My apologies for my long absence from the
blogosphere (or whatever you call this place).
A number of confounding circumstances have kept me from modern means of
communication lately, and frankly technology is becoming more and more
daunting. Anyhow, I promise a more in
depth post ASAP, but for now here’s the brief version of what’s been going on
for the past month or so. Also, my thoughts go out to all of you affected by Hurricane Sandy.
The women’s sewing group here is finally
getting their act together. They are a
boisterous bunch, but we arranged and carried out a funded training and they
are meeting weekly to sew. They’ve also
started learning a little bit of English to help them sell to “vazaha.” Turns out my handwriting (not the same
cursive as every person who ever went to a school in Madagascar) is somewhat of
a hindrance to the learning process, but otherwise things are moving along.
Things in my garden are growing. I may have summer squash and lettuce soon,
along with the possibility of maize, peanuts, melon, and pumpkin in the coming
months. The compost is decomposing and
the rains should come in December, so I’m mostly holding out until then to try
anything new. I was hoping to do a
school garden but those plans fell through.
However, I have finally managed to find someone in town who is
interested in learning environmental things from me. He has plans to work on a pepiniere (tree
nursery) and demonstration garden and starting in the next couple of weeks I’ll
be dedicating a lot more of my time to working with him.
There are so many bananas here. Also the cockroaches are out of control. Probably unrelated.
English club is out of control—a beginner
and advanced class in Ambohimanarina and also in Manantenina once I week. I maintain that I am NOT an English teacher.
New vazaha in the area! There is an anthropology researcher from
Finland working in Manantenina now (1 km from my village). I thought my life was hard, but she’s here
with a 1 ½ year old daughter and living with a Malagasy family. We have been having what I call “no-rice-lunch”
weekly to relieve her from the thrice daily rice she’s been having otherwise. Talking in English and about life in the
outside world is a refreshing change.
Two of my good friends died within a week
of each other. Needless to say it kind
of sucked, but it’s also been a big learning experience for me both culturally
and personally (more in another post).
Sometimes I feel like Peace Corps allows 2 years of my life to pass by
while I only get the highlights, but clearly there are still some low points to
be had as well.
The days are getting longer and summer’s
coming. This means 4:30 AM morning runs
and hotter weather, but also that the litchis, pineapples, and mangoes will be
ripe any day now!
