Tonga Soa Manandona!!

Tonga Soa Manandona!! ( Welcome to Manandona)

I have not posted for a while as I was away from my training site to visit my permanent site and I did not have my lap top or WIFI.

Once again, I give kudus to Peace Corps for bringing in host families to our training site, some who traveled for 2 days to arrive and some who have never been out of their small villages, to meet us and take us back to their village where we will live and work for the next two years.

I have been assigned to a town about 6 hours south of the capital. The region of about 17,000 is called Manandona.  It is in the highlands and sits in a beautiful valley surrounded by mountains and with rice fields as far as the eye can see. The ride down in a taxi brousse was a bit harrowing as we were packed tight in a small mini bus designed to hold about 18. We were 26 – 4 children in the front with two adults holding a child on each leg.  Seat belts were not necessary, if the bus rolled we were packed so tight no one was going anywhere.

I can remember driving behind these buses in Honduras and Nicaragua.  Packed to the brim, people hanging out the sides, chickens on people’s laps, black exhaust spilling from the tail pipe and the bald tires wobbling as if it would fall off any minute. And I remember thinking “Thank goodness I am not riding on one of those buses!” Well, guess what, I am riding on one of those buses and all I can say is “Thank goodness I am in the bus and cannot see the back-wheel wobbling or the exhaust spilling out of the tailpipe!”

Manandona is in the highlands, with a cooler climate, which I requested so I could sleep at night. They speak standard Malagasy which means I did not have to learn a new dialect, and it is a large Catholic Community with a catholic school, a convent and home to 3 priest who serve the surrounding area. They are within a block of my new house. I sat next to one of the nuns on the bus from Antsirabe to Manandona and I took it as a good sign. It will get very cold June through September which is their winter months.  It can drop down in the 40’s during this time at night, but never freezing.  My site has no electricity expect at a small library built by the French government as part of a project to integrate French as a second language. As the only place with electricity, naturally everyone lines up to recharge their phones. I ask myself how can a town this size have no electricity but half of the people living here have cell phones.

My new home is in a building that houses the doctor, the midwife, and the nurse.  I have two very small rooms on the second floor.  I share an outhouse (kabone) with all of them which is downstairs and out back. I must admit I am disappointed at no electricity and must find a way for some light at night. Only one small window in the kitchen area.  But I do have a small tiled area in the corner of the kitchen to take a bucket bath.  So, I won’t have to go downstairs to bathe. Small blessings!

During my almost 2 week visit to my site I was asked to stay with a new host family and not my little “home”.  They were very different from my host family back at the Peace Corps training center.  They have three children ages 15, 13 and 10 and they were all a big help with the language. The language is still a problem for me most of the time. The most uncomfortable times being during meals when we exhaust the small talk.  We sit in awkward silence, staring at our rice. Then a dog will bark and I can say “bark the dog” ( which is the correct way to say it- the verb first) and everyone gets very excited over this statement and starts talking about the dog until they realize that is all I can really say and understand, then it goes back to more awkward silence. I sit there, staring at my rice thinking “I hope that the cat in the corner meows because I can also say “meow the cat” in Malagasy.

In addition to a dog and cat, the family also has 5 pigs, and a flock of chickens and ducks. The door to the outhouse does not close properly, but it doesn’t matter much because the opening faces the pig pen.  The pig and piglets are the only ones who can see me.  There are 4 little pigs, right out of Charlotte’s web, who always march up to the wooden fence and talk to me when I use the outhouse.

The chickens and ducks just roam about, even walking in and out of the house and hanging out at the outside kitchen area.  One morning upon leaving for the day I say in Malagasy something like ”That is a cute duck.”  Imagine my shock and horror when I came back at noon to see her neck wrung out and the last of her beautiful white feathers being plucked from her body.  She ended up on my plate that night for dinner. Something was definably lost in translation. I don’t even like duck!!

After that all the animals ignored me, I heard one of the chickens say “Don’t look at her, if she says you are cute today, you will be on her plate tomorrow!”

I visited the Mayor of the town, and the health clinic where I met the doctor, nurse and midwife I will work with. I also will be working with local health workers.  Trained women who work with families far from the center of town. My town includes many smaller villages surrounding the center. The farthest is a 3 hour hike into the mountains one way and I will be expected to visit this health worker now and then. The system is to have health workers in small villages, a few clinics with out a doctor scattered throughout, then a clinic called a CSB II  that has a doctor, nurse and midwife in a little large area. This is where the women come to have their babies and see the doctor if they or family members are sick. The closest hospital would be in Antsirabe, my banking town.

My work as a health volunteer will be to work with and train the health workers out in the villages. And to help at the clinic on vaccine day and promoting health practices to the people coming into the clinic for medical care.

My secondary projects will include the “Let Girls Learn” concept.  The catholic school and nuns nearby have already approached me about teaching a little English and working with a girls club they have in place.  I hope to build a small library of magazines and books in English.

Thanks to my old high school class from Carroll High in Dayton, Ohio I believe I can build a nice small library for them.  I must figure out a plan as I can only retrieve mail about once every 3-4 months in the capitol.

I have what Peace Corps calls a “banking “town.  A bigger town with a bank, grocery stores, WIFI, restaurants etc. My banking town, called Antsirabe, is an hour taxi brousse ride from Manandona. I consider this very lucky.  Some volunteers must travel up to 3 hours to get to their banking towns. I have already found a nice Norwegian Hostel with WIFI, and even a small gym with weights, volley ball court and beautiful grounds.  I will probably go there twice a month to get money out of the bank and post blogs and retrieve e mails.

I appreciate all the generous offers to send anything I need or want.  In all honesty, I know there will be things I will be desperate for, but at the moment the only thing on my list is a flush toilet!  When I move to my site in May I will meet with the nuns and see if they would like any support for special projects.

We have been encouraged to organize a GLOW Camp ( Girls Leading  Our World ) during our service, but that will probably not be until my second year of service and I will let you know how you can help out with that.

I would love to hold a newspaper in my hands from home to read and to use for some English classes. Any old magazines or old books would be great as well. Please note old and used – recycle what you have.

My Peace Corps address is:

Tamara Oberbeck

Peace Corps

Corps De La Paix  BP 12091

Poste Zoom Ankorondrano

101 Antananarivo

Madagascar

We are not a drop in the ocean, we ARE the ocean in a drop!

Uninvited, unwelcome guest in my room after the cyclone! He was as big as a saucer!