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