Well I have moved to my new town, whose name translates as "Sleeping on a bed of money," and working full-time at my new position as "Small Enterprise Technical and Management Advisor" with the Koloharena farmers' Cooperative. You can see a brief overview of this work in the Oct. 2 post, and I will try to write-up something more detailed soon. Needless to say, it is a very different experience from my previous two villages, as I am in a big town working in an office most of the day from 8-6... Even now, at 9pm, I am up checking email from the American buyer and working on digital documents. Crazy.
Anyway, the real reason I wanted to write was to draw attention to an interesting study a friend and fellow Mada PCV (1st time around) wrote up. Brendan took a look at news coverage of Madagascar's coup (almost 2 years ago now!) Take a minute to absorb some great lines like "So far, we've seen that web users care more about movies than Malagasy murders, regardless of how much noise the news makes." and "But come on - there were more articles written in Romanian than in English about the crisis in Madagascar. Romanian! I don't even want to think what that would look like in terms of articles per fluent capita!"
Great stuff Brendan! The political impasse has continued, although a new "transition" parliament took office this week, and the campaign for the referendum on the new constitution (scheduled for Nov. 17th) has begun - There are "Yes" signs and advertisements everywhere!
That's all for now, but I'll try to put something together again soon...
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Say Hey, I'll be Gone Today, But I'll be Back Around the Way
As usual, it's been a while... and I don't even have a good excuse! I have had a fair amount of internet access over the past month, but have been too busy using that time for work. Shocking, right? So, what sort of work has been keeping me busy? Glad you asked...
Starting next week (or so...) I will be moving out to a new town to work on a rice-exportation project. I actually have been working on this project since the beginning of July, commuting from my village once every 1-2 weeks and telecommuting in between these visits. The new town, Amparafa, is on the opposite side of Lac Alaotra from my village, so around 6 hours by Bush Taxi (Taxi Brousse) or around the same by bike, which I did once, about a month after the Fety Riba Mena bike tour, just to remind myself what it was like...
Anyways, I am assisting a KoloHarena group (farmers' cooperative) in producing organic rice and exporting it to a company based in California (USA). This company, Lotus Foods, imports organic and other types of rice from around the world. Check out their website on the Madagascar Pink Rice (this is the rice my co-op grows and exports to Lotus Foods). Growing and processing rice organically is a challenge (and a lot of paperwork!) anywhere, but this is especially true in the developing world where paper trails are hard to maintain and digital databases do not exist. Each step of the process, from preparing a rice field to planting to weeding to harvesting to processing to shipment must be fully documented, and each document and practice must adhere to the strict rules of the certifying agent.
Thus, every time I would head out to Amparafa, there would be a new crisis to deal with (and many times multiple crises). This led to a very stressful few months, especially when coupled with the Fety Riba Mena bike tour and the work I've been doing at site in Antanandava. But things have progressed well, if not always smoothly, and we hope to export our rice harvest within the next month or so. Now that I am moving out there, it should be less stressful! As part of this new position, which will technically be called a Peace Corps Response position, I will be extending my service until May 2011. At this time, hopefully my sister will get her act together and come to visit!
I just finished my COS (Closing of Service) conference, something PCVs a few months before officially leaving to help prepare for life after Peace Corps and readjustment. Now I am in the capital, Tana, and have a strong, FREE internet connection. So enjoy a little bit of what I've been up to recently...
I spent some time planting 100 Moringa seeds in a nursery with a Model Farmer near my village
I spent lots of time in my national park, Zahamena
I have been working a lot with the Zahamena National Park on increasing tourism. As part of this, I put together the below flier/poster for distribution in our regional capital, Ambatondrazaka. Pretty simple, but I hope to get the chance to make a video too in the future. Take a look:
Starting next week (or so...) I will be moving out to a new town to work on a rice-exportation project. I actually have been working on this project since the beginning of July, commuting from my village once every 1-2 weeks and telecommuting in between these visits. The new town, Amparafa, is on the opposite side of Lac Alaotra from my village, so around 6 hours by Bush Taxi (Taxi Brousse) or around the same by bike, which I did once, about a month after the Fety Riba Mena bike tour, just to remind myself what it was like...
Anyways, I am assisting a KoloHarena group (farmers' cooperative) in producing organic rice and exporting it to a company based in California (USA). This company, Lotus Foods, imports organic and other types of rice from around the world. Check out their website on the Madagascar Pink Rice (this is the rice my co-op grows and exports to Lotus Foods). Growing and processing rice organically is a challenge (and a lot of paperwork!) anywhere, but this is especially true in the developing world where paper trails are hard to maintain and digital databases do not exist. Each step of the process, from preparing a rice field to planting to weeding to harvesting to processing to shipment must be fully documented, and each document and practice must adhere to the strict rules of the certifying agent.
Thus, every time I would head out to Amparafa, there would be a new crisis to deal with (and many times multiple crises). This led to a very stressful few months, especially when coupled with the Fety Riba Mena bike tour and the work I've been doing at site in Antanandava. But things have progressed well, if not always smoothly, and we hope to export our rice harvest within the next month or so. Now that I am moving out there, it should be less stressful! As part of this new position, which will technically be called a Peace Corps Response position, I will be extending my service until May 2011. At this time, hopefully my sister will get her act together and come to visit!
I just finished my COS (Closing of Service) conference, something PCVs a few months before officially leaving to help prepare for life after Peace Corps and readjustment. Now I am in the capital, Tana, and have a strong, FREE internet connection. So enjoy a little bit of what I've been up to recently...
I spent some time planting 100 Moringa seeds in a nursery with a Model Farmer near my village
I spent lots of time in my national park, Zahamena
I have been working a lot with the Zahamena National Park on increasing tourism. As part of this, I put together the below flier/poster for distribution in our regional capital, Ambatondrazaka. Pretty simple, but I hope to get the chance to make a video too in the future. Take a look:
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