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.
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.
