Hi everyone! Hope all is well :)
I just wanted to let you know that I will no longer be using this blog to update my work and life adventures anymore. Since I no longer live in madagascar, and it's no longer 2010, and nothing of what I will henceforth be posting has anything to do with Madagascar, I created another blog with a title that allows me to talk about a wider variety of issues, besides Madagascar.
So, if you are interested, sign up at follow that blog as well! I am currently deployed by FEMA for disaster relief from the flooding of Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee...so this experience and some others are what I'm addressing in my new blog. Hope to see you stop by!!
http://adventuresofKEH.blogspot.com/
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Long time, no blog...
Well, it’s been awhile since returning home Madagascar...and updating this blog! Life has been busy (with boring stuff, like school and work)...hence, the neglect of this blog. While I don’t have any more cool adventures to share of my time in Madagascar, I realize some family and friends still like to stay updated on the mundane yuppie (minus the urban, minus the professional…) going-ons of life in Colorado.
Since returning from Africa, I spent my time finishing up my online courses and looking for a job to pay bills. I was able to snag an interim-type job at a local OB/Gyn office as a medical assistant. I hated every second of that job (primarily due to the fact that my boss was the anti-Christ, completely inept at managing his office, and continually engaged in childish antics like throwing temper tantrums akin to the ones I had when I was 3, screaming at his employees, etc…oh yeah, and not giving me one day off to fly out to California to be a bridesmaid in one of my best friend’s wedding). However, in this day in age, with so many people unemployed, I was grateful to have a job that paid bills for the most part. So I stuck with it, hoping something in my actual field would open up…someday.
Anyway, the summer was spent walking at my LLU graduation, working at this OB/Gyn practice and wrapping up my masters thesis (which through the help of God, and only God, I finally turned in this past fall). Feeling the need to add something active to my life, and due to Matt pestering me that I needed to get back into something athletically competitive, I picked up a tennis racquet after about 10 years of letting it gather dust. It has been quite the…um, adventure? Unfortunately, about 5 minutes into my first session back on the court, I came to the quick realization that 1) I’m not 16 anymore 2) hitting pop flies to and shagging balls for the LLA varsity softball girls when I was at LLU did not constitute a workout…no matter how much I tried to convince myself of that… and 3) I really should have gotten off my butt and engaged in activity during grad school as it’s really friggin hard to get back into shape after years of sitting on your butt, writing papers and falling completely out of shape.
So yeah, those realizations stung, but I’m over it now and working on getting back into shape. However, my softball habits of a) wanting to hit the crap out of the ball and b) keeping my foot planted on first base and stretching to make an out are hard to kick…and unfortunately, they don’t translate too well to the tennis court. Therefore, my tennis home run shots and unwillingness to move my feet at the net for volleys (meaning I get hit by the ball, OR, I instinctually try to catch the ball with my Ungloved left hand, OR, my volleys shoot off into space – much like my forehands) make for some redonkulously screwed up looking tennis. Fortunately, most of the people at my racquet club are extremely nice and I’ve only pissed off a minimal amount of doubles partners with this ridiculousness…at least that I know of.
In November, I applied for a job at the local health department here in Colorado Springs as a “Community Health Educator” in the Tobacco Education and Prevention Partnership (the tobacco department). After multiple interviews and much perseveration and self-doubt about possibly never being able to find a job in the public health field, I somehow managed to land the job…and IMMEDIATELY submitted my two weeks notice to Dr. Satan. I started work in December and am loving my job!
After being hired by the health department I had to become a commissioned officer of the Food and Drug Administration in order to carry out the duties of the FDA grant. The commissioning process involved an extensive background check and an interview with a rather scary looking dude from D.C. in a black suit. Evidently the federal government determined (rightly so) that I’m not a threat to the security of this country and commissioned me…which was a great relief because that meant I could actually DO MY JOB. My job includes conducting individual inspections of tobacco retail establishments to ensure they are complying with federal tobacco regulations, organizing the minor undercover buy program for the FDA grant, and taking minors out on undercover buy stings at retail establishments throughout several counties in Colorado.
While the tobacco sector is relatively new to me (my graduate work primarily focused on emergency preparedness and global health – e.g. community health in developing nations), I am very excited to be working in this field because I HATE tobacco and I HATE the fact that big tobacco corporations lie and manipulate the public (and target young populations like teenagers). Tobacco-related health problems are at the top of our nation’s preventable health issues and it’s great to be working in this field and doing my small part to promote public health in my community. Plus, I love working with the youth in my program who I lovingly refer to as “my little wildcards,” because their personalities always bring a different element to undercover stings. Anyway, work and tennis are keeping me busy and outta trouble...somewhat...here in the Springs :)
In other news about an important aspect of my life (like MY HUSBAND), Matt has spent the year working hard to rehab his right knee after shredding his ACL and meniscus last June at World Team Trials. The team doctor finally cleared Matt to wrestle full-time at the beginning of this year and he has since traveled to Slovenia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and New York to wrestle in various tournaments. Due to the fact that he has been unable to weight train at 100% while rehabbing his knee, he has atrophied a bit and has decided to cut down from his normal wrestling weight class of 66 kg (145lbs) to 60 kg (132ish lbs) for nationals this upcoming weekend. It’s a big change for him, but hopefully it will be a good change! Other than training, Matt has been busy building up his custom wrestling shoe business and has been getting a ton of orders from around the country, particularly now that wrestling is in-season at the moment. Needless to say, he's been a very busy boy!
So…that’s the mundane news at the moment. I will try to keep this blog updated a bit more frequently, especially because I have an adventure-filled summer coming up: Vegas Bachelorette trip for Kristina I’m helping organize, trip back to Maryland for a Focker Family Reunion, USTA Tennis League (where it’s a lock that I’ll cause some sort of scene in some capacity, whether that be a gorilla shot over the fence or falling on my face after whiffing an overhead), and a trip to SoCal to beach camp with friends…yeehaw!
Since returning from Africa, I spent my time finishing up my online courses and looking for a job to pay bills. I was able to snag an interim-type job at a local OB/Gyn office as a medical assistant. I hated every second of that job (primarily due to the fact that my boss was the anti-Christ, completely inept at managing his office, and continually engaged in childish antics like throwing temper tantrums akin to the ones I had when I was 3, screaming at his employees, etc…oh yeah, and not giving me one day off to fly out to California to be a bridesmaid in one of my best friend’s wedding). However, in this day in age, with so many people unemployed, I was grateful to have a job that paid bills for the most part. So I stuck with it, hoping something in my actual field would open up…someday.
Anyway, the summer was spent walking at my LLU graduation, working at this OB/Gyn practice and wrapping up my masters thesis (which through the help of God, and only God, I finally turned in this past fall). Feeling the need to add something active to my life, and due to Matt pestering me that I needed to get back into something athletically competitive, I picked up a tennis racquet after about 10 years of letting it gather dust. It has been quite the…um, adventure? Unfortunately, about 5 minutes into my first session back on the court, I came to the quick realization that 1) I’m not 16 anymore 2) hitting pop flies to and shagging balls for the LLA varsity softball girls when I was at LLU did not constitute a workout…no matter how much I tried to convince myself of that… and 3) I really should have gotten off my butt and engaged in activity during grad school as it’s really friggin hard to get back into shape after years of sitting on your butt, writing papers and falling completely out of shape.
So yeah, those realizations stung, but I’m over it now and working on getting back into shape. However, my softball habits of a) wanting to hit the crap out of the ball and b) keeping my foot planted on first base and stretching to make an out are hard to kick…and unfortunately, they don’t translate too well to the tennis court. Therefore, my tennis home run shots and unwillingness to move my feet at the net for volleys (meaning I get hit by the ball, OR, I instinctually try to catch the ball with my Ungloved left hand, OR, my volleys shoot off into space – much like my forehands) make for some redonkulously screwed up looking tennis. Fortunately, most of the people at my racquet club are extremely nice and I’ve only pissed off a minimal amount of doubles partners with this ridiculousness…at least that I know of.
In November, I applied for a job at the local health department here in Colorado Springs as a “Community Health Educator” in the Tobacco Education and Prevention Partnership (the tobacco department). After multiple interviews and much perseveration and self-doubt about possibly never being able to find a job in the public health field, I somehow managed to land the job…and IMMEDIATELY submitted my two weeks notice to Dr. Satan. I started work in December and am loving my job!
After being hired by the health department I had to become a commissioned officer of the Food and Drug Administration in order to carry out the duties of the FDA grant. The commissioning process involved an extensive background check and an interview with a rather scary looking dude from D.C. in a black suit. Evidently the federal government determined (rightly so) that I’m not a threat to the security of this country and commissioned me…which was a great relief because that meant I could actually DO MY JOB. My job includes conducting individual inspections of tobacco retail establishments to ensure they are complying with federal tobacco regulations, organizing the minor undercover buy program for the FDA grant, and taking minors out on undercover buy stings at retail establishments throughout several counties in Colorado.
While the tobacco sector is relatively new to me (my graduate work primarily focused on emergency preparedness and global health – e.g. community health in developing nations), I am very excited to be working in this field because I HATE tobacco and I HATE the fact that big tobacco corporations lie and manipulate the public (and target young populations like teenagers). Tobacco-related health problems are at the top of our nation’s preventable health issues and it’s great to be working in this field and doing my small part to promote public health in my community. Plus, I love working with the youth in my program who I lovingly refer to as “my little wildcards,” because their personalities always bring a different element to undercover stings. Anyway, work and tennis are keeping me busy and outta trouble...somewhat...here in the Springs :)
In other news about an important aspect of my life (like MY HUSBAND), Matt has spent the year working hard to rehab his right knee after shredding his ACL and meniscus last June at World Team Trials. The team doctor finally cleared Matt to wrestle full-time at the beginning of this year and he has since traveled to Slovenia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and New York to wrestle in various tournaments. Due to the fact that he has been unable to weight train at 100% while rehabbing his knee, he has atrophied a bit and has decided to cut down from his normal wrestling weight class of 66 kg (145lbs) to 60 kg (132ish lbs) for nationals this upcoming weekend. It’s a big change for him, but hopefully it will be a good change! Other than training, Matt has been busy building up his custom wrestling shoe business and has been getting a ton of orders from around the country, particularly now that wrestling is in-season at the moment. Needless to say, he's been a very busy boy!
So…that’s the mundane news at the moment. I will try to keep this blog updated a bit more frequently, especially because I have an adventure-filled summer coming up: Vegas Bachelorette trip for Kristina I’m helping organize, trip back to Maryland for a Focker Family Reunion, USTA Tennis League (where it’s a lock that I’ll cause some sort of scene in some capacity, whether that be a gorilla shot over the fence or falling on my face after whiffing an overhead), and a trip to SoCal to beach camp with friends…yeehaw!
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
I Heart Madagascar
So, there quite a few reasons I fell in love with Madagascar when I was there...but the 2 biggies are the people and the environment of the country.
First, the Malagasy people, on the whole, are a very gentle and peaceful people. I know I was only in the country for 3 months, but in my time there I was able to interact with so many people: from villagers in the bush, to people who lived in the larger cities, to people who are extremely influential in government and NGO environment. I don’t know if I’ve met as many people who I could say, and firmly believe, that for the most part, the people of a certain culture are, on the whole, kind and loving people. This is one of the reasons it breaks my heart that there are so many problems in that country, from food insecurity, to health issues and high infant mortality rates, to a current government that is involved in rampant corruption and is depleting the country of so many of its wonderful and extremely unique resources.
My little buddy I hung out with everytime I walked to the shopping market in Ambositra.
One of the apple vendors we stopped and talked to (and bought a bunch of apples from) while returning from Antananarivo to Ambositra.
Some kids in Kely's (the Peace Corps volunteer we stayed with) village. They were so precious!
Another reason I fell in love with the country was because of its biodiversity. Madagascar is host to the most incredible biodiversity I’ve ever seen in all my travels; it’s pretty much the pinnacle of “biodiversity paradise.” Over 90% of the flora found in Madagascar is found NOWHERE ELSE on EARTH. In addition, I have never been on an island that has such a unique and diverse landscape, from dry, arid and deserty in the south with all sorts of spiny plants and fascinating rock formations, to the central highlands that run up the center of the island (including where our project headquarters was place in Ambositra as well as the capital, Antananarivo) to the dense rainforest along much of the east coast, to the savannah plains found on the western part of the island….not to mention many of the wonderful tropical beaches on the northern part of the west coast. This place is absolutely incredible!
s1600/036.JPG">
This is a "Traveller's Palm." Supposedly, when explorers were hiking through the bush, they drilled into the middle of the tree's trunk and found water to sustain them on their journey. Never got to try it myself though... :)
This is in the Ranomafana rainforest we would pass through every time we drove from the project headquarters in Ambositra, located in the central highlands of the island down to our secondary project headquarters on the eastern coast in Mananjary.
Here's a rainbow outside my room in Ambositra.
Then you’ve got the amazing wildlife…my favorite being the lemurs. Here are a few lemur pics...more to come in my next blogs :)
And some Chameleons...
During the last week of my stay in Madagascar, I got to travel with my coworker, and friend, Sarah Gaylord, to parts of the northeast coast. We got to hike through the rainforest in Andasibe and see the famous Indri lemurs in their natural habitat, we got to relax at the beach in Foulpointe, then got to travel inland back into the rainforest to see and stay in the village that one of Sarah’s childhood girlfriends who now works in the Peace Corps as an agricultural specialist. I’ll do another blog on this whole trip with more pictures this week…however, the point of this whole blog is to explain why I think Madagascar is such a special place.
So it saddens me so much to see this article from the New York Times describing the continued political crisis in Madagascar and how it is exacerbating the issue of environmental resource depletion in the country. I have included the link here and they even interview Sarah’s mom, the Country Director of Wildlife Conservation Society in Madagascar. I feel so terribly for her, this has been practically her life’s work, to save the environment of Madagascar, and it gets pulled out from under her feet essentially with the political crisis occurring in the country. :-(
I’m not quite ready to let go of this blog, even though I’m back home in America (and even though I have a couple blog posts left about my “vacation” trip with Sarah and Nono the last week I spent in the country). Because this is a country I really love, I am going to post news articles about the politics, environment, and ongoing humanitarian efforts in Madagascar, both good and bad for anyone who is interested…and to do something on my little end, even if it’s just a personal blog, to continue to bring awareness to the issues of the country I was given the opportunity to fall in love with…and did.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/africa/25madagascar.html
First, the Malagasy people, on the whole, are a very gentle and peaceful people. I know I was only in the country for 3 months, but in my time there I was able to interact with so many people: from villagers in the bush, to people who lived in the larger cities, to people who are extremely influential in government and NGO environment. I don’t know if I’ve met as many people who I could say, and firmly believe, that for the most part, the people of a certain culture are, on the whole, kind and loving people. This is one of the reasons it breaks my heart that there are so many problems in that country, from food insecurity, to health issues and high infant mortality rates, to a current government that is involved in rampant corruption and is depleting the country of so many of its wonderful and extremely unique resources.
My little buddy I hung out with everytime I walked to the shopping market in Ambositra.
One of the apple vendors we stopped and talked to (and bought a bunch of apples from) while returning from Antananarivo to Ambositra.
Some kids in Kely's (the Peace Corps volunteer we stayed with) village. They were so precious!
Another reason I fell in love with the country was because of its biodiversity. Madagascar is host to the most incredible biodiversity I’ve ever seen in all my travels; it’s pretty much the pinnacle of “biodiversity paradise.” Over 90% of the flora found in Madagascar is found NOWHERE ELSE on EARTH. In addition, I have never been on an island that has such a unique and diverse landscape, from dry, arid and deserty in the south with all sorts of spiny plants and fascinating rock formations, to the central highlands that run up the center of the island (including where our project headquarters was place in Ambositra as well as the capital, Antananarivo) to the dense rainforest along much of the east coast, to the savannah plains found on the western part of the island….not to mention many of the wonderful tropical beaches on the northern part of the west coast. This place is absolutely incredible!
s1600/036.JPG">
This is a "Traveller's Palm." Supposedly, when explorers were hiking through the bush, they drilled into the middle of the tree's trunk and found water to sustain them on their journey. Never got to try it myself though... :)
This is in the Ranomafana rainforest we would pass through every time we drove from the project headquarters in Ambositra, located in the central highlands of the island down to our secondary project headquarters on the eastern coast in Mananjary.
Here's a rainbow outside my room in Ambositra.
Then you’ve got the amazing wildlife…my favorite being the lemurs. Here are a few lemur pics...more to come in my next blogs :)
And some Chameleons...
During the last week of my stay in Madagascar, I got to travel with my coworker, and friend, Sarah Gaylord, to parts of the northeast coast. We got to hike through the rainforest in Andasibe and see the famous Indri lemurs in their natural habitat, we got to relax at the beach in Foulpointe, then got to travel inland back into the rainforest to see and stay in the village that one of Sarah’s childhood girlfriends who now works in the Peace Corps as an agricultural specialist. I’ll do another blog on this whole trip with more pictures this week…however, the point of this whole blog is to explain why I think Madagascar is such a special place.
So it saddens me so much to see this article from the New York Times describing the continued political crisis in Madagascar and how it is exacerbating the issue of environmental resource depletion in the country. I have included the link here and they even interview Sarah’s mom, the Country Director of Wildlife Conservation Society in Madagascar. I feel so terribly for her, this has been practically her life’s work, to save the environment of Madagascar, and it gets pulled out from under her feet essentially with the political crisis occurring in the country. :-(
I’m not quite ready to let go of this blog, even though I’m back home in America (and even though I have a couple blog posts left about my “vacation” trip with Sarah and Nono the last week I spent in the country). Because this is a country I really love, I am going to post news articles about the politics, environment, and ongoing humanitarian efforts in Madagascar, both good and bad for anyone who is interested…and to do something on my little end, even if it’s just a personal blog, to continue to bring awareness to the issues of the country I was given the opportunity to fall in love with…and did.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/africa/25madagascar.html
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Trip Home: Part Deux
Okay, since I know you’ve been waiting with baited breath for the final part of my journey home, I’ll set aside all my final school papers to tell this story…because you wouldn’t believe if I didn’t document this in my blog. And I don’t want to work on these papers anymore….which just so happens to be the real reason, but that’s besides the point.
Soooo, after glaring at the flight attendant the entire flight from Atlanta to Denver, we finally land. Destination at last. Much to my surprise, psych, my bags didn’t make it. Wah wah. Annoyed, but not the least bit shocked, I dragged myself to the Delta luggage counter along with everyone else who was on the South Africa connecting flight with me. We made small talk while the inept and severely understaffed people at the counter attempted to locate our bags. Not wanting them to mishandle my bags any more than they already had, I agreed to wait until the next flight from Atlanta came in so I could personally bring my bags to the car.
By the way, did I tell you no one was at the airport to pick me up? No welcome home hugs...oh well, it made it less of a hassle to wait for my bags without inconveniencing anyone. To my husband’s defense, he was in Ohio wrestling at Greco Roman Nationals and did very well, so that was an acceptable excuse in my book. Anyway, after getting my bags and hauling them out to long-term parking where Matt had left the car for me a few days earlier as he flew out of the same airport (at least we were able to coordinate that, lol), I checked under the front passenger tire, found my key and started the car…can you believe it, I’m so dumb I didn’t even think to keep a spare key on me.
Alrighty, I’m on my way home, speeding (sorry dad) down I-25 and I look over to my right and think to myself “Gee that sky is really black…kinda reminds me of when my mom would tell us about the ‘tornado’ stories when she was growing up in Ohio.” Pushing it out of my mind, I turn back to driving and singing along to Mariah Carey (yes Sherelle, you can be proud). Well, being back in America, I see a sign for Chili’s and felt the urge to indulge in a Strawberry lemonade and chicken fajitas.
So, I pull off the highway, sit down to the table a get ready to enjoy my lemonade and meal. In the meantime, the sky starts getting darker, quickly. Then, across the TV screens, the weather channel comes on with a Tornado Warning. Then sirens go off. Then the freaking manager comes into the dining area and tells us they have to evacuate all of the patrons into their “safe area.” Well, well, well, guess what the Chili’s safe area is? Their refrigerator. That’s right. We were all hustled into a cold room surrounded by frozen chicken breasts and baby back ribs. Luckily they allowed us to take our drinks with us. So here I am, fresh off a stint in Africa as a disaster assistant, and now I’m stuck in a frickin’ Chili’s fridge with other diners waiting for a tornado to pass through. About 30 minutes later, the manager gave us the all clear to go back to our meals. Which I did, then promptly got the heck out of there, drove home and lapsed into a near diabetic coma from strawberry lemonade sugar overload.
Thus concludes my trip home. Now that I’ve written it out, I no longer have to think of it and hopefully my night terrors will cease.
This is the inside of a Chilis fridge, in case you care.
Soooo, after glaring at the flight attendant the entire flight from Atlanta to Denver, we finally land. Destination at last. Much to my surprise, psych, my bags didn’t make it. Wah wah. Annoyed, but not the least bit shocked, I dragged myself to the Delta luggage counter along with everyone else who was on the South Africa connecting flight with me. We made small talk while the inept and severely understaffed people at the counter attempted to locate our bags. Not wanting them to mishandle my bags any more than they already had, I agreed to wait until the next flight from Atlanta came in so I could personally bring my bags to the car.
By the way, did I tell you no one was at the airport to pick me up? No welcome home hugs...oh well, it made it less of a hassle to wait for my bags without inconveniencing anyone. To my husband’s defense, he was in Ohio wrestling at Greco Roman Nationals and did very well, so that was an acceptable excuse in my book. Anyway, after getting my bags and hauling them out to long-term parking where Matt had left the car for me a few days earlier as he flew out of the same airport (at least we were able to coordinate that, lol), I checked under the front passenger tire, found my key and started the car…can you believe it, I’m so dumb I didn’t even think to keep a spare key on me.
Alrighty, I’m on my way home, speeding (sorry dad) down I-25 and I look over to my right and think to myself “Gee that sky is really black…kinda reminds me of when my mom would tell us about the ‘tornado’ stories when she was growing up in Ohio.” Pushing it out of my mind, I turn back to driving and singing along to Mariah Carey (yes Sherelle, you can be proud). Well, being back in America, I see a sign for Chili’s and felt the urge to indulge in a Strawberry lemonade and chicken fajitas.
So, I pull off the highway, sit down to the table a get ready to enjoy my lemonade and meal. In the meantime, the sky starts getting darker, quickly. Then, across the TV screens, the weather channel comes on with a Tornado Warning. Then sirens go off. Then the freaking manager comes into the dining area and tells us they have to evacuate all of the patrons into their “safe area.” Well, well, well, guess what the Chili’s safe area is? Their refrigerator. That’s right. We were all hustled into a cold room surrounded by frozen chicken breasts and baby back ribs. Luckily they allowed us to take our drinks with us. So here I am, fresh off a stint in Africa as a disaster assistant, and now I’m stuck in a frickin’ Chili’s fridge with other diners waiting for a tornado to pass through. About 30 minutes later, the manager gave us the all clear to go back to our meals. Which I did, then promptly got the heck out of there, drove home and lapsed into a near diabetic coma from strawberry lemonade sugar overload.
Thus concludes my trip home. Now that I’ve written it out, I no longer have to think of it and hopefully my night terrors will cease.
This is the inside of a Chilis fridge, in case you care.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
P.S.
As a proud wife, I just want to give a shout out to my husband who just placed 6th at U.S. Greco Nationals this weekend in Cleveland and qualified for World Team Trials this June. After completely blowing out his knee almost exactly a year ago today and undergoing extensive surgery and rehab, I thought this awesome feat deserved it's own post in my much heralded blog. :D
In light of his placement, I have chosen to forgive him for not being able to pick me up at the airport when I returned from Africa the other day. Haha! Just kidding. No biggie. Love you babe and I'm so very proud of you! See you tomorrow at the airport!
In light of his placement, I have chosen to forgive him for not being able to pick me up at the airport when I returned from Africa the other day. Haha! Just kidding. No biggie. Love you babe and I'm so very proud of you! See you tomorrow at the airport!
Trip Home: Part Un
*These next blogs are going to be out of order because I don't have my pictures of my vacation in Madagascar ready and don't want to throw up the blogs without the pics. Sorry. I do however have a quite lengthy rant about my trip home as well as a fun tornado story thrown in at the end. I hope you enjoy reading about it as much as I did living through it! :D
The ageless question…why must there ALWAYS be some catastrophe when I travel internationally??? I don’t know what I’d do with myself if I wasn’t boarding a plane in Africa when 9/11 occurred…or overseas when my country decides to go to war…or truly thinking I’m going to die in a ferry in the middle of a storm in Asia…or getting totally screwed trying to get home from Europe and it taking me 3 days instead of 15 hours. You know, typical crappola like that.
The latest crisis, getting my butt home from Madagascar. Hey, I’ve travelled quite a bit. I know airport procedures from America to Asia. In addition, I’m one of the lucky ones who actually had my return flight home scheduled through South Africa instead of back via my entry flight which was through Europe. Furthermore, I checked in on Orbitz the night before. Flight. Seats. Baggage policy. All confirmed. So, what can possibly go wrong? Right? WRONG!!
First, I had a few issues getting to the airport in Madagascar. Not going to go into detail. But let’s just say I was not pleased. Fortunately, Sarah and Nono were able to come to the rescue and get me to the airport. Anywho, get to the airport, come to find out:
1) they have no clue what a confirmation number is, they need a ticket number, which I did not have as it had not been issued to me through my complicated e-ticket
2) Orbitz? What the hell is that? I needed to call my travel agent! Book-it-yourself internet agencies do NOT EXIST according to Madagascar airport officials.
3) And what type of funny business was I trying to pull!?!? Flying into Madagascar on Air France and leaving via a different airline!?! UNFATHOMABLE!
All of these minor details end up being a big deal. If I wouldn’t have had French-speaking Sarah there arguing for me and locating the exact right employee at the exact right time (apparently this employee is the only one in the entire Tana airport who could get done what needed to be done to locate my elusive ticket number) I wouldn’t have gotten on my flight and would have been stuck in Madagascar for at least a day or 2.
Anyway, we end up working things out about 45 min. before departure.
Now onto bags. Because I’m such a wonderful aunt, I bought some cool things for my nephew and nieces. Oh yeah, and a bunch of stuff for myself. Because of that, I needed a 3rd bag. Fine. Baggage policy says it costs $100, no problem. Cheaper than mailing that stuff home with the hopes that it actually makes it in less than 3 months, if at all. Anyway, once again my bubble is burst when they inform me they don’t do that policy there. And Delta doesn’t have a contract with that particular Madagascar carrier, so of course, I have to go by Madagascar rules which SUCK! They charge $18 per kilo. Hahaha! AND, they can’t check my bags through to my final destination if I choose to bring this 3rd bag. I have to recheck everything in South Africa. Not wanting to deal with that headache, particularly with a fairly short layover, I choose to leave the bag for Sarah and her mom to bring with them to the United States when they move this summer. Once again, saved by Sarah. Okay, so I’m not pissed off. Sure, I’m disappointed I can’t bring the goodies back for my family and friends, especially the little kiddies, but hey, I made my flight out of Madagascar, so things are still good.
Onto South Africa. Getting into South Africa was fine. I even got extra time at the JBurg airport to load up of some cheesy, expensive souvenirs so I wouldn’t come home empty-handed with my head hung low with nothing for the kiddies. Anywho, the 17 hour flight from South Africa to Atlanta wasn’t too bad, save for the profuse vomiting every few hours. That was lovely. Still haven’t figured out what it was that I ate that was so bad, but I’ve been advised that I need to “deworm” myself this week. Yes, like a puppy. Other than that, the seats on this Delta flight were superb. They were leather and almost business class size, and there were more movies available than I could shake a stick at. My final selection ended up being The Blind Side (AWESOME, watched it twice, cried both times), TWILIGHT: NEW MOON (AWESOME, watched it twice, remembered why I’m the captain of TEAM JACOB!!!), “Paranormal” (entertaining, the Micah guy cracked me up, although they went about addressing that demon situation like complete amateurs: if it were me and I actually believed in that crap, I first would have gone to the pastor of my church, if he couldn’t de-demonize me, I definitely would have called a demonologist, oh, say, BEFORE MY SECOND NIGHT OF HAUNTINGS IN THE HOUSE!), I also watched several episodes of CSI and Sex and the City. I was surprised at how fast the flight went by, actually, even with the sickness.
Getting through Atlanta was a pain in the butt. Of course we were late coming in from South Africa so most people missed their connections. I was one of the lucky few who got to frantically grab my bags, recheck them in to security guards who threw them on the belt with a “don’t worry ma’am, your flight’s in 20 min., we got this no problem!” wink, wink, field cheesy “do ya have any lemurs in them there bags, hardy, har, har!!” questions from border protection agents, and sprint to my gate on the opposite side of the terminal.
This leads me to my meeting with THE WITCHIEST FLIGHT STEWARDESS ever. As I run, panting and sweating like a pig down the boarding plank I get to the door of the plane and I hear “excuse me ma’am, are you travelling with someone else because I see you have 3 bags there?” (one of them being a stupid, little bag of FREAKING SOUVENIERS I picked up in JBurg for the kids). Having flown for over 21 hours up to this point, thrown up who knows how many times in those AWFUL airplane bathrooms, no food in my stomach, no sleep, and no mental rope left, I just looked at her, exasperated, and hoped she would throw me a bone beings I was the next to last one on the flight and the flight was LESS than half full and said “ma’am, I’ve been flying 20+ hours from Africa and sprinted to this plane, do you mind if I put the gift shop bag under my seat?” Her response: “I’m sorry, is that a name of someone?”
Unfortunately, I had no synaptic activity left in my brain to come out with some type of smart ass response like: “hey, were you one of those popular girls in high school who has about 4 brain cells and has to rely solely on your looks and chemically-brightened white teeth to maintain your job and think that somehow gives you a free pass to be a complete witch and wield your pissant authority over others in the most idiotic and illogical way? Just curious” or “hey, you might want to tell the big guy upstairs to make it DELTA policy to tell the passengers of this carryon issue regarding gift shop bags on one of the MULTIPLE previous flights where they’ve taken the EXACT SAME CARRYONS! or when the passenger goes to get tags from the desk people for their THREE CARRYONS, or maybe when we go through security, or maybe even when they take our ticket before we walk down the plank!!!” Can you tell this incident really bothers me? Unabashed stupidity and complete lack of common sense wielded in a malevolent manner really gets to me. Especially when it’s over the issue of a stupid gift shop bag carryon. I mean crap, it’s not like I was asking to bring on 3 rolling suitcases like some business class turds.
So no. Instead of thinking of something scathing, mean, and terribly un-Christian to say, I just broke down sobbing. Haha! I was such a pitiful sight. I had no fight left in me and even though I knew they were going to put my bag under the plane in front of me, I already had to leave one bag in Madagascar, I knew my other 2 bags weren’t going to make the flight, and I just wanted to physically hold my suitcase with my contact lenses and makeup (which I specifically put in my carry on because they always break it in my checked luggage!) No, no. I lost the fight, so now I was going to cry. Funny enough, the man behind me (that would be the LAST person to board the less than half-full plane) felt so badly for me he offered to check his bag so that I could bring on my 3rd one instead. She considered the security ramifications of this breach in procedure and said she was bound by law not to knowingly allow someone to bring on someone else’s luggage. Oh for FRICK’s SAKE! We both just looked at her like “you’re kidding me woman. You seriously can’t be that dumb to realize that isn’t the point of that law.” Alas, a rare moment of mental lucidity must’ve won the heavily fought battle for “movie extra-like” appearance time in her brain as she agreed to this “crazy” request under the condition that he carry the bag to my seat, not me, because it’s technically his bag and not mine now. Seriously dude, where do they get these people?!? How are so many people unemployed in this country yet dipcraps like this loser remain gainfully employed?
Okay, my mean-spirited rant is over. I now feel much better and can go on about my day. I will continue the final, climactic part of my journey (which includes an emergency evacuation and a tornado!!) in my next blog because yes, I know you’re just dying to hear another long-winded Katie story…
P.S. Sorry for the offensive tone I took toward flight attendents in this blog. I in no way intend to offend flight attendants in general, just the one above. I have a couple friends who are wonderful flight attendants on Southwest (Go Southwest!) who never have been this mean or "uncommonsensible" toward their passengers.
The ageless question…why must there ALWAYS be some catastrophe when I travel internationally??? I don’t know what I’d do with myself if I wasn’t boarding a plane in Africa when 9/11 occurred…or overseas when my country decides to go to war…or truly thinking I’m going to die in a ferry in the middle of a storm in Asia…or getting totally screwed trying to get home from Europe and it taking me 3 days instead of 15 hours. You know, typical crappola like that.
The latest crisis, getting my butt home from Madagascar. Hey, I’ve travelled quite a bit. I know airport procedures from America to Asia. In addition, I’m one of the lucky ones who actually had my return flight home scheduled through South Africa instead of back via my entry flight which was through Europe. Furthermore, I checked in on Orbitz the night before. Flight. Seats. Baggage policy. All confirmed. So, what can possibly go wrong? Right? WRONG!!
First, I had a few issues getting to the airport in Madagascar. Not going to go into detail. But let’s just say I was not pleased. Fortunately, Sarah and Nono were able to come to the rescue and get me to the airport. Anywho, get to the airport, come to find out:
1) they have no clue what a confirmation number is, they need a ticket number, which I did not have as it had not been issued to me through my complicated e-ticket
2) Orbitz? What the hell is that? I needed to call my travel agent! Book-it-yourself internet agencies do NOT EXIST according to Madagascar airport officials.
3) And what type of funny business was I trying to pull!?!? Flying into Madagascar on Air France and leaving via a different airline!?! UNFATHOMABLE!
All of these minor details end up being a big deal. If I wouldn’t have had French-speaking Sarah there arguing for me and locating the exact right employee at the exact right time (apparently this employee is the only one in the entire Tana airport who could get done what needed to be done to locate my elusive ticket number) I wouldn’t have gotten on my flight and would have been stuck in Madagascar for at least a day or 2.
Anyway, we end up working things out about 45 min. before departure.
Now onto bags. Because I’m such a wonderful aunt, I bought some cool things for my nephew and nieces. Oh yeah, and a bunch of stuff for myself. Because of that, I needed a 3rd bag. Fine. Baggage policy says it costs $100, no problem. Cheaper than mailing that stuff home with the hopes that it actually makes it in less than 3 months, if at all. Anyway, once again my bubble is burst when they inform me they don’t do that policy there. And Delta doesn’t have a contract with that particular Madagascar carrier, so of course, I have to go by Madagascar rules which SUCK! They charge $18 per kilo. Hahaha! AND, they can’t check my bags through to my final destination if I choose to bring this 3rd bag. I have to recheck everything in South Africa. Not wanting to deal with that headache, particularly with a fairly short layover, I choose to leave the bag for Sarah and her mom to bring with them to the United States when they move this summer. Once again, saved by Sarah. Okay, so I’m not pissed off. Sure, I’m disappointed I can’t bring the goodies back for my family and friends, especially the little kiddies, but hey, I made my flight out of Madagascar, so things are still good.
Onto South Africa. Getting into South Africa was fine. I even got extra time at the JBurg airport to load up of some cheesy, expensive souvenirs so I wouldn’t come home empty-handed with my head hung low with nothing for the kiddies. Anywho, the 17 hour flight from South Africa to Atlanta wasn’t too bad, save for the profuse vomiting every few hours. That was lovely. Still haven’t figured out what it was that I ate that was so bad, but I’ve been advised that I need to “deworm” myself this week. Yes, like a puppy. Other than that, the seats on this Delta flight were superb. They were leather and almost business class size, and there were more movies available than I could shake a stick at. My final selection ended up being The Blind Side (AWESOME, watched it twice, cried both times), TWILIGHT: NEW MOON (AWESOME, watched it twice, remembered why I’m the captain of TEAM JACOB!!!), “Paranormal” (entertaining, the Micah guy cracked me up, although they went about addressing that demon situation like complete amateurs: if it were me and I actually believed in that crap, I first would have gone to the pastor of my church, if he couldn’t de-demonize me, I definitely would have called a demonologist, oh, say, BEFORE MY SECOND NIGHT OF HAUNTINGS IN THE HOUSE!), I also watched several episodes of CSI and Sex and the City. I was surprised at how fast the flight went by, actually, even with the sickness.
Getting through Atlanta was a pain in the butt. Of course we were late coming in from South Africa so most people missed their connections. I was one of the lucky few who got to frantically grab my bags, recheck them in to security guards who threw them on the belt with a “don’t worry ma’am, your flight’s in 20 min., we got this no problem!” wink, wink, field cheesy “do ya have any lemurs in them there bags, hardy, har, har!!” questions from border protection agents, and sprint to my gate on the opposite side of the terminal.
This leads me to my meeting with THE WITCHIEST FLIGHT STEWARDESS ever. As I run, panting and sweating like a pig down the boarding plank I get to the door of the plane and I hear “excuse me ma’am, are you travelling with someone else because I see you have 3 bags there?” (one of them being a stupid, little bag of FREAKING SOUVENIERS I picked up in JBurg for the kids). Having flown for over 21 hours up to this point, thrown up who knows how many times in those AWFUL airplane bathrooms, no food in my stomach, no sleep, and no mental rope left, I just looked at her, exasperated, and hoped she would throw me a bone beings I was the next to last one on the flight and the flight was LESS than half full and said “ma’am, I’ve been flying 20+ hours from Africa and sprinted to this plane, do you mind if I put the gift shop bag under my seat?” Her response: “I’m sorry, is that a name of someone?”
Unfortunately, I had no synaptic activity left in my brain to come out with some type of smart ass response like: “hey, were you one of those popular girls in high school who has about 4 brain cells and has to rely solely on your looks and chemically-brightened white teeth to maintain your job and think that somehow gives you a free pass to be a complete witch and wield your pissant authority over others in the most idiotic and illogical way? Just curious” or “hey, you might want to tell the big guy upstairs to make it DELTA policy to tell the passengers of this carryon issue regarding gift shop bags on one of the MULTIPLE previous flights where they’ve taken the EXACT SAME CARRYONS! or when the passenger goes to get tags from the desk people for their THREE CARRYONS, or maybe when we go through security, or maybe even when they take our ticket before we walk down the plank!!!” Can you tell this incident really bothers me? Unabashed stupidity and complete lack of common sense wielded in a malevolent manner really gets to me. Especially when it’s over the issue of a stupid gift shop bag carryon. I mean crap, it’s not like I was asking to bring on 3 rolling suitcases like some business class turds.
So no. Instead of thinking of something scathing, mean, and terribly un-Christian to say, I just broke down sobbing. Haha! I was such a pitiful sight. I had no fight left in me and even though I knew they were going to put my bag under the plane in front of me, I already had to leave one bag in Madagascar, I knew my other 2 bags weren’t going to make the flight, and I just wanted to physically hold my suitcase with my contact lenses and makeup (which I specifically put in my carry on because they always break it in my checked luggage!) No, no. I lost the fight, so now I was going to cry. Funny enough, the man behind me (that would be the LAST person to board the less than half-full plane) felt so badly for me he offered to check his bag so that I could bring on my 3rd one instead. She considered the security ramifications of this breach in procedure and said she was bound by law not to knowingly allow someone to bring on someone else’s luggage. Oh for FRICK’s SAKE! We both just looked at her like “you’re kidding me woman. You seriously can’t be that dumb to realize that isn’t the point of that law.” Alas, a rare moment of mental lucidity must’ve won the heavily fought battle for “movie extra-like” appearance time in her brain as she agreed to this “crazy” request under the condition that he carry the bag to my seat, not me, because it’s technically his bag and not mine now. Seriously dude, where do they get these people?!? How are so many people unemployed in this country yet dipcraps like this loser remain gainfully employed?
Okay, my mean-spirited rant is over. I now feel much better and can go on about my day. I will continue the final, climactic part of my journey (which includes an emergency evacuation and a tornado!!) in my next blog because yes, I know you’re just dying to hear another long-winded Katie story…
P.S. Sorry for the offensive tone I took toward flight attendents in this blog. I in no way intend to offend flight attendants in general, just the one above. I have a couple friends who are wonderful flight attendants on Southwest (Go Southwest!) who never have been this mean or "uncommonsensible" toward their passengers.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Wait, what the heck am I doing!?!?
…is the question I ask myself each morning as I get out of bed and prepare to meet the day at hand. This question has become particularly worrisome to me the more I’m made aware of the fact that Charly, the project’s Disaster Preparedness Specialist, actually thinks I know what I’m doing and continues to stack my plate with more responsibilities. The latest project I’ve spent the last several days working on…let me rephrase that: the latest project that has me sitting at my desk staring at my laptop thinking to myself ‘what IS this!?!’ and ‘wait, what do they expect me to do again?’ and usually ‘is that French or Malagasy?’ then finally ‘dude, I’m sooooo screwed!” is the development of ADRA Madagascar’s National Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan.
The reason I’m having just a MINOR freakout is that the NEPRP is kind of an important document as it outlines the entire disaster preparedness and response framework at the NGO’s national level. Once completed, the document is sent to ADRA Africa Regional offices for review, then up to the big guys at ADRA International where they incorporate it into their overall strategic planning budget and send additional funding back down to us little guys here in Madagascar so that we can implement our plan. So pretty much, if this NEPRP isn’t done correctly, we don’t get vital funding we need to increase our NGO’s disaster response capabilities throughout Madagascar. The end result of that scenario is that the Malagasy victims of natural disasters such as flooding, drought, and cyclones (like the one we just had hit us a few weeks ago) will suffer because ADRA Madagascar officials and that silly blonde American intern chick whom they trusted knew what she was doing were unable to develop a sound NEPRP plan in order to secure additional funding to improve the NGO’s disaster response capabilities.
Anyway, after wasting an absurd amount of time staring at this partially completed document trying to conjure up some unique ideas from the deep recesses of my mind, I was forced to resort to my typical go-to: Wikipedia. Haha, okay, just kidding. My other go-to…which just so happens to be looking at other, similar documents in hopes that they spark some brilliant idea I can use. Basically, I wanted to check out other African countries’ NEPRP’s and see how they put theirs together. I have no problem being that dwarf who stands on the shoulders of giants…I like to think I’m doing something like that rather than committing outright plagiarism at times... Okay fine, so I wasn’t really doing either of those extremes (and p.s. no, I don't condone plagiarism), I just thought it would be helpful to see ADRA-approved NEPRPs for other African countries to get an idea how we could go about successfully developing Madagascar’s. Sounds reasonable, right?
Well, imagine my surprise when I learned that the NGO’s NEPRPs for other countries are confidential and we are not allowed to get copies. You’re kidding me. Come on. This is definitely the most ridiculous obstacle I’ve had to deal with on this entire project. I can understand government officials not being too keen on sharing various official documents with our NGO. In fact, I expect it. I can even understand other NGOs being unwilling to share internal documents with a “rival” NGO with all the competition there is for grant money out there…but stonewalled by my own NGO? That makes absolutely no sense to me. I look forward to talking to our country director to hear the reasoning behind this.
Alas, Charly and I can get this project done ourselves. However, it would have been really, really, REALLY helpful to be able to at least see other ADRA NEPRPs. Oh well. Despite that little issue, I still plan on getting this thing cranked out with Charly before I leave. Although there’s a lot of frustration, a lot more work to be done, and a raging battle in my head that is constantly fighting the urge to become completely overwhelmed and just give up, the notion of contributing to this process, the development of an official national disaster preparedness plan for an NGO, keeps me from throwing in the towel. This is something I’ve always wanted to do, and now I’m finally getting the opportunity to do it. Suuure, there’s a strong possibility that I can fail miserably. Yeah, there’s a very strong possibility of that. But the reward of succeeding and possibly doing something that might actually impact the lives of people who need help, well that keeps me going. Yes, very idealistic. Very cliché. Very…holy crap, I’m starting to sound like a liberal. What the???
Hopefully when I leave Madagascar, we’ll have been able to submit this NEPRP to the powers that be and the groundwork will be laid for ADRA to expand its disaster preparedness and response capabilities in this country. That would just be really neato.
Anyway, in other random and completely unrelated news:
- The care package my wonderful husband sent from the United States 7 weeks ago that was supposed to be here 5 and a half weeks ago finally arrived yesterday at our HQ up in Tana! When the guys brought it back with them to Ambositra today it felt like CHRISTMAS! Matt even packed me a special Valentine’s Day gift: Twilight Forbidden Fruit Sweethearts Candies, haha!! He even remembered that I’m a twi-hard “Team Jacob” fan so he sent me the Team Jacob box of candies. I think my favorite thing about the candies is the inscription on the box: “The Forbidden Fruit Tastes The Sweetest.” Haha, so cheesy…I love it! Totally unexpected, but definitely one of the best Valentine’s Day gifts ever. Thanks babe!
- I made some bomb-diggity guacamole today with all fresh ingredients that I ate with fresh, homemade bread. It reminded me of those days, long, long ago, when Kristina would make her famous guacamole in our PUC dorm room and we’d devour it in like 10 seconds flat. Good memories.
- I’m pretty sure Renate, our housekeeper, wants my shoes - not that I blame her, they’re way cute…perfect shade of purple…. Anyway, I came to this realization when I walked in on her cleaning my room today wearing my shoes, lol. I guess she’s staking her claim in the hopes that I leave some souvenirs behind when I head back to the States.
The reason I’m having just a MINOR freakout is that the NEPRP is kind of an important document as it outlines the entire disaster preparedness and response framework at the NGO’s national level. Once completed, the document is sent to ADRA Africa Regional offices for review, then up to the big guys at ADRA International where they incorporate it into their overall strategic planning budget and send additional funding back down to us little guys here in Madagascar so that we can implement our plan. So pretty much, if this NEPRP isn’t done correctly, we don’t get vital funding we need to increase our NGO’s disaster response capabilities throughout Madagascar. The end result of that scenario is that the Malagasy victims of natural disasters such as flooding, drought, and cyclones (like the one we just had hit us a few weeks ago) will suffer because ADRA Madagascar officials and that silly blonde American intern chick whom they trusted knew what she was doing were unable to develop a sound NEPRP plan in order to secure additional funding to improve the NGO’s disaster response capabilities.
Anyway, after wasting an absurd amount of time staring at this partially completed document trying to conjure up some unique ideas from the deep recesses of my mind, I was forced to resort to my typical go-to: Wikipedia. Haha, okay, just kidding. My other go-to…which just so happens to be looking at other, similar documents in hopes that they spark some brilliant idea I can use. Basically, I wanted to check out other African countries’ NEPRP’s and see how they put theirs together. I have no problem being that dwarf who stands on the shoulders of giants…I like to think I’m doing something like that rather than committing outright plagiarism at times... Okay fine, so I wasn’t really doing either of those extremes (and p.s. no, I don't condone plagiarism), I just thought it would be helpful to see ADRA-approved NEPRPs for other African countries to get an idea how we could go about successfully developing Madagascar’s. Sounds reasonable, right?
Well, imagine my surprise when I learned that the NGO’s NEPRPs for other countries are confidential and we are not allowed to get copies. You’re kidding me. Come on. This is definitely the most ridiculous obstacle I’ve had to deal with on this entire project. I can understand government officials not being too keen on sharing various official documents with our NGO. In fact, I expect it. I can even understand other NGOs being unwilling to share internal documents with a “rival” NGO with all the competition there is for grant money out there…but stonewalled by my own NGO? That makes absolutely no sense to me. I look forward to talking to our country director to hear the reasoning behind this.
Alas, Charly and I can get this project done ourselves. However, it would have been really, really, REALLY helpful to be able to at least see other ADRA NEPRPs. Oh well. Despite that little issue, I still plan on getting this thing cranked out with Charly before I leave. Although there’s a lot of frustration, a lot more work to be done, and a raging battle in my head that is constantly fighting the urge to become completely overwhelmed and just give up, the notion of contributing to this process, the development of an official national disaster preparedness plan for an NGO, keeps me from throwing in the towel. This is something I’ve always wanted to do, and now I’m finally getting the opportunity to do it. Suuure, there’s a strong possibility that I can fail miserably. Yeah, there’s a very strong possibility of that. But the reward of succeeding and possibly doing something that might actually impact the lives of people who need help, well that keeps me going. Yes, very idealistic. Very cliché. Very…holy crap, I’m starting to sound like a liberal. What the???
Hopefully when I leave Madagascar, we’ll have been able to submit this NEPRP to the powers that be and the groundwork will be laid for ADRA to expand its disaster preparedness and response capabilities in this country. That would just be really neato.
Anyway, in other random and completely unrelated news:
- The care package my wonderful husband sent from the United States 7 weeks ago that was supposed to be here 5 and a half weeks ago finally arrived yesterday at our HQ up in Tana! When the guys brought it back with them to Ambositra today it felt like CHRISTMAS! Matt even packed me a special Valentine’s Day gift: Twilight Forbidden Fruit Sweethearts Candies, haha!! He even remembered that I’m a twi-hard “Team Jacob” fan so he sent me the Team Jacob box of candies. I think my favorite thing about the candies is the inscription on the box: “The Forbidden Fruit Tastes The Sweetest.” Haha, so cheesy…I love it! Totally unexpected, but definitely one of the best Valentine’s Day gifts ever. Thanks babe!
- I made some bomb-diggity guacamole today with all fresh ingredients that I ate with fresh, homemade bread. It reminded me of those days, long, long ago, when Kristina would make her famous guacamole in our PUC dorm room and we’d devour it in like 10 seconds flat. Good memories.
- I’m pretty sure Renate, our housekeeper, wants my shoes - not that I blame her, they’re way cute…perfect shade of purple…. Anyway, I came to this realization when I walked in on her cleaning my room today wearing my shoes, lol. I guess she’s staking her claim in the hopes that I leave some souvenirs behind when I head back to the States.
Friday, March 19, 2010
The Other White Meat...
So, I was sitting in my room on Sunday reading a book, watching movies, and doing just about anything to stave off my boredom of not being able the surf the net for the 5 bazillionth day in a row…and really, more importantly, not being able to spend time working on my research papers. Anyway, I hear a knock on my door and it’s Gil. She came downstairs to tell me the little road stand across the street was selling bats. Not baseball bats…BATS, like those nighttime flying animals. Of course I didn’t believe her and ran to the window to look for myself and sure enough, the stand had like, 5 huge bats hanging from one of the support beams, prime for the pickin’. No way!! After a quick pow-wow, we came to the obvious conclusion that we must document this so we grabbed our cameras and hustled downstairs to our parking lot to take pictures.
At first, Gil and I were trying to be discreet, hiding behind motorbikes, zooming our cameras in, then quickly snapping a shot. We didn’t want to offend the shop owner. However, after a few uninspiring shots, I decided it was necessary we change our plan of action and just outright walk up to the bats and take the stinkin pictures. This is not something you see everyday and there was no way my curiosity would be satisfied by some silly long distance pictures. So, I led the way out the gate and toward the shop.
Once we got there, I decided I had made a huge mistake because as we walked up to the stand I saw the owner munching on bat entrails like they were a delicacy sent from God Himself. HOLY CRAPPOLY, I was about ready to upchuck when I saw that! All of the sudden, eating partially cooked fish with their eyeballs staring up at me didn’t seem like such a bad meal.
Fortunately, the owner didn’t take offense to our curiosity (or my periodic dry heaves) and was rather pleased visitors were showing interest in her products. She even came out from behind the counter to spread the wings of a bat so we could get a good picture of the wingspan. Ahhhh! I know these things were dead, but they were definitely the BIGGEST BATS I HAVE EVER SEEN and I was freaking out.
In talking to the shop owner, we found out that these bats were captured a few kilometers south of us past some village I forget the name of. She told us the bat tasted “very good” (well, in French she told us that) and it tasted like chicken, lolol. Yeah right. I didn’t feel like paying trois mil Ariary (approximately $1.50) to buy one and find out what they actually tasted like.
Anyway, that’s the bat “incident” for you. It was the highlight of our otherwise very mundane weekend.
Here are some other culinary delights I’ve seen while here in Ambositra. They were so appetite-inducing to me, I just have to share…
Zebu legs…
All sorts of different meats…with flies all over them. How sanitary.
Alrighty, now that I've surely wet your appetite for a yummy chunk o'stake...bon appetit!!
At first, Gil and I were trying to be discreet, hiding behind motorbikes, zooming our cameras in, then quickly snapping a shot. We didn’t want to offend the shop owner. However, after a few uninspiring shots, I decided it was necessary we change our plan of action and just outright walk up to the bats and take the stinkin pictures. This is not something you see everyday and there was no way my curiosity would be satisfied by some silly long distance pictures. So, I led the way out the gate and toward the shop.
Once we got there, I decided I had made a huge mistake because as we walked up to the stand I saw the owner munching on bat entrails like they were a delicacy sent from God Himself. HOLY CRAPPOLY, I was about ready to upchuck when I saw that! All of the sudden, eating partially cooked fish with their eyeballs staring up at me didn’t seem like such a bad meal.
Fortunately, the owner didn’t take offense to our curiosity (or my periodic dry heaves) and was rather pleased visitors were showing interest in her products. She even came out from behind the counter to spread the wings of a bat so we could get a good picture of the wingspan. Ahhhh! I know these things were dead, but they were definitely the BIGGEST BATS I HAVE EVER SEEN and I was freaking out.
In talking to the shop owner, we found out that these bats were captured a few kilometers south of us past some village I forget the name of. She told us the bat tasted “very good” (well, in French she told us that) and it tasted like chicken, lolol. Yeah right. I didn’t feel like paying trois mil Ariary (approximately $1.50) to buy one and find out what they actually tasted like.
Anyway, that’s the bat “incident” for you. It was the highlight of our otherwise very mundane weekend.
Here are some other culinary delights I’ve seen while here in Ambositra. They were so appetite-inducing to me, I just have to share…
Zebu legs…
All sorts of different meats…with flies all over them. How sanitary.
Alrighty, now that I've surely wet your appetite for a yummy chunk o'stake...bon appetit!!
Ambositra: The Artisan Capital of Madagascar
One of the neat things about being stationed at the project headquarters in Ambositra is that this is the artisan capital of Madagascar. Translation: there is much shopping to be done! Fortunately for my husband’s sanity, I’m pretty much broke over here…so these outside forces are containing my shopping compulsivity quite effectively.
However, regardless of whether or not you have money in your pocket, it is always fun to walk through the “Malagasy Arts” stores near the town center and watch the artisans at work. Their woodworking and basket weaving skills are incredible, and the pace at which they are able to work is a treat to watch. One day Gil and I were walking through some of the shops and Gil started talking to the shop owner. Apparently, if you give their workers an idea of what you are looking for, they will make something specifically at your request. Tres cool!
Below are a few pictures of artisans working on their wood pictures...
While the prices here are cheaper than places like Tana (and of course WAY cheaper than the U.S.) and the fact that several of the local shop owners have seen me around town everyday and know I’m not a tourist, Katie Paleface Holt is still given “vazaha” prices right off the bat. After talking to some of the ADRA employees who live here, they told me the “vazaha” prices are 2-3 times (sometimes upwards of 5-7 times!) the normal prices they would sell these crafts for. Lol! I know we are talking about a matter of $2-3 here, or at most, for an intricately-carved rosewood bowl or other craft, about $10-15, and I know that these things would be sold for 10-20x the price in the U.S., but it’s the principle of the matter to me: I hate being HAD!
*Here Gil and I were trying on hats (these are traditional hats you see people wear in this region, and yes, mine's too small and I look stupid, I know) and at this shop, the lady tried to sell them to us for 1500 Ariary (approx. 75 cents). Sure, doesn't sound like much, but when we visited another stand at the local market we always shop at for our food, a market where the shop owners know we are not just tourists, the owner gave us a price of 400 Ariary for one of those hats. Haha! The first lady was definitely trying to make the sale of the century to us.
So, I’ve decided to take the smartest advice there is when shopping in the developing world: have a local go in and bargain for you. I am fine bargaining for baskets as I can bargain those down, but there are a few cool rosewood bowls and figurines I want to get before I head home and I have no clue what a good price for these things would be, so I’m not even going to try. I’m just going to take a few pics, show one of the local ADRA employees, and send him or her in to do my dirty work, haha.
In the meantime, since we are pretty much dead in the water without our internet as far as my part of the project and my school research goes, I’m having fun conducting my little reconnaissance work and watching the locals create their amazing wood crafts, baskets, and just about anything else you can imagine. The Malagasy artisans truly are talented!
One of Ambositra's artisans...carving something I'll most likely buy before heading back home to the States, haha.
However, regardless of whether or not you have money in your pocket, it is always fun to walk through the “Malagasy Arts” stores near the town center and watch the artisans at work. Their woodworking and basket weaving skills are incredible, and the pace at which they are able to work is a treat to watch. One day Gil and I were walking through some of the shops and Gil started talking to the shop owner. Apparently, if you give their workers an idea of what you are looking for, they will make something specifically at your request. Tres cool!
Below are a few pictures of artisans working on their wood pictures...
While the prices here are cheaper than places like Tana (and of course WAY cheaper than the U.S.) and the fact that several of the local shop owners have seen me around town everyday and know I’m not a tourist, Katie Paleface Holt is still given “vazaha” prices right off the bat. After talking to some of the ADRA employees who live here, they told me the “vazaha” prices are 2-3 times (sometimes upwards of 5-7 times!) the normal prices they would sell these crafts for. Lol! I know we are talking about a matter of $2-3 here, or at most, for an intricately-carved rosewood bowl or other craft, about $10-15, and I know that these things would be sold for 10-20x the price in the U.S., but it’s the principle of the matter to me: I hate being HAD!
*Here Gil and I were trying on hats (these are traditional hats you see people wear in this region, and yes, mine's too small and I look stupid, I know) and at this shop, the lady tried to sell them to us for 1500 Ariary (approx. 75 cents). Sure, doesn't sound like much, but when we visited another stand at the local market we always shop at for our food, a market where the shop owners know we are not just tourists, the owner gave us a price of 400 Ariary for one of those hats. Haha! The first lady was definitely trying to make the sale of the century to us.
So, I’ve decided to take the smartest advice there is when shopping in the developing world: have a local go in and bargain for you. I am fine bargaining for baskets as I can bargain those down, but there are a few cool rosewood bowls and figurines I want to get before I head home and I have no clue what a good price for these things would be, so I’m not even going to try. I’m just going to take a few pics, show one of the local ADRA employees, and send him or her in to do my dirty work, haha.
In the meantime, since we are pretty much dead in the water without our internet as far as my part of the project and my school research goes, I’m having fun conducting my little reconnaissance work and watching the locals create their amazing wood crafts, baskets, and just about anything else you can imagine. The Malagasy artisans truly are talented!
One of Ambositra's artisans...carving something I'll most likely buy before heading back home to the States, haha.
T.I.A.
Well, after spending the week in Tana attending meetings, going out to dinners, and enjoying a bit more of life like I’m used to back in the States...as well as being quite insulated from the cyclone that slammed into the southeast coast of Madagascar, I was ready to come back to the relative peace and quiet of Ambositra to spend the week and weekend finishing up my research papers and program planning for my online Disaster Management and Tobacco Interventions courses that are due this week. I had a solid plan in place to crank these masterpieces out, then I arrived in Ambositra only to find out from Ben and Gil that during the cyclone, our internet server, modem (I don’t really know, I’m not a techie person) was knocked out. Oh yippy skippy! No internet until the who knows when...apparently it will be whenever our tech guy is able to drive 5 hours up to Tana, find replacement parts, and drive 5 hours back and rebuild whatever blew up or over or something like that during the storm. And even then, the internet will still probably not work for the most part.
Fortunately, I have very understanding professors who have both spent a lot of time in the field and know how it is: half the time your tri-band cell phones don’t work, Skype cuts out constantly if it even works, and internet is slow, when it too decides to work. Needless to say, my profs have been very understanding about the fact that most of my assignments this quarter have been submitted late…
The more time I spend here in Madagascar, the more I’m able understand what Leonardo DiCaprio would always say in the movie “Blood Diamond”… "T.I.A” or “This Is Africa.” Life is extremely different over here. Rules you are used to in the United States or other developed nations most DEFINITELY do NOT apply here in Madagascar. The faster you figure this out and modify your behavior and expectations, the better off you’ll be. For instance, your internet gets knocked out...you're gonna have to wait many moons for it to be fixed. Roads blocked by landslides? Well, you're gonna have to hike. Any day you can get some weird bout of food poisoning even if you bleach the heck out of your fruits and veggies and avoid the mystery meat. You’re lucky if packages sent from the United States ever reach you without getting stolen by the postal service workers. Travel anywhere is unbelievably slow due to time spent dodging pot holes, mudslides, herds of cattle, zebu-drawn wagons, chickens and dealing with unnecessary stoppages by the police to pay them bribes to remove the spikes they put across the road so you can pass through (even if you are traveling on a national road in an official NGO vehicle). You wanna bring your chickens with you in a taxi, go right on ahead! BUT, make sure you don't travel at night...unless you're suicidal...as bandits increasingly roam the roads looking to hijack cars and steal anything they can, especially as the political climate following the coup here in Madagascar last year continues to devolve and more and more people are thrust into abject poverty and turn to desperate, more violent measures to find money or anything to help them survive. Basically, the way things normally operate...well, they don't operate that way over here...because This Is Africa.
I don’t know, it’s just been a bit of a boring weekend not having internet or being able to work on any research (I have however been able to write a lot of blogs...who knows when I'll be able to post them though!). I’ve had time to watch movies (watched “Ghandi” last night), read books, and reflect on the enormous differences in life between here and the United States. And I’m not just talking about life as in daily routines or the fact that I’m not able to enjoy most of the comforts of home, but the entire outlook on life and how different it is. It’s hard to explain, but I really wish more people from the States could experience the T.I.A. moments…I think in general, we’d appreciate a lot more how good we truly have it in the States and other developed nations.
Fortunately, I have very understanding professors who have both spent a lot of time in the field and know how it is: half the time your tri-band cell phones don’t work, Skype cuts out constantly if it even works, and internet is slow, when it too decides to work. Needless to say, my profs have been very understanding about the fact that most of my assignments this quarter have been submitted late…
The more time I spend here in Madagascar, the more I’m able understand what Leonardo DiCaprio would always say in the movie “Blood Diamond”… "T.I.A” or “This Is Africa.” Life is extremely different over here. Rules you are used to in the United States or other developed nations most DEFINITELY do NOT apply here in Madagascar. The faster you figure this out and modify your behavior and expectations, the better off you’ll be. For instance, your internet gets knocked out...you're gonna have to wait many moons for it to be fixed. Roads blocked by landslides? Well, you're gonna have to hike. Any day you can get some weird bout of food poisoning even if you bleach the heck out of your fruits and veggies and avoid the mystery meat. You’re lucky if packages sent from the United States ever reach you without getting stolen by the postal service workers. Travel anywhere is unbelievably slow due to time spent dodging pot holes, mudslides, herds of cattle, zebu-drawn wagons, chickens and dealing with unnecessary stoppages by the police to pay them bribes to remove the spikes they put across the road so you can pass through (even if you are traveling on a national road in an official NGO vehicle). You wanna bring your chickens with you in a taxi, go right on ahead! BUT, make sure you don't travel at night...unless you're suicidal...as bandits increasingly roam the roads looking to hijack cars and steal anything they can, especially as the political climate following the coup here in Madagascar last year continues to devolve and more and more people are thrust into abject poverty and turn to desperate, more violent measures to find money or anything to help them survive. Basically, the way things normally operate...well, they don't operate that way over here...because This Is Africa.
I don’t know, it’s just been a bit of a boring weekend not having internet or being able to work on any research (I have however been able to write a lot of blogs...who knows when I'll be able to post them though!). I’ve had time to watch movies (watched “Ghandi” last night), read books, and reflect on the enormous differences in life between here and the United States. And I’m not just talking about life as in daily routines or the fact that I’m not able to enjoy most of the comforts of home, but the entire outlook on life and how different it is. It’s hard to explain, but I really wish more people from the States could experience the T.I.A. moments…I think in general, we’d appreciate a lot more how good we truly have it in the States and other developed nations.
Cyclone
Well, Madagascar ALMOST made it through the cyclone season without getting hit. Almost. A few days ago we were hit by a cyclone and the limited reports we are able to get from the coastal regions our project is working in is that the coast has been hit pretty hard.
I was in Antananarivo, or “Tana,” during the storm as I went up with our disaster management director to attend meetings with CARE and CRS about equipment, budgets, and program implementation. We got wind and rain, but we never lost power, so that was a blessing.
Apparently in Ambositra, it was a bit worse. Ben and Gil told me they had a hard time sleeping at night from the noise of the wind and the shaking of the building. There were many leaks in our headquarters building; our hallway was inundated with water, water came through the roof in our kitchen, and apparently our project director’s quarters on the 4th floor were nearly flooded as well. However, our building withstood the storm quite well considering the fact that there are no building codes in Madagascar. Our neighbors in Ambositra were left relatively unscathed as well. Some thatch roofs were damaged and fences blown away, but other than that, things were fine (at least that we knew of). Oh yeah, and our internet modem or cable or something was destroyed so we were without internet FOREVER except for the email and facebook applications I could get on my phone. (This is why I’m posting a flurry of blogs now as our internet just started up and is running, but I’m sure it’ll malfunction over the weekend like it usually does, so I’m throwing these blogs I’ve written over the past couple weeks up on the site really quickly!)
Anyway, back to the cyclone. Apparently on the coast in Mananjary we hear there is quite extensive damage. Many of the homes have been flooded and/ or otherwise destroyed, cell coverage is completely knocked out, and homes and buildings that actually did have electricity are all in the dark now. Roads into the region are all washed out or blocked by massive mudslides.
Many of the project workers who are stationed at the project HQ site in Mananjary were actually up at Ambositra’s headquarters for training when the cyclone hit. Because there really is no functioning early warning system along the coast, or most places for that matter, people were unaware that a cyclone was coming and were hit “without warning” (although I had heard a couple people talk about the cyclone’s impending arrival when I was up in the capital, even there details were very limited). Anyway, because electricity and cell service was knocked out in Mananjary, the project workers who live there were unable to contact their families to see if they were okay or if their homes were still standing. As soon as the storm passed, they tried to drive down to Mananjary, but 37 km before the town, the only road in was blocked by several landslides. After they camped out a night, we received word that they had decided to hike the remainder of the 37 km into Mananjary with their packs to check on their families and homes.
We are all hoping and praying that their families are okay. While many of the buildings in Mananjary should have been able to withstand the cyclone’s winds (we think), we have no idea how high the storm surge went into the town. At this point, the condition of the outlying villages Charly and I spent the last few weeks visiting and discussing disaster management with the commune maires and fokontany chiefs is unknown, although we are pretty sure they sustained heavy damage. It is unlikely that our teams will be able to go into the bush and check the villages out any time soon because the roads are either washed away or otherwise impassable for the time being.
While I feel terrible for everyone on the coast who have been affected by the cyclone, I think it will be good for me to be able to survey the damage to homes, roads, etc. when I next head back down to Mananjary. I think it will give me a better understanding of the challenges these people have to face year after year with these cyclones and will help me to more effectively help design a disaster preparation and mitigation program to be implemented over the course of this project.
Anyway, prayers for the people most affected by this cyclone would be greatly appreciated.
*** We just found out today 3/19 that ADRA is taking the lead in the relief efforts in Mananjary and Nosy Varika districts where thousands of people are without food, water, and shelter. Please also pray that our organization, as well as everyone else involved in the relief effort will be able to effectively and efficiently develop and implement a plan to distribute food, water, and shelter to those most affected by the storm.
I was in Antananarivo, or “Tana,” during the storm as I went up with our disaster management director to attend meetings with CARE and CRS about equipment, budgets, and program implementation. We got wind and rain, but we never lost power, so that was a blessing.
Apparently in Ambositra, it was a bit worse. Ben and Gil told me they had a hard time sleeping at night from the noise of the wind and the shaking of the building. There were many leaks in our headquarters building; our hallway was inundated with water, water came through the roof in our kitchen, and apparently our project director’s quarters on the 4th floor were nearly flooded as well. However, our building withstood the storm quite well considering the fact that there are no building codes in Madagascar. Our neighbors in Ambositra were left relatively unscathed as well. Some thatch roofs were damaged and fences blown away, but other than that, things were fine (at least that we knew of). Oh yeah, and our internet modem or cable or something was destroyed so we were without internet FOREVER except for the email and facebook applications I could get on my phone. (This is why I’m posting a flurry of blogs now as our internet just started up and is running, but I’m sure it’ll malfunction over the weekend like it usually does, so I’m throwing these blogs I’ve written over the past couple weeks up on the site really quickly!)
Anyway, back to the cyclone. Apparently on the coast in Mananjary we hear there is quite extensive damage. Many of the homes have been flooded and/ or otherwise destroyed, cell coverage is completely knocked out, and homes and buildings that actually did have electricity are all in the dark now. Roads into the region are all washed out or blocked by massive mudslides.
Many of the project workers who are stationed at the project HQ site in Mananjary were actually up at Ambositra’s headquarters for training when the cyclone hit. Because there really is no functioning early warning system along the coast, or most places for that matter, people were unaware that a cyclone was coming and were hit “without warning” (although I had heard a couple people talk about the cyclone’s impending arrival when I was up in the capital, even there details were very limited). Anyway, because electricity and cell service was knocked out in Mananjary, the project workers who live there were unable to contact their families to see if they were okay or if their homes were still standing. As soon as the storm passed, they tried to drive down to Mananjary, but 37 km before the town, the only road in was blocked by several landslides. After they camped out a night, we received word that they had decided to hike the remainder of the 37 km into Mananjary with their packs to check on their families and homes.
We are all hoping and praying that their families are okay. While many of the buildings in Mananjary should have been able to withstand the cyclone’s winds (we think), we have no idea how high the storm surge went into the town. At this point, the condition of the outlying villages Charly and I spent the last few weeks visiting and discussing disaster management with the commune maires and fokontany chiefs is unknown, although we are pretty sure they sustained heavy damage. It is unlikely that our teams will be able to go into the bush and check the villages out any time soon because the roads are either washed away or otherwise impassable for the time being.
While I feel terrible for everyone on the coast who have been affected by the cyclone, I think it will be good for me to be able to survey the damage to homes, roads, etc. when I next head back down to Mananjary. I think it will give me a better understanding of the challenges these people have to face year after year with these cyclones and will help me to more effectively help design a disaster preparation and mitigation program to be implemented over the course of this project.
Anyway, prayers for the people most affected by this cyclone would be greatly appreciated.
*** We just found out today 3/19 that ADRA is taking the lead in the relief efforts in Mananjary and Nosy Varika districts where thousands of people are without food, water, and shelter. Please also pray that our organization, as well as everyone else involved in the relief effort will be able to effectively and efficiently develop and implement a plan to distribute food, water, and shelter to those most affected by the storm.
Women's Day!
Hopefully this loads right. Internet access has been terrible here for the past couple weeks (thanks in part to a lovely cyclone that hit Madagascar last week, but more about that in another blog...) and the fact that I've been in and out of the field constantly...so sorry I haven't posted in awhile. Hopefully internet will start to improve in the upcoming week :D
*****************************************************************
Monday, March 8, we celebrated “Women’s Day” here in Ambositra. Apparently, this is an international holiday…good thing I’m in Global Health and completely unaware of this day, you know, since we only deal a LITTLE BIT with WOMEN’S RIGHTS ISSUES in GLOBAL HEALTH. Duhhh. I really do impress myself with my ignorance sometimes. Actually, quite frequently. Anyhow, on Monday, all women got the day off to celebrate our awesomeness. Maybe this is the reason I don’t know much about this day, because we sure as heck don’t get it off in the States. Okay, I’m making excuses now and completely digressing.
The day started out on a fabulous note when I woke up with a massive headache. What a fitting ailment to start “Women’s Day,” haha! After downing an excessive amount of Advil, I was ready to join Gil and Elaine (Elaine is the wife of the Logistics Coordinator for the SALOHI program and they are from South Africa) for a morning in the town center watching the Women’s Day festivities. Gil and I started out our excellent adventure by jumping into the wrong car, being driven about a half a mile into town, stopping, sitting and waiting for something (we had no idea what and I question whether the driver even knew), having a few guys yap on their cell phones, then turn around and come right back to the project HQ, lol. When we realized we were in the wrong car, we got out and the driver we were supposed to go with the whole time got out of the car too, he was one of the passengers as well. Lol, what the heck? We then hopped in his car and were off. So bizarre.
The program was scheduled to start at 9 am and after our little side trip, we were late and were worried we might be missing the festivities. Luckily, this is Africa and nothing ever starts on time around here. So, when we got to the center we were able to just find a seat and patiently wait with the growing crowd for the party to start.
We had a fun time watching women and children from different communities in different traditional outfits, some with their faces painted, walk around with their signs and banners.
As we sat watching and waiting, a group of kids began to play near us and one of the little girls kept looking at me in absolute terror. It was as if I’d just stepped out of some Alfred Hitchcock horror movie and come to terrorize this kid: apparently I am what nightmares are made of…at least to this little girl. Well, and probably my husband too, let’s not kid ourselves here. Anyway, Gil and I couldn’t stop laughing at this little girl’s reaction (she even started crying when I smiled and waved at her when I noticed her staring at me, haha) and we were able to get a few telling snapshots of her expressions. Too funny!
Overall, the festival was quite interesting. After the various groups of women with their different banners did their homecoming-like parade/protest-like march around town...
...they returned to the town center where several village women performed some traditional Malagasy dances. The dances were not quite what I expected. I guess I expected a lot of jumping around and screaming with a few torch jugglers and fire breathers for added effect. I don’t know! When we watched traditional dances in Zambia a few years back they were very lively and exciting. The Malagasy dances were very slow and subdued…I guess they actually are a pretty good characterization of the Malagasy lifestyle which is very laid back. Still, I wanted acrobatics! The closest we came was when the dancers raised their hands over their heads and did cheerleader “spirit fingers” and the crowd erupted into cheers and applause. Below is a picture of one of the dances...
After the dances, approximately 500,000,000,000 political officials prepared for their speeches and we took that as our cue to skedattle because it wasn’t like we were going to understand the speeches (which would all be in Malagasy) anyway.
With the rest of the day off, we decided that to truly honor the traditions of Women’s Day it was necessary that we go shopping. Yeah, don’t worry Matt, I didn’t buy anything…primarily because I had no money on me, but the reason doesn’t really matter now does it… We walked through the town on our way back to the headquarters and saw some great stuff. Gil took me by a stand that sold calcium rocks. Apparently pregnant women in Madagascar eat them for nutrition but they smell absolutely horrific. I’ve never been pregnant, but I can’t imagine an extended and severe bout of morning sickness could be any worse than having to eat those putrid rocks, sweet Moses!
After I overcame my own nausea from the “rock” scent, I started walking back down the main street only to be stopped by a lady carrying a young boy. She pointed at me and said “vazaha,” a term I now answer to more frequently than my own name, and brought the boy over to me. I kind of just stood there in confusion as she took the little boy’s hand to touch my arm, I suppose to see if I was real or something. Fortunately, this boy was tough and didn’t cry when faced with such a horrific demand, lol. Below, Gil was able to snap a picture of the aftermath of our encounter where I had just burst out laughing and shaking my head, like “WTH just happened?!?”
I mean, I expected to stick out in Madagascar with my pale skin, freckles, and blonde hair…but I figured they’d at least be kind of used to seeing white Frenchies, but this has been much worse than I imagined, lol. I don’t really care, it’s pretty amusing, for me as well as the people, especially the kids, well at least the ones who aren’t terrified of me.
Anyway, after that crazy encounter, we walked the rest of the way home whereupon we made fun of the men who were hard at work in the office (okay, just kidding) and spent the remainder of the day working on homework and writing blogs for our family and friends to read :D
*****************************************************************
Monday, March 8, we celebrated “Women’s Day” here in Ambositra. Apparently, this is an international holiday…good thing I’m in Global Health and completely unaware of this day, you know, since we only deal a LITTLE BIT with WOMEN’S RIGHTS ISSUES in GLOBAL HEALTH. Duhhh. I really do impress myself with my ignorance sometimes. Actually, quite frequently. Anyhow, on Monday, all women got the day off to celebrate our awesomeness. Maybe this is the reason I don’t know much about this day, because we sure as heck don’t get it off in the States. Okay, I’m making excuses now and completely digressing.
The day started out on a fabulous note when I woke up with a massive headache. What a fitting ailment to start “Women’s Day,” haha! After downing an excessive amount of Advil, I was ready to join Gil and Elaine (Elaine is the wife of the Logistics Coordinator for the SALOHI program and they are from South Africa) for a morning in the town center watching the Women’s Day festivities. Gil and I started out our excellent adventure by jumping into the wrong car, being driven about a half a mile into town, stopping, sitting and waiting for something (we had no idea what and I question whether the driver even knew), having a few guys yap on their cell phones, then turn around and come right back to the project HQ, lol. When we realized we were in the wrong car, we got out and the driver we were supposed to go with the whole time got out of the car too, he was one of the passengers as well. Lol, what the heck? We then hopped in his car and were off. So bizarre.
The program was scheduled to start at 9 am and after our little side trip, we were late and were worried we might be missing the festivities. Luckily, this is Africa and nothing ever starts on time around here. So, when we got to the center we were able to just find a seat and patiently wait with the growing crowd for the party to start.
We had a fun time watching women and children from different communities in different traditional outfits, some with their faces painted, walk around with their signs and banners.
As we sat watching and waiting, a group of kids began to play near us and one of the little girls kept looking at me in absolute terror. It was as if I’d just stepped out of some Alfred Hitchcock horror movie and come to terrorize this kid: apparently I am what nightmares are made of…at least to this little girl. Well, and probably my husband too, let’s not kid ourselves here. Anyway, Gil and I couldn’t stop laughing at this little girl’s reaction (she even started crying when I smiled and waved at her when I noticed her staring at me, haha) and we were able to get a few telling snapshots of her expressions. Too funny!
Overall, the festival was quite interesting. After the various groups of women with their different banners did their homecoming-like parade/protest-like march around town...
...they returned to the town center where several village women performed some traditional Malagasy dances. The dances were not quite what I expected. I guess I expected a lot of jumping around and screaming with a few torch jugglers and fire breathers for added effect. I don’t know! When we watched traditional dances in Zambia a few years back they were very lively and exciting. The Malagasy dances were very slow and subdued…I guess they actually are a pretty good characterization of the Malagasy lifestyle which is very laid back. Still, I wanted acrobatics! The closest we came was when the dancers raised their hands over their heads and did cheerleader “spirit fingers” and the crowd erupted into cheers and applause. Below is a picture of one of the dances...
After the dances, approximately 500,000,000,000 political officials prepared for their speeches and we took that as our cue to skedattle because it wasn’t like we were going to understand the speeches (which would all be in Malagasy) anyway.
With the rest of the day off, we decided that to truly honor the traditions of Women’s Day it was necessary that we go shopping. Yeah, don’t worry Matt, I didn’t buy anything…primarily because I had no money on me, but the reason doesn’t really matter now does it… We walked through the town on our way back to the headquarters and saw some great stuff. Gil took me by a stand that sold calcium rocks. Apparently pregnant women in Madagascar eat them for nutrition but they smell absolutely horrific. I’ve never been pregnant, but I can’t imagine an extended and severe bout of morning sickness could be any worse than having to eat those putrid rocks, sweet Moses!
After I overcame my own nausea from the “rock” scent, I started walking back down the main street only to be stopped by a lady carrying a young boy. She pointed at me and said “vazaha,” a term I now answer to more frequently than my own name, and brought the boy over to me. I kind of just stood there in confusion as she took the little boy’s hand to touch my arm, I suppose to see if I was real or something. Fortunately, this boy was tough and didn’t cry when faced with such a horrific demand, lol. Below, Gil was able to snap a picture of the aftermath of our encounter where I had just burst out laughing and shaking my head, like “WTH just happened?!?”
I mean, I expected to stick out in Madagascar with my pale skin, freckles, and blonde hair…but I figured they’d at least be kind of used to seeing white Frenchies, but this has been much worse than I imagined, lol. I don’t really care, it’s pretty amusing, for me as well as the people, especially the kids, well at least the ones who aren’t terrified of me.
Anyway, after that crazy encounter, we walked the rest of the way home whereupon we made fun of the men who were hard at work in the office (okay, just kidding) and spent the remainder of the day working on homework and writing blogs for our family and friends to read :D
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Time for some pics
Here are pics that I uploaded to my facebook...but obviously if you're reading this blog and aren't an FB friend, well, you can't see the pics now can you? So here are some of my favorites of the trip so far. Some of them I took prior to allowing my camera to get rained on. Some of them were taken by my colleague, Gil.
A sunset view of the town I spend the bulk of my time in, Ambositra.
Rainbow over Ambositra, as seen from the deck outside our HQ's kitchen.
Outside view of SALOHI Project HQ in Ambositra
Hillside view during a hike.
Some kids swinging from the rafters, I mean trees, on one of our hikes.
Another beautiful hillside seen during a hike.
Some local villagers in Ambositra
A kiddie milking his cuteness to hitch a ride in the basket :)
A sunset view of the town I spend the bulk of my time in, Ambositra.
Rainbow over Ambositra, as seen from the deck outside our HQ's kitchen.
Outside view of SALOHI Project HQ in Ambositra
Hillside view during a hike.
Some kids swinging from the rafters, I mean trees, on one of our hikes.
Another beautiful hillside seen during a hike.
Some local villagers in Ambositra
A kiddie milking his cuteness to hitch a ride in the basket :)
Taking a Step Back...
Well, tonight was downer of a night. It started off well enough. We had just returned from a day spent in the bush and I was relaxing, eating dinner out by the pool of our hotel while some of the guys swam. Near the end of my meal, I noticed a bunch of people congregating on the beach in front of our hotel and looking at something in the water. And when I say people, I mean a lot of people….probably over 700-800 along about a quarter-mile of the beach.
Curious, I walked down to the beach and found Charly who was talking to one of the locals. When Charly was finished talking to him, he translated for me that a young boy had drowned in the water and his body was floating in to shore. He then pointed to where the body was and in between the waves, I could see a body floating lifelessly, being carried wherever the current would take it. I guess the kid, a local, had been wading in the water, got caught by a wave, and dragged out by the strong current where he drowned.
Of course, this isn’t something I see every day and I was pretty horrified. It was hard to see a body floating like that…and it was harder for me to find out that it was a kid, probably around my nephew’s age. Just the thought of that made me tear up. Somewhere, maybe in the crowd, this kid probably had parents and siblings who loved him and are going to be sad when they find out what happened.
I know life and death are viewed differently here and in other developing countries than how things are viewed, say in the U.S. Life in the developing world is hard and people are not expected to live long. Those who do live a long life are the lucky few. Even knowing that, this was still something you can’t totally prepare yourself for. No matter how much you gear yourself up to observe the harsh realities of the world when you travel to developing countries, nothing truly prepares you to see a child’s lifeless body floating in the sea about to be swept to shore in front of you. It sucks.
It stinks even more that people live in a world where they have to live with a different outlook on life in general. People in the developing world definitely have more of a callused attitude when it comes to death. They have to; they see it all the time. Me, well, I feel like crying every time I hear about a tragic death…particularly a death of a child or young person.
I can handle the flea bites here. I can handle the freaking mosquitoes, the ants in my Min Sao dinner, going without showers for days, the constant car sickness I get in the field. That’s all whatever. What I have a hard time with is seeing firsthand that life’s not fair. I hate seeing that people aren’t dealt the same, fair hand in life. It makes me sad, but at the same time it makes me determined to do something, anything, with the overly fair hand I’ve been dealt in life…I suppose that’s what led me to the field of work I’m in. I’m not trying to make myself out to be some saint, obviously I’m not, just ask my parents, lol, but I do sleep a bit better at night knowing I’m doing something, no matter how minimal, to make someone else’s life just a bit more fair. Or maybe I have a case of African Sleeping Sickness…who knows.
Bottom line, whether at home or abroad, I truly think each one of us can do something, no matter how big or how small, each day to bring some goodness and fairness into others’ lives.
Yes, more of a contemplative blog, this one. But seeing what I did today definitely made me think about life for a bit...so I thought I’d share...
Curious, I walked down to the beach and found Charly who was talking to one of the locals. When Charly was finished talking to him, he translated for me that a young boy had drowned in the water and his body was floating in to shore. He then pointed to where the body was and in between the waves, I could see a body floating lifelessly, being carried wherever the current would take it. I guess the kid, a local, had been wading in the water, got caught by a wave, and dragged out by the strong current where he drowned.
Of course, this isn’t something I see every day and I was pretty horrified. It was hard to see a body floating like that…and it was harder for me to find out that it was a kid, probably around my nephew’s age. Just the thought of that made me tear up. Somewhere, maybe in the crowd, this kid probably had parents and siblings who loved him and are going to be sad when they find out what happened.
I know life and death are viewed differently here and in other developing countries than how things are viewed, say in the U.S. Life in the developing world is hard and people are not expected to live long. Those who do live a long life are the lucky few. Even knowing that, this was still something you can’t totally prepare yourself for. No matter how much you gear yourself up to observe the harsh realities of the world when you travel to developing countries, nothing truly prepares you to see a child’s lifeless body floating in the sea about to be swept to shore in front of you. It sucks.
It stinks even more that people live in a world where they have to live with a different outlook on life in general. People in the developing world definitely have more of a callused attitude when it comes to death. They have to; they see it all the time. Me, well, I feel like crying every time I hear about a tragic death…particularly a death of a child or young person.
I can handle the flea bites here. I can handle the freaking mosquitoes, the ants in my Min Sao dinner, going without showers for days, the constant car sickness I get in the field. That’s all whatever. What I have a hard time with is seeing firsthand that life’s not fair. I hate seeing that people aren’t dealt the same, fair hand in life. It makes me sad, but at the same time it makes me determined to do something, anything, with the overly fair hand I’ve been dealt in life…I suppose that’s what led me to the field of work I’m in. I’m not trying to make myself out to be some saint, obviously I’m not, just ask my parents, lol, but I do sleep a bit better at night knowing I’m doing something, no matter how minimal, to make someone else’s life just a bit more fair. Or maybe I have a case of African Sleeping Sickness…who knows.
Bottom line, whether at home or abroad, I truly think each one of us can do something, no matter how big or how small, each day to bring some goodness and fairness into others’ lives.
Yes, more of a contemplative blog, this one. But seeing what I did today definitely made me think about life for a bit...so I thought I’d share...
Field Trip
Being in the field is a total trip. Beats the heck out of the office in Ambositra, hands down. First off, we get to stay at a “swanky” hotel at the beach…translation: there’s a fan in my room, electricity, and running water…most of the time (but it’s still better than what Ettien – our logistics coordinator- and two of the other employees had to do last night, which was to sleep in the cab of their truck out in the bush, hahaha, suckas!) Now that I’ve said that and laughed at Ettien tonight, our group is going to get stuck out in the bush our next trip.
Anyway, even if I can’t go swimming at the beach because of the strong current, the contamination of the water by sewage, and SHARKS, I still get to go to sleep to the sound of waves crashing :D
The second factor that makes fieldwork exciting is the unpredictability. Basically, since I don’t speak Malagasy and my French is still crappy-dappy (although getting less crappy-dappy by the day!) I never fully understand what we are doing or where we are going each day (they do, however, manage to correctly translate the buttcrack of dawn time for me to roll out of bed and meet the team in the morning).
Usually, the days consist of back-road four-wheeling 3-5 hours one way to get to a village. Then we meet with the Maire to ascertain the disaster preparedness protocol his commune has in place (to date, no one has anything…I’m pretty sure when the Maires are talking to Charly in Malagasy the first question out of their mouths are “what is this thing you call disaster management???” lol). After about a 45 min. to 1 hour meeting, we then start our 3-5 hour trek back to our HQ in Mananjary.
The roads are terrible, particularly when it rains (which it does often this time of year). So these days that we spend 8-10 hours driving, well, we are only going about 70 km one way and 70 km back. That should give you an idea how bad road conditions are.
Today was great fun though. After 2 days of Charly and I (mainly Charly, my 1 presentation on US disaster management protocol had to be translated as I spoke which I’m sure bored the heck out of everyone, so it’s best if Charly just does the bulk of the presentations!) teaching the disaster management curriculum to the Mananjary field supervisors, we got to hit the road today and head back to one of the communes we were unable to get to our last trip to Mananjary a few weeks ago because the road was so bad. The road was good today. We only got stuck twice, haha.
Let’s see, the first time we got stuck we were about 2 hours into our journey. It was quite the experience. As soon as we got stuck, about 50-60 school children came tearing down the hill out of their school, screaming like banshees, excited to watch this scene unfold: the scene being Romuald trying to drive the car with Charly yelling which way to turn the wheel, occasionally jumping on the hood of the car to redistribute the weight, and me…the weird looking white girl “vazaha” sitting on the embankment laughing and taking pictures (I’m sure the guys really appreciated that).
Romuald surveying the predicament...
Yep, definitely stuck.
The initial villagers who came to help out...
School kids hauling butt down the hill to watch us try to get unstuck.
Some of the kids who were watching us.
More observers
More school children watching us
While the children were curious about the car, they were also very curious about me. It was quite funny…and VERY endearing. Their MO was to inch closer and closer to me on the embankment while pretending to get a better view of the car. Then, even though I didn’t understand what they were saying, I knew their little minds were hatching a devious plan of some sort. And I knew by the whispers and glances my way that that plan involved me. Sure enough, one of the little boys broke free from the group, ran to me, touched my arm and yelled “vazaha” then ran screaming and laughing back to his group (basically, they had dared him to touch the foreigner and he took them up on that dare…good thing I don’t bite!). All the little kids erupted into laughter when he did this and I couldn’t stop laughing myself. Children are a crackup, no matter what the culture!
Anywho, we were stuck for an entire hour in this slop. During that time, more and more villagers came out to help and watch. Villagers were using their shovels, hoes, and other miscellaneous tools to help dig us out. They also sat on the hood, gave their advice about how to get out, got plastered with mud, and finally they were able to push the car out. We paid them for their help and were on our way.
More help arrived and we finally were able to get unstuck...after a good hour.
About 5 km later, our driver got stuck. Again. Haha! And again, I jumped out of the car (with my water bottle this time…I figured we’d be awhile), went to the embankment, sat in the shade and took pictures. This time, 3 teenage boys emerged from the bushes, literally, they came out of the bushes, I have no idea where they came from, and helped dig the car out again. Luckily we were only stuck for about 20minutes this time.
This would be the 2nd time we got stuck...
About 2 hours later, we arrived in the Vohitrandriana Commune. There was some sort of event or something going on in the commune because there were probably 600-700 people milling around the main building. We could hardly even get through the crowd to get to the Maire’s building. Once we were inside his office, which was basically a little wooden shack where we sat on wooden crate boxes for our meeting, the building was enveloped by the villagers sticking their heads in the doorway and windows to look at these strangers who came to visit the Maire. It was so odd to have several dozen pairs of eyeballs staring intently at us from outside during the meeting, but the maire acted like that was the norm, so we just continued with our meeting. It was pretty funny (and a bit disrupting) because throughout the entire meeting, the kids were pushing each other out of the way to get a good look, lol.
As we’ve grown accustomed to, we found out that the Maire had no system set up for any type of disaster preparedness or response. No early warning system. No radio. No nothing. Ahhhhhhh!!! That makes me want to pull my hair out!!! The good thing is the mayor wants to work with the program and I think there is a lot our program can do to help out his commune, not just in disaster management, but in all the other areas we cover as well: infrastructure, agriculture, health, nutrition, etc.
More pics of the kiddies in Vohitrandriana Commune
After that meeting, we turned right around and started our 4.5 hour journey back to Mananjary. We stopped halfway on our journey to eat lunch in a small village, where some of the villagers set up a mat right by our car to just sit and watch us eat and fix the car…that was odd. But I guess they don’t get a lot of visitors coming through their area often…
By the time we finally arrived back in Mananjary, I was pretty much a complete ball of dirt from mud getting flung through our windows (which we had to keep open to get SOME sort of breeze) and sitting in the dirt to eat lunch…but hey, at least we didn’t get stuck on the way back!
P.S. Sorry these pics are so grainy. I only have my camera phone to use until my new camera arrives next week, hooray!
Anyway, even if I can’t go swimming at the beach because of the strong current, the contamination of the water by sewage, and SHARKS, I still get to go to sleep to the sound of waves crashing :D
The second factor that makes fieldwork exciting is the unpredictability. Basically, since I don’t speak Malagasy and my French is still crappy-dappy (although getting less crappy-dappy by the day!) I never fully understand what we are doing or where we are going each day (they do, however, manage to correctly translate the buttcrack of dawn time for me to roll out of bed and meet the team in the morning).
Usually, the days consist of back-road four-wheeling 3-5 hours one way to get to a village. Then we meet with the Maire to ascertain the disaster preparedness protocol his commune has in place (to date, no one has anything…I’m pretty sure when the Maires are talking to Charly in Malagasy the first question out of their mouths are “what is this thing you call disaster management???” lol). After about a 45 min. to 1 hour meeting, we then start our 3-5 hour trek back to our HQ in Mananjary.
The roads are terrible, particularly when it rains (which it does often this time of year). So these days that we spend 8-10 hours driving, well, we are only going about 70 km one way and 70 km back. That should give you an idea how bad road conditions are.
Today was great fun though. After 2 days of Charly and I (mainly Charly, my 1 presentation on US disaster management protocol had to be translated as I spoke which I’m sure bored the heck out of everyone, so it’s best if Charly just does the bulk of the presentations!) teaching the disaster management curriculum to the Mananjary field supervisors, we got to hit the road today and head back to one of the communes we were unable to get to our last trip to Mananjary a few weeks ago because the road was so bad. The road was good today. We only got stuck twice, haha.
Let’s see, the first time we got stuck we were about 2 hours into our journey. It was quite the experience. As soon as we got stuck, about 50-60 school children came tearing down the hill out of their school, screaming like banshees, excited to watch this scene unfold: the scene being Romuald trying to drive the car with Charly yelling which way to turn the wheel, occasionally jumping on the hood of the car to redistribute the weight, and me…the weird looking white girl “vazaha” sitting on the embankment laughing and taking pictures (I’m sure the guys really appreciated that).
Romuald surveying the predicament...
Yep, definitely stuck.
The initial villagers who came to help out...
School kids hauling butt down the hill to watch us try to get unstuck.
Some of the kids who were watching us.
More observers
More school children watching us
While the children were curious about the car, they were also very curious about me. It was quite funny…and VERY endearing. Their MO was to inch closer and closer to me on the embankment while pretending to get a better view of the car. Then, even though I didn’t understand what they were saying, I knew their little minds were hatching a devious plan of some sort. And I knew by the whispers and glances my way that that plan involved me. Sure enough, one of the little boys broke free from the group, ran to me, touched my arm and yelled “vazaha” then ran screaming and laughing back to his group (basically, they had dared him to touch the foreigner and he took them up on that dare…good thing I don’t bite!). All the little kids erupted into laughter when he did this and I couldn’t stop laughing myself. Children are a crackup, no matter what the culture!
Anywho, we were stuck for an entire hour in this slop. During that time, more and more villagers came out to help and watch. Villagers were using their shovels, hoes, and other miscellaneous tools to help dig us out. They also sat on the hood, gave their advice about how to get out, got plastered with mud, and finally they were able to push the car out. We paid them for their help and were on our way.
More help arrived and we finally were able to get unstuck...after a good hour.
About 5 km later, our driver got stuck. Again. Haha! And again, I jumped out of the car (with my water bottle this time…I figured we’d be awhile), went to the embankment, sat in the shade and took pictures. This time, 3 teenage boys emerged from the bushes, literally, they came out of the bushes, I have no idea where they came from, and helped dig the car out again. Luckily we were only stuck for about 20minutes this time.
This would be the 2nd time we got stuck...
About 2 hours later, we arrived in the Vohitrandriana Commune. There was some sort of event or something going on in the commune because there were probably 600-700 people milling around the main building. We could hardly even get through the crowd to get to the Maire’s building. Once we were inside his office, which was basically a little wooden shack where we sat on wooden crate boxes for our meeting, the building was enveloped by the villagers sticking their heads in the doorway and windows to look at these strangers who came to visit the Maire. It was so odd to have several dozen pairs of eyeballs staring intently at us from outside during the meeting, but the maire acted like that was the norm, so we just continued with our meeting. It was pretty funny (and a bit disrupting) because throughout the entire meeting, the kids were pushing each other out of the way to get a good look, lol.
As we’ve grown accustomed to, we found out that the Maire had no system set up for any type of disaster preparedness or response. No early warning system. No radio. No nothing. Ahhhhhhh!!! That makes me want to pull my hair out!!! The good thing is the mayor wants to work with the program and I think there is a lot our program can do to help out his commune, not just in disaster management, but in all the other areas we cover as well: infrastructure, agriculture, health, nutrition, etc.
More pics of the kiddies in Vohitrandriana Commune
After that meeting, we turned right around and started our 4.5 hour journey back to Mananjary. We stopped halfway on our journey to eat lunch in a small village, where some of the villagers set up a mat right by our car to just sit and watch us eat and fix the car…that was odd. But I guess they don’t get a lot of visitors coming through their area often…
By the time we finally arrived back in Mananjary, I was pretty much a complete ball of dirt from mud getting flung through our windows (which we had to keep open to get SOME sort of breeze) and sitting in the dirt to eat lunch…but hey, at least we didn’t get stuck on the way back!
P.S. Sorry these pics are so grainy. I only have my camera phone to use until my new camera arrives next week, hooray!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
