you’re gonna poop in a hole – well that’s the idea anyway

I know some of you are wondering: how is my latrine project going? I donated but haven’t heard anything about it. Apologies. This is partly due to the fact that I broke my camera in September and have not taken any pictures of the project. I borrowed a friend’s camera this time to FINALLY update everyone and myself on the status of my project. Thanks Emily.

Total there are 9 double (boys and girls) latrines being built and repairs being made on 2. There is a total of 2 latrines already completed and the repairs to the 2 latrines are complete as well. Making a grand total of 4 completed latrines. They are being built at the (1) preschool, (4) elementary schools, (1) middle school, (3) churches, (1) market area/soccer field, (1) town hall.

All in all I am pretty happy with the results and the community members involved are really taking the initiative. Although it is frustrating when in the beginning we met about the project and planned it all out. Originally each latrine was going to cost a measly $5 (10.000 Ariary) but as we met again and again, we kept forgetting items – oh right nails! hinges for the door! latches so when I do poo I can have some privacy! The cost went up to a whopping $80 (160.000 Ariary), having me to submit another proposal and receiving an additional amount of funds on top of what I had already received.

But as it is keeping me very busy and on top of things, it is benefiting many people already. The latrines that are already complete are being happily pooped in and the community members as well as the local health workers living in the area in charge of the project are teaching about the importance of latrine use.

When I originally approached individuals about this project they were excited and they still are. And even Peace Corps said that people get excited if you tell them you’re going to build them something. Which in reality is true. They like the idea of using latrines and telling others that they use one, but are they in fact, really using a latrine. That is why the community members (pastors, school directors, local health workers) are all involved with educating the people most frequently visiting these public latrines on their importance. I, We know that we must poop in a hole – it’s sanitary, safe, and who likes poo everywhere?! I know I don’t.

In my last post I talked about the influx of diarrhea during the raining season, this is one way to tackle that. But in the end if every house/cluster of houses doesn’t have a latrine, it’s going to be difficult to prevent.

More photos are online on facebook, here is a direct link:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100871590218061.2774390.5017264&type=3&l=c8f0eb9551

In due time. When all latrines are complete…a celebration will take place with a soccer tournament with the middle school students.

Light and Love. (Thanks Abe)

Oh and updated reading list. Up to 48 books read, not as much as I’d thought.

First Latrine Completed!

This latrine is at the Catholic Church 4 km away in one of the smaller villages. It is already being used. More photos to come. Thanks for all who donated!

Why I Hate the Rain

In this country I live in – Madagascar – access to clean water is a scarcity. When it rains and I’m at my house, I get excited. I get excited because I know that myself as well as a few people in my village will collect the runoff and use it for various things; cooking, washing…what have you. In the past month or two there had two cyclones, Giovanna and Irina. Both brought torrential downpours and average amounts of wind in my region. Irina, just did her damage and left. Leaving 65 people dead in Ifanadiana due to mudslides and an increased number of homeless people, especially in the low-lying Sud Est region, which I live. Exactly 30 km south of me and 18 km north of me the road was washed away and transportation was left at a halt. The local transportation (taxi brousses – bush taxis) would bring people from Farafangana to the break in the road and people would then canoe across and pick up another brousse on the other side. Good timing for people in surrounding villages with canoes – they banked those few days, charging 500 ariary (25 cents) each way. I gave them my bags and walked through the knee deep waters which were flowing pretty hard and met the canoe on the other side. As I was waiting for the canoe with my bags a little old lady was telling me from the canoe that my bags are safe – she kept pointing to them. As she stumbled to get out of the canoe I held my hand out to help her and brought her to shore. She then helped the other passengers get out  and helped gather my bags as well – I guess you can say that ‘paying it forward’ really happens.

The story I just told was positive, adventurous and what not but the reason I hate the rain wasn’t nearly emphasized.

Stateside when it rains, its gloomy – people decide to stay in their homes, watch movies with family or friends, eat a nice meal or just go about their days at work or school wearing raincoats or using umbrellas. In Madagascar, especially Farafangana and my site of Amporoforo, when it rains people don’t really know how to react. They know its good for the crops and soil but obviously too much of a good thing is not a good thing.

Last February cyclone Bingiza was the largest in Mada’s history leaving 13,000 people homeless. Irina, the cyclone that left the road in pieces just a few weeks ago, killed 65 people – as of now that’s all that’s been recorded – but the numbers may be increased. Giovanna killed 35 and left 240,000 homeless. Homelessness in the low-lying areas by the riverbeds makes the top of the list – let alone the road to Ambovombe and Fort Dauphin which I  blogged about a year ago. But before and after reaching the stretch of road which evidently turned into a river, homes were torn down and flooded with water. Most homes in the area are on stilts of at least a few inches but the water surpasses it all. In passing these villages people were gathered by the roadside cooking dinner with a fire as they did everynight with a crowd of folks but this was different – as the sun was shining all there belongings were laying on the ground to dry – shorts, hats, mattresses, and the worn woven straw-mats that are used for both sleeping, eating and general flooring. Their faces plain as day – couldn’t tell if they sad, angry, shocked, happy. We’ll see the numbers after everything has been recorded but tis the season – and not the Christmas season but tis the season for torrential rains – road damage, mud slides, massive crop damage and an influx of cases of diarrhea and malaria.

The reason I decided to write this blog among all the other ideas and stories floating in my head is mainly the increase in diarrhea and malaria around this time of year. As far as diarrhea a massive increase in rain pollutes everyone’s water supply – whether it be a river, lake or well. Pumps may get infected  but they seem to believe pump water is always clean – that’s besides the point because my town doesn’t even have a working pump – broken. My water supply – besides water catchment when I’m home and have buckets to fill – is the lake behind my house. The reasons are endless for a pollution of the water supply but everyone’s and everything’s feces eventually ends up there as well as trash and debris. Let alone everything already settled on the bottom of lakes that then get shaken up and brought to the surface.

My reason for initiating and currently working on my latrine project at the most visited public places in my village is to try to decrease the percentage of diarrhea and to teach people that open defecation is obviously not sanitary especially during the rainy season. World Water Day is this Thursday the 22nd and my 2nd Annual Week for Water celebration will take place with activities and demonstrations all week. Currently 4 of the 9 latrines are completed and happily being shat in at the moment.

Malaria – which comes from the Italian word for bad air because way-back-when people thought it came from the air not necessarily mosquitoes – is a huge problem as well. One thing we are taught in training about malaria prevention is to dry puddles that me be near houses and to trim bushes. Mosquitoes love that type of moist warm environment and torrential rains pretty much wake them all up and get to work. Just the other day around 6:30pm I was sitting in front of my window as the sun was about to set and all I could see were millions (exaggerating)of mosquitoes flying into and out of my room and don’t worry Mom I’m on prophylaxis so no need to call Peace Corps and tell them I’m in danger of malaria. Most of the people in my village can’t afford prophylaxis, treatment if they are infected or a mosquito net that costs $1.50. If they have a net there is a good chance that the 5+ people who live in that house don’t all fit under it at night and its the most vulnerable children who are NOT SLEEPING under the net.

In the highlands – which is primarily the central part of the country and by far the wealthiest and most concentrated region. There is hardly any malaria because when it does rain there is adequate irrigation systems and plus the weather is rarely warm and humid like the southern coastal areas.

It seems I can’t get away from rains and winds. Florida has its hurricanes on a yearly basis and Madagascar its cyclones.The reason I hate the rain in the states is the occasional traffic and the damper on your day. Here its all depends on their well-being, the livelihood of themselves and their families, their houses, crops and livestock. Here there is no way of knowing a cyclone is coming – unless you have a working radio. Until it starts raining for 4 days straight and the sun never shines and roofs are being torn off of houses. Then you know but clearly its too late.

people have been asking

hello loved ones,

So in an effort to assist my family and friends in shipping me things, I have devised a list of items that I would want. Now, as this list may sound a little strange it is because I do not eat cheese and/or anything with flavor. (Flavorful cheese would be wicked awesome)

• Crackers
• Individual cheese pieces
• Velveeta packets
• Free condiment packets (ranch, buffalo sauce, mayonnaise – anything free)
• Spicy mayo
• Spicy ranch
• garlic biscuit powder (Bisquik)
• white gravy mix
• granola bars (Clif)
• soup mixes
• anything that is small and compact (food wise – and healthy)
• new books at the bookstore or old books at the used bookstore
• magazines (Time, Newsweek, The Economist, NatGeo, The New York Times, New Yorker) new, if possible or any date is fine
• gum/mints
• mouthwash – travel sizes

These items are a want and not a need. It took me a year to think of things that my family and friends could send me. Please do what you can. I appreciate all the love that I am getting, I miss all of you and hope you’re loving life as much as I am.

In reference to my projects, I have received funds for the World Map and will start production in October and have an unveiling for World AIDS Day in December coupled with a AIDS festival.

Thanks to all the donations for my latrine project. I have also received all the funds for that as well and will start construction in October as well with a lot of community involvement.

As you can see the next year will be very fun-packed and busy. This is the reason that I need flavorful cheese.

Much Love.

 

ganster’s paradise

Akory aby Raffaele! Alefa, mahira hira anglisy!

I hear this phrase very often. Hello Raffaele. Go ahead, sing a song in English!

They say this so they can hear English and what eventually comes about, is an uproar in laughter. Now when they first asked me, I had to think about it. It has been a while since I heard a song that I knew all the words to at the top of my head. The way I sing, is passionate. I clinch my nose, make a fist and pound my chest when the song hits the climax. The song that I decide to sing and the first one that pops into my head is “Ganster’s Paradise.” But not just one of the versions, both of them combined. The Weird Al Yankovic version along with the Coolio version.

“As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I take a look at my life and realize there is nothing left. And I’ve been laughing and laughing so long that, even my momma thinks that my mind is gone.” I realize that those are not the right words to the song, but I sing it anyway because it has now turned into a little performance. The kids laugh, jump around and dance. When I go to the next song on the playlist in my mind, ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ comes on. A ballad of sorts where my tone is more soothing and the kids then tone it down a notch and listen to the words. Just listen, not knowing what anything means. Until after I have translated it into broken Malagasy. Twinkle, twinkle little star, up above the world so high’ would be translated to ‘kitana kely, kitana kely, ambony, ambony’ – ‘little star, little star, above, above.’ Since I don’t quite know the words for twinkle yet. I do the best I can do.

I have become a human radio, at the flip of a question I can sing any song in English and attempt to translate it in Malagasy. Go figure…another skill that I’ve picked up while in Madagascar. Let’s just hope this time I can sing other songs but those two. Oh wait, ‘Notorious’ by B.I.G. was sung at one point. ‘No, No, No, Notorious.’

I guess I just want to be a ganster. I’m already living in paradise, now’s all I have to do is become a gangSTAR!

To PEACE!

i’m itchin’

So as I have been in country for a few months now as a “student;” learning the culture, language, fomba of my community (ways of my community) I now know what issues are most important and what issues are viewed by community members themselves. I recently presented my Community Diagnostic Survery (CDS) with help from my Program Director of Peace Corps to community members in February. This survey/report was conducted throughout my entire time thus far in Madagascar, in Amporoforo.  The timing of presenting the report was perfect because it gave the community members my sense of professionalism. They usually see me playing with kids, running around or telling people to wash their hands; which is all part of me being community integrated…but at this point I’m itching to get some projects started and get on a schedule.

I have started teaching at the middle school every Wednesday from 2-4 pm talking about various topics weekly and having discussions afterwards. This past week, I discussed diarrhea and the importance of clean water and hygiene. At the end of the class I asked who understood or was ‘mahay’ in the lesson and my neighbor, 11 year old Bakoli, raised her hand. I told her to come to the front of the class and take about the modes of transmission of diarrhea. I had a chart on the board of the four F’s…Flies, Food, Field and Feces. Each one depicting the course of transmission all stemming from a dirty environment. Diarrhea is the number one leading cause in developing countries and the majority of the reasons come from an unhealthy, dirty, crammed living conditions, and not drinking clean water or using latrines.

Which is going to be one of my main focuses during my time here. Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH). World Water Day is March 22, 2011 and in celebration I am holding a week long festival discussing the various issues involving water. Check out my blurb on the website and see what other individuals are doing all over the world that day: http://www.worldwaterday.org/page/3598

Each day is going to consist of activities and discussions with community members held at the local health clinic in which I work. Topics include, diarrhea prevention and treatment, clean and safe drinking water and hygiene. I have scheduled various activities throughout the week, that do not just tell people how to do things…I will be showing them as well. Giving proper demonstrations on hand washing. For the most part soap is considerably expensive for the people in my town, so there only option is to use ash in which they all have in their households. The granules in the ash scrub away germs and act as an exfoliant scrubbing away dead skin, which leaves the hand feeling baby soft. (Commercial slogan?) It really does! I’ve done it and your hands feel and are much cleaner. The month of March I’m going to focus primarily on water-borne diseases and clean drinking water.

So my projects that I’ve been thinking of range mainly from WASH, but some invloves HIV/AIDS and nutrition.

World Map Program – I was thinking about painting a large world map on the side of both the elementary school and middle school depicting the areas of AIDS around the world. Many children have no idea where other countries are in relation to Madagascar, not even Africa. This map will provide an educational outlet for kids to learn about other countries as well as the areas affected by AIDS, which is Madagascar. The children would help me throughout the project too, fun and educational! This I might be able to get funding for through one of the outlets from Peace Corps.

Improved water at health clinic – The rainy season calls for many families running to the health clinic, as it is one of few actual buildings in my town that have a roof and gutters, to catch water in their buckets and basins to be used for washing and everything else. My plan is to get water barrels and pvc piping and get some community members together  to build the catchment tanks. This way people can get clean water that live nearby, and the patients that come into the health clinic have clean drinking water throughout their stay or treatment. The clean water will also be used to properly boil and sterilize instruments used during procedures. I have noticed, and this is going to be extremely disgusting, but after the doctor has used instruments whether to cut an umbilical cord or clean a wound, the respectable family member is advised to clean the instruments…as a thank you to the doctor for treating the patient, I guess. What they do is take it to the lake by the clinic and rinse it off and then through the bloody gauze into the trees. Once in a while I’ve seen the midwife rinse the instruments with alcohol, which is good, but when everything else around  the instrument is infected that doesn’t matter. I know what you’re thinking, tell them to stop!…I have and this is an ongoing problem. General cleanliness within the CSB (Centre de Sante de Base – Health Clinic) is going to be my focus as well. Also smaller water jugs by the entrances of the clinic so individuals to wash their hands before entering the clinic and after leaving.

Also there is currently a water catchment tank at the elementary school which then flows into a hand-washing station which was funded by UNICEF. But it is currently broken, so repairs of this is on my list as well.

Latrine building – There is currently three latrines at the middle school which the floor has fallen in and therefore no one uses. Where do they use the restroom? They go far, is what they say. There are 140 students at the middle school and no where for them to go use the little toilet. There are 277 students in the elementary school and no where for them to go either. As you can see sanitation and hygiene is the most important issue in my community. The people understand that they should be using latrines but they do not build them. They say they are too tired to get the materials and no money to purchase them. One of my goals is to educate people about them and start building them. I have contacted some NGO’s; Catholic Relief Services, CARE and Land O’Lakes to see if they can help me out with this.

Pump Construction – There is one pump that is from a clean water source. This one pump is currently broken and is not enough for the 10,000 people in my community. Most of the women walk very far to this well to ‘mangala rano’ – ‘get water.’ I have an appointment with Caritas (RanoHP) which is an NGO north of me in Manakara that might be able to assist me with pump construction.

Fruit Drying – The elementary school day starts at 7am and lasts until 1:30pm. Throughout this time the children are not provided with any lunch or snacks and they get hungry throughout the school day…which leads to lack of focus and nutrition. Most of the children also walk up to 15 km to go to school. Fruit drying would be a great way to provide the students with snacks during school and also to sustain the enriched Vitamin A mangoes that are only in season three months out of the year. Mangoes, pineapple, banana and coconut are great sources of nutrients that are able to be dried using the sun. A volunteer in Ghana, I believe, has recevied $1,000 from sources back in the states and was able to build 9 solar driers using these funds. My hope is to reach out to some organizations and individuals back in America to potentially get funding for this.

Moringa/Ananambo – this ‘magical tree’ is full of nutrients. The leaves contain 7 times the amount of vitamin c in oranges, 4 times the amount of vitamin a in carrots, 4 times the calcium in milk, 3 times the potassium in bananas and 2 times the protein in yogurt. The seeds can be made into a powder using a mortar and pestle and used to treat water. The root can be mashed and eaten like horseradish with rice. They require little water and maintenance and grow in any type of soil. In about a year the tree is ready and the leaves and seeds can be used.

TOMS Shoes – TOMS Shoes, if you don’t know what they are go to the website…www.tomsshoes.com. They’re awesome. For every pair of shoe you buy a pair gets donated to a child in need somewhere in the world. Well Madagascar is not a country that TOMS Shoes distributes to. Some of the other current PCVs have already contacted TOMS Shoes to see if they can somehow include Madagascar and we can become a ‘Giving Partner.’ Brianna, another PCV closer to the capital, has contacted an NGO called CARE to see if they can be the in-country correspondent. In order for TOMS Shoes to work in a country they have to have a permanent in-country representative to house the shoes and distribute them. The 100 some-odd Peace Corps Volunteers throughout the country will be the liaison and hopefully distribute the shoes to the children in their respected towns and villages. The NGO has to have a place big enough to store a 20 or 40 foot container that can hold anywhere from 17,000 to 33,000 pairs of shoes. Hopefully in the next few months CARE and TOMS Shoes can collaborate and we can start distributing shoes soon. CARE is down and so are we.

Improvements to temporary housing – There are currently five houses next to the health clinic that are the traditional ravi (leaf) and wood hut known in the SouthEast and other parts of Madagascar. The floorboards are currently falling out and the walls collapsing. These houses are frequently used. When a patient comes to the health clinic for treatment and have to stay for an extended period of time the family is able to use these houses, to sleep in and cook in. The family usually brings everything but the kitchen sink with them. This is something that I will have to go through PCPP to get funds.

There are options for funding within Peace Corps but there are other options as well. The Peace Corps Partnership Program (PCPP) is a place where I can post the types of projects that I want to do and post it to the website and people from back home are able to add money to the project through the website and once I meet my goal of lets say $1,000 for a fruit drying project then I get the money to start it.

In due time. I’m itchin’ to get started.

Updated my reading list. Check it out.

Hint: Traveling during rainy season does not make sense

Four weeks ago four other Health PCVs and I embarked on a trip the the South of Madagascar. The purpose: to stop along the way and educate other Education Volunteers’ classrooms about HIV/AIDS, STIs and condom use. We would end our trip in Fort Dauphin, which just so happens to be paradise, and spend the bulk of our trip there, for a week, educating and discussing at roughly 15 different classrooms, of high school and university level.

We start our trip in Fianarantsoa, which is in the South Central Highlands where the five of us gather a few days before we depart and gather materials and plan out the logistics and not-so-much-logistics of our trip. At this point we are all really excited; preparing posters and materials for games.

We make our trip down south with our first stop in Ambalavao, Amber’s site, where we educate her three high school classes and help out at one of her English Club meetings. All of the classes we attended were two hours long, but once we got going, time really did fly. We presented the information; the main purpose of the trip was to educate students about the importance of HIV/AIDS, the myths about it, transmission, protection and prevention. We did so in a way that was fun and visually appealing. Posters describing the life cycle of AIDS, games where we blew up condoms as if they were balloons and placed a true/false statement in each and the students had to pop the condom and read the statement and decide if it was true or false. There is such a stigma about using condoms in this country that we wanted to let the students know that condoms are a serious matter but that they shouldn’t be scared of them either. It was surprising that most of the students, mostly the university level, mentioned that using a condom was like ‘Eating candy with the wrapper still attached.’ My response was, ‘Would you rather eat the candy with the wrapper still attached or swallow the candy and die?’ The rate of syphilis in this country is astounding with about 50% of all Malagasy people infected. This is due to the lack of condom use and the stigma against them. Most of the teachers said we got through to the kids and it was effective, I can only hope that the information provided they will utilize.

After two days in Ambalavao we head south again, to Ihosy…

the landscape on the national road to Ihosy

spending just a night at John’s site where we debriefed for a few hours and spoke about improvements that could be made and recommendations on the lesson. Mind you, we are not doing all this travel in a luxurious four door SUV with air conditioning, no no. We are all cramped in a taxi-brousse or bush-taxi, if you will. It’s ridiculously hot, flys swarming around everyone, random Malagasy people putting their arms around your shoulders; it just makes me smile. My life surely isn’t boring…at least that is what I tell myself. As you can see the road to Ihosy is everything but a road…a dusty, clay path is more like it. It was beautiful and easy to get through.

Our night in Ihosy, John makes for us a very crispy and juicy lemon pepper chicken. When we hear this, our taste buds start to juice…lemon pepper chicken, in Madagascar?! ‘Yea’ he says. ‘I have a guy that I buy prepared chicken from.’ Now coming from a small village, you start to appreciate previously prepared chicken, because if and only if I want to eat chicken I have to slaughter it myself – which can take anywhere from 2 to 3 hours…I’m not a pro. You can see I have to be determined and really want to eat chicken to prepare one, so getting on his bike to get previously seasoned pieces of chicken was definitely worth it. Thanks John.

We get up in the morning, make some grilled cheese sandwiches and head out. The brousse decides to pick us all up at John’s house which is very nice of them. John is one of few ‘vazaha’ or foreigner or white person that lives in the town so they obviously know where five white people will be staying. We get on the brousse and head south to Betroka.

There is not a PCV in Betroka so we spend a few hours there, in the pouring rain, being told we cannot leave until this afternoon or two days from then. We clearly wait around some more, talking to more brousse drivers and figuring out when we will be leaving. We finally get a brousse and leave.

Little did we know, we wouldn’t reach our next destination for two more days; Ambovombe. These two days were the most labor intensive days I’ve had yet in this country. Every 20 or so minutes we had to get out of the brousse because it got stuck in the sand, the road was ruined and we had to repair it, we ran out of gas, and so on and so forth. It was nice because the other people in the brousse we all a family. Grandfather, and his older children along with their older children. For those two days we became a part of their family, sharing watermelon and mangoes.

When we do finally get to Ambovombe we meet up with Paul and stay with him for a night. At this point, we are all exhausted, hungry, dirty, tired, annoyed and anything else you can think of, place here __________. Paul, the kind fellow that he is, has purchased a goat for us and that we would be having a feast at our arrival. The goat was deliciously tender and juicy.

Goat feast

We leave the following morning and head to Fort Dauphin – where we will be spending the most time, and little did we know, a lot of money. Fort Dauphin is paradise in my book…

the beautiful Libanona Beach in Fort Dauphin

We spend a week there at a Peace Corps Volunteer bungalow overlooking the crashing waves on the rocks below. For easy sleeping arrangements, I brought my hammock with a mosquito net attached and suspended it between two trees, by a clearing of land, that ended in a cliff again overlooking the Indian Ocean. Not a bad place to sleep, woke up everyday for a week and stretched my arms and breathed the most fresh air that could fill my lungs at that moment.

In Fort Dauphin we went to 3 university classes and 5 high school classes. Surprisingly, when we discussed HIV/AIDS one university student had a pretty alarming statement. He said that AIDS does not exist and it was a ploy for medicine companies to make money…and that AIDS came from America. When asked where he heard this information he said from a doctor, and he also said he was talking to this doctor at a bar. Enough said right. Well he was still convinced that America came up with AIDS and that AIDS equals Africa. Partly AIDS has its origins in Africa and as there are many assumptions on where it came from: SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus) came from monkeys when farmers were clearing out land in Africa for farming and they disrupted the habitats of sick monkeys and thus the spread of HIV/AIDS began. But who really knows. It was interesting to find out what African’s think of HIV/AIDS, and if this is what the majority believes.

Fort Dauphin is a beautiful city with everything you could possibly need. Fresh oysters on the shore, friendly people, but again for the beauty of it comes poverty and filth. There is an area of the beach, far from where we spent most of our time, where the locals just dumped trash onto the rocks by the shoreline. This doesn’t surprise me. Being a Third World country Madagascar and it’s people have more things to worry about then environmental protection, but this does hand-in-hand with their health, and one reason why Madagascar remains one of the top ten poorest countries in the world. Also the beach we went to was beautiful in it’s own right but you can’t help but glance over at the leaf huts in the distance and the people living inside with nothing but rice to eat and a straw mat to lay their heads at night. This trip was an amazing experience and I was glad I was apart of it and am fortunate enough to get to see such a wide array of Madagascar…it really is a beautiful country.

When our trip came to a close and we were all packed, having a reservation for the brousse to leave at 6am, the girls get to the brousse station about 30 mins earlier and give us, three boys, a phone call. Don’t bother coming to the station…the brousse isn’t leaving yet…the roads are horrible, or shall we say the road WAS horrible now it’s just a path with ditches unpassable by any mode of transportation. We go back to bed and think about how long we are stuck in paradise. Fort Dauphin is beautiful, yes, but being stuck there drains you just a bit. We went to the beach everyday waiting for a brousse to leave. And finally after two days of waiting and sitting, and going to the beach we head out of Fort Dauphin and make it back to Fianar, where we reconvene and relax.

The trip was an amazing experience and the traveling was quite the adventure as well. I do have to say one thing though, this made me feel like a Real Peace Corps Volunteer. We traveled around the country, educating people that don’t normally have a Peace Corps Volunteer at their site, a Health PCV for that matter. And making them aware of issues that surround them everyday and get a little spark going in their heads. So all in all, the trip was a success but what I did learn was this: Hint: Traveling during rainy season does not make sense.

Oh yea and I forgot to mention I learned how to surf and also met this awesome, interesting Rastafarian who gave me some wax so I can dread my hair, eventually.

I leave you with this picture of surfboards…the hat is mine and that is the board I used. I also leave you with this picture of me smiling on the rocks with the Indian Ocean in the background. It’s Irie here…no worries man.

relaxing

It's all Irie in these parts