Checklist of Chores to do Before Company Arrives

1. Remove visible dirt from the surface of the bed
2. Attack baseball-sized spider festering in the corner of the room. Preferably killing it, but wounding it and forcing the unfortunate creature to beat a retreat into the ceiling is adequate also.
3. Remove rodent, feline, and other feces from the floor.
4. Locate/unpack deodorant stick. Use liberally. Display someplace easily perceptible.
5. Inform neighbors and villages that the visitor in question is not your significant other. This will alleviate rampant gossip on the subject, but will prevent neither children from giggling and pointing, nor neighborhood women from discussing you and your guest’s relationship audibly as you pass by.
6. Remove wet/dank laundry from the furniture where it has been failing to dry since you washed it two days ago. Prioritize undergarments.
7. Open all windows/doors to air out the faint smell of urine.
8. Buy toilet paper or dismember one of the old notebooks from pre-service training.
9. Clean* dishes
10. Hide precious objects from America you are not prepared to share. (Oreo cookies, JIF peanut butter, some candies)


*any of the following are acceptable definitions of ‘Clean’
-Cleaner than it was before
-Clean enough
-I would consider eating of that
-It looks clean
-“Off-white”

Also while I am writing this at the Internet Café there is an overweight American man yelling into his blackberry at some unfortunate customer service representative. He can’t understand why his baggage wasn’t delivered to his hotel some 300k away from the capital by yesterday. He making me laugh.
In other news my cat caught the huge rat that has been menacing me for months this morning. She ate the head and the tail off it (which I can not imagine are the best cuts of rat) and then regurgitated most of it on my mat. I was very happy.

Isalo

Route National 7 is perhaps the most interesting road I have ever traveled. It runs over 950 kilometers from the capital to the coastal city of Tulear in the deep south of Madagascar. In that span, this thin ribbon of pavement passes through some of the most diverse and interesting landscapes in Madagascar. Starting in the Central Plateau, the road curves up into the Irish-looking Betsileo Highlands, skirts the Eastern Rainforests near Ranomafana before passing though the beautiful city of Fianarantsoa. The highway then passes within view of the granite peaks of the Andringitra Mountains and spills onto the grassy rock studded hills of the Bara tribe. Past the town of Ihosy the landscape flattens into a brown plain that could rival any plains state for its apparent endlessness. Suddenly, however, sandstone peaks emerge from the semi-arid plane at the base of which glitters the boom-town of Ranohira (meaning ‘water song’ in Malagasy). This town and the National Park which towers over it in the cliffs were the destination of my most recent adventure.
Mark, my partner in fruit tree crime here in Ranomafana, and the organization he works for had made contact with a woman named Monique who is interested in using the organization Mark works for to start a fruit and native tree nursery at her hotel near Ranohira and Isalo National Park. Mark invited me to go down in his car with him and fellow volunteers Alison and Haley came along for the ride as well. We got the trip off on the right foot by stopping at a local winery and buying mildly alcoholic grape juice in old glass bottles from a street vendor for 45 cents a liter. Lacking cups, we drank to the journey straight from the bottle like a bunch of pirates.
Passing the valleys north of the Andringitra Mountains we drove though a Malagasy edition of the 8th plague, namely locust. They covered the sky like a thick black snow and passed over us in a heavy cloud. After lunching in Ihosy we emerged on the vast Bara Plains where vast swathes of the brown grasses were being burned to encourage new growth in the spring for cattle. Arriving at our destination in Ranohira, we checked into our hotel and began sorting out dinner. In a truly Peace Corps attempt to save a few bucks we had packed the entire gas tank and stove apparatus into the back of the car with my pots, pans, dishes, and all the ingredients to make a Szechwan stir fry. Although we were staying at one of the lower class establishments in Ranohira, the sight of four Americans huddled around a single dome light chopping carrots and green beans in the parking lot of the hotel restaurant still garnered a few judgmental glances from other guests.
We took advantage of the Sunday work siesta to find a guide and journey into Isalo National Park. One of the largest parks in Madagascar, Isalo boasts some of the most spectacular landscapes, plant life, and unparalleled beauty I have yet encountered in Madagascar. The arid cliff faces that give the park its panoramic drama are peppered with a squatty relative of the baobab tree that can live up to 500 years old and present a truly impressive display of bright yellow flowers. Descending from the high cliffs into the valleys one finds themselves in a lush forest fed by natural springs emanating from the center of the park. These modest creeks cut canyons hundreds of feet deep creating deep clear pools of water that just begs to be cannon balled into by hot and sweaty hikers. These low valleys are the perfect home for all sorts of rare plants including palms and pandanis that grow into sizes and heights I had heretofore considered impossible. There are also large populations of lemur that inhabit these Eden-like microhabitats. Our peaceful picnic of packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches was crashed by two troops of Ring Tailed and Brown lemurs. It was all we could do to keep these ostentatious primates out of our food. When shooing them like chickens produced few results my beleaguered comrades and I tried to box the invaders off the table. In the end the assailants got off with a cracker and a banana peel and we got some neat pictures out of the ordeal.
Meanwhile, our entreats to meet with Monique were coming to nothing. Ignoring the itinerary she had e-mailed us in days previous she had flow to Paris and would not be back until after our group was leaving. Facing the complete failure of the ‘business’ portion of our trip, the elderly proprietress of our hotel recommended we go and meet M. Bernie. She made a few phone calls and arranged for this ‘Bernie’ to swing by and take us to his orchards on the morrow. Once arrangements had been finalized, the old hotel owner began making strange foreboding comments about our pending visit. “Well you know how Bernie doesn’t like people on his property sometimes… He doesn’t speak any English… Well, whatever the case your visit will certainly be interesting!”
Bernie screeched to a stop in front of our hotel at 9 AM the following morning in an oddly shaped white pick-up crammed with some mysterious irrigation equipment. A shockingly old man in a trucker hat was behind the wheel listening to piano show tunes at a level clearly audible from a solid 20 meters away. He stuck his head out the window, yelled something in French to our driver, sounded off his clown-car horn, and we were off. Bernie’s estate is on the boarder of the park where he owns 100 hectares of arid grassland and rock. There is one small oasis some distance from the paved road where Bernie was presently leading us. Upon our arrival, Bernie leaped from the truck and greeted each of us in Malagasy with a firm handshake. He was wearing knee-length rubber waders and a pair of tiny white shorts that displayed a surprisingly generous amount of thigh. Born in Madagascar in 1926, Bernie was on his 5th wife (the most recent of 15 years) had learned French and some eight different Malagasy dialects but had never learned English thus we would spend the entire visit talking with this Frenchmen in Malagasy. Once we introduced ourselves he looked me straight in the face and asked me if I was Catholic. I fumbled through an explanation alluding to my Catholic university years, but he interrupted me to point out a statue of the virgin up on the rocks. If I was Catholic, Bernie declared, I could say a prayer to her, if I wasn’t I could say a prayer anyway but I would have to pay him for it. I gave him a perplexed look and he erupted in a peal of laughter.
After he learned that we were Peace Corps volunteers interested in fruit trees his deeply tanned face lit up and he took off into his orchard gesticulating heavily telling us to follow. For the next 45 minutes we struggled to keep up with this loquacious octogenarian as he hopped from tree to tree pointing out his seemingly unreal grafting abilities. He also demonstrated for us some of his truly innovative methods for making pots out of pounded earth and his expansive gardening facilities. He was continually cracking jokes in Malagasy and continued lecturing us on his projects until he suddenly got back into his car, told us he was off to Tulear (some 200k away), and left us in a dazed cloud of dust. Somewhere between the jokes, excited jabbering, and solid advice Bernie gave us permission to hike around his beautiful property which we did enthusiastically for about 40 minutes before our hungry stomachs forced us to retreat for lunch.
This week I am doing a big training at my house for 16 farmers with SAF/FJKM. I also would like to point out that I have not received any mail at my ranomafana address since July so I fear that my mail is no longer operating here. My Antananarivo address is still working.

Domestic Life

Haley’s presence in my house over her ‘grande vacance’ has provided a welcome respite from the solitude that typically awaits me in my humble abode. Haley’s normal Peace Corps work, force-feeding English to pot-smoking Malagasy middle schoolers, does not provide her with much free time so she has been enjoying her time off in Ranomafana writing letters, reading books, and helping me with the occasional project. Most significantly, she has been assisting me in bringing out my inner homemaker.
Haley’s arrival coincided with a visit at the neighbor’s by Rodrigue’s mother-in-law, making room at the dinner table scarce and compelling Haley and I to scrounge for our own supper. Normally, this would have propelled me into a serious food crisis, returning to my staples of pasta & hot sauce or fried-egg-on-bread-slice. Thankfully, Haley came to the rescue. Having studied for months at her site under the careful tutelage of another volunteer who modeled herself as the Martha Stewart of Madagascar, she had quite the repertoire or recipes up her sleeve. My personal favorite being Szechwan green beans served over rice. After three weeks of cooking at home, the mother-in-law packed up and left so we invited Rodrigue and the family over for a dinner party.
Serving complex foreign foods to Malagasy is a risky business for Peace Corps volunteers. Horror stories abound of unsuccessful attempts to accommodate the extremely picky Malagasy palate. One volunteer who laboriously prepared pasta and marinara sauce had a child literally spit it out at her feet as the mother excused herself to cook some rice. I personally witnessed two Malagasy scoop out the insides of a single rice-stuffed tomato and not finding the rice to their satisfaction left most of the contents on their plate. Determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past, Haley and I prepared the rice separately from our Szechwan green bean & carrot topping and took precautions not to make the food to spicy.
When the big day came and everyone had gathered around the table in my living room Haley lifted the lids from the food and Rodrigue’s wife informed us flatly that she was not eating that. She then explained that she only eats traditional Malagasy foods and asked for some cold water to pour over her plain rice. The other more adventurous members of the family seemed to enjoy the food and everyone was pleased when I asked them if they would like to watch an American film on my computer once the meal was concluded.
Sharbaraz the cat is slowly coming of age and has been doing excellent work being lazy around the house. When my accommodations are no longer to her liking, she ditches me for the neighbor’s house and passes the afternoon shooting me contemptuous glances from their bedroom window. Yet, she makes a quick return whenever Haley or I return with food of any sort, bananas in particular. Given the opportunity, my cat would sell her soul for a banana. So much as touch one of these delectable yellow fruits and the cat will tear around the room, climbing on furniture, and creating a general ruckus. She will even go so far as to climb onto one’s shoulder and attempt to take a bite out it as I try to put it my mouth. I wouldn’t be very inclined to fuel her addiction, but this week she finally started pulling her weight around the house by catching her first mouse. Haley and I were both thrilled with this development and toasted her success by treating ourselves to pasta whilst Sharbaraz consumed the entirety of her prize under the table.
Though one mouse has firmly bitten the dust, there is another, much larger rodent still lurking in my house. This very large rat emerges from the wall each night, crawls up next to Haley’s bed in the living room and leaves fecal evidence of its presence for us to find each new morning. The cat is much more interested in trying to force her way into my bed in the middle of the night to waste time prowling in the dark for this serious offender. Haley has gone so far as to put up an entire bunch of bananas as a reward for its capture dead or alive, but Sharbaraz remains uninterested.
The cat has also proved worthless in defending the house against invading chickens. Rodrigue’s flock of poultry has multiplied to nearly 18 birds and they have discovered a way to wriggle under my gate and invade my deteriorating garden. There is one particular brown hen that cannot comprehend that she is not welcome around my house. One sunny afternoon when Haley and I were focused on an intense hand of Gin Rummy, the chicken in question came fluttering and squawking through the window landing in the center of our neatly arranged runs and sets of three. Having evicted her back through the window she snuck in through the back door and commenced in a serious attack on Haley’s mosquito net. On a third attempt she managed to trap herself in the living room for a solid minute as Haley tried vainly to forcibly direct her out with a broom. We later discovered this particular bird has a thing for laying her eggs on beds and being that the neighbor’s house was closed up at the time; the confused hen was attempting to deposit her goods on one of our foam mattresses. Next time this happens we decided to let her in and pocket the egg.