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!!
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
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)!
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)!
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