Translation: What is the best smell?
A question posed to me by friend the other day. Discuss.
Major breakthrough. I have always felt that keeping a journal was a tremendous bore/chore, and until recently all my journal entries had been motivated by a nagging guilty feeling that someday I'm going to regret not having a record of my time in Madagascar. But recently I've discovered that I actually enjoy writing short little notes in my journal when wierd or funny things happen to me, and sometimes I even keep writing after that, and can therefore trick myself into writing things about my day-to-day life here as well. But never about feelings. That would be awkward, forced, and cheesy.
So today I think I will include some of these stories. But first a short summary of what I've been doing since I last wrote. The most exciting thing to happen at my site in the past month was the Kaominina Mendrika Festival on January 18. Kaominina Mendrika ("Champion Commune") is a program of a USAID-funded NGO called SanteNet. Last year my commune was chosen for the program, which meant that they set health-related goals for themselves and then members of the community were trained to give "sensitizations" and talk to people about improving public health in the commune (basically what my job is). They had a year to reach their goals and they were supported by an NGO in the area. They were just finishing up when I was installed at site in December, so the festival in January was to celebrate meeting their goals. The festival was a really big deal. I've mentioned that my site is very quiet and very rural. January 18th it was not. We had electricity, via a gasoline generator. There were cars. There was a cameraman from TVPlus, the local station. There was very loud music.
It is malagasy tradition to start all festivals/events of any sort with kabarys (speeches) by all of the officials. Someone mentioned to me during training that if you live in ambanivolo (the country) you will probably be considered one of the important people, and have to kabary. This turned out to be true. At about 5 the day before the festival my counterpart came up to me and said "Jayne, do you want to mikabary tomorrow?" I said no. He said "Hmm, well you have to. I will help you write it." And write it he did. It was about 10 sentences, about how I'm ready to work with the community, and happy that they met their kaominina mendrika goals. So on the morning of the festival I sat up on the bandstand with all the officials -- who all mentioned me in their kabarys, a little crazy since I wasn't actually here for the year they were working on the KM goals -- and then I gave my little speech, into a really loud microphone. I cracked everyone up because my counterpart included a Malagasy proverb at the end of my speech that said something like "thank you to everyone who pounded rice to make it white and cooked food to make it well-cooked." That went over really well. This was all taped for TV, so now loads of people in Mananjary tell me they saw me on TV and that they can't believe I speak Malagasy. And they know my name, which is cool. I haven't seen the tv spot, but apparently the angle was not "M___ reaches KM goals!" but rather "there's a vazaha who speaks malagasy in M___" (I think we're not supposed to say the name of our actual site on our blogs...). Anyway, after the kabarys there were a bunch of other festivities, BUT around noon i started feeling a little funny, and by 2 I was puking into a bucket and writhing with stomach ache in my bed. So, after months of fabulous health, I experienced my first bout of bad food poisoning on the one day of probably my entire peace corps service when there was something really exciting happening at my site. Around 4 they moved the speakers to the yard in front of the primary school (right by my house) and blasted Malagasy music until 5 in the morning. So I also missed the only all-night dance party ever at my site. And as many of you know, dancing all night is pretty much my favorite activity. It was a bummer. But people took care of me, which was nice.
Ok, now here's some random stories from my journal.
I had a scare a few weeks ago when I finally hired a mpanasa-lamba (clothes washer) but then she didn't come back with my clothes for days after she said she would and I told my friend who made the biggest deal out of it and told EVERYONE in the entire village that I had given my clothes to a mpangalatra (thief) without even finding out her name or where she lived (this last bit is true, so I felt very sheepish. I think I was just so excited that someone was offering towash my clothes (not for free but for cheap) that I didn't think to find out anything about her). I ended up getting my clothes back a few days later, but I still get people passing by my house to say "Jayne...we heard you gave your clothes to a stranger who sold them and never came back..." I felt really silly, but I also felt like my whole community rallied to my aid, which was nice. People were making plans to go to Mananjary and find them (on the black market?) and alert the gendarmes etc.
There was a lizard the size of my forearm on my wall the other night, and there have been snails the size of my fist hanging out on the road in the morning. Madagascar biodiversity!!
I have fresh cow milk delivered every other morning. Just a cup, which I boil and put in my coffee. It's amazing. It's from the mayor's family's cow, and their little son brings it to my door.
My neighbor's kids who hang out with me every night and love listening to my radio and belting Malagasy greatest hits at the top of their lungs and doing really exaggerated boy-band facial expressions and hand motions have taken to singing this one song with the lyrics changed to "Mipetraka any ambanivolo i Jayne" -- "Jayne lives in the country" (I should mention that "ambanivolo" has a connotation beyond just countryside. It's not that it has a negative connotation (I don't think) but it kindof means the kindof place where a car passing by is a really really big deal, and people are subsistance farmers, no luxuries at all...). People in Mananjary are always very surprised to hear where I live, and don't understand why I don't want to spend all my time in Mananjary.
AND FINALLY: If I don't get some Bruce Springsteen sent to me pronto, I will become "a shadow of my former self." Really, any music at all would be appreciated. In mp3 format. I have been listening to Jayne's airplane to madagascar mix for 4 months, which was only selected as good 15hour airplane listening, not intended for extended play. But after a mishap with the usb drive that was supposed to carry all the rest of my music I have been stranded with the same 3gb of music. And through some monstrous oversight, I neglected to include any Bruce in my airplane mix. An omission I've regretted every day. Tears. Tearing of the hair. Etc.
I might write again tomorrow. I"m still trying to maybe get some pictures on here. But don't hold your breath.
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