old updates

My dear and most dear public:
I write you this in great hopes of an internet access tomorrow; if that turns out to not be the case, hello from the past and I post this with an accompanying update. But whew. What to say?
I believe I left off pre-site visit, so here is a bit about the place I will be living and teaching come the end of September (school starts on October 11th, but I will [lord willing] sign in as an official volunteer on the 22nd of September—somewhere between swear-in and school-start I will move), Ifanadiana:
Located in the central south-east of Madagascar, Ifanadiana is the district capital which means its Lycee (high school) is fed into by the surrounding areas. From what I understood (my Malagasy being shaky to say the least, and was even more unsure the weeks ago that I was in Ifan), I will be teaching 2nd, or about 10th grade, as well as one class at the CEG, or the jr high. English is taught from 6eme-or about 6th grade-on, and the classes should be at pretty different levels. There are either 317 students total at the Lycee or I will be teaching a total of 317 students, if that helps any of you to predict my upcoming years please let me know.
Although the district capital, Ifan is quite small—seven and a half thousand is the official population count, but I was already recognizing many faces on my second day. I think everyone recognized me before I even arrived, however, as I will be the only white resident. The paved road that serves the SE of Mada runs through the town, and it takes about 30 minutes for the taxi-brousse to get through the 1 or 2 k that my town takes up, as we make the road into our market whenever we feel like it. One day, as I waited for this taxi-brousse to Ranamafana (where I stayed as there is no hotel and Ifan, and my house is currently devoid of a stable roof, bed, stove. . . pretty much a concrete block. Leaky concrete tho.) I saw another white person (or “vazaha”), and I stared at him in as much shock as those around me did—and then ended up having dinner with him in the next village that night, as he was a friend of another volunteer. Figures.
Ranamafana, literally “warm water,” is right next to a huge national park; the best description I’ve been able to come up with is that it looks like Colorado, but with a rainforest on top of it. Never having seen a rainforest before August, I guess that description may not make it much more clear to my friends in Philadelphia—so, um, there was a lot of water. I will try to get Matt to post a few pictures I sent him, as I still can’t access my blog (Mike, I think you’re right about blogspot; soon I will try to move to wordpress!), though they may actually do less justice to the beauty of it than my words. Once you see the picture you may think you know what this area of Madagascar looks like—but it doesn’t do two dimensional very well. If I could say that viewing it has changed the way I see without sounding preposterous, I would. Dad, you were so missed every moment of my time in the rainforesty mountains. We climbed nearly vertically up past a waterfall—four hours of hiking and I didn’t want to stop, but we had to come back and finish training.
There is a banana tree that grows out of my kabone, and a banana field on my walk to school—other consumables along this dirt path are papayas, sugar cane, jackfruit, a fruit I can’t remember the name of, oranges, and avocados. Pretty great, if one can handle the cyclones. Which apparently cancel school for a while each January.
Since returning to the training village, so much has happened that everything I could tell you already feels like old news. We are two weeks into student teaching, one week to go, and my host dad has started to drink every night (I can hear him vomiting as I type)—he knows I don’t approve, and as I am about a foot taller than him he won’t look at me or even eat dinner with us if he is drunk, but as soon as I leave he and my host mother start to fight. It makes me so sad, part of me wants to leave and most of me wants to punch his face. But, as I am a giant by Gasy standards (my host mother doesn’t believe I don’t play basketball. “But you are so tall and strong!” She says.) I don’t, as my presence is terrifying enough to keep him quiet. The baby cries all night, every night, which may turn out to be really effective family planning—I’m good with being an aunt, forever.
At first I thought my 2 year old sister was a devilchild, but at least a silly one. However, after playing hide-and-seek around the courtyard, letting her scribble on my books, and giggling wildly while we waited for the rice to be ready, at some point I became quite good friends with this two-year-old. As my (real) family knows, I like kids but only really click with a few of them—and little Fiti has a place in my heart forever. She is, yes, a little crazy but she also never, ever gets rocked, or sung to, or hugged. Part of this is that Malagasy people don’t hug (which, I have to tell you, makes me much more sad than I thought it would), part of it is that her dad still wants to be 18 and her mom has a sick 7 month old and is so young. Now, I hardly get home but Fiti runs up to me and, instead of hitting me or yelling, as she used to do, she snuggles. I’m starting to think she purposely tries to fall asleep on my lap, and she loves “rock a bye baby” as much as “froggy went a-courtin,” to say nothing of “swing low, sweet chariot” and “dream a little dream of me.” Which are, apparently, the only songs to which I know all the words. Actually, if someone could send me the lyrics to “froggy went a-courting” that would be awesome. I love that song.
In other news, I absolutely love rice. Call it Stockholm syndrome if you will, but I love the stuff. Seriously. We had pasta the other night and it’s just so. . slimy. Noodles are weird. Rice is quickly becoming my favorite food. So good. Not that I don’t miss foods. . . I really, really do. Oatmeal. Ketchup. What I miss more is not being able to cook for myself—which will change when I get to site, so it’s not as big of a deal.
I really feel as though this email / blogpost is so long that it will only be read by my Mother, and Sarah (who is, by the way, the best correspondent in the world. I usually have a few minutes in the AM before I head out to teach my class of volunteer Gasys, and her letters are treasures that I can reread every day). But, to reward the few of those who made it, here are a few of my favorite tidbits so far:
1. One of the host gifts I brought was a Frisbee. Not being able, at first, to explain what it was for, it sat on our window sill for about a week, while the family must have pondered its use. Now, it is clear—we eat out of it every night. And I don’t have the heart to say it’s something that is supposed to be thrown around when it makes such a nice blue plate.
2. I no longer have to sleep 12 hours a night. It’s more like eight. But I’m getting up earlier and earlier. I love it. Mornings are the best time.
3. I had a bruise on my hip for the first week and a half of sleeping at my host family’s house cause the bed was so hard.
4. Today it was so cold that when I opened the well-covering my glasses fogged over. I LOVE wells.
5. I can wear sarongs (here called lambahonys) all the time and look less weird than if I was wearing anything else. Awesome.
6. I read so much. So so much. But if anyone wants they could send me a copy of Julian of Norwich, which I should have brought. But I’m actually a good way through this massive book on WWI, and I supplement it with a constant supply of poetry and fiction. Mmmm delicious.
7. Malagasy is starting to make sense. I am working on learning the passive form of all the verbs—or as many as I can. It’s not required, but it’s how people actually talk—and learning that is kinda more important to me than passing the test.
8. My computer broke, I may be able to fix it in Tana I may not. This is not a favorite thing just a thing that seems to me very important, because I liked having the music and the typing and the pictures on it. And excel sheets are so much tidier than graph paper when doing grades, even if one has to copy it down onto paper when term is done.
9. Oh! I should tell you about teaching! Well, for starters, there are no books. The students have notebooks into which they copy everything you put on the blackboard and thus become their textbooks. My handwriting is already improving, no way am I going to have students who think “th” and “m” are the same letter, as they appear when I write. These copybooks of the students are incredibly tidy, fascinating worlds to me. I love putting an exercise on the board and then walking through the rows and looking at English as a foreign language, realizing through their errors what I should have been teaching. I can’t wait to have my own class, though I hope I do not teach the 6eme. Every class ends with me a little terrified about the fact that I have students, a little in love with English, covered in chalk, and anxious to learn Malagasy.
10. In one of my dreams, I was playing in the bars in New Orleans with Snoop Dogg. He was on the sax—I played organ.
11. I actually prefer washing my hair outside, with a bucket, to showering at the training center. Water pressure isn’t great there, and although it is normally very cold and rainy, one only really needs to wash her hair when it is sunny, otherwise one should be wearing a hat. So, when it is sunny, I wash my hair. Which makes very real the excuse “I’m sorry, I can’t, I have to wash my hair. . . “ cause it’s true. When it’s sunny I do not hang out, I bathe.
12. Gasy love Celine Dion and Shakira. I’ve started listening to Brahms like he’s ear-crack tho. Which he kind of is.
Ok, well, thanks for listening, and check back next time for a possibly more concise post. Please know that I think of you so often—always I miss telling you the little things, because Tim should know how proud my host family was when I turned out to be really “good” at killing chickens, and the mist rising of the rice paddies every morning needs Bella to watch it while we open Greenline together. (not that I miss greenline). I want to eat birds’ feet with Stephanie, ask River a million questions, walk down the dirt road wearing lambahony with Valeria. . . talk about teaching with Betsy, have my family around me. And Matt, I’ll have you know that the other volunteers don’t ask me why I “look so happy today!” anymore, they’re like, oh, how is Matt, he must have called.
If you send me anything, send me letters. Use specific words, I miss them--tell me whatever it is you are learning, I miss facts--and news of your lives these past weeks.
xx and all my love,
Rebekah
Ps: I forgot to tell you, witches are a very serious business in Madagascar, and on the plateau they are owls during the daytime. At night they are naked women. Coastal areas don’t believe in them as much but. . owl earings have retired, wordpress blog will likely have less phonetically pleasing name. Don’t need anyone thinking the new mpampianatra is anything unholy.
My students always want to write “Miss Rebekaha.”



My Dear and Most Dear Public:
I write you on this, the tenth day of September, not having sent my previous email / update. However, I will at some point have internet again, therefore here is some more chatter about life in Madagascar. This update will contain two lists, one story, and two poems, if I can keep it at that.
To begin, here are those things which, upon my arrival, shocked me, but now appear normal. If I can remember what was surprising so short ago.
1. Lack of internet, for one. I don’t really even miss the thing. I have a book on WWI which contains much more information than I would likely learn in a month of pursing the headlines, albeit the format has taken me some acclimatization. Also, I’ve quite easily adjusted to getting 1-4 texts per week, and one phone call, rather than whatever enormous amount I thought normal in the States. I still keep my phone on me at all times—part security blanket, partly the fact that its flashlight is really, really bright and handy.
2. Kabones. Six by six inch square hole in the ground, bring your own toilet paper. Most natural thing in the world.
3. Rice. See previous post attached. Well, semi-previous, cause I guess you will be receiving these simultaneously. But I sure hope you don’t read them at the same time—no one needs that much news.
4. Umbys (zebu, or horned and humped cows) taking up as much of the road as they can.
5. Chickens everywhere. EVERYWHERE. The first few times they wandered in while we were at dinner I did a double take, but now I just want to eat their eggs.
6. No mirrors. I am so used to seeing myself, but I kind of see out of myself more that there’s no way to see my whole self at once.
7. Filtering my water, then adding bleach to it before drinking it. I was talking about faucets with one of my friends today—we just couldn’t believe that water is so forced, and seems so natural to us in the states.
8. Being called “teacher” as I walk down the street.
9. Dirt. Just kinda a fact of life, it’s everywhere, and most things don’t smell good.
So, story time.
Once upon a time there was a very happy girl. Her name was Rebekah. She lived in America, and really liked to listen to music. She also liked to sing and to dance. However, she did not truly know the importance of music. Rebekah would listen to the same singer every day, and not realize that his songs were not always very fun. She thought she loved a band called “The Grateful Dead,” but she didn’t know that she had yet to progress from “like” to “love.” No one knows why this was. Perhaps Rebekah spent too much time listening to music that actually belonged to boys that she liked. Perhaps Rebekah spent too much time looking in the mirror to for anything to get in her ears. Whatever the reason, Rebekah’s life was happy, but not full. Then, one day and for no reason at all, Rebekah moved to an island called Madagascar. In Madagascar, there is a lot of music. It can best be described as “island” music, and always sung in a language that Rebekah doesn’t know. Sometimes they play imported music in Madagascar, and then Rebekah sings along to lyrics that she is very glad her host mother does not understand, because they are dirty. She began listening to her ipod sometimes, and each time found herself unable to focus on the book in front of her, or to sleep. You see, the music she had always known had been separated from every-day use, and Rebekah was beginning to understand that this was magic coming in her ears. While Rebekah was learning this, she was student teaching at the local Malagasy High School. The last week of this student teaching, the student teachers were put into groups and were instructed to review for, proctor, and correct an exam. Rebekah was put in a group with Israel, who plays the banjo, and Josh, who plays the guitar. So, at eight am one Sunday morning, Rebekah and Israel ran into each other on the main street. Israel was going to the market to buy some greens. Rebekah was waiting for Israel and Josh, who had both forgotten that they were supposed to write a test that day. So then Israel remembered, and they went and bought some greens and some wafers. They found Josh at the market, too, because there are not many places to be in villages. Josh, Israel, and Rebekah went to Israel’s house to write a lesson. But first Josh played a song on his guitar, because he loves the guitar but did not have one for two months and he could not stop playing it, even to plan a lesson. He was very good at the guitar. He played the “Tennessee Waltz.” Suddenly, even Rebekah forgot about lesson planning (Israel had already reforgotten), because she was singing along to the banjo and guitar, and waltzing to herself with words that she and Israel were trying to learn. They learned the waltz. Then, Israel and Josh began to play “Sugar Magnolia” and Rebekah’s life was changed.
Israel, Josh, and Rebekah decided that singing was most fun, so they taught the “Tennessee Waltz” to their class as a review. All of the students later got wonderful grades on the test, because music is a great teaching tool. Well, all except one but that student is not smart. Israel and Rebekah also taught the students how to Waltz, because the classes are two hours long and it did not take two hours to hand back tests. It is also very fun to watch 10th graders try to both touch and not touch each other. But then, after about half an hour or so of the same song, everyone got bored with the Waltz. So Josh started playing some swing music. Israel turned to Rebekah and asked, “Hey, do you know how to swing?” and apparently she did, because they were soon demonstrating every swingin’ flip around the world that your grandfather learned in WWII. Soon they had to move outside because everyone wanted to learn, or at least watch, the dancing. Now, there is always singing. Savannah, Rebekah’s friend, knows the words to every Grateful Dead song, which is good because Rebekah does not have very many of them on her ipod and her computer is very, very broken. Josh and Israel and Rebekah like to write songs, but Rebekah can only write lyrics and sometimes sings off-key, so sometimes she just smiles along. Rebekah and her host mother put Malagasy words to the waltz tune, and sing around the kitchen—and her 2 year old sister loves to waltz around the courtyard. One of the language instructors is teaching Rebekah some Malagasy dances in return for booty-shaking lessons. (Not that the language instructor needs them.) Right now, Rebekah feels like she is not doing very much justice to this notable life-event. But she hopes you enjoyed her story, and now you know what texts are like for those learning English in Madagascar. Because I write them.
Whew, that took longer than expected. Final list for today: Things to which I Have Not Acclimatized.
1. Not seeing Matt every day.
2. The electric lights being so dark that I long for candles, but my host family is so glad to give me the electric lights that I can’t, can’t be seen with a candle.
3. My hands looking like they’ve spent all day outside (which they have)—and having a ring-tan on my married finger. It’s better if Gasy men think you’re married. Not that that really stops anyone. So, um, by the way Eva—I’m awearin yr ring.
4. The lack of health care for everyone who is not American.
5. No books in the schools. None.
I am sure there will be more not-used-to’s at site, but I have been living in the same place for two months now, and it’s pretty normal to m.
Ok, now two poems.
Notes On A Meeting in Madagascar, September 8, 2010
The wise elders
had a voice
during the end of the day.
When you hesitate, later
is unaffected—
though we are nervous
toward importing rice.
If they start shooting up
you may hear
in the villages, though
we see it a lot
& anytime soon.
So, again, our role
will continue for now—
to push. Which is complicated.

The second scenario:
leave office the way you did
neutral, and a lot worse
in an isolated area.
On the ground, they
calm them. You can’t
raise supply anymore.

Much is centralized. He
went back and forth. Right
now the name of the
region I don’t know, but
they used to be elected
six provinces, 22 regions, 119 districts,
some of these used to be
elected. That’s a story,
going back and forth.
Rice is still cheap on the island.

Not the Congo. A little
more average. Compare
99% in a positive light.
At the end of the day,
most people are too.

Notes on Cross Cultural SexEd, 10th of September 2010

Good. First, ready? Good.
yeah want to have prepared
more song yeah. does that mean
how do you say we’re
discussing our answer my girlfriend
won’t trust me, can you
use condoms every day?
what is small yeah his first question
oh. yeah. um it makes him
where did he say? youth.
do they have to stay here?

and that’s all for now, friends and dear family. if any of you want to work on the poems, go ahead! they’re yours for the playing.

xx and all my love,
Rebekah Rose