Tuesday, October 23, 2007

A Letter Home Part I

Becca's plans to post interesting stories on her blog have been somewhat hindered by her lack of internet access. She recently sent a letter home and asked if I could post it for her. Mail from her training site in Madagasca (very slow) is not much more efficient than email (nonexistent). This letter was written during her first 2 days with her host family and is dated September 29 and September 30. Becca's letter is very long and detailed. My typing skills are not a good match. I will attempt to include excerpts from her letter which I hope will provide a good picture. Laurie Greene


September 29
Manihoana (hello) from Madagascar!...I hope you guys are doing well. I'm honestly fantastic. Today was my first full day in Malutsitady, our training village. We got in last night and went to our homestays. My host) "parents" are amazing. I say "parents" because my mother is only 24 and my father is 27, but they still have me call them neny and dada, (Mom and Dad). They have a 20 month old daughter, Aina, whmight just be the happiest baby I've ever seen. Her Malagasy is only slightly better than mine, so we're learning together. My "father" is a teacher and my "mother" sells yogurt and helps out at a health clinic once a week. They have a little English and French - not enough for conversations, but enough so that we spent last night pointing at things and saying their names in Malagasy, then French, then English. My "parents" would point at something and have me repeat its Malagasy name , then have Aina say it, then we'd say it together in French and I'd say it on English, then they'd repeat. It was good that this process was so long, since we couldn't have carried on a real conversation if we wanted to. This is a really interesting experience for me - I've never had to learn by immersion before. Every other time I've gone to another country, I'e already spoken the language. This is rough, but I'm doing okay.

Today my parents were at a wedding when I was supposed to come home for lunch, so I ate with Laza, my father's brother. It turns out he has a decent bit of both English and French, so we actually managed to converse over lunch and he taught me a ton. I think he's going to be an invaluable resource. Tomorrow, when my "parents" go to church, Laza is going to the house of Ben, one of the other trainees, to watch Ben's host siblings while his host Mom goes to a wedding. I'm going to go as well, so Ben, Laza, and I can hang out and teach/learn various languages. I'm really looking forward to it. In the afternoon, a bunch of trainees (Mpiotana) are meeting up to gp explore - today we explored the market, which is on the main road - about 20 minutes away. Everywhere we go we say "Manihoana" to whoever we pass _ unfortunately, if they ask us anything more complicated than our names or "what's up?", we have no way to respond. Still, they appreciate that we're trying. Mainly, they laugh at us, especially Maggie and Justin, who are 6' and 6'4", respectively.

Our village has neither electricity nor running water, which hasn't been too hard to cope with so far. I took my first bucket bath today - not too bad. My mother warmed the water for me on the stove. I'm writing this by candlelight, since it has been dark since about 5 p.m. The darkness here is like nothing I've ever experienced. Because there is no electricity, there are no streetlights or anything.By 6:30 pm, it is pitch dark. We wake up around 6 am to shower, eat breakfast, and go to class at 8, but as Jayne (another trainee) pointed out today, there are a lot of hours between 7pm (when we finish dinner and go to our rooms) and 6 am. Last night I was in bed by 8 and asleep (after reading a bit) by 9, so waking up to the roosters at 5:45 was no big deal. We aren't allowed to leave our houses after dark because of dogs (alikia) and- I'm not kidding - witches (mpamosavy). Our safety coordinator threw that out today, and I must say, I can't wait to hear more about the witches. One of the administrative people suggested I ask my family for stories - I pointed out that I would not understand them. Maybe in a few weeks. The many hours between 7 pm and 6 am provide plenty of time for journal writing and reading, not to mention the homework that we'll start receiving Monday.

...going back to arrival...In Tana, we spent the night at Mera, ther PC transit house where PCTs and PCVs spend the night when they have to go into Tana. We got rabies shots and dinner and then questioned the PCVs who'd come to train us before bed.

In the morning, we got HepA/B shots and did several interviews. I did medical first and was issued an intensive medical kit, including cipro, mefliquine,a blood smear kit, a couple weeks worth of malaria medication, syringe, a thermometer, bandages, etc, etc.Then I had my technical interview, which was intersting. It was intended to help determine my site - which will be announced next Friday (Oct. 5). The technical coordinators were very excited to hear that I had experience with sexual/reproductive health and asked if I could give talks on conception. Apparently the MOH is actually the Ministry of Health and Family Planning and they are making contraception a huge priority. ( Abortion is illegal, but happens all the time.) It sounds like the nutrition thing may have been a very broad guideline - if I had to guess, I'll be doing much more with family planning, which is fine by me. It also sounds like I should have plenty of opportunities to do a secondary project with malaria if I want to.I also had an epiphany that I'd love to come up with some project having to do with local fairy,folk tales, if I can come up with something interesting to do. My last interview was with the country director, Bill Bull, who basically spent the whole time telling me that nothing is ever shared between PC in the US and PC Madagascar, except medical info. He clearly recognized the absurdity of it, but that's how it is. It also became obvioous that this is in no way a French speaking program, no matter what my placement officer may have said, which is also fine. i'm doing my beat to pick up Malagasy, and have faith that by the time I get to my site, I'll have enough to function.

No comments: