I think the last thing I wrote about the political situation in Madagascar was at the start of our consolidation period (beginning of February). To fill that in a little, as far as my own experience the crisis started on January 26th, although clearly things were brewing on the political scene long before I became aware of anything. That morning I was in Mananjary, and heard from my best friend that the mayor of Tana and his party had burned down the headquarters of Magro (the president's enormous food company), the national television station, and the national radio station. Obviously the mayor himself wasn't the one with the blowtorch, but that is what we heard. I thought it was crazy rumors, though the radio and the TV station had gone static, but I called a friend in Tana and he said he'd seen the burned buildings with his own eyes. That evening I went back to my village, and was up most of the night texting, the main form of communication between PCVs and the way that PC sends messages when they need to say the same thing to all of us. I heard that Tana was being looted, the prison was broken, and people were saying the water had been poisoned. Eliko was texting me that Peace Corps was thinking of pulling us out, and had I heard from Mika? And I was camped out in the dark inside my mosquito net, clutching my cell phone in front of my face, and considering for the first time that I might not get to finish my 2 years in Madagascar.
The next day the texts from the Peace Corps security officer started flowing in, and things started to both piece together and get more confusing, in 160 character segments. That afternoon we went into "standfast" mode, following this text:
4:34 pm "TO ALL PCVs, this is a STANDFAST EAP STAGE. FOLLOW GUIDE IN EAP BOOK. CHECK SMS FREQUENTLY. WAIT FOR FURTHER SMS. STAY CALM. :)"
What a comfort that last smiley face was; everything seemed even less real. The EAP book explains PC Madagascar's Emergency Action Procedure, and was finally located scrunched in the bottom of my bamboo bookshelf, along with some really big spiders. Standfast means pack an emergency bag, inventory your belongings, and wait to see if we consolidate. Great.
The following day, a totally normal quiet Wednesday in Mahatsara Sud, we heard that things were calmer in Tana but that there was still a lot of rioting in the provinces. This was the information gleaned from a few people who arrived from Mananjary, a couple texts from Mika, and one text from a Peace Corps friend who said that the volunteers in Tamatave had moved to the countryside because people were burning and looting in the city. But Mahatsara Sud (cricket...cricket...) was completely unchanged, so I tried to go about business as usual and not stress about the fact that things may or may not be going to hell in Tana, Tamatave, Fianar, and Mahajanga. It was wierd to think that when this whole thing blows over (as I assumed it would, I mean, it's Madagascar, people are moramora chill.) we in Mahatsara Sud wouldn't "go back" to anything, because nothing changed to begin with.
The next few days we got texts from PC that the situation was (and I think I speak for most PCV's when I say that this is a frustratingly undescriptive word and I will always think twice before using it with people who are desperately starved for information) "fluid." It's true, the situation was fluid, and I have no beef with PC for reporting it as such, but I would rather have been told a couple of specific news bits, e.g. "Big rally in Tana today;" "No agreement yet between Andry and Prez," and then said to myself "Gee, sounds like a pretty fluid situation." Remember, all I was getting in M/Sud were rumors or nothing. Anyway, PC also told us to stock food, check our phones at least two times a day (some volunteers had to scale small mountains to get reception), keep a low profile (good luck), and stay safe and calm. ":-)"
Things sounded fairly tense in Tana and the bigger cities, but it was hard to feel too nervous when Mananjary and certainly Mahatsara Sud seemed so unfazed. I was at a vazaha friend of mine's office in Mananjary, charging my phone and getting indignant over his commenting that Americans will evacuate at the drop of a hat, when I noticed that I had a missed call from Peace Corps. I called back and they told me that they were consolidating my region and I needed to go to Fianar, now if I could and tomorrow at the latest.
I hiked back to my village at warp speed (think Dan speedwalking. If you know Dan. Dan, you know who you are.) and started to pack/arrange the things that I had only half-heartedly put together after we got the "standfast" order. After going to tell a few friends that I would be leaving for a while, I realized that there was no way I was going to make it back to Mananjary before dark. So then I started packing agonizingly slowly, much more my normal packing style. I decided I needed to wake up at 3:45 am in order to get to Mananjary by 6:30-ish and catch a morning brousse to Fianar. Some of you may be familiar with this hour of "the morning" and know that it is in fact very much "the night". Hiking in the woods by yourself at night is a stupid and scary thing to do, unless you are The Tracker or maybe Batman. Anyway, I was totally freaked out. I kept chanting to myself "You know everyone in Mahatsara Sud," but then I remembered that a more accurate statement would be "Everyone in Mahatsara Sud knows you," which is somewhat less comforting. The other scary thing is that pretty much all men in the commune Mahatsara Sud (or ambanivolo Madagascar perhaps) carry big knives. I didn't see a soul during the dark part of my hike except one guy, walking a ways behind me, definitely hoisting a big knife over his shoulder. "He's just going to plant rice, he's just going to plant rice, he's just going to plant rice..." Eventually he passed me (a feat, considering I was zooming along on pure fear), said hello, and that was that. Still, I have never been so happy to see the sun rise. Sometimes an imagination is a dangerous thing to have.
On the brousse to Fianar I got an update from Eliko that 41 PCVs were already consolidated at the Peace Corps Training Center, the summer camp-ish resort on Lake Mantasoa that I think I've already discussed, about 2 hours out of Tana. So far she was supposed to stay in Morondava, and I only had to go to the Fianar Peace Corps house (a mere 6 hour brousse ride from Mananjary (20 hours to Mantasoa, for contrast)), but not all regions have a Peace Corps house so I guessed it was Tana and Tamatave region folks at Mantasoa.
About an hour away from Fianar I got this text from PC:
Jan 31, 11:12 am "PCVs, avoid joining crowd gathering. keep low profile. check if town is calm then go get all money from bank asap. come back quietly then remain inside. THANK YOU. PC"
My immediate reaction was it's over; we're evacuating. I closed my eyes, reminding myself that external displays of extreme emotion are not appropriate for inside a taxi brousse. Really I wanted to climb on top of the roof and scream "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" at the top of my lungs. Tear my hair and so on. I refrained. When I got to Fianar it turned out that PC was just worried about banks running out of cash and wanted to make sure that we had enough money to last us a couple weeks if the consolidation period dragged on. For many PCVs that would mean pretty much "all money," as the text said, but for me "all money" would mean getting a huge amount of cash out (because I barely spent any money living in M/Sud), hence my reading way too much into that text message. Much relieved exhalation of breath and forehead-brushing ensued.
So there we were, consolidated. A couple days then back to my village? A couple days then back to the US? No one knew.
Episode 2 to come shortly...
The following day, a totally normal quiet Wednesday in Mahatsara Sud, we heard that things were calmer in Tana but that there was still a lot of rioting in the provinces. This was the information gleaned from a few people who arrived from Mananjary, a couple texts from Mika, and one text from a Peace Corps friend who said that the volunteers in Tamatave had moved to the countryside because people were burning and looting in the city. But Mahatsara Sud (cricket...cricket...) was completely unchanged, so I tried to go about business as usual and not stress about the fact that things may or may not be going to hell in Tana, Tamatave, Fianar, and Mahajanga. It was wierd to think that when this whole thing blows over (as I assumed it would, I mean, it's Madagascar, people are moramora chill.) we in Mahatsara Sud wouldn't "go back" to anything, because nothing changed to begin with.
The next few days we got texts from PC that the situation was (and I think I speak for most PCV's when I say that this is a frustratingly undescriptive word and I will always think twice before using it with people who are desperately starved for information) "fluid." It's true, the situation was fluid, and I have no beef with PC for reporting it as such, but I would rather have been told a couple of specific news bits, e.g. "Big rally in Tana today;" "No agreement yet between Andry and Prez," and then said to myself "Gee, sounds like a pretty fluid situation." Remember, all I was getting in M/Sud were rumors or nothing. Anyway, PC also told us to stock food, check our phones at least two times a day (some volunteers had to scale small mountains to get reception), keep a low profile (good luck), and stay safe and calm. ":-)"
Things sounded fairly tense in Tana and the bigger cities, but it was hard to feel too nervous when Mananjary and certainly Mahatsara Sud seemed so unfazed. I was at a vazaha friend of mine's office in Mananjary, charging my phone and getting indignant over his commenting that Americans will evacuate at the drop of a hat, when I noticed that I had a missed call from Peace Corps. I called back and they told me that they were consolidating my region and I needed to go to Fianar, now if I could and tomorrow at the latest.
I hiked back to my village at warp speed (think Dan speedwalking. If you know Dan. Dan, you know who you are.) and started to pack/arrange the things that I had only half-heartedly put together after we got the "standfast" order. After going to tell a few friends that I would be leaving for a while, I realized that there was no way I was going to make it back to Mananjary before dark. So then I started packing agonizingly slowly, much more my normal packing style. I decided I needed to wake up at 3:45 am in order to get to Mananjary by 6:30-ish and catch a morning brousse to Fianar. Some of you may be familiar with this hour of "the morning" and know that it is in fact very much "the night". Hiking in the woods by yourself at night is a stupid and scary thing to do, unless you are The Tracker or maybe Batman. Anyway, I was totally freaked out. I kept chanting to myself "You know everyone in Mahatsara Sud," but then I remembered that a more accurate statement would be "Everyone in Mahatsara Sud knows you," which is somewhat less comforting. The other scary thing is that pretty much all men in the commune Mahatsara Sud (or ambanivolo Madagascar perhaps) carry big knives. I didn't see a soul during the dark part of my hike except one guy, walking a ways behind me, definitely hoisting a big knife over his shoulder. "He's just going to plant rice, he's just going to plant rice, he's just going to plant rice..." Eventually he passed me (a feat, considering I was zooming along on pure fear), said hello, and that was that. Still, I have never been so happy to see the sun rise. Sometimes an imagination is a dangerous thing to have.
On the brousse to Fianar I got an update from Eliko that 41 PCVs were already consolidated at the Peace Corps Training Center, the summer camp-ish resort on Lake Mantasoa that I think I've already discussed, about 2 hours out of Tana. So far she was supposed to stay in Morondava, and I only had to go to the Fianar Peace Corps house (a mere 6 hour brousse ride from Mananjary (20 hours to Mantasoa, for contrast)), but not all regions have a Peace Corps house so I guessed it was Tana and Tamatave region folks at Mantasoa.
About an hour away from Fianar I got this text from PC:
Jan 31, 11:12 am "PCVs, avoid joining crowd gathering. keep low profile. check if town is calm then go get all money from bank asap. come back quietly then remain inside. THANK YOU. PC"
My immediate reaction was it's over; we're evacuating. I closed my eyes, reminding myself that external displays of extreme emotion are not appropriate for inside a taxi brousse. Really I wanted to climb on top of the roof and scream "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" at the top of my lungs. Tear my hair and so on. I refrained. When I got to Fianar it turned out that PC was just worried about banks running out of cash and wanted to make sure that we had enough money to last us a couple weeks if the consolidation period dragged on. For many PCVs that would mean pretty much "all money," as the text said, but for me "all money" would mean getting a huge amount of cash out (because I barely spent any money living in M/Sud), hence my reading way too much into that text message. Much relieved exhalation of breath and forehead-brushing ensued.
So there we were, consolidated. A couple days then back to my village? A couple days then back to the US? No one knew.
Episode 2 to come shortly...
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