An Easter Auction

 

After visiting our sites for 2 weeks we came back to our training center to finish up training. Once again I applaud Peace Corps for excellent training in language, safety, physical and mental health, technical training in what we will work on in our sites and Malagasy culture.  I feel well prepared to work here and at ease knowing I have a great support system in place to help me at any time.

Easter was upon us when we returned and much like Central America everyone took the entire week before Easter off and the Monday after Easter.  The training center is located near a nice lake and many families from the congested capital come to spend the week in a relaxed picturesque country town.  There are several nice hotels near the lake.  The town was packed with so many cars – well, OK about 20- but that is about 18 more than are usually in town.  Make sifts booths were set up and a lot of food and drink was sold everywhere. Toka gasy is the local homemade alcohol and very strong. Rumored to be made with gasoline or maybe they said it tasted like gasoline. I did not try it.

There were no Easter baskets filled with chocolate bunnies, no colored eggs, hams, special breads or any other “Easter food.”  My Easter dinner was rice and fried potatoes! 😦

But there was a church auction.  During church service, I noted a chicken running up the aisle and assumed it came in from outside. It had escaped from someone’s handbag and was there to be auctioned off after service.  People brought what they grew or animals they raised and auctioned them off after service.  It was a win-win for everyone.  People purchased chickens, ducks, eggs, pineapples etc. for less than they would spend at the market and the church benefited from any of the revenue. It was the highlight of my Easter, seeing chickens and ducks displayed for sale.

RAISE!!

Training ended after 3 months and I did NOT pass the final language exam. We had to pass with a very high level. There were 11 of us who did not pass and we will go to our sites and have a tutor for the next 3 months and re-take the test the end of July. Once again I am grateful for small favors of being able to study and work on the language.

There were many nights that I laid in my small room, enclosed in my mosquito net, listening to the mice run across the plastic sheet I have for a ceiling and thinking to myself ” Why did I think this was a good idea at my age?” Impossible language to learn, no running water, an outhouse with critters, a chamber pot I must empty each morning, and rice at every single meal. I have had literally 415 cups of rice in 3 months! Almost 2 cups at every meal including breakfast for 85 days!

But the good news is now that I have sworn in as a “real” Peace Corps volunteer I get a huge raise. While in training I made $2.00/a day.  I was to buy my incidentals – toilet paper, chemicals to treat my water, Kleenex, detergent to wash my clothes etc. My bed and meals were provided.

After swearing in I receive a raise of $5.00/a day – yes, a day not an hour. Now I have to buy my food (and it won’t be rice) my clothing, incidentals, gas for my two burner stove, bus fare to my banking town twice a month, hotel in banking town, etc.

On the positive side, I do not pay rent, I have no electricity or running water, so no utility bills.

The Peace Corps model has always been for the volunteers to live as close as possible to what the people in the village they work in, live on. I am making a little below middle class but not poverty level. After all, how can I advise women coming into the clinic that they need to feed their children better, if I do not fully appreciate how difficult it is to live on just a few dollars a day?

While in training one of our exercises was to make a complete menu for the day for a family of four with a $1.00 budget.  Some foods are free. There are seasonal fruits that literally fall from the tree and one only need to bend over and pick them up. Rice is about 0.20 cents a cup and beans are 0.30 a cup.  It was impossible to create a balanced meal for 4 on a $1.00 a day.  How can our world be so unbalanced – we have so much in the United States and there is so little here.

Before everyone starts offering to help me out, let me assure you I can live on this budget. And I challenge all of you to try and live on it for just a week, as a way to commiserate with me. Aside from your mortgage, utility bills and gas to and from work see if you can just spend $5.00 a day -even for a family of 4.  Use all the food you have in the house before buying more, no take-out coffees and limit utility usage.  Let me know if you can do it.

I will miss my host family here in Mantasoa where we trained.  On my first day with them they insisted I call them Neny and Tada – Mommy and Dada -and I thought that was so silly. They are 5 years younger than I am.  But as silly as it seemed, it felt good to have a “Mom and Dad” in my life at my age.  I think we all need to feel we have a “Mother” and “Father” who looks after us, not matter what our age.

They did a great job of taking care of me, making sure my meals were prepared with care so I would not get sick, walking me back to my room each night and making sure I was securely locked in for the night.  They have two rooms in their home.  One larger room with two beds, a dresser and table and chairs to eat on and a small kitchen to cook. I had the extra room out back to myself.

They sat with me day after day, each meal, talking to me like a little baby.  Helping me pronounce words.  Getting up and acting out a word until I understood what was said.  Living with them these last 3 months humbled me in a way that no other life event could have. They have so little and shared so much of themselves and the little they had. At each meal we shared they insisted I take the last spoonful of rice.  This type of living and the humility it brought was the antidote to my achievement driven, image driven, competitive life we all drown in back in the states.

They taught me how to make the local totovounjo ( peanut butter) Dada helped me roast and grind coffee over an open fire.  Neny showed me how to make my favorite “Sakay”- a Malagasy hot sauce. Not your warm, fuzzy types I was shocked when I left and Dada hugged me so tight and kissed me on each cheek three times – the local custom.  They made me promise to come back and visit them and I hope to keep that promise.

We had a very nice swearing in ceremony at the Ambassadors home and then we packed up and Peace Corps transported us to our sites and helped us settle in.  Most of us had to buy mattresses, stoves and furniture along the way.

I admit I am feeling both excitement and some apprehension. The last 3 months of training with 48 young volunteers – many just out of college was a challenge. Many times, I felt invisible in the room and their experiences in life are so different from mine at 63.  It was hard to relate to anyone.  I was so grateful to a few who made the effort to know me and include me in activities. I hope to find a few people my age I can relate to and work with at site. Everyone needs a friend now and then to share life with.

I am having a problem downloading my photos – I had a younger volunteer try to trouble shoot for me but he could not figure it out.  I hope to resolve this soon as I have a lot of photos to share.

Also a big thank you to everyone who sends a note after I post- it is literally what keeps me going – hearing from all of you back home. This is a lonely journey- and when you respond I feel like I am taking you with me.

You were born to be real, not to be perfect.

If we don’t feel grateful for what we already have, what makes us think we will be happy with more?