the good days and the bad (or, the emotional bootcamp that is Peace Corps)

Ask any PCV and they will tell you similar stories as to how you can go from feeling so great and fulfilled and “this is exactly where I want to be, man!” in one moment to wondering why the hell you have put yourself in such an isolated, lonely, and degrading situation the next.  These feelings are especially fresh in your first year of service, when things are new and language still difficult.  I guess I had a particularly bad year due to problems in my first site, but I know that the feeling is mutual among us all.  Some days are so good and others are so, so bad.  Oh the bipolar disorder of the Peace Corps volunteer.

My best days as a Peace Corps volunteer have been the ones where we are out all day farming rice.  We start early in the morning and go until after noon.  If I’m with a good group, the morning will be spent gossiping (or at least them gossiping and me listening along).  Then we find our way to some pre-chosen tree where the cooks of the day have been building fires and cooking rice for the last two hours.  Farming days are always the best for food; we always get beans.  And Malagasies know how to do rice and beans, let me tell you.  After I show how good of a Malagasy I can be by eating a mountain of rice, we clear the mat and it is naptime.  I love the tradition of siesta-ing, though I can never really fall asleep.  To me it’s simply reading time placed right into my day!  After about an hour, we start up again.  The afternoon planting is always fun because people are tired and therefore goofy but also want to get it done so they move faster.  I like this because I once had (before joining Peace Corps) a serious need for efficiency and so it is the one time in my life here that I feel I can act on this virtue (or fault, depending on how you look at it).  And I am secretly quite competitive so I get to challenge myself to transplant faster than the rest.  (Okay, two annoying personality traits brought out there…but I am who I am).  The best part of the day comes around 5 when we are in our last half hour of planting and the evening has set in.  It is outrageously beautiful out there, gazing across all those straight green lines of seedlings as the sun goes down across the farm.  I have always loved a good mountaintop view, a sunset at the beach, but there is nothing to me like the night fading into a field freshly planted.  

My worst days as a volunteer are those where I feel the most isolated.  I’ll say that thus far in my second year I have been quite content at site, feeling really welcomed by my community and finding sincere friendship in the people.  The days that are bad for me now are actually those where I go into the city for work or market and end up having to crash there by myself.  Where in the village you can never quite feel alone, the city engulfs me in solitude.  Interactions with people on the street are not the friendly ones of my village, but are based on my white skin and the idea that it determines how much money I must have.  Either that or its being called “vazaha” or “Cherie” constantly by every man you walk by.  For the most part, I’ve gotten used to the harassment of the Malagasy men (who by the way have NO game…a fact that has been confirmed to me by many a Malagasy woman).  Generally I just make a joke out of it and cat-call them right back, surprising them with my Malagasy.  But when you are alone in the city for a couple of days it really gets to you.  Or to me anyways.  Furthermore, when I’m stuck in the city for too long I end up on the internet too much.  Which is something that, if you are not used to it in your life, can make you go a bit crazy.  It always makes me go crazy and I generally end up getting upset over something in my past life (back when I was an Amerrriicannnn).  My friends back home must think I’m nuts by now and I hope that if I ever move back near them they will forgive me for making them listen to my lamenting about completely irrelevant things.  

Of course, people have good and bad days everywhere in the world.  I know that even in the states I went through down times that felt the worst and high times that felt magnificent.  I think that the real difference is simply the pace in which you can move from one emotion to another.  In this blog I have written about full days gone well or terrible, but in reality its more like an hour of this that dramatically changes to that.  I can wake up in the morning and cringe thinking “There is no way I can speak ‘gasy today” and twenty minutes later I am out at my coffee stand gossiping away with Mama Café.  The next  minute someone makes fun of a mispronounced word, everyone laughs, and there I am all discouraged again.  Then of course I am handed a little nugget of a baby to hold while the mother runs an errand and I am uplifted again.

It’s a very emotional time, the Peace Corps-ing!

sweet humility

I think that in my previous entries I have alluded to the fact that a lot of my job is being laughed at.  Walking around as someone who looks, acts, and talks different, people get a kick out of everything that I am.  Even more so when I am applying all that I am to being all that they are, aka immersion.  I can say a completely normal and mundane sentence, in an accent good enough for anyone to understand, and they will come away chuckling.  (E.g.:“ha ha ha ‘nothing is new’”). 

For the most part I have grown comfortable with my role as the village entertainment.  Even acting into it at times; I’ll tell a lame joke that, because I told it, will be a hit, I’ll dance in the middle of a market day, I will even fake stories about my misfortune because Malagasies seem to find other peoples’ misfortune hilarious.   Anything for something to talk about right?

The fact is that in growing into the PCV that I am today, I have had to let go of the idea of embarrassment, shame, and discomfort.  There is just no place for feelings such as those in this work.  One must encompass the utmost humility. 

The other day I was forced to put this humility to the test.  I was teaching my elementary school kids about compost.  We had just finished doing a demo plot and had moved into the classroom to go over the process.  After talking about it for a minute, I began drawing and writing the description on the board so that they could copy it down in their special environment copybooks.  But, for those who do not know me, I am as short as I am foolish and so to perform this task I had to stand up on a chair.  So I step onto the teacher’s chair and doodle away, adding in goofy phrases about the wonder that is compost.  Finished, I go to step down.  But instead of stepping on the solid ground that I am expecting, there is a bucket of water placed conveniently in my footing space.  So as the weight of my left foot goes down, there follows the rest of my body.  And the contents of the bucket.  We (the water, bucket, and I) crash noisily to the ground, I in a perfect back flop.  And this is where I lie until my stunned students rush to me to find out if I am okay. 

Of course, my sense of always being the comic kicks in and a try to make a joke of it.  A joke that they don’t buy at all as they continue to stare down at me with worried faces.  I jump up with great agility to prove that I am okay, cringing slightly over how much my ass hurts and continue with the lesson. 

conversations of a Peace Corps volunteer

Without the wonderous access of information that Google and Wikipedia used to bring us before we stuck ourselves in the African bush, we volunteers must learn to problem solve, critically think, and pull up information from different sources.  Often times this means simply experimenting an idea, or maybe just willing it to work.  Or, like the olden days, we flip through books to answer questions and educate ourselves on our environment and the work we are trying to do.  But most often, the information we come up with is from each other.  We rely heavily upon our wise volunteer friends, all the information that they can relay to us in a single text message.  For often we are not together when requesting ideas. 

I find that I can recieve great informative support from my co-volunteers even in the scarely phone serviced town that I live in.  I enjoy being in contact with those volunteers and feel that we offer each other a lot.  It therefore only makes sense that when are together, a fountain of ideas and brainstorming comes about and we fly through projects and experiments in great success!

Except that what I have thus far neglected to relay is that often our shared ideas are just that: ideas.  Someday I will write a blog about the inevitability of failure in the lives of a Peace Corps volunteer, but today is not that day so I will just note that our wild enthusiasm for projects often comes along with an awareness that it likely will not work out.  Or at least not the way you expected.  So when we go to each other for ideas and information it is always with great intention that we get responses, but those responses come from volunteers just like us.  They are getting their information from the same places that you are.  It might be well-informed but they too have little experience building a chicken coop, planted a pepiniere of moranga, or starting a garden club.  They are likely in the same throngs of learning how to do it!  However, with shared experiences we can enjoy ourselves all the more and force ourselves to brave through the uncertainty...almost together.

All this to say that when volunteers are actually together, say for a work project, that information and shared ideas becomes a waterfall, bubbling up each others' enthusiasm.  However true the outcome of a conversation might be, it is easy to convince each other one way or another on a certain idea.  Take for example a conversation I had with my buddy Katie last week when painting a mural in her town. 

Katie- The paint I bought is pretty terrible, its oil-based and will be pretty thick
me- I think you're meant to thin out oil-based paint
Katie- Yeah I thought so too but I already tried adding water and it really didn't mix well
me- ohhh (idea accepted and moving on)

Yeah I know: paint thinner.  Where in the states (or in any land of technology) we would have run to google paint and found out the appropriate way make that paint more usable, here we just had each other.  And she made it sound so convincing that I did not think "of course water is not going to mix with oil paint!".  She is very convincing!

Of course, the paint was hell to deal with.  It was so thick and we had to wait hours and hours (often a full day) to do the different parts of the map.  The whole time we are complaining about this shitty paint and why can't we get the brushes clean? and to this day I STILL have paint smears across my legs and arms that just will not wash off.  But we perservered and really, no harm done.  To me though, its so funny to think of how we come up with ideas and how, often times, we mislead each other into more work (but always hilarity!). 

the ol' med evac

The north of Madagascar can be a sizzling place.  This I shan't complain about, for in my Peace Corps interview when asked if i have any preferences to where I place I simply said "nowhere cold please".  I have respectively enjoyed living in such a warm climate.  I enjoy sleeping with just a sheet (or nothing at all...oh!), throwing on a pair of soccer shorts every morning (the environment volunteer's official uniform tends to resemble what others think of as running clothes), and never feel that it is too warm to farm or work, although my Malagasy counterparts my sometimes disagree.  I love warm climates because they do not inhibit the things I want to do like that white, cold stuff does back home.  That's right snow, I don't miss you at all!

But sometimes my love for these heated climates is overly enthusiastic.  I sincerely try to take the appropriate measures to insure my enjoyment of it, but sometimse I fall behind.  For example, I have gotten into a healthy habit of using sunscreen daily.  On one such day where I was heading out to the rice field, I loaded up as usual and called myself ready.  The day ends and of course I have forgotten that strip on my back that is exposed when I lean over to transplant and it is bright red and in the next few days will bubble and peel and I will feel quite foolish indeed.  (This from a girl who tans quite easily, but this sun is a completely different degree of intensity...it'll getcha!). 

The other day I was at my friend Katie's site with two other volunteers for a four day-long work project.  Our work focused mainly on this mural we were painting on the commune building of the national park that encompasses her town.  She had already planned out the map and it was beautiful, listing all of the islands that the park had to offer.  It is a neat project because although there is the national park group based on her town working in said park, many of the townspeople are not truly linked to it.  As so much of daily life here is just getting food on the table, it is perhaps understandable that not much thought is put into preserving and understanding the protected land that they walk upon.  But of course we (still debating which we I mean here...environment volunteers?  westerners?  privelaged?) come in and already think differently, seeing the importance of protected land.  Part of our work as environment volunteers is to educate on this topic and the importance of protecting the environment in general.  Through this mural, Katie was hoping to wrap some excitement and awareness about the town.

So, the first day went great.  We painted the intended wall white as a base in the morning and in the afternoon held a workshop at the elementary school about using and making improved cookstoves.  We all went to bed fulfilled with a days work.  The second day came and we set to gridding out and drawing the map onto the wall.  Another successful day called for a sunset walk to the river and a meal at the local hotely of crab.  Sitting down to my crab and rice I was suddenly struck with a strange dizzyness and was astounded by how hot it was in that little restaurant.  I ate quickly, excusing myself to pay and walk home.  So there I am looking out my window, waiting for my change.  And then I am out.

That is the last thing I remember until I wake up and find myself being stared at by the Malagasy restauranteers, Vanasa and Jonothon worriedly at my side.  Completely nautious and my pants wet from, well yes apparently I had peed myself, I had no idea what just happened.  Somehow they got me to my feet and back to Katie's place, trying to cool me down.  The next day I call my doctor explaining that I might have had heat stroke.  And then, as quickly as a Peace Corps car could manage, I was whisked away to Diego so they could make sure it was just that. 

The ol' med evac. 

This is my second med evac from site in my service so far.  I hope it will be the last.  The first time I had a terrible alergic reaction to some medication and had to quickly be benadrylled and picked up.  This time I was farther away, and luckily doing much better by the time the car came.  But alas, I sadly drove away from our map project and was landed in clinics and the office of a very nice doctor to see what exactly was wrong with me.  Just a precaution of course, but still...no one likes needles. 

Anyways, five days later I am still here in Diego but will hopefully be able to go home tomarow.  I'm homesick for my village, my little brother, and my best friend Corrine.  And I want to get back to my routine in which I feel like I do take the best care of myself, despite the back sunburn once in awhile. 

and language just happens, it was never planned

My life is currently being lived in three separate languages.  With the base of the people I am surrounded by, it is a world of Sakalav (a dialect of Malagasy spoken in the north).  The minute I step out of my door I hear a chorus of “Mbalatsara-eee!”’s and “Inona vaovoa”, of which I will continue to hear for the rest of the day as I float through town.  After a year+ speaking some form of Malagasy (when I moved up north this year my dialect changed…but a lot of the basics have kept me through) I have come to a place of comfortable uncertainty with the language.  By no means would I call myself fluent, for fluency in a second language is a talent that requires many years and deep comprehension that I cannot claim.  But I feel good walking around town, talking to my community members, making jokes that are pretty lame if translated but deliver appreciative guffaws.   Of course, there are days where I feel more proficient than others.  Even through hearing it and speaking it every day, moments will come at me where I just that have no idea what is going on.  Where the day before you had a beautiful, no-stammer conversation with Madame Coffee, the next day I find myself forgetting or mispronouncing the word for rice (aka the most commonly spoken Malagasy word) and suddenly feel completely discouraged.  (“Tsi mahai zaho” is a phrase that I am sure to never forget for the rest of my life as it means “I am not capable/good at/understanding”).  But these moments which in my first year frustrated me intensely, are now something I am comfortable with.  I have let go of the idea that I need to speak perfect ‘gasy in order to be an efficient communicator. 

Bad French and English are the combined second language that appears throughout my day.  In my new site there is a whole slew of people interested in learning the language of the “vazaha” (foreigner) and so, in seeing me pass, will shout out whatever words or sentences they know (which are generally words I or the previous volunteer have taught them).  These phrases range from “bonsoir mademoiselle” to “I like chicken the most”.  In the given language I will try to talk back to them, giving them a chance to practice and hear and hopefully further their vocabulary.  Most of the time the response is just a giggle.    In language learning being able to say something is way easier than understanding what someone else has said.

Finally, there is a large part of my life that still runs in my mother-toungue.  Though not often the language I speak or hear, English subtitles seem to stream through my days.  First, I read a lot.  When I wake up, when I come in for lunch, and for the two or so hours before I fall asleep I am reading English novels/magazines/whatever I can get my hands on.  I devour books.  I also still listen to music and podcasts, all tending to be in English.  These things are my connection to the world that I am not currently a part of, but that I still in some ways belong to.  Those days where no English enters my ears feel particularly foreign.  I also write in English everyday.  In this way, I am allowing a conversation to happen with myself.  For me, this listening to and putting out English has been essential in order to protect my sanity.