Farafangana

It just so happened that a Peace Corps vehicle was heading south on the same weekend as Alison’s (one of my good PC friends) birthday. Additionally I had some fruit trees and soccer uniforms that I needed to give to the other volunteers on the southern coast so it was a great occasion to take a trip.
The car arrived in Ranomafana about an hour early and Joanessa, Peace Corps head of security, jumped out to meet me. Peace Corps was sending Joanessa south to do security assessments on volunteer sites and develop new sites for other volunteers. Joanessa, with his gold-rimmed glasses and friendly smile, is about as intimidating as a vanilla wafer. This is in sharp contrast to our safety officer in Niger who
had arm muscles the size of bowling balls and is a former Niger national champion in Judo. He took one look at my house, asked me if my window hinges were ok and told me to get my things.
This was my first time south since the big tropical storm last March and the road south of me was still in a dismal state of disrepair. Near where my friend Ashley lives large chunks of pavement are sitting in rice paddies 100 feet below where it had been a few months earlier. Three months of work by road crews and earthmovers have made the way passable, but barely. Once we had made it out of the mountains on to the coastal plain road conditions improved, but the landscape was
rather depressing. To say deforestation is a problem on the coastal hills of southern Madagascar is like saying that the lost island of Atlantis has a water management problem. There are no trees save some scraggly ravenala palms as far as the eye can see in some places. It looks like African Savannah except no wildlife lives there.
The journey down was not all doom and gloom. We paid a visit to a volunteer named Tadashi because his outhouse had collapsed and the villagers were slow in building him a new one. While Joanessa gave the builder responsible some gentle encouragement, I noticed a peculiar tree growing next to the ruined latrine. The tree had big green fruits that were filled with brown flesh. The Malagasy call it “Voankazo Tainakoho” or ‘the chicken shit fruit’ because the insides resemble
the excrement of certain poultry. However, Dan Turk and SAF/FJKM have been encouraging people to call it “Kaki Chocolat” or ‘Chocolate Persimmon’ so that it sounds more like something you would want to put in your mouth. Dan and I have been trying to track down some seeds of this peculiar plant for months without success and I found one literally growing in a volunteer’s yard. I quickly gathered up about
50 seeds and a few fruits for my nursery and told Tadashi to collect every seed he can get his hands on.
The rest of the way down to Farafangana Joanessa and I did site development for the new volunteers coming in August. This involved a whole lot of hiking up hills looking for phone service and talking to local big men about the security situation in the area. We spent the night in Manakara at the ironically named Sidi Hotel (pronounced ‘seedy’). It was actually a nice place; the room even came with a color television, although it only had one station and the decibel level of the air-conditioner was enough to inflict serious ear damage. The next afternoon Joanessa dropped me off at Alison and Melissa’s sites.
Alison and Melissa live about two kilometers from each other in Lopary and Mahabo respectively. These two tiny villages of a few hundred people are located on opposite sides of the Mananivo River and the two towns do not get along. The only reason Lopary requested a Peace Corps Volunteers was because Mahabo had one and they didn’t want to be left out. The area around Alison and Melissa is about as poor as
it gets in Madagascar. There is a hunger season that stretches four to eight months and even when there is enough food, many families eat only breadfruit, a food with the nutritional value of construction paper. Alison and Melissa face problems at their sites that you can’t even imagine would be issues. For example: one would imagine that getting used to using a kabone (outhouse) everyday would be difficult.
During the rains in March Melissa’s kabone flooded to within an inch of overflowing and the gound around Alison’s kabone became so soft that it collapsed into the pit taking a horrified Alison down with it.
Both of the girls have houses made of sticks, leaves, and bark. This becomes a problem when the legs of the bed begin breaking through the floor. (Something which happened to Alison when I was there) Have you ever tried sleeping on a bed that is not level by about 10-15 degrees? Well I did when I spent the night at Alison’s and let me tell you it is almost impossible. Tired and sleepless Alison tried cutting at her mattress with a kitchen knife as if it were a big coffee cake at 1:00 in the morning in a desperate attempt to correct the problem, but we ended up having to tear apart the entire bedding apparatus anyway.
The next morning, on about four-five hours of sleep, we hiked five kilometers to Melissa’s CSB (local health clinic) because a population control NGO was in town doing vasectomies and tubal ligations. The health hut was about five rooms and there was a long line of women outside waiting for the doctor. The cost of an operation was 500 ariary or about 25 cents. One woman there was 28 years old and was already the mother of 8 children. Unfortunately here in Madagascar, birthing eight kids at a young age does not get you a multi-million dollar reality TV contract, cover-shoots with People Magazine or guest appearances on Dancing with the Stars. It lands you in a big mess of poverty. After a morning at the CSB, we went out and investigated
Alison’s sweet potato field and paid a visit to the Missouri Botanical Garden’s tree nursery in Mahabo.
On Friday Joanessa returned from his work to give us all a ride in Farafangana. Farafangana is a coastal town and is the district capital for Alison, Melissa, and two other Volunteers who met us at the hotel when we came in. The five of us booked a single hotel room, changed into swimsuits and hit the beach. Unlike Mananjary, Farafangana has special beaches where people can go and swim without worrying about
deadly undercurrents or the occasional Lincoln Log floating by. Although we did have to share the palm trees and spectacular ocean views with a herd of cattle. That night we grabbed some beer and street food and watched the first game of the World Cup on a hotel TV the size of a toaster oven. Then, to celebrate Alison’s birthday, we went out dancing at Farafangana’s only night club. We were the only whities in the place but that didn’t bother us at all. So we danced the night away to Malgasy tunes and did not retire to our hotel room before 1:30. It was an excellent way to end the trip.
I have another busy week this week. Going to Fianarantsoa on Thursday and have some people from SAF/FJKM coming to expand the tree nursery.