stuff

I have been a lot of places since I last wrote.

I left site almost a month ago and spent 2 and a half days on a taxi-brousse to get to Morondava, which is almost straight across madagascar from my site, on the west coast. Madagascar's not THAT big across but there's no straight route east to west, and there's a lot of cavernous, unpaved road between the middle of the country and Morondava. After a few relaxing days at the beach (it was Easter, no one works on easter) my friend Eliko and I spend a week walking long distances on very hot, unshaded roads to talk to random groups of people about AIDS. This is how you get an audience for a AIDS presentation in the Malagasy countryside: 1) Walk up to a person. 2) Say "Salama" ("hello") 3) Turn to a nearby person 4) Say "Salama" 5) Wait 3-4 seconds 6) Turn around and greet massive crowd now assembled behind you whispering "Mahay teny gasy ny vazaha!" (The foreigner speaks malagasy). Then you blurt out in random order all the malagasy words you know about AIDS, pull out a wooden penis (uproarious laughter) and do a condom demo, and then stare pleadingly at the crowd, half hoping that there will be questions because then maybe they care about what you just said, and half terrified that there will be questions but you won't understand them, thus exposing you as the fraud you are. (The health group before mine is making shirts that say "I'm not a doctor...I just play one in Madagascar." (I should take an extra parentheses here to explain that we don't tell people that we have any medical experience, people just tend to assume that you do. And bring their sick people to your house.)) Usually there will be someone who summarizes your presentation to the group for you in real Malagasy, which is great. And my Malagasy question-answering ability is improving. Last week I understood a woman who said she worked at a sketchy hotel and wanted to know if she could get AIDS from touching sheets with semen on them.

Anyway, when I say we did this for a week, I mean that we gave AIDS presentations in the mornings, and went to the beach and the pool and saw baobabs in the afternoons. And some of the presentations took place at the beach and on the way to the baobabs. But those people are at risk of AIDS too. Maybe more so because there's tourists and prostitutes.

Then Eliko and I broussed back to Antananarivo for our in-service-training, which was sometimes useful and sometimes not. It was definitely interesting to hear what other volunteers' sites are like. I got to talk to my director about my clinic being closed for months and not knowing what to do and I got a bunch of ideas for how to be more productive at site, which I really needed.

After training, about 15 health volunteers from my stage and the stage before mine went to Antsohihy, where a health PCV had organized a really well-planned health fair. We spent about 5 days going out and doing group presentations (3-4 PCVs) about AIDS and other health stuff, and promoting the saturday health fair and HIV testing. Then on saturday there was a big fety, and we had booths about different health topics, and a sports tournament, and a raffle for people who got tested for HIV. (There's pictures on my facebook page). 700 people got tested, which was amazing. It was all really fun, and great to hang out with other PCVs.

Tomorrow I head back to site. I'm crossing my fingers that the new doctor will be there, because Mother and Child Health Week starts on monday. Also because I might go crazy if she's still not there. I think she will be. Positive thoughts.

I miss you all! Check out my pictures! Write me a letter!