Sundays

With the recent re-population of the Route National 25 corridor with new volunteers, I am suddenly facing a new and strange phenomenon: American neighbors. Rebekah and Ally are now 21 and 47 kilometers away respectively opening up the possibility of a day trip to visit one another. Accordingly, we planned a weekly Sunday brunch.
An excellent opportunity to spend one day a week with university educated Americans and to avoid spending an entire day alone in my house with my recalcitrant cat, our little dinners have become the highlight of my week. We make the most of our time by having an impromptu American cultural hour before we start chopping the vegetables. Complete with poetry readings, scripture, favorite music, and book readings it is easy to forget that we don’t speak the mother tongue for the other six days of the week.
Food prep is coordinated by the culinary despot Rebekah which is ok by the rest of us because it always turns out scrumptious.
Emerging from our collective food coma in the early afternoon, we embark on a walk around whoever’s site we happen to be visiting that week. Last week, when promenading about the district capital of Ifanadiana, we wandered up the palm-lined avenue to the Maison du Chef de District de Vatovavy (French speak for Governor’s Mansion). As the center of administration for one of Madagascar’s 22 regions, the hilltop château gracing the top of the town certainly left something to be desired. The splendid wrap around verandah was collapsing in places, the moss infested gutters hung distended from the roof like thick vines, and weeds had re-conquered the careful efforts of the evicted French colonial gardeners. Presently a portly Malagasy man bedecked in athletic shorts and an old pocketed t-shirt advertising a local laundry detergent met us in the yard. In the course of our ensuing polite banter, this unassuming character revealed he was, in fact, the Governor himself. Still reeling from this somewhat surprising revelation, we were further taken aback when he invited the three of us inside to play a few rounds of Dominoes.
Entering the dilapidated mansion, we were led into a room decorated like the operation center of an Eastern European drug kingpin. Painted a deep shade of blue, the outsized room contained no windows or light fixtures. The only furnishings were a semi-circle of gargantuan leather chairs facing a rugged coffee table. In the far corner was a pile meter high stack of official looking papers positioned ominously next to a blackened fireplace. The worn leather recliners swallowed us with ease, although I quickly realized that playing a game with my posterior only inches above the floor and my knees pointing straight up in the air would be challenging indeed. An underling arrived with the dominoes and the Governor asked seriously if we would be bothered if he smoked, as if we were really going to tell him to abstain. Though the governor insisted on sitting out while the three volunteers played, he dictated strategy to Rebekah and eventually assumed praetorian control of her little white rectangles. Though I got off to a disappointing start, I managed to win both matches we played, shutting out the governor in round two. We lingered and chatted while he choked down his 9th cigarette before we excused ourselves. Though we had a great time, I realize we should probably desist from spending our weekends with the upper echelon of regional government. Next Sunday will undoubtedly be less eventful.
In a brief prologue I would like to submit the following incident as evidence of the monumental incompetence of what masquerades as postal service in this country. Last Wednesday, the unfortunate little postal worker who has borne the brunt of my ire with ‘Postera Malagasy’ and their failure to perform even the most rudimentary tasks, excitedly indicated through intense gesticulation that for the first time in four and a half months I had mail. Overcome with anticipation for the mountain of letters and well wishes from friends and family back in the developed world, I gripped the counter as he disappeared in the back room for a few minutes, no doubt he was trying to consolidate all my envelopes into a single box or at least wrap them up in a thick bundle of happiness secured with a strong rubber band. Beaming with pride, he emerged from the back room bearing a single envelope addressed to “Katie Browne PCV, Madagascar National Parks AMBAJA Madagascar.” It was all I could do not to throw the mishandled mail back into his beaming face and lend him a piece of my mind. Instead I politely informed him that my name is not Katie and that the person he is looking for lives some 800k away on the Northern coast of the island. Knowing full well that if I resubmitted this letter for delivery it may never see the light of day again, I resolved to hold onto it until I see Katie again in January. To illustrate my point a bit further, when the letter in question arrived in Antananarivo via airmail, the nincompoops at Malagasy Post only managed to get the letter 435k FURTHER AWAY from its desired recipient. Meanwhile I still have no mail.