1/3 over, and hardly any pictures have been posted!

Sorry for so many delays, and no pictures! maybe when i get back to the states for christmas/hannukah vacation.

Life has been pretty busy on the island, if you can believe it! I actually just got done with a bicycle tour around Lac Alaotra in the central highlands (where basically all of the rice in this country is produced; and in case you didn't know, people here eat rice 3X a day; they eat more rice per capita than any other country in the world; so long story short, lots of rice paddies). 20 volunteers and I road between 45min-5 hours everyday to different villages surrounding the lake and held "fety's" or little festivals and booths about HIV prevention and transmission. It was exhausting but a lot of good work! Here in Madagascar there are about 20,000 confirmed cases, but testing is super low. STIs are a major problem (syphilis especially), and people do not exactly respect the "sanctity of marriage," so Madagascar is a perfect breeding ground for an epidemic if they aren't careful.

Notes on 1/3 peace corps time, what i do to survive here: be innovative; be willing to make mistakes all the time and apologize and move on; smiling, smiling, smiling, even when you cry; and trying hard to see the good/best/kindness in everyone, even when they stare at you like an alien and have dollar signs for pupils. And PATIENCE. That's my problem, I have zero patience, but nothing ever happens here in a timely matter and there are many distractions along the way.

One other update: I have a thesis topic for my Master's program. I will be looking at different surveillance data for malaria incidence in Maevatanana district (where I live) to ascertain the trend in cases. It seems that malaria cases are increasing here instead of going down like in the rest of the country, though the same interventions (bednets, indoor spraying, prophylaxis for pregnant women, rapid testing, rapid treatment, and IEC) have been done all over the country. So I'm trying to figure out what's different about my home town and how these interventions can be improved here. I'm so excited because it has a lot to do with data and program improvement, which I feel much more comfortable with than going out and doing my own survey/quantitative/or qualitative research. It's too hard to set up a good study in 2 years when you are still learning the language!

I'm also hoping to start a SIDA (AIDS) girls club at the local high/middle schools. It will be pretty informal, but but i'm going to try and have them write letters to my World Wise school in Georgia that I am now in contact with. so exciting.

anyways, i'm good, life is good, i'm going to make it another 2/3..

more later.

Post 10: Back in the swing of things with great new projects!

It’s been three weeks since I returned to site from the last training, and it’s been a series of up and downs. I realized that things go entirely too slow at site, and it’s hard to plan because most people don’t really work (i.e. most of the government health bodies in my town). So, I’ve started working with two community health workers (CHWs) linked to my CSB (clinic) that live in communities about 6-10km away (and one I return home by canoe!!). I love these new projects! I’m working with very “mazoto” (put in a lot of effort, hard workers) women that want to better their communities. This past week I spent two separate nights at these women’s homes and ate with them, had meetings in which we did PACA (participatory analysis exercises), and just enjoyed each other’s company (including me getting my hair braided more than once…I look like Sean Paul says Devyn).
So after doing exercises in these two communities, here are the interesting project ideas they have to improve their lives (on a peace corps budget, and their own budget as well):
The first community, Ambodimanary (6km away from CSB) wants to form a women’s association in order to improve conditions in their community. They struggle with being hardworking in regards to community development. They are also interested in improving their farming output for rice as well as vegetables and fruits, so I’m going to try and get more material on farming in dry/red clay conditions and I’m going to invite an environment volunteer to my site to help. Finally, people in Ambodimanary are concerned about education: there is an EPP (elementary school) in their village, but will very little supplies, and then once kids finish there, they must commute or live in Maevatanana (my big town), where school costs and rent is high and teenage pregnancy is vast. These are the issues this community is struggling with, which I think would be perfectly addressed by forming a women’s association that could function as a communal bank that could raise money for projects and supplies.
In the second community, Manganoro (10km away from CSB, an hour up the river by canoe) already has a women’s association (so I’m thinking of inviting the CHW from Manganoro to Ambodimanary to talk about forming the association and making it work, since it’s been done there…cross collaboration is awesome!). But, there are still many issues this community is facing in terms of health and development. First of all, there are NO bathrooms at all there (and i'm not one to do well with shiting behind a tree). Also, there is very little gardening, except for a halucinagenic plant called "Paraky", which I have yet to try, but i am looking forward to it... ;)
Finally, again there are problems with the school system there: very few teachers, very few supplies, little space for learning, etc. Then the kids are sent to the middle school (CEG) in Maevatanana if they are lucky (money-wise and smart-wise).

So these are my two new project towns, and i'm so excited about them! i plan to visit one each week and spend the day/night and having meetings and start projects. Then, with the help of a doctor from the next town over, i hope to conduct a few interviews of community health workers in my area (there are about 20-30), and then a survey focusing on the challenges they face working, and the kind of work they have been able (and not been able) to do.

Otherwise, things are going well, i'm busy (if you can believe it!), i have many friends and lots of drama and lots of fun, so life is good in my silly town in Madagascar! More to come, as always (and pictures will be posted in July!).

Post 9: After In-service training and gearing up for more work (and play)

So I’m am leaving IST (in-service training), which means that I have not ET’ed (early terminated) my peace corps service during one of the most popular times to do so. That’s a good start I guess! I mean, things have been good, but the kind of support you need is not always offered by the Peace Corps…and that’s all I will say on that matter. Anyways, all of my peace corps “stage” were reunited in our old training center in Mantasoa. It was quite a hectic time, all 34 of us there, with our “counterparts” (a chosen or assigned person in our communities that support our work). We attended millions of presentations on HIV/AIDS, on Bio-intensive gardening, small-business development, and a whole lot of other stuff. It was productive, great to see everyone speaking Malagasy, and great to hear about everyone’s stories and struggles. And you know what also was great?!?! The weather! It was cold! I haven’t felt sweat in almost three weeks! It’s amazing.
It’s been a great time to re-evaluate my work and come up with better ways to promote health in my community.
First of all, I met with the country representative of PSI (Population service international, www.psi.org) and he told me about research that this NGO was going to be doing in my region of Betsiboka, and I am hopefully going to help, and possibly use this work as my thesis for my masters program, yay!
Secondly, I have gotten some great ideas for health activities in my area:
-I’m going to start working with the community health workers to provide them with more health information, training from PSI, and broader recognition in the region. I hope to also start gardening and efficient stove-building projects there
-I’m also going to start preparing for an HIV/AIDS festival in my town that will mostly focus on the high school and middle school students, and will hopefully included speakers from the association of People living with AIDS (PLWA), Men who have sex with men (MSM), and commercial sex workers (CSW), who are active in the capital and promote HIV/AIDS prevention
-Ummm…I’m going to keep studying Malagasy, French, Spanish, and MCATs prep…but I won’t make any promises about the future yet.
-I am going to be doing some traveling/working: first I’m going to be back in the beach town, Majunga, for a Peace Corps meeting in mid-June. Then I’m going to central highlands area, to a lake called Lac Alaotra, to do a bike trip to fight against HIV/AIDS in mid-July, then I will hopefully be back at Mantasoa to help train new peace corps volunteers in late-August/early-September, then hopefully doing some work in the east near the city of Moramanga and the Andasibe park, and then eventually, doing some work in my home of Maevatanana…I’m pretty busy for the next 4 months! And that’s how I like it!

Post 8? things continue to happen...a routine is built!

Though i don't have a whole lot to report about, i thought i would update the blog so you all know that i'm still alive, still doing well, still making connections/teaching/making friends/hanging out/reading...i'm nearing the end of my "assessment period" (and to tell you the truth, i'm still painfully unaware about many things in my community, but oh well). i'm really excited that i have survived this long, without any sickness (knock on wood), without any major psychological breakdowns, and without giving up completely. it does help that a lot of the women here have also assumed a mothering role for me (the number of mothers for me has quadrupled! i can't seem to have too many mothers...even on the other side of the world).

so, a small recap, i've been teaching at the clinic, doing a radio show, teaching some english (not my favorite thing to do, but people really want to learn, though they never study...it's always the same thing every week...ugh), and doing a lot of my own stuff. i recently took a trip to the National Park near me called Ankarafantsika, which was amazing and beautiful and so much fun! we saw Baobab trees and a canyon...it was nice to get out of my truck stop town and back to nature! Then we went to Majunga, the beach town. I've decided that it's really not where i want to be...there are too many french ex-pats, and everyone speaks to me in french (even when i speak clear malagasy, and no real french yet), and it's just an annoying place, though beautiful in some places. we ate a lot of ice cream and pizza and seafood, and we took a little trip to a friend's post at Katsepy, a 1 hour ferry ride away. we sunbathed and had fresh coconuts and mangahazo (manioc) with coconut milk on the beach. it was great! we unfortunately had to take a long LONG boatride back with a bunch of chickens...the first time i've ever been seasick i think!

and now i'm back in maevatanana, hanging out, helping the doctors and health managers prepare for their party for the week of promoting women and children's health. my constant joke that no one else gets is..."how many doctors/managers does it take to hang up a sign?" many!!!! we have more managers of health workers than healthworkers! it's ridiculous, and it makes me feel super SUPER impatient. ugh.

welp, i guess that's it for now. more exciting things to come when i go for my first in-service training in mid-may. then we'll see what happens from there! miss you all and love you!!

Post 7: Two months, beginning to do some real peace corps work!

It’s been a while since my last post, and believe it or not, a lot has happened! Most exciting was Women’s day, 8th of March, in which we, awesome women marched all over town and dressed in pink! Lots of fun to be out with my women in the health profession!
Then about 2 weeks ago, Devyn and I packed our bags and took off to Majunga, a northern port town known for housing lots of French Ex-pats (definitely not one of it’s perks) and hosting some decent beaches and in general a nice, laid-back atmosphere. Devyn and I decided to splurge a little on an amazing hotel with an Olympic-sized swimming pool and wireless internet! Definitely not your normal peace corps excursion, but sometimes you need a little pampering ;)
We ate wonderful food (cray-fish/shrimp the size of my head!), walked around, shopped, I met with potential health partners, and we swam and swam and swam at the pool and at the beach. We are probably heading back again in a few weeks since we can’t go to the capital (Antananarivo) because there are new protests by people now realizing the real effects of the “coup”: Madagascar has been excluded from many international trade agreements and has been denied some international aid as well. So, sucks, but we can’t go there (and therefore, can’t visit anywhere south of this country or east yet as well…since you have to go through Antananarivo to get pretty much anywhere in this crazy, road-less country)!
So that’s it for exciting stuff, and now my peace corps work is improving (I think). I’m starting to ask people about what they would like to learn about when I do health sensibilizations…so now people are a little more involved and excited to hear about what I have to say, instead of me just talking at them…
I’m also conducting interviews with people I have met in order to find out more about my new home. It’s actually quite interesting…and though I have felt that people really don’t want my help quite yet, I have found many potential projects that I will discuss at the next peace corps reunion and training in mid-May.
All about my new home, Maevatanana:
-The most important source of income here is Gold! People pan for gold (there is no company or mine as of yet…) on their own and sell it to a few buyers here who send it to the capital. “People here are poor, but there is gold,” is the message I’ve heard about this endeavor.
-Rice is the second most important source of income. People in Maevatanana city (Maevatanana is also the title of the district, holding about 16 little villages, centering in the city of Maevatanana where all the government agencies are) are the like the “middle-men”: they buy rice, manioc, and beans from the rural communities of the district of Maevatanana and then bring it to the city of Maevatanana to resell
-Water is the biggest health issue in Maevatanana. Most people get their water from a large well/pump known owned by Jirama (a government-owned company). The water is pumped out to water stations (or “pumpy” in Malagasy) where people line up and purchase water (15L for 30 ariary, or $0.015). There is “treatment” of the water at the well/pump, but it’s not very good and people are encouraged to use point-of-source treatment in their homes to clean the water (sur’eau, or chlorine drops). Unfortunately, nobody buys the sur’eau, which costs about $0.15 per small bottle. It’s not the price that’s the issue, says a government worker at the Regional Office of Agriculture, but that people are just set in their ways. They won’t boil the water either, he informed me.
-Only about 30% of the homes in Maevatanana district (including in the city) have their own bathroom (outdoor or indoor). People just tend to go wherever and whenever they need to.
-there is a “hungry season” in the Maevatanana region between January-March, in which little rice is produced. Rice is the major food that is consumed 3-times a day, and according to Lonely-planet, Malagasy people consume the most rice per capita in the world!
-In the city of Maevatanana, women have about 3-10 children, a pretty wide range. Childbearing begins at around 17/18 y/o and continues until 35/40 y/o. In the smaller villages in Maevatanana district, the number of children per family narrows to around 7-14, with childbearing beginning when women are as young as 13.
-There are both public and private schools here, but only half of the students continue on to University (located in bigger cities, not here) after high school.
-There is a lot of malaria here, most during the rainy months. People are starting to use bed-nets, but it’s not wide spread yet. This time the cost of a bed net (about $1.50) is probably a cause for concern.
-there is not a lot to do in the evening here, but at least there are no mpamosavy’s (witches). In other parts of Madagascar (actually in most of Madagascar) people believe that there are witches that haunt the night and therefore people must get in their houses at sun-down and shut and lock all doors and windows. But because this is the hottest place in Madagascar, people can really only be outside during the morning and evening, so they disregard the worries about witches in my town. But there is a real worry about cow-robbers…right now while the economy is super bad here and politics are still disorganized, there have been lots of cow-robberies, since cows are very profitable/goldmines! This happens a lot on the road out of my city towards Antananarivo (capital of Madagascar).
And I guess those are the highlights thus far…I’m trying to improve my community center (and putting a health spin on it, we’ll see how it goes), and I’m also teaching a lot of English…that gets old for me pretty quick, but I know that living standards are higher for people who know English…can’t fight the statistics!
Hatramin’ny manaraka! (Until Next time)!

Post 6: Up to 5 weeks in counting! It feels like five years….

Things have been good here in my bustling town of Maevatanana. I’ve settled into some sort of routine, which is ever changing because of people’s strange work schedules here (also known as “fotaona gasy” which means “Malagasy time”). Every morning, I wake up and sweep…this is around 6:30ish (unless I go running, which is an early call of about 5:00am because that’s the coolest time of day, and with the fewest number of people staring). Then I feed my cute kitty, who doesn’t have a name yet, but responds to kisses and “kitty kitty!”, then I eat…people here still ask me what I eat every day, since I don’t seem to cook rice, but these days I’ve been eating a lot of sweet potatoes, tomatoes, onions, skillet bread, pancakes (I miss my dad and Saturday pancakes, and maple syrup!), skillet cornbread, stir-fry, and peanuts! Every so often, I buy ground beef or sausages and make meatballs…which reminds me of my Italian roots. And just yesterday I made French toast, though probably not as good as the amazing Challah French toast that my uncles are famous for!
After hallucinating about supermarkets and the amazing restaurants and food in the US as I eat my leftover rice with bananas and raisons, I get ready for work! Every morning I do a “sensibilization” (Peace Corps word for teaching normal people at odd places and at odd times about good things) about a health topic (here it’s mostly about preventing malaria or “tazo moka” in Malagasy, or preventing diarrhea or “aretim-pivalanana”) which also involves singing songs about the health problems or how to prevent disease (I’ve even written a song about malaria that goes to the tune of “twinkle twinkle little star”! I can’t wait to get my guitar and then I’ll be jamming about health all the time!).
Then I go shopping. Every day I have to go to the market (which is huge here, since I live in the “banking town” where other people have to come in from their small villages to get money and shop for bigger things). I don’t have a refrigerator yet, so I have to buy fresh food every day at a market that is really ridiculous…there are millions of venders that sell the same thing, and it’s really messy and kinda gross at first, but you get used to it.
Then I do some household chores, chatting with locals, preparing lunch, and then from about 12-3pm, everyone is out of commission because of lunch and the heat. It’s a great time of day…which I just sit and read books, sleep, relax…I like siestas! Then the afternoon is normally free to me, unless I’m teaching English to the doctors that work at the regional health center, or teaching English to the government workers at the department of agriculture office here (I’m trading English for involvement in their projects right now…soon we will start small gardening demonstrations in neighboring communities and here in Maevatanana), or when I have my radio show about health on Thursdays (I even sing! Can you believe it???), or when I teach sex-ed at the local middle school or healthy foods at the local elementary school. It would appear that I am very busy, but I’m not really…there is plenty of time for my epic bike rides that take me away from this crazy, kinda ugly city, and to the beautiful surrounding villages and rolling hills.
So things are going pretty good, and I’ve been able to build some relationships beyond my little clinic, and I think I’m slowly making some friends, though I depend a lot on my amazing family (the doctor’s family with whom I work) who live right next to me; and I also depend on my good friend Devyn, the other peace corps volunteer who lives nearby. It is a struggle to stay positive all the time here though. I sometimes find myself wanting to run over people with my bike or yell when people scream “Vaza!” which is the equivalent of saying “hey, white person!” or “hey foreigner!”, or when I try to work with government officials who don’t really work but just push paper around and ride around in cars. But then there are amazing times when I meet someone new who is super nice and practices Malagasy with me, or when I hang out with my doctor’s family and paint or chat or watch movies, or when I teach about health or English and get to talk to new people, or when I take epic bike rides (I’m up to 30km! or 18 miles for you Americans…I’m hoping that I’ll get really good at biking and then maybe to the Seattle-Portland ride when I return to Seattle!), or when I’m able to take apart and put my own bike back together…Dan would be so proud! I know this is really hard for me, and for many people that I love, but I guess I kind of belong in this life.
Ok, so I want to keep up with my book reviews as well, and I just finished this amazing book called “Oil on the Brain,” by Lisa Margonelli. Basically, as a review on the back cover says, “IF YOU DRIVE A CAR, YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK!!!”
This was such an amazing book because it was written in the hilarious and inquisitive style of a very intuitive author. Margonelli looks at oil from the gas pump at the gas station (and talks about the hard work of gas station owners to save pennies, promote convenient store items, and she also describes the battle between independent and brand gas stations), to the tanker drivers (who battle traffic, battle cancer, and battle the rising and falling of gas prices and the politics of who to deliver that gas to), to the refineries (that battle with enormous need of the United States consumers who want more and more…all refineries are operating to the max and there are many accidents because of this), to the oil rigs in Texas (when she talks about the history of oil discovery and drilling that got the US fixated on cheap oil and big cars), to the NYMEX oil market (where she talks about how oil prices are made, and how little connection we have to the price of oil and the way it is brought to us…mostly through war/violence), to the oil producing countries or “petrostates” of Venezuela, Chad, Nigeria, and Iran (where she talks about how the countries function, or don’t; and how they struggle to provide for their own people and for the US’ and the world’s oil needs), to China (where there is huge innovation occurring to make oil dependency around the world a thing of the past).
I absolutely loved this book and I really think that you should all read it!
And I guess that’s it for now! Please keep emailing me (or start emailing me) because I love to hear from you all and keep up with all the happenings! Love you all so much and talk to you soon!

Post 5: Summary of Second week, I think that I’m getting used to this life!

So I just want to say that I am one of those people that worry constantly, about work, about other people’s approval, about my life, all those things that I have no real control over. Anyways, I was just a little worried about what I would do with myself for these next 3 months at post, when I’m supposed to be “assessing” my community, doing health sensibilizations, and getting ideas for health projects. So I’m not going to lie, but this assessment period includes a lot of hanging around, observing, meeting people, going on long bike rides, and studying Malagasy (as well as exchanging Malagasy for English). I’m trying to do sensibilizations everyday, as well as make arrangements to teach health classes at the local middle and local elementary school….but this past week, I was completely unsuccessful in all of my scheduling, falling victim to “Malagasy Time.” This past week included a break from school, required 3 days off of work for my fellow peace corps volunteer teaching English here, and also a tree-planting day. All of my extra meetings to tutor in English, teach about safe sex in the middle school, and doing nutrition and hygiene education sessions, were cancelled because of “fety’s” and tree-plantings…good times, but leaving me with not very much to do while here these days. But I have been biking, reading, watching interesting sitcoms at night, and taking care of a new kitty.
I’m still wondering about what I am doing here, but I’m pretty sure it will all come together soon. I am trying to do some work, and trying to make friends, and trying to go on more bike rides. I would say that I’m pretty happy these days 
Miss you all!