And a Happy New Year, Let's Hope It's a Good One, Without any Fear

Happy new year from Madagascar! The good news from Tana is that we have 36 new Peace Corps trainees rocking at the Peace Corps training center currently. By the end of the month, they will be volunteers and really help reestablish the program here. They transferred as a group from Niger, and comprise all four sectors of Peace Corps Madagascar (Education - Teaching English; Health; Environment; Small Enterprise Development). Part of the reason I wanted to come back to Madagascar was to help reestablish the Peace Corps program, and I am really excited to have such a great group of motivated volunteers about to swear-in.

They have been busy learning the Malagasy language and living with host families (they had 6 weeks of training in Niger, so they've been through this before). But they have been keeping me busy for the past week and a half, and hopefully they've learned a thing or two from my experiences. By next week I will be headed back to site, and hopefully get to work for real. I have plans to work on some reforestation projects and create a project with the women's group in my area. So hopefully I will have more to say next time. Until then, wish the new PCVs luck, I am sure they will do Peace Corps Madagascar proud!