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...
May the force continue to be with you! And ELP still comes in handy sometimes! Tiako ianao--MOM
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