Correspondences (Email 2)

Here's the second email from my correspondences with an incoming Peace Corps Madagascar Volunteer.

23December2013

Hello again!

Yes, it's true that Peace Corps is not always sunshine and laughter.
One of the things that's most frustrating for me is the inability to
be anonymous wherever I go. I don't know what you look like, but I'm a
tall, white guy with a beard and long hair. I stand out everywhere I
go in Madagascar. As is the case with most PCVs, it's near impossible
to just go into a cafe, sit down and have a coffee, or go into a
restaurant and have an undisturbed meal, without Malagasy folks coming
up to you and trying to start up conversation just because you look
different. And yes, that's what all PCVs want from their PC
experience: to interact and converse with the locals, to learn about
their life and their views. You wouldn't sign up to do PC if you
weren't interested in that. And you will have SO MANY opportunities
for that. But there are times where you just wanna blend in and not
stand out and draw attention to yourself just because of how you look.
And women draw more unwanted attention than men do. Don't worry too
much about this, though, because a lot of the times you'll enjoy the
semi-"celebrity" status you get as a PCV and you'll meet a lot of cool
people through those random conversations. But sometimes it's nice to
just be left alone. Let me know if you wanna know more about this.


Malagasy is indeed unlike any other language we in the Western world
ever study in high school or university. It has it's roots in
Indonesia, and is an "Austronesian" language. Even though Madagascar
is closer geographically to mainland Africa, the language and the
people of the island are more Polynesian than they are African.
Malagasy people, for the most part, do not associate themselves as
being "African". They're Malagasy, something very different and
unique. Therefor, the language is difficult to learn when you first
start learning it because we have no frame of reference. But it gets
MUCH easier once you've got a few basic phrases and mechanics under
your belt. So keep looking at those packets!
There are officially 18 dialects on Madagascar. During your training,
you'll start learning the "Official" dialect, which is spoken in the
central highlands by the Merina tribe, traditionally the most powerful
tribe on the island. The training center and home-stay are in Merina
country, so you'll hear it throughout PST. Once you get your site
placement (usually about halfway through training), you'll be placed
in a class for your specific dialect depending on where your placement
is. All dialects understand Official. Don't worry too much about
dialects; you'll get trained in your specific one and once you get to
your site it's all you will hear and use, so you'll get used to it
wherever you are. You WILL adapt! Haha. I was trained in Official
because of my proximity to the capital, but we use Betsimisaraka (East
coast dialect) greetings and vocabulary at my site.
French is the official language in the schools, government, business,
and when doing numbers, so almost everyone here has a basic
understanding of French. If you speak French, it will help you in many
circumstances (ie: you don't know the Gasy word for something), which
is great when you're in training and still learning. But try not to
use it as a crutch too much. Peace Corps has some great street cred
throughout Madagascar as being the only foreigners who truly put forth
the time and effort to learn Malagasy. To speak even a little Malagasy
will quickly earn you the respect of many people. I'll start up a
conversation with someone in a town that I've never been to and 80% of
the time, the folks are like, "Wow, you speak Malagasy really well.
Are you Peace Corps? Yeah, you Americans really learn Malagasy
quickly, the French never even try." The Malagasy language has adopted
many French words into it's vocabulary and you'll often find yourself
mixing Gasy with French. This is more common in bigger towns than in
smaller villages, so don't count on it too much at your site.

I brought sunscreen and bug spray. PC gives you as much as you need of
all that stuff. I also bought "tropical" clothes (you know, those
stupid safari shirts). Don't bring any clothes with you that you
wouldn't wear in America, cause you won't wear them here either. You
know your style, so wear what you like and what you're comfortable in.
Plus, there's what's called "frip" or "fripperie" here in Mada. Cheap
clothes markets on the streets. Almost all of my clothes I wear now
are from frip cause 1: your clothes are going to break down, 2: it's
fun to look for cool stuff in the markets here, 3: it's cheap and fun
to haggle with sellers over 25cents. In the highlands, the dress is a
bit more conservative than the rest of the island, particularly for
women. In the coastal, and therefore hotter, areas of the island, it's
a bit more lax for the simple reason that it's dumb to dress
conservatively when it's 99 degrees in the shade.

Good boots. Sneakers, flipflops, sandals, flats, heels, pumps,
whatever else, you can find them all over the place here. But a
quality pair of hiking boots is key. Don't buy them right before you
come if you don't already have them. You'll get blisters like crazy.
Bring what you already have and that are already broken in or get them
now and start wearing them. You're gonna wear flipflops/sandals 90% of
the time here (at least I do) so you're feet are going to lose their
close-toed shoe callouses so you want whatever boots you have to
already be broken in to your foot for when you're going on hikes.
And I'm not kidding about the rainjacket. There are lots of
"rainjackets" here but they're not really waterproof. Bring one that
you know will keep you dry in torrential downpours.

One more tip, avoid white clothes (shirts, socks, undies, pants, etc).
They will stain and be stained until Judgement Day. You're gonna be
washing your clothes by hand so save yourself the trouble. But, as I
said, bring what ya like.

Also, please don't forget that the information I provide you as just
my experience and my experience alone. One of the greatest things
about serving in the Peace Corps is that each volunteer is different,
every experience is different, and you make your experience exactly
what you want to make it. Therefor, there's no such thing as a bad
country or bad site to be posted at. It's in your hands to make your
training, work, and overall 2-years experience as awesome as it can
be. Just be ready to be flexible.

If you haven't seen it yet, check out the BBC-Earth Series on
Madagascar. Great way for you yourself to see where you're going and
to show your family and friends how lucky you are. Just keep in mind
when you watch it that there are actually people on the island (some
22 million) and that most of them are very poor. Check out
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ma.html
for general economic data. The average monthly income for a family of
4 at my site is around $60. Also, start Googling information about the
political situation and the elections happening right now. Elections
were held last week! Final results should be out in about 3 weeks.

Take care and happy holidays!

James

Correspondences (Email 1)

Hello all,

Been a while! Over the past few months, I've been involved in Peace Corps Madagascar's mentor program where current volunteers are placed in contact with incoming trainees to provide them with advice and insights into Peace Corps life here on the Red Island. So, since I haven't posted a blog in a while and I'm too lazy to write up my thoughts, I'm just going to copy and paste my email responses to my mentee right here. I think these correspondences will give all you folks back home a bit more of an idea of what two years in Mada is like. Enjoy!

14December2013

Hey 'New Volunteer',

Sorry I haven't gotten in touch with you yet! Several other volunteers
and I were leading a girls camp in Tana this week so it's been REAL
busy.
First: Congratulations for being selected to serve in Mada!! This
island is one of the most unique countries that Peace Corps works in
and you're going to find it to be a wild, beautiful, frustrating, and
very fulfilling place to work.
I arrived in Madagascar on March 1st, 2012. 21.5 months, but who's
counting? I live in an area of Madagascar called the Eastern
Rainforest Corridor. If you look at a topographical map of Mada,
there's an escarpment running almost the entire length of the island
along the eastern coast. This causes moist air from the Indian Ocean
to rise, condense, and fall as rain throughout that entire region for
a large part of the year. There is a main highway (Route Nationale 2
aka RN2) that runs from the capital to the East coast. This highway
passes through Moramanga, which is my banking and market town where I
can get internet and stock up on food, supplies, materials, tools,
etc. that aren't available in my village. The Parc National Andasibe
(one of the most renowned parks on the island) is located about 25km
to the east of Moramanga. I live in a village called Anevoka about 7km
to the east of Andasibe where there is another forest called
Maromizaha that I primarily work with. My village has a grand total of
200 people living in it. Even by PC standards, this is a very small
village haha. I don't have electricity, running water, or a sit down
toilet. This is to be expected as an Environment/Ag volunteer, though
several sites do have some, if not all, of those amenities. I do get
pretty good cell phone service at my site and you can expect to have
that at almost every site throughout the island. On of the great
conveniences of my site is that it is actually on the RN2, so
transportation is often not a great hassle. The way I like to put it,
I can eat breakfast at my site and have lunch in the Tana, a rare
situation for most volunteers.
As I said, several other volunteers in the East region and I just
finished up a girls camp in that capital. We all brought 5 girls from
our sites to Tana to receive trainings on sexual health, life skills
and goals, nutrition, educational opportunities, and just generally
showed them a great time in the big city. We went to the zoo, a cinema
(small), the US Embassy, and did a tour of the sites in the city.
Wherever you are stationed on the island and whatever sector your in,
you can do a camp like that with funding from USAID through PC. So
much fun!
Projects: Here are two that received funding from PC to do, but there
are many other small projects that I'm involved in that require no
funding. I've helped a group of women farmer's form their own
cooperative where they are growing medicinal plants in areas of
hillside that have previously been slashed-and-burned for rice
cultivation. I got them funding from PC to provide them with all of
the tools and materials they needed to get started, as well as helped
them find buyers of their produce in the capital.
Several years ago, the Mormon church built some water pumps in my
village and in the area around it to provide folks there with clean
drinking water. They all broke. So, with help from PC, we just
finished repairing the pumps and placing some new protective boxes on
the faucets to prevent future breakage. You will learn all about how
PC will help you to fund projects during your training.
As I said, I live close to a rainforest. And, this being a rainforest
in Madagascar makes it one of the most amazing places in world. I can
hear indris from my house (YouTube it or watch the BBC Madagascar
series). So I work with Malagasy guides who take researchers and the
occasional tourist into our forest. For the most part, I teach them
English and we do some intensified rice farming when it's the season
(you will also learn about this during your training).
Other than that, I consider one of the biggest parts of my job to be
integrating into the community, feeling the rhythm of life here, and
becoming a part of it. It sucks sometimes, I won't lie to you. But
it's worth it.
You can find me on Facebook, if you like. I usually get internet on
average about once per week so you know when you can expect a response
from me.
Good luck with getting ready! I remember getting all of my stuff
together before coming here and that it was a very exciting time (you
have a lot to be excited about!). Don't stress too much about clothing
though, you can get everything here and it's cheap. Good shoes and a
rainjacket you should definitely bring with you though.
Feel free to ask whatever questions you like!
Take care,

James

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.