Born in the North, and Sworn to Entertain Ya

"What was Diego like!?" I keep hearing this question. People want to know why I enjoyed it so much. It is hard to explain, but in general the coastal areas of Madagascar are just very different from the place where I live (Lac Alaotra region). There are beautiful beaches:


Beautiful forests:

But mostly, it is the people:
With their vibrant culture and love of dance!


And a video version, for all those fans back home missing out on my dance skills...

But What Is and What Should Never Be…

I recently passed a few milestones: 2 year anniversary of my (initial) arrival in Madagascar (late February), 1 year anniversary of my evacuation and Close of Service (the week of St. Paddy’s Day)… Which made me realize that, had things turned out differently, I would be finishing up my Peace Corps service by the beginning of May. I would probably cavort around Africa a bit more before flying home and heading to my 5 year college reunion in sunny South Bend, IN (sun only valid May-August)*. Instead, I have just returned from a great week up north in Diego, but before we get to that, let’s back up a bit…
What have I been up to?
-Gardening classes: I have been teaching weekly gardening classes at the local EPPs (Public Primary School). I have four classes, with students around the American fourth grade level, maybe? The gardening classes focus on Permagardens, a form of gardening that combines Permaculture and Bio-Intensive Gardening. In brief, this means creating an exterior planting area around the garden where “permanent” crops such as papaya trees, lemongrass, aloe vera, and sweet potato vine are grown. Then, in the interior, small beds are created, compost and other organic improvements are added, and various vegetables are planted in close proximity to maximize yield in a small area. Techniques utilized include companion planting and agroforestry. You can Google any of these terms for more information! So far, we have some great gardens growing outside of the school buildings in three villages, and the children are excited about my education techniques. These techniques are usually song-, game-, and practical-heavy. The Permaculture aspect has gone over well, and future lessons will include a tree nursery, in-depth gardening, nutrition, and general environmental education. This ongoing project has been a lot of fun and is a good way to create some sort of a schedule to my work, at least some of the time!
-Moringa trees: I probably have mentioned Moringa trees a few times over the past two years. Nicknamed the Drumstick Tree or Horseradish Tree in English, this tree provides all sorts of vitamins from its leaves. For instance, in a gram-for-gram comparison, Moringa leaves have: 7 times the Vitamin C of Oranges; 4 times the Vitamin A of Carrots; 4 times the Calcium of Milk; 3 times the Potassium of bananas; and 2 times the Protein of Yogurt (See Trees For Life for more details, www.treesforlife.org ). Couple these nutritional benefits with a fast growing tree that can be coppiced (cut back) multiple times and continue producing leaves, even in poor soils and with little maintenance necessary, and you have a tree tailor-made to attack rural malnutrition in a country like Madagascar. Through demonstrations, sensitizations and other word-of-mouth, I have helped create massive interest in Moringa in my village. Almost every day someone approaches me about planting Moringa. For a small fee, I give them some seeds and we plant them together (usually 10 or so for 100 Ariary, about a nickel maybe?). I am hoping to plant some tree nurseries for Moringa with some of the organizations in my town, both to produce quality tree seedlings to plant and to sell the produce for some income-generation. I hope to be telling you a lot more about these projects in the near future!
-Library project? We have had preliminary meetings to create a community library. One of the main issues facing our community is a lack of knowledge. There are many individuals who are knowledgeable about complex techniques like SRI (System of Rice Intensification) or beekeeping, but they are not able to share this knowledge with others. In many cases, there is nowhere for a mazoto (hard-working) person to find the learning materials he/she needs to better his/her own life. Thus, my village has created the idea of a community library, both for young students and for adults. It would not only be a place for reading books and studying manuals, but also a place to hold classes on agricultural techniques, language lessons, adult literacy, etc. It is an ambitious project, and one that is still in the infancy stage. Still, should it proceed, the plan will likely be relatively easy to implement, as a building is already in top shape for this purpose. The middle school is planning to move into a new building to expand its enrollment, and the old middle school would make for perfect small-scale library. Thus it would be mostly resources that would be needed, such as books, maps, tables, shelves, etc. I may solicit your help in this, through a Peace Corps Partnership (a tax-deductible way of donating directly to a Peace Corps Volunteer’s project), but not for some time yet. Details, hopefully, to follow!
IST: Diego – Finally, I spent a week in Diego, the main port city in northern Madagascar. Its full name is Diego Suarez, named for two Portuguese explorers who landed at the port and proceeded to rape and pillage. The Malagasy name is Antsiranana, meaning Port, but most people just call it “Diego.” I was in Diego with my 10 fellow Reinstatement Volunteers, those PCVs who previously served in Madagascar before our evacuation and returned at the same time as me. We focused on HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention, a cross-sector theme in Peace Corps (the PCVs in my group are from the Environment, Health and Education sectors). We met with people living with HIV in Diego, as well as an association of Commercial Sex Workers (CSWs) working on prevention of STDs and HIV. We also held an AIDS awareness event in fellow PCV Brittany’s village, where I fell in love with the outgoing culture of the North. We danced and sang and danced some more, and it was a lot of fun. In fact, I was given a new name by the President Fokontany (the village president): “Joe Meringue,” apparently due to my dance “skills” and enthusiasm. Although some thought it was “Joe Moringa,” because I am tall like the Moringa tree? We also met in Diego with the head of the Anglo-American Department at the University of Diego, and learned about his exciting program. Throw in a trip to the Amber Mountain National Park, and it turned out to be a pretty great trip. I even saw, from a distance, my first Baobab tree in Madagascar!

So that is what I have been up to. Now I am helping train another group of new Peace Corps Volunteers, including a couple of ND grads. After another week or so of this, it will be back to site to prepare for a few big events in the coming months. But more about that later!

*Fellow 2005 ND Grads: Are any of you planning to go to the reunion? If so, and you gather together with one of the many groups that I was a periphery member of, be sure to have a cheap beer for me (Natty/Keystone, etc.). Such groups may include: London 8Ballers; Straight Shooters – The Perry Smith Fan Club; Challey House; Lewis Ladies and their Admirers; etc… Love Thee Notre Dame!

You Can Kill A Lot of Time If You Really Want to Put Your Mind to It

(Written 17 March 2010)
Just another day in the life…
Things started out pretty well, even productive – relatively. I had a gardening class at the primary school, and while for the second straight class we did not finish our fence (a prerequisite to actual planting, thanks to the merciless roaming chickens), we made visible progress. After a rainy lunch break, I added a gate before the kids’ afternoon class. Then I had a program with an agricultural extension worker to plant some tree seeds (Grevillea, a leguminous tree) on an eroding hillside.
Now, our program was supposed to be yesterday, but road outages meant Dadah, the extension worker, was a day late arriving from Ambatondrazaka. So we rescheduled for today at 3. At 2:30 I saw him, reconfirmed, and went to fetch my bike. I told him I would leave now, which was about 2:50, and he would meet up with me. He had a motorcycle, so this seemed logical as he could quickly catch up with me.
I west ahead a ways before turning off the road to a side lane. The road was a dirt road full of holes, mud puddles and bumps. This is normal. The side lane was far worse. Merely a foot path up the hillside, it was overgrown with prairie grasses and weeds. These were very stubborn, surviving numerous cattle treks to still crowd out the math to no wider than my bike tires. After a bit of this, I began a descent so steep and slippery that I had to walk, yet still used my bike’s brakes.
At the bottom of the hill, my path seemed blocked by rice paddies. In reality, the path continued on a narrow precipice at the edge of one paddy, where the water poured down to a lower paddy, then it climbed again up another hill. So I carried my bike and trudged ankle deep through particularly murky rice paddies. Not the first time I’ve done this, but my balance has not improved, and it was a struggle to stay upright. Now muddy up to my knees, I emerged from the Dagobah-like swampiness and began another hill climb.
I use the term “hill” because they are grassy- and not rocky-looking. But these are some large, mountainous hills. I ascended another eroded and slippery mountain/hill, and as I reached the top, a thought struck me: How was Dadah going to get up here on a motorcycle? Uh oh… was this the right spot? I looked around for signs of life, but aside from a few groups of cattle grazing in the distance, there was no one around for miles. Sigh… something is not right. It is now 4:15… I had better retrace my steps and look for Dadah. I descended again…
At the rice paddies, a farmer appeared, obviously concerned that a large white man was continuously crossing his rice fields with a bike, about to topple over any minute. After the usual pleasantries that every conversation must start with, he basically said, “What the heck!?” After my explanation, he said no one else had been around, certainly not on a motorcycle. This information was repeated by everyone I ran into, as I spent another hour or so looking for Dadah.
At about 5:30, I returned to town, bruised and sweaty, muddy and tired. There in the market, right where I left him, was Dadah. Apparently, something was lost in translation… he thought he was waiting for me in town! This happened surprisingly often, and I am patient enough by now to not get angry or exasperated. Instead, we scheduled for another day, and I returned to my house. I fetched a bucket of water for a bucket shower, and just as I stripped down and began to wash up in my roofless outdoor shower, it started to rain again. Of course it did.
But I was tired enough and sweaty enough that it just felt good. And it was still a pretty good day. I accomplished “something” in the morning, got some exercise and had a shower: a fine day! Life moves slowly here, and progress is not measured by tangible results only. And if my “work progress” can more often be seen in complex handshake/fistbump combinations with children than in measurable yields, that is just fine by me!