Your Burning Questions Answered: Installment 1

Now that I'm in the US and constantly on the internet my ideas for blog posts have substantially dwindled.  Since there isn't really much exciting adventuring going on in my life I'm going to try reworking the blog a little bit.  Here's attempt number one: Your Burning Questions Answered.

What I found out this weekend (other than that all my friends are still cool and still like me, hooray!) is that y'all have a lot of questions for me.  A lot of the same questions.  Perhaps I can answer some of them here and save conversation space for the weirder inquiries or for you to talk about yourself or for us to stare awkwardly at each other, because I'm good at that and sometimes I miss it.  So, without further ado, here goes.

Question: Are you in, like, culture shock.
Answer:  YES.
Further elaboration available in future conversations or potential future posts.


Question:  So what was your job?
Answer:  Those of you who have been following along should already have some ideas about this.  (If you didn't follow, feel free to see the archives from May 2011 to April 2013.)

Technically speaking, I was a Peace Corps volunteer in the environment sector.

Leaving the technicalities aside, the job title doesn't have a whole lot of meaning on its own.  Everyone's "Peace Corps experience" is different (even within one country like Madagascar), and if you're curious about the Peace Corps in general and not just me, you should do some further reading.  I lived in the northeastern part of Madagascar that is famous for its vanilla production.  I didn't really have any NGOs or other or organizations in my village to work with, so I worked directly with community members.  Being the first PCV to live in Ambohimanarina meant I spent a lot of time just explaining Peace Corps and what the heck I was doing there.

The Peace Corps has 3 goals which are basically: (1) train natives in useful skills, (2) share American culture with natives, and (3) share other cultures with Americans.  I don't think you can over-emphasize the culture sharing (goals 2 and 3).  Probably about 90% of my experience was learning about their daily life (how to winnow rice, how to grow it, what a funeral is like, etc) and talking about American daily life.

Outside of sharing culture some of the stuff I worked on was: leading community meetings to discuss local needs, building fuel-saving cookstoves, teaching a weekly English club, working with a women's group on income-generation via the nearby national park, teaching composting, teaching a non-traditional rice farming technique, and discussing work plans with environmentally-minded community members.

But really, what Americans would consider my "job" occupied a very small fraction of my last 2 years.  Just living in Madagascar is in itself a time-consuming thing.  I had my own house which I cleaned (including sweeping and mibrousse-ing the floor aka waxing/buffing it with a coconut husk), and everyday chores become extra long when you remove certain amenities like running water and electricity (fetching water from the taps, doing the laundry by hand, cooking everything from scratch, shopping every day for perishable items).  Then there was fun stuff, like hanging out with friends, reading, learning to sew, and being a dispenser of toys for small children.


Question: How was it?
Answer:  It was indescribable.  Maybe all the cliches fit in here, because it was amazing and life-changing and pretty darn cool, but it was also frustrating and challenging and a bit annoying at times.  Peace Corps is certainly one of those things you need to do to truly understand.  Overall, I'm very glad I did it and I know I gained a lot out of it.  Day-to-day life in Madagascar made that hard to realize at the time.  It's easy to sit here in the US now and reminisce about all the great times I had and the great people I met, but it's also difficult to gloss over the struggles of seeing so much poverty, encountering a lot of apathy to work that I thought was only helpful, or just plain being harrassed because I am a white woman.

All-in-all, I'm still processing the whole Madagascar thing and probably will always be.  So, I'll do my best to answer your questions in the best way possible when I am able.  Keep checking back for further answers.  Right now I'm working on questions I've simply heard in conversation, but if you have any just send me a comment and I'll try to answer them in future installments.

Warm welcome

So it's been just over a week since I got back to USA, and boy, what a week!

Last week I landed in Hawaii to vacation with my mom, sister Meredith, and Meredith's boyfriend Craig.  We went to Kauai, the most un-developed Hawaiian island and it was beautiful.  We spent the week enjoying the sun at the pool and beach, snorkeling, kayaking, taking an awesome helicopter tour of the island.  Pretty darn awesome.  There's a lot to do, so I guess I'm going to add Kauai to my ever-lengthening list of places I want to go (/return to again) in my life.  Any tips on how to make money and travel the world would be much appreciated.

After Hawaii I hopped a plane and headed back to North Carolina.  Hello, continental U.S.  I spent the weekend in the Triangle for a wedding.  I have to admit the prospect was kind of scary to me: lots of white people, including strangers, in a formal setting.  It turned out to be a blast.  I received a really warm welcome by everyone, and got to dance the night away (one of my favorite activities).  I also got to see some of my best friends in the world and celebrate with them, which was pretty exciting.  It went by fast, and I really hope I can get to spend some better one-on-one time catching up with everyone in the coming weeks.

Now it's on to visiting the family, which should be just as rewarding.  I'm on the job hunt, but have already had one interview and another interview is scheduled, so that's pretty encouraging.  If you know of any school gardens out there looking for helpers, let me know!

Thanks to everyone who has warmly welcomed me back to USA, I have a phone now so please feel free to call or text because I'd love to catch up.  I'll be bouncing around along the east coast over the next few weeks, so I hope to see you around!

Hello, USA.

Seven planes, three buses, a smattering of subways, skytrains, taxis, boats, and some walking thrown in for good measure and I made it back to America.  (USA, not actually home yet, but it is America.)

Whoa.  People are driving on the right side of the road.  I spent US dollars and boy did they look weird.  Do you know how nice it is to buy something without converting the price in your head?  People have no accent that is noticeably different from mine.  They are speaking English, beautiful English.  I can read the signs.  Things are measured in miles and farenheit.  Whoa.

The night before I left Bangkok felt strangely familiar and completely different.  I spent the night, like so many nights in Madagascar, packing more things into my bag than I ever thought would fit, then watching TV on my computer in a hotel room.  I had that strange feeling that is half “I can’t wait to get home” and “I don’t wanna leave.”  Only this time “home” meant America, it meant flying on a big fancy plane, it meant a totally different life. 

I’m excited to be in America, to see my friends and family.  I’m excited about bagels and apples and salads, washing machines and refrigeration and being able to call you whenever I feel like it.  I’m sad that my travels are over and definitely feel like I need to spend more time exploring both Asia and Africa.  I’ll miss the mangoes and rice and constantly warm weather, having conversations that consist completely of drawn out vowel sounds and checking my email so infrequently that there’s always something interesting in the inbox.

I got to the U.S. and immediately got an email about a job interview—great news but also a scary reality check, I need to figure out the next step.  I need to figure out how to be an American in America again.  I went to a coffee shop and ordered a bagel, and the clerk asked me if I was sure that I wanted it, seeing as they didn’t have a toaster.  Seriously?  Of course I want that bagel.  And what the hell is a toaster?

So thanks again for following along on my Malagasy adventures.  Stay tuned for accounts of my re-adjustment, I’m sure it will be entertaining.

Bangkok

Last stop in Asia: Bangkok.

This city is huge and bustling.  There's about a million bus lines, a billion taxis, a gillion buddhas, and everything is written in Thai so I feel pretty much lost at all times.  Perhaps I should have stopped here earlier when I was more fresh in my travels, but here I am anyhow.

My first couple days in Bangkok have been pretty nice.  There's been wandering in ancient temples and admiring golden buddha after golden buddha, checking out the markets and the malls, eating from the food vendors all over the place, wandering the streets aimlessly...

Bangkok traffic

At Wat Pho

Wat Pho reflection

First food stall meal

Enjoying the view from the rooftop at the first guesthouse

Orchids at Museum of Floral Culture (really cool museum, by the way)

Take out dinner from the food stalls.  Yum!

Malaysia: Part 2

 So it seems that I have a volunteering problem.  Maybe someday I’ll actually get paid to work…

I spent the last week volunteering on the Perhentian Islands with Ecoteer.  I’d definitely recommend the organization, and the vacation spot.  I was on Pulau Perhentian Kecil, living and working in the local Malaysian village.  The week was a much needed retreat from traveling in cities and provided the perfect balance of local life and island relaxation.  I met some beautiful villagers and interesting people from around the world.  I spent the week teaching English, gardening, cleaning up the environment, eating delicious Malay food, and snorkeling some incredibly beautiful beaches with lots of corals and sea life.  Here are some photos to summarize the experience (thanks to other volunteers/interns/staff who also took some of the photos):

Snorkeling

Butterfly-making craft time

Yummy Malay dinner

Game time

Boats on the island

 

Local women's group teaching us to cook Malay food

I’m off to Bangkok for a few days before I finally hit American soil in Hawaii.  I’m excited to see Bangkok but also ready to get back to USA, my friends and family, and not carrying my enormous backpack everywhere.

Malaysia: Part 1

Well, I’m in Malaysia.  I hadn’t really thought about visiting Malaysia, but as it lays smack in the middle of Singapore and Bangkok, my cities of arrival and departure, here I am.  So far I’m having a good time here, though I am definitely realizing that I’m not that great at being a normal tourist.  I don’t want to go shopping or stop for a photo-op every 5 seconds, cities and large masses of people are rather intimidating to me.  I’m missing the quietness of the village a little bit.

My first stop in Malaysia was Melaka (sometimes spelled Malacca).  It’s a small-ish town on the west coast.  Melaka has some pretty interesting history; it was an important port for the spice trade and has been ruled at various times by the Chinese, British, and the Dutch.  So there’s a mix of everything from old churches to temples.  Some parts of Melaka are quaint and would make any guidebook writers describe the town as “sleepy”—there’s brick sidewalks by the river and murals painted on the walls.  There’s old antique shops and stores making homemade pineapple cookies (yum!). 

Unfortunately, they also mix in a healthy dose of tourist trap in Melaka.  The town was recently named a world heritage city and they seem to be capitalizing on that as much as possible.  I discovered that while there are some decent museums, there are scores of “museums” in town and a lot of them are just stores trying to lure you in, or are still in construction.  Plus, due to its proximity to Kuala Lumpur, busloads of tourists are wandering around the center of town all day long. 

In Melaka, I enjoyed wandering the streets, visiting the historic sites on the hilltop, and looking in the antique shops.   It was a little funny to see charcoal powered irons and tin plates in the antique shops when my neighbors (and sometimes myself) were using those exact things just 2 weeks ago.  I had to laugh at the pimped-out trishaws pedaled by smiling old men, but it didn’t take long before the masses of photo-snapping tour groups and junk gift shops drove me slightly insane.

My next stop was Kuala Lumpur.  I didn’t really know what to expect here and it felt pretty much like a generic city—lots of people, traffic, and shopping malls.  I don’t really know what it is with Asia and their huge, air-conditioned shopping malls, but man are there a lot of them!  Shopping can be fun and necessary, but not really what I’m looking to do on my vacation. 

Navigating the public transport in KL was one of the most frustrating experiences I’ve had on this trip.  I feel like I can say I have some good experience with public transport having used it in various cities, but this was by far the most confusing system I have ever seen.  Traveling by subway required buying a new token every time you had to change lines, which was often, and stations that were “connected” had unmarked pathways between them that were incredibly poorly labeled.  By the end of the trip I adopted a strategy of avoidance for the subway.

To me, Kuala Lumpur was the opposite of Melaka: on first glance it seemed like a tourist haven but after further exploration I did find a lot of cool things to do in KL.  I visited Merdeka Square, where they first raised the flag of independent Malaysia, browsed the textile museum (Malaysia is famous for really beautiful batik and woven cloth, among other textiles), went to the Batu caves (caves just outside town where they’ve built in a bunch of temples), visited a craft center where I got to paint my own batik, and even saw the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra.

My next stop is the beach in northeastern Malaysia.  I really need to get out of the city and relax for a while.  I’ll check in after that, hopefully much more relaxed!

Murals along the river in Melaka

Pineapple cookies

Pimp my trishaw

This is what hanging out in a tourist town makes me feel like.
Also why I shouldn't be aloud to be my own photographer.

Merdeka Square, Kuala Lumpur.

Batu Caves entrance

Inside the caves

Temple in the caves