three metal beds and a mattress is on one of them. There are some blankets, but I think the family brought some from home. That’s all that’s in the recovery room. It looks like a mental hospital room from 1960s Russia or something equally as dire. Anyway, to continue…

About twenty minutes later, they decided to try again. During the time we waited, the nurse had hooked the mom up to a glucose drip, to keep up her energy. It was still in her arm when she started pushing again. This time, he was ready to come out. It took maybe 3 minutes, if that long, for that baby boy to join the world. He did not come out screaming. He was quiet. He then spent the first five minutes of his life upside down, while the nurse rubbed his torso with alcohol and slapped his butt and back to get the blood flowing. They did not give the mom they baby as soon as they could and the father did not cut the cord. We heard he was in the kitchen but I never saw him. They finally weighed him and started to wrap him up. There was a slight delay when he decided to pee on his brand new cloth diaper, but he was given a new one. Once he was wrapped up, Christiane took him. The mom during all this was shivering on the table. She finally pushed the afterbirth out, which was the grossest part of the whole situation, and then her brother carried her to the recovery room, with Christiane and I following with the baby. When we got into the room, the female relatives were busy tucking blankets around the mom (who was shivering quite violently I thought), so I held the baby for a while. That’s right, I held a ten minute old baby, before the mom or the dad or the relatives. And that was fine. No one cared (if it had been me, I would have been furious, but it’s a different culture). Then I laid the baby next to its mom on the bed and away I went. I had seen my birth.

The mom named the baby Jacob. I am just glad she didn’t have any complications, cause even I could tell her hips were small, so if she had needed anything above a normal birth she would have been up a creek without a paddle. They try and sort out who is at risk and send them to a bigger city ahead of time, but you never know when something’s going to happen. According to a visiting US doctor that Christiane met, C-sections should account for about 10% of all births here in Madagascar, but they only account for about 1%. Obviously that’s not good, since that means that lots of babies are being put at risk and I’m sure some don’t make it who could have, if the moms had had C-sections. It’s very eye-opening to see a woman give birth here, and makes me appreciate American hospitals more. I will be giving birth in a hospital, with all the latest and modern medical technology. I want access to everything I could possibly need, that way, if something happens, it can be dealt with swiftly and safely.

The birth was the highlight of the time I have been back at site. I’m still teaching, though I only have three more weeks of school to go. I am giving my 2nde students an oral exam, starting next week, so that should be interesting. I did go to tana the first weekend in may, for a craft fair organized by some fellow PCV’s. I was there as help, since I don’t have any crafts at my site. I was the people counter. I also spent a lot of money on souvenirs myself, but that’s ok. It’s all stuff I want and stuff I wanted to buy for other people.

Our close of service conference is coming up in less than a month and it’s crazy to believe that it’s happening. I have been here for almost 2 years now. Insanity! I most likely won’t post anything until after the conference, since I will just be teaching until then. Less than 100 days until I am back in America (hopefully).

Book List

Madame Bovary

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Every Last One

The Forgotten Garden

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

On The Road

Europe is Awesome

I think my title to this blog says it all. Europe is awesome. There is so much to do, so much to eat, so much to buy. It’s my mecca. It seems like you can put me in any European city and I will be fine. Even when it’s snowing and I have a cold, with just a rain jacket and a track jacket for warmth, I will still have a good time. Let me re-cap the wonderful 2 weeks I just had. This blog will be a tad bit more upbeat then my last one. Sorry if I sounded too pessimistic, especially when it came to people who live in the highlands. There’s just no getting around it. They are not friendly and the coastal people kick their ass in every way. Sorry bout it.

I want to start off by saying thank you to my godfather Joe, since he is the one who made the trip possible for my brother and me. For those who don’t know, my godfather, my brother and I started taking spring break trips when I was in the 7^th grade and they continued until my freshman year of college. We thought at that point they would end, but then this year, my Easter break and my brother’s spring break magically aligned, so we were able to do one last trip. It also helped that Madagascar is so far away. My god father didn’t want to travel all the way here (which I completely understand. It’s a 20+ hour plane trip from Seattle and that’s just hours spent in the air) and Europe is the halfway point. Yay!!!! I like the way things work out sometimes.

The first stop in my tour of Europe (and there were only two stops) was in Prague. I have wanted to go to Eastern European for a long time so I was really excited to be able to go. Anyway, back to Prague. We went all over: Prague Castle, Old Town and the astronomical clock, Wenceslas Square, the Jewish Quarter, St Nicks Cathedral, the Dancing House, and many delicious restaurants. Plus I did some damage to my bank account at several stores. Oops. I had lots of beer and good Czech wine. I also went to a Thai beauty salon (they are all over) and had little fish eat the skin off my feet. It was really cool and felt really weird, but not ticklish. Prague was a very walkable city so I we only took a taxi to get to the hotel from the airport and to go to the train station to leave. Everywhere else we walked, which is a good thing, since I ate so much food. One day, without realizing it until after I finished, I ate meat for lunch, with beer as my beverage. Just meat. They gave me a whole ribcage from a pig as my meal. It was insane. I should have taken a picture of it. I think they best things I ate in Prague were salmon teriyaki (not traditional Czech food but oh well I have been craving fish, since I don’t eat it in MADA), roasted quail (OMG so amazing. It think it was my favorite dish overall and it was just my appetizer one night), and a trdnl, a traditional dessert, which is just fried dough, covered in sugar, cinnamon and walnuts. The spelling was different from place to place, but the little hut I bought mine from had the dessert spelled like how I have it. In terms of souvenirs I bought Easter eggs (they are painted and are only sold in Prague 2 weeks before and 2 weeks after Easter), shot glasses (one of them says Czech me out. I know. Loves it. And Brian, I bought us 2, so we can take shots from Prague together) and Czech-made soap. Plus I bought a bunch of new clothes that will sit in a nice little pile in MADA, never to be worn until I return to America.

We took a train from Prague to Berlin, and while the food on the train left something to be desired, the train ride itself was nice. I really like trains. You can get up and walk around (I know you can do this on planes, but there is so much more space to actually walk around, plus you can walk for longer), you can use your electronics the whole way, and you have so much more leg room. At least in first class we did. Economy class didn’t look that bad though. You also get to look out the window at the scenery, instead of just clouds. The downside is you need to have lots of time, since trains are slower, but if you aren’t going too far, trains win, since by the time you get to the airport 2 hours early, check your bag, pick it up and actually take the flight it’s probably just as long of a trip. The train was a very nice way to see Europe and pass 5 hours. I wrote up to this point on the train! Figured I would get ahead in my blog post, since I had the time.

Berlin was heaven. It is one of the coolest cities I have been too. It has so much history, both recent and past. It was amazing to walk around and see the sites, since, just like Prague, Berlin is very much a walkable city. I wish more American cities were walkable. Sometimes I feel like America wants you drive everywhere. Back to Berlin. We stayed in East Berlin, close to Museum Island. It is a very swanky place. It is run/owned by the same person whose hotel we stayed at in Prague, Rocco Forte. Our first day we just walked down the Unter den Linden, the main street in East Berlin that goes straight back from the Brandenburg gate. We made it all the way to the gate (to be far, it was like a kilometer away) and then had dinner at our hotel. Our hotel had really good food and the breakfast was heavy on cheese, which made me so happy. The only bad thing was their service in the morning wasn’t all that great. They needed more servers. Oh well. The next day we went to Museum Island, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It consists of 5 museums on an island, hence the name. We went to one of them that morning (we got late-ish starts every day, especially once my brother left. This was not Van Aelstyn style travelling [Van Aelstyn style travelling means you are up with the sun every day, spend the whole day driving to your next destination or seeing the sites, and go to sleep well after the sun has. Its intense and not for the weak of heart. It’s very GO GO GO]), had lunch, and walked through the Tiergarten and Potsdam Platz (sorry for any misspelling. I don’t know German). On the way back my brother and Joe went to the Topography of Terror and I went shopping (I did see the TOT later in the week so I didn’t miss out). A quick note on museums in Berlin. They include in their admission fee an audio guide, which is the greatest thing ever. I wouldn’t have paid for one, but they are were amazing to have.

The next day we went back to MI and went to 2 more museums, had lunch, then Eric and I rented bikes and biked through the Tiergarten. That was really fun, though I did have a sore bum for the next few days. It had been awhile since I had rode a bike. It took a while to find the bike place but we did. That night we went to the bar my friend from home Selena worked at and then out to a club. It was my only night clubbing, but it was fun. We meet a pair of friends outside the club and we all hung out that night. People in Berlin like to stay up late. We got to the club at like 1am and it didn’t get packed until like 230am. It was insane. We left at 330ish, got on the wrong subway, and then just surrendered and took a taxi back. The next day (which I believe is Saturday the 7^th), we got up and went to the Checkpoint Charlie museum and OMG was it horrible. The WORST museum I have ever been to. It beat out the American Indian museum in DC in my book of horrible museums. Here is why: 1) It was way too packed. You could barely move around. They needed to have timed entry tickets or something. 2) All the writing was in small type. You couldn’t read it unless you were right in front of it. 3) The English was not proofread by a native English speaker. The errors were funny, but so unprofessional for a museum. 4) It had no flow. You didn’t really know where you were supposed to go. There were all these side rooms and turn-offs. The museum actually split in 2 at one point, which you didn’t even really notice. Not good. 5) Not only was there no flow, building-wise, there was no flow content-wise. You would think the museum would be focused on the history of East Berlin, in particular the history of the wall and that checkpoint and how people got out etc. Nope. You would be wrong. They had stuff about Raoul Wallenberg, the NATO charter, the Prague Upraising, spaceflight and all sorts of other weird things. It was awful. Eric walked out after 10 minutes and Joe and I followed 10 minutes later, 5 of which were spent looking for him (my brother has a tendency to wonder off and not tell anyone where he’s going. To be fair, he eventually will wonder back, but who knows when that will be. Drove my parents nuts when we were younger). It was hugely disappointing. Good thing the Jewish museum, which we went to next, was very well done. It followed the history of the Jews in Germany.

The next day, Easter, Eric had to leave us. From here on out, it was just Joe and I, prowling the streets of Berlin. On Easter we went to another museum on MI (our last of the trip, MI-wise) and then I went to the movies. I know, you are probably thinking, but Megan, you are on vacation. Why would you go to the movies? The answer? Because there are no movie theaters in MADA and I wanted to see Hunger Games and Titanic in 3D. Mission accomplished. Joe came with me to see Titanic and that day I ate kangaroo (it was gamey. Wouldn’t eat it again). Those two things have nothing to do with each other, but I wanted to acknowledge that I ate kangaroo. On Monday we went to the Berlin Zoo. It was really fun, though I was a little disappointed in some of the enclosures. In Seattle, at the Woodland Park Zoo, there is a re-created savanna for the giraffes, zebras etc. Here they were just hanging out on a patch of dirt. Not as nice and it made me sad for those animals. It was nice that there were no bars, or barely any bars, at the Berlin Zoo. We then walked back to our hotel (a 4km walk. Take that!), passing along the embassy’s, which Joe has really wanted to see. This was when I saw the TOT that I had missed earlier. I also had dinner that night with friend and her mom, who was also in Berlin visiting. I had an epic journey to meet them, since the subway I was supposed to take was closed for renovations. After like 3 train changes and like 45minutes spent trying to get there on the subway, I finally just got in a cab, which I probably should have done in the first place. Oh well. On Tuesday we headed to Charlottenburg Palace, where we saw just the old wing (the new was closed that day) and then shopped a little and rested in the hotel, since we had had a late night the night before (we didn’t get back to our hotel until close to 1am after Titanic). We went to dinner and went to bed.

Wednesday was my major shopping day (BTW the stores had all been closed on Friday, Sunday and Monday for Easter/Good Friday). Selena met up with me after she dropped her mom off at the airport and we hit the Ku’Damm, one of the major shopping streets. It was fun. We went to the German version of Harrods and I got to eat a burrito. Plus I bought a bunch of stuff. Then we came back to my hotel, where Selena joined Joe and I for a drink before she headed off to work. After dinner, I went to Selenas work to hang out, until it closed for the night. The next day was my last day in Berlin and Europe (though it was Joes last day in Berlin, he was heading to London on Friday, while I was heading back here. Lucky). I went and got last minute souvenirs and headed to Selena’s apartment to hang out. Joe had a few other places he wanted to see so we split off of the day. We had a final dinner together at the hotel and then the next morning I had to wake up at 430am to catch my flight. I oculd have slept another hour probably, since Tegel (the airport) was super quiet and I had like 2 hours to kill by the time I checked in but better safe than sorry. My plane ride to Paris was fine, but from Paris to MADA was a nightmare. We got on the plane and left on time, made it to the south of France before they announced that something was wrong with the plane and we were going back to Paris. We had to circle for about 45min before we could actually land. Then we waited around Charles de Gulle for 5-5 ½ hours before getting back on the plane. Basically I was supposed to get to MADA at 1030pm on Friday and I arrived at 630am on Saturday. Joy.

I have been back at site almost a week and now all my thoughts are turned towards these last 4 months (yep its almost exactly 4 months before I can leave). I have 7 weeks of school left (I am ending about a month before the actually end date, due to conferences and such, but last year I ended about 3weeks early so really it’s about the same) and this week I only had to teach 2 days. Not that I knew that before. I found out I didn’t have to teach Thursday on Tuesday and I went out to the HS on Wednesday only to find out there was no school cause of this sports competition. At least I got the exercise. I may go on strike soon too. Schools around the country are striking to win an increase in their pay. Apparently they are the only civil servant section that has not gotten a pay raise and they want one. The Chef Cisco (the head of the education ministry in my area) is the one who decides if we strike or not. So far, no strike. It doesn’t seem to be a united movement, so I may never go on strike, where other schools have been on strike for a month already. Who knows what will happen. Well that pretty much sums up my life for the last 3 weeks. Below is my book list. There aren’t many but remember, I was on vacation for 2 weeks and didn’t read much! Enjoy!

Books

The Alchemist

Crazy for the Storm

The Great Gatsby

The Paris Wife

The Handmaid’s Tale

Odds & Ends

I know I said I won’t post again until April, but I had some free time at site and figured I would update everyone on my life. Things have been pretty calm around MADA. No cyclones, no power outages, no fights in my town (not that there are any fights, at least none that I have seen). It’s now officially fall here, but its seemed like fall all summer so there really is no difference. It’s going to start getting colder, which I am mentally preparing myself for. Since summer was so cold, I am preparing myself for an extra cold winter. I even wore my winter hat the other day, because I was so cold. I also had wet hair, so that probably contributed to my coldness. The big news is that, as of about 5 minutes ago, I am officially done with 2^nd trimester! I finished all my grading and turned in my grades to my CEG. The high school doesn’t need the grades until next trimester, so as much fun as walking out there would be, I will just go early the first Monday I’m back and turn them in. There was, of course, some confusion at the CEG about when I needed to turn my grades in, since no one tells me anything, but we got it figured out. I just turned them in this morning instead of this afternoon.

2 weekends ago (the weekend of St Patty’s) I went to Tana, to see friends and get my mom’s package (thanks mom! Oh and Christiane loved her tea. She says thank you!). It was a really fun weekend. I had been saving up so I could go out to really nice restaurants and not have to worry about finances. There is a really good Korean BBQ place close to the PC house, so we went there one night. We also went to Sakamanga, a hotel with a delicious restaurant where the duck is to die for, that’s all I ever get, Hotel du France for real sandwiches and liters of beer and M Box, a new fast food place that’s a mix between KFC and McD’s. My tummy was so happy. I hadn’t eaten meat while I was at site, so I needed the protein. The meat at my site just isn’t very good and I would prefer to not cook it myself and if I go to a hotely, eat just rice and the veggie or bean of the day. That’s just how it is.

On Saturday I head to Europe and man oh man, I’m I ready. I want to eat good food, drink good wine, and not be called a vazaha. It will be glorious. I am so happy my godfather wanted to meet in the middle, geographically, instead of coming all the way to MADA. I even want to eat a salad, that’s how deprived I feel. And I am going to do a bit of shopping, since I really only have like 3 acceptable outfits for Europe. I need some new clothes, but I have been saving American money for that (from xmas and my bday). It will be a fun adventure, made even more fun by the fact my bro will be there for a week too. Yay!!!!

I feel bad sometimes that my blog is so light-hearted. I never really write about the problems here or talk about serious issues. I want people to have fun reading my blog, not feel super sad. I am going to write a little bit today about issues in my town, and what I see on a day to day basis. If you want to read more serious posts once in a while, my friends Katie M and Katie B have blogs and they write about the issues on a more frequent basis. Unfortunately I can’t remember the name of their blogs, but if you go to Peace Corps Journals (just google that) and go to Madagascar you should be able to find them. Katie B also takes amazing photography so she always has cool photos to go with her blogs. I try to post pictures too, but I always forget.

The most serious issue in my town is stunting. You would think, since my region grows the food, that this wouldn’t be a problem but it is. The reason? Since growing food is the main economy here, people want to sell all the food they can so they can have more money. The only keep a little bit for themselves and usually it’s whatever they can’t sell or is starting to go bad. As a result, kids in my region don’t get the vitamins and minerals they need to grow. There is an 11 year old boy in one of my classes whose head, I kid you not, comes to the top of my hip bone. Christiane, my site mate, talks to the women who come to the clinic about nutrition and balanced meals, but the women don’t take the information home and apply it. She knows this comes they come back the next month, still pregnant, and haven’t gained a pound. She sees babies all the time that are undernourished. They are getting food, just not the right kinds. It’s disheartening. It’s also disheartening when the pregnant women in their 3^rd trimester are 20 kilos less than you, but I try not to let that one bug me. Lots of them, pregnant, don’t weigh over 100 pounds. Its crazy.

Every town has their resident crazy person (I would spell it in Malagasy, cause I don’t say crazy in English when I talk about them, but I don’t know how to spell it) and mind likes to invade peoples personal space. What he does is he comes up to you and stands right beside you, hoping you will give him money. He sometimes follows you and if he spots you will you are buying stuff, up to you he comes. In Diego there was bottle lady, who would hit you with a bottle if you got too close to her. She would also run and attack you if the mood struck her. Most of the Malagasy people will help a foreigner get rid of the crazies, but sometimes there is nothing they can do to help. You have to move quick and pay attention to where they usually hang out.

In the highlands, where I am, if you steal something and are caught, you die. That’s the tradition. This happened last week in a town close to mine. A bunch of thieves ( I say theives in Gasy when I tell this story, but again, I don’t know how to spell it. My spelling/writing of Malagasy is awful) stole pigs from the town in the middle of the night. The tradition goes that for the next 3 days, the people of that town stop working and look for the thieves and their lost property, which is what they did. They found the pigs and the people about 17km away from the town. Well back to the town came the pigs and the people, and the villagers wanted to kill the thieves. The gendarmes (they are a type of police. There are also police, and im not totally sure of the distinction between the two, but I believe gendarmes are more local where police are national) protected the thieves, telling the villagers they couldn’t kill them. Well the villagers did not like this at all, since it went against tradition. They tried to break into the jail to get them out. Gendarmes from my town had to go help and the gendarmes from Antsirabe came up too. In the melee, the gendarmes shot into the air, to try and calm the crowd/get them away and one of the bullets hit a baby and it died. 5 more were injured. I don’t what happened next, because I haven’t heard anything since. I believe the gendarme got the thieves out of the town and took them away, but I don’t know where the villagers anger level is, since they didn’t get to kill the thieves. While I didn’t know this was the tradition until last week, it doesn’t surprise me that it is a tradition. This practice still happens all over the world and while I don’t agree with it, I’m not shocked that the tradition lives on in Madagascar.

Almost all the teachers at my CEG are woman, and about 75% of the teachers at the high school are men. I think that’s interesting. It used to be a higher percentage of males working at the high school but this summer they hired about 5 new woman teachers so that helped the numbers. There was also a baby boom at my CEG last year. There are probably 6 babies between one and a half to a few months whose moms work at the CEG. I have no idea how that works, in terms of leave and who covers what classes. I do know the women get time off to have the babies and take care of them, but not sure about the classes. My classes are about 50/50 when it comes to boys and girls, but that wasn’t the case last year and there are more boys than girls at the high school. I have seen the numbers. Not sure about the CEG but it wouldn’t surprise if there are more boys than girls, though it seems to be more even there. Since the high school is the only one in the area, people who live 15km away have to board in town, with relatives or with someone willing to take them in for a fee. Many can’t afford to do that and if they can for one child, they choose the boy. So far, my smartest students, in 6^th and 10^th grade, have been girls, though last year my smartest kid in 10^th grade was a boy. It seems like the boys don’t care as much. Im sorry to any boys I might be offending out there but it’s the truth.

The culture throughout MADA is different. In general, the highland people are meaner than the coastal people. When I was in Diego, no one bothered me, or called me a vazaha, or made me feel out of place. Granted it’s a big town with lots of vazaha, but even in smaller towns along the north coast, like Ambanja, it was the same way. Or in Farafangana, on the southeast coast or Foulepoint in the east. People there are just friendlier. In the highlands, whether it be my town, Tana, or Antsirabe, there isn’t that friendly feel. Most of the people belong to the Merina (might have misspelled that. Oops) tribe and that tribe has been in power most recently and for the longest amount of time. They have a sense of entitlement that they can’t shake. It’s frustrating cause not only do they treat foreigners poorly at lot of the time, they also treat other Malagasys poorly. For example, one of Christianes neighbors is from up north, by Ambanja. She is the sweetest person and is always willing to lend Christiane a pot if she needs it or feed her. Even though she’s Malagasy, since she’s not from the highlands, people in my town treat her differently. They will quote her the vazaha prices and tell her it’s because she’s from up north. She doesn’t like living her and wants to return to the north. I don’t blame her. I know this happens in America too, but it seems different, meaner here somehow. And tons of people, no matter where they are, have the island mentality, of waiting forever, of being passive (Katie M has a really good blog post on waiting if you want a more thorough understanding).

Well that’s enough for today. I just wanted to bring out a few issues for everyone to ponder. Below is my book list, which includes books I read back in December, since I finally got my journal. Have a great day and see you in April!

Book List

Room

On Chesil Beach

One Perfect Day

Burned alive: A Victim of the Law of Man

Making of a Duchess

The Wicked House of Rohan

Zeitoun

The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Inca Gold

Flood Tide

The Enchantress of Florence

Hurricane off the port bow!

A few weeks ago, Madagascar was hit by a giant, swirling mass of water and wind. I am talking about a cyclone, a category 4 when it hit the east coast of the MADA and a category 1 by the time it meandered to my site. (Just a fun, nerdy note: In the Indian Ocean it’s a cyclone, the Atlantic Ocean a hurricane and in the Pacific it’s a typhoon. I do believe that cyclones at least spin one way, a different way, than hurricanes. Not sure what way typhoons spin). It was real bad at my site, so I can’t even imagine what it was like on the east coast. All PCVs were evacuated from the coast to the highlands, which was good because by the time Cyclone Giovanni headed out to the Mozambique Channel at least 16 people died, hundreds were injured and an untold number of homes and businesses were destroyed (for more details just google cyclone Giovanni). At my site part of my front and back fence fell down, the corn crop was flattened in many places (I’ve heard different things about whether this was fine or bad. I am going with fine cause people don’t seem to be freaking out about their corn), and the power was out for close to 9 days. I know I can’t complain, cause I usually have electricity, but it was still hard. Made me very glad I have power. Giovanni did come back to MADA. She headed towards Africa, then changed her mind and came back to wreak havoc on the very south of MADA. She was a real mean b****.

(PS. Who can name the movie the title of this blog is taken from? Hint: Its one of my favorite movies)

The weather has finally started to improve. So far we have had 4 straight days of sunny, hot weather. Before this stretch of good luck, it was cold. Summer vanished and I’m not holding my breath that it has returned. It could start raining tomorrow and not stop for days, as the last 6 weeks have shown. Cloudy days, with wind and rain, though even the rain isn’t as much as last year, which is not good since this is the rainy season. Last year, it was sunny and hot all morning and then around 2 or 3 it would start raining, like clockwork. This year the weather is all over the map. We have had at least 2 cyclones so far, along with a tropical depression and a “mass of dense clouds” to quote directly from the MADA weather service, which bought high winds and rain. Things just aren’t normal. Though what would I know? I have only lived here 19 months (holy crap I have lived here 19 months!).

(Still don’t know the movie? Another hint: it’s an animated movie)

School is almost over for the trimester. Then there is only one more left before its back to America. I can’t believe it. Time has gone fast and slow. It seems like days go slow, especially those days where I have nothing to do, but the weeks and months are zoomin. I have one more week of teaching/reviewing and then its exam time. The last official day of school is March 28^th, but I will be done, with all my grades turned in, by March 26^th. That’s my goal at least. This year the CEG isn’t doing their tests so early. Instead of 3 weeks before the end of the trimester, it’s only a week before. In this case, after the exams, there’s only 3 days left! They finally saw how absurd is was to have exams so early. Next trimester I only teach 2 months, because of the schedules at the schools and my schedule with Peace Corps. Exciting!

(Hint #3: I wish I lived Under The Sea)

So my mom and my MOH got mad at me because in my last blog post I forgot to mention that I FOUND MY WEDDING DRESS! So exciting! My mom, Hanna and I went to 3 different places and I found it at the last one. I am still glad I went to the other stores. It helped me figure out what I really wanted. I thought I wanted something plain with a natural waist. What I got was a form-fitted, beaded number. That’s all I can say, since I don’t want my fiancé to know anything. He knows those facts so that’s why its ok to share. If he really wanted to see it before our wedding, I could probably be persuaded to let that happen. My dad hasn’t looked at it yet either, but I hope he comes to see it when I pick it up in September. If he doesn’t want to come, I won’t force him. We have also chosen a venue. We are going to get married at the Seattle Aquarium. My dad is just hammering out the contract with them. Thank heaven he does contract reviews for a living. Brian and my first day date was at the Baltimore Aquarium so it’s fitting. Plus the Saturday before, the 3^rd, is our 4 year anniversary. You may be wondering why we aren’t getting married on the 3^rd. Well to be weird, I think the 10^th sounds better as a number, and now I get to have an anniversary week! Which I am really excited for and have already thought about.

(Hint 4: The main boy has the same name as my brother)

I still don’t have my journal from my mom (I should get it next week when I go to Tana. I hope. Letters have been taking forever to get here so my box might not be here either. I’m hoping that’s not the case. I have valentine’s day candy in there! And brownie mix!), but I am going to post a book list this time anyways. If I don’t the next book list will be wayyyyyyyyyy to long. This one will already be pretty long. I read like a book a day during my electricity shortage and that lasted nine days. Plus I really like reading and a lot of books have been keeping my attention. Sorry this is so short but there isn’t anything too exciting going on. Besides my friends buying a dog for a dollar off the street from some ragamuffins, nothing else has happened (true story. This happened. The dog is named Paco, is a girl though we kept saying he, is a quick learner, and lives in ankazobe, about 2 hours north of Tana). Next blog post will be in about a month, after my Easter Vacation. That one should be long since I am off to EUROPE! Berlin and Prague to be exact. My godfather didn’t want to travel all the way here and suggested we meet in the middle. Fine by me! Going to eat good food, drink good wine and beer, and hang out with my bro, godfather and one of my best friends, who just so happens to live in Berlin at the moment. Holla!

The move is The Little Mermaid! Gold star to you if you guessed it!

Book List

Dragon

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky

America on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

Wanderlust: A Love Affair with Five Continents

Wuthering Heights

Jane Eyre

Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories

The Poisonwood Bible

Irresistible Forces

The Lacuna

Slaughterhouse Five

Unbroken: A World War Two Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption

Some Girls: My Life in a Harem

The Botany of Desire: A plant’s-eye View of the World

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Why Do Men Have Nipples? Hundreds of Questions You’d Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Martini

In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

You Might be a Zombie and Other Bad News

The Interpreter of Maladies

A Prayer for Owen Meany