Dilemmas...

On my very first boat ride to Nosy Komba I met Jessi, the woman who runs the teaching program on Nosy Komba. We clicked right away because we had a number of things in common but most intriguing was that last year Jessi had done the same teaching program I will be volunteering for in Tanzania. Her experience was so impactful that she decided to move to Tanzania, which is what ultimately led to her current role leading the teaching program in Madagascar. Jessi had so many amazing things to share about Tanzania which I was excited to hear but I had also just arrived in Madagascar and was more focused on the present volunteer project. She had vaguely alluded to some things about the program she didn’t like that had more to do with her specific school but was adamant about not coloring my perspective so we didn’t discuss them - but the thought remained in the back of my mind.

This week I found out the details of my placement in Tanzania. I am very excited to be living in a home stay versus a volunteer house. There will be four other volunteers living in the same home stay with me and I have the impression that the younger volunteers tend to stay in the group volunteer house while the older volunteers often elect home stays so that is a dynamic will be a nice change. But more importantly, I’m excited to get to know a family. I also found out the details of my school placement and lo and behold, I will be at the same school that Jessi taught at. I was quite conflicted when I first learned this; the email providing placement details also covered the process for changing from one school to another which implies that volunteers have requested to do so in the past, often enough that they felt the need to cover the details up front. I thought perhaps the best course of action might be to switch schools right away before I begin the program. I even contemplated staying on at Nosy Komba for a longer time. But in the end I am going to continue on the path before me. 

I told Jessi about my placement and she was amazed - apparently there are almost thirty schools in Arusha that I could have been placed in so the fact that I will be at the Nice school is certainly a coincidence. Jessi filled me in on the issues she had with the school, which long story short, involve a corrupt woman running the program who has little concern for the welfare of the children and is suspected to be skimming the funds provided by the volunteers to pay for personal items unrelated to the school. This is something that took some time to discover and many of the previous volunteers felt frustrated that they had believed her stories and requests for money early on. I am glad to know the situation up front so I can be attentive in observing what happens and documenting it. In the end, none of this is the fault of the children. I believe it’s still important for me to go to help them and play a bit of super sleuth to figure out what the story is with the school. It’s a little disappointing to go into this experience knowing that there is this significant underlying issue but my goal is to be as positive about doing what I can, no matter how small it may seem to help the children.

It’s easy to understand why people say that ignorance is bliss after visiting a place like Nosy Komba - but like all generalizations, that statement is only true on the surface. The children certainly seemed happier than most. Of course my visit fell during the school’s winter break so the children only attended the English classes three days a week optionally. The rest of the time they played throughout the village: swimming, boating, dancing and just hanging out in little clusters. They were free to wander throughout the village unsupervised, but with only about a thousand people in Ampangorina, word travels fast so it’s fairly safe for children to be on their own, someone is always around even if it isn’t their parents. Certainly there were occasional fights between kids but it was amazing to see how it was often settled on their own. The children didn’t seem as needy because their every whim wasn’t indulged. There was no whining because they didn’t have an iPad to play on, they made their own games. It was hard not to think of their situation as idyllic, they were living in one of the most beautiful places I’ve experienced with tranquil beaches, clean drinking water and an abundance of natural resources from fruits to fish. And their demeanors did little to contradict the notion; they were so friendly and loving towards us, greeting us happily, eager to cuddle up in our laps when we sat on the beach or hold our hands.

But as blissful as life on Nosy Komba appeared, there were definite reminders of their poverty. Many children had only a few shirts or outfits; it was not unusual to see them in the same shirt day after day and it was not because it was their favorite shirt, in many cases it was their only shirt. Their imagination and innocence was because there were not other options; unlike my childhood where my parents restricted TV and video games, these are simply not available. I witnessed one computer in the village during my time and there was often a large cluster of people around it. This explains the children’s fascination with having their photo taken - they always wanted to see the picture on the screen at the end because there really aren’t televisions and computers and screens to watch - it was still magical for them.Then there are the times I saw children with ulcerous wounds that I hoped would heal properly. I was uncomfortable with them myself because they looked exactly like the type of ulcerous wound that we saw in our orientation, when a wound becomes infected and the infection is highly transmittable. I would surreptitiously douse myself with antibacterial cleanser after coming into contact with these kids, but always worried for them and hoped that they would heal rather than becoming worse.

I have often remarked at how wonderful and kind and friendly the locals are in Nosy Komba. And I stand by that, greetings are met with greetings, unlike cities on the east coast where most people would barely respond with a nod, let alone an actual greeting. Many east coasters might look at you as if there was something wrong with you - who would be so bizarrely friendly as to greet a complete stranger? Thankfully my summer in Portland helped to transition my patience to deal with the mora mora of Madagascar. Mora mora literally means slowly and is something evident in the attitudes of people throughout Madagascar, they take life slowly - there is no need to rush, time is on a different spectrum here. I could easily imagine feeling impatient if I had come straight from D.C. or N.Y.C. but I was able to adjust and understand how this helps support the relaxed and friendly vibe here. And yet while people are incredibly kind and helpful, their attitude belies their limited options. Can you imagine trying to advance yourself or your family when you don’t have electricity, let alone internet, or access to good education? Those who are able to move away are incredibly driven - like the student in our adult class who studies English in his free time and worked hard to move first to Nosy Be and will soon be moving to the capitol city of Madagascar with the hope of earning a better income for his family. He is rare, and I can understand that fighting against the lull of mora mora and the lack of opportunities must seem like a Herculean effort. So while there have been moments that I envied the simplicity of the life of the skipper who drove a boat transporting locals and tourists back and forth across the pristine waters of the Mozambique Channel, the reality that there is little chance for more is his reality. I would often fantasize about how inexpensive and simple it would be to start a competing business which could run more efficiently and provide better service, but would also take away from the livelihood of these people who were born and raised on this island and can barely imagine a different life, let alone achieve it.

Environmental Day!

This past Friday all of the volunteer programs worked together to develop an Environmental Day  event for the village school. The theme was litter so we went to school and taught a lesson about trash. I had read that littering is a fairly big issue in Madagascar because there isn’t high awareness of protecting the environment, despite what one would expect in a place as renowned for it’s environment as Madagascar. It’s one of those topics that seems so simple and straightforward in the U.S. - where we have the infrastructure with bins and trash pick-up and recycling and want to protect what’s left in a world where so much has already been destroyed by industrialization. Especially here in Madagascar with the incredible biodiversity, certainly we have to work to protect it… but it’s understandable that it’s not a priority for people who are struggling to make a living and provide for their family and don’t have the means to spend time and energy on something that in their context, is not a necessity. In the village they do collect trash which gets burned on the beach; the same process we follow at camp. Trash days are always a little horrifying as the stench of burning plastic floats through air and I try to find a location where I’m less likely to breathe in toxic fumes.

It was my first time going to the children’s class in the village since I’ve been concentrating primarily on teaching the adult village class and the staff class, which has only two children. I had so much fun meeting all of the kids and it definitely got me excited for teaching in Tanzania next month. After the lesson we went outside to do a trash clean-up and the timing was impeccable since there was a big festival with the biggest pop-star in Madagascar the previous evening. They were so stinking adorable!!!  The kids were so excited to get cheers from picking up trash and showing us where to dump it out; I had one little girl who was literally like my shadow for the morning. I was amazed at how trusting and sweet and helpful they were.

The forest and marine volunteers put together a really cute play showing a healthy ocean with fish and turtles and snorkelers happily swimming and a fisherman catching fish to bring to the village. Then the villagers threw trash on the ground which ended up in the ocean and the turtle and dolphin swam away, fish died and the fisherman couldn’t catch any fish to bring home.  After the beach and the ocean was cleaned up the fish returned and the villagers caught fish and everyone was happy! The teachers weren’t involved in the play since we were teaching a lesson that morning so it was fun to watch everyone perform. Afterwards the kids broke up into groups and were led around to play various games related to trash like trash relay races and “musical trash”. I posted a bunch of photos from Environmental Day in the gallery so be sure to check them out!

For the weekend a group of us made a plan to go to Andilana, a beach area on the northwest of Nosy Be and supposedly one of the most beautiful beach areas on the island. First things first, we took the 6:30am boat to Hellville and got online since everyone was internet starved after a week of being disconnected. I had grand ambitions of shipping two packages, one home to Russ and the other to John in NYC. I’ve been gathering some souvenirs throughout the week and they take up a good amount of space so rather than carrying them around for the rest of my travels throughout Africa I thought it would be simpler to ship them. Ah, but I forgot the reality that nothing is very simple here. DHL is closed on Saturdays so there was that. Madagascar post is dicey so I’m waiting for Tuesday when I’ll be back in Hellville to teach. I spent a good amount of the morning running around Hellville to figure this out and get shipping supplies; mailing tape at the Librarie, which is apparently a stationery store, and then off to find boxes which I had the pleasure of carrying around all weekend.  Shout out to Andrew for helping to share the burden! I still owe you a THB!

We had plans to rent ATVs to drive around the island and check out some of the highlights like a waterfall and sacred tree but the morning took longer than expected so we opted to head straight to Andilana since Lonely Planet indicated we’d have options to rent ATVs from there. We chose to take a tuk tuk to Andilana, which is hindsight may have been a little shortsighted. For those of you not familiar with a tuk tuk, I’ll post some pics next week when I have them downloaded and wifi again, but in the meantime imagine a scooter tricycle with a funny little cab over the back wheels. Charlotte and Andrew and my boxes and I squeezed in and except for the slower speed, it was a nice ride. It was interesting to see some other parts of Nosy Be since we spend most of our time in a beach environment; we passed farms and lots of zebus and villages and saw a glimpse of life outside Ampangorina.

We seemed to have avoided most of the potholes but clearly hit something at some point because when we got to the end of the road in Andilana our tuk tuk pulled over with a blown tire. This became our first encounter with a failed negotiation; we felt bad that he had to deal with a blown tire in such a remote location so we figured we’d offer him an extra 6000 Ariary since our fare was 3000 Ariary per person, rounding it up to 15000 total. Then he insisted it was 10,000 Ariary each! I was conflicted because while I was confident that we had negotiated 3000 per person up front (it’s normally 1000 per person around Hellville for perspective) but I also knew that the taxi fare from Hellville to Andilana could range from 30,000 to 50,000 in total. Of course that is a taxi, not a tuk tuk. And we still weren’t at our final destination - the hotel we had been heading to was actually a few miles back on the road. I also feel badly negotiating over what is a nominal amount of money to me (10,000 Ariary is the equivalent of about $4US) but more significant amount of money to the other.

So long story short, after a lengthy back and forth we paid the 30,000 Ariary and caught a local taxi to the hotel. By the time we arrived at Le Grande Bleu we desperately needed a break from the sun so we were thrilled that the hotel was in a fantastic location on top of a hill with a constant breeze and views of the ocean in both directions. The restaurant and lounge was an open area under a large roof that led to an infinity pool which overlooked a pristine cove. A pool has never looked so good. We passed a number of solar water heaters on the way to our bungalow and were ecstatic at the prospect of a warm shower. In the end we decided to skip the ATVing and ended up relaxing at the hotel, enjoying the pool, wifi and magnificent views. Our night consisted of Skype dates homes and dinner at a local spot where we feasted on zebu burgers, fries and beers and it was all pretty damn fantastic.

Sunday involved some more R&R, a frighteningly fast taxi ride back to Hellville that was more rally race than any of us would have preferred and a 3pm boat ride back to camp. New volunteers await and it will be interesting to meet the newbies now that we, ourselves, are just over the newbie hump.

September 11th

When I first arrived I wasn’t sure how well I’d settle into life here; I knew it would be beautiful but I was also fully aware of the implications of a tropical environment, mosquitoes, cold water showers and limited electricity. I wondered if my three week assignment would be just enough time to get a taste of Madagascar before I tired of the lack of creature comforts. Today (Thursday the 11th) marks two weeks since I left Portland and almost two full weeks here on Nosy Komba and the time is passing with a frightening speed. I can’t imagine I could ever tire of the incredible views of the sea from my hut - morning, afternoon and night. There are so many small things that make me smile and appreciate moments as they occur, and more than anything - that I can be here to experience this. The chicken who herds her little brood around camp, cautiously watching all the passersby as her chicks chirp away, pecking and scratching at the ground. The rooster whose cries wake me every morning, to the point that I have begun to recognize the mornings when his vocal cords aren’t fully awake yet and he needs a few practice runs before he gets going. The puppy that belongs to the neighbors that is so adorably cut but we aren’t allow to pet because we are trying to discourage him from coming to camp - I still love watching him play on the beach, chasing and pouncing on imaginary creatures. I love him a little less on the nights when he finds something disturbing that causes him to bark for long intervals. The smiles and waves from the children in the village. The sound of gentle waves against the rocks when I lay in bed.

Last night the camp was quiet since the foresters went for an overnight hike up the mountain and I was up later than usual, curled up under my mosquito net reading a mystery. Perhaps it was because the book was at a very suspenseful point, perhaps it was quieter than I was used to since I was up well after most people had gone to bed, but it was the first time I felt a little creeped out in my open front hut. I heard some hooting noises I couldn’t place, most sounded a ways off but then I could have sworn I heard something moving right next to my hut and the distinct sound of crunching and munching on something. I turned on my headlamp and slunk outside, scanning the area but didn’t see a thing. I went back into my mosquito net cave and continued reading, stopping now and again to listen. At breakfast I learned the strange hooting sounds were the lemurs who couldn’t sleep because of the full moon. It was suspected that the crunching was likely Momma Cat snacking on a lizard. She had kittens just before I arrived and when I checked on them today two were just at the point of opening their eyes! Momma cat is a tiny little thing, always wandering around looking for something to eat but she’s sweet and her demanding meows remind me of Bilbo. 

There was a festival in the village today so we only had one class with the staff at camp which left the teachers with much more free time than usual - after breakfast I went for a snorkel to the reef and swam with a sea turtle. I dried off on the beach and thoroughly enjoyed watching two of the local boys playing soccer with one of the volunteers. For the first time the cold shower didn’t feel all that cold anymore and I was comfortable putting my entire body in the full stream instead of just sticking each body part under the stream, one at a time, to wash and rinse it individually. I look forward to staff class each day, most recently I’ve been working with two of the adult staff who work incredibly hard to learn English and take their worksheets away to do homework without prompting. I had promised that I would ask some other students in the adult class in the village for the malagasy word for the expression “to catch a bus”. Interestingly I discovered that there are two different Malagasy words for “catch” - one is used to catch a bus, taxi, etc, while the other is used to catch a fish. Even the Malagasy dictionary is limited in what assistance it can offer since some words vary regionally and all the dictionaries are based on Malagasy from the capital, Antananarivo, in the central highland area of Madagascar while in Nosy Komba they speak the Sakalava dialect of northern Madagascar.

Teaching is such a challenge but it’s one that I truly enjoy. Each day’s lesson planning reminds me of how much I take for granted at home. I review the various books we have on hand to prepare and am still surprised at how many lessons don’t apply to our students, simply because they aren't relevant; they don’t have electricity and there are no banks on the island, saving money, as in putting it away for the future, is almost incomprehensible. Yesterday a student asked me if “God” was the correct word in English. We checked the dictionary together to confirm. Then she wrote “Help me God” on a piece of paper and asked me if that was correct. So many thoughts rushed through my head at the same time - I told her that yes, if she wanted to pray that would be correct but I wanted so badly to ask her what she needed and how I could help her.

There are four volunteers leaving this weekend and eleven new volunteers arriving. It’s sad to think about the people who are leaving our little community, and each of them seems glum to leave camp as well. I’m starting to feel a little melancholy about the prospect of leaving in just over a week. I know many people have extended their stay in the past and I can understand why; if I were in a different time and space in life, perhaps I would do the same.

Today is not only another 9/11 anniversary but also Pippin’s birthday. We haven’t had internet on Nosy Komba since the weekend and it seems that I may not even be able to post this until the upcoming weekend so the internet challenges continue. Overall I don’t mind being disconnected but there are definitely moments it becomes painful. Earlier this week when I was in Hellville for a class we teach a few times a week, I was able to email Russ and get online. I asked for a picture of Pippin’s new haircut but I haven’t had the opportunity to connect and get a glimpse of life back in the US yet. It’s a little disconcerting being so isolated from the rest of the world on a physical level and having little to no communication as well. As magical as this place is, I don’t know that I could ever fully adjust to being here for a longer time unless Russ, Pippin and Bilbo were here with me. 

Happy Birthday Pippin!!!