Friday, March 9, 2012

My third home in Madagascar

After many unexpected delays, I was finally headed off to the east coast of Madagascar again. Only this time around, a little farther south of where I had been for the past two years. It was already a month past my expected departure date to start my new, short-term assignment with Peace Corps, so I was eager to get out in the field. Don’t get me wrong…a break from the developing world with 24-hour electricity, running water, a much wider selection of food and entertainment options and regular interaction with native-English speakers was refreshing. But after a few weeks of the easy life, I was ready to get back to a more simple existence in the muddy, wild and lively “ambanivolo” or, countryside, of Madagascar. Moreover, I was certainly eager to start working again.

On a rainy day in mid-February, a Catholic Relief Services 4x4 stopped by the Peace Corps transit house in our capital of Antananarivo to pick me up and drive me out to my site. Since the CRS vehicle was also carrying a few other staff and all of their equipment, they didn’t have room for all of my belongings that I intended to bring with me to my new house. Instead, my Peace Corps safety and security officer had left with a vehicle and most of my stuff a few days earlier. They were heading out to the volunteers’ sites on the east coast that had been hit by the recent cyclone. After the reconstruction at the other volunteers’ sites was finished, the Peace Corps car would head up to my site…hopefully soon after I moved in, so that I wouldn’t be waiting around too long for all of my cherished belongings (including a gas stove, lots of books, and some clothes.)

As we passed through Brickaville on our way to Tamatave, the provincial capital for the east coast region, we were able to witness some of the destruction brought on by the recent category three cyclone that had ripped through Madagascar. There were roofs blown off, uprooted trees, an abundance of fallen branches, metal billboard signs bent over sideways, fallen power lines and trash scattered about (although the trash may have very well been there before.) It was depressing to see a country, already struggling with extreme poverty, shaky governance and dwindling resources, further crippled by such a merciless natural disaster. Now people who had hardly anything beforehand were forced to somehow rebuild their lives again.

After a short day of driving we arrived in Tamatave, where I spent my last night in nice accommodations with running water and electricity before heading up the coast. Although it was overcast and drizzly the next morning, the ride up the mid-east coast was absolutely gorgeous. For the first half of the drive, we were surrounded by lush, green forest and farmland dotted with quaint Malagasy villages and a few rustic, touristy, bungalow beach “resorts.” At last, in the mid-morning we reached Soanierana Ivongo, the head of the district where I would be working for the next few months. After popping in to say hello to the local gendarmerie and police and notify them that their Peace Corps volunteer had arrived, we drove up to the river-crossing to take a ferry over to the other side of the road.

Soanierana Ivongo is the point on the east coast at which Route National 5 ceases to be a paved road and becomes more of a joke of a national road. That is, it’s pretty much all sand, ruts and potholes from here-on up the coast until one arrives in Mananara, where there are giant boulders thrown into the mix for the travelers added driving pleasure. The road apparently deteriorates even more towards Maroansetra, where it ceases to exist completely, as the protected Masoala national forest complex begins (no vehicles are allowed past this point, but only bikes, pedestrians or canoes).

Saonierana Ivongo is also well known as the town where most tourists take a boat to get to Ile St. Marie, the little island off the east coast of the main island of Madagascar. We however were merely headed further up the coast. I was actually surprised at the quality of the ferry that took us and several other vehicles from one side of the river to the other. It was a legitimate ferry made out of metal with a motor and a flat space for probably five or six vehicles, granted we crawled along at a very slow pace. There were also small wooden canoes alongside us on the river, taking pedestrians and bikers across at a much faster pace. The brackish lagoon we floated through that was bordered by tropical forest on one side and a deserted isthmus-beach on the other was simply beautiful. Once we reached the other side though, we had to wait for ten minutes before we could get on the road again, as two giant “camions,” or cargo trucks, tried to maneuver and scrape past each other on the narrow road leading up to the ferry.

As we finally made our way on the now sand road, my jaw dropped…for two reasons mainly. One: it was spectacularly beautiful. We were right along the coastline with deserted beaches and coastal, tropical forest and hardly another soul around. And two: at points the road was literally the beach. Just as I had thought on my trip a few weeks earlier to Maritandrano in the Black Hole of Madagascar, I kept thinking, how on earth does this qualify as a national road??? How the heck does a beach qualify as part of RN5? And supposedly this road was in much worse shape 5-10 years ago. And the road apparently gets worse further north towards Mananara?!!

My thoughts were interrupted at that moment as our 4x4 inevitably got stuck in the sand. Somehow our top-quality, off-road NGO vehicle had managed to bury itself in the deep ruts and piles of the beach along RN5. As we stepped out of the car to assess the situation, I looked in disbelief at the fact that we were maybe all of five meters from the crashing ocean waves. Unfortunately we did not have a shovel with us, so we commenced to dig the car out of the sand with our hands. I felt like a 10-year-old kid again, as if I were building castles or burying my friends’ bodies under layers of sand. Finally we managed to hand-dig ourselves out of the sandy mess and drive off again just in time, as storm clouds moved in and he rain started pattering down more forcefully.

Fairly soon we reached our second ferry-crossing. As it was lunchtime, we got out to wait at the little shack by the riverside so we could grab a bite to eat as the vehicles slowly loaded onto the metal slab, one by one. Since we were right next to a river and an ocean, we had our choice of fried fish or fish with sauce, and of course a huge mound of rice, this being Madagascar. As we finished our meal, we loaded onto the ferry. One of our fellow co-workers took his meal with him—plate fork and all—as he wasn’t finished yet. The owner of the restaurant shack wasn’t too worried…he would get his utensils back once the ferry made its return trip from the other side of the river.

At last we reached the strip of land where my new village was supposed to be…though we had no idea where within the next 20km it lay. Every time we passed a cluster of shacks, we would ask where Tanambao Ambodimanga was, and we would get the same response: “Aloha aloha areeeee!” which is pretty much as descriptive as, “oh just ahead up the road over there.” Finally we reached my village, only to find that my house, after waiting over a month, still was nowhere near being finished. It was pretty much in shambles, since the last volunteers who had lived there were way back in 2007, and no one had inhabited the house since. Note: there had not even been a drop of rain here from the cyclone, as it had passed much further south of this area, so no excuses! At least there was a teeny little bungalow guest house for me to stay in temporarily at the Missouri Botanical Garden’s local NGO office off at the edge of the village.

For the next few days, one of the MBG staff showed me around the area and introduced me to the community. Everyone seemed really friendly and nice, though I was frustrated at their lack of motivation to start improving the house that was part of their agreement to rebuild in exchange for the free labor of a Peace Corps volunteer. The message had apparently gotten lost somehow in the mix. Meanwhile, the MBG environmental educator took me around to the local schools and introduced me to the teachers and students. I expressed my enthusiasm to stop in periodically and talk to their students about clean water, hand-washing and hygiene, although I was dismayed (but not surprised) that they initially had expected my main purpose in the community was to teach everyone English.

One of the communities we went to, Fandrarazana, was just a few Km up the road at the next ferry crossing. A quiet community right on the coast and surrounded by tropical forest, it was breathtakingly gorgeous. Before the environmental educator started his session with the kids at the local primary school on reforestation, he took me over to the beach to show me the coastline and to see if we could pick up some fish freshly caught off of the boats coming in from their morning trips. He also pointed out the shady, long stretch of land that was Ile St. Marie just across the water, which was surprisingly easy to see as it was a mere 7km away. Apparently one can take a canoe from several different launching points nearby. Some of them were Malagasy-style sailboats that, when the wind is strong, can get you to the island in as little as 30minutes to one or two hours.

We managed to pick up two small piles of 5 fish each for 1000Ar, or 50 cents, per pile and then headed back to the school so I could sit in on the environmental educator’s session with the kids. The educator was really great with the kids, and even taught them a song about protecting the environment. I had a feeling I would enjoy my next few months here. The next day, my Peace Corps safety and security officer showed up and was unhappy to see the state of my current housing situation. None of the community leaders were in the village, so he took me up to the larger town of Manompana to meet with the head of my village and figure out what was going on. The 10km drive up to Manompana was again absolutely gorgeous. After crossing the third ferry at Fandrarazana, the road weaved in and out along the coast and back into the tropical forest and small villages, along bridges over small creeks and rivers and into the quiet coastal town of Manompana. We stayed in a collection of hotel bungalows along the beach. The area was absolutely beautiful, though the roofs of the bungalows leaked from the rains that passed during the night.

We were able to have a productive meeting with the head of the village to flesh out the program with the community for constructing the house. Then we had a lovely dinner of calamari with rice. The next morning I talked with the mayor of Manompana to look into the possibility of having a second house in the town of Manompana, where there was a previous Peace Corps volunteer, since most of my work would be in Manompana anyway and since the house in Tanambao Ambodimanga still wasn’t finished either. He promised to organize the community to fix up the house in town as well, so I would have somewhere to stay when I came in for meetings and programs in Manompana. Then we headed back to Tanambao. I said goodbye to the Peace Corps staff and felt good about the fact that the community had started working on the house and was already almost finished with the shower and latrine area. The walls of the main house still needed to be improved before I could move in, but I would stay in the guest house at MBG while the community was working on it.

After another week I finally was able to move into my house, though it still needed a few improvements. Work started picking up as well. I headed to Manompana one day for a festival led by my partnering NGO to celebrate national latrine day. There was a parade, some speeches on hygiene and sanitation by local authorities and the NGO reps, a trivia session on hygiene with the local students, canoe and swimming races and dances, songs and poems performed by women’s groups and youth from the surrounding community. The festivities were all quite amusing: the canoe race involved one boat purposefully crashing into another to botch their chances of winning, the swimming race ended with the contestants running through the water which ended up being too shallow and the songs performed by the women’s groups included lyrics about pooping in the woods.

I also attended a village savings and loans meeting in the nearby community of Fandrarazana, led by one of the NGO workers. It was neat to see how well-organized the group of fifteen community members were. They had been meeting every week for several months and had saved up a significant amount of money. Some were able to successfully borrow and pay back chunks of money to invest in business opportunities and a few were even planning to use their savings to build improved, household latrines once they had gathered enough funds.

On March 7th and 8th I celebrated International Women’s Day with my community in Tanambao Ambodimanga. The morning of the 7th involved planting saplings from a local pepenier established by Missouri Botanical Gardens in one of the designated reforestation areas just south of the village. Though it was a scorching hot day with little cloud cover and no shade (as it was a deforested area), it was great to be working alongside the women and girls in the community to protect the local environment and promote sustainability. On the 8th, everyone donned their best outfits and we all lined up at the village flag pole to sing the Malagasy national anthem. Then we headed to the tranom-pokonolono, or town hall, to listen to the kabaris—the speeches given by all the local authorities. Our tiny little rural village was even graced by the presence and wise words of the Chef de District of Soanierana Ivongo…the American equivalent of a state governor. As this was a Malagasy “fety” the community also slaughtered two cows, which I did not partake in, sticking to my vegetarianism. In the afternoon, we were entertained by songs and dances performed by the local primary school students and a dance troupe from the nearby town of Manompana. In the evening there was a baliny, or dance party in the town hall. I didn’t attend, as I was planning to get up early the next morning to head to Fenerive Est, but I could certainly hear the music blasting from the hall nearby all night and into the wee hours of the morning.

Aside from all that, its just been raining raining raining because of all the cyclones and tropical storms that keep hitting Madagascar. The weather gives an added challenge to my work, as transportation is near impossible when everything is flooded and the roads or ferry crossings are frequently cut.