My Life Part 1

It is amazing how much one’s conception of normal can change in a year. I like to think that as I become adapted to the Malagasy lifestyle, the less material I have to blog about since what would once be considered shocking and worthy of excessive gawking is now literally ‘nothing to write home about.’ A text message from a friend that she had just boarded a taxi-bus with an 8-foot hammerhead shark strapped to the top elicits little more than a smirk and a roll of eyes from me. What I find more fascinating these days is the westerners who are fresh of the plane and are frightened of taxi-stations, have never squatted to use the toilet, and wear white t-shirts. Thus in an effort to better acquaint you all with my normal I thought I would walk you though some typical scenes in my life.
It’s usually some activity over at Rodrigue’s that gets me up in the morning. His chicken flock has been steadily multiplying over the past months up to some 30 obnoxious birds peeping, squawking, fighting, and cock-a-doodle-doing all about my yard. The flock is culled only be the occasional taxi brousse that comes barreling by and graciously kills one or two a month. Then we have chicken for dinner. Rodrigue’s industrious wife is also awake. She has to start a fire and have rice ready for breakfast before she walks Riza and Oni 1.5k into town for school at seven. She is also eight months pregnant. Although all my windows and doors are securely shut, there is light streaming into my house from cracks in the wood and holes under the roof. Soon the sun will commence baking my tin roof making my bed intolerably hot and forcing me to start the day.
One of my first and favorite morning rituals is stumbling about the nursery trying to find the toilet. The story of my outhouse and its exceedingly inconvenient location dates back to my original installation in Ranomafana last January. It is a Peace Corps requirement that each volunteer have their own private shack-with-hole to use. Mine was located less than 10 feet from Rodrigue’s kitchen whilst Rodrigue and company had no outhouse at all and made creative use of the bushes across the road. Eventually Rodrigue began to construct his own facilities back behind the nursery. This, however, resulted in the ridiculous and counterintuitive scenario where Rodrigue’s family would have to pass by my house to use the toilet while I was making daily visits to their house to conduct similar business. I quickly rectified the situation by insisting upon trading, accepting a longer toilet commute so that Oni, two at the time, could potty train at a more convenient location. This actually worked to my benefit last April when the path to the new outhouse passed though the avocado grove and my daily morning ritual resulted in enough fruit to make lunch.
The trouble started when SAF/FJKM decided to mow down the avocado trees and turn my pleasant jungle path into an expansion on the tree nursery. The nursery and resulting bamboo fence forced me to take a prohibitively difficult route over a muddy cliff, though the thick coffee and banana stands, knee high grass, spider webs, mosquitoes, flesh eating moths… etc. A slightly better alternative was discovered when Alison was visiting. This path ironically passed right past my old outhouse and required (don’t ask me how this works) climbing over the same waist-high wall three times. Alison proved not very apt at this and actually has physical scars from her Ranomafana outhouse experience.
Clearly this was not a sustainable scenario and after a serious discussion with Rodrigue, some choice holes were made in the bamboo fence around the nursery. Now, when I emerge from my slumber I squeeze though a vine entangled hole in my fence, climb down though the nursery to the litchi in the back where the bamboo fence has been thinned out, I part the bamboo like a curtain and make my way down the embankment to my outhouse. As I sit inside I take comfort in the fact that although there is no way to measure how much progress I am making in the lives of the Malagasy people in Ranomafana, I am making measurable progress in filling this hole with poo.

The Holidays

Christmas is not a tropical holiday. There are no silent snow blanketed nights. No sleigh bells, boughs of holly, or Fraiser Firs. Madagascar even lacks any form of large ruminid mammal that might resemble reindeer. Even looping my limited selection of festive Holiday tunes failed to inspire any Christmas spirit. One of the big aspects of Christmas in my childhood home was hauling the large box out of the basement and tastefully decorating our family living space with holiday heirlooms and color-coordinated Christmas tree ornamentation. Malagasy Christmas décor is comprised almost exclusively of oddly colored tinsel and other shiny plastic filth that could only be considered beautiful if viewed through a very fine kaleidoscope, by a raccoon. The taciturn store owner near my house had installed enough gaudy plastic cheer in her place of business obscure any potential customer’s view of her products, a frustrating state of affairs when pointing and gesturing are your preferred methods of buying daily essentials.
Closer to home, at Rodrigue’s, preparations were being made to be at church for as many as 12 hours over a period of three days. Something meaty, oily, and rice-y, was being proposed for Christmas dinner. With the walls closing in around me, I plundered as much as I considered modest of the finally-ripened litchis behind the nursery and made for the safety of the Fianarantsoa PC house with my trusty travel buddy Alison on the morning of Christmas Eve. After waiting 3 hours, cramming into a clown car, running out of gas, hitchhiking a ride in a semi-truck, and acting very grinch-like to the driver of a third vehicle, we arrived in Fianarantsoa. Soon we had forgotten all of that morning’s transportation miseries because we had electricity, internet, and an oven capable of baking pizza and Christmas cookies.
With Christmas proper behind us, we embarked on a two-day 950k journey across Madagascar to the Northwest of the island, near Mahajanga. Those with a history of heart problems, high blood pressure, or women who are pregnant or nursing should not attempt Mahajanga. Talk to your doctor or physician before taking Mahajanga. Side effects are likely to include poor circulation, peculiar rashes, headaches, temporary insanity, and foul disposition. My first destination was to be the site of a fellow Nigerian volunteer named Jenny. During training her site was talked up significantly as the mecca of dinosaur bone excavation and paleontology. This is true, for only two months every other year. Jenny’s house rests in a minuscule village comprising five huts 15k from anywhere. We spent two days there wandering about the dry, eroded, and treeless wasteland wondering why on earth people were still trying to grow rice here.
With an extra day to spare, Alison and I made haste to Ankarafantsika National Park where I had a South African friend doing research on Tenrecs, a nocturnal endemic hedgehog-like critter with penchant for injecting spines into human skin. Thankfully my friend’s specimens were safely caged and mildly sedated. The park itself was interesting not spectacular. The forest was featureless, dry, flat, and rife with wildlife. I fattened my list of birds, played with a chameleon, and got close enough to touch a lemur and took some spectacular photos (see photos). As far as landmarks, however, the only significant landmarks are a wide eroded canyon and a murky lake choked with water hyacinths.
Our New Years celebration was booked for the city of Mahajanga. We made our entrance at mid-day got a healthy dose of costal heat. Mahajunga is a truly special Malagasy city. Not only does the food and culture exhibit a mix of Indian, Arab, French, and Malagasy culture, but there are sidewalks and basic city services seem to function on a regular basis. Too many of us crammed into a single hotel near the ocean and hit the coastal boardwalk for beer and brochettes (fish and beef) purveyed by welcoming ladies at outdoor grills stalls. Joining Alison and I were 10 other volunteers from the Mahajanga region making New Years a happy convivial occasion for all involved.
Post-holiday plans included stops at the homes of my Thanksgiving-era friends in Tana and a 5 day “Advanced Service Conference” at the now nostalgic Lake Montasoa Training Center. The most significant development out of this event as far as the average blog reader is concerned is that I gained 5 pounds.