Poison

        In Madagascar, if ever you want everyone in your village to know something, inform the ladies that own and operate that little stores. These stores are the center of all gossip and news about the village and national events. For example, I went to Mme Marguerite's store in my village the other day to have a cup of coffee. While sipping the way-too-hot cup of way-too-sweet blackness, she whispered to me about a scandalous event that had taken place in the town just the previous afternoon (I had missed the evening edition the day before, obviously). A boy in my town of about 14 years old was left in charge of preparing lunch while his stepdad went out to work the fields, getting ready for rice planting. The boys mom was out of town in Tamatave, the coast city, for work. Upon arriving back home from the fields, the boys stepfather serves himself some rice from the pot. Upon smelling the rice that she had just placed on his plate and was about to consume, he noticed a strange smell coming from the rice: rat poison. Apparently, the boy had tried to kill his stepfather. The story goes: while the man was out in the fields working, the boy discovered a note addressed to his stepfather, a note from another woman who was not his mother, possibly a love note. Angered, the boy purchased rat poison, added it to his stepfather's rice in an attempt to kill him for his cheating ways. The boy got caught, the gendarme were called, the boys mother was called, and that's all I know cause I stay out of the village drama. And again, this is just what the store owner told me, so take it with a grain of sea salt. Lesson 1: If you're gonna cheat, smell your rice. Lesson 2: Don't try to poison a food that should have no smell with an odorous poison.

Where does it not itch?

         For about a week, I was lucky enough to work as an interpreter for a medical mission in the Tamatave region of Madagascar. Tamatave, aka Toamasina, is home to the biggest port on the island and is the doorway of most all economic activity here. The medical team was made up of 8 Americans who form the Caring Response Madagascar Foundation (CRMF). For about 10 years, they have been coming to Madagascar and giving clinics and providing medicines to Malagasy who otherwise could not afford care. Five other PCVs worked with the team to interpret for the doctors and the ailing patients we saw. My first day on the job, we went to the prison in Tamatave to give a clinic there. Criminals be warned: a prison anywhere is no place you ever want to be but a prison in Madagascar and the conditions therein should serve as a strong deterrent for even the most petty criminal. As fellow PCV Sam Williford put it, It looks like the scenes from the future in "The Terminator" just without the skulls. I was teamed up with a doctor named David, a pulmonary specialist. This was his first time practicing third world medicine (it was mine too). Most of our patients that day complained of chronic stomach aches, worms, and weight loss, all likely effects of poor living conditions within the prison. However, the most memorable case was the poor fellow with a full body rash. David called over our fellow physician, Jack, who has been practicing developing country medicine for 10 years, to observe the case. Jack took a quick a look and gave a quick diagnosis: it was the worst case of scabies he had ever seen. The guy was covered from neck to foot in the affliction. David prescribed him several topical and oral medications and recommended that he be separated from the other prisoners for about a month due to the contagiousness of his condition. I called over the prison nurse and informed him of the need to isolate this particular case before other prisoners became afflicted. He informed that it was indeed possible to put the prisoner in a place where he wouldn't spread the scabies to others. After thinking about this for a minute, I realized that, in other words, I had just told the prison to put this poor SOB into solitary confinement for 30 days. Never before, nor never will I again, sentence a man to 30 days in the hole.

     Following the day at the prison, we went out into deepish countryside to a place where a few sisters, with the help of several NGOs, had set up a fairly functional medical clinic. We spent two days at this location seeing patients. One of the biggest ailments that the sisters diagnose and treat in their area is tuberculosis, a disease that has pretty well been eliminated from the American household conversation. My physician partner, David, being a pulmonary specialist, and I received most of these TB cases. Most folks who came in to us complaining of chest pains, coughs, and fevers mostly had already been diagnosed and given treatment by the sisters, a service that the sisters provide completely for free, thanks to international donor support. Most folks that we saw simply hadn't given the treatment long enough to take effect; someone afflicted with TB must undergo 6-8 months treatment before they are cured of the infection. One lady that we saw came into us complaining of TB like symptoms. I asked her if she had done a TB analysis at the clinic and she said yes. I then asked her if she had begun taking the treatment once she had been diagnosed with TB and she told me no. When I asked her why she had not received the treatment, she simply replied that she didn't know and danced around the topic. I went to one of the sisters and asked about this ladies case and why she had not received TB treatment. Sister Christine then told me that this one particular lady was "crazy" and has refused treatment because she was afraid of taking medication. As I'm sure this lady had been told before, I had to inform her that if she did not take the treatment she would likely die a very slow and painful death over the next 2 years, and also be a risk to those living within her community. When asked, she informed us that others in her household were also infected with TB and were also not receiving treatment. We told her that they also would likely be dead in the next 2 years. David informed me that in America, if one were infected with TB and refused to take treatment, you would likely be put on house arrest (or taken to prison) and forced to take the medicine to cure the disease because when it comes to public health, we will tend to sacrifice the rights of the individual over safety of the public. This lady, however, due to her fear of medication, will likely not live to see 2015 and may also infect many others in her community.

      The first patient that David and I saw in the countryside clinic was a 61 year old man who was skeletonized from malnutrition and sick with TB. After checking the patient's vitals and performing an exam, David had me tell the family of this man that he would likely be dead in 2 weeks and that there was nothing that we nor the hospitals could really do for him at this point. Well, who would have thought that this humble, naive PCV would ever have to give that kind of news to someone. The next patient David and I saw was 15 year old boy with jaundiced eyes and a distended belly. This poor kid was afflicted with TB, malaria, typhoid fever, intestinal worms, amoeba dysentery, and malnutrition. We had to inform the parents of this boy that there was nothing within our power that we could do to help him but that they (the doctors) would pay for him to go the hospital in Tamatave. This was his only chance at getting the treatment he needed. I don't know what happened to this kid, but I hope he's getting better. That's one of the problems with these kinds of medical missions where doctors come on these mission trips with their clinical expertise and their free medicines and their money for hospital visits and their very big hearts, but there's never much possibility for follow up.

       We saw many other patients that week, but I'll leave you with just these few examples. On another note, during our work with doctors, we were housed at the ONG St. Gabriel, an organization on the outskirts of Tamatave that is run by Indian immigrants. The folks at St. Gabriel (Sylvester, Edwin, and Selbom) are some of the most welcoming individuals I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. The food there, morning and night, was some of the most delicious I have ever tasted in my life and I will forever remember how content and at home they made us feel at their place. If you've never eaten home-made Indian food, get off your behind and get some. Also, Malagasy people take note, the Indians and Pakistanis are kicking your butt with the whole quality of rice thing. Get on it.

    I miss all you folks back home very dearly. Looks like I've got a ticket to Rome, Italy here in about 2 weeks. Austin and Jill Rios, Jared Grant, this mug's coming and he's hungry. See ya soon.

Take care everyone and stay outta trouble,

James

The Women's Cooperative

       Several months ago, I was approached by a Malagasy man from the capital who was helping a group of women in my village to form a cooperative in which they would produce and sell a medicinal plant that grows in our area of Madagascar. This fellow was apparently the contact point for buyers in Tana. He asked if I could help the women get all of their papers in order to file with the government so that they could become a legal cooperative and sell the raw plant as an association. As a cooperative, the women would have stronger bargaining power for the prices of the plants. This fellow also asked if I could help provide the women with the tools and materials that they would need in order to carry out this project now and for the years ahead. So, thanks to the generosity of so many people, I was able to provide these ladies with everything they needed: shovels, wheelbarrows, scythes, cooking pots for long days in the fields, etc,. The Malagasy name for the plant is "Ampelatsifotra" and it falls under the Desmodium genus. The plant is bought by buyers in Tana, then is sent overseas to be processed into medicines that help to treat such ailments as hepatitis A,B, and C, uteral cancer, and asthma. The cooperative is cultivating the plant in areas surrounding our rain forest that have previously been cut and burned for rice cultivation. The ladies are also starting to grow trees for our reforestation efforts.  Here are a few pictures of the work they are doing:

Thanks are particularly in order for the following individuals and groups!!

Mrs. Betty Shelton
Mrs. Sandy Haddad
Mrs. Helyn Keith
Mrs. Anne Spencer
Mrs. Judy McQueen
Mrs. Suzanne Rhea
Mrs. Roberta Parker
Mr. Willie and Mrs. Lucinda Williams
Mr. Rusty and Mrs. Kris Bliss

The Wesley Room Sunday School Class

The Pairs and Spares Sunday School Class

The Things I See, Hear, and Think About When Traveling in Mada

-The Malagasy theory that the reason some cars have the driver side on the right is because those cars were designed by left-handed people.

-The whole making charcoal from eucalyptus process.

-Those tractors on the side of the highway between my site and Moramanga that are in a constant state of (dis)repair.

-A bulldozer in the middle of the highway, that looks quite like it fell off the back of a flatbed tractor-trailer.

-Passing tractor-trailers on blind curves/hills.

-One lane bridges on the national highway that connects the capital to the largest port city in Madagascar.

-Malagasy ripoffs of N'Sync's "Quit Playing Games with My Heart", in which the music is used but has Malagasy rap superimposed on it.

-That it's totally cool, anywhere, anytime, to pick your nose.

-The folks who have set up fruit stands along the highway where the pot holes makes all the cars slow down. Those pot holes get filled in with dirt by children who ask for money for the service they are providing. That dirt then washes out with the rains. Rinse. Repeat.

-The notice painted above the window of the brousse, stating, "We don't carry drunks."

-Sitting next to an old, drunk Malagasy man, who looks strangely similar to the late John Lee Hooker, who is wearing two collared shirts.

-All those goofy sounds that the brousses have for horns, that don't sound like horns but more like whistles or sirens.

-The "Parking Securisé" place, located along a stretch of the highway that begs the questions, "Who wants to park here? And how secure is your picket fence?"

-Lucky Dube, the reggae artist from South Africa, is pronounced "Leaky Deeby". And yes, that annoys me.

-That Malagasy folks look really funny in those wild west sheriff hats that you can buy here for $2. They're everywhere. They even have the star on them. And then you pass police officers, real police officers, who are wearing them too.

-That rain or shine, those rice fields aren't going to bust themselves up.

-How all those clothes that we donate to charity in America, that don't get bought by us at the GoodWill or Samaritan's Purse, end up being sold in bulk to dealers in the developing world, sorted (shirts, pants, undies, etc), packed into huge bales (3ftx3x5), and sold on the streets here for dirt cheap. Yes, that shirt that says, "I'm not getting less hair, I'm getting more head", that you gave to charity, that no one bought, is now being worn by a Malagasy man in my town who has no idea what it means. Same for that "I love Strippers" shirt. Only in the developing world can two people wear rivaling sports team hoodies, sit next to each other, and not think a thing about the other person. And no, that respectable looking man wearing a nice suit does not know that his hat, reading "Club: Men's Power", advertises a pornography company.

Sounds

        I figured one of the best ways to give folks back home a good sense of what it's like to live in a rural Malagasy village of 250 individuals is to describe the aural environment. The things that I hear on a daily basis truly make the reality of the place that I live in. The sounds tell the story of the life, so I'll do my best.

         The roosters begin crowing around 4am. Not that I'm usually awake at this hour, but occasionally I am due to the effects of the malaria prophylaxis I take. When one rooster crows at this time of night, all the other ones chime in and for about 2 minutes the entire village is full of the sound of chickens crying the great "I AM". It's like they're saying, "I'm over here. This is my spot. Where are you and your spot?". Every fifteen minutes, another round of crowing will ensue through sunrise, with the time between rounds gradually becoming less and less. In the pre-dawn darkness, the town will begin to wake up. The sound of rice being pounded with mortars and pestles, a dull thud-thud-thud-thud. A truck rolls by on the highway, 30 yards from where I sleep. After the rice is pounded, it gets winnowed, which sounds very similar to a straw broom being swept on a concrete floor. The women will go down to the rocks in the river (which lies just below my house) to scrub their aluminum pots free of the resin left from the firewood from last night's cooking. They use sand and their feet to due this. Another truck rolls by on the highway, failing to miss the potholes with a very loud B-BOOM clankclank. While scouring the pots, the women will often gossip together, usually complaining about their husbands. Somewhere a kid starts crying. Firewood is being chopped to get the morning rice ready. A car goes by on the highway.

          The sun begins to rise and the village wakes up. Conversations begin in houses, children are laughing or crying. The roosters still crow. Pigs wake up and grunt, and scream. Palm doors slam against wood frames. Someone has started doing some kind of construction with a hammer. A taxi brousse going to Moramanga, the nearest market town 31km away, honks as it passes through my village, looking for passengers. The ducks and geese have made their way down to the river. The people in my village find it funny when I blow my duck call; whether that's because of how similar it sounds to the ducks or because they're surprised Americans would make such a device, I don't know. I have previously written about my feelings on the sound of geese in the morning, and my opinion has not changed. I wish I could eat more geese if only to help reduce the general noise level that those foul (sp?) animals create. There's also the high pitched singing of the indris in the rainforest about 1km away; they're the largest and most vocal lemurs in Madagascar. Here's a link to a video I took of what the indris sound like in the Maromizaha Forest. Yes, I hear them from my house and, yes, it is awesome.

      At around 7:30, the elementary school children will begin to pass by my house on their way to school. Some run by, most yell at their friends or say hello to me as they pass. After the students are in class, the town falls into a bit of a silent spell. Most adults have gone out to their farm fields, the kids are  all in class, and the roosters still crow. The sound of chickens (the peeps of chicks, in particular) become kind of like a white noise throughout the day Occasionally, the sounds of the kids yelling out their repetitive lessons will make its way to my house, babies are often crying, and cars goes rolling by on the way. When class starts in the morning, the kids trickle past my house. But when class is over and they are released to go home, they all go running by in a torrent of laughter and screams, happy to be out of school. A rooster crows, a taxi-brousse goes by.

       Depending on the time of year, you can also hear different kinds of native species of birds. The "toloho" (Malagasy Coucal) and the "boloky" (Lesser Vasa Parrot) are just two of the different kinds of birds I hear from my house (look them up and give them a listen). I particularly like the toloho.

At the local general store, there is a table set up for playing dominoes. By table I mean a worn out old tire with a hard plastic top put over it. When playing dominoes, the men will often SLAM the pieces down on the table. Intimidation, I guess. But this sound also carries throughout the town, over to my house. The game will also evoke sounds of laughter, arguments, and surprise. POW! Taibe izany! Oi lelena! HAHAHA! Malagasy curse words, ha. Another semitruck passes through the town.

The Malagasy are also incredible whistlers. Not like the carry a tune kind but the get your attention from way far away kind. This is the preferred communication method over long distances and out in the forest.

Come dinner time, it's back to pounding and winnowing rice, back to chopping wood, the chickens are still going at it, and the cars keep passing along the highway.

The highway that passes through my village and the cars, taxi brousses, and semitrucks that travel on it are foreign to most of the people in my town. For them, to travel in a car is a rare occurrence. There's a man in my town who's never traveled farther than Moramanga, 31km away, in his entire life. The highway does nothing for the people in my town except remind them of how immobile their lives are. Taxi brousses are going places that they will never see, places that really aren't very far geographically. But they don't have the money to get there. To get to the capital would cost 8000Ariary (about 4 bucks). And when you're only making about 120,000Ariary (60 bucks) a month, taking a trip out of town just isn't going to happen. The goods that the semitrucks are carrying will likely never come to my town, those goods are a part of the "haves" economy. The world flies by my village. And all it can do is watch it. And try to stay out of the way.

What are you doing to STOMP out Malaria in Africa?

As Peace Corps Volunteers, we team up with the President's Malaria Initiative to help end malaria in Madagascar. Here's a bit of info on the malaria situation here in Madagascar.

At a Glance: Madagascar

Population (2012): 22.6 million

Population at risk of malaria

(2010): 100%

Estimated annual malaria deaths/100,000 population (2008): 8

Under-five mortality rate (2009): 72/1,000 live births, or approximately 1 in 14 children die before their fifth birthday4

Background

Malaria is a major health problem in Madagascar, and while its epidemiology varies considerably in different regions of the country, the entire population is considered to be at risk for the disease. On the east coast, transmission is stable and perennial, and the west coast has one long, rainy transmission season and a brief dry season. Almost one-third of the Central Highlands is above 1,500 meters elevation, where malaria transmission rarely occurs.

Malaria cases and deaths reported through the national health management information system have declined over the period of 2003–2009, but malaria remains a leading cause of deaths for children under five. Following the political crisis and coup d’état in March 2009, all U.S. Government support to the current government, from the central Ministry of Health to the primary care health facility level, was suspended until a freely and fairly elected government is in place. The fiscal year (FY) 2012 Malaria Operational Plan was developed based on the assumption that U.S. Government suspensions will remain in place.

The President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI)

Madagascar is one of 19 focus countries benefiting from the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), which is led by the U.S. Agency for International Development and implemented together with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. PMI was launched in 2005 as a five-year (FY 2006–2010), $1.265 billion expansion of U.S. Government resources to reduce the burden of malaria and help relieve poverty on the African continent. The 2008 Lantos-Hyde Act authorized an extension of PMI funding through FY 2013. With congressional authorization and the subsequent launch of the U.S. Government’s Global Health Initiative, PMI’s goal was expanded to achieve Africa-wide impact by halving the burden of malaria in 70 percent of the at-risk populations on the continent (i.e., approximately 450 million residents), thereby removing malaria as a major public health problem and promoting development throughout the African region.

To reach its goal, PMI works with national malaria control programs and coordinates its activities with national and international partners, including the Roll Back Malaria Partnership; The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; the World Health Organization (WHO); the World Bank; the U.K. Department for International Development; numerous nongovernmental organizations, including faith-based and community groups; and the private sector.

A Few Moments in My Life

         I awoke one night around 1:30am. Not sure if I was truly awake or not, I heard singing in my small Malagasy village. This doesn't happen on a regular occurrence. In fact, this was the first time I had ever woken up in the middle of the night to hear much of anything going on in my town. People close their houses when it gets dark and are all asleep by around 9:30pm because there is no electricity for lights and the few folks who have generators only run them on special occasions. Thus, I was perplexed as to why a group of people would be awake in the dead of night and singing as if it were a Sunday worship service. I sat up in my bed and wondered how to address the situation. Because, obviously, I had to do something with such a strange event happening. I remembered the "sleep-together" that had happened several months ago when a friend of mine's 2 year old daughter had died and many folks from the community went to his family's house and spent time with them, ate with them, drank (a lot) with them, and played cards and dominoes with them through the night. I feared that something similar may be happening in my community again. So, I donned my blue jeans, UNC-Asheville t-shirt, flipflops, and a hoodie. I put my headlamp on and left my house to investigate the late night chorus. When I reached the main road, only about 20 yards from my house, I encountered one of the store owners in my town and asked him what the singing was all about. "Misy faty," he said. Someone is dead. "Iza?", I asked him. He told me that Dada Gil had died. Gilbert, better known as Dada Gil, was not old by American standards. Not quite 60, was most people's guess. I had played dominoes with him many times and shared rum with him from time to time. He struck me as a classy man; he always wore a white and blue striped sports coat that reminded me of the train engineer overalls I used to wear when I was a kid. A Ben Hogan style cap was always graced the top of his head. He had cloudy eyes, which I guess made him seem older than he actually was; they made him seem wiser too. He had been sick with something for weeks, I don't know what. After returning from getting medicine in Moramanga earlier that day, he found himself unable to breath and died early in the evening. As per Malagasy tradition, the whole community would come to his house to attend the wake (I guess we would call it) throughout the night, where the women of the community would be drinking taoka gasy and singing hymns; and the men would be drinking taoka gasy and playing cards and dominoes, and Dada Gil would be lying in his bed with a sheet over his body, and candles around his head. This was the second "sleep together" I had attended, and I don't I'll ever get used to them. They're so weird, cool, sad, depressing, fun, and interesting. You never really know what to feel.

        I ate a tenrec the other day. Watch the BBC series on Madagascar and you'll see a nice little segment about them. They're kinda of like hedgehogs with more color. I went out to weed the rice fields that I and my friend, Tahiry, are currently working on. We should be harvesting around the end of April/early May. When we got to the path that leads to our fields, I noticed that there was a dead tenrec lying in the trail. Tahiry asked me, "Efa nihinana trandraka ve ianao?". I answered him, "No, I've never eaten tenrec before, nor have I ever seen one". He told me it was "really good"! I asked him how long he thought this one had been dead. "Vao maty tamin'ny maraina izy," he suggested. Considering that it had just been killed by who-knows-what during the morning, he proposed that we have it for lunch. Why not, right? So we did the work in the fields we had come to do, and when we had finished, picked up the dead tenrec to be cooked for laoka anto'andro, "that which you eat with rice during the middle of the day". It smelled ok. It tasted ok. But the tenrec is pretty much the equivalent of the North American possum. Kind of strange to think about eating such an animal. After finishing it, I was glad to have tried it and could now say that I'd eaten one. It had a very gamey taste to it. However, about an hour later, my burps began to have strange taste to them. Have you ever smelled a dead skunk that's been hit on a highway? That's what my belches tasted like. So, for future advice for those who may be tempted to eat a tenrec, be advised: it may taste OK doing down, but the "Sonic the Hedgehog" of Madagascar makes your burps taste like roadkill. Enjoy.

         I had a meeting with one of my partner organizations in Moramanga earlier this week. The secretary of the association, Mr. Franklin, had invited me attend the meeting and had asked if I would bring a certain picture of me and him that had been taken at a previous meeting in the coastal city of Tamatave. In the picture, we posed shaking hands. Always happy to attend official meetings, I came to Moramanga on Tuesday, wondering what the content of the meeting was going to be. The meeting began and I quickly realized that I had been duped. Conservation International had initiated a project about a year ago doing work with pig raising and ginger growing. However, my community's branch of this organization was not a part of this project, making my attendance of the meeting irrelevant. The project doesn't affect my town or my work. Having been here for a year, I only laughed after realizing that my attendance at the meeting was only so that Mr. Franklin could get the picture from me and get it developed. This is the indirectness of the Malagasy culture. Yeah, I would have preferred him to just ask me if we could get the picture developed in Moramanga sometime for him, but I wasn't angry or perturbed that he'd gone the round-about way of getting it. It just made me laugh.

     I've taken up playing dominoes with the local men in my town. Women don't play. I didn't make the rules or the cultural norms, sorry. But I find playing dominoes is another way to further integrate into my community. I've learned a lot of new, very applicable words (and a few dirty ones), my ability to count in French has gotten much better (though I tend to count in English in my head then announce the sum in French), and the local men have come to see me more as just one the guys in town, not just the "vazaha", though I definitely am still that. The dominoes table is set up in a little shelter made of wood and palm leaf along the highway next to one of the busier stores in town. Previously, this building was use to keep sacks of charcoal out of the rain. The table itself is a flat sheet of old plastic-like material, set on an old tire. The seats are logs and stones. The dominoes themselves are perennially dirty as they fall off the table quite often when the Malagasy slam the pieces down on the not-so-sturdy-table, an action meant to display the superiority of the domino they are playing to those that the other players have in their hands. Their hands are also often very dirty as well, most of them being charcoal makers. But, such is the way of it. We put 200 Ariary on each game, if you win you make 400 Ariary. 200 Ariary is the approximate equivalent of 10 cents in the United States. 10 cents can actually get you a quite few things at the local store: 2 cigarettes, 4 small packs of peanuts, 2 cookies, 2 tomatoes, 4 small onions, some cooking oil, a little kerosene for your lamp, or even a double shot of Malagasy moonshine. Making 400 Ariary (about 20 cents) is a nice little pick up at the end of the day for most of the men in my town. I lose a lot. Most of the time, I play, enjoy myself playing a game with the guys of my village, and lose 200 Ariary. Being the guy from who-knows-where across the seas of the world, they aren't expecting me to win. I don't expect myself to win, I've never been much of a dominoes player anyway. But sometimes, I don't lose. And when I don't lose, the guys who are watching are so surprised I get a full round of fist bumps. The money I do make I use to buy cigarettes or a small snack for the guys I beat. But I'm starting to get good, well, better than I was. But it doesn't really matter to me so long as the guys keep letting me play with them and be just another guy in town, killing time and hanging around.

My MOM will be here in Madagascar in two week!!! I can't wait to meet her at the airport in Antananarivo and show her the life I live here. Bring your camera, Mama.

Until next time, I hope everyone enjoys NCAA March Madness. Tennessee's playing today (3/15) to get into the semi's of the SEC tourney. Go VOLS.

Amin'ny manaraka indray e!

James

One Year

First off, some shout outs are indeed in order:

Steve and Carol: Thank you guys so much for the Christmas package! Just when I thought my Christmas was over, I had another package waiting for me at the post office. You guys are great! And I loved the card with dogs on it. Good looking dogs are a rare sight for me these days and you guys sure have an eye for them. Love y'all!

Barbara, Baily, Ninh, Amanda, and Ellen: You guys are hilarious. I open your package and get vomited on by the quantity of Starburst flowing out of it. I particularly liked the list of "first world problems" that I don't have to deal with here (i.e.: iPad vs. Macbook). However, there are NEVER enough outlets in this country!!! Thank you guys so much for sending the love. Pile all your money together and send yourselves over here. Miss you guys.

Holmes Family: Much love to Pat, Jill, Jeb, and Jessie for thinking of me during the holidays! Miss you guys a lot and can't wait to see you when I get back.



        In case you don't remember, I left the USA just over one year ago. I filled out a bunch of paperwork for the application process, said goodbye to family and dear friends, got on a plane, became fast friends with a group of random, kinda weird, and very good hearted fellow PCVs. Then, we all got on a plane bound for an island in the Indian Ocean that about which many Americans ask, "Are there people in Madagascar?". Yes, there are people here. More than 20 million of them. And they are Malagasy people. Just Gasy (GAH-see) for short. And they are amongst the world's most impoverished peoples, both in their lack of income and in the lack of opportunity for improving their lives within the borders of their coasts. But they are also a people full of love as well. Since the day I was welcomed into the home of a random Gasy family during the homestay portion of my training a year ago, to the nightly conversations I have with my Gasy best friend at my site, Tahiry, I have become friends with the Malagasy. Yeah, they're weird. They're ignorant of a lot of things going on in the world ("Oh, you're from the Etazonia? That's close to Brazil and France, gotcha.") But I love em. And my Mama is coming in a little more than 3 weeks!!!! I can't wait to show this country to someone from back home and to see this country again through fresh eyes. It's strange to think that everyone that I have seen in the past year has only been in my life for that amount of time. So come on, Mama, can't wait for you to see this weird, crazy, beautiful, disgusting, fun, boring, loud, stinky, amazing place I live in.

Also, anyone else who wants to come (and can afford it) is always more than welcome to make their across the world and check this place out. Come anytime, we're always open.

Also, NO MORE BIG PACKAGES. Thanks sooooo much to everyone who sent me their love in a box! But please stop sending them. I am well stocked on everything I need and if I ain't got it, I don't need it. You guys are so awesome for sending so much great stuff. It also costs me 7 dollars (14000 Ariary) everytime I pick up a big package at the post office (plus holding fees if it takes me a while to get there). And on a $200/month budget, that can add up. So, again, thank you thank you thank you thank you! Now stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it. Small things are fine, just not the boxes! You guys are great.

Take care everyone.
One year down.
One year to go.
See ya again before we know it.

James

The Law is a Human Institution

            About two months ago, I returned back to my site after a very nice Christmas vacation in Diego-Suarez, the northernmost city in Madagascar. It was great to be back where I was integrated into the Malagasy society where folks are used to seeing me and aren't surprised at the fact of seeing a white person who knows how to speak their language. My best friend at site, Tahiry, came over and caught me up what was going with him. He informed me that this sister's daughter, his niece of 12 years old, had disappeared from her house just before Christmas and had not been heard of since (two weeks at the time). He asked me if he could borrow my bike so that he could go to Moramanga, the closest banking town and where his sister's family lives, and help with the police investigation and help in the search for his niece. Sorry Peace Corps, I know we're not supposed to do it, but I let him borrow my bike for two days. He came back, having had no luck looking for the girl. He and his family had filed all the necessary paper work with the police and had asked around the town for any information they could gather, finding none. The girl's younger sister claimed that she saw her getting into a white car with a bunch of people in it.  I asked Tahiry if this kind of thing happened often in Madagascar. He told me that child disappearances were actually a fairly common experience on the island, mostly from kidnappings. This brought to mind stories of kidnappings in Mexico, where people are held for ransom. When asked why children were being kidnapped in Madagascar (this country being extremely poor, making kidnapping for ransom not a very lucrative practice), Tahiry told me that children are often kidnapped by organ thieves. There are often reports of bodies found, organs missing. A grim outlook for a family with a missing child. Asked what the police would do about the situation, I was told that pictures of the girl would be put up at police stations in the region, with little hope of actually finding the girl. Police stations do not have computer systems as well (still in the typewriter age). Now, the girl has been missing for more than 2 months, without a word or lead as to where she may be and little hope of the law enforcement system being of any help.

About 3 weeks ago, several gentleman from community were released from jail after being accused of cutting areas of eucalyptus forest owned by a woman who lives in Antananarivo. The idea of "innocent until proven guilty" is either loosely enforced or non-existent in Madagascar. The woman who owns the trees simply brought forth the accusation to the Gendarmerie that these certain gentlemen had committed this crime, and they were duly arrested and held in prison for a month and a half without trial. There trial date was finally held and the proper fines (bribes?) were payed to the court officials so that they could be released from jail. No evidence was ever found in favor of the plaintiff.

             There is a scene in the Cohen Brothers' film "O Brother Where Art Thou?", where Everett and his companions are about to be hung by the sheriff and Everett says, "It ain't the law!". The sheriff replies, "The law? The law is a human institution."Brings to mind that earlier in the movie, Tommy Johnson describes his encounter with devil, to whom he had sold his soul, and describes the devil's appearance as being very similar to that of the sheriff. Indeed, the sheriff's character may have indeed been the devil. However, the law is a human institution, free to be influenced by passion, money, power, and malaise.

Holidays

A quick shout out to folks who sent me packages!!

Benjamin: CUZ! Thanks so much for the Christmas package buddy. It was great getting all those books and goodies all the way from Georgia to this island in the Indian Ocean. Merry Christmas Buddy!!!

Joffrions: You guys rock. And no, I do not yet have, nor have I yet read, "Lords and Lemurs" and very much look forward to digging into it. Also, the Blue Ridge Parkway Calendar rocks! Helps remind me of the differences in climate throughout the year as compared to Madagascar (it's steaming hot and wet hear now whereas there's snow and ice on Grandfather Mountain). Merry Christmas to you!!

Mawmaw et al: You know I love you and always love the packages I get from you. The cookies were slightly crumbled but still DELISH. And I look forward to getting into the books by Garrison Keiler and the other about the Holocaust survivor. Merry Christmas and I love you so much!!!!

I returned to site about a week ago after a fantastic vacation around this huge island. The Friday before Christmas, I traveled back to the old Anjozoro (where I lived during my first month on the island) and I visited my host family there for one day. It was great seeing them and getting to actually be able to converse with them. My skills in Malagasy are greatly improved now compared to when I first got here (when I'm sure I sounded like a cave man) so we were actually able to have decent conversation. After that, I left Antananarivo on a Saturday afternoon and arrived in Antsiranana (Diego Suarez) on a Sunday afternoon. That's right, a 24 hour taxi-brousse ride from the capitol all the way to the northern-most tip of Madagascar. There were about 20 volunteers who went there to celebrate Christmas and it was amazing. Our first day there, Christmas Eve, we all hired a boat to take us out to what are called the Emerald Islands. It took about an hour and a half to arrive there. The boat ride was fantastic, sailing through the blue-green waters of the Diego bay, which also provided us with a viewing of the Nosy Lonja (Sugarload Island), a very famous natural landmark in the bay. Along the way, we picked up our lunch from a spear-fisherman, a stringer full of fish freshly caught/speared. We left the bay for the open waters of the Indian Ocean and arrived at the Emerald Islands, where the sand was white and the waters were, truly, emerald green. There were several palm bungalows that helped to provide us with shade between swimming and sunning (though I turned down the sunning). We also had lunch of rice, crab, and the fish we had picked up on route (cooked by our friendly Malagasy guides). AND we even sang some Christmas carols. To say the least, by the time we arrived back in Diego in the late afternoon, we were all fairly exhausted from beaching and sunning all day (though I didn't get a sunburn, WOOHOO!), that we had dinner and called it an early night. On Christmas Day, we went to one of the finer hotels in Diego and got to use their pool (for a fee, which included a very nice lunch). It was real interesting spending Christmas Eve and Day beaching and pooling in very hot weather (definitely a first for me). Diego is a great city, very different than Antananarivo. Very clean, good roads, Tuk-tuks (moto-taxis that carry passengers for 25 cents wherever your going, and taxis for 50 cents the same), GREAT food (fried shrimp!!!), and cool architecture (Google: Antsiranana or Diego Suarez). A very Merry Christmas indeed.

For New Years, I travelled back to Antananarivo (it's just fun typing that name, isn't it?). I bought a suit on the streets for $7 and a belt with a silver electric guitar buckle with a spinning dollar sign emblem for $1.50. Gotta make sure to look good for New Years, ya know? We had a great house party at our Malaria Initiative Coordinator's house then, for the midnight countdown, moved to downtown Tana at a nice place called Planet Terrace. Since there was no real countdown led by Malagasy, we wound up having two, unsynchronised countdowns to midnight. Ah well. So much fun though. Happy New Years!!!

Site has been slow but good since returning from vacation. I got visited by my good friend Nick for two days this week (thanks for the double IPA beer from the states!!!). I am planning on traveling to Antsirabe in the coming weeks/months to start getting more information on the cattle market. Rice is growing well. We just got visited by THE Dr. Patricia Wright (aka Mrs. Save the Forests of Madagascar) who is looking into getting us some help from her friends in high places (WOOHOO!).

Rat update: I had them under control. I even quit counting because there weren't too many to worry about anymore. I'm guessing the current number is around 15-18 that I have personally killed. However, since returning from my holiday vacation, they have taken over my house. They have eaten through the wood of my house to create their own personal entrances everywhere. They ate my rice winnower. They my oil and petrol bottles. They ate my spices. This is war. I tried being fair. I let them bring the battle to me for too long. Time to show them what America can do. Stay tuned...

Happy 2013 to everyone back home! This is my full year, from beginning to end, in Madagascar. I've been here for more than 10 months already. Sometimes the time seems to drag, but it flies most of the time. I can't believe I'll be marking a year in a little less than 2 months. I guess I'll be home before I know it. See you guys next year!!

Love,

James