You can get used to ANYTHING.

For example, some of the things I've gotten used to and don't think twice about anymore....

1) Sleeping on a sponge mattress supported by lake reeds as a bed.

2) Flea bites covering your body after a good nights sleep.

3) Daily sweeping up of bat poop that falls from your ceiling/roof.

4) 23 hour taxi brousse rides with 14 people crammed into a minivan while kids puke beside you, and a creepy man falls asleep on your shoulder.

5) Women pulling out their breasts to feed their babies (or toddlers) in the post office, bank, market, or taxi brousse.

6) Men, women, kids and elderly squatting on the side of the road to relieve themselves at the “rest stops” during a long taxi brousse ride.

7) Taxi brousses running out of gas on the way to the predetermined destination and having to siphon gas out of a passing car after waiting 2 hours for any car to pass.

8) Eating rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Everyday. For 2 years.

9) Standing up while going to the bathroom. It now feels weird to sit, so a toilet shall magically appear, I still stand while using it out of habit.

10) Watching women carry a bucket of water in their hand, with their babies strapped to their backs with a cloth, all while balancing a basket of heavy market purchases on their head. All without spilling a drop of water. Talk about multitasking!

11) Men driving motorcycles or bicycles with 3 children on the handlebars, courier rack and frame, without even the slightest fear that it could be dangerous.

Things that make you say GROSS (said in a true wisconsin accent)

1) Over Easter vacation I got hit in the head by a cow stump that had recently been slaughtered and sold in the market. No skin, just fresh bloody flesh smacking every so gently against my forehead. Mmm…. Beef.

2) Parasy: Or, little fleas that live in the dust and sand. They burrow underneath your skin on your feet and lay eggs inside you. You have to break the skin to release the flea sac, or else once hatched the baby fleas will come back to your foot to lay their own eggs. I have to say, I kind of enjoy picking out the egg sac now.

3) Cockroaches love my house. So much so that I’ve made a fun game out of hunting down their eggs before they hatch so they won’t take over my house. One day I drank some juice out of a cup and with a refreshing “Ahhh” looked down into my cup to see a cockroach egg stuck to the side of it. I now check before pouring anything into cups.

4) I have had giardia nine times already. That doesn’t sound so gross until you realize that giardia is caused by ingesting fecal matter. Basically it means I have ingested things that have been through someone or somethings intestines and out of their anus on NINE separate occasions. Gotta love Peace Corps.

5) Bugs get into everything here, from sugar jars to rice. We PCV’s have devised a timeline to label how long we have been here based on this.

If a bug is in your drink:

Stage 1: Stop drinking, throw out the drink and get a new cup.

Stage 2: Throw out the drink and bug but use the same cup.

Stage 3: Pick the bug out of the drink and continue drinking.

Stage 4: Continue drinking… that’s added protein.

6) The street sellers here don’t havef dish washers. Heck, most don’t even have running water. But, they use a basin of water all day long to wash little coffee mugs or juice cups in. After someone uses a cup they throw it in the murky water and use animal fat based soap and a 3 month old sponge to “wash” it and then give it to the next customer still wet.

Lemur sighting

I had a great weekend here in Madagascar. I rode my bicycle up to another volunteers site, which is 25 kilometers north of my site. Her name is Amy, and it was her last weekend at site because she is finishing her second year and extending for a third year but moving to another part of the country. So, I went there to help her with her goodbye party and to be her moral support when leaving her friends and home of two years. On Saturday morning we woke up at 4am and went to the tourist bungalows that Amy had helped create as one of her projects as an environment volunteer. The area around the lake has large numbers of endemic species of reptiles, amphibians, and a unique landscape of lake and marshland not found in other parts of Madagascar. The bungalows have a guide who will take you out on the lake in “canoes”, or hollowed out trees. This lake has the only species of lemur that lives above the lake in the reeds. Its called the Bandro lemur. So, we decided to go out and try to see them. It was still pitch black out as we got into the canoes and as the sun slowly rose the outlines of lake reeds became visible. We could hear the lemurs from afar and then luckily, once it was light, had the chance to see four different families of them. It was an amazing experience. As we were coming back into shore all the fisherman were heading out in their canoes to start their day of work. Amy’s town doesn’t have electricity or running water so we usually went to bed at around 8, two hours after the sun went down. Its hard to stay awake when you do everything by candlelight. But, that made getting up at 4am bearable!

The end of the school year is nearing, which means it’s almost the winter here. I still call it “summer vacation” though. Its hard to make that switch. I’m still loving my life here, my job and especially the people I have met and formed friendships with. I have some pretty cool plans for June, July and August. After the final exams I am going to a rainforest that is about an hour north of my site. We will have to send a paper note ahead of us to the place that hires guides to take us to the forest. It will take a ¾ day hike just to walk to the edge of the forest and then we’ll spend two nights in the rainforest in a tent. We have to bring all of our food, water and supplies into the forest. It should be a lot of physical work, but I’m really excited!! It’s a pretty secluded forest, which isn’t very accessible to tourists, so it will be cool to see a forest without much human impact. There are many types of lemurs that live there, as well as birds, chameleons, and other animals so it should be a cool trip. Then, in July the new training group of education volunteers will arrive in country and I will spend three weeks training them. It will be cool to see all of the staff again who helped train me and to feel like I am one of the elders in the Peace Corps community now. I can help share all my experiences and try to mold them into good teachers… in just three weeks. But, I look forward to hanging out with Americans again and seeing new faces and enthusiastic minds help with my morale. I’ve been stuck in my town teaching and haven’t had a change to get to the really rural areas that often, so this should be a good change of scenery.

Speaking of changing scenery, I’m visiting the US after that!! I leave for Minneapolis August 16^th and will be there until September 9^th. I will spend the first week in Chippewa and then head down to Madison for the second week and return to Chippewa for the third week. I plan on surprising my friend Tina by showing up to her wedding that she thinks I will miss! So, don’t tell her if you know her and see her at all!

I’m going to use this trip to gather English resources to bring back to the teachers around my area. AND see my nephew and family and friends!!!

Water

Ry Malala fianakavina ary namana rehetra-hetra, (My dear family and friends)

Ok, so news.. well, the running water in my house broke.. and has been broke for 3 weeks. So everymorning I wake up after the rooster crows and walk down to the public water pump with my two buckets and wait in line to fill up. Then I carry the two buckets up my hill, which seems like a mountain at times, and use it to wash dishes, shower, and make food. Let me tell you, I have been forced to learn water conservation. Showering more than twice a week is not necessary... and you'd be amazed at how long two buckets can go when you're careful. A lack of clean accessible water is a huge problem in developing countries and it didn't hit me until I experienced it. But, let me tell you.. my upper body is amazingly rock hard. I might actually beat Lorie in a pull up contest when I return. Speaking of my body, my neighbor has been told by my Proviseur Adjoint, Gerry, that she needs to watch what I eat cuz he thinks I have lost all of my healthly fat. I actually think its just a loss of fat and gain of muscle. But, just so you know, they are taking care of me here. Don't worry.

Other than that.. .I found out that I earned 1,200 dollars in the first six months here. which means I got paid 200 US dollars a month.. which is considered middle class here just to give you all a comparison. Its amazing the life I've gotten used to. I really can live in pretty much any home in the US in the future and will be compltely and totally satisfied and happy. Oh, and by the way, the womens day parade was amazing!!

Thats all for now... take care everyone... LIVE LOVE LAUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cyclones and Nephews

Its been a long time since I’ve written. Mostly due to the cyclone. Yes, I have experienced my first, and second, and now third cyclone. The first one went right over my town though, so it was crazy windy and rained hard for five days straight. School was cancelled for two days and in a nearby village 7 people drowned in flooded water. The houses here are definitely not flood proof. I was unharmed and only lost my fence in the matter. However, I had quite the experience. My gas tank to my tabletop stove ran out, which meant I had no way to cook food or heat water. That wouldn’t be a problem in the States but when you have no canned food, and your main staples are rice and veggies, it’s a problem. Then the power went out, I ran out of veggies, and the water stopped running into my house. So, I ate peanuts for two days straight and read three books while listening to the wind howl and my puppies whine in hunger. My shortage of food didn’t bother me as much as knowing that I was the person responsible for their food and they were helpless. That thought was quickly forgotten when I wondered how all of the people in mud and stick houses were doing. I’ve definitely learned to look outside my circumstances and usually all is not as bad as first though. Anyways, the whole time I kept thinking about how everyone else had little charcoal/wood stoves and how I should purchase one in the future. My neighbors were wonderful though. The high school guard and his wife and child had a charcoal ceramic stove, but no rice. I had rice but no stove. So after the second day of eating only peanuts… I got up the nerve to ask if they wanted some rice and if they could possibly cook some for me. They more than happily accepted and asked why I hadn’t come over sooner. Hindsight…

So, other than that my news is that I became an aunt last week. Logan Wade Borneman was born on Feb 27, well Feb 28^th Madagascar time. He weighed 7lbs 7oz. Its still so surreal to me though, considering I haven’t seen Crystal pregnant let alone a baby yet. It really is so hard to put myself there and imagine what life is like. When I got the text from my brother at 3 in the morning announcing his entry into this world, I cried for at least an hour in bed. The thought of not being present when my parents become grandparents for the first time, or my brother becoming a father or my nephew existing its first few hours and hit me hard. And I had nine months to prepare for it! But, I know that me not being there for this is only making me realize how much I want and need my family as a big part of my life. Oh, the lessons of life…

Everything else here is going fine. Time is flying… teaching is exhausting…I’ve gotten sick with sinus stuff and the forever occurring stomach problems. But, the days pass and I’m still happy I’m doing this. This weekend I’m busy celebrating Women’s day with the head women of the community. Theres a parade like thing, then a prayer service, then speeches, then dinner to honor the women. Sounds like an awesome thing to attend and I’m excited to see how it goes. I just hope most people won’t see gender equality as just a spectacle to be held once a year but also as something to work towards in their daily lives. Many young girls who live in the countryside do not get to attend school past elementary school because their parents don’t think its safe for them to go into larger towns to go to the middle schools. Instead they send their boys… and the girls stay back home and cook and farm. Many students in my town live with relatives and go home to the country on the weekend. There are even some that live with cousins or siblings with no adults living with them during the week. Their parents rent the house for them so they can attend school. Education is definitely a privilege here. Thankfully, the Ministry of Education is working on a revamp of the system to move back some of the grades from the middle school to the elementary schools so students can attend a few years longer than before. But then theres the problem of not enough space at the elementary schools and lack of teachers… and so on and so forth. But, at least they are trying new ideas.

Starting the 14^th, we have a two week vacation for Easter. I’m going to the capital for a WID-GAD meeting (which is a Peace Corps committee dealing with Women In Development-Gender and Development). Then I’m heading down to the southeast coast to my PCV friend Lisa’s site, Vangaindrano. They speak a different dialect there so it should be interesting. It will also be awesome to see the ocean and have abundant fruit. We are doing a teacher training for her middle school English teachers and organizing her English Resource Center.

For now, I’m going to head back home. My naughty male puppy followed me the entire way, and a cow herder tried to steal him. I told him to stay home, but he broke through the fence and followed me. He is a little stinker…and clever. The female dog listens to me though and raced home when I yelled “mody”(pronounced moody) in Malagasy to her. Which means, “go home”. The boy has yet to learn to listen. They get along great now and are growing fast. They even have little fat rolls on the tops of their heads.

Teaching

Happy Valentine’s Day week to you all! I felt the need to say it since no one here knows what that is. But, don’t fret, it will be part of my lesson this week. I’m going to teach about love, which is actually in their curriculum. It should be a great week because it won’t be work to get the kids interested in the topic. So a lot has happened in the past few weeks. I gave my final for the first semester and began grading them. All 600 of them. It took me an entire week. Each student copied the entire exam and then the answers because they can’t afford copies to hand out. So after grading I had to calculate all of their grades and then write each grade in a huge notebook using a blue ink copier to make two copies. Basically that involves making two copies of each grade. This also took me forever, but it actually made me feel like I was in college again only getting 3 hours of sleep a night. Its finished now, and I feel satisfied with their grades. They really are motivated to learn English here and it makes me feel like I’m needed here. Speaking of being needed, I had a teacher training this morning and started the first ever English Teachers Association of Ambatondrazaka. It feels awesome to be accomplishing something after waiting this long. The English center is slowly beginning. Its just so hard for all these teachers because they have NO RESOURCES. Imagine teaching German without a book, a tape, or any worksheets. All from your head. Every teacher I spoke to at the training asked for tapes of English or workbooks or textbooks or anything they could get their hands on. Unfortunately I don’t have any of those things. I have two grammar textbooks given to me by Peace Corps. But, part of my job is to find resources and create them if all else fails. I have been writing lesson plans for the teachers to help them out. But, I can only be stretched so far. I’m doing this all while still teaching a full load at the high school here. But I wake up everyday healthy, happy and motivated to start again.

This week was their Proclamation, which is an event held at the high school where they hand out their report cards. But, they hand them out in order of their class ranking, announcing to everyone how they did. I couldn’t imagine being present for that and watching the ones in last place. So I boycotted it. Teachers actually call people stupid here and point out the “dumb” ones in class. It’s crazy to hear people speak without a politically-correct filter. So after that they had yet another party for the teachers. They really know how to find a reason to celebrate here. Yesterday I made homemade peach jam and then cooked fish for the dogs. Then I built a screen door for my house and four screen windows for my living room and bedroom. I sawed, nailed and cut screens. It was awesome and everyone was drop-jawwed that I, a white American female, created these things. I’m basking in the glow of my awesomeness.

As far as food goes, its pineapple and apple season now. And you can buy whole live frogs in the market. To eat. Frog legs are pretty good… they taste like chicken, only better. And they add a little hop to my step. Bah duh dum! Other than that, I just want to clarify that alcohol consumption here is not the same as in the US. The portions are extremely small. Its not the same over-consumption as it is in the US. So, when I talk about having wine or beer I’m not talking keg parties. I’m talking Dixie cups. Its actually not culturally ok for females to drink here, so I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve done it. All with fellow PCVs.

Anyways, last night I was with some friends and after eating grilled frogs and guava juice we headed to a French NGO workers house where he had a pet mini lemur and a parrot. It was the craziest thing ever. Obviously not something that he should be buying, because it just creates a market for it, but it was cool to hold it and have a lemur the size of my fist in my palm. Then it peed and pooped on me… but it was so cute I couldn’t be mad at it. Turns out this guy sells zebu horns to make buttons in Italy. It was one of the weirdest nights of my life. Well, for now I’m off to the market to buy some vegetables for the week and, surprise, surprise… rice.

My Golden Bday

Just wanted to send a huge Thank You for all the birthday wishes!! They made my day "GOLDEN"!!! ha...

I woke up my bday morning, cooked rice for my dogs... then was visited by my friends who brought me ice cream for my present.... do they already know me or what? so I ate ice cream for breakfast!! YES! then I ran from classroom to classroom to watch my students take their final exams for the semester. they thought I was crazy... since each classroom had a teacher watching them... but it was weird for me to give a test and not watch them take it. so, I popped in windows and made sure they weren't cheating. All 600 students took the same test at the same time in 25 different classrooms, so I visited each one. Anyways, then I went to lunch with some friends and had an amazing meal of beans and rice and tomato lasary, which is my favorite meal here... . then some teachers came to my house and we planned the next few weeks of english and discussed the HIV/AIDS week we are going to have here in March. then I corrected some papers and met up with the other volunteers from around the area. we went to the pizza place, which is a treat because its so expensive (7000 Ariary for one pizza.... its costs 100 Ariary for three tomatoes here) So anyways.. then we had wine and fanta and the local beer and went back to the peace corps house where the other volunteers showed me the homemade chocoalate cake with one huge house candle in it! then we went to a kabob place here and ate some more and drank ginger flavored rum and had an awesome time! we met up with my friend felena and two french friends who live here too. after that we headed to the cabaret, which is basically a dance place with a family who plays covers and at the end of the night you can do karokee. We danced up a storm and I sang "Like a natural woman" cuz they didn't have much of an English selection. Then my Proviseur Adjoint and his daughter, my friend Felana sang "Daniel" by elten john for me.. .putting in my name and changing it to "my sister"... and then they played the happy birhtday song. It was a quite hilarious experience.. and an awesome awesome end to a great birthday. we all headed home sweaty, drunk and happy at 330 in the morning. Now, that was an awesome birthday!