You Can't Always Get What You Want...

But if you try some time, you'll find, you get what you need.

I've been back in Madagascar for about a week now, and it's going well. Things area little too familiar, and we had to exercise the ghosts of Mantasoa (the location we spent 2 weeks at in February). For fellow PCVs, you will be glad to hear that some of Zoom has been rebuilt, and the Jumbo Score is up and running. Magro remains a burnt out hulking mess, which is kind of weird. Otherwise Tana is pretty normal. We were sworn in at the Ambassador's house today, and I gave a Kabary (speech) that had the Malagasy crowd laughing. Was it at me or with me? I don't know, and don't really care! Tomorrow I will be heading back to the Eastern Rainforest to move into my new village. Things are flying by now, and it is all quite exciting. I will be sure to update an address when I have it, but for now my phone number remains the same: 011261 33 060 7796. More to follow hopefully soon!

Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends...

Well I am heading back to Africa this weekend. For real this time! Saturday we fly out of DC for South Africa, and by Monday I will be in Madagascar again. Upon arrival, we will have a week of reintegration training (language, culture, agricultue and such), then off to my new village. In many ways I am starting all over again, but with the knowledge I learned from my first round. It should be interesting. I am returning with a laptop (and my first ever ipod, a hand me down from a good friend), so hopefully I can keep in better touch. Expect a better attempt to share pictures and stories with you all.

You may be wondering how the political crisis has played out. The country is calm and safe, especially in the ambanivhoitra (small backcountry towns) where I will be. The many political factions reached yet another power-sharing deal, so the international community has new hope that the crisis will reach a reasonable end (for details see Reuters Q+A here). Whether or not the feuding groups reach a meaningful deal, Peace Corps plans to restart work to help the suffering people in the many small villages.

As soon as I know a definite mailing address, I will post it here. Otherwise keep checking back for updates; I will try to sync this to facebook to update there when I post here. We'll see if it works. Until next time...