Update from Madagascar

Hi everyone, this is Annie. I'm posting this blog on taylor's behalf:


I’ve been in M-ascar for 2 weeks. Here’s the abridged version of the happenings:

I met 41 other PCV trainees in Washington D.C. and had a short orientation on July 19th-20th. Half of these people are with public health, and the other is teaching English. Anyways, on the 20th we sat on a plane for about 20hours, stopping in Dakar to refuel and landing in Johannesburg, South Africa for the night. Now this would have been a great opportunity to meet other volunteers in sitting beside them for 20 hours, but I decided to forego that situation. I had my seat moved away from all those hippies to get an exit row seat with GREAT LEG ROOM. However I still couldn’t get comfortable in this seat and for a few hours over the Atlantic decided to lay down on the floor with its massive leg room and take a nap. Apparently this is a big no-go in flights, and I was woken up and yelled at by a furious South African Flight Attendant . This was such a big faux pas that they came over the loud speaker on the flight to note to all passengers that sleeping under seats was NOT permitted. Now you have been warned. Back to abridged… The following day after the marathon flight we had another 3 hour flight to Antananariva (Tana for short), Madagascar and stayed a night there in the capital city. But we don’t go stay their often, as political coups in that city are as frequent as a 6 foot 4 white guy getting noticed in an African country where the average height is 5 foot 3. But don’t worry Mom, 1) We don’t go there during unrest, 2)I’m not the only tall white guy with the Peace Corps.

Anyways, all of our training is in a village called Mantasoa. This was a 2 hour, painfully bumpy, 10 person packed Toyota Land Cruiser trip. In that 2 hours we traveled a grand 30 Kilometers. Infastructure isn’t a selling point to M-ascar. As soon as we got to Mantasoa (just southeast of Tana) we met our host families and had out first night with them. Just a tad bit intimidating, as I knew about 3 words of Malagasy opposed to their zero of English and 4 of French, “Ne Pas Parle Francais”. So yea, that’s whats up with me, just settling in with this family, adapting to their affinity of white rice at every dining opportunity, and learning the language everday during class. Moral of the abridged version, I am alive and well, and I hope the friends and fam stateside are also. That was my best attempt at an abridged retelling of the past few weeks. But honestly, that’s like summarizing Moby Dick in a paragraph. If you are still interested, please read more! It’s the first time I’ve had internet yet so I apologize for the heavy load, but hey, you don’t have to read this all in one sitting. Take a break, I’ll give
you a reference point -> ((((((BREAK))))))





(((((RESUME))))))
Welcome back! So you probably have no idea what Mada is like after my abridged version. That’s intentional to keep you reading. But really, how do I explain this place to make any sense whatsoever? From a western perspective this place is completely nonsensical. Let’s give some highlights to emphasize my point. My neighbor in my quainter that quaint village is a band leader and EVERY NIGHT from about 7-9 play the same 8 minutes of music on loop for 2 hours straight. This isn’t your angstful teenage neighbor, rehearsing 90s grunge rock with his high school bros in the garage with thoughts of being the next Pearl Jam. Nope, think more along the line of Lion’s Club marching band. It’s a group of about 10 guys in their fifties and sixties playing wooden flutes and marching drums. And they couldn’t be happier rocking out while the village attempts to go to bed and ignore the Malagasy Association of Retired People Marine Band. I suppose a sense of community is lovely, but the 4/4 time of the bass drum is running a bit thin to me. I’m planning on introducing them to some Jay-Z next week for my sanity. I feel they would really embrace and appreciate the message of “99 Problems”. I asked my 18 year old host brother in
broken Malagasy “Tia Musikany Dadibe ve ianao?” or “Do you like the grandpa’s music?”. And he began to laugh hysterically and say “Tsia, Ratsy! Ratsy! Ratsy be!” or “No, it really bad!” I’m trying to stay optimistic and assume he understood me and was referring to the music and not my language skills, but either is possible.

So that’s an intro to my Village: Andrefany Poste.
Approximate population of the big AP: 60. Exact number of last names found in the village: 1 (yep, everyone is related to everyone in AP) Number of PCTs staying in various houses in AP: 5. FUN FACT: It is estimated that the total amount of teeth in place for the five PCTs MAY OUTNUMBER the total amount of teeth of the 60 malagasy AP natives. Yea, this town isn’t full of routine flossers…. But they sure have heart. All the 42 volunteers are spread out a few kilometers around Mantasoa in small villages like AP. But from what we have seen, the AP seems to be the poorest of villages. No running water, No
electricity. But they sure have hearts… and candles. When I leave my village of Andrefany Poste on my walk to language
class it quickly becomes evident that Northeast Ohio is aways away. It’s a 20 minute walk to the classroom consisting of decrepit and uneven muddy red clay roads, astounding views of the Malagasy Highlands, multiple rainbows occurring at once, and countless livestock running and marching without direction. Cows assumed to be owned by someone feed on the grass aside the road as chickens and geese get in fights only to be broken up when a Malagasy man blows past them in his 1970s Peugeot Bike with a basketful of bananas and pineapple. However, these sights are not the best on the walk to
class. The best by MILES are all these GREAT TRUCKS that transport various agriculture on the dilapidated roads as they splash muddy puddles onto pedestrians. What is fascinating about these trucks? Well, they are all MERCEDES! Every single truck you see is a Mercedes benz, its remarkable that Mercedes has made themselves viable to this third world country! Turns out Mercedes doesn’t really do that. If you get close to one of these trucks you examine the Mercedes hood ornaments, and then it hits you. Nope, these certainly aren’t Mercedes’ in Rural Madagascar. You get close to them and see that these ornaments are all chinsey plastic junk superglued over a spraypainted Chinese Manufacturer logo. Its done so shoddily though, its rare to even see the Merc logo at the right angle/alignment. So turns out all these trucks were Fauxcedes. Oh Madagascar..
Moving on, now lets talk about my salary. I rake in 35k/WEEKLY! Not annually, but WEEKLY! Quite impressive being out of college for 2.5 months. Well…….. not quite. That’s Ariary, not USD. 35,000 ariary approximately equals 16 bucks per week. That’s what I get paid during training when I don’t have to pay for any food or living costs as I'm with a host family. But seriously, with 16 dollars of expendable cash in rural Madagascar, YOU ARE A GOD! Would I like that soccer ball?
Sure why not, its only a buck fifty. How about a cell phone, well that will set you back a big 9 buckaroos. This money they give us is essentially for snacks or drinks and sanity during training, but I’ve been pretty frugal with the walk around money. A snack of fried mofo runs 100 ariary- or 4.65 cents, or about twice that for a small bar of chocolate. But I’m holding back. Why you ask? For the countless bootleg DVD collections you can find at epicieries or teenage boys cruising through town on their mobile blockbuster bicycle. I haven’t checked prices yet, but there are some good collections that I’m eyeing- such as the Keanu Reeves collection (featuring SPEED 1-3, MATRIX 1-3, and THE LAKE HOUSE), or perchance ill snag the SCHWARTZENEGGER VS JACKIE CHAN ACTION COLLECTION. You can’t make this stuff up.

Lastly, if you ever feel like sending me a letter, I’d love that. However, in this blog I have told 2 different locations that it can be sent to, and I’m changing it again on you. The address to send to is the original one provided, the one with B.P. in it. Sorry, my inconsistency in this department is becoming comical, but I promise you it isn’t intentional. I give you warning though, It will likely change again in another 6 ish weeks.

Thanks for your strength in getting through this monster blog. I’ll work on getting pictures up here sometime in the future. Keep the States wonderful everyone.


* This is Annie again, I've gotten questions regarding how to contact Taylor. You can call or text him at +261 346056067 (be sure to dial the + sign). He doesn't have electricity so his phone might not be on all the time. If you text or call him I'm pretty sure it's free for him, but of course he will have to pay to text you back, so if you don't get a text back from him, you know how much he likes you.