Correspondences (Email 3)

And here's Part 3 of my emailing with a new volunteer coming to work in Madagascar.

11January2014

Hey 'New Volunteer',

I hope you had a great holiday! Here's a little lowdown about Christmas in Mada:

Madagascar is a fairly Christian country throughout. Traditional
beliefs in the power of ancestors are also held all over the island
and are evident any many holiday/festival times. Christmas is not
anywhere as big of a deal here as it is in America. Yeah, there are
some decorations put up and you'll hear some music, but the big thing
is that people go to church a lot; Christmas Eve services and
Christmas day worship are big. A lot of PCVs will go on vacation at
this time, since being at site during Christmas can be kind of boring
and lonely since the Gasy don't make such a big deal of it. I went to
the beach last year, for example. But this year I stuck it out and had
Christmas at site, I dressed up as Santa Claus and gave out candy to
the kids in my town (which I NEVER do and don't suggest doing on any
regular basis), killed and ate a goose with my best friend at site's
family, played a lot of cards and dominoes, and some guys hooked up a
generator and we watched movies (ie: Rambo). New Year's I think is a
bigger party here than Christmas is. They do New Year's somewhat
similar to how we do. Stay up till midnight drinking, have a "ball"
(Gasy dance party), food, etc. There's a lot of drinking. Particularly
of Malagasy moonshine (taoka gasy). Horrid stuff.

To be a vegetarian in Madagascar is very easy. At most volunteers'
sites, meat is often not an option due to lack of electricity and,
therefor, refrigeration. Vegetables here are seasonable and mostly
organic. In fact, the veggies here are pretty awesome. So are the
fruits (get ready for lychees!). You may encounter some cultural
events in which beef is served but it's totally ok to turn it down.
The one problem that vegetarians encounter is when eating at a
Malagasy restaurant or at a local's house and there's no vegetarian
option. So, you might sometimes have to just bite the bullet and eat
the meat. In Mada, you also don't have to worry about whether food is
"free-range" or not, there aren't really any meat factories. Biggest
thing about food in Madagascar: get ready to eat a lifetime supply of
rice in your first 2 months. "Life is rice, rice is life".

To deal with attention and stuff like that: yeah, staying in your
house is always an option. Digging into a book, writing, listening to
music from home, listening to the BBC news on shortwave, cooking
something totally badass that takes a lot of time to make. You'll find
creative ways to take care of your self. If all else fails, get a
bottle of rum and kick back.

Electronics: bring a laptop, MP3 player, camera, a big hard drive (and
flash drive), and USB chargeable speakers. These are your PC
essentials. Don't come here without them.  A lot of PCVs have Kindles
and love having them. A lot of PCVs also have iPhones and love having
them. You can get basic phones (talk and text) here for relatively
cheap. If you bring a phone from America, you'll still need to get a
SIM card for one of the Madagascar phone companies or have your phone
unlocked to function here (I didn't do this so I'm not the most
knowledgeable about phones). Radio is also a great thing to have at
site since the BBC comes in on shortwave, you bring a radio or get one
here. I charge everything once a week when I go to my market town, but
a lot of volunteers have sources at their sites to charge at (ie:
solar panels, someone with a generator). Phones here function on
credit, which you can buy most anywhere. It comes on little cards with
a code number, you enter the code number into your phone and send it
to your service provider and you immediately have phone credit. For
example, you load 2000Ariary (about $1) of credit onto your phone and
you can get about 15 text messages or 3 minutes of talk time within
Mada. To call outside of Mada, you'll run through your credit so fast
it won't even be worth your time. 2000Ariary will get you about 15
seconds worth of call time to the US. Texting is an ok option, which
costs about 400Ariary/text. I do this from time to time with my
family. Also, the phone companies offer call/text deals that you can
get to economize your phone use. You'll get hooked up with all that
during training, don't worry. PC will even hook you up with a basic,
but sturdy, phone using your move-in allowance once you get here.

Money: As an Ag Volunteer, you're going to likely be placed in a very
poor area. You will also likely be the most wealthy person in your
village. In my village, for example, the most anyone makes in a very
good month is around 200,000Ariary. The PC Mada monthly allowance is
about 460,000Ariary (around $230) a month. It's very easy to get by on
this, but it's also very easy to blow it with a trip to the capital or
to your banking town where you might wanna splurge. Be prepared to be
a budgeting master. You will be given a bank account and a debit card
(and checks) when you finish training. Every month, PC deposits your
monthly allowance into your account and you can pull it out from any
of your bank's ATMs or another bank's ATMs (with a charge) throughout
the island, not just in your banking town. Your banking town will be
the closest town to your site with a bank. Very similar to having a
checking account in America, except there's no such thing as
over-draft charges here cause you can't pull money out if you don't
actually have money in your account.

Things are starting to feel a bit crazy here for me and the folks in
my stage. We have our Close of Service (COS) conference in 2 weeks!
Wrapping things up. I'm sure it's starting to feel wild for you now
too, leaving next month woohoo!!! Eat as much of the food that you
know you're going to miss as you can get your hands on. There will be
a day where all of us mentors come out to the training center during
your training to talk with our mentors so we'll get to hang in
Mantasoa here in few months. Love that place!

Again, please don't forget that these are just my opinions about my
experience here. Everyone's service is unique and you may find things
to be quite different than how I describe them because of your
perspective and experience. And that's part of what makes PC so great!

Take care and don't be afraid to ask any questions that you're curious about!

James