Tanzania Tara

It's been/gonna be good...

2010-05-06T23:35:00.000-07:00

This is sort of a hodge-podge of posts – often lengthy, possible nonsensical. Apologies again for not posting in such a long time. I feel more and more that I can’t express how I live here – maybe because the oddities and absurdities seem like normalities to me now and perhaps because I can’t remember feeling any differently… how do I respond, how do I explain, how do I share? So bear through my mutterings, ramblings if you wish/dare. I might not write again for a bit. I leave Peace Corps service in a mere 20 days and that’s, well,… seemingly as overwhelming as arriving in the first place. I’m trying to prepare myself, but I don’t know how or simply just can’t.

Here’s the quick catch-up of the last few months:

In February, I did end of making a trip to the US for graduate school interviews. It was a whirlwind, but something I am very glad I got the opportunity to do. While I had some great visits and some excellent choices, I finally decided that I will be starting at the University of Michigan in the fall. Their paleonotology program is one of the largest and strongest in the States and during my visit felt like a great fit, both advisor-wise, research-wise and community-wise. I’m very excited about my choice and having the ‘next step’ determined.

March to today have been another whirlwind – of projects and soaking in my Tanzania village before I finish up my service at the end of this month. We’ve been building chicken coops, taking care of baby chickens, making fuel-efficient cookstoves, holding women’s empowerment seminars (climbed Mt Hanang for the fourth/last time with 16 teenage girls), joined a women’s dance group, cooking and eating with neighbors and friends, visiting the ‘bush’ and the ‘city’ to meet Mama Mdogo’s family and harvesting beans and corn from our garden (peanuts to come!). It has been truly wonderful. A real highlight was my 26th birthday party – we did it up big, Tanzania style! Set up tarps, tables and decorations outside, killed a goat and with 6 mama’s cooked up 25 kilos of rice for the 70ish guests, got a generator, keyboard, CD player and DJ, Baba Mdogo was the MC – we danced, the choir sang, I was fed cake, too many speeches were made. It was so fantastic to see all my Endagaw friends, dressed in their finest, against the backdrop of my home and garden, and sharing the celebration with such an amazing collection of people. I was overflowing with happiness throughout the whole day.

Now, I’ve just finished my ‘Close of Service’ conference in Dar es Salaam. Fun to hang out with fellow PCV’s, but I am anxious to get back to Endagaw for my last two weeks in the village. I am officially done on May 25, after which I’ll begin my Africa travels! Exciting, but bittersweet. I’ll let you know how it goes! Sending much much love and really looking forward to seeing friends and family back in the States when we return mid-July!

February 11, 2010

So, that’s all it takes, a 9 hour flight and I’m back in the Northern Hemisphere staring out the window at snow. I’ve landed in Amsterdam about 2 hours ago. Deplaning then walking through the terminal I keep reminding myself that this isn’t in fact weird – I mean this was my life for the first 24 years before Africa, right? But I can’t help but feel completely overwhelmed. I sort of feel like crying but can’t pinpoint exactly why I feel this way. Absolutely everyone is passing me at lightning speed and I have no idea what side of to walk on (usually the shadiest side in how I decide but that doesn’t really apply here). Finally, clumsily dodging my way through the pack, I figure out my gate – its not too far and there’s a coffee shop near by, so I decide breakfast is a good idea.

Even though its all going to be in English, mentally I still carefully prepare my order in Swahili, scratch that, retranslate my order back into English before reaching the counter. I order without a hitch – the cashier would never know how nervous I am! Then she tells me the price and seeing the readied debit card in my hand, she motions to the card reader. All the sudden I freeze as I go into panic mode. I have no idea how to use the card reader. To be fair it has two slots and is in Dutch, but still… The line behind immediately feels like an infinite expanse of staring eyes all aimed directly at me, judging. Feeling the tears I’ve so carefully guarded start to well up, I hand my card to the cashier. She rolls her eyes, swipes it for me and in a matter of seconds I’m walking off to a table with tea and cinnamon roll in hand (a 6 euro purchase that I can’t help but compare to the 30 cents I’d usually spend in Tanzania).

Sitting with the warm mug of tea cradled in my hands calms me as I people watch. Honestly, everyone looks pretty much the same as when I left. But what shocks me is that no one can tell how different I am. I mean, for crying out loud, absolutely no one has greeted me since the airport security guards in Tanzania (granted they followed that greeting up with a proposal to be my boyfriend, but still…). My eyes are instinctively searching for a scrap of comfort – an obvious Tanzanian – I desperately want to speak Kiswahili, but there are no brightly patterned head wraps, elongated earlobes or intricate facial scarring in sight.

And then it strikes me as absurd and, how do I say – Peace Corps ‘elitist’ maybe – searching for that as my comfort is… I’m not African. This airport with its clean floors, bright electric lights, moving walkways, and potted plants is closer to my ‘real life’ than anything in my little Endagaw village.

And I guess that’s what I’m the most afraid of… it slipping away… forgetting too easy. It no longer being mine. The next time I use a debit card I won’t mess up. The readily available toilet paper and automatic flush in the public (!) toilets didn’t surprise at all the second time. And though I desperately want it, I’m not actually expecting anyone to come up and talk to me. Will the uniqueness of my Africa life be swallowed up by these currently more distant but ultimately more ‘real’ tendencies of ours? When I return to Tanzania one day will I remember how to instantly start laughing with someone as we ball up handfuls of ugali dining in the shade of a tree and shooing away chickens that try to peck at our cooked leaves side dish?

Sometimes the possibilities of life experiences overwhelm me – and its impossible to remember them all – even the ones that seem to soak all the way through your skin, run through your veins and eventually wind up dwelling in your heart. But I guess even if your can’t remember it all, you still have that swelling in your chest that links you to people and places near and far.

At this point though, I’m just so glad that this is only a temporary 2-week departure from my Africa life. If I had just truly said good-bye to my community in Tanzania that swelling would be too much to bear and my heart would be chipping away to pieces right now. But it’s not – I’ll see my mama’s again before I know it and in the meantime I’ll quickly re-learn how to not be freaked out by touch screens or trip on the escalator, walk faster, talk faster, and enjoy this premature window into the excitement of my next lift experience. And I’ll eat cheese – lots of it, ignore every McDonalds and Wal-Mart I see, rock my interviews and be happy.

April 3, 2010

This is me 2 hours ago…

Its dusk and I’m practically running to keep up with my long legged Maasai chicken expert, Mlavi, while dodging muddy ditches, crazed taxi drivers, and Tanzania’s who want to ‘greet’ (touch) me. I’ve completely lost Mama Ashura, which is amazing considering the giant cardboard box she’s carrying on her head. But at this point its more important to keep my eyes on the ‘driver’ of a hand push cart carrying my 100 freshly purchased baby chickens.

We finally reach our motel and nearing the end of a day running around Arusha like, well, chickens with our heads cut off, Mlavi, Mama Ashura and I stare at our 3 boxes of squawking 3 week old chicks. They’re beautiful black and while speckled improved breed chicks. After months of preparation – seminars, chicken coop construction – and now I’m finally a chicken farmer. Or at least I’m an ‘involved spectator’ while the group takes over care of these additions to the village animal population meant to increase protein consumption in the community and improve family diet. And hopefully generate income for the sustainability of the project and further goals of the group.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First things first… getting them back to my village (then administering the plethora of vaccines we bought today to successfully raise the chicks to adulthood). We arrived in town last night after a 13-hour bus journey that should only take 5 hours – that is until the rains turn the road into a series of ruts, mudslicks and impassable marshes. We were planning on returning tomorrow, but because it rained even more today, the MAIN road to the ENTIRE NW of the country and to my village is currently in ‘bad condition’ according to the somewhat apathetic conductor, leaving them to chance only 1 bus voyage. Needless to say, us, our 100 chicks, 400 pounds of chicken feed and assortment of feeding and watering troughs and other supplies are not going to fit on that 1 bus.

So, that’s life. Nothing to do but laugh, try to keep our motel room as free of flying escapees and chicken shit as possible, concede to an unexpected Easter in the city and write up a blog post while relaxing over a cold Kilimanjaro beer.
And after 25 months on this continent, I have to admit while today was a considerable busier day than usual, it wasn’t all that weird, though slightly absurd (picture a white girl in the midst of the chaos of an African bus stand, patiently guarding boxes of baby chickens trying their hardest to run away – But then again the only absurd part of that picture is that it’s me) and no matter all the things that went wrong, I wasn’t stressed once. In fact, it was a success.

And so the month has gone – projects in full swing. Over the span of 3 days of seminars we’ve built 24 fuel-efficient cookstoves (not only do they use considerably less firewood, but they help tremendously with smoke – respiratory illnesses are a common problem here – I myself can’t sit in a ‘kitchen’ for more than a minute before blindly exiting, teary-eyed and runny-nosed). The goals of the women’s group project are to reduce pressure on the last of the local remaining wood sources, lessen the daily workload of women, and as they have enough supplies, for group members to build a second round of stoves for income generation.

I’m incredibly proud of both my groups. They have tremendous determination, foresight and a sense of ‘development’ that can be hard to find here (in my opinion and experience).

And now that I’ve said the ‘D’ word, do I dare go into more depth? But how can one without over generalizing or simplifying an astoundingly complex situation? And are blog perusers even interested in one PCV’s confused, far from cohesive and completely inconclusive view of development? All I can say with certainty is that after 25 months at this ‘job’, I may know/see a great deal more, but with that window into ‘ground operations’ understand even less. When I started I didn’t know what the questions where (thought I did though) and now I know how far off I actually was and am left with trunks load full of questions that I must accept will never have clear, concise answers.

Let’s take just one example, a somewhat abstract one that doesn’t ‘incriminate’ Peace Corps or any of my villagers. I recently read an article entitled ‘A Plan to Defeat Neglected Tropical Diseases’ (Hotez, Scientific American, Jan 2010). This plan is to attack the main parasitic and bacterial infections that, while might not kill, greatly influence everyday life in impoverished countries and lead to overall decreased health and production of a community.

The article states ‘The good news is that these NTDs can be treated simply and cheaply. In many cases a single pill is enough’ and proposes monetary donations in order to supply these pills through global help campaigns. The article states a number of reasons as to why this obviously laudable and relatively easy aim has yet to be tackled, but these are all reasons coming from the development agencies perspective (semantics, sources and severity of infections, etc) and not one from the community level perspective.

Funds, while they help, won’t solve the problems caused by roundworm, hookworm or schistos, nor will shelves full of readily available, cheap drugs. It doesn’t take long for one to live here before realizing that overall education, by quantity and quality, and more specifically appropriate and applicable education paired with community sensitization is the problem. Lack of basic health knowledge, devaluing of tradition remedies and reliance on modern medicine (or rather the conception of) has led a population to this assumption:

I feel sick and therefore I need medicine. If I go to the local hospital doctor and he tests my blood, tells me nothing is out of the ordinary then he must be wrong (if you’re lucky enough to be tested, and for what? And where government subsidized and development initiative supported drugs are cheap or even free). I will go to the pharmacy owner. He will look at me, maybe listen to my symptoms and prescribe me some expensive drug. I’ll believe him, pay the price, because medicine is medicine, right? I’ll go home, feeling happy that someone’s actually ‘doing’ their job, take my dose and feel better.

And so you get Mama Mdogo coming home with medication for typhoid fever after complaining of a stomach cramps. Or Mama Husseni, who sits at the hospital for 3 days just waiting for an initial blood test, meanwhile paying hospital fees and for food, then never gets tested but is still sent home with some ‘cure’. Or even worse, 3-year old Sara being brought home equally harmful medication if misdiagnosed (not to mention at adult doses for a child), without even being seen by the doctor because of a father’s insistence that medicine was necessary! But recommend hand-washing or equally easy hygiene…

So yes, there is a definite shortage of and need for more medications, but a plan that neglects the means for testing for these diseases and ignores the confidence-giving education of local individuals necessary for villagers to be aware and decisive of their own health will only end up with more misdiagnoses and ultimately drug resistance in the very thing we are trying to fight.

So, what am I trying to say? I’m not entirely sure and I certainly hate speaking negatively about a country I love. But, from what I’ve seen, development solutions lie not exclusively in funds, but more importantly in ‘capacity building’ at the local level. I didn’t know exactly was that term meant when I was initially trained, much less how to do it. Now, still unable to exactly define it, I at least understand why it was it is such common vernacular amongst PCV’s. I believe whole-heartedly that capacity building is what is necessary to move forward in improving the quality of life here in a sustainable manner. How to do it, I’m still not sure. Maybe I’ve been lucky enough to inadvertently hit on a few key points of capacity building in my PC experience, or more likely I’ve just had strong, already capable community members to work with.

Either way, this experience may be fun and crazy, but it is not easy. I’m not sure how all the different gears (PC, USAID, WHO, etc) of the development machine will work together with the available tools of progressing nations. But I sure hope it leads to somewhere where doctors are properly educated and equipped, medicines are readily available, and patients have the individual knowledge and confidence to insistent upon adequate healthcare. And receive a satisfactory education, improve farming practices, cook efficiently and healthily, drink clean water, find work, travel on safe roads, play with a real soccer ball…

My Piece of Home

2010-01-11T04:42:00.000-08:00

Sunday, November 15, 2009

And so this is it, we’ve reached the edge of the world. As Brendan and I approach the village in the sky, the road drops away on either side into steep terraced mountain faces that dive into the far-off, vague expanse of dry valley floor. Hazy, blurry the distance is mystically omitted from our view. It is just me and him and this quaint village teetering on the last precipice of the earth.

And it’s a beautiful yet eerie physical manifestation of the feelings I’ve had so many times during this Africa Life. We’ve been hiking through the Usambara Mountains for three days, 60 kilometers, now, weaving in and out of lush terraced farmland tucked in between rocky mountain peaks and hidden forests of old growth. It’s been a long, hard, astonishingly gorgeous and culturally different (really, one country, one Swahili language, but very distinctly cut up along much more ancient tribal lines) trek and now we’re here, wondering how we got here, how do we absorb the moment to its fullest, how do we learn to appreciate our place in it and what is that place exactly?

Two volunteers, gone through this ‘figuring out’ two separate times, in collectively three different countries, 20-odd months in, we don’t have to speak to share, to know, what the other person is thinking. This is never where we expected to see ourselves, sipping a beer on the edge of the world (well, maybe the beer was always there), but it’s breathtaking and it’s surreal and it’s the only place I want to be right now. And whatever lies beyond that drop will be there when I’m ready for it.

Sometime in December

It’s two in the afternoon. After not a particularly taxing day of clothes washing, bread baking and house sweeping, I’m pretty ready for a nap. By this point, I’ve decided to fully embrace the obligation-free, peaceful, easy-going nature of life here and I’m perfectly contend curling up my couch for a afternoon snooze… I mean when else will I have this lazy freedom again in my life? And just then, I hear a knock and a small voice requesting entry. I welcome Muku in under the agreement that its naptime. Muku, my about to be four-year neighbor and best friend, wanders in his too-small overalls, overalls worn, and worn hard, by so many kids before him that the butt no longer exists, but his underlayer of shorts and puffy winter coat save him from any embarrassment. He reaches into his pocket to show he his immensely treasured, daily-found piece of trash, or great toy, depending on how you look at. Today it’s an old film canister with a couple broken nut and bolt pieces. I admire his riches before we pull up a blanket and lie down on my couch. Muku’s almost four, but more the size of a two-three year old, so he fits well next to me and this isn’t the first time we’ve dozed off together. His mom often comes over in the evenings to chat or look at my magazines and Muku’s passed out between us on more than one occasion. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Muku struggling to be still, willing his eyes to shut, but it’s not going to happen. The sleepless silence is broken by our giggles and I am deeply aware of how much I love him.

They say the first three months of our Peace Corps service should be devoted to becoming integrated into your community. And after doing this two separate times, I can tell you that is a load of bull. Or at least they have a different definition of integration than I’d always imagined… that is, before trying to live it.

Yep I’m integrated, some might even say, really well integrated. But it has become clear to me that I am not integrated as a villager, but I’m integrated as the white American living in this African village. And I may do it well – everyone knows my name, they’ve met my mom, a handful of my best friends and boy are they always ready for a conversation. I know a lot of their names, I know the family relationships, who’s kid is who’s, who does what in the village, how to greet in three of the six local languages. But even if the color of my skin didn’t shout out our differences, the way I think, the means by which I do things, my American habits, my freedom to say whatever I want and it be excusable, would all point to the inevitable truth at I am truly different from them, ‘un-integratably’ differently. Our humanity is no different, but there are, whether true or not, assumed ‘facts’ about me as a white American (and I’m sure assumed ‘facts’ on Africans on my part just as well). And these assumptions about me and where I come from will always color the lenses through which my neighbors, friends and villagers here see me with. (More on these assumptions, the idea of money, what is development, and so forth in upcoming posts.) And the moment I pull a camera out; or the conversation turns to home; or we talk about schools here versus home; or we debate the access to/lack of water in town; or the big one, money, comes up, my ‘integratived-ness’ is seen for what it is – in most cases superficial. Is this what Peace Corps had in mind? Is this what I had in mind?

But, there are a handful of people here, Mama and Baba Mdogo, Mama Hawa, Mama Sele, Mama Saidi, Mama Husseni, that see me not just as an American come to live in their village, but as a neighbor (imagine this word having exceedingly more weight here than it does in America) and as a friend, even endearingly different daughter of sorts. And although I understand true integration isn’t a possibility, the Peace Corps ‘Goal Number Two’ cultural exchange is there. I know that I have become an integral part of this community in my own way. And to some people in particular, our relationship transcends our differences, and I am family. Holding Muku’s hand as we giggle over nothing, I embrace and cherish my place in it all. I’ve found a home and people to love in it and maybe that’s what ‘integration’ is really supposed to mean.

An Electric Christmas

2009-12-29T23:55:00.002-08:00

I’ve been to lots of Tanzania parties by now, usually fun, always interesting, all completely, painfully filling and often hilarious, but not one has had quite the build-up as the Christmas Day Party.

Mama Mdogo has been talking about for months. What we’re going to eat, how we’re going to decorate, who’s going to come, how much singing and dancing there will be at church. And what we are going to wear. Mama Mdogo and Baba (dad) Mdogo are my closest family here. When I first arrived I ate nearly every meal with them, and though I’ve now pretty much figured out to start my charcoal stove, I still rely on them for any number of things. So, it only makes sense that the entire Christmas Day (coincidentally they are also some of my only Christian friends in the village) would be devoted to them and their niece, Happy, who also lives with them. This means a while back we decided to get matching outfits made. I let Mama Mdogo pick out the fabric and as a result it has been the most electric Christmas in memory (see picture below).

I woke up Christmas morning to rain. The rainy season has officially started, but I’m still not used to it. I can probably count the number of times I’ve walked in rain in the last two years on my own two hands, and today we’re walking, far. I roll out of bed, trying not to disturb the mass of braids sticking out from the top of my head (the result of two very painful hours the day before and a hairstyle usually appropriately named ‘The Kilimanjaro’, but sadly on my head just droops down to a rather pathetic attempt at Africa’s highest mountain). I don my neon green dress, glowing head to toe, collect the date-cinnamon biscuits and yards of construction paper chains and ‘snowflakes’ I made yesterday with Happy, and head down the hill to the Mdogo’s house.

They’re running around like crazy of course, Mama Mdogo misplacing absolutely everything, simultaneously trying to serve me tea, mop the floor and deal with the goat that was just slaughtered. Baba Mdogo precariously stands on uneven tables and chairs to hang up the decorations. We thank the Muslim neighbors for killing the goat and for cooking (otherwise they wouldn’t be able to partake in the feasting) while we’re at church and we’re off.

It is a 40-minute walk to church, and I’m already slightly grumpy. I’m not sure if it’s the 4-hour church service looming ahead of me or the fact that somehow, for a girl from Seattle, I’ve become completely incompetent in the rain. I think ultimately though, it’s the mud. Africa mud is legendary and terrifying and everywhere. I have to concentrate with every step not to fall on my butt. It’s a confusing consistency, both sticky and slippery and surprising deep and all sorts of suction-cuppy.

But when I look at the four of us (just for a second, so I don’t fall), walking down the road, I can’t help but giggle. We are without the brightest things in the entire district, if not region on this dreary Christmas morning. Mama Mdogo is sporting some pretty fancy pointy toe heels that sink into the mud with every step. She is also carrying a awkwardly large and extremely heavy keyboard on her head (one of the many duties of being in the church choir). And she’s doing it all with style. I’m blown away.

We finally get to church, mud splattered but in good spirits. Before the service starts a guy finds me to tell me about his recent trip to Detroit, Michigan (What?!) for seminary training. He says it was beautiful (never been, but is this true?) and rich, but people were so busy, hardly anyone greeted him and it was cold. Sounded to me like he was trying to like something he’d been told his whole life is the place to be, but after experiencing it now wasn’t so sure.

Settled into hard benches, sandwiched in between Happy and some of the most wonderfully done-up Tanzanians I’ve ever seen, the service started. Mama Mdogo and the choir sing and dance. Guest performers come up and dance and lip-synch to their previously recorded tapes (why listen to beautiful voices when you can pump the music through a bad sound system at extraordinary high volume?). And everyone loves it. The ‘yodeling’ cheers that can only be done by an African consistently break the usual peaceful serenity of church.

The four hours pass quicker than I think they will and soon we’re shaking hands with the pastor, taking pictures and heading back down the hill and back to Endagaw Village and Mama Mdogo’s home.

The rest of the day, guests flow in and out of the house, each receiving a heaping plate of spiced rice, goat, beans and a soda upon entry and a Merry Christmas and Karibu Tena (welcome again) upon departure. The food is delicious and I keep sneaking in to the ‘kitchen’ (mud hut with a couple fires going on the other side of their property) for extras. And I don’t have to leave once, or attempt to swing by all the other Christmas day parties, because just like Mama Mdogo, this is partly my home. I’m the hostess too and some of our guests are coming because I’ve invited them. I’m in charge of handwashing, soda getting, and candy distributing. It’s great. As the guests trickle away and night twinkles in, the four of us, still a hot colored clan, sit back and smile. A few modest gifts are given, thanks are shared, and Christmas is complete.

This year’s Christmas celebration was a far cry from last year’s Katsepy Christmas and doesn’t even begin to compare to any of the holiday seasons I’ve experienced back home. But I think it’s those differences and who I get to share each year’s party with that make me appreciate each unique experience all the more. I don’t miss the hoopla of Christmas. What I miss the most is my family and friends and the highlight of my celebration was still hearing their voices on Christmas day. But, I was content in sharing this year with my Tanzania family. And what a beautiful one it was.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Love,
Tara

Time Traveling and Mountain Climbing

2009-12-28T07:24:00.001-08:00

Hello again from Tanzania Tara! If cyber shame could be expressed, consider this to be it for it has been far too long since I have posted about my going-ons and happenings here in Tanzania. Let it be said right away it has been an exciting, busy, unbelievable last few months and a blog time lapse that won’t happen again.

I have been writing about my experiences, but have yet to transfer them into shareable bits of stories, feelings and insight into this life in Tanzania. So, expect the next few *hopefully* frequent posts to be a modicum of offerings to give you a window into the time existing from August-December 2009.

Sunday, October 25, 2009
This morning, I experienced a tearful good-bye with Amy and David at the Arusha bus stand (while been assaulted by pushy, rude water and peanut sellers… Hey Mzungu! Looks like you’re crying, want to be overcharged for a bottle of water?!) followed by the long ride home and arrival back to the village, dust-choked, tire and sore. But despite this bit of loss I’m feeling at the departure of my best friend, I can only reflect on the last two weeks and feel an enormous smile creep and sweep across my face.
For not even two days ago, the three of us stood on the top of Africa, submitting the continent’s highest mountain, Mt. Kilimanjaro at 5895 meters (that’s 19340ft!)*. Watching the sunrise over one of the peak’s remaining glaciers, turning the ice and shrouding clouds into deep and changing shades of pink, purple and blue that morning made me feel wonderfully loopy, altitude sickness or not.
It is incredible to me that we were able to walk somewhere on our own two feet where the air was so thin that despite being only degrees away from the equator, you’re wearing 5 layers and feeling the sweat on your face freeze into tiny ice crystals. And where you feel nauseous, drunk-like and as if you were wearing lead boots.
And its not just the 6:37am summit that followed 6 hours of straight uphill hiking on loose gravel in the dark. Or the spontaneously sprint down to the glacier wall, enormous and looming, smoothed and sculpted by the wind into icy pinnacles and staircases. Or the varied and beautiful landscapes we passed on the way up the mountain (lush mossy forests, open wildflower sprinkled sagebrush, barren volcanic vastness). Or the hilarity of our six porters (yes six people to get the three of us up the mtn) taking our expensive, hyper-designed backpacks, dumping them into gunny sacks and lugging them up the mtn on their heads with a case of fresh eggs strapped to their backs.
It was altogether something more. A feeling of accomplishment. A feeling of absolute joy to be in wilderness again. And a completeness in doing it with two of my best friends (and an awesome group of Tanzanias) from whom nothing but positive energy flowed and highlighted the experience. It was six days that reach a height far greater than the 5895m we summitted and an experience that will remain among the most extraordinary in my time here on Africa.

And now back to Monday December 28, 2009...
And so now, that time here is coming closer and closer to its end. I’ve been calling this continent home for over 22 months now and the close of my service just seems to be a blink of the eye away (Still 5 months, but time is a strange moving thing). For that I’m both sad and thankful.

But for those of you curious about that future, here are my plans and what has keep me so internet busy the last few months:
I officially close my Peace Corps service at the end of May. Then it’s traveling a bit here in East Africa… I’m not leaving without kayaking Lake Malawi. Then finishing up in Mali and possibly other West Africa destinations before heading home in mid-July/Early August. (If any of this sounds interesting to you, Karibu!). Then visiting friends and family before starting graduate school, hopefully, in the fall. I’m applying to six schools (UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, Michigan, Columbia, Chicago and Minnesota) for PhD programs in vertebrate paleontology.

And then I will have met the future and all this will seem as far away as home has felt to me here during the last two years. And I don’t know if I’m quite ready for that.

I miss you all terribly, but not so terribly as I know I’ll be seeing you soon. Think of you daily and especially strongly this past Christmas holiday. I love you and am looking forward to sharing more of the wonder and craziness with you in upcoming blog posts. Hope you are all well and bringing in 2010 with much happiness!

*After Brendan’s visit, he told me with astonishment that it took a dramatically long time for his Tanzania-departing, Ethopia-bound plane to reach an altitude level with Kili’s peak. And again, I look with astonishment at my own two feet. Thank you Amy, David and Mom for making it a possibility.

Seminars, Safaris, and Sweetness

2009-08-06T08:07:00.000-07:00

My apologies for such a long hiatus on the blog front. Every chance to be online over the past two months has been spent pouring over graduate program and potential advisor websites in preparation for application time this fall. Exciting, but distance from TZ, yet fun to get buried in, and ultimately time consuming.

But, after three straight days of just that, I’m ready to relax a bit, have some fun and share some pieces of Tanzania. Per usual, I have no idea where to start.
It has been an awesome, busy, full last two months. Bullet points perhaps?

June was filled with…
-Recovery from May 30 summit of Mt. Hanang, our backyard volcano, fourth highest mtn in TZ (ft), and one wonderful hiking day with fellow PCV’s and about 30 seventh graders (who all practically sprinted up the mtn in flipflops while it totally kicked my ass).
-Preparation for and eventually completion of our Katesh Kid’s Environment and Health seminar. Myself and five other PCV’s put together a 4 day seminar for the top 6 sixth graders from our respective primary schools. Students learned about ecology and tree nurseries, gained HIV/AIDS awareness, played awesome team-building games, and painted billboards to share learned messages with others students back at school. Way too much fun.
-Visit from Jules! Neighbors henna-ed us and killed a chicken in her honor... it was tasty.
-Meeting with various community groups to discuss needs within the village, project ideas, available resources, etc…
-Corn, sunflower, and onion harvesting... by hand.
-Cooking, baking, and hanging out the neighbors... Swahili’s getting there!

And then July….
-Trip to Moshi... Kili wasn’t out, but got to meet some more cool PCV’s and eat pizza (twice)!
-LOTS more meetings and action planning! I love motivated people.
-More harvesting and village activities.
-Getting ready for my mom to visit but saying good-bye to two awesome PCV’s Stephanie and Amy... congrats on completing two years!
-MOM VISITING! Really too much to say about this. Perfect white sand and turquoise water of the Zanzibar beaches plus an unexpected banana tree beating new year’s festival. Unbelievable safari-ing in the Ngorongoro Crater and Tarangire NP... my mammal and bird siting list goes on and on, but would you just be impressed if I said 18 lions (two almost catching a lost wildebeest about 20 ft from our vehicle), hundreds of elephants, zebras, giraffes, wildebeest, buffalos, gazelles and impalas, a selection of hyenas, warthogs and jackals, a few sleeping owls and many impressively colored birds. And six days in the village where between all the visits and food/gifts been given in her honor we barely had a moment to ourselves or a less than completely full stomach (this time it was a very large rooster).

And throughout it all, I keep falling more and more completely in love with my neighbors and community members. I have never met such an instantly welcoming, including, thankful, delightful group of people. Endagaw has completely captured my heart. I laugh, giggle, see and hear something new everyday. And I can’t tell you how many times I welled up with tears of happiness at the kindness and immediate familial acceptation and respect they showed my mother. You know, I think they just might love me too. And for that simple love, I can’t wait to get back tomorrow to continue sharing life in Endagaw with them (even with the 6 hour bus on one of the worst roads ever... you rock Mom for hackling that ride... twice... and with style).

Alright, enjoy the pictures from May and June below. And as always, thinking of everyone back often and joyfully. Miss you and love you! Thank you for making me the happy person who can enjoy this adventure to the fullest!

Peace,
Tara Magnolia

PS. Madagascar is reopening! Yipee! Congrats to all my friends who are able to return to that beautiful and hopefully peaceful island that first captured my heart.

Embracing the sunflowers with the changes

2009-05-22T05:13:00.000-07:00

And so here we go again…

Some days I can’t believe I’ve started all over again. Some days I feel right at home. Some days I look around and think wow, I’m well into my second year living here in Africa, and just starting a year in Tanzania. It is said that every PC Volunteer’s experience is different and nothing could be more true, but this transfer has offered me a unquestionably unique experience and chance for comparison – how have I changed over the last year, how have my values and perspectives changed, how has my ability to interact with new people, new cultures changed, how has my view of development changed, how have the things I appreciate/take for granted/etc changed, how has my heart and its capacity to love simply and generously and also its ability to hurt changed.

Well, I’m not even sure where to start relating these changes or describing what I see and feel on a daily basis, but I suppose in the absence of pictures (sorry…soon), I could start with a general picture of my new village, Endagaw.

Tucked away in the hills of the Maldabaw Escarpment of the Rift Valley, Endagaw is a small yet sprawling village focused around farmland irrigated by a natural spring and surrounded by landscape pocketed by old volcanic craters and landforms. My backyard is shadowed by Mt Hanang, Tanzania's third tallest mtn and an extinct volcano itself, south side blown out in a past eruption and now softly carpeted by green vegetation and low misty clouds. It is harvest time, so my window view overlooks a valley of sunflowers and corn. It is ‘winter’ now, so mornings and evenings are usually quite chilly, often gray and cloudy despite being only a few degrees south of the equator. It is beautiful and completely different from Katsepy.

My neighbors are awesome…beyond…they help me is almost every single way. From starting my charcoal stove (challenging) to fetching water (a huge ordeal) to feeding me (every evening) to showing me around town (and meeting other awesome villagers) to patiently listening and letting me struggle through Kiswahili (getting there) to helping me become more ‘Tanzanian’ (I’ve got toes and fingers covered in traditional henna dye and two fancy and very bright dresses made by the local tailor). Endagaw has a population close to 5000 people, about half Christian, half Muslim, representatives from a variety of East African ethnic groups (at least six separate local languages are spoke in the village) and almost all subsistence farmers and pastoralists.

Tanzania is more developed than Madagascar. More roads are paved here, schools are nicer, people have more in the way of furniture, electricity runs through my village (I don’t have it) to pump water to water taps throughout town, my banking town (what would be a large town in Madagascar, but not ‘stocked’ enough to be banking town) has internet, a bank, a post office, I readily have access to such wonders as butter (well really margarine, but at this point equally as amazing), brown rice, peanut butter, more that one option of beer. Yet, for people here life is strikingly different than anything we would experience in the States. Can you imagine fetching water for your family for up to three hours a day (carried in 20L buckets on your head across fields)? Cooking with a three stone ‘stove’ fed by firewood that you collected from the surrounding hills? Depending entirely on the land, the rains, your harvest for your year’s supply of food and income? Being acutely aware of how each of these resources is used for your family’s daily survival? Not to mention childcare, education, health concerns, family obligations and religious practices…

And I’m the third volunteer here. People know about Peace Corps. People know about development work in their country. Heifer International has done amazing work in my village providing trainings, dairy cows and goats, bee and fish farming. And there are groups up, running and ready to work with me. The school was very receptive to my presence and already has projects in mind (and the teachers speak English…I’m getting questions answered I wouldn’t even dream of asking with my current Kiswahili). And I only have a year, so I’m saying okay, let’s go. There is a sense of organization here that seems like it will be a great starting point for projects. My goal is to be more hands-off this time around…letting local professionals take charge of projects, letting the groups plan their own project implementation, and I not afraid this time of saying if you’ve got that piece figured out, yes, I can help you get money for it (many volunteers – I did at first – struggle with the idea of being valuable as a source of money, often only).

I’ve lost a bit my American sense of independence/self-reliance and now recognize that African culture embraces hospitality, dependence on friends and neighbors, openness with needs, a relaxed sense of boundaries, physical and personal, and awkwardness hardly exists (This is something I felt very acutely at the beginning of my service…now I’m confident that if I’m ‘awkwardly’ hanging out at a neighbor’s house for a few hours, letting them give me food, standing around staring at our feet when I’ve exhausted my limited Kiswahili, it is all perfectly okay...and expected). People showing up at my house anytime, kids wanting to play or just watch whatever I’m doing doesn’t bother me this time around. It someone wants to help me plant trees around my house or start my garden, I say go at it...here’s my shovel. And I like it. I think it is one of the biggest changes I will bring home with me… I can be independent, I can be different and offer a new perspective and I can also appreciate the presence, freely given help and unbounded willingness to befriend and share of others – new friends, neighbors, children and even strangers. It is okay and part of human nature to rely on others and expect that reliance to be placed on you…we all have a shared responsibility for one another. And I’m thankful for the opportunity to recognize this change in myself through transferring to Tanzania and starting over again with my very own altered point of view and approach.

I still miss Madagascar and think about Katsepy, my friends and my life there daily. I received a call from a Malagasy PC staff member now working temporarily in Tanzania…hearing her accent, her news from the island, speaking Malagasy made me so happy and simultaneously sad…that lost is startlingly still so raw. She shared that no decision will be made to restart the program in Madagascar at least until December now (originally it was July). As that situation remains unresolved and detrimental, please keep the Malagasy people in your thoughts…their strength, the strength of Africans overall is inspirational. Thanks for reading, listening, reflecting and sharing. I think of home often, missing and loving friends and family every day of my changing Peace Corps experience. I’ve traded eating rice on straw mats for eating stiff corn porridge with my hands, but my friends and family are a constant and unwavering source of love and support, enhancing these changes as I, we, make our way through them.

Yours,
Tara Magnolia

Endagaw, Tanzania, East Africa = Home

2009-04-28T22:55:00.000-07:00

Hello! After three intense 3 weeks of total immersion into the Swahili language, Tanzanian culture, and ugali (a sort of stiff corn porridge that is slowly replacing rice in my diet), I am now ready to head off to my new site here in East Africa. I will be placed in a village called Endagaw in north central Tanzania. You won't find it on a map (at least I haven't yet), but it is close to Mt. Hanang and Babati city in the Manyara Region. Neighbors include six other PCV's (one who I have already met and is awesome, incredibly helpful, and may even be cleaning my house as I type this), Mt. Kilimanjaro, Ngorongoro Crater, and East African Rift Valley, and the general amazing-ness that is northern Tanzania. I am replacing a PCV who had to leave the country early due to health reasons unrelated to the site and who has left me loads of information about the site and loads of furniture and other useful items (including a couch...sweet!). So, it is a whole new set of experiences for me to get excited about, adjust to, appreciate and hopefully make my own. I've already seen some beautiful pieces of Tanzania (Morogoro and the capitol Dodoma) and met many kind people, so I definately feel like this will be the right replacement home for me after Madagascar. I still think about Madagascar daily and miss it incredibly, my village, the people, the feel but am looking forward to PC goal #4...sharing Madagascar culture with Tanzanians. I had an awesome visit from Melanie, Katie and Dave (PCV's from M/car now traveling around Africa) just a few days ago to remind how amazing our shared experience was and how much support I will continue to have as my adventure moves forward here in Tanzania. Thank you all always for your thoughts (so many birthday wishes two weeks ago!) and love! My new address is posted...look right...or here:
P.O. Box 144
Katesh, Tanzania, East Africa

Can't wait for your letters and news from home!

Peace and love,
Tara Magnolia

Karibu Tanzania!

2009-04-13T05:50:00.000-07:00

Well, one week in Tanzania down and what can I say...

The program looks like a great fit, Dar Es Salaam is a nice, though hot capitol city, Tanzanians are open and friendly, and my Kiswahili is still kidogo (small) but getting there thanks to my amazing teacher Paul. Asante sana.
The staff here has constructed a great personal training for me. After this past week of language, language, language, and of course a run down of Peace Corps rules, I'm heading west to Mororgoro to live with a host family for the next 1.5-2 weeks. I'm really looking forward to a change of scenery...I hear there are mountains there! And the constant, necessary Kiswahili learning mode. Before heading off, I'm meeting up with some Tanzania PCV's this evening to get the real story :) and spending one more day in the office, meeting and chatting with my new 'boss', who maybe just maybe can tell me where I'll be living for the next year!

Happy Easter to all! I hope you are all doing well and are happily moving into spring. Thinking of everyone much and wishing you all luck on your current adventure! I've posted my address for the time being and my number (look right and try 255-78-847-4985 first), so get in touch if you can! Kwa heri!

Peace,
Tara

Veloma Madagasikara!

2009-04-04T07:52:00.000-07:00

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

A week...or two later...and I am finally off again, but before the packing begins and my head moves along with my body to a new home, here are a few pictures for us to share and remember a most extraordinary last few months in Madagascar.

I apologize...captions are below and you get to play match the photo to the caption...I can't figure out how to get them next to eachother. :)

The enormous baobab tree in Mahajanga...hang out spot by the seaside.
Sailboat and Katsepy.
A huge chamelon hanging out in one of the trees of Isalo NP...New Year's Vacation.
Just before the chilly waterfall dip...Isalo NP, New Year's.
Too beautiful for words...Nymph Cascade, Isalo NP, New Year's.
Crazy bright red many-pede at Isalo NP, New Year's.
My stage and newest best friends before the split...I love you all!
Thanksgiving, Gasy-American style.
My best friends, dressed up for Christmas day.
Outside the church Christmas Day, Katsepy...friends, Santa and candy = perfect celebration!
Sailing home to Katsepy.
My last braids...and a shot of my home decorations.
The environment club students planting and protecting the tree seedlings they grew in order to provide a 'living fence' for the school.
Forty cows...just as many young boys...a crazy day and a perfectly prepared rice paddy.
Bowls and bowls of rice.

And so tomorrow, a new adventure begins...with a 3pm flight to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. I'm thrilled, nervous, anxious to find out who my new friends are, where my new community will be, what my new job is, but above all excited and happy. And though the title of this blog and its contents are now shifting to a new home, I will always be Malagasy Magnolia, sharing my continued Peace Corps...Part 2...experience with you all. Love you and more to come!

Losses and Changes

2009-03-22T01:48:00.000-07:00

As many of you have probably now heard, the Peace Corps Madagascar program has been indefinitely suspended and all volunteers have been safely evacuated from the country. All 116 of us landed here in Jo-burg, South Africa by last Tuesday, and have since been wading through heaps of paperwork, enduring the poking, prodding and collecting of the medical team, and trying to sort through the emotions of this heartbreaking experience. I have yet to fully process the loss or accept that this chapter of my life has come to an end, very sadly without my consent and without any closure, but I’m working on it.

And though they are strong, somewhat dramatic words to use, I do believe that the best description of this whole thing is heartbreaking loss. For me, the loss of my Malagasy friends and family, the loss of my job, garden, house, belongings, the loss of a full year of experiences in Madagascar, and the loss of my potential as a second year volunteer serving my community. I will not see my very pregnant friend give birth next month, I will not see my three year old neighbor expand his limited vocabulary (which includes my name) to complete sentences, I will not see the pride spread across the faces of my environment club students as we continue to build upon the tree nursery project, I will not get to share a meal from my first rice harvest with the friends who helped me plant it, and I will not be able to complete my commitment to my community…neither of us will be able to see what we could have accomplished together over two years. And for these things, my heart hurts.

And for the loss of the Malagasy people during this political clash of egos and guns, I feel the most pain. Rioting has led to the loss of life, looting and destruction have led to the loss of businesses and community confidence, unconstitutional take-over of the government has led to the condemnation on the international community, who has pulled out all non-relief aid, volatility has led to loss of foreign tourism and investment, and to a people already living on the bare minimum, there is the loss of a road leading towards a better life and the replacement of instability and reduced resources and opportunities. This is not to say that the discontent leading up to the coup was uncalled for, or that this new ‘president’ could not make a change for the better, but to the greater population of Malagasy people, a change over of power could have waited two years for the nation’s next constitutional elections. How can you keep moving forward if you’re too busy fighting the steps that will get you there? And how can one group of men shape and change the lives of present and future generations of an entire nation? And finally, as a biologist, what does this mean in terms of global biodiversity loss…tracks towards conservation of Madagascar’s unique flora and fauna will be severed during this change-over…how are we able to continue to help the Malagasy people to help themselves and their environment?

As I mourn these losses, I also recognize that I have had an incredible opportunity through PC to meet some of the most amazing people of my life, live in a way that is so powerful and different, and change myself through the process, and even if heartbreak had to be a part of it, I wouldn’t have asked for any other experience. I have not lost my many memories of Madagascar, I have not lost the laughter I shared with my community, I have not lost my most amazing support network of PC friends, who over the past thirteen months have given so much to me, through encouragement and love (though we are now scattered throughout the world, as opposed to the world’s fourth largest island), and I have not lost the lessons I learned about myself, the changed perception I have gained and the future of reflection about my experience. And for these things, I can bear the losses.

As most of my PC friends move on to the world of Returned PCV status, I have decided to continue my service, and am hoping for a transfer to either Tanzania or Zambia in the upcoming weeks. I will keep you updated as this opportunity unfolds. It has been a difficult decision to make, but I am committed to finishing my service, and am excited for the chance to try it all again…two PC experiences for the price of one. Thanks for reading, thanks for your thoughts and love, and thanks for a moment to honor the Malagasy people and the life they so willing gave and shared with me. Please keep in touch…stories from home are a great distraction, and besides you’ve read this far, so I owe you one. :)

Love you all very much,
Tara Magnolia

Back to Katsepy

2009-02-18T07:50:00.000-08:00

Ready, set, go...deconsolidate! After three weeks of 'wait-and-see' mode, I'm FINALLY heading back to Katsepy tomorrow! The situation in Madagascar has calmed and remains safe in most regions, so PC is hopefully here to stay. With wisely heightened security and renewed resolve to help a country even more in need, we head back to site. There is much more to report about the last three weeks, but I'm afraid that will take some processing first...so expect more news next interneting. But continue to know that I am safe, staying positive and ready to resettle at home, rebuild relationships in my community and get back to work. Thank you for all the positive emails, calls, and thoughts. You are all sending me absolutely too much love :), so I guess I'll just have to share the excess with my PC friends who have shared this most frustrating and challenging rollercoaster experience with me and with my community whose challenges are not over yet. I love you all so much!

And Happy Valentine's Day,
Tara Magnolia

PS...I was able to pick up packages today at the post office...thank you Dad and Maria, Grandma and Grandpa K and Kurt and Gretchen. It anyone is thinking about sending a package in the next couple weeks, hold off...I need to change my address due to corruptness. Bummer, eh? But other than that...awesome goodies, you guys rock!

Staying Safe in Madagascar

2009-01-29T20:50:00.000-08:00

Good morning,

In case you've been following Africa news over the past week, just wanted to let you all know that I am perfectly safe here in Madagascar.

News coverage is still not very prominent, so if you're thinking I'm talking about the cyclones last week, here is an update:

Starting on Saturday, demonstrations led by the capitol's mayor against the nation's president were held in Tana. The mayor and his supporters are upset with the president's increasing monopoly on the M/car market, his misspending of public funds, and a recent land lease to South Korea (half of M/car's arable land). On Sunday, the demonstrations turned into more active rioting. Monday, the mayor spoke again in Tana, which was then followed by protestors rioting and burning down the president's news and radio stations. Tuesday, political unrest in Madagascar spread and escalated.

I was in the capitol already for a training workshop and have been staying put safely at the PC house. Both Wednesday and Thursday were relatively calm here in Tana and throughout the country. My banking town, Mahajanga, was very hard hit, but friends there are safe. And I’ve heard things are normal back home in Katsepy, and my Malagasy ‘family’ is just as anxious for my return as I am. Most small villages probably have very little idea of what is going on. It’s just rice farming as usual.

Experiencing house arrest in the very upscale ‘vahaza’ part of Tana has been somewhat surreal. It’s sunny, birds are chirping, we’ve have plenty of food delivered and have even been able to go out to eat, and stuck with a great group, we’re laughing a lot. But I still can’t help but feel completely shocked...all Malagasy I know are happy, passive and hardworking people...I had no idea that this unhappiness and dissatisfaction with the gov't was so strong and could propel people to such destructive and even violent acts. I feel safe, but sadden and disappointed by this. All PCV's in country are safe and accounted for. I will have internet today and possibly tomorrow and will try to keep all informed as best as possible. If no news, nothing’s changed. :) Please no worries, we are all very safe, and PC is handling the situation incredibly well. Hopefully I've be home in my Katsepy tin and stick hut in no time, eating coconuts like nothing happened. :)

Love you all very much!
Staying safe and positive,
Tara

Dagu Diaries

2008-12-11T01:10:00.000-08:00

Hello all!
Just a quick reminder to check the blog shared by the PC Madagascar Environment '08 Stage at dagudiaries.blogspot.com - I've recently posted about Muslim Sakalava funeral traditions, and many other thought-provoking, witty, descriptive and downright hilarious posts reside there, serving as yet another window into the often surreal life of Madagascar's PCV's and my closest friends on the island. Enjoy and have a lovely Christmas! Jingle Bells or omby (cow) bells...take your pick...and all that holiday cheer. Love you!
~Tara Magnolia

Trees and Turning of Bones

2008-12-08T06:59:00.000-08:00

Hello! It's a picture post! Things are cruising right along in Katsepy...in summary...last month...sweatiest of my life (December, really?) and totally fun diving head-first into environmental education in the schools, including a rocking environment club tree nursery project. On my way home from the eastern rainforest after an undescribably awesome 'New Cranksgiving' holiday festivity with friends and a turkey that we killed and then cooked underground, I've got the fast internet and will let the pictures share my last month and a half at site. Enjoy!
Kids in the tree nursery on the first day of planting...already have some baby trees now.
Local lemurs...a baby lemur!
Possibly my best friend at site playing our favorite game...bump!
Okay this picture and the picture of the bones are from a 'Fahamadiana' or traditional Malagasy 'turning of the bones' ceremony. An honor to attend, but really too wild to describe, let me just say that if 10 years or so after I die, you (my friends and family) decide to dig my bones up, dress me up in a new white cloth, dance through the woods with a brass band as you carry what's left of my body to a shared feast, then re-bury me in a brand new tomb (still dancing), that is totally cool with me.
Super sweet canyon from Elise and my visit to Ankarafantsika National Park.

This awesome picture from Elise took pretty much sums up why my community is so wonderful...take the energy and happiness in this group of my neighborhood kids and apply it to just about everyone in town. How can I not be having fun?

Loads and loads of love to you. Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and is in the full holiday season swing. I do miss you all tremendously, especially right now, but think of you often and am always sending my love. Have fun and share hugs from me. Veloma-o!

Peace,
Tara Magnolia

Fasting, Friends and Farming

2008-10-17T01:50:00.000-07:00

Has is only been five weeks? It feels like so much has happened, I’m not sure where to start. I guess there was that one time when…

I fasted for two weeks of Ramadan with the Muslim majority of my community and was reminded that although not religious myself, sharing an important religious practice can be an incredible way to absorb the local culture, a chance to learn how to cook delicious Katsepy Muslim dishes, to eat and converse with more families, be dressed up and send to the mosque, and to become a connected part of an extended family. Unexpected things to share: Fasting during the daylight hours of Ramadan, Katsepy style, actually means saving as much room in your stomach for the feast you’re going to have each night, complete with many coconut specialties. Arabic songs shared during Islamic mass are beautiful and soulful, and the traditional hand-shaking ritual is one of the most meaningful experiences I’ve had in a church setting. The women’s finest robes come out for Friday mass, even though they pray in a separate room from the men.

A friend from Seattle, Elise, came to visit and hung out with me in Katsepy for a week. And we had a wonderful time climbing coconut and mango trees, tending the garden, transplanting rice, taking pictures to create a Katsepy photo journal, fossil hunting on the beach, and an amazing day spent walking to the lighthouse and hanging out with those lemurs – I’ve had great views while munching on cheese and crackers (a splurge) before but never one quite so animated or curious or downright cute – we’re talking baby lemur cute, trucking around on mama’s back or just learning how to jump.

I got an awesome care package from friends back home in Seattle via Elise. You all rock! Letters, pictures, friendship bracelets, books, music, games, chocolate and mac and cheese…what else could I ask for?! Thank you all so much! Thinking of you lots and always sending my love.

I spent 24 hours on a bush taxi after a rather wet ‘ferry’ ride in order to make it across the country to the wetter east coast for the annual PC Tamatave Bike Race and AIDS sensitization, where I saw many fellow PCV’s, did condom demos complete with wooden penis in front of groups of truck drivers, acted as water girl to speeding by bike racers, witnessed the combined hilarity and seriousness of the rickshaw race, ate pizza and ice cream, and went out dancing!

Elise and I visited Ankarafanstika National Park, exploring the last of Madagascar’s western dry deciduous forest and a really cool canyon carved out of bright red and orange sandstones. Got to check out loads of lizards, chamelons, turtles, and lemurs – spent a whole morning following the lemur highway from our tent to the turtle nesting grounds. And we suffered ‘only’ two flat tires on the bush taxi ride home.

With five Katsepy families, planted my own plot of rice using improved farming techniques and afterwards threw a transplanting party…complete with coke and cookies and lots of picture taking. And the rice is still alive and growing…harvest expected for December!

I learned the hard way how to properly transplant vegetables in my garden…though I must say I learned more in the one week after approximately 66.6% of my first round of vegetable transplants died than the entire month of lead-up reading. Forced to confess my lack of prior experience and to ask advice from all the farmers around my garden plot, I got a firmer grasp on locally suited techniques. And even better, I now have farmers more frequently visiting my plot, checking up on me and expressing greater interest now that they have invested some time into my garden. Seeing their existing techniques used to successfully plant vegetable crops new to the region has encouraged them to try little experiments in their own gardens. And now I have tasty little bok choi plants, melons, baby tomato and eggplants, and with any luck a few cabbage plants.

I discovered eating more than one mango (read:3-4) a day leads to a minor allergic reaction causing my skin to itch like crazy – can’t have it all I guess…bloody karma. But…jackfruits are freshly in season too…delicious!

I ‘did away’ with the four mice living in my house only to realize that they were very likely the reason I hadn’t seen the gigantic, super scary spiders in my house for a while. An unexpected symbiotic relationship?

It rained in Katsepy…complete with thunder lightening and a pretty wicked sunset.

Woot! Well that is pretty much the update from this side of the world. Hope everyone is doing well back home and not becoming too stressed with the election hoopla in the States. I miss you all very much…always great to receive letters and hear the news. Thanks again to Elise for an awesome visit and for bringing so many fun things from friends back home. Thanks to those who gave donations as well…I’m beginning to teach environment education classes this week and am hoping to have the Environment Ed Club’s first project be a school tree nursery…the amount donated should be more than enough to cover costs plus some! I’ll keep you posted on the progress of the project.
And finally pretty cute story to share…Elise was asked repeatedly how my mom and the rest of my family was doing back in the States, because of course, if she was a good enough friend to come and visit, she must know all of them. :) She was also asked to send Katsepy hello’s back to friends and family in the States. In the off chance you all reading this blog don’t actually know Elise, consider this your hello from Tara’s Katsepy friends and family! Sending much love and positive thoughts to all. Have a great upcoming Halloween celebration, possibly with a lemur costume contribution? :)

Love and Peace,
Tara

Hot Days and Upside Down Nights

2008-09-13T07:37:00.001-07:00

It is hot in Katsepy…I’d tell you just how hot, but my thermometer only goes to 120 degrees F. I requested the thermometer (thanks Grandma and Grandpa) thinking it would be cool to record daily temp and rainfall…I’m pretty sure the record will remain fairly consistent, at least until cyclone season…Temp=120, rainfall=0mm. The fact that I get goosebumps when it drops to 80 in the evenings is just one way in which my overall perspective on things is changing within this Peace Corps adventure. Things I’ve grown accustomed to (almost):

About a gazillion kids/babies running around that I can play with, have the patience to talk with me, and generally keep me sane and happy (and that wear minimal clothing, with at least one per week that will either pee directly on my leg or close enough for splashback).

A pathway of sand wherever I plan on walking with the occasional coconut obstacle (no joke, ‘solid’ ground feels weird to me now).

Being the only person in town consistently aware of what day of the week/time it is.
Things not being used as originally intended/in new and creative ways (example: half a fan cover used as a basket for potatoes).

Feeling like I have an second head or some other extra appendage that makes me stick out instantly…oh wait, it is just my skin/hair/eye color.

Being sung to sleep each night by a symphony of geckos, insects and other as of yet unidentified creatures.

Total disregard for gravity and incredible feats of balance around each corner (seriously? A giant bag of rice/basket of eggs/bucket of pineapples…on your head?!).

Intermittent electricity that incites cheers of glee from the children when it comes on (Katsepy has a generator that provides electricity for a couple hours in the evening…when there is gas to run it).

Eating copious amounts of starches…rice, potatoes, other impressively large tubers, bread, with spoon as the one and only necessary utensil.

Being aware and responsive to the phases of the moon, as well as viewing it and the rest of the night sky upside down.

The act of obtaining drinkable water being a time consuming process…fetching well water, filtering it, and adding a generous dose of chlorine.

Only washing my hair once or twice a week, but scrubbing my feet with a brush every night (bucket showers only).

Having to describe things like squirrels, drying machines and McDonalds.

Going on long and arduous hunts for exotic foods, like raisins, peanut butter or cornmeal, but having ridiculous quantities of coconuts and mangoes in my front yard.

Having callused hands not just from gardening by also from hand washing clothes in a bucket…I think they get clean.

Being totally unaware of world news (what is going on these days…anyone what to fill me in?)

Explaining that not all white people are French, and that not all Americans are from either LA or NY, and that there are many different types of Americans.

In addition to internet, cold beverages and ice cream being a really big treat each month during banking time.

The smell of burning always…trash, plastic, wood, charcoal.

Naptime.

Not knowing what I’m doing most of the time, but enjoying myself anyway, making friends and stories all along the way.

In work news… It was my main goal to get well settled and integrated by last month’s training. Ok, check, done…what next? Life has slowed down considerably lately…the daily routine is interrupted by short and intense bursts of productivity, as I try to arrange meetings and get a larger project rolling with the community. I’m operating at a 50% success rate with regards to meetings, which is a considerable improvement (only every other meeting gets cancelled now, as opposed to all) and each meeting provides me with more and more information about the needs of the community, as well as serves as a chance to explain Peace Corps yet again. So, these leaves me in limbo mode, and slightly anxious to start something. School starts in a couple weeks, which I’m very excited about…I’ve already begun to hold weekly English classes, at first just to get everyone off my back about teaching, but I’m actually having a lot of fun with it…the kids are really in to it. All in all, if there was a schedule, I’d consider myself on track, and making the most of it. Love you all so much and thinking of you always! Oh, and to though who expressed concern about the whole malaria thing, thanks, I’ve been nothing but healthy since, and am not above waging war against my mosquito enemies…lots of bug spray battles and I seem to be winning. :) Have fun and eat some cheese for me!

With Peace and Love,

Tara Magnolia

PS…Thank you Mom, Grandma and Grandpa K, and Kyle for the wonderful packages full of America. Also, Grandpa S, Kurt and Gretchen for the letters, and Rex for the awesome collection of postcards…I’m just wondering why you didn’t hop over to Madagascar while you were at it? :)

Pictures!

2008-08-17T23:04:00.000-07:00

Salam-a! How is everyone doing? I'm in the capitol, Tana, finishing up a week of training with my fellow stage mates. It's been great...catching up on stories, comparing experiences, sharing lessons learned, and just hanging out, eating good food, appreciating electricity and running water, and fast internet! So, finally with the capability to share, here are some pictures from site to give you a better idea of life in here in Madagascar.
~Family I work with a lot, gardening, rice farming, hanging out. This is a classic Malagasy picture....stand there and whatever you do, don't smile.

~Some girls charing a cultural dance on July 26, Madagascar's Independence Day and a big party day around the island.

~My lighthouse lemurs.

~The Cirque Rouge with my counterpart, Senator Bachir (center), and two friends, Farida and Faly. Fabulous crossbedding at this site.

~The tamin-bary (rice paddy) I'm usually to be found at, the ladies who taught me how to transplant rice, and the view from my garden. See all those mango trees? Next month, baby!

~My house. Pretty adorable huh?

I love you all! Hugs and kisses from Madagascar! Hope everyone is having loads of fun!

Yours,
Tara Magnolia

Dentists, Dinosaurs, and Demonstrations

2008-08-02T23:45:00.000-07:00

Salamo! Man, things are really moving along here in Madagascar...I've just hit the three month mark as a PCV! Too much has happened over the last few weeks to go into a lengthy journalist account :) so today I'm going to try a new approach and highlight some of the most exciting events and biggest successes of July in Katsepy Part 2...coming to you from the Madagascar's sunny west coast...complete with a picture! ( slower-than-
molasses-photo-uploading and the largeness of my photos dictates this singularity...working on fixing this) Events listed in chronological order. :)

Fitampoha in Mahajanga. My counterpart took me to this annual Sakalava cultural festival where the Sakalava royal family washes some of the remains of the first Sakalava king in Madagascar. Everyone was dressed in their most extravagant lambas, there was a parade, dancing, singing, and even trombas (Sakalava fomba where a person is 'possessed' by the deceased and relays messages from beyond to the crowd watching...pretty wild). And if this picture would ever upload, you'd see that I was dressed and prepped by some ladies from my town to 'fit in' as best as possible. Although in my opinion, braided hair, salovana and kisaly only served to make me stick out more, especially while walking through the city of Mahajanga before arriving at the festival. Embarrassing? Maybe. Ridiculous? Probably. A moment to embrace and be proud of for all its embarrassing ridiculousness and total uniqueness? Definitely. And check out the beauty of my counterpart's wife (left) and the Sakalava princess (right).

Stony Brook Dental Team visit to Katsepy was a great week complete with lots of conversations in English (!) and Malagasy, American food brought and shared by the team (oh peanut butter and pringles!), and more tooth extractions than I thought possible (in the thousands - top single mouth record:24 teeth! holy cow!). The team visited Katsepy last after a month of visits to rural villages and next to free dental care for those brave and smart enough to see this group of blue scrub cloaked, 'headlamp' wearing Americans. I helped out where I could...roughly translating, washing and sterilizing the instruments (a somewhat surreal transformation of my beaker and pipet tip washing days in the geochemistry lab), showing off Katsepy and the local lighthouse lemur family, and I even extracted a tooth...a nice loose lower incisor, right in front! The team did tremendous work and deserves much appreciation.
I finally made it to the dinosaur site! No paleo-ing this time, but rather site development with the PC Environmental Program Associate Director, Stanislas. As the closest volunteer to the site, I'll be helping prepare the site for a new PCV coming with next year's Environment group. The visit was a lot of fun, with a community meeting under a tree, a visit to the exhibit and lots of shared enthusiasm between the village, the Ankizy Fund and Peace Corps. Felt very Peace Corps throughout.
After Berivotra, Stan and super cool PC driver, Doda, came up to Katsepy with me to check things out at my site, and assess my progress thus far. Timing could not have been more perfect. The first day I was able to walk around town (which was positively buzzing with Sobahya Festival prep and people) with Stan, introducing him to my friends and mpiara-miasa's (people I work with), giving him a sneek peek of the work I'd done for the solar cooking demonstration, and getting advice about my garden and techniques/variations I can try next. It was great...not only was Stan very impressed with my integration and project progress so far, but he was very supportive and encouraging, giving great feedback on my first three months at site. Although, I have a number of 'independent' research projects under my belt, nothing has felt as truly independent as my PC work so far. Which can be somewhat liberating, but makes it hard to gauge your progress and recieve advice or answers to the many questions I have here in Katsepy. It was a very positive experience to have Stan there at site, especially the following day for the actual cooking demonstration!
Sobahya and solar cooking/drying demo was incredible! Not only did tons of people pass by, but after they tried my free solar-baked cookies and cake, were genuinely interested in the cookers. I had built three for the demonstration and had food out on the drying rack as well. It is amazing...I've been talking about solar cooking since my arrival, but only after seeing the cookers, tasting the masaka (done) food, and feeling the heat from the pots did people really believe and begin to get excited. It was so fun...I was having a blast sharing with the crowd gathered around with the help of Doda (my Malagasy is still elementary at best), and even better was when a Malagasy person who had already heard the speel would begin explaining it to the next person to show up at my stand. I had handouts in Malagasy to give out, so hopefully the word will be spreading. With a few smaller cooking and oven building classes, I hope to actually get some cookers made and in use! How exciting...the demo, especially with PC's, my community's and my counterpart's presence and support was the perfect climax to my first three months at site.
And Sobahya wasn't all 'work' either! Before the demo, all the lehibe's (big important people...Sakalava queen, mayor, etc) showed up, gave speeches, and we all enjoyed a number of performances from Malagasy and Comorian dancing and singing groups. And after the demo, I got to enjoy street side brochettes with my Malagasy friends and go out dancing...Malagasy singer Wawa was in Katsepy for the festival and they put on a awesome show from 10 at night until 4 in the morning! It was crazy...more people than I thought could fit in Katsepy dancing and celebrating...and with a number of friends for dance partners, I no longer felt like that awkward new girl at the school dance. :) Over a week later, and Katsepy is still in recovery from this full-out festival and Sakalava cultural event.
I have beans in my garden! And cucumbers that should be ready for the eating in a week or so! Produce never tasted so fresh and delicious! And I get to experience the satisfaction of being at least somewhat competent in the world of organic gardening. Course, I need to try again with peppers and tomatoes, but hey, this is a learning process, right?!
I have a site partner, of sorts! I just got to meet Lauren, the new Education Volunteer who is currently in training, but will be opening a new site in a village close to me starting at the end of this month. She passed through Katsepy on her way to visit Mitsinjo, and we hit it off right away. Somewhat isolated from the rest of Peace Corps Volunteers here in Katsepy, it will be great fun to have a friend close by to share the next two years, and to share the unique and culturally rich region I am luckly enough to live in.

Okay, got another week at site before returning to Tana for a week of in-service training with my fellow stage mates. We haven't seen eachother for the last three months or even talked much, so you could guess that I'm more than a little excited to share stories and compare notes. Time is flying and I'm trying my hardest to absorb and appreciate it all as it soars pass. Thinking of you all back home often and despite my extreme happiness here, do experience twinges of home/family/friend-sickness. I love you all so much and am constantly held up by your support and enthusiasm for me here in Madagascar. Thank you so much! Hugs and kisses across the miles and miles! Mazotoa!

~Tara
PS. G'ma and G'pa K and Tiffany...I received your packages. Thank you so much...you rock! Letters are on their way.

Salama Tsara! Good Health!

2008-07-14T10:57:00.000-07:00

Well, good news…I got my first, and hopefully last, case of malaria and after a only a few physical and emotional breakdowns and a week of just laying around, I got over it just fine with the help of a lovely drug, Coartem. The experience was not my favorite so far in Madagascar, but I can definitely say I still learned a lot:

1. Malaria sucks…wear bug spray more often. But it’s bearable.
2. Who I can count on if something bad happens again – who is going to bring me food, fetch water for me, water my plants in the garden, check up on me. It was a huge comfort to know that I wasn’t alone or forgotten about and that I have an extended Malagasy family willing and happy to take care of me. :)
3. Peace Corps provides great medical care and meds, but at site, you’re pretty much on your own for monitoring and treating your own health. First time it hit me how separated I am from the really important ‘conveniences’ of American life.
4. There are going to be times when I won’t be making progress in my projects, whether due to sickness or other reasons, and this is OKAY (eg. I shouldn’t get so frustrated). Set backs are inevitable, and flexibility and adjustment to the situation is the name of the game.
5. Anna Karenina is a good book and you can make it far in six days with nothing to do and when lying down is the least painful position (thanks Kurt and Gretchen for the Thermarest…made lying on my relatively cooler floor much better). :)
6. My house geckos are also fun to watch, if you have the time. I saw one ‘eat’ a beetle bigger than its head…and with the huge bug wiggling around and hanging out of its mouth it was still able to run vertically up the wall…that’s amazing!
7. I don’t miss TV at all, but I do miss couches.

And now, over a week later, I’m feeling great and have already gotten back on track with my projects. Besides how could I really pass two years in Madagascar without getting some endemic mosquito-born illness…it just wouldn’t be Peace Corps otherwise! And just so you know, I do take anti-malarial meds and sleep under a mosquito net…I guess I just got unlucky this once.
Since then, I’ve been back to work in my garden and have built a rather elaborate solar food dryer. I was hoping to build something simpler and less intimidating for a Malagasy person, but my neighbor was helping me, so I kind-of had to go with the flow. Excited and with plenty of supplies, he helped me build a really good-looking and totally functional dryer…I’ve already been snacking on dried papaya and bananas. So, things are shaping up nicely for the solar cooking/drying demonstration I will do in two weeks during Katsepy’s annual festival Sobahya. Can’t wait!

I had a great day this week, transplanting rice an a different rice paddy with one of my favorite ladies, Mama Saondra and her family…to get there you have to follow a ‘path’ submerged underwater through reeds and mangrove trees. This rice paddy is in a lovely little valley surrounded by mango, coconut, and cashew (yahoo!) trees. The men worked ahead of the women, preparing the muddy paddies for the little rice plants, and we women transplanted rice right behind them. As we worked, the women would chat and often sing, the children came along for the day and you could hear them playing and giggling in the trees, and the whole family operation of working the land and planting rice was truly remarkable. At noon, we washed the mud off our legs and arms in the stream and moved up slope to enjoy a delicious meal of rice and beans with coconut sauce, eaten Malagasy family style…one large plate, lots of spoons and circle around. After eating our fill, we took a rest in the shade, sleeping a bit, braiding hair, and eating kijavo (fresh coconut before we Americans would normally eat it…it is still soft, juicy and delicious…my latest food obsession here). Back to work in the afternoon, we finished a few more squares of the vast rice paddy and I got the chance to practice my Malagasy more and ask some important questions about their farming practices, expenses, and lifestyle. It was the perfect day to get me out of my getting over Malaria and losing language funk (I was feeling frustrated bc I was definitely Malagasy stupider after a week of no walking around and chatting).

In other news, I’m finally a published author! I just found out that our paper about a therapsid fossil found in Niger the year before last was published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Yip-ee! If you have access to scientific literature, would you mind sending me the pdf? Thanks! Or any other interesting papers for that matter…or news in general…I’m definitely out of the loop here. And if you’re ambitious enough to send a package, I could definitely use some good reads…Dad, I still haven’t read The Once and Future King! And any other favorites would be much appreciated! And/or tasty American snacks and treats. :) Mom, I got your package and it is awesome! Thank you so much…I’m going to try hard to make the Twizzlers last. Thinking about everyone lots and love you all much! Thanks again for letters/emails/etc…it is wonderful to hear what everyone is up to. Hugs and kisses across the miles and miles!

~Ta-ra (draw out the ta- and put a big emphasis on the –ra)

What does a PCV do in Katsepy?

2008-06-23T06:36:00.000-07:00

Salama daholo! Ino voavoa? Maresaka? I'm a little bummed, because I had some awesome pictures to post of my garden, house, and of Peace Corps Volunteer me, but due to a certain lacking usb port on this ancient computer, photos are a no-go. So you'll have to settle for using your imagination...my carrots, radishes, cucumbers and beans are about yah-tall and my lettuce and melons are just poking their heads out of the ground against a backdrop of rich green rice paddies, mango and coconut tress; my house is a little bunglow sort with red windows and door, tin and wood siding and tin roof; and I'm pretty much the same, except with noteably wilder hair, a wicked tan, and according to my villagers (they say this with pride), a little bit plumper - I'm not sure I agree with this last statement, but perhaps I should cut back on the coconut enhanced rice, bread and kabaka (side dishes) :) and up the number of bikerides I take to the district lighthouse where I catch the breeze up high and chill with my fellow primates, the family of six sifaka that live in the baobob trees there.

So, I believe last post I promised a lowdown on my 'job' there, so here goes:
1. I garden, experimenting with new vegetables not yet grow in my region and with techiniques not yet used. My plot is quite large, and I'm slowly preparing the soil and adding raised bed after raised bed, so it is definitely a work in progress and I've much to learn still. But, I've already had the joy to discover that I, in fact, love gardening! Totally intimidated at first, both by the techniques and the amount of physical labor input needed, now I'm thrilled to spend the day in my garden watering my new little plants and working the soil. All that, and hopefully in a couple months I'll have all sorts of organically homegrown veges! Did I mention a big part of PC for me is reducing my ecological footprint on the earth...well, there you go!
2. Solar cooking and drying project. I've already built a very simple solar cooker with some cardboard, glue and aluminum foil that cooks like a dream...I've already impressed my neighbors by baking bread, cooking rice and even beans! That crazy shiney thing in my yard really does serve a function. And I can't think of anything more practical in this incredibly sunny, hot, haven't seen rain yet home of mine. I'm also in the process of building a solar dryer in anticipation for the mango season. Next step, cooking 'class' with the town women's association and a demonstration at the town's big festival next month.
3. Teaching. In September, when school starts again, I will officially begin my environmental education program at the town elementary and middle school, with plans for a school garden/tree nursery, and hopes to start a science/nature club. Along with teaching gardening techniques and introducing new and delicious veges :), I will be doing ecology and conservation lessons, all with a little bit of english (what I get asked on a daily basis to teach). Any lesson plan ideas, advice from those already experienced at teaching, etc, please do share. I'm already starting to plan a bit. In addition to the youngsters, I'll probably be holding English classes maybe once a week for interested adults too.
4. Geography/Map project! Not an official project, just something on the side I'd like to do and would love your, yes you!, help with. I've got a giant map of the world and bunch of kids who don't know about much outside of Katsepy but are interested in learning - all that's missing are pictures of the world to share with them! So next time you run across some cool photos of people, landscape, culture of the world (even including ridiculous American pop culture) in your lastest issue of National Geographic or US Weekly, please think of the 'poor children of Madagascar' and send 'em my way (it'd be great too if you'd also think of your poor friend Tara who misses you terribly and send a letter update along with the pics :)). Thanks everyone...I think this would be really cool and definitely more exciting for the kids to look at than me eating dinner (which they frequently stop by in the evenings to do...yes, Americans can eat rice too).
5. Misc. development projects. UNICEF is looking at funding a youth center in Katsepty, a group of dentists will be visiting the town next month (armed with toothbrushes and anti-decay whatever I hope...this group is headed up by a non-dentist who none-the-less frequently finds the need to use dental tools I imagine as he prepares his Madagascar fossils and someone who I hope to be working with often over the next two years, paleontologist David Krause...check out the Ankizy Fund for more info), and the next town over has a local bird conservation effort underway that focuses not only on wildlife protection but also youth education. Perfect!

***Disclaimer...this is where I start to get a little wordy...read at your leisure, maybe with a cup of tea to stay focused...okay, good luck!***

So, getting the idea yet? Honestly, I frequently find my head overflowing with all sorts of ideas, including girl's club, a library, ecotourism, but I have to keep reminding myself to slow down and focus on the basics, such as what the heck is Peace Corps and why exactly is this little white girl living with us...I'm pretty sure that piece of me is still a big question mark for my community. They know they like me, but why I'm farming vegetables and transplanting rice, hmmm.... :) Fortunately, while my Malagasy is steadily improving, at this point it is still an effective barrier against letting myself get carried away. That said, the potential for projects here in Katsepy is immense. Within the next month I will begin holding meetings with community members and farmers to determine where felt needs and desires lie and begin to prioritize these needs to insure that my work here is the most efficient and effective it can be. Also, the stronger the involvement and enthusiasm for a project from the community, the more sustainable, and hopefully longlasting the project will be. I'm valuing of myself less as a teacher (because honestly, how could I possibly hold anywhere near the amount of knowledge as a local farmer or community member) and more as a venue for new innovations and techniques that can be used to improve/modify existing techniques, and as an experimentor who can afford to take risks and make mistakes while learning (although I'm living relatively simply on about $200-300 a month, this is still a fortune compared to the avg Katsepy family). The village is poor, the children are malnourished, the school is not a simulating or encouraging learning environment, and the landscape, while beautiful is heavily degraded. And yet the people are happy, among the most friendly and welcoming I've ever met, always willing to share a meal, sit and talk, patiently teach me new words, braid my white girl hair (and yes, I do in fact look ridiculous in cornrows, but the town loves it and it is cool social 'event'). I have much to learn from my community (already have learned how to cook just about anything with cococut, gut and descale a fish, appreciate just sitting and watching, and the kids have taught me how to make these cool little balls and 'windmills' out of grass that result in all sorts of fun games). I only hope that I can in return equally teach, share, and enrich their lives and in particular encourage and educate youngsters so they can become the next motivators within the community.

Okay, I'm getting long winded and carried away again...these are big hopes for someone who can just barely hold a full-on Malagasy conversation, but I'm already feeling a sense of trust and acceptance from my community that is incredible. I have a couple ladies who I believe are becoming real friends, my favorite lady (who gives me papaya and home-made honey) has become Mama ani'Tara (women here are named after their oldest daughter) or to me, mamako Malagasy (my Malagasy mom), and if I don't walk my usually circuit for even one day, the next day everyone is like, ' Hey Tara! Where have you been-I haven't seen you in so long!'. I think they've come to expect me passing by and I have to admit nothing makes me happier than seeing a friend's face light up when they see me wander past and we spend the next few minutes catching up on the news for the day. A favorite moment... One day a lot (4) of vazaha (foreigners) were in town, and I was commenting on this to one of my Malagasy friends, informing her that although these were probably the people I had the most in common with in town, I couldn't speak a word to them! They were all French, didn't speak English (or Malagasy :)), and my French sucks to put it mildly. She laughed and said, 'Don't worry, you're only a vazaha on the outside cause you're white, on the inside, you're Malagasy'. Oh, my goodness, does it get better than that? (Do hope so...I've still go 22 months here. :))

And then just as I'm feeling comfortable and settled, inevitable something unexpected, bizarre and unique happens to remind me that I'm indeed in Madagascar where life is totally different and even the most ordinary experiences can occur in the most extraordinary setting...drinking tea from my thermos at the base of the lighthouse constructed by the French some time ago, still in use and powered by solar panels (which are protected from goats by a dilapitated fence of tree branches and grass rope) while I overlook a small grass hut village on the edge of a white sand beach facing the Mozambique Channel. And vice versa, where the most usual everyday event can occur in the craziest way...buying meat (there is a story for you one day) or my ferry ride across the bay to Mahajanga yesterday, where I probably could have lifted my feet and remained in place it was so crowded...sandwiched between about a 5 people, a basket full of chickens, a few loose ones, and a bicycle with a dead pig (not joking) tied to the back made it hands down the most entertaining transportion experiences thus far. And I'm enjoying every moment of my Madagascar life (well almost - there are definitely a few hard times or things I only enjoy in retrospect, usually due to their inherent irony or value as a 'cultural learning experience'). Remembering that I graduated a little over a year ago, I doubt I had any idea then what my Peace Corps life would have in store for me, but now, firmly placed in it, I can hardly imagine being anywhere else or doing anything different at this point in my life. Ahhh!

Well, I do believe I've rambled on long enough, and if you have made it this far (especially without pictures to fuel your interest!) you are a real trooper. I love you all very much! Hope everyone is doing marvelously! Keep the letters coming...got two today (thanks Grandparents Kunas and Chris!) ...they totally make my day and I've got the time to write back (Shiloh, Smiley's, Kunas', Lesan's, Robyn, expect letters 'soonish'...not sure how long post takes from here). Think of you often and sending love, hugs and kisses your way!
Peace,
~Tara Magnolia

Week 3...Fety, Pictures and Address!

2008-05-23T01:29:00.000-07:00

So, I've officially been at site for three weeks now and am loving it! Finally unpacked and adjusting to up at 5:30, bed by 9 with walking, talking, working and often a surprise or two in between, life is moving along in Katsepy. Stories...last week, the women's group in my community had a meeting and I had asked to be invited. So, they pick me up on their way and turns out the meeting was entirely doing Malagasy dances. They crank up the generator, blast the music and for the next couple hours they teach me Malagasy dances (even better, specific to my region). Thank goodness for my dance background, so I was able to pick up the moves no problem, but I will never be able to move my hips like they do. The next day they had a 'meeting' again, so after a morning working in my garden, I show up and we dance and then there is some talk about a ball, most of which I don't understand, but catch that something is happening the next morning in town...a women's fety (party/festival). So the next morning I show up to check things out...they're not ready yet, but they're working on something...come back at 1. I come back at 1, still not ready yet, but a corner of town has been blocked off and decorated. Too late to work in the garden, so I do my usual walk around and talk with some of the friends I am making in town. Finally 5 o'clock rolls around and someones comes up to me asking, "Where is your lamba (Malagasy sarong), you need it for the fety?" I think okay, go home, grab the beautiful lamba I was given during site visit and return. Next thing I know, the 'fety' has filled up with spectators, I'm dressed up Sakalava (tribe/culture of my region) style in my lamba and performing the dances with the women. It was completely surprising and wonderful! They continued without me with an even more impressive rice pounding dance after. It was amazing. Later on in the evening we did have a proper ball...with everyone in town dancing...old to young. The community is so culturally rich and in enjoyment of life. I feel very lucky to get to experience it and hopefully become a part of it all over the next two years.

I'm still hitting many languages walls, but hopefully I will get a tutor soon and that will improve too. And I'm not quite used to sharing my space and privacy with both curious Malagasy people showing up at my house to 'talk' (or sit and stare) and critters...the lizards are totally cool, giant incredibly fast wolf spiders not. The other night I made so much noise trying to kill one on my tin wall that my neighbor came over to check on me...armed with my headlamp and a giant stick and telling her that it was 'just' a spider, I'm not sure what she thought. :) Despite my oddities and lack of simple knowledge (Here Tara, why don't you just let me crack that coconut open for you, or this is how you cook a fish, or how you did a hole), I think that I'm definitely working my way into the community...the fact that it takes me close to an hour to walk the equivalent of four blocks around my town because everyone talks with me I think is a good sign. :) I promise I do work too, more on my 'job' will have to be the topic of my next post. Today I'm in the big city again and have meet some more wonderful new volunteers who also bank in Majunga. And I have set up a post office box!

**My address now is:
PCV Tara Smiley
BP 200
Mahajanga Principle 401
Madagascar

So enjoy a few pictures from my site...scenes from town and the women's fety. It is lunch time and I'm about starved for some rice, so I'm out, but please write...letters and emails are wonderful! I'm just as curious to hear how everyone back home is doing...and thanks again to those who have already been in touch...letters are on their way! I love you all so much and miss you!

~Tara

A Volunteer...and Katsepy Resident!

2008-05-09T03:41:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been so long since I've last been able to post, I'm not even sure where to begin. Last week marked the end of training, a bittersweet good-bye to my Malagasy homestay family and fellow trainees (and now after ten weeks together very close friends) and a meaningful swearing in ceremony in Tana. The transition into Volunteer life began with a quick move into my new home of Katsepy, where I have been beginning the adjustment to a new, very hot, very beachy lifestyle. :) My counterpart (main go-to person to work with at my site) is a former Malagasy senator and an amazing resource and person - very well educated and travelled and, still at 70, going strong and working hard to improve the lives of the people in Katsepy, the town his family comes from and to represent and share the Sakalava culture of the region. He knows everyone and is incredibly well respected and will be a great resource for me for the next two years. He and the community have provided me with a beautiful little home and a rather large gardening plot. Wednesday I had the tremendous experience of transplanting rice seedlings in the rice paddies near my garden plot. Listening to the chatter of the two Malagasy women who farm there and patiently taught me how to do the transplanting as I squished calf deep, pudding-like mud between my toes and tried to keep from falling face first into the newly planted rice, I couldn't help but feel in awe of the moment. Of course, this excitement was mixed with the frustration of understanding very little of the chattering going on around me, but I know that the language will improve with time...little by little I will become tamana tsara (well settled). The tremendous generousity and welcoming nature of the Malagasy people, especially in my community, is already helping me to feel at home. Every evening (all 7 of them now :) I try to make the rounds through Katsepy - hit up Mama Jackie's (taught me how to make coconut bread the other day), wander through the little market (this is easy and fun because all we talk about is food and that is about the extent of my vocab anyway) and say hello to everyone I pass (they get a huge kick out of the fact that I know how to say hello in the local dialect and ask what's up). I gave a small speech at the town meeting where my counterpart and the mayor introduced me to everyone and so they all think I'm super mahay (smart - ha! little do they know I just nod and smile) and like to tell me so, which is a huge confidence booster. I've already aquired some teenage sidekicks who help me find my way around (not hard...Katsepy has all of two main 'roads') and show me where to buy this and that. And this is were I should mention how incredibly beautiful my site is...coconut trees everywhere...it truly is a beach paradise. Things I like...picking fresh fruit off the trees as you walk by and eating it on the spot, how unnecessary shoes are, the wind that comes off the sea and provides relief from the incredibly warm climate here on the west coast, the 'siesta' time after lunch when it is too hot to do any work and instead you lay out in your yard (sand of course) on a straw mat which you occasionally have to move to keep it in the shade, the beautiful lambas (sarongs) the women wear and I like to slip into to keep cool after my evening bucket shower while I cook dinner (rice of course), and the wide open possibilities of new friends, new culture, new learning experiences, and a new outlook on life as a Peace Corps Volunteer living and working in Madagascar. I have so much to learn and discover and do, whew it is all at once overwhelming, exciting and still totally crazy.
Just a couple notes to round up training...my stage (group of trainees) was incredible...I couldn't have asked for a better group of people to share the last ten weeks and the next two year with. And now everyone is living in beautiful, interesting and unique places across Madagascar...lots of places and people to visit! Our last tech trip was to a natural park where, yes I saw lemurs in the wild (and lizards, frogs, and chamelons)! The rainforest here is incredible. If Peace Corps had let me, or at least taken their eyes off me for more than a couple minutes, I'm pretty sure I would have headed off to explore and sleep in the mossy undergrowth for a couple weeks. My birthday was very fun, despite having language class all day. We celebrated in style with Malagasy cake, awesome homemade cards, and lots of hugs. My family even gave me a new lamba. It was a great way, and place, with great people to turn 24. We held a big picnic to say good-bye to our families in Mahitsitady, but hopefully I'll be back again sometime in the next two years to see my little sister again. Swearing in (the official ceremony where we take our Volunteer oaths) was a huge success with a fantastic speech in Malagasy from one of our very own - way to represent Brendan! And the last days together were spent cramming in last minute tech knowledge and language and the last nights talking, dancing and enjoying. We even had a talent show...another former dancer in the group, Katherine and I choregraphed and performed a 'Malagasy' dance. It was all fantastic.
Hmmm...something has interrupted the uploading of my pictures. And I've already been online too long, but what is up already are some pictures of my Malagasy homestay family...very wonderful! Our stage has created a group blog at http://www.dagudiaries.blogspot.com/ which you should check out for more insight into life as a volunteer in Madagascar and pictures as well as links to the blogs of others in my stage that are better at posting pictures than I have been. Please enjoy! And write often. Sorry to be so absent, but now I should be making the trip into Majunga to bank/internet twice a month. More pictures and stories to come! I love you all very much and am looking forward to hearing more about life back state-side. Congrats again to Lindsay and Aaron! Hope married life rocks so far. Lots of love, hugs, kisses and thoughts. And as before, know that I am very happy here and really enjoying my experience thus far. With an amazing support system both from home, here in Madagascar and in my community, this will become my home in no time. Love you!

~Tara

Akory Haly!

2008-03-28T10:22:00.000-07:00

Salama! I hope everyone back home stateside (and elsewhere) is doing wonderfully. Same situation as the last post, but I've got a full belly of cheese (yes! cheese!) pizza and a little more patience (or maybe my finger have forgotten how to type anyway). Life on the red island continues to progress in the most wonderful of ways (and amazingly quickly). The last couple weeks have passed with more language and technical training, somewhat less awkward dinnertime conversations with my family (by the way, I live with an older couple - 50's - their son and his wife and their almost two yr old daughter - who is just about the most adorable thing I've laid eyes on - I might have to steal her away to site with me - my family is wonderful, extremely patient, and takes great care of me, and my mom's mofo akondro (banana bread) is about the best thing ever - she is teaching me to cook)....okay, where was I...the last couple weeks have passed with a crazy Easter celebration/picnic at the lake (after the longest most uncomfortable four hours at church) with the whole town and fianakaviana ny mamako betseka (loads of my mom's family), continued strengthening of my friendships with the other trainees in my stage (all incredible - talented, funny, smart, supportive), and a daily building of enthusiaism, excitement and positivity. Faly lehibe aho (I'm so happy!). And this all leads up to yesterday...probably the biggest day yet (and that is saying a lot), when I met the first member of my future community. Called Partner's Day, one person from our site travels down to Tana to meet us, do a workshop, and then take us back to our site to check things out for a couple days and begin meeting people. My 'partner' is a farmer from Katsepy, very nice, and turns out speaks a dialect quite different from what I've been learning (the steep - really almost vertical - learning curve will continue for a long time I think - I'm up for it!). Tomorrow we'll have a 13 hour taxi-brousse (imagine being as uncomfortable as possible and then add in incredibly curvy roads) to Mahajanga to start peicing it all together. Then I ferry across the bay to see my home for the next two years for the first time! I'm so excited, I can't even describe it - take leaving the states and times it by twenty, and while you're at it do that for my overwhelmedness too! :) When I was leaving the states, two years seemed like nothing...now it seems like such a long time, but such a long time full of countless possibilities that I'm sure will ultimately fly by. I've been developing lots of potential project ideas/ambitions for my two years in Katsepy - it will be fantastic to actually see it and begin the process of determining how I can best help the community (and enjoy myself!) I'll be seeing my home - my Malagasy home - how crazy and super sweet is that! And all I've heard (from so many people) about Katsepy so far is how beautiful it is. And did I mention there is a paleontologist who does a lot of work nearby who I've been put in touch with and is enthusiastic about paleo and development projects - could it really been a more perfect fit? So, I have a feeling the next post will be very full! And with pictures! You have to see the kids here - they are awesome and are continually energizing me. Okay, time to share the computer. But first thanks so much for the letters that have been sent - my address is in the first post and if you write me, I'll write you back (sorry I don't have everyone's address already) - they totally make my day. And, I now have a cell phone - the number is 011261 32 5509 533 - that includes Mad country code. It is not often on or with reception, but just so you know! I've talked to a couple people already and am so happy to hear that everyone back home is doing well! I miss you all so much and think of you often - I can't wait to continue to share this experience with you! So much love to you all! OXOXOXOX
Peace,
Tara

Love to all! (I'm alive and doing wonderful!)

2008-03-12T10:43:00.000-07:00

Hello all! Okay, I'm on a french keyboard, and there is quite the line of PCT's waiting for computer time after me, so please forgive the shortness of this post and any wierdness with wrong letters/characters. :) So, in short, things in Madagascar are wonderful! My training group, trainers, language teachers and Malagasy family are all super lovely people. Living with a Malagasy family is both a great learning experience and a huge challenge...but, my Malagasy gets better every day, and I'm totally digging the candle-lite evenings, rice for three meals a day every day, showers from a bucket, and I believe I've mastered the kabone (latrine). I'm getting super mahay (smart) with all sorts of gardening (including rice cropping) and am starting to figure out what environ. ed. actually means. :) And, I know where I will be living for the next two years...Katsepy! It is a beach village on the West Coast (closest big tozn is Mahajunga). It looks totally sweet.
I feel like there is so much I want to share, but I will hqve to do this more later...sorry I haven't been able to write sooner...we just arrived in Tana (the big city) last night...I can,t believe Iùve been gone for less than 3 weeks...America seems pretty far away to me now, and Iùm definitely loving the Malagasy immersion. Today we visited an amazing orphanage in Tana, and got to play with children all day...all I can say is that it was magical. Thanks for all the wonderful notes so far...I'm very happy, loving life, and staying healthy. Hopefully I'll have internet again in a couple more weeks, and Iùll write a better, less random post then, but I should prob share the computer. Thinking about you all lots! Love you so much!

~Tara Tsiky (Smile)

Off to Madagascar We Go!

2008-02-15T09:38:00.000-08:00

Hello Friends and Family!

Today is the day! After two great days of training in Washington, DC, I now have a 'somewhat' better idea of what to expect from the beginning of my Peace Corps adventure in Madagascar. Many more questions will get answered, I'm sure, once we arrive! My training group is wonderful so far - many interesting, talented, enthusiastic and motivated people to continue to get to know and share stories with. Everyone seems truly fitted for the Peace Corps and we all seem fitted for each other. There are 32 of us to join the 115 Volunteers already in country.

Anxiety and excitement has been building as we prepare to board our plane this afternoon. It will be a long 15 hour flight to Johannesburg, South Africa, where we will spend the night and get ready to take off for Madagascar the very next morning. Our training site in Madagascar is 2 1/2 hours outside of Antananarivo and looks wonderful! I'm thrilled to begin meeting the Peace Corps staff and other Volunteers in country. Most exciting, or nerve-racking, of all, is that we will be directly dropped off at our new host families' homes that first evening. Communication will be interesting, I'm sure. :) And then training begins! As part of the Environmental Program in Madagascar, I will more specifically be an Environmental Education Volunteer. Feeling uncertain of what that means and what skills I will need, training will be an amazing and challenging three months - especially since we will be learning and adopting a whole new language and culture. Oh man though, I am so excited. If you know me at all, you know I'm sitting at the edge of my seat, mind racing and with the biggest smile on my face. Life couldn't feel more right (and crazy) than it does at this moment (although it will probably feel even crazier in just a day or two). Since we going directly to our training site upon arrival in Madagascar, we will have no contact with home for at least the first few weeks - no internet or phone! So, although I won't be able to post again for a bit, know that I am doing wonderfully with my new cohort of Peace Corps Trainees and in my new home, Madagascar! No news is the good news, and when I get to share with you again, well, that will be the best news.

Important things of note!

New email address: taramagnolia@gmail.com

Mailing address during training:
Bureau du Corps de la Paix
B. P. 12091
Post Zoom Ankorondrano
Antananarivo 101
Madagascar

Send me a letter and I'll write you back!

Also, thank you so much to all who has been my incredible support system as I prepared for this amazing adventure and opportunity. I couldn't have done it without all of my extraordinary friends and family. I'll be thinking of you always, and I can't wait to share my experience with you!

I love you!
Tara