niger to madagascar

Summary of a long transfer from Niger to Madagascar

So after very sad departing from Niger (including dance parties, fashion shows, American-style Olympics for the Niger Peace Corps staff, millions of games of Phase 10 (like jen rummy) and a last weekend with our families), we were taken to the airport in Niamey and whisked off to Paris!

I had a wonderful 26 hours in Paris…I think I could star in the movie “Sleepless in Paris.” I called a lot of friends at home in our hotel with WIRELESS INTERNET, and SHOWERS, and FLAT SCREEN TVs, and a BAR! It was pretty surreal after 6 weeks of limited electricity and bucket baths…

I spent time shopping and then seeing the sights on a 3 hour speed walk tour led by my friends Mike and Julie. We went everywhere! And Mike, who has studied history, knew all types of great information about all of the sites. After being in Paris, I really felt that there needed to be a “Peace Corps France…” sign me up!
Anyways, after a sleepless night of good food and wine, we piled on to our 10 hour flight to Madagascar! When we arrived, we realized we were on “Malagasy time” when we waited about 2 hours at the airport before finally getting to the Antananarivo Peace Corps Hostel (all this at 2 am, mind you!).

We had interviews with our APCDs (bosses for each department: health, business, education, and environment), and we got to meet with the US ambassador to Madagascar. He talked to us about the political situation in Madagascar, which is kind of rocky, as we are the first “stage” to return to Madagascar after the evacuation of Peace Corp 9 months ago. It is unclear whether “democracy” is going to happen here, but for now it looks like there will be no more violence. Also, peace corps is known for existing in countries that have political systems different from our own, which I think is great and very important!

Anyways, left Tana (Short for Antananarivo) for the 3 our drive to our training site in Mantasoa. Here, we moved in to the most beautiful training site ever: right on a beautiful lake, complete with canoes and bikes, and towering above a beautiful little town with rice farms. We have moved to somewhere that is the complete opposite of Niger: filled with water, completely green (millions of shades of green, if you can imagine it!), and we eat more vegetables and fruits in one day that we ate in 6 weeks in Niger! Suffice to say, we are in a paradise right now…though there is still a lot of work to do!

 
Summary of Life in Madagascar

-The weather is amazing…some kind of mixture between Seattle and Hawaii. Beautiful, and definitely worth a visit (wink-wink)

-The political chaos is amusing: people refer to the president as “the fake president” and the governor Tana (capital, Antananarivo) made a soap-box announcement saying “I am the president”…then a coup ensued. Suffice to say, this is going to be an interesting two years here! Elections are planned for October/November 2010, but who knows! All we do know is that a lot of funding and foreign aid is being held back from Madagascar until “democracy” returns
-My site: I will be living in Maevatanana, between Tana and the port town/beach town Mahajanga. There is a lot of transit through this town, so it is a relatively high HIV prevalence area. I’m excited to finally get to work after weeks and weeks of training in two different countries! Soon I will be working in a large clinic/hospital (CSB II, they are called) doing health education, and I will also have the ability to do counseling on family planning and STIs at the clinic and in schools, and I will hopefully get my own radio show (“Text Joanna your questions about health and relationships…” or something like that. There is a famous “Joanna” in Madagascar, who won a singing contest akin to American idol, so maybe that will help my popularity).

-Celebrating the holidays in Madagascar: we had a wonderful Christmas, doing many of the things that we would at home: secret santa exchange, watching “It’s a wonderful life,” singing carols (in Malagasy), eating insane amounts of food, and being general sloths and gluttons!

-Otherwise, we have 1 more week at the training center, and then 3 weeks in a local home-stay, and then swear-in, and then installation at post! Can’t wait to get to work!

I will hopefully have internet in my town because it is a banking town, and if so, I will able to update you all more as well as arrange skype calls! Stay posted for the next few weeks about that! Happy holidays to everyone! Miss you all!