Monesa's Morning

I woke up very early to the sweet sound of my dear friend, Monesa, whispering to me from the other side of my hut's wooden slats. "Wake up Soana, the sun is coming."

 "Yes, sister, I'm getting up now."

 A few moments later, she's at my side as I start up my gas stove and put on a sweatshirt. It's dusty from disuse. I rub my eyes and ask her to hand me the eggs. "You haven't any eggs, of course." She says with a smile and hurries back to her hut to fetch some from underneath the still sleeping ducks.

The goat tied up outside my house bleats as she comes back in. "I hope that one goat and 2 chickens will be enough food," I say.

"It's enough, Soana."

"If I bought a turkey too, would that be good?"

"It won't go uneaten."

"So it's a good idea?"

"There will be enough to eat."

"Ok, I'll trust you."

"Thank you, Soana."

As I sit down to eat my 3 fried duck eggs. The yokes are bright orange and gigantic compared with chicken eggs. I bite in. They taste roughly like chicken eggs, only with a stronger yokie aftertaste. They need lots of salt.

Monesa's baby waddles in the door. Her name is Ziena. She is my favorite person in Madagascar. She is adorable, sneaky, clever, quiet, and has a veracious apatite for a 3 year old. She has a special little buddah belly. Everyone in the village is rewarding her cuteness with extra rice cakes and fried bread. I pull her up on my lap and give her the last of my eggs.

"She's going to miss you, Soana."

"Really? Will she remember me? She's so little!"

"She'll remember you, I think."

"Ziena, listen to me really well. I'm going to tell you something very big and important. I'm going away tomorrow. I'm going home to the land of my ancestors. I won't be here in this hut anymore. However, I promise to come back and see you. I don't know when. Maybe a long, long time. But, I'll come back. And here's what you have to do. You have to remember me. Don't forget me oh! Don't run up to every tall white man you see, yelling, 'Soana, Soana!' No. Remember me and don't be confused. I will miss you, mon cheri. Don't forget!" My voice cracks as bit as I choke back some tears.

Ziena looks over to her mother and then starts to cry furiously. I pull her into my arms and rub her back. "It's ok, cheri. I'll be back. Don't be sad." She's asleep in a few minutes.

I hand her over to her mother so that she can put her back to sleep in her house. When she comes back I say, "Oiy, aiy, I didn't really think she could understand me. She doesn't talk much yet."

"She understands enough. Now, come. Who do you expect to cook all this food today?

"All of us?"

"Yes, yes, of course. now let's go get everybody out of bed." 

Santa Brought me a Cyclone for Christmas

For Christmas this year Santa sent my part of the island a class 1 tropical cyclone (category 1 hurricane). Amazingly, I saw zero preparation for the storm in Majunga. No one put sandbags on their roofs, boarded up windows, or fortified weak structures. Although the hurricane warnings had been on the radio for more than a week, no one seemed to believe them or take any heed. I asked a homeless woman in the street where she was going for the cyclone, with a perfectly calm, if not defiant face, she said, "There's a cyclone? Gimme some money."

In preparation for the immanent doom, I took shelter in an ocean view hotel with 10 other volunteers (it was the cheapest one with AC, right next to the night club, and there were only rumors of a cyclone when I made the reservation, plus- it kinda seemed sturdy). Being the total professionals that we Peace Corps Volunteers are, we stocked up the absolute essentials- water, and beer. I mean, we aren't stupid... what if theepiceries closed down for a day?

At 7 AM, as the storm began to make landfall, we headed down to the beach to work on our suntans. There we met up with the "brochette" saleswoman we had arranged with from night before to make us breakfast brochettes. A brochette is a long thin stick with 2 small chunks of grilled beef and 1 chunk of grilled fat. No, it's not normally breakfast food. After exchanging Christmasgreetings, we sat down and ordered up 200 brochettes while taking cover under a sheet metal awning. Stella (the brochette saleswoman) and us, quickly became great friends. She cooked us up hundreds of brochettes, attempted to join in on ourChristmas caroling and even joined us for a few rounds of beer.

Our cozy Christmas morning, got all the more merrier when the Chief de Destrict (equivalent to a deputy Mayor) came passing through. We invited him for a beer and he stayed with us for the next few hours. He was a very serious, polite, older gentleman.... until the beer got to him. Pretty soon he's joining in theChristmas caroling, calling out toasts like a champ and demanding my friends hat as a cadeaut . My friend happened to be very attached to his hat and so things turned a little ugly. After 15 minutes of intense discussion, (meanwhile,btw, there's a friggin hurricane pounding us with rain and wind) we are saved from a major altercation and international political incident when my friend's girlfriend (who'sgasy) stands up and reads him the riot act in french (french is the language of STFU in this country). In the end, he stole a pack of cigarettes from my friend and quietly stumbled off.

At around 12, when trees started to blow over and Stella's awning was threatening to blew away, we decided to make a run for it back to the hotel. We arrived safely, though slightly damp. Over the next several hours we waited out the storm in our rooms playing poker and speculating on whether or not those of us who live nearby on the coast would still have houses come morning. At some point, the roof of the night-club adjoining our hotel loses its roof in one fantastic screeching crash. Gigantic pieces of corrugated sheet metal lifted off and rained down on the street in front of our hotel. Shortly thereafter, A large wooden TVantenna came down in the courtyard of our hotel and the small gasy food stand across the street completely blew away. Overall though, the storm was really not all that strong, but when no one makes any preparations for an approaching hurricane, things get f*ed up.

At around 9pm, we discovered that we had forgotten to stock up on food and we're hungry. As the storm began letting up. my friend Nate and I decided to make a break for the "Bizary" where food was rumored to be found. (PS, by this time the beer has been long gone and we are no longer intoxicated in any way) While trying to cross over the roofing debris from the nightclub and the destroyed food stand, I slipped. I fell very hard, stubbed my toe and sliced open my hand on a huge piece of timber. Strangely, I at first was only conscious of stubbing my toe. I grabbed hold of my friend's shirt and as I hopped around on one foot, my friend notices that I'm bleeding everywhere. We walked back to the hotel where I sit down on the floor. Everyone is a bit freaked out as I am sitting, then lying on the floor next to a small puddle of blood. I keep trying to tell them not to worry, I just stubbed my toe and got a little paper cut. Then I take a good look at my hand, see the gash and instantly feel dizzy. The gash runs about two inches from the inside of my right pinkie vertically down my palm to the outside of my hand. The cut is deep into the meat of my hand, but luckily, it missed all my arteries and tendons. My friend's brother who is a hardcore "hot shot" forest firefighter, administers some professional first aid and I easily wait out the next 12 hours before the streets are cleared so that I can get to the hospital.

The next morning I nervously head over to the best hospital this 3rd world provincial capital has to offer. The doctor's assistant viciously rips off the dressing from the night before and after only an hour wait with my gaping wound staring me in the face, the doctor shows up. He immediately cleans out the wound (ouch!) and gets ready to put in 4 stitches with what seems to me to be an excessively large sewing needle and some fishing wire (although I'm sure it wasn't). I asked if they had any pain dulling spray or maybe an anesthetic shot or a Tylenol or anything. He looks at me like I just asked him for a lolly-pop and hug. Needless to say, I cried out like a little girl who's favorite dolly just got microwaved.

So that was my Christmas. Overall, it was a great time. Next year however, I'd prefer a white Christmas among friends and family.

PS- It's been 10 days and I just had the stitches removed. No problems- I appear to be healing nicely. GG

Guest entry from John Ross

Here's a guest entry by John Ross, noob adventurer extraodinaire. He sent this out on his email (spam) list but, just in case all my loyal readers (hi mom) aren't on his list, i've reproduced it here.

shawn mentioned (http://www.pbd.squarespace.com/) the cave as being the highlight of the trip...indeed it was pretty sweet.  the added dimension of the guide not actually being a guide once we'd been underground for an hour was ... pretty typical of the commercial transactions over there…always a catch.   i must take exception to pbd's assertion that this was the highlight of the trip though.  he has been in madagascar for some time now and things that seem to him routine were quite wondrous and delightful to me.  other things were neither.

my initial reaction was that the meaning of the term "adventure" has become somewhat skewed here in America.  an adventure means enduring fatigue, boredom, traveler's d and all manner of unpleasant surprises in good humor while pursuing the pursuit at hand and then coming out of it more or less ok and perhaps having learned a few things.  these "things" of which i write are not cutesy, "look i've learned a life lesson!" type-things but rather things of a more practical nature....like always have toilet paper on your person always.

about four days in at shawn's village...which is about 100 yards from the indian ocean...i realized i was having a real adventure as i was crouched over the rusty oil barrel dug into the sand that serves as shawn's powder room enjoying the latest round of violence done to my intestines by the bugs in the local cuisine.  i can't remember if i was in the midst of thinking, "man, i paid a lot to do this" or whether i was pondering over the great length of time i felt would be necessary to expunge that which needed expunging when i heard a buzzing sound and realized a couple of hornets were flying over my head.  i wouldn't say i'm abnormally frightened of bugs that sting painfully and repeatedly...i'm just saying that normal people are afraid of them and i'm normal.  this, dear shawn's readers, was pretty miserable.

i got into antananarivo, the capital city, on a sunday night...and we had a few beers at the only place open in town.  if anyone was wondering what two friends who haven't seen each other in a year and a half talk about i'm afraid you will be disappointed b/c i don't remember.  i think it had to do with the local women and malagasy beer.  turns out there is only one kind of beer outside of the capital city (there's only one transportation company so if they don't want to ship your brews you're out of luck).  fortunately, three horses beer (thb) is quite good and sometimes cold.

next morning we got up bright and early and went to the taxi brusse station... these taxi brusse's are really just minivans with four banks of seats in the back...we spent a cramped and miserable 11 hours traveling at breakneck speed ... passing around blind turns ... narrowly avoiding pedestrians, trucks, cars, livestock and anything that one could imagine would be on a road.  it was not fun ... and there was nothing to be done about it except think about how great adventures are.

look for madagascar 2...coming to an inbox near you...soon!

Caving shoes

John and I have been in the cave for approximately 30 minutes. We are just beginning to get into the deeper regions (aka bowels, for the more dramatically inclined) of the cave. Our group (expeditionary force / fellowship consists of John and I (the heroes), A guide (think gollum only taller and malagasy) and our driver (no we did not drive into the cave, he drove us from majunga) and our ride-along mechanic (cars here are just that good) A musty, mildewy smell permeates the air. Water drips down from gigantic stalagtites (or are those stalagmites?). Small cramped rooms open to gigantic cathedral like chambers that end in small, low, doorways that lead to medium-sized hallways of darkness (and doom). Guide: "We should turn back. It's getting muddy." Shawn and John: "Rur? who cares? Guides shouldn't be afraid of mud!" Driver and driver's nooby friend: "Eww muddy." Uhg. We turn back to explore another, perhaps less muddy passage. John and I start joking around and pay little attention to our companions. After 15 minutes or so, I notice that our driver is decidedly scarred. The word lost is starting to be thrown around a little to frequently. John and I are not too concerned, after all, who hasn't gone into a cave and not gotten turned around a few times? After a few more false starts and dead ends our driver notices a stalagmite that he ignorantly knocked over on the way in. He gets his bearings and correctly points us out of the cave. Good work.... DRIVER! Our guide stays quite for the rest of the journey. That was day one.

On day two, our guide brings along his brother who supposedly is the "actual cave guide."  I mention to our guide that when we hired him there was no talk of him being the "amateur, brother of the actual guide." Because, knowing that we certainly would have demanded a better price. Fake guide is unimpressed by my "arguments." Anyway, in we go. For today's quest, I ask to be taken to the underground river which I had heard about. A Baptist missionary in majunga had told me that the best caving was past this river- deep down in the land of Mordor. Our driver refused to go back into the cave on account of still being scarred from the previous day's slight misadventure. The "real guide" tells me that the river is way down in the cave, past a "worm hole" 10 meters long. "Sounds great," I say. "You're not afraid?" he asks. Quite the adventurer this guy is.   

After maybe an hour and a half we reach the "worm hole." The guy must have left his tape measure at home last time he was here because by my count the hole was 1 meter long, not 10... but whatever. "Ok, let's get in the water" I say. "No no, I'm not going in there." He says. "Why? Is it dangerous? Are there monsters / animals (same word in gasy)in there?" "Yes, there are fish." "Man eating fish?" "No, just fish." "Right, well, we're going in." "Ok, we'll wait here." After a fun little 15 minutes spent apprehensively frolicking in the very dark, underground river (which is stagnant this time of year) and tiptoeing on very very sharp stones through the shallow parts, we decide to go get the guide and continue down into the cave. "Ok, lets cross over to the other side" I say. "Nope, I told you that I'm not getting in the water" he says. "I thought you meant you didn't want to swim. How are you going to lead us farther into the cave if you want cross over." "I'm not crossing over" he repeats. John and I consider going on without him but decide that we've had enough of the damp darkness for the time being and reluctantly climb back out of the water.

Our quest complete (enough), we return to the surface. Later, we vanquished a hobbit and called it a day. And that was the climax of my trip with John. The rest of the time was spent on other adventures which, while quite enjoyable, exciting and haroing, would be boring to read about.

Winter

It's ridiculous really. I just suppressed a shiver and checked my alarm clock / thermometer to find that it's 9:16 PM, 78.0 Degrees fahrenheit. I'm cold. It wasn't even all that hot today, around 94 degrees with a strong and occasionally sand-filled wind. I checked my forehead with the back of my hand. No fever, I'm just cold. By morning, I'll be bundled up in socks, sweat pants, a t-shirt and a wool blanket that makes me sneeze. It might reach 70 degrees. Room temperature in the states is 73 right? I guess I'm either adjusted to the heat or dying of some obscure tropical disease. JK Mom.

I haven't posted in a while. Each time I've made it into the city I've perused my mind for recent mishaps, adventures, or particularly lucid insights. No dice. I try to have a least one misadventure a month so I am way overdue. I'll see what I can do.

Work is going fine. I spend much of my time simply waiting. Waiting for a meeting with so and so, waiting to learn more about the village or about what is needed, waiting for materials, waiting to hear back from Peace Corps. I do work in great spurts when the stars align and the gods approve. Mostly, I work on agriculture, ecotourism, and mother and child nutrition. So, for example, I might teach improved rice agriculture to the pregnant tourists with hungry children. All pretty standard peace corps stuff. 

My main project though, is working to get a community health clinic built in the village. Currently, there are no health facilities within 30 Kilometers of my village. The only medicines available are tylenal and herbal "remedies" made by the witch doctor. Women often give birth in their homes without the assistance of a trained midwife. The need for a health clinic is obvious and understood by all the villagers. The hotel has agreed to help by supplying water, electricity and some building materials. The community has agreed to provide the land and most of the labor. A French nurse, who is retiring to a bungalow at the hotel, has agreed to work at the clinic. My job is to find some additional funding, negotiate the final deal and make sure everyone lives up to the agreement. I may apply for funding through the Peace Corps Partnership. This is a program that lets American citizens (especially friends, family, and associates) donate small sums of money to help finance volunteer projects (e.g. my project). In case any of you are interested in contributing, I'll be sure to let you know how and when you can help.

That's all for now folks. Somebody should send me a letter. My mailbox has been empty for quite a while. If I have neglected to respond to one of you, don't take it personally but do remind me that you're still waiting for an answer. Peace out.