The good, the bad, and the sticky…

9/13/12

Well, there are ups and downs to every job, and this past week has had a lot of both and then some.  So, upon my return to the country, my host family from Mantasoa calls and says that they want to come visit me.  Lesson about Malagasy: they do not plan in advance.  I thought maybe this was just with work, but they called Monday (although I didn’t actually talk to them until Wednesday) and said they wanted to come visit on Thursday that same week.  I got them to delay it until Monday.

So, they arrived on Monday, at about 4 in the afternoon, 3 boys, 5, 9 and 12, and the mom.  I was very excited to see them…and then they got in my house.  I had put most of my really important stuff in my trunk and locked it, but what I didn’t realize is that they were going to pick anything up that wasn’t nailed down.  Pick up, mess with, throw, put in their mouths ect.  I realized that part of this is due to the fact that there isn’t really anything in their house that is just for “decoration.”  They are not used to the phrase “look with your eyes, not your hands.”  And it wasn’t just in my house, but when we went to visit a few of my friends and neighbors houses and when we went to the market.  I ended up being the disciplinarian.  And occasionally gave up and put on a Disney movie.  It is a very different situation when you have your own space to escape to.  But my house is only one room, so I was on Malagasy overload for 4 straight days.  Welcome back to Madagascar, here is your kick-start back into Peace Corps.  Mazotoa! Haha.

Lessons learned: small children touch things, a lot.  5 year olds still put everything in their mouths, and small boys like to get dirty and sticky and bring that mess into your house.  And finally, family is family, no matter where they are from.  (Also, even if they aren’t actually your family, but just adopted you for a month.)

I survived, I learned, and I don’t intend to let them come stay again.  I will love them from afar haha.

There were good things about last week as well.  The website for the Village Store launched while I was in the states, and we sold out of two colors already!!  I spoke with the founder of Madagascar Cooperative Foundation, and he is planning on doing another silk order next week or the week after.  Hooray for exportation!  The website is http://thevillagestore.org/ which you can also find under the communication page at the top of my blog.  There is no shipping costs, and the items ship from Utah (all of the products are shipped to storage there until they are ordered) and they take about a week to arrive.  The website explains the story of silk, from the blog post I posted a couple months ago, and they offer other fun artisanal products as well.

Check it out!!  And help us keep up sustainable development.

-Sarah

America: “Everything is so tall and clean!”

9/7/12

Manahoana indray! (Hello again!)

Hope you all are well.  Sorry I haven’t been writing, but my trip to the states was an absolute whirlwind, and I am very happy I didn’t write as soon as I got back because the range of emotions that crept up on me upon my return was overwhelming haha.  So, back to the beginning.

After a lovely week back at the training center with my stage, retelling all of the shenanigans of the previous 3 months, I headed back to Tana with everyone to pack and hop on a plane.  Conveniently, there was another volunteer who was finishing her service and on the same flight, so we split a cab to the airport for our 1 am flight.  We get through everything and board the plane, and I realize that I am seated in “premium economy,” one step up from economy.  Either it was a mistake on the part of my mom and myself when booking through Expedia, or I got bumped somehow.  Either way I was ecstatic.  If there ever was a time for me to appreciate a premium class, it is after 6 months in a third world country on a 20 hour trip home.  So I settled in comfortable to my first flight, 10 hours.  I quickly took inventory of the movie selections, as I hadn’t even heard of some of the new releases.  I ended up watching the 5 year engagement first, because I knew it was filmed in Ann Arbor.  What I didn’t know was how much focus there was on Ann Arbor, which of course made me cry haha.  Luckily it was the middle of the night and most everyone else on the plane was sleeping.  Got to the Paris airport and found my new gate, and quickly grew very excited that people around me were speaking English.  AMERICAN ENGLISH.  The distinction is subtle, but still exciting.  I have a few friends in Madagascar that do speak English, mostly French people, but to hear American English was very different.  Hopped on to the next plane and was again surprised by premium economy.  So, in the 20 hours of travel, I got to have a mini French vacation, with wine, and cheese, and movies, and chocolate cake.  I got off the plane at DTW after another 8 hours and queued up for passport control.  Turns out, when they ask you why you were overseas and you respond “I’m a Peace Corps volunteer,” their response is simply welcome home, no questions asked.  The luggage hadn’t arrived yet, so I went to the bathroom to make sure I was presentable for my favorite person on the other side of the customs door.  My luggage came around fairly quickly when the carousel started moving.  Getting through customs was an easy feat, and then I practically ran to the big gray doors separating me from Michigan.  When I busted through them I started scanning the sparsely populated atrium and finally found Alex, who had come to pick me up.  We both had huge grins on our faces as we went to greet each other.  The whole thing felt so surreal. It still hadn’t sunk in that in less than 24 hours I could be back home.

We walked out to Alex’s sleek black Mustang (ahhh yes, America) and began driving back to his apartment.  The car ran so smoothly, quickly, quietly.  Everything was so tall and shiny and clean.  And no one was staring at me (well maybe Alex, who probably was having a hard time believing I was actually there).  We dropped my stuff off at his apartment, and since I had been craving sandwiches for 6 months (Madagascar does NOT do good sandwiches) we went to Panera (judge me all you want for my first meal, it was delicious).

The next morning, we went to surprise my mom at church, because I hadn’t seen her yet.  She knew I was in town, but she didn’t know I was coming to church.  So we stood across the lawn during social hour when she finally spotted me talking to a group of friends.  Mission accomplished haha.

I will spare you the play by play of the three weeks that followed, but I had a wonderful birthday, a great time at Tina’s bachelorette party and rehearsal dinner, a wonderful time seeing one of my best friends get married, a fabulous weekend in Chicago going to Wrigleyfield and seeing DSP people again, and a magnificent time with my visiting grandparents.  Overall I got to see a lot of people and catch up with them, making three weeks feel about like three minutes haha.

Before I knew it, it was time to get back on the plane to come back to Mada.  The whole time I was in the states, it felt as though Mada had been a dream, because everything in America was pretty much the same as I had left it.  My sister had a new house, my boyfriend was switching jobs, but all in all, I was still dropping my mom off at work and then running errands.  It was a very weird feeling.  It felt like 6 months just disappeared, not in the sense that they went quickly, but that they just didn’t exist.  The same feeling occurred upon my return to Mada; I felt as though the month in the states didn’t happen, and it should be August 12.

It was also harder to leave the second time.  Maybe it was because this stint will be longer, or maybe because the sense of adventure wasn’t as poignant because I knew more of what to expect.  Maybe it was because I didn’t have 29 other people going through the same thing.  Whatever it was, I was not a happy camper on the plane, or when we touched down in Tana.  Getting back to the Meva with other volunteers cheered me up a bit, but it wasn’t until I got back to Miarinarivo and saw Emma, Eric, and all my Malagasy friends that I started to feel settled again, and remembered why I was here.  Having other volunteers as your support system makes a world of difference.

So now, on to the next chapter.  Apparently with a kick start, as my host family from Mantasoa called me on Wednesday to tell me they wanted to come to Miarinarivo on Friday (GAHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOO), which I got them to push back until Monday (stress level midnight).  But it will be great to show them around, and certainly an interesting experience.

More on that next time.

Love,

-Sarah

Namako! Mijery!! Namako milomano amin’ny tele!!! (My friend! Watch!! My friend is swimming on the TV!!!)

July 28, 2012

Happy first day of the summer Olympics 2012!

To be fair, I hadn’t been keeping track of when they started, here is the story of how I not only figured it out, but got to watch one person I know and two people I know of swim today J:

So, it all started on Wednesday, which is market day in Miarinarivo.  I usually go before 8 to visit Adalene (I actually have no idea how it is spelled), the wife of my point person with my silk weavers, Claude.  I usually go over to their house to eat lunch after meeting with the silk weavers because they live across the street; also they are really nice and have decided to adopt me and my “special gasy,” which they only laugh at in a nice way.  She usually force feeds me 3 servings and sends me home with multiple kilos of bananas, which I generally attempt to refuse to no avail. She can be awfully forceful for such a small woman.  (For those of you who are keeping track of my photos on facebook, these are also the people with the baby pigs and DUCKS).  One time, she mentioned that they also grow strawberries.  I should have known my reaction would have consequences, but I had not seen strawberries yet here, and they are my favorite fruit, so needless to say, I got excited.  She told me she sells them at the market every week, but they are usually gone by 8 am because there are not very many right now because it is cold (yes, I promise you, I am not a pansy, it is pretty cold).  So I started a routine of going to find her before 8 Wednesday mornings.  Only the first time did she let me pay for them.  Now she stashes some in her bag for me and makes me take them for free.  More incentive to make their family a buttload of money from selling scarves in the states.  So anyway, this past week she hassled me for not coming to visit them more often.  To be fair, I had been there quite a bit lately, but I was in meetings for this whole exportation thing.  So I agreed to go the upcoming Saturday.

I thought I had timed it well, I left after I ate lunch and needed to be home by 5 to talk to my parents on the phone, so I figured I had avoided them having to feed me.  I was wrong, of course.  I got there a little after 1 and Adalene brings me upstairs where they are watching TV.  It is very rare to have a TV in this country, outside of Tana particularly.  It is even more rare to have one hooked up to cable.  Also their cable channels are awesome—there were some in Malagasy, English, French, Spanish, and even German.  If more people could afford TVs in Madagascar, they would be a very culturally sensitive people.  Anyway, they ask me if I have already eaten, and I say yes, but they go buy bread and make juice anyway.  They also ask me if I will eat dinner with them, and I tell them I have to leave by 4, so of course they decide to eat at 3:30.

So we are having a laugh while I explain what is going on in the English kid’s program involving disappearing dragons and talking dogs.  Reminded me a little of Wishbone (remember Wishbone??) but not as cool.  Silly England.  The program ends, and I ask if there are any channels in Malagasy, because I haven’t really seen TV here.  He hands me the remote to start to surf, and I go one channel up and see the pool with the London 2012 insignia.  I immediately pause and get very excited, launching into a story about how much I love to swim and asking them if they could swim (no) and had ever been to the Indian Ocean or the Mozambique Channel (again, no).  When we clicked to the channel, they were in the middle of the race, so I didn’t know what event it was or who was swimming, only that it was men’s.  Luckily, the commentary was in English, and as soon as they hit the turn, they put the name of the top 3 in the corner; P. VANDERKAAY was in first!  I got very excited, and decided quickly that it would be too difficult to explain that I didn’t really know him, but he was from a neighboring town and swam at Michigan.  For those of you who don’t know, the Vanderkaay’s are from Saline, south of Ann Arbor, and their entire family are absurdly good at swimming.  So I ended up telling them that he was someone I knew from home.  I suppose I could have just said he was famous, but not all Americans, and not even all Americans who follow the Olympics would know him.  So I went on to tell them that I “know” a few people that are Olympians.  This is somewhat true.  Kara Lynn Joyce went to my high school, but she graduated a year before I started.  She did date my sister’s good friend, and he got her to sign a magazine cover for me, so I am counting it.  And then there is Allison Schmitt, who I do actually know.  We swam together for Ann Arbor Swim Club, before it merged with Wolverine Aquatics under the umbrella of Club Wolverine.

As soon as I get finished with my story (which I can tell without being glued to the screen because the channel kept switching to horse racing and biking), Adalene suggests we go strawberry picking so I will have some to take home (in addition to the 2 kilos of bananas she had already given me, of course).  So we go do that, and upon our return they are beginning the women’s 400m freestyle relay.  So I start to watch with interest again, not knowing who would be on the relay team.  Didn’t recognize the first two names, but got very excited about Natalie Coughlin.  That time I didn’t claim to know her, and just said she was famous.  But then, much to my surprise, anchoring the relay was none other than Allison Schmitt, who I had just finished telling them about!!  They won the heat, but I believe the Australians beat their time for the number one seed in the finals.  Still, Americans and Aussies love to duke it out in the pool.

So not only did I get to see a little of the Olympics, which I thought I would miss all of, I got to see the one person I cared most about seeing, and 2 others that I was very happy to watch.

Good luck in the rest of the games, USA, I am rooting for you, even if I can’t watch.

2 weeks till I am home!  Maybe I will catch the closing ceremonies J

-Sarah

The Story of Silk

July 23, 2012

So my new partners, the Madagascar Cooperative Foundation, that are going to help export my silk products traveled with me to visit my weavers where they live.  The actual silk weaving cooperative is rather large, with different people in different towns who raise the silk worms, turn the cocoons into thread, dye the thread, and weave the products.  We went to go visit the people who actually do the weaving to film them for the website.  So we trekked the 7 km through the mountains on a dirt path.  Beautiful views, but took forever.  When we arrived, it was quickly worth it.  The people of the very small town of Morarano had never had a “vazaha,” or white person visit them before.  Needless to say, they were both very excited and very curious.  They made us lunch, and pretty much everyone stood around us and watched us eat haha.  We then had them bring their looms outside of their homes so we could film them weaving, because the houses are too dark for the camera.  All the people from the town stood around and watched the filming, so that will be amusing to see in the video.  Not quite what we were trying to capture—the typical day in the life of a weaver, but I think it will still be good.

Earlier in the week, MCF, the key people in my cooperative, and myself had met for MCF to ask a few questions and put in a request for a 9 scarf sample to send to the states.  In the process, we ended up learning a lot about the history of silk in Madagascar, and the history of the main family of weavers.  Here is the story, as told by Radany, a 46-year-old weaver and youth trainer.

Hundreds of years ago, there was a terrible disease that came to Madagascar. The dead bodies infected the living, and the disease spread all over the island.  The Malagasy began to ponder a solution.  They thought about what animal was easiest to kill, what animal always died when there was a sickness or a change in weather.  Their conclusion was the fragile silk worm, which they said drew in all of the sickness from the air.  The Malagasy decided they would wrap their dead in cloth made from these worms, and the disease stopped when they did so.  A few years ago, an American professor did a study about this phenomenon, and concluded that the Plague ending in Madagascar coincided with when they started wrapping their dead in silk cloth.  Every 5 or 7 years, depending on the cultural norm of the region, the Malagasy perform a custom called “Famadiana,” or “Turning of the Bones.”  The families of the deceased exhume the bodies from their tombs and perform many cultural customs, among which are drinking A LOT, and more importantly, wrapping another layer of endemic silk around the exhumed body.  This practice is still in place all over the island today.

Because of this phenomenon, it is believed that wearing a silk scarf or other clothing item will protect you from illness or curses.  It is said that if you are wearing silk and someone curses you, the curse will double back to them (I am rubber and you are glue…).  In addition, Radany says he wears silk everyday, and if say an illness like a cough comes through his town, he says he will only get sick one in five times.  He also cautioned that it only works on airborne illnesses, it can’t help with anything ingested (darn).  Although I haven’t had a cough in awhile…hmmmmm.

Another fun story: Radany picked up a piece of aged wood that they use when weaving.  He said his family has been using that same piece of wood since 1918.  He is the 5^th generation of weavers in his family, and started when he was 7.  He is currently teaching his 7 year old how to weave, along with a few other youth apprentices, derived from a partnership with PROSPERER (who I work for).

So, now you know all about silk in Madagascar.  And when the website is up and running, you can go purchase silk scarves from The Village Store and protect yourself haha.

19 days until I am back home! And I will likely be wearing a scarf haha, gotta protect from all the diseases on a plane!

Love,

-Sarah

T-One Month!

July 11, 2012

YAY!!!!!!! I will be returning to the states in exactly one month!!!! Very exciting.  That’s really all I have on that subject.  Get to see my best friend get married, celebrate my birthday, see the Dark Knight Rises, watch Tigers baseball, go to Chicago and see Wrigley Field and DSP alumni, go to mmb band week (unfortunately I will be on a plane to France for the ‘bama game) eat good food, and see my parents, sister, grandparents, friends, and boyfriend.  Overall, it is going to be legen…wait for it…dary! (Yup, I have been watching a lot of HIMYM lately.  Also, there are two episodes in the second season that have some serious Peace Corps shout outs!)

SO EXCITED AHHHHHHH!!!

<3

4th of July and Fun With Exportation

July 6, 2012

First, as promised, the recount of occurrences following fetim-pirenena (Independence Day).  So we had to travel back through Tana to get home from Antsirabe.  Earlier in June I had gotten in contact with a guy named Michael O’Day through my silk weavers.  I didn’t know a whole lot of information on him, only that he was an American who worked with artisans to export products to the US.  So I scheduled a meeting with him in Tana for the Thursday following VAC.  They don’t have an office, so he told us to meet him for breakfast at the Cookie Shop in downtown Tana.  Now, I had heard rumors of Cookie Shop from other volunteers but had not yet been there.  I was ill prepared for deliciousness that was to follow.  Emma, Eric, and I arrived at Cookie Shop and spent a solid 10 minutes just staring at the menu.  I have decided it is Starbucks meets Panera in Madagascar.  There were decadent coffee drinks, smoothies, baked goods, and best of all, BAGEL SANDWICHES!!!!!  If there is one food item I miss here in Mada, it is good sandwiches.  I poured over the menu, and finally decided there was no way I could ignore the BBQ chicken sandwich with cheddar cheese, bacon, and grilled onions.  It was everything I hoped for and more.  So yummy!! So needless to say, the business meeting was already a success, before O’Day even arrived.

So, on to real productive things, not just my happy stomach.  Michael O’Day arrived, a young guy, probably mid-twenties, along with a girl named Lacee and another guy named Addison.  We all got along really well, and were so excited to hear what he was doing here.  O’Day was here as a Mormon missionary for two years, and is an alumnus of Brigham-Young University.  After finishing school, he started the Madagascar Cooperative Foundation (http://madagascarfoundation.org/), a non-profit that works on development.  They had recently decided to start a boutique in Utah called The Village Store, selling artisanal products.  They would give our artisans consistent business at a 20% markup.  And any money they make will go back into the non-profit to help with things like housing development and food security programs.  Moral of the story: EVERYONE WINS!!!!!! So that is very exciting.  One of my goals when I found out with whom I would be working was to export something, and now that seems like a very real possibility!  And very soon!!  So, best business meeting ever.  We decided to meet up again, Eric and I bringing silk samples, at the 4^th of July party for all Americans the next week at the Chargé de Affairs (effectively American Ambassador, since their isn’t one) house in Tana the next week.

So, now on to that story.  Eric and I bring around 10 scarves each to this party, and sit down to chat with O’Day et al about which ones they want as samples to send back to the US.  We start getting bombarded by people asking us if we are selling the stuff haha.  We conclude the meeting with O’Day with him saying he is going to come talk to our weavers directly about pricing and what not.  So then, we have a bunch of silk to sell!! It ended up being very successful; I sold 3 scarves and a tie, and got orders for 10 more!! My weavers saw the envelope of money in my hand and were completely dumbfounded.  I was surprised too; I had no intention of selling silk when I set out that day.  WIN!

Also, fun anecdote from the party.  It was predominantly US embassy workers and their significant others.  There was also military personnel, students, businessmen and women, and, of course, a small number of Peace Corps Volunteers.  Within 5 minutes of walking in to the party, I spot a guy with a Central Michigan University Dad sweatshirt on.  As he walks past me, of course I have to flag him down and see where he is from.  Turns out, he was born in Grand Rapids and then moved to Bad Axe Michigan, where he lives with his wife, who was in town visiting him, and daughter.  He works with the Marines on anti-piracy in Mada and Comoros (SO COOL!).  When I heard Bad Axe (a very small town in the “thumb” of Michigan), I gave a little start.  My good friend and fellow Michigan tuba player, Kyle Mooney, is from Bad Axe. I asked if they knew him, and they said, “he is like a second son!”  Cue “it’s a small world after all…”

So that was my highly amusing and successful American Independence Day.  I got to wear my incredibly tacky red white and blue Christmas sweater with the tag that says “American Pride, made in the USA,” because it was freeeeeeezing (I swear I am not a pansy, it was probably 50 degrees in the sun, plus wind)  Also, I observed that apparently all countries get pissed off and want their independence in June/July; France, US, Madagascar, and Canada are all within like 2 weeks of one another haha.

That’s all for now! I hope to have exciting exportation updates soon J

-Sarah