I Want Action, Tonight!

(Written by Chris 8/1/08; posted by MOM)

Besides piquing the interest of one R. Brooks with a classic hairband reference, this title specifically refers to PACA. What is PACA, you ask? Participatory Analysis for Community Action. That’s what it stands for, Chris, but what does it MEAN? Well, Peace Corps loves acronyms, and this particular one refers to a method of analyzing needs in a community, and eventually taking action to meet these needs. Basically, a Peace Corps volunteer meets with a small group of community members and presents one of a series of “tools” designed to discover the needs of that group. One such tool is to chart an average day’s activities, often splitting in to male and female groups, and comparing the results. When the needs have been identified, then a solution can be agreed upon and carried out together (for example, if a large portion of a woman’s day is spent fetching water from a distant source, maybe the community will rally around building new and closer wells). This way, the community members have a say in both the analysis and the action. The hope is to avoid situations where a project is completed but is never utilized because it was not a high priority of the community. (What good are more outhouses if no one uses them?)

With that lengthy explanation behind us, let me tell you a bit about my first attempt at a PACA activity. First, I created signs for a meeting, got them stamped and approved, and put them up around town. Interesting sidebar: while I was using Duct Tape to put up my signs, apparently the Malagasy use bananas (“akondro”) to create a paste for such posters. Everyone who saw the posters said two things: they were amazed that I could write in Malagasy; and they would come to the meeting. I began to worry too many people would show up, but it ended up being a group of about 20, mostly men, mostly from the farmers’ co-op, and thus mostly friends of mine. We talked about what made our town good, listing things like crops, the rainforest, the schools the radio station...Then we created maps of the community. Basically it was information gathering for me, and there was no “action” planned yet. That will come in the future, hopefully; for now, “M bola mianatra aho” (I am still learning).

Speaking of the community run radio station, I was hanging out there a few nights ago and was asked to give an impromptu on air interview. The questions were the same as I always get: are you settled here, do you like the town, do you like Malagasy food (they are convinced eating rice makes foreigners sick to their stomachs), how old are you, and my personal favorite, are you married. This last one is always asked of me, often early in conversations, and if I say no they want to know why, and if I would soon marry a Malagasy woman and take her back to the United States with me. Well, when my male radio interviewer asked me if I was married, I said: “No. Why, would you like to marry me?” This threw him off, and the rest of the studio filled with laughter, as we cut the interview short and cued up the song I had chosen (by my favorite Malagasy band, Ambondrana). I like hanging out at the station and learning about Malagasy music, even if I have to hear questions about their limited American music selection (“You like Avril Lavigne?” “Would you like us to play My Heart Will Go On, again?” “James Blunt is wonderful, yes?”)

To tie up a few loose ends from the home improvement post, it seems finishing touches were needed on the house we worked on. While the basic clay is used for most of the house, a more weather-resistant coating was added later. This was a mixture of many parts, one of which was Tain’Omby, or cow manure. I am resisting the urge to make a joke here. Cow manure is widely used as a fertilizer and construction material here, along with its use as fragrant road dressings that I always manage to step in. While forming the original clay, I led some kids in clay modeling, making animals and such. I noticed an interesting cultural point, as each kid made a cow and a pot for cooking rice. And indeed, these two resources, both of which were imported to Madagascar, are the most highly valued by the Malagasy. Most traditional artwork feature cows and only as the Malagasy have learned to market to tourists have they changed to indigenous treasures like lemurs or baobab trees. And I have yet to meet a Malagasy who does not instantly answer my question of favorite foods with an emphatic “Vary!” (rice).

Tomorrow I embark on another epic journey to teach about compost, this time to a fokontany with the name of, loosely translated, “The Great Above”. Sounds kind of like heaven. I would also like to point out that after I boasted earlier in July about how it was sunny; the rest of the month was rainy and dreary. I knew I would jinx it!