Hop Sea III.2

Turning a new page

2007-11-11T19:16:00.000-05:00

This is a recent shot of the three of us during a visit to Great Falls National Park, just about an hour outside of DC. (There are many more new photos on the flickr page. Check the link to the right.)

My hand is the one turning the new page. As many of you know we returned from Madagascar in June, spent a few tumultuous months job-hunting and bouncing from relative to relative, before finally landing in Northern Virginia. As luck would have it KP hit paydirt first on the job front and started working in early September.

My break came about six-weeks later. I interviewed for a position with a federal agency in DC and two weeks later heard back with an offer. If we thought our lives had been crazy up to that point, as soon as I accepted our lives rocketed forward at an even faster pace.

I've been at work for about a month and it feels good to working again. I do miss the special connection between ORP and me, which has seemed to fallen back on KP and his new daycare provider (and her grand-daughter).

For better or worse, the trophy days of Madagascar are gone.

Back in the USA!

2007-08-18T15:03:00.000-04:00

To my loyal readers, what few that are left after almost 5 months of silence, KP, ORP and I are back from Madagascar. We've been back for a while, since mid June, but have been swamped with getting back into the swing of things. Mainly this means finding gainful employment, which has proven more elusive than we had thought it'd be. In the meantime we're living out of our car, hoping the arrival of our sea shipment continues to be delayed, and taking advantage of friends and family who are too polite to say no to our visitations.

We're in Maine right now introducting ORP to the wonders of Ocean Park. No lobster rolls yet, but so far he's enjoying the beach. (He's only managed to eat a limited quantity of sand, plus one cigarette butt.)

Will keep you posted on our eventual landing. Keep your fingers crossed.

Villefranche sur mer

2007-04-03T15:40:00.000-04:00

We made it to Villefranche sur mer where Kristen is enrolled in a two-week intensive French language course. The town is lovely. I can now understand why southern France is such a popular destination. Yesterday I walked around the bay with Owen and he fell asleep long enough for me to pop into a cafe and have an espresso. This is living!

There are more photos from our trip on flickr.

Merry Ole England

2007-03-28T04:24:00.000-04:00

Well, we made it to London yesterday afternoon after 14 hours of traveling. It's great to be back in "civilization." We left Tana just shy of 1am on Tuesday morning and by 1:15pm our plane from Paris to Heathrow was at its gate. As we de-planed in London, Kristen and I were both surprised to be greeted by the gate agent in English. Owen, at 5 months, was a bit harder to handle than he was when we flew from Ohio to Madagascar when he was only 6 weeks. We did have bulkhead seating with a bassinet to put Owen into when he slept. That was great, except he didn't sleep very much. I spent most of the flight walking the aisles with him in my arms, trying to keep random strangers from putting their dirty mits on our "très mignon" son. With the sleep deprivation and the change of scenery, by the time we boarded the plane in Paris for London, he was at his limit. He cried like we've never heard him cry. Finally, with much persuasion, he nursed himself into a stupor until we landed in London.

So, here we are. Another night in London before taking the train out to Norwich and East Anglia University for Kristen's conference. I am the domestique on this trip, and, after the month of consulting I've just come from, I'm looking forward to my time with the lad.

We didn't have the right clothes for Owen for our spring trip to Europe. But we did have this cape, which we tried on Owen before we left.

Back in the saddle again...

2007-02-28T13:53:00.000-05:00

Chim-chimney-chim-chimney...

Sunday, February 25, 2007

I’m in Tuléar tonight by myself at the Eden Hotel, whose outer façade is the color of mint chocolate-chip ice cream. The cheap kind. I’ve landed another contract with CARE to do some more proposal writing. This will probably my last hurrah before KP’s contract ends in mid-June, so when this opportunity arose I felt like I should take it to get all the experience I can before leaving. (As a side note to those of you visiting the blog: we’re looking for jobs, so any leads—or offers!—would be welcome.) I’m not in Tuléar to work, just to catch a flight to Ft. Dauphin, on the east coast. I’m going to be on the east side three nights before catching a flight back to the west side, doing background research and talking with the team there. It seems a silly commute, but the Fianar—Tuléar drive is A LOT better than the Fianar—Tana one. Having just done the latter yo-yo trip a week ago, I know what I’m talking about. The last 7 weeks of steady rain have left large stretches of the road in bad shape that prevent you from getting any decent head of speed from building up. Last Sunday we took 10 hours to do Tana to Fianar, and today I made it to Tuléar in just under 7. (Okay, full disclosure: last Sunday we had about a one-hour delay because we were stopped by the gendarmes and forced to pay a fine for not having our papers in order—our green plates were of no use that day—and we stopped so Owen could nurse. Today, I didn’t have any of those same issues.)

This is the first time I’ve spent a night alone since Owen was born and it feels lonely not being part of the usual routine with he and KP. It’s small conciliation that I have a working TV. There are only two channels that come in, both in Malagasy and one channel is showing a Madagascar version of American Idol; the other is showing how Tropical Cyclone Gamede is on target to make landfall on Madagascar on the eastern city of Tamatave. The best thing I saw on TV was a commercial using Bob Dylan’s Just Like a Woman for its theme song. It was an ad for a beauty salon in Tana. Being a Sunday, there aren’t many restaurants open, so I happened to find myself at same Italian restaurant I ate at when I was last in Tuléar. About a year ago—last Easter Sunday to be exact—we were here with the FTC group and, like tonight, this place was about the only place open. KP and Claire ended up both getting sick and Hugo and I left with our respective wives so they could convalesce back at the hotel. This left AB and Patrick to chit-chat with Claire’s college semester-abroad host-family brothers and their girlfriends for the evening. The next morning we boarded our rental van (a.k.a. rolling Super Fund-mobile) and 10 hours—and one snapped accelerator cable—later, we got to Fianar. Thanks to a poorly (absent) exhaust system we arrived looking like a band of traveling chimney-sweeps. Oh, good times.

Monday, February 26, 2007

I made it to Ft. Dauphin this morning just as the sky opened up in a burst of rain. I suspect this was the leading edge of TC Gamede; it’s been raining off and on all day since I’ve been here. At present, according to the weather map the storm still looks poised to hit Tamatave head-on, but these things have a tendency to change direction at the last moment. Regardless, there are going to be many coastal communities dealing with the storm surge and a lot of flooding. When I arrived, the CARE driver took me to the office first. What struck me most along the way was how bad the roads were. Last May, when I was here last, the roads were in terrible shape, and since then have really deteriorated. I suppose the weather has something to do with it, but also I think the heavy trucks from the QMM mine and the port-building operation are not what the road engineers had in mind when the road was originally built.

Turns out I’m staying at the guest house of the regional coordinator. I didn’t realize this, but was excited by the prospect of not staying in town (less chance of random booty-calls from the local prostitutes). He lives on atop a picturesque promontory overlooking the Indian Ocean. Upon entering the “guest-house” I began to wonder if this was, in fact, a good thing. First impression was that I was living in a sty: clothes were strewn about the place, dirty dishes were piled high in the kitchen sink, the commode doesn’t have a seat, and there’s no shower curtain. The cook, who received me since the coordinator was still at the office, led me through two rooms before showing me my “room”—what is essentially a glorified closet with a double-bed wedged inside. There’s just enough room to maneuver around, but only just. There is a mosquito net, thankfully. But, what really had me worried was the corpse I passed en route to my room. In the second room I passed through lay a body on a bed with a sheet pulled up over its head. The cook didn’t even glance at it as she led me by. Not knowing what to do, I did nothing. As I was putting my suitcase down I heard the corpse emit a low moan, at which point I assumed the corpse wasn’t a corpse. I tip-toed back past the corpse to sit outside and wait for the coordinator to come home for lunch.

And eventually he did, and he explained the mystery of the corpse over lunch. The corpse is a friend of his who is working as a consultant on the project that I wrote up for CARE last summer. He’s one of these dyed-in-the-wool development jocks who has lived in Africa for the past two decades and has decided to eschew such western “luxuries” like mosquito nets and malaria prophylaxis. The corpse-like state was a product of two things: 1) an acute case of malaria and; 2) an acute case of alcohol poisoning from a weekend bender. It was unclear which of the acute cases came on first, but the end result was the corpse.

Now back home after working the afternoon at the office, the corpse was awake briefly and spoke, but has now turned off his light and is sleeping. I’m thankful that tomorrow I’m going out into the field; I don’t predict a good night’s sleep.

2007 Fianarantsoa Province Reboisement (Reforestation)

2007-02-24T23:04:00.000-05:00

Two weeks ago I received a call on a Tuesday from the Regional Coordinator of the main USAID-funded Environment project here in Fianarantsoa province. He tells me, “Kristen, I’m so glad that you are going to the reboisement tomorrow morning. Everyone else is completely swamped or not even around. You will be representing ERI (the environment project), SanteNet (a USAID health project and my host agency), the Alliance (the coordinating body of all USAID-funded projects in our province), and the Wealthy North in general.” Meanwhile, I’ve just finished a conversation with our secretary asking her if she can go instead of me as I don’t really have time (our Regional Coordinator was in the capital). I respond, “Yup, I’ll be there.” The irony that someone from the health project was representing all of the environment projects wasn’t lost on either of us. Our secretary was willing to go (though she doesn’t usually represent our office at such official functions), but had encouraged my attendance instead, as apparently the head of the province himself (equivalent to a state Governor in the USA) had brought the invitation by the week before (it seems that no one from our office went last year, so the pressure was on). After committing to go, I start to look forward to wearing sneakers and a t-shirt (a SanteNet one, of course, to advertise our presence) to work, getting out into a rural site for the morning, and getting dirt on my hands, and planting some trees (which I hadn’t done since finishing up my Peace Corps service in Niger in 1998). It turns out that ERI was able to dig up a staff member to go along after all (Vony, who is great fun), and our water/sanitation guy (Jonathan, a former PCV in the area) decided to join us as well. As we were leaving, Jonathan asked one of the office gardeners for an angady (local hoe used primarily for rice cultivation), to dig the holes to plant the trees. At this point I realized how distant my tree planting, Peace Corp days are, for Vony tells us that we don’t need an andady; all of holes for the trees will already be dug by the time we (‘official’ people) arrive. She was right – when we (along with about 1,000 other office types) finally got to the rural site, all the holes were ready (dug by soldiers earlier that morning). School children carried the trees from the nursery to the reforestation site and laid them next to the holes, and all we had to do was stand and listen to big whig speeches (granted, not easy on a 30+ degree slope) and then plop our tree into its hole, fill in the soil around it, and pat it down. After seeing the hundreds of other people who left their desks to “plant” a tree, I wondered if the Governor would really have noticed if we hadn’t showed up. Turns out, at the ‘cocktail’ (soda, fried cakes, cookies) after the ceremony, just as Vony, Jonathan, and I were making our exit, I was accosted by the mayor of the commune (county) where the reboisement was taking place. As he and I chatted, who should appear but the Governor himself. He sees the camera around my neck and requests a photo of the four of us, and expressed his pleasure at seeing USAID’s presence. Whew, it’s official: we were there. I hope some of the 1200 trees planted make it, and that the other reforestation events in 2007 throughout the province are as successful.

Sam's 30th Birthday

2007-02-24T22:56:00.000-05:00

The other night Owen attended his second 30^th birthday party (not his own, though he did achieve the 4-month mark last week). His first was his Aunt Marian’s in DC in November, which I believe he slept through as he was only 6 weeks old at that point. His second was this week, when Kristen’s colleague and our friend Sam (a Brit who’s transplanted herself to

Madagascar

) turned 30. We had Sam over for a drink (or two) to welcome in her third decade. Left to right: Abel (Sam’s boyfriend), Dan & Owen, Kazaku (Japanese volunteer for the NGO Sam heads up), and the birthday girl herself. The highlight of the evening was Sam’s story of the massage she received in town as a birthday present. Specifically, how the masseuse commenced with her feet (living as we all do in Fianar, which is a bit of a dump, and seeing as it’s summer here so we’re all in sandals…let’s just say it’s hard to have squeaky clean feet by 5 pm on any given day), and then spent an inordinate amount of time rubbing the front side of her upper torso instead of her back, and finished up with her face. Abel said he wanted to watch next time. I hope no one gives me a present to that masseuse for my next birthday.

ORP for Prez

2007-02-08T02:26:00.000-05:00

Even as far away as Fianarantsoa, Madagascar we are feeling the ripples of US current events here. To gauge from the barrage of news reporting on the radio, print and blogosphere—and all the attendant punditry—there seems to be a lot of excitement about the 2008 presidential election. Not a day goes by when someone or other either announces they are going to run for office, or are forming an exploratory committee in order to consider running for office. Well, this explosion of candidatures has left us little choice but to show our hand a bit earlier than planned.

Here it is: Owen Redlund Patterson is forming an exploratory committee for the office of President of the United States of America.

There will be a bigger rollout later, as Owen tightens up his talking points (once he learns to talk, that is). But until then, here’s what we can say about the candidate and his platform. Owen is a baby of the people and doesn’t have strong ideological leanings to the right or left. With the proliferation of other presidential hopefuls on both sides of the aisle, Owen will be running as an independent. He wants to reach out to all people (as well as he is able given his limited gross and fine motor skills…) regardless of class, creed or color. At sometime between 9 and 12 months, we are hoping that he’ll take a stand for universal breast milk for all, unrestricted mobile viewing, and the unalienable right to decide on nap frequency and duration.

Knowing the political landscape inside the beltway, and the ruthlessness of the special interest groups, we want to avoid any kind of scandal involving our candidate, so we’re pulling out the skeletons right from the beginning. In his younger days, Owen was a bit wild and was known to imbibe a bit more than he could handle—sometimes to excess. He’s been to treatment and has a handle on his problem. And, there could be some incriminating nude photos of Owen leaked to the press. He takes full ownership and responsibility for the pictures and admits to agreeing to pose for these shots in return for a reduction in his room and board in Fianarantsoa. He’s not proud of the photos (well, maybe just a little proud), but he was in a tight spot. (And he naively believed it when the photographer told him “What happens in Fianar stays in Fianar.”) But now he’s a new baby, having turned his back(side) on these darker days.

Look for Owen in Iowa sometime in July, after he’s back in the US. He’s looking forward to meeting his constituents and taking the fight to Washington.

Hoes and their beaux

2007-01-31T13:36:00.000-05:00

A little background would help frame this story. The apartment where we live is one of several apartments created from an old winery. The complex is pear-shaped and all the apartments open out onto a courtyard, where there is a small lawn and a fountain (that currently harbors a very cute and very green frog). There is only one way into and out of the compound at the narrow end of the pear, so comings and goings are pretty much public knowledge. When we first moved into our place, we were only the second family living here, so there wasn’t much activity. Little by little the other units filled up, and now, in the six apartments, we are 4 Americans, 1 Malagasy, and 1 French. In nearly every communal-living arrangement there is going to be friction. Lots of people doing their thing, when and how they want to, is a recipe for conflict. Most folks are considerate, and those that aren’t at least pretend to be to avoid conflict. Very occasionally, there is a blatant, serial offender whose every action manages to infringe upon the other residents. We have one of these in our midst and this is her story.

Mademoiselle Frenchy (MF – for short) moved in last May and works for a French road-building company that has a government contract to improve the roads. When she first arrived, we (the other tenants) held a little cocktail meet-and-greet in the courtyard and I remember thinking how great it was that there was a little international flavor to spice up the predominant American presence. The meet-and-greet went well and we learned MF was young and that this was her first post overseas. From June until December, there is some missing time for us because Kristen left for the US in June and I was working in Tana in June and July. But, in the time that we were away, trouble paid a visit to our paradise and our MF quickly became a persona non grata among the other residents; here’s how she did it.

Her first crime was that of being young—which to be fair—something that is beyond her control. That means that she was only acting as young people do, which is to say selfishly. She has an interest in having fun, going out and hanging with her peeps. That wouldn’t be so bad if she had a modicum of consideration for the other tenants. Bshe steps out at 11pm and doesn’t roll back home until 3am, and when she does come back, she and her peeps think they are the only ones living in the complex.

Speaking of peeps, she made another critical error in choosing who she hangs out with. MF befriended a group of prostitutes, and then went as far as letting her new “friends” move in with her. Well, I may have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night. Where there are prostitutes, there are pimps and other bad actors. And, from the reports from our neighbors, after the hoes moved in, a steady stream of flotsam and jetsam came into and out from the complex, at all hours of the day and night. One night, an upstanding member of the community, recently released from jail for holding up a local filling station, threatened one of our guardians and boasted he could steal our neighbor’s car. Classy. Don’t get me wrong, in all this, I don’t begrudge the prostitutes; they’re just rational actors taking advantage of the situation. And, to be fair, there could be a genuine friendship between them and MF. But, mostly I question the judgment of MF by keeping such company. Really, my only beef with the prostitutes is that, given the nocturnal nature of their profession, they add to the late-night noise pollution.

The icing on this turd cake is provided by MF’s dog, literally. She must have a soft spot for hopeless causes, because in addition to adopting hoes, at some point she got a puppy. Considering Bob Barker’s spay and neuter campaign hasn’t made it to Fianar yet, there are a blue-million dogs having puppies at any given time of the year. She brought one of these devil-spawn dogs home. Then, according to reports, she basically neglected it. We can attest to this. She never takes it for walks or bothers to train it; it barks at everyone who comes in the complex. Worse, she lets the dog crap in the courtyard never picks up after it. Anyway, one time when MF was out of town and her “friends” were holding down the fort the dog got out of the complex, was hit by a car and broke a leg. The friends didn’t take the dog to a vet, and neither did MF after she returned. So, now we have a gimpy, pent-up, hyperactive, loud obnoxious dog literally right in our front yard.

Apparently, while we were away the combination of odd hours, late-night parties, and Cujo wore down the other tenants and poisoned the rapport between MF and the others. She also seemed oblivious to the fact that the other tenants had stopped talking to her, or having anything to do with her on a social level and kept on keeping on. We returned in December and, after seeing the lay of the land, decided things couldn’t keep on like this. We lasted about three weeks before we took action. Right before Christmas, MF left for France to spend the holidays with her family. She left her apartment (and dog) to her usual gang of prostitutes, plus in addition two random French dudes who had a propensity for walking around without their shirts somehow sprang onto the scene. It was a Wednesday and the apartment-sitters had a pretty good party, which we partook of indirectly until its eventual decline sometime around 4am. The next day we rallied the other tenants and, in turn, each called our landlord to ask him to do something about the situation. It worked. The next day the director of the road-building company showed up and we explained the situation to him. (The company pays for MF’s apartment, and therefore holds the lease to, and responsibility for, the apartment.) By noon, the locks had been changed and the hoes and their beaux kicked out. So, our Xmas present was two weeks of total quiet. Total, because the director had to take the dog for the two weeks that MF was away.

Now, over a month later, MF is back, along with the prostitutes, but I have to say that something must have penetrated her skull because there hasn’t been a repeat of the mid-week blowout. There are still lots of random folks coming and going; in fact, this morning I saw something I hadn’t seen before. Around 10am 3 young punk guys, one with Allan Iverson corn-rows, left the apartment and spontaneously broke out in three-part harmony. It was just like a second-rate Malagasy boy-band. I suppose getting laid has a way of making you want to sing.

2007-01-30T08:59:00.000-05:00

We have come to find ourselves endebted to the British footballer Michael Owen. As surprising as it may sound, when we were choosing names for our son, we didn't consider our Malagasy hosts' feelings. In the Malagasy alphabet, the letter "W" doesn't exit, so pronouncing the name "Owen" could be a real challenge. (For example the environmental organization WWF is known around here as VVF.) But thanks to the far-reaching popularity of soccer, this isn't the case. After asking what our son's name is, and before we start spelling it, the response is usually something like this: Oohhh, "oh-WEN", comme Michael Owen, le footballer !

So, Michael, wherever you are, thanks a lot, you're the best.

Merry Xmas from Owen!

2006-12-24T06:01:00.000-05:00

We've put some photos of Owen up on our Flickr account from this morning. He's anxiously awaiting Santa's arrival to Fianar.

Merry Christmas,
K, D, O

Baby steps into the 21st Century

2006-12-19T12:39:00.000-05:00

Our internet experience at home just got a bit nicer. Just so readers back in the US can measure how much nicer, consider where we’re coming from. Dial-up (groan); 28.4 Kbps connection speed (kill me). The worst part is that there’s never enough bandwidth and the connection spins its wheels for 80% of the time. I spend most of the time online looking at a command prompt so I can ping the server to see when we’re actually connected. Of course, this was only when the access number being dialed got patched through by TELMA, the state telecom.

Well, in the time since we’ve been gone TELMA has introduced a wireless phone base station. Most folks are using them on the street as a pay-phone, but they have another use that is more relevant to us—the internet. Our neighbors got a unit and couldn’t stop talking about how fast their connection was using the wireless base station. Well, seeing is believing. So, I went out and bought a unit yesterday, and friends, I’m here to tell you that I’m surfing the net at the blistering speed of 231.8 Kbps. Hot Damn! Bring on those fat attachments...oh, wait a second; I’m still a bit lightheaded from the excitement. I should sit down. I’ll let you know when to send the fat attachments.

Return to Fianar

2006-12-19T12:32:00.000-05:00

Under grey skies we made the drive from Tana to Fianar. The rains have come to

Madagascar

finally and have produced a flurry of activity in the rice paddies as farmers prepare for another growing season. On the central plateau—where both Tana and Fianar are situated—most paddies are terraced on hillsides with surprising precision in order to control water for irrigation. Fields have their own personalities and are unique in almost every way: size, shape, and fertility. The result is a mosaic landscape of shifting colors and textures as parcels move through the growing process.

Understanding their fields’ personalities, farmers let the paddies set the pace of the various tasks required to bring a crop of rice to harvest. In early fields, we saw men with long-handled spades drive their blades into heavy-textured soil to aerate and incorporate last year’s crop residue into the soil. Medium fields had men driving teams of omby (cattle) harnessed behind harrows through inundated paddies to break up clods and prepare a seed bed. From my roadside vantage point, it was hard at times to discern whether the farmers of the omby were calling the shots. Some parcels were electric green with closely planted rice seedlings. And, in other parcels, women placed these seedlings into inundated ground, using a piece of string pulled tight between two sticks as a guide for the rows. In a few more weeks, rice plants will be tall and setting seed and soon people’s spirits (and bellies) will grow.

Monique and the Mango Rains

2006-10-29T11:58:00.000-05:00

Last week Granville hosted a series of talks by author Kris Holloway, who spoke about her recent book, Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years with a Midwife in Mali. A Granville native, Kris spent two years in

Mali

as a Peace Corps volunteer living and working in a small rural village in southern

Mali

. The book is about her experience there, and particularly centers around her friendship with Monique (the village’s midwife) that spanned a decade, and was cut short by her death, ironically, during childbirth.

Kristen and I heard Kris speak last Thursday night. She read passages to the audience about her time in Mali that were virtually identical to what we experienced as volunteers in Niger, another landlocked, Sahelian country. I think the book would be appealing to a wide audience - returned Peace Corps volunteers or not. The book is getting great reviews, and from every purchase 3 dollars will be donated to Clinque Monique, a rural health center in Mali that was created in Monique’s memory.

Kristen shares a personal connection to Kris: when Kristen was in high school, Kris, her husband John, and Monique came to talk to her French class. Their visit intrigued Kristen and was the inspiration for her to join the Peace Corps after college graduation. Kristen might never have gone to Niger (and met me) if the Peace Corps bug had not been planted by Kris, John, and Monique many years ago.

You can read more about the book, and about the author at her website: http://www.moniquemangorains.com/

Owen's Album

2006-10-19T22:44:00.000-04:00

Here are some pictures of Owen and family from the hospital.

Owen's Album

West African Reunion

2006-09-24T09:25:00.000-04:00

Dinner at Charley & Rachel's
Originally uploaded by edaniii.

Last week KP and I visited Charley and Rachel in Columbus. For the non Peace Corps crowd, KP and Charley were volunteers together in Konni, and KP attended Charley and Rachel's wedding in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso)--10 years ago next year! They've been in Columbus for a few years now and Charley works with the USDA as an agricultural statistician. Rachel works at an OSU hospital as a patient-rights advocate (aka she makes sure doctors and nurses are treating patients well in the ER).

They treated us to a West African and American fusion meal: Corn tuwo with baobab leaf sauce and lamb, roast chicken, acorn squash, and homemade apple pie. It was all fabulous (and considerably less gritty than the village equivalent in Niger would have been).

Mun gode, sosai. Alhamdililahi!

Scanning Old Slides

2006-09-22T21:13:00.000-04:00

Playing around with AB's scanner and scanning some old slides. Not bad for 40+ year-old slides.

Blabla's new ride

2006-09-20T21:26:00.000-04:00

This is a test drive of the new Baby Bjorn we got today. I know the face I'm wearing is not one of happiness. That's because I'm already envisioning what 20+ pounds of kid are going to do on my back. I don't think this is on par with Volvos, but the Swedes sure know good design.

ProtractedStayUSA

2006-09-16T22:11:00.000-04:00

Last month my father-in-law and I took a small road trip from Maine to Ohio and broke up the drive into two days. We made it as far as western New York before calling it quits and decided to look for lodging. After a bit of driving around we found a strip of roads with a few options. We did a drive-by on Hotel A and decided that the parked construction equipment in the lot didn’t bode well. Our second stop was at a mid-scale national chain hotel, and we were disappointed to learn they had no vacancies. For a Wednesday night, we were surprised.

The receptionist recommended we try our luck down the road at a place that offers short- and long-term reservations targeted for business travelers. We pulled up to the ProtractedStayUSA and asked if there were any vacancies. The lad behind the desk told us there was one room available: a smoking, handicap-accessible room with two twin beds. Apprehensive about the room, but more so about the prospect of having to keep driving, we asked to see the room.

Walking the halls to the room, I felt a dizzying feeling overcome me. The monotony of the carpet patterns and the numbered rooms seemed to yawn out towards infinity ahead of us. I suddenly felt sorry for the people who spend their careers from one generic hotel room to the next. We finally came to our room, inserted the key into the lock and walked inside. Spartan came to mind, just after Marlboro Man. Rob and I looked at each other and took tentative steps forward. I can’t remember who spoke first, but one of us said not being able to open the windows was a definite deal-breaker. They did. Damn.

We then agreed it wasn’t the worst place we had ever stayed, but perhaps could be the worst place we’d stayed in this country. No, top honor among “hotel hell” goes to the Park W hotel in Niger, a place we stayed in 2004 on vacation. Committed, we opened the windows, booked the room back in the lobby, and then promptly left for dinner.

The highlight to the entire stopover in this town was an unexpected good meal in a nearby strip mall. Nestled in between confectionery and a shoe store was a French restaurant. Saved from a fate of TGIF or Olive Garden meal, we were whisked to a dark corner of the restaurant in what we felt was a way to conceal two men who looked like they’d spent all day driving. This turned out to be a boon, as they forgot to serve us our mains after the salad course, and after realizing their delay, comp’ed us desserts. Score.

Back at the ProtractedStayUSA, the two hours had only taken a slight edge off the cigarette smell, which was only restored to full potency after turning down the bed and releasing the latent smells from the linens and mattresses. And for the sin I committed next, I shall spend an eternity in eco-hell: I suggested we run the A/C and keep the windows open at the same time to make the room temperature more pleasant for sleeping.

I needn’t have bothered. Neither Rob nor I had anything that closely resembled sleep that night. In roughly two-hour blocks, we would walk the fine line between sleep and wakefulness, but never fully achieving either state. It came as no surprise that neither one of us minded getting an early start to the rest of the drive to Ohio. Rob paid the bill and I pulled the car around to the front to wait for him. As Rob got in, he said that the receptionist must be wise: He didn’t bother to ask Rob how he had slept.

Here are some photos you can file under the heading “Truth in Advertising”

What they say their rooms look like:

What our room looked like:

What their kitchens look like:

What our kitchen looked like:

What was already in our coffee maker:

What happened when we tried to open the bathroom door:

Scenes from Summer

2006-09-16T17:22:00.000-04:00

Check out my Flickr account to see some scenes from our summer.

Mainely Family
Originally uploaded by edaniii.

Why I hate Malagasy Banking

2006-07-27T14:47:00.000-04:00

Friends, let me tell you a story about banking in the country of Madagascar. This story begins in April before KP’s dad came over with the rest of the FTC group and we needed to hire a car to take us from Tuléar to Fianar. We found one (it turned out to be a rolling Superfund site, but that’s another story) and to seal the deal I had to transfer money from my account into the account of the person renting us the car. I had never done a wire transfer before, but I went to my bank, was given a form to fill out, and le voilà. It was easy and quick. But, reader, I assure you it was a false sense of security because it was here that things went pear-shaped on the whole deal.

Fast forward to May and KP and I are balancing our account with the most recent statement. We’re reconciling the account and I see that my bank transferred about 30 bucks more to the car rental dude than supposed to. Okay, shit happens; it was probably an honest mistake. A quick trip to the bank should sort things out. Right. Wrong.

The next morning I go to the bank. With a false smile, I calmly explain to my bank what happened. They’re dubious. Could they have made a mistake like this? They tell me that I’ll have to come back in the afternoon so they can go back and cross-check the original transfer order. Okay, no problem. Afternoon arrives, and, what do you know? Golly, they made a mistake and transferred too much. Then the banker puts on a solemn face to tell me that it’s going to be up to me to contact car-rental dude and ask him to return the excess amount. I don’t know how he was able to tell me that with a straight face, but he did. No “I’m sorry we made a mistake, and because we value you as a customer and want to make things right, we’ll eat the cost and credit your account.” More like, “Yeah, we’re dumb-asses, but we’re going to make you spend your own valuable time cleaning up our mess.”

So now with the onus on me, I email car-rental dude and explain the situation. A week goes by with no response to my email. I call him and he doesn’t pick up. Now I’m pissed. Letter #2: I pull out the big guns and explain that if he doesn’t respond to me the next time he hears from me will be through my lawyer. (Thankfully, if there’s one thing in abundance in Fianar, it’s lawyers.) My bluff worked. Next day he responds and he says he’ll return the excess money.

It’s July now and I’ve been away for a month, but today I picked up my mail and looked at our bank statement. True to his word, car-dude paid the money. But here’s the kicker: the bank charged me a 10% on the transaction—for the mistake they made in the first place. This afternoon, somehow I calmly explained that I didn’t think I should have to pay this fee. In a span of 5 minutes I made it up two links in the chain of command before I had to explain my story for a third time to the bank manager. He was very sympathetic and understood perfectly my complaint. He explained the fee was automatically assessed when the transaction took place. He also explained to get my refund I was going to have to write a letter to regional director explaining why my bank should refund the transfer fee. Miraculously, he managed to do all this with a smile. Prick.

Thankfully, I’m getting off the island for a while and can shrug this off as just another one of the little quirks that make living in Madagascar such an adventure. It also demonstrates why the Millennium Challenge Account is working to reform the Malagasy banking system. Where the average time to process a transaction is 24 days, my problem seems insignificant in comparison. Still, a little customer service would have be nice.

The Tana Waterfront

2006-07-03T00:36:00.001-04:00

The office where I'm working in Tana is part of a mini-mall, seductively called The Waterfront. From a positional perspective the name fits, but that’s about it. In water-body taxonomy, the water to which the mall fronts is closer to a swamp than anything else. Real estate developers must have thought this name was preferable to Mall de Moustique, which would have been more descriptive and truthful. In previous times the swamp was bigger, covering more area than it does today. Some of the land was initially drained during construction of the mall, and more was done later to create space to build one of Tana’s gated-communities. Upon entering the community you pass through a wrought-iron gate staffed with 24-hour security, then drive along a tree-lined avenue with speed bumps every 100 meters, and take in views of the “waterfront” before you reach the mall. At times you could think this was somewhere in the US.

Working in a mall setting has its pros and cons. There’s definitely a convenience factor, especially when it comes to food. No food court, but there is a bakery with yummy French patisserie treats; an up-market café serves fast and tasty plates of Middle Eastern food; and if you wanted to pick up some groceries for home, no problem—there’s a Shoprite, a South African grocery chain, on the first floor. And, if I were significantly wealthier than I am now, I could do more than window-shop at some of the other stores that populate the mall. A men’s clothing shop sells top fashion house labels, and even though this is the developing world, the prices aren’t. Aside from not being able to fulfill my capitalistic urges, there are other downs like more traffic and—the purpose of my post—having to put up with bad neighbors.

Let me explain. The CARE office is on the second floor directly above the Shoprite. And when I get to work at 7:30 there’s still another 2 hours before the grocery opens to the public. I settle in at my desk, collect my thoughts, and then start a musical odyssey provided free of charge courtesy of Shoprite. While Shoprite employees are preparing to open they enjoy using the central P.A. system play music. And, fitting of a store specializing in choices, the range of music that drifts into my office is impressive. It’s also a bit repetitive because a few days into my contract I detected a pattern to the music, a more-or-less fixed progression through different genres. Early morning hymns get things off to a soul-stirring start. I can’t understand the lyrics since they’re in Malagasy, but sometimes I catch a “Jesosy” or two. The second movement is a bit of Malagasy Classic Rock. Musically, this stuff sounds like Boston, Journey, and every other big guitar band from the ‘70s. Again, I can’t understand what they’re saying, but whatever it is, they’re feeling it. After a good hour of straight Malagasy, things move into US hair-band territory, with Bon Jovi and Guns & Roses taking top honors in the playlist. This pretty much rounds out and wraps up the morning show before Shoprite opens its doors and the music gets turned down to more neighborly levels. But, every so often the concert includes something truly special. One morning last week, for example, a Disney animated movie soundtrack medley played for about an hour. Beauty & The Beast, Little Mermaid, The Jungle Book, and much more: the hits just kept coming. Needless to say, the hours between 7:30 to 9:30 aren’t my most productive.

I think if this was the only thing going on in the morning I might be able to block it out, but in addition to the music there’s another distraction. My “office” is actually a room where the public computers to access the internet are located, so there’s usually a pretty constant stream of traffic of folks coming in and checking email, news, Hello Kitty fan-club sites, etc. Most interlopers are quick and polite, recognizing that someone (me) is trying to work. But there’s a young French woman doing a summer internship that has me one step from madness. Her routine is to show up around 8 and check email until 9, and she’s a public talker. While she checks her messages, she talks to the computer, or maybe she’s talking to whoever wrote the email, or maybe it’s to ghosts, leprechauns or yodas. I know she’s not talking to me, because the first day we met I heard her saying something and I responded, thinking she had addressed her comment to me. There was an awkward moment between us as I realized she hadn’t spoken to me: the only other sentient being the room. I tried to shrug it off thinking she’s young, perky, and has a cute French accent when talking to and laughing with the monitor, but it’s too distracting. Partly it’s weird, but I think an equal part is me feeling jealous she’s having so much fun talking with her email messages.

SantéNet Staff Photo

2006-06-30T00:34:00.001-04:00

From L to R: KP, Aimée, Mamy, Erika, and Jean-Jacques.

Here’s a recent photo of KP and her co-workers. Who’d have thought the phrase “tall drink of water” would apply to KP? (BTW, JJ’s standing on tip-toes.)

Madagascar Winter

2006-06-29T00:32:00.000-04:00

I’m freezing my ass off in Tana’s winter. Woke up this morning to 8° C; no frost on the car windows, but I could see my breath. I suppose I shouldn’t complain, in Fianar it was 4° C. And, in the grand scheme of things, a Madagascar winter is still a thousand times better than a Madison one. (I might think about revising this statement had any of the winters been worth a damn—snow wise—and after having gone out and spent money on x-country skis our first winter that were then never used enough to justify the purchase.) Poinsettias are draining of color from their tips on down and remind me of bomb-pops, minus the blue. Across from where I’m staying is a tree that may be a sweet-gum: its star-shaped leaves litter the ground a little more each day. But more than anything, it’s the bone-cold I feel that lets me know winter is here. Each day, as soon as I reluctantly emerge from my comforter, I feel cold. The house is cold, the office is cold—I’m trapped in some cruel Dickens story. Aside from sleeping, the only relief I’ve found comes from running around the lake by the Score Jumbo, but only after 10 minutes of running have elapsed while constantly rubbing my hands together. And today at work when it got to be too much, I grabbed my laptop battery pack and held it between my hands like mug of steaming hot chocolate. Sad, but true. I only have myself to blame for my condition. I packed poorly when I came up to Tana with KP and didn’t bring enough warm clothes for the month that I’ll be here, and I’m too cheap to go out and buy a sweater when I have a dresser full of them back in Fianar. I’ve got my knitting with me, and could bust out a stocking cap in a day or two, but I’m in the middle of a project for Abinda, and don’t want to risk running out of yarn on a side project. Sadly, even this rant didn’t do much to take the edge off. I guess I’ll just go to bed and dream of Louisville in late August for some warmth.

Señor Dan

2006-06-26T09:32:00.000-04:00

Monsieur Hery & Señor Dan

On a recent Saturday night I made my semi-professional debut as a chef, cooking a three-course, Mexican-themed meal for 20 people. The occasion was a kick-off campaign to raise money--and awareness--for historic preservation efforts in Fianar's Old Town. Our neighbor Karen came up with a novel idea of fundraising: a dinner series, held in Old Town, each dinner a different theme prepared by a different chef. All money raised goes towards paying the salary of Karen's assistant. Hery, the owner of Tsara Guest House, a Fianar boutique hotel, graciously donated the space, dishes, and an employee to help serve and clean up. Señor Dan agreed to cook the first dinner.

Karen and I worked out a menu, which wasn't as easy as you'd think. On the practical side, we were limited by ingredients and spices that were available locally or had been brought from the US; there's no Mexican grocery in Fianar (or anywhere on the island, I'd wager). Then there were social issues that dictated our choices of main courses. We ruled out tacos on the grounds that the French don't like eating with their hands, and tackling a taco would have them way out of their comfort zone. We rejected burritos for the same reason and settled on enchiladas, which, we felt, would not send ambiguous messages about the mode of consumption.

The menu is below, but here's a description of the dishes:

Entrée - Pumpkin Soup with Cornbread (yes, I know cornbread is Tex-Mex, not Mexican)
Creamy puréed pumpkin flavored with cumin, cayenne, and bacon--just the thing to chase off winter's chill.

Main Course - Chicken Enchilada with Refried Beans and Spanish Rice (MED, thanks for the rice recipe!)
Shredded roasted chicken, seasoned with Señor Dan's special spice mix, wrapped in a flour tortilla, and topped with red sauce and cheese and then baked. (Karen had a friend in Tana order tortillas from the US and sent over in the diplomatic pouch. Thank you, US taxpayers.)

Dessert - Drunken Orange Cake & Mexican Coffee or Citronella Tea
A white cake infused with spirited syrup made of sugar, orange and lemon zest, and dark rum. Black coffee, flavored with sugar and cinnamon.

Menu de la dia

I cooked pretty much non-stop the 48 hours before the dinner and missed more than ever our dishwasher from Madison. Stress levels were high; there was a lot of pride and my reputation on the line. But, the work paid off. The food all turned out great and folks raved about it afterwards.

¡Que Bueno y Hasta Luego!

My week in Ft. Dauphin

2006-05-28T10:16:00.000-04:00

I’ve been in Ft. Dauphin (south-east coast) the past week working as a consultant for CARE. It’s been a quick week. This phase of my life seems punctuated by alternating periods of under- and over-employment, where each period quickly fills me with a longing for the period I just left.

Anyway, here are some of the week’s highlights—good, bad, bizarre:

Climbed Pic St. Louis; from that height you can’t see how dilapidated the town is.
Twice, drunks chased me: the first time was scary, the other funny.
Made it out to the countryside; appreciated how friendly people are outside of Fianar.
An unsolicited prostitute knocked on my door at 3:30am, offering bargain-basement rates. (No, I didn’t take her up on her offer.)
During a run, was mistaken for the winner of a 160-kilometer ultramarathon that had begun 16 hours earlier. Did not accept the cash prize; accepted bragging rights.
“Misplaced” 150,000 Dijeridoos somewhere.
KP and I celebrated 5 years of marriage (yeah)—by SMS (boo).

What's your guess?

2006-05-10T13:08:00.000-04:00

Here are some teasers from recent travels around the island. I hope to post something soon on the travels. Enjoy.

"A [Madagascar] Late One"

2006-05-09T13:02:00.000-04:00

Bracing Pep

I’m not entirely sure, but I may have been the first person ever to drink an ALE8 in Madagascar. CC gets a great big HOWDY for sending TWO bottles of Eastern Kentucky Ambrosia our way. (CA and HL get a HOWDY too for transporting said ALES in their luggage from the US to Mg.) One bottle has already been drunk, and I’m going to hide the other in a safe place away from KP, who’s also rather fond of an ALE8 every now and again.

Friend, if you’ve never had the privilege of tasting the glorifying power contained in an ALE8, I urge you to do so now. Like cocaine or heroin, that first taste of ALE8 is powerful, heady stuff—a soul-shaking event that’ll rock your world. And try as you might to relive that first sensation, your search will be in vain; it’s never the same.

The Madagascar ALE8 was evocative of that first sip, which is about as close as you can hope to come. It transported me back 14 years to sophomore year at UK. I was with the Burch and he wanted my first ALE8 to be special, so we drove in his old, red Toyota pickup out to the ALE8 machine, near Grater’s Ice Cream Shoppe. The machine was twice special: it dispensed long-neck bottles of ALE8—the kind of old-fashioned bottles that you paid a deposit on—and, given the right climatic conditions, it served iced ALEs. You won’t know if you’ve got an iced ALE until you crack open the bottle cap and take that first swig. If you’re lucky and conditions are right, after the first pull the temperature equilibrium achieved inside the machine is broken and the liquid undergoes a spontaneous phase change, becoming an instant slushy. My first ALE8 iced, and was pure magic.

So magical was it that afterwards I began to bestow the drink with mystical powers. Nights before chemistry exams I would wrap my class notes around an ALE8 (always a long-neck, of course) and let it sit in the fridge over night so the information might become infused in the liquid. Then, on the way to the exam, I would sip the ALE8 and literally internalize the material. The results were always good, so I took this as a positive sign and looked for other areas of my life where I could apply the powers of ALE8. My convictions were strong. How else can I explain after having my wisdom teeth extracted, and still under the effects of anesthesia, telling the dental assistant that I wouldn’t need any pain medication as long as I had a six-pack of ALE8 waiting for me at home. True story, I swear. Oh, those were the days.

I wasn’t alone in my ALE8 mania (for better or worse). A tight band of brothers formed around the power and lore of ALE8 that year, and we sure had some good times together. We made late-night runs to convenience stores combing their stock of ALEs for vintage deposit bottles from years gone by. We made a pilgrimage to the factory in Winchester to pay homage to the source. We held meetings and initiated fellow believers, and stood in solidarity against the ALE8-haters. One brother even spent a night in jail defending the honor of ALE8 against the haters: Nobody calls ALE8 "Eastern Kentucky Swamp Water” without paying a heavy toll, that’s for damn sure.

Those were good times and good friends. To my ALE brothers wherever you are: To each their own, but to all an ALE8.

South Africa Travels

2006-04-06T14:49:00.000-04:00

Avenue of camphor trees, Stellenbosch

I only drove around the Durban airport once before I found the right intersection that led us out of the airport and on to the highway. Kristen patiently endured the tour, but I could tell she wasn’t in the mood for a second lap, so I think we were both relieved when we were finally under way. Considering we could have missed our connecting flight from Jo’burg because Kristen forgot she had her Swiss-Army knife—the one she’s had since middle school—in her carry-on bag and airport security made us go back and check it through, I knew I had some leeway. Thankfully I didn’t have to burn too much of this valuable capital so soon after earning it.

I counted Kristen not realizing that cars in South Africa drive on the opposite side as we’re accustomed to in Madagascar (and the US) until just before we left Tana a blessing. The rental car, a budget Corsa-LITE, came thoughtfully equipped with a sticker in the upper right-hand corner reminding me to “KEEP LEFT!” This I faithfully did, and also, for at least that first day driving up to Hluhluwe Backpackers Lodge in the Kwa-Zulu Natal, Kristen let me know when I would wander out of my designated lane. All in all, I’m glad the switch over came more quickly this go-round than the last time I was driving in South Africa, twelve years ago.

For years Kristen has been fond of saying occasionally, “I want you to show me South Africa.” Somehow she was convinced that the six-months I spent there so many years ago made me uniquely qualified to fulfill such a request. Two weeks is hardly any time to spend in South Africa, you’ll barely scratch the surface; so as a compromise, we agreed to squeeze in a bit of the old (Sodwana Bay and Cape Town) with some new (St Lucia, Hluhluwe Game Reserve, and the Drakensberg Mountains).

I think even as early as landing in Jo’burg, I felt my memory begin to betray me. Granted South Africa has boomed since I left in 1994, but even so, I think there’s more to this feeling. I believe I was a very young and hedonistic 19 years old when I first set foot in South Africa and never got curious beyond whatever was happening immediately around me. Much of my memories are suspect and lacking in detail, and now that makes me a bit sad. I like to think I’m more clued in these days, so, in some ways I was seeing everything as fresh, and with as much awe, as Kristen.

We spent the first part of the trip in the Kwa-Zulu Natal region of the north-east. From Hluhluwe we organized trips into the Greater St. Lucia Wetlands, which is designated as a World Heritage site, and contains a Living Lake in Lake St. Lucia. Our rangers were two Afrikaner brothers, who were fun. Like most of the Afrikaner folks we encountered, these guys were BIG and they ate (and talked about eating) a lot of MEAT. They recommended a restaurant in Jo’burg called The Carnivore, and to hear them talk about it this must their idea of paradise.

The older brother had spent 6 months in the US a few years back playing rugby and killing turkeys in South Dakota. Apparently a group of 15 South African boys went over en masse and spent their time playing exhibition matches with different College or club teams on the weekends. Then during the week, they’d return to South Dakota and the turkeys. He estimated proudly that he’d killed on order of 1.6 million turkeys during his tenure at the processing plant.

From Hluhluwe, we made our way farther north towards Sodwana Bay, but not before taking a game drive through Hluhluwe’s eponymous park. We didn’t see all of the Big Five, but Kristen’s bright eyes led us to see 3 out of 5: rhino, Cape buffalo, and elephant. We’ll have to go back and look for lions and leopards another time. Kristen was particularly taken with the impala, which were plentiful and lively.

Here are some pics from:

1) Champagne Castle in the Drakensberg Mts.

San rock painting

Champagne Peak

Walking in the Bergs

Champagne Castle Hotel

2) Hluhluwe and St. Lucia Wetlands

Hungry hippos

Hluhluwe giraffe

3) Cape Town

Prisoners on Robben Island

Ships in Cape Town

Jackass penguins

KP and Me at Cape Point

One thing we found amusing about South Africans was their rigid sense of order. They seem to be very particular about how most things get done. At one place in the Drakensberg Mts. if you’re going on an organized group hike you need to be present at exactly 9:15 am and you will hike for exactly 5 hours with a 20-minute break for lunch and be back at the parking lot at exactly 2:35 pm. In our hotel rooms signs posted in the bathroom reminded us that we were not to fiddle with the settings for the water heater and that the candle and matches were not to be taken outside of the room. I think the coup de grâce came at the cinema in Cape Town: after purchasing our tickets we were asked to choose our seats. This we found totally hilarious and completely over the top.

When we were planning our trip, we left Cape Town for the end, as a kind of treat, and it didn’t disappoint. Cape Town must be unique among cities, framed by two very different oceans and tall, spectacular mountain peaks. Add to this the ability to shop at malls, eat at fancy restaurants, and take in movies, and you have all the elements for having a very good time. And that is exactly what we had during our four days at Cape Town.

Our time wouldn’t have been half as nice had we not met up with Bertha, a friend from my first trip to South Africa. Bertha is one of those people with boundless amounts of energy and generosity. She opened her home to me and Hewett for more than a month and made sure we did everything we wanted. This time around was no different. With little advanced planning, she cleared a weekend and drove Kristen and me around the Cape. She crammed into one morning and afternoon a weekend’s worth of sight-seeing. We blitzed Kirstenbosch botanical gardens and saw, among other things, the avenue of camphor trees planted by Cecil Rhodes for the Queen of England. At a small fishing village en route to Cape Point we ate the most divine fish and chips. The fish was so fresh that it must have been swimming around, happy as Larry, earlier that morning before becoming our lunch. We made a quick stop and saw penguins swimming in the ocean and socializing on the beach. Cape Point, the southern-most point (well, not technically the most southern point, but effectively so), was fogged in, cutting down visibility dramatically, but we still got our pictures taken at the sign, for posterity. And if that weren’t enough, we caught the last gondola up to Table Mountain before the sun set. All the while Bertha kept a running commentary on the history of the area and sharing with us her opinions about what the new South Africa is and where it’s going. And, at the end, Bertha drove us to the airport to catch our flight back to Jo’burg. I told her I hope it’s not another twelve years before we see one another again; she’s a gem.

In Jo’burg, we spent a really bad night at an airport hotel. The food was revolting and until around 10 o’clock it sounded like a plane was taking off or landing in the parking lot about every 20 minutes. I suppose it was a small price to pay for having an otherwise good vacation.

Corridor Crayfish--The Other White Meat

2006-04-05T14:29:00.000-04:00

These little beauties were a tasty addition to the Javanese peanut dish we make occasionally. I expected to have some latent revulsion to handling the animals after all the exposure from Zoology 102 dissections, but I guess I’m made of stronger stuff. The scuttlebutt on crayfish here in Fianar is that they are good indirect indicators of forest corridor health: The more crayfish coming to market, the healthier the forest. I’m sure I was sufficiently ripped-off at the market today buying these (although, I’m not sure how angry I can be; I still only paid the equivalent to 50 cents per pound) to keep the incentive for protecting the watershed up. What a small price to pay.

Eyes of the forest

2006-03-09T14:35:00.001-05:00

Just the three of us...

Waves reflected sunlight off mirrored tips and back into our faces as the boat made steady progress across the small stretch of Indian Ocean separating the island of Nosy Mangabe and the Masoala peninsula. Masoala, Malgache for “eyes of the forest,” in Madagascar’s northeast is where tropical forest abruptly meets ocean in an awesome display—and array—of flora and fauna found nowhere else on the great island. Kristen, Jared and I were in search for as much of this diversity as could be fit into a four-day stay on the peninsula, and Bidas, our guide, was keen on helping us meet this objective. The reflected sunlight, the constant whine from the boat’s engines, and the rocking action of the waves lulled us into a somnolent state, and we looked through squinted eyes as the peninsula neared.

We had already spent one day and night on Nosy Mangabeand saw almost all that the island has to offer by way of celebrity fauna. We spotted leaf-tailed geckos (thanks to Kristen’s bright eyes), malachite kingfishers, and a miniscule member of the chameleon family, a Burcesia, that measured less than an inch long. We failed, however, to observe the island’s most elusive superstar, the aye-aye. Aye-ayes are possibly the most freakish member of the lemur family: a Frankenstein’s lemur with bat ears, rodent teeth, and a long skeletal middle-finger tipped with a talon that it uses to skewer tree-dwelling insects and to open seed pods. One population of the species was relocated to the island in the 1970s by the government of Madagascar in an attempt to avoid extinction. Thanks to conservation efforts over the last thirty years, small populations of aye-ayes can be found elsewhere on the main island, however, Nosy Mangabe still tops the list for aye-aye density.

Burcesia chameleon

After landing and getting installed in our bungalows, we settled into a comfortable and predictable pattern of eating, hiking, eating, snorkeling, playing UNO, eating, and chilling out. One evening before supper we walked to a nearby community to watch a dance performance. A group of about 12 women and one man sat waiting for us. The man began to beat an empty plastic 20 liter water jug with a stick and some of the women had crude percussion instruments to accompany his playing. Then the man led the women in some call-response style songs. When we arrived we noticed a length of a wooden plank laid out in front of the seated women. Soon it became clear what its purpose was in performance. As the singing gained momentum, pairs of women stood up took turns dancing and stomping atop the wooden plank, using their feet to punctuate the beat of the music.

The highlight of the dance for me came from an unexpected performance of the Chicken Lady. During one number an old woman came cruising past the dancers carrying a chicken in one hand and a machete in the other, seemingly en route to her home. However, in passing the group, the Chicken Lady stopped and put her point on the floor—along with said chicken and machete—and stole some of the spotlight from the two women dancing on the plank.

Every day we hiked with Bidas to a new part of the peninsula, and the peninsula never disappointed. In addition to wonderful animals like the red-ruffed lemurs and the Technicolor panther chameleons, we also saw some amazing plants. Epiphytic orchids tucked themselves into nooks and crannies, and we saw huge Palisandra and Rosewood trees with giant buttresses supporting massive boles. At every turn we were surprised and delighted at the innovativeness with which the peninsula residents have shown to adapt so well to their environment. Several animals, particularly insects, have mastered the art of camouflage and stealth, adding to the simultaneous frustration and delight of us would-be seekers.

Panther Chameleon

Our stay on the island was cut unexpectedly short. On Christmas Eve night, Bidas stopped by our bungalow seeking first aid for our boat captain, who, he said, had a cut hand. We asked that the captain be brought by, and when we saw him realized from the crude, bloody dressing that we might have a problem. Removing the dressing revealed a gash on the back of his hand, and upon its closer inspection, Doctors Pappas and Patterson (K) diagnosed a severed vessel, most likely a vein since bleeding had already mostly stopped. With nurse Patterson (D) assisting, the good doctors cleaned and bandaged the hand. Afterwards we decided to return to Maroansetra the next day, a day earlier than scheduled, so the captain could go by a clinic for proper treatment.

Back on board the boat, retracing our path from a few days before, the inevitable reality began to descend on us that our time in paradise was nearly up. The peninsula shrank from view and the eyes of the forest watched us go.

Sunset on Masoala

Recovery for Niger

2006-02-08T03:02:00.000-05:00

Can you hear him now?

In Niger, periods of drought and food shortages unfortunately are not uncommon and often people will ascribe a period of hardship a name. In the village of Doundayé people are calling the 2004/05 crisis “Seloula” or “Cellular.” Goshi Naruwa, an elderly woman, explained that Seloula is an analogy to cell-phone coverage. She jokingly said, “Seloula: ta shafi kowa,” meaning that it covered (affected) everyone. Another variation on the theme was: “Seloula: ta soulali kowa,” it shriveled everyone (like a steamed vegetable). Although said in jest, sadly, the images of Niger shown to the world last year back up the truths behind these statements.

The images shown by the media led to a large-scale relief mission undertaken by the Government of Niger and the United Nation’s World Food Programme. By the end of the operation in mid-October, CARE--one of many NGOs implicated in the relief effort--had distributed over 20,000 tons to almost 2 million people in Niger.

The acute crisis is over, harvests are in and households once again have food to eat; yet, those left weakened by the crisis continue to feel its aftershocks. CARE distributed food at the height of the crisis and now is helping, post-crisis, communities recover and prepare for the future. In the Tahoua and Zinder regions, CARE, is working to rehabilitate moderately malnourished children under the age of five.

In places like Niger, where household food security is tenuous, caloric and nutrient intake waxes and wanes throughout the year. Children are particularly sensitive to these kinds of fluctuations and predictably move through stages of declining nutrition when adequate calories and/or nutrients are not available—from mild to moderate malnutrition and eventually severe malnutrition. Once severely malnourished, a child risks suffering permanent developmental retardation, and ultimately death. Thankfully, if detected and treated early enough, almost all children can regain the weight and health from periods of malnutrition.

Doundayé, a medium-sized village an hour’s drive west of Konni, is participating in the nutritional rehabilitation project. An initial nutritional screening of the village’s 450 households identified 116 moderately malnourished children under the age of five. These children became the project’s first cohort. Under the project design, mothers of this cohort will receive a monthly ration of food—comprised of millet, cowpeas, and oil—with which to prepare three daily meals for their malnourished child (or children). To ensure that the child receives the full portion, the family also receives an accompanying food ration to supplement the household’s food supply. At the end of every month, the children are re-examined and their progress evaluated (i.e., weight gain or loss and increased or decreased brachial radial measurements). If a child receives two successive “healthy” assessments from the exams, he graduates from the program.

Doundayé's Exemplary Mothers

The project’s success hinges upon the identification and involvement of local Exemplary Mothers (mamans lumières). Who and what are Exemplary Mothers? At the same time that CARE agents identified the cohort of malnourished children, they also identified children that were especially hale and hearty. The mothers of these children were recognized as being “exemplary” in the way they cared for their children and managed their households. As such, they and were recruited to take an active role in the nutritional rehabilitation project. Each Exemplary Mother (EM) is responsible for teaching a group of 15 cohort mothers how to properly prepare the feeding recipes, which have been specially formulated to deliver the appropriate quantity of calories and grams of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats to the malnourished child.

Through this these interactions, it is hoped that an EM will not only transfer the knowledge of how to prepare recipes, but also will assist in behavior modifications that result in better hygiene and an overall improvement in health status. The changes are small, but crucial, such as using clean water to prepare food and keeping children and living areas clean. Amazingly, an EM receives no payment for her involvement in the project, apart from the use of empty oil containers, which they use to carry and store water.

In Doundayé, CARE has identified about a dozen women who meet the requirements to be chosen as Exemplary Mothers. The interesting thing about these women—as well as the women who have malnourished children—is they are a diverse group that resists classification. They are diverse with regard to ethnicity, age and economic standing.

16 years old, mother of one, already an EM

However, in speaking to women from both groups, and by visiting them in their homes, some telling similarities among the groups begin to emerge. Nana, mother to malnourished Ibro, aged 2, embodies many of the traits found across other mothers in her group. Appearance wise, both she and her child are clothed in dirty outfits and flies cover Ibro’s mouth, nose and eyes. Shy and demure, she avoids eye contact and expresses her ideas and thoughts with difficulty. When asked how Ibro became malnourished, Nana recalls that three months ago Ibro suffered from a fever, diarrhea, and was vomiting. She admits that initially she hesitated to take her sick child to the health center, three kilometers away, for treatment. Eventually, she took Ibro there for treatment and in the end she had to make three trips to the health center to buy medicine and receive consultations. The episode left Ibro weak and earned him a spot in the nutritional recovery program. Already, his health is improved, but he is still not totally recovered to his pre-illness health, and he will likely re-enroll in the program after the next monthly examination.

In stark contrast to this portrait, at the other end of the spectrum is Kuluwa, an EM with 5 children, the youngest being 22 months. She has a confident air about her and there is a peacefulness that radiates from her well-kempt home. She can explain 4 ways of being a good mother in Niger. First, she makes sure that her children eat well and that the food itself is high quality. Next, when her kids do get sick, she prevents the sickness from becoming too serious by visiting the nearest health center, 3 kilometers away. Third, Kuluwa stresses that washing and cleanliness are very important. She says sincerely, “You just don’t feel well if you are dirty or are wearing something that is dirty.” And finally, whenever she becomes pregnant, she makes sure to get pre-natal consultations from the health center. In a place like Niger, simple behaviors such as these can save children from diseases like diarrhea and malaria—not to mention the consequences of malnutrition.

The benefits from these behaviors seem obvious, but clearly not everyone shares Kuluwa’s values. How did Kuluwa learn these values? She recalls that health workers came to Doundayé and talked about the importance of going to the health center when kids are sick. Her grandmother, she says, taught her the value of preparing good, healthy food. And, her husband plays a role too. He is a willing ally in the struggle to keep their children healthy who buys nutritious food from the market for his family and pays for their children to go to the health center when they are sick, or for his wife to receive pre-natal consultations.Evidence shows that these values are passed on from one generation to the next. Just as Kuluwa learned the importance of nutrition from her grandmother, Jaimila, Kuluwa’s eldest daughter, appears to have learned a lot from her mother. When CARE began the nutritional screening, Jaimila had her two children tested and both were found to be in good health.

Aicha Shefou, a CARE field agent that works in Doundayé, reports that the nutritional recovery project is working. She stressed that at this early stage in the project, the main focus is to see progress with the kids. Then, in the coming months, the behavior modification aspect of the project and will begin to scale up its activities. Aicha said that during this phase, the project will begin making a stronger connection between overall health and personal hygiene and in doing so help mothers avoid the pitfalls that led their children to malnourished in the first place last year. She hopes the nutritional recovery project will be a vehicle to help transfer these values and help mothers like Nana become more like Kuluwa.

A real handfull!

*************************************************************************************************************

This piece was produced for CARE Niger in November 2005. Some of the language regarding background information on the program and effects of malnutrition came from a CARE Niger funding proposal.

Back to the beat

2006-01-19T02:34:00.000-05:00

From my last Niger field visit

I last wrote about leaving Diffa, something I managed to successfully do—even after looking at (and, gasp, filming) the horse. My last month in Niger was a blur of activity, right up until the moment of boarding the plane to Paris. I scored a side-contract with the Peace Corps to facilitate a close of service conference for a group of volunteers at Park W. The sessions went well and were fun, and the volunteers seemed to really appreciate my experiences and perspective. I didn’t tell them that if they end up being like me that 8 years from now they’ll be hard-pressed to remember anything they heard during the conference. The safaris failed to produce sightings of any sexy mega-fauna; in November animals can still find plenty of water off the beaten paths. We partied hard with some Gourmanché dancers, who after getting hepped up on the local millet-beer brew-choukou-shook their groove-thang until midnight. The dancers weren’t the only ones to partake of an adult beverage: Here’s a shot of me and some drunken hotel staff.

Everybody's feeling just fine!

After the conference, I put back on my CARE hat and headed back out into the field for one last campaign. This time I was going back to my old stomping grounds, Konni, (west side, ah-yeah!) to visit a village where a CARE project is working to help prevent moderately malnourished kids from becoming severely malnourished. The visit was positive and I think I’ll post my human-interest story later that describes what I saw. Thankfully, I had enough time in Konni to travel out to Kristen’s old Peace Corps village and greet the folks there. And, by some fluke of topography and technology, there is one spot on the outskirts of town by a big Neem tree where you can get cell coverage. So one night, with a small group of Kristen’s old buddies, we placed a call to Madagascar, and visited with Kristen. Once back in Niamey, there was no shortage of things to do, which kept me busy right up until the end.

Also on the plane with me were other foreigners who were returning to the west after having helped with the crisis in some way. Unintentionally eavesdropping on conversations, I listened as some tried to process the experience of being in Niger and of living and working with Nigeriens. They struggled to articulate their feelings about how their experience had done more to change them than to impart any lasting influence on the Nigerien population. I smiled inwardly, as I listened to a familiar debate and mused over the power that Niger seems to hold over its visitors.

I returned to Madagascar almost exactly three months after having left. And, after a month-long period over the holidays traveling about, I’m back where I started. At first it was difficult going from a charged environment, full of pressure and deadlines to one without, but I’m back in the swing of things and the cadence, in absence of anything else, suits me fine.

I’m trying to implement a New Year’s resolution to be a better blogger, although with one month already burned in 2006, things aren’t looking so good...

Thanks to all who made frequent visits to the blog and who sent words of encouragement. It meant a lot. Stay tuned for more posts.

Taxi rides in Tana

2005-11-05T01:39:00.000-05:00

Another guest post from KP

Taxi rides in Tana are, more often than not, an adventure. Tana (the thankfully shortened moniker for Antananarivo – “The City of a Thousand”, Madagascar’s capital) is a hilly city. Think: San Francisco, without bay views (or earthquakes). After their conquest of the city in 1895, the French invested no small amount of money in the capital in their effort to turn it into a city akin to what one might find in southern France. I’m not sure that they were successful. Furthermore, I doubt that the cobblestone streets in the Old Town have been replaced since 1895, which contribute to the reckless abandon with which taxi drivers hasten to navigate their 1960 era Peugots (full of holes themselves) around the gaps of missing cobblestones and bumps of upended cobblestones. Descending from the Old Town, the streets become paved, enabling the taxis to augment their speed, but the passages remain narrow and curvy, causing passengers to reach for oh shit handles which don’t exist. As one enters the sprawling ‘suburbs’, the streets become roads more recognizable to those of us who grew up in places with well-run Departments of Transportation: lines separating the lanes, designated turn lanes, and roundabouts labeled with clear signs. Despite this sense of order, taxi drivers don’t feel obliged to remain in their lanes, crossing over into the oncoming traffic lane at will to pass slower vehicles (paying no heed to looming oncoming traffic).

In Fianar, my daily commute to work is a four minute walk. Commutes in Tana are a stark contrast, and when I visit Tana, my morning routine becomes a race against the clock when I suddenly remember at 7:00 that I need to allow at least 30 to 60 minutes for the commute to get to my first meeting. Traffic jams seem worse than those in the US, as catalytic converters and environmental air pollution laws are unknown in Madagascar; numerous vehicles spew trails of dark smoke.

Two weeks ago when I was in Tana, I had an especially fun taxi ride. I had an appointment downtown at 2:30, and as I was staying in the burbs with an expatriate friend, I left the house to walk up to the main road to catch a taxi around 1:30. It was Saturday, so I hoped there wouldn’t be too much traffic. I am at the point in Malagasy where I can hail a taxi and tell the driver where I need to go (and that’s about it). I don’t know what I said, but the taxi man thought that I spoke fluent Malagasy. He proceeded to converse with me throughout the ride. Every few minutes, I’d recognize a smidgen of what he was talking about, enough to throw in an appropriate word, and he kept on chatting. He wasn’t convinced of my lack of language skills, even when I would say things in French and explained that I really don’t speak Malagasy.

One feature of taxi rides in Tana is coasting. It’s an art form, really. As we pulled out, I felt like we were going a little too fast – till I realized it was because we were approaching a hill down which the driver intended to coast at top speed. We picked up enough momentum that we were able to pass another taxi as we barreled down the hill. One disconcerting feature of this taxi was that the driver had to wrench the steering wheel to the left immediately before shifting. We stopped at a gas station along the way, and he grabbed a 1 liter plastic water bottle out of the front seat, and filled it with gas. I assumed he would then fill up some other plastic container under the hood– proper gas tanks aren’t deemed a necessity for taxis around here – instead, he replaced the bottle full of fuel on a shelf under the glove compartment, carefully positioning it so it wouldn’t spill, and we drove the rest of the way with our extra gasoline inside the car.

I tend not to favor unsafe conditions which are out of my control, and more often than not taxi rides in Tana certainly fall into that category. For some reason, though, these taxi rides almost always put me in a pleasant mood. The unexpected moments bring a smile, and make up for the long commute.

Parting thoughts on Diffa

2005-11-02T09:54:00.000-05:00

Kountché era slogans

Today I saw a goat wearing a tomato paste can as a shoe. Except for some difficulty traversing the road, he seemed untroubled by his new footwear. Niger never stops delighting my sense of humor.

The big news is that the month of Ramadan officially ended yesterday. Every year brings a huge debate over the starting and ending dates of the month, because some locales claim to see the moon earlier or later than others. Last night there was added tension in Diffa where an unusual cloudy evening obscured all celestial bodies, making the radio and television the go-to source for confirming the month’s end. I woke up this morning at my usual time, asked the guardian if today was the fête, he said yes, so I went back to sleep until 11. I think I’ve had some pent up exhaustion from the past two months and was grateful for the rest. Walking to the office, even at the noon hour, there were gangs of people in the street dressed in new outfits and making merry, clearly very happy that another year of Ramadan has ended.

The houseflies in Diffa have started taking a greater interest in my morning commutes lately. At first I wondered if I had neglected some crucial step in my morning personal hygiene routine. A mental audit, however, came back negative on that front and a quick sniff of the pits confirmed that I didn’t carry the scent of carrion on my person. I’ve concluded that the hitchhiking flies were a harbinger of the approaching cold season. This assessment seemed strengthened by the presence of dust-filled skies, another horseman of the harmmatan. Only the mornings are hazy, the sun still has enough strength to burn through the dust to make daytime temperatures sufficiently hot and miserable. Soon, the wind will suspend enough dust—and black plastic bags—to render the sky a reasonable proxy of a nuclear winter. The lower temperatures will provoke complaints from the average Abdou, and second-hand ski parkas will become this season’s “must have” fashion item. But, by the time this happens I will have left Diffa, and its houseflies, behind.

I feel a bit conflicted about leaving Diffa. I didn’t anticipate spending as much time in this corner of Niger as I have, and it’s been a mixed bag. The hardest part has been dietary. There are few restaurants here, and during Ramadan the only restaurant I had found stopped serving food halfway through the month. I’ve lived off corn flakes, sardines and fried bean cakes for the past three weeks. I only had one cartoon-like moment where a person talking to me stopped being a person and was transformed into a giant talking piece of fruit. All in all, that seems pretty good to me.

What I’ve found is that Diffa seems largely anachronistic. If Mark Twain had lived in Niger, he might have chosen Diffa as the place to live should the world have ended instead of Kentucky. I can imagine that this unchanging characteristic is a source of comfort for some and discomfort for others, particularly the youth. Aside from the presence of cell phones and a zillion motorcycles, I don’t imagine that Diffa has substantially changed in twenty years. It is the only place I’ve been in Niger that still has Kountché-era billboards on display, which are largely propagandistic and military in tone. In essence, they all portray “development” as a fight that can only be won with a secure state and a cooperative (i.e., compliant) populace. What was true then for Diffa, I think, is still true today. Being so remote, Diffa has cultivated a strong sense of independence and is viewed cautiously from Niamey as a place with the potential to incubate political unrest.

Upon entering Diffa from the west, you pass under an archway with a statue of solider on horseback atop the arch. Local lore has it that if you look at the horse as you are leaving town then you will return to Diffa another day. People at the office have been teasing me that each time I leave Diffa I look at the horse and that’s what keeps bringing me back. This time I’m not taking any chances—I’m going to be blindfolded. Maybe I’m not as conflicted as I think.

Kristen explains her fellowship

2005-11-01T11:14:00.000-05:00

Here's guest post from Kristen about her fellowship in Madagascar

The four stars stand for: Nature, Health, Wealth, and Power

Kristen serves as a population, health, and environment advisor for SantéNet, a USAID funded comprehensive health project, in their Fianarantsoa regional office. Kristen has participated actively in the conceptualization and launch of Kominina Mendrika (Champion Commune), a commune level mobilization and demand creation approach to achieve health, environment, economic development, and good governance goals.

She is charged with contributing to the organizational development of three Malagasy NGOs which are implementing partners for Kominina Mendrika (KM). The NGOs are members of Voahary Salama, a Malagasy association dedicated to integrating health, population, and environment. Kristen collaborated with the Ecoregional Initiatives (ERI) project and the NGOs to develop complementary environment activities (funded by ERI) in six communes where the NGOs are concurrently implementing the health component of KM (funded by SantéNet).

Kristen is coalescing partners for water, sanitation, and hygiene initiatives in the Ranomafana – Andringitra forest corridor. She will also document a history of PHE initiatives in Fianarantsoa from 1990 to the present.

Cereal Treats

2005-10-30T12:05:00.000-05:00

About a 5 on the Moh's scale

After spending two years in Niger during the Peace Corps I am accustomed to finding rocks in my food. If you want to avoid visiting a Nigerien dentist, it doesn’t take long for you to develop a “soft mouth” (to borrow a hunting concept) when approaching a potential meal. You also unconsciously begin classifying food into three groups with regard to rock content: definitely has some, might have some, does not have any. Finding “rocks” in my corn flakes—generally a might-have-some product—this morning, however, is just about beyond my limit. I guess the NASCO cereal plant in Nigeria has a few kinks in its processing system that is responsible for producing these corn nuggets.

It reminds me a little of what a friend once said after finding hairs (note, plural) in a meal at a restaurant—One hair is an accident; more than that, an ingredient.

Eaststate Office Boyz

2005-10-29T13:15:00.000-04:00

Hangin’ with ma comptrolla boyz

This is my Diffa crew, Karouna (l) and Ali (r). At some point I realized I had become a humanitarian bean counter, tracking down the whereabouts and details of the food distribution, and felt that I had become a little like my favorite guest columnist at The Onion, Herbert Kornfeld. Word is bond.

A Food Distribution in Bosso

2005-10-20T12:41:00.000-04:00

Like many places in Niger, the road to Bosso is not an easy one. Located 100 kilometers east of Diffa, the last sixty kilometers is off the main paved road and is a maze of braided tire tracks that crisscross over what was once, in ancient times, the lakebed of Lake Chad. The water from Lake Chad has long since retreated and what is left is just a vast expanse of flat, open space.

An abundance of Acacia trees and short species of golden grasses fill this openness and explain why this area is classified a pastoral zone. Rain-fed agriculture in this region is small in scale, and largely folly. Yet, so attached to millet is the Nigerien psyche, farmers still continue to plant small fields to the crop, hoping to have an above-average year of precipitation. Such gambles rarely pay out, and most households end up buying millet (or other cereals) from the market. Playing to this area’s strengths, most people here earn at least some portion of their living from livestock, which is ubiquitous.

A hardscrabble existence is the norm for most Nigeriens. Subsistence farming—a mix of agriculture and animal husbandry—is what most people do for a living. But, an increasing population and decreasing soil productivity threaten this way of life. Climate also plays a role where inadequate and poorly distributed rainfall routinely threaten harvests throughout the country, and some places—notably in the regions of Maradi, Zinder, and Diffa—face severe food shortages and drought every year. And, even in years when the rains are good and crop yields are average, a recent report showed that the most vulnerable—read poorest—households are only able to grow enough food to meet their cereal needs for just six months out of a year.

Last year, poor rains and a locust invasion left both crops and pasture in poor shape and, as a result, rendered many households vulnerable to food shortages. After last year’s disappointing harvest, estimates from the government came out showing that 2.7 million people, in 4000 communities—one-quarter of Niger’s total population—would be affected by a food shortage in coming year. Bosso, and several of the surrounding villages, were identified as being vulnerable, and were selected to receive food aid from the World Food Programme (WFP). CARE took responsibility for distributions in this region and dispatched teams to Bosso and the other villages in early October to await the delivery of rations from the WFP.

So, it was on a recent Friday morning in Bosso that the town criers began circulating at 3:30 am, their shouts and drumming rousing the villagers and CARE distribution team from sleep. During Ramadan, the holy month of fasting for Muslims, the criers—whose job it is to wake people to remind them to eat and drink before the sun rises and another day of thirst and hunger begins—make owning an alarm clock pointless. Once awake, the team members sluggishly left their mosquito nets, ate their morning meal, exchanged a few quiet words among themselves, and then slipped back into their beds to get a couple more hours of sleep before a long day of food distributions was set to begin.

Later, after the sun was above the horizon, the team woke up for a second time and walked down to the warehouse where the WFP food rations were stored and where they would set up a staging area for the actual distribution. An unexpected surprise awaited the team at the warehouse: four WFP trucks, filled with sacs of maize and beans, had arrived during the night and were waiting to be unloaded. Once offloaded, this food would be sent to nearby distribution centers, where other CARE teams would be waiting for the arrival of these rations to begin their own distributions.

Thursday, the day before, the team had visited the villages of Yebi and Boulountoungou to inform the residents that their time to receive food had arrived and to show up at Bosso the next morning. Now, only 7:30 am, villagers were already arriving and staking claim to the few shady sitting spots; as is the norm, men and women sat separately under different trees. And, every thirty minutes or so, those sitting at the shade’s edge would silently rise and move deeper into the shade, like human sundials.

Everyone was patient, but visibly eager, as the distribution team readied themselves. Strong men, drenched in sweat, hauled 50 kg sacs of beans and maize from the warehouse and made neat stacks near the entrance: five for beans, ten for maize. Small children, filled with curiosity and mischief couldn’t resist climbing on the stacks. An adult noticed the horseplay and shooed them away. Quickly forgotten, the kids, masters of stealth, resumed their game until the next reprimand. This drama between the kids and adults replayed again and again until the distributions finally started.

Yaka, a young Kanouri woman from Boulountoungou, sat under a large shade tree with the other women waiting for her name to be called so she could collect her family’s food ration. Like many Nigeriens, she planted millet during the rainy season, but the yield, she said, would only last two months. Still, compared to some of her neighbors, she considers herself fortunate. Even so, she is thankful that the Niger government, WFP and CARE have intervened during this year of hunger. A single mother with six children in her charge, Yaka was eager to receive the 100 kg of maize and 15 kg of beans allotted to her. With the rations, she said that in a day she would prepare two tias (a local measure, weighing approximately 2 kilograms) of maize and one of beans. If she sticks to this plan, the beans will last a week; the maize, 5 weeks. She tries, with difficulty, to think beyond these 5 weeks and wonders what she will do once her allotment runs out.

The queue of people moved slowly through the distribution station. Each person waited in line holding a numbered piece of paper. In addition to the number were notes on each slip indicating the size of ration each person was to receive. First, a CARE team member verified the identity of each person and made an impression of their fingerprint. Next, another team member read on the numbered piece of paper how many tias of beans to issue. Then, one of the strong men carried out the appropriate number of sacs of maize. And so it went with the next person in line. The process was incredibly slow, but despite the wait (and the heat), people were patient.

By mid-day, the team finished distributing food to the Yebi residents. The team looked hot and tired, and ready for a well-deserved rest. Meanwhile, under a blistering sun, people labeled their sacs of maize and made arrangements for transport back to Yebi. Some had come with donkeys or camels to bring back the rations. Others paid 200 naira (US$1.40) apiece to have their allotment transported by a vintage Toyota Land Cruiser pickup. Two men loaded their sacs onto motorcycles, lashed them down with rope, and then rode off looking dangerously unstable. And a few others carried small bags of beans atop their heads and struck off on foot.

Yaka, and the others from Boulountoungou, waited until the afternoon to receive their rations. The distribution process was identical to that of the morning, and finally, the team called her number. After she had collected her share, she watched as it was loaded into the back of a hired truck that would deliver the food to the village. It had been a long day, and it would be dark by the time she returned home. Despite the late hour, she probably prepared some of the food. It would have been a long time since she could eat until she was full, and the call of the criers always comes too soon during Ramadan.

Yaka’s story is not unusual for Niger; there are families like hers all across the country. It is almost certain, given the environmental, climatic, and demographic risk factors, that Niger will again face more food shortages in the future. Less certain is if these shortages will be localized or more extensive, affecting a greater proportion of the population. At least now, thanks to the food provided by WFP and distributed by CARE, Yaka, and households like hers, will have one less thing to worry about, even if it is for just 5 weeks.

Donkey Boys of Diffa

2005-10-12T13:04:00.000-04:00

Since August CARE Niger has been in the middle of a whirlwind of activity distributing food aid from the WFP to hungry communities in the regions of Tahoua, Maradi and Diffa. The scale of the operation is enormous and has consumed nearly all of the resources, time and energy of CARE’s dedicated workforce. The hard work and sacrifice will have been worth the result: by the end of the operation, set for October 10, CARE will have distributed over 16,000 tons of food to 900,000 people in Niger. In a place where just-in-time delivery is still a fantasy, this accomplishment—in only 8 weeks—is nothing short of miraculous.

That the food even made it to the communities is equally miraculous. A sac of maize grown in Iowa and consumed in N’Guigmi, Niger has come a long way. And nearly every imaginable mode of transportation has been used to move the sac along its journey. But there is one mode of transportation that stands out from the others as unique and noteworthy. When the trucks discharge their food in the communities, the most critical distance—from distribution point to household—is often serviced by the poor man’s SUV, the lowly donkey.

In Niger you cannot talk of donkeys and not mention the young boys that tend them, for they go hand in hand. What can you say about a boy and his donkey? I won’t suggest that the bond is on par with that seen between Timmy and Lassie, but there is something special there. And, years from now, 2005 will likely stand out in the minds of many Nigerien boys as the year that CARE International brought their community food, and as the year they made bank—thanks to their trusty steed.

The distributions have had an unintended—and positive—economic impact in the small and often neglected demographic of prepubescent entrepreneur. If, at each stage of transportation, someone has received payment for rendered services associated with the food rations, why should the donkey boys be any different?

What kind of economic impact has the donkey transport business had in Niger? Let’s do some hypothesizing using Diffa as an example. In Diffa, the going rate for transporting a 50 kg bag of cereal is 40 Naira (approximately 30 cents). CARE will distribute 3,000 tons of cereal in this region. If donkeys deliver 1,000 tons (20,000 sacs) from distribution center to household, they would generate an income of US $6,000 for their owners. In a place where the GNP is only US $170, this is serious cash.

In the process, not only do these boys earn some pocket money, they also learn some important business lessons. First-mover advantage is applicable here. Those boys who showed up first with their donkeys had a captive market and could reap the lion’s share of any profits. But they then learned that first-mover advantage dissipates quickly in the face of competition. They learn about barriers to entry, which, for donkey transport, are fairly low: If you have a donkey, you can play. And, when distributions finally come to an end, they will need to learn the cruel lesson of what happens when supply outstrips demand.

The donkey also gets an education in economics from this experience. It learns that if trickle down economics can’t work in the United States that it won’t work in Niger either. For all its hard work, the donkey probably didn’t receive any improved rations. Even Lassie would have earned a choice bone if she had earned Timmy a quick 20 bucks.

Nigerian Truck Art

2005-10-04T15:19:00.000-04:00

Why 56 km/h?

I saw this truck in N’Guigmi last week and couldn't resist taking its picture. Truck art is fairly common here and Nigeria, the port of call for this truck, produces some top-notch painters in this genre. It’s surely symbolic on some level, but the meanings are lost on me.

Forget the unlikelihood of ever seeing a scene such as this acted out in nature and take in the aesthetics. Appreciate the artist’s use of colors. Marvel at the level of detail, like the rivulets of blood coming from the crocodile’s leg and head, where the lion has dug in its claws and teeth. And, while I can understand the artist’s desire to be anatomically correct, did he really need to add scrotums to the lion and ram? Come on, doesn't it seem a bit unnecessary?

The CLOS-O-MAT

2005-09-30T14:08:00.000-04:00

What will the Swiss think of next?

File this under "Random Things You Find In Africa." This gem is in the Diffa CARE office. How or when it got here is beyond me. I should see if I can order one for our place back in Madagascar.

Driving Mr. Dan

2005-09-23T15:11:00.000-04:00

I’ve spent a lot of time sitting behind computers and riding in cars these last three weeks. It’s hard for me to find inspiring and interesting material about computers, as nowadays this is SOP for most of us; and despite the wonders of the web and other technical advances, everything with computers is still a bunch of ones and zeros. You might think being a passenger in a car is as humdrum as working in front of a computer. But this is not so. Traversing the eastern reaches of Niger as a passenger has given me (ample) time to take in the scenery, catch up on sleep, and interact with the drivers. Eventually, however, the scenery stops being new and captivating, and you can only sleep so long before a pothole or an evasive maneuver—taken to avoid hitting some free ranging animal or child—wakes you. So, it’s only natural that your attention turns to your other human companions, which for me has been the driver du jour, assigned to schlep me from place to place. They're all top notch in my book and I've enjoyed my time with them, so I’d like share some vignettes that I’ve assembled. We all have our own quirks and habits that we do without thinking countless times in a day. And I know I’d hate having my quirks, no matter how innocent, funny or bizarre they might be, scrutinized and shared with strangers. With this in mind, I’ve changed the names to provide at least a thin veil of anonymity.

Adamou: Adamou drove me from Diffa to Maradi, a drive that lasted 10 hours. The drive is long, but Adamou made the drive even longer by stopping at almost every coffee and kola nut stand between Diffa and Maradi to get a fix. Add nicotine to the list of stimulants too, because each stop was an opportunity to smoke a cigarette. At one point he complained of a pounding behind his eyes and partial paralysis of his face. He reasoned that it was “L’Urgence” and the long hours causing the mysterious ailment. I think an equally plausible hypothesis is that he was hepped-up on too many stimulants and had some physiochemical imbalance going on.

A tall, slender man with a youthful face, Adamou wore, during the trek, no less than three different pairs of sunglasses (but never more than one pair at a time). He had sunglasses stashed on his person as well as in the car, and I could never learn what prompted a change from one pair to another. In talking with him, I discovered he was only 42 years old—I thought him to be much younger—and has had 12 children between his two wives. Six boys, six girls, two sets of twins. Gobsmacked doesn’t even come close to conveying my disbelief at his fecundity, and luck. I guess it's people like him who are keeping Niger's birthrate so high.

Moustapha: Moustapha was the first driver assigned to me at the start of my grand tour. The day before I left, the director sought me out and told me CARE Niamey has five drivers, four of whom are wonderful. And then there’s Moustapha. She assured me that he wasn’t dangerous, just hard to communicate with-in any language. Apparently the senior staff avoids taking trips with him, so he was really excited to learn that we were heading all the way to Diffa and would be away for at least two weeks. (He told me later, It’s good to travel; I can’t go for long periods being with my wife. I said, It must be the secret to your long and happy marriage. He agreed.)

During our first days together I saw why the director warned me. I know I’m not a fluent French speaker, and that I have a mélange of Malgache and Hausa in my head, so I’m accustomed to being not well understood; however, I can usually manage to get my point across when talking with someone. And nine times out of ten, I can communicate with Moustapha perfectly well, but that tenth time is a doozey. Usually our communication breakdown happens when giving or receiving directions. For example, I’d say, Moustapha, slow down; we’re coming up on our turn. He’d say, Turn here? Yeah, we’re going here, this is our turn; turn right here. Moustapha would say, Did you want me to turn back there? I’d reply, Yeah, you have to turn around; you missed it. Oh, you wanted me to turn right back there? Okay, violà, here we are. And so on.

It would be easy for me to conclude that he just doesn’t hear my French, but I’ve seen similar scenes played out between him and other Nigeriens. I felt better after learning this—that it’s not just me that struggles to communicate with him, and now I just laugh when we make a wrong turn, or when Moustapha starts some tangential conversation thread that only makes sense to him.

He also has a funny personal grooming habit that I can’t resist mentioning. We had just eaten lunch at Dogondutchi the first day out and were back on the road heading east. I was absorbed doing something and was startled to hear a hissing noise coming from our Land Cruiser. I thought the radiator had a problem, or that we’d blown a tire, but Moustapha’s face didn’t register any concern. In fact, he wore a wide smile as he stared ahead watching the road. Confused, I studied him for a few moments before two things dawned on me: 1) he wasn’t smiling; and 2) he was making the hissing noise with his mouth. With his lips pulled back, he was forcing air through his teeth to dislodge some morsel of food still caught in his teeth from lunch. Not finding success with his air-pressure method, he pulled down his sun visor to get out his dental hygiene heavy artillery: a Bic ballpoint pen. After discharging the stubborn bits, he replaced the cap to the pen and re-holstered it in the visor. I noticed he had more than one pen in the visor, but I have personally witnessed that when he’s picking, he’s not picky—he’ll use whatever “tool” is handy at the moment of crisis.

Inoussa: Speaking of picking, I have to mention Inoussa, who was my most recent driver, taking me from Konni to Tahoua. I had arrived in Konni early Saturday morning after taking the 4:30am bus from Maradi. I was waiting around the office in Konni when a heavy-laden Toyota pickup rolls in and out jumps Inoussa, a short, curly-haired Touareg man, sweating profusely. He informed me that he was to be my driver, but that he had to unload his truck and do some other errands before he’d be ready to leave. Fine, I said and went off to have a Nescafe with sweetened condensed milk, a concoction I’d normally gag over in the U.S., but a delicacy in Niger.

About an hour later Inoussa reappeared. We loaded up the truck and headed out of town. Like most of the CARE staff right now, he seemed fatigued: his eyes were two slits. He told me that the day before, he had made the drive between Konni and Tahoua four times. He was still sweating and asked me for some aspirin to help with a headache. I didn’t have any on me, so he stopped and bought some on the road just outside of Konni.

The drive to Tahoua is only a couple of hours long and that, combined with my napping, didn’t leave a lot of time to really connect with Inoussa. But the drive was sufficiently long for me to watch him engage in a truly perplexing habit. During a waking moment, I saw Inoussa remove a scrap piece of paper from the truck’s center console and tear off a strip about ½ inch wide and 3 inches long. Casually, but purposefully he then began to roll the strip of paper into a long, thin twist. He glanced at me sideways to see if I was watching—but with my mirrored sunglasses he wouldn’t be able to see my eyes—and then cautiously snaked the paper twist up into one of his nostrils. After a few exploratory pokes, he buried the twist into his nose and then erupted in a sneezing fit. He blew his nose into a handkerchief and then acted like nothing had happened. This happened one other time during the drive. It was truly fascinating to watch, I must admit. I could only think of three reasons for engaging in such behavior: to keep awake, purge his nostrils of boogers, or simply for pleasure.

Three drivers, three different personalities, all are good people who do a great job under difficult circumstances. I used to think that I’d like to be a driver for a NGO: you get to drive nice cars, you receive per diem when you’re out on mission, and there’s a certain status that drivers possess. But now, knowing that I might come under such close scrutiny, I think I might have to rethink my dream job.

The Drive to Diffa

2005-09-13T14:54:00.000-04:00

This is going to be a tough clean up.

We left Zinder on Sunday mid morning and I felt I should have been more excited than what I was feeling. Up until Thursday, I’d never been east of Maradi and here I was about to travel to one of the last outposts in the farthest reaches of Niger near the Chad border, but too many long nights working in front of a computer screen had left me drained and edgy. The long hours had also left me somewhat of a mute; I felt I didn’t have enough accessible memory to run the language software in my brain with everything else going on inside. We were five, including the driver, and riding in the back seat sandwiched between Sanda and Moussa made me miss having my own personal chauffeur and Land Cruiser. Carpooling: just another sacrifice made in the name of the “Emergency.”

The road leaving from Zinder soon became a mosaic of asphalt and potholes. That I was even able to nap during the drive is either a testament to our driver’s ability or my overall fatigue, or perhaps both. During my waking moments I noticed less millet planted and more sorghum, and then, eventually, I stopped seeing anything planted, aside from Neem trees in the villages that bordered the road. Acacia trees could be seen farther from the road being visited by camels that used their height advantage and dexterous tongues to strip the young, tender leaves off the thorny branches. The colors out east, or at least those visible from the road, seem different to me than those in the west. My father wouldn’t find the red, red soil and rocks that imprinted so vividly in his memory during his trips to Niger. The soil (and the houses made from this same soil) look washed out, grey, and tired. It seemed to me pure folly that humans inhabit a place like this. But the human race has proven itself highly adaptable to even the harshest environments, and I would submit that Niger ranks in the top tier of the “Hardest Place to Live on the Planet” contest.

While seeming particularly hostile to humans, this part of Niger seemed perfectly suited for camels, goats and sheep. Seeing a goat perched up on its back tip toes trying to reach a tasty morsel that dangles temptingly just above its reach never fails to make me smile. Looking at the scene from afar you could easily think the goat is talking to the object of her desire, almost persuading it, from the oral gymnastics it’s going through to gain some purchase on said morsel. If goats ever figure out how to cooperate to make a goat-ladder, the Sahel is going to be in real trouble.

From the road, the pasture looked decent, but I was told that at this time of year the thickness and the color of the vegetation should be denser and more lush. And, during a pit stop I walked over to look at the grass and saw it was sharp-edged and filled with evil briars, not exactly prime grazing material. Still, the animals I saw looked surprisingly healthy. A few of the cows and horses looked more like skeletons, wearing their skin pulled tightly across their bones, but these were in the minority. Other than finding adequate forage from seemingly nothing, the other talent that sheep and goats posses, I’ve noticed, is sensing when to cross the road at exactly the right (or wrong) moment to make you stop or swerve to avoid hitting them. I’d like to think they do this on purpose, to have a good laugh with their buddies afterwards at our expense, but I don’t think so. All you have to do is look into the vacant eyes of sheep to know that they’re just not smart enough to pull something like that off.

At some point during the drive, sand dunes appeared. They weren’t the grand dunes that you might associate with the deep desert that go on and on, and disappear into the horizon, but were more low-slung and some were partially vegetated. But they’re on the move, no doubt, and they’re hungry. They have a particular appetite for the road and at certain points the sand had completely buried the asphalt. Not that this is an entirely bad thing in the right context. While we were stopped, so the others could pray, I took a moment to stretch my legs and I noticed a Peugeot station wagon, cum bush taxi, parked along side the road up ahead with its passengers sitting off to one side. I figured it had a flat tire or something and walked over to investigate. When I got to the car I saw that the bonnet had been completely removed and the entire engine compartment was filled with sand. The bits that weren’t covered in sand were charred black, visibly burned. The driver told me he didn’t have any water to put out the fire, but thankfully there was no shortage of sand.

Hadjia and Moussa spent a lot of the trip reading Koranic materials. Moussa, who made the pilgrimage to Mecca in 2003, was reading an Arabic/French dual translation of the Koran, with one page written in French and the other in Arabic. He had the French side covered with a piece of paper in an attempt to better his Arabic, but I could tell there was a lot of peeking going on. Hadjia seemed to prefer shorter pieces, all in Arabic, maybe the Islamic equivalent of the Upper Room. It wasn’t until we were about two-thirds of the way to Diffa that the significance of the date struck me: it was the fourth anniversary of 9/11. I didn’t think about the horrific details that took place four years ago as much as I thought about the perception of Muslims and their faith.

I wish more people could have the experience that I’ve had living in an Islamic society and alongside devout Muslims. Since being back, I’ve noticed how familiar the daily cadence, punctuated with the five daily prayer calls, feels to me. And I’ve slipped back into the habit of beseeching the will of Allah when I speak of things in the future that haven’t happened yet, and which might not happen—that’s only for Allah to know. The image of Islamic radicals who foment violence against others couldn’t be farther from my image I hold of people in Niger. Given the level of poverty and lack of education you might think these are volatile combinations that Islamic radicals would prey upon to recruit fellow zealots. But, by and large, it just doesn’t exist. I think most people would be shocked to learn just how tolerant Niger is of other religions. In fact, in the car ride I discussed with Moussa the unusual relationship that the Malagche have with their dead. I could tell he was somewhat shocked, especially the part about exhuming the remains of ancestors and fêting, but he didn’t pass any judgment. I don’t know what it is about Niger’s make up that produces such calm and tolerance, but it’s definitely a good thing and I wish there was more of it.

We finally rolled into Diffa around 6 o’clock. It reminded me a little of Konni in some ways—a little bit of a border town feel (Nigeria is only a dozen kilometers away and Chad is relatively close, I suppose), not many paved roads, and a kind of sprawling town layout. Noticeably different in Diffa, though, is the lack of the ubiquitous “cobble-cobble” drivers found in Konni: moped taxis, usually driven by teenage boys that queue along the road waiting for passengers.

We made the rounds at the office before retiring to CARE’s guest house. I made a quick tour of the facilities and in the kitchen, written on the wall, I saw, « 13/04/05 1ere pluie, 15h-16h». So little says so much: a promise and hope for another year, insha’allah.

From the Field

2005-09-12T14:45:00.000-04:00

Here’s a picture I took en route to Tchintabaraden...only in Niger, huh?

I’ve been out in the field since last Saturday visiting the regional offices where CARE is distributing food rations to villages. At this time, CARE’s response to the food crisis is limited to the regions of Tahoua, Maradi, Zinder, and Diffa. In Tahoua, Maradi, and Diffa they are distributing food rations supplied by World Food Program and Niger’s government. In addition to the distribution, in Tahoua and Zinder CARE is opening feeding stations in select villages to aid moderately malnourished children. There are other NGOs who are also distributing food rations, but in terms of scale of operation and the number of people served, CARE’s operation is among the largest. They might have an advantage over other NGOs because they have been working in Niger for such a long time and already have a lot of resources on the ground and built up capacity in their staff. Also, being a large NGO with a worldwide presence, they can call upon experts from other field offices to help. I’ve met CARE employees and contractors on loan from CARE USA, CARE Germany, CARE France, and CARE Haiti.

So far, my primary role has been getting CARE’s field reporting operational. I’ve spent most of my time in front of a computer working with the various forms and reports that CARE is obligated to produce to satisfy the donors who are helping fund its operations, as well as to document and evaluate its actions during this period. Not very sexy, but I feel like I’m playing an important role. (Kristen wrote in an email that she was glad I’m doing important work; she would be pissed if I was just running the XEROX machine.) I have another week or so to go in this tour of field offices before I head back to Niamey. Once all the reporting tools are finalized, I’m looking forward to my secondary role: writing qualitative narratives, collected from the field, about the beneficiaries touched by CARE.

I've stolen some time to get this posted and now I have to relinquish the precious VSAT connection for some real work, so I'll sign off now. I'll try to post more soon.

Niger Bound

2005-08-29T18:25:00.000-04:00

I made it to Paris today, after taking the red-eye from Tana.  Even after being sequestered in my airport hotel room, I don’t feel the awed being back in the West.  I suppose Madagascar is developed enough, at least in the cities, that most of the creature comforts we take for granted in the U.S. are sufficiently satisfied.  I have enjoyed the high-speed internet, a luxury that hasn’t quite made it Fianar yet.

Yesterday, in Tana, I ran the Hash for the first time in Madagascar.  It was the first event of the season, and there were a few other first-timers.  Out of about 30 participants, only a handful of us ran the course, and I surprised myself by winning—something I never could have dreamed of doing in Niamey.  There has been some talk of restarting a regional Hash in Fianar, and maybe that is something I could be a part of when I get back.  There’s no shortage of possible routes around Fianar, that’s for sure.  Last fall, back in Niger, I ran the Hash with Dave and some other friends, and at some point I ended up on the organizer’s email list.  Since last January I have emailed this guy repeatedly asking him to take my name off his list.  Then, before leaving Fianar, Kristen pointed out that now it’s good thing that I’m still on the list, since I’m going back to Niger.

Of course it was hard saying goodbye to Kristen Saturday morning.  During the ten hours it took to travel the 400 kilometers from Fianar to Tana by bush taxi, I had ample opportunity to think about what I am doing and the consequences.   When I wasn’t worrying about my immediate condition (the bush taxi, oncoming traffic, the nauseated woman puking into a bag seated next to me, etc.), I though about what leaving means to Kristen and me; to my integration into the Fianar community and the networking I had done for work. But mostly I thought about what my going to Niger might realistically accomplish.  It’s a very far distance and not without expense, this trip, and I want to feel when it’s over that it was worth the expense, both emotionally and financially.  Despite these small nagging doubts, I do remain excited and hopeful.  In fact, on a personal/professional note, after feeling like Fianar and Madagascar have turned out not to hold kind of opportunities for me that we originally believed they would, this is just the thing I need to put a nice cap on my 2005.

So, tomorrow morning I’m off.  I think some of my edginess will dull when I set foot in that familiar terminal, and my senses fill with the familiarity of West Africans (mostly) in various states of talking, sleeping, debating, and, above all, laughing.  It’ll be homecoming of sorts, I suppose.

Check back in the coming weeks and months to see how things progress.

Isalo National Park

2005-08-25T13:48:00.000-04:00

Taking in the view at Isalo

One perk of Kristen’s fellowship is her time off. She has a standard vacation package, but in addition to this she gets all U.S. public holidays off, plus any Malagasy ones too. We recently used the Malagasy holiday of Assumption to plan a long weekend at Isalo (pronounced E-sha-lou) National Park. (Assumption is…anyone, anyone? The bodily taking up into heaven of the Virgin Mary. Yeah, who knew?)

Based on geology alone, you could easily think you were in parts of Nevada, South Dakota, Arizona, and Utah. But, throw in the tropical vegetation and otherworldly lemurs and you cannot help but feel awed by what the unusual and wonderful confluence of geology, botany, and evolution has produced in Isalo. As clichéd as it sounds, you feel like there is no other place on Earth quite like this.

We left Fianar on a Friday morning and drove four hours south to Ranohira, the gateway to Isalo. The freshly paved road and gorgeous scenery of granite slabs and mountain ranges truly made the drive a pleasure. Ranohira is a proper town, with a filling station, shops, restaurants, and hotels, and now seems to be in the process of developing its ecotourism market.

Our plan was to spend one night in Ranohira and two out in the park camping. The Park office, located in town, is where you pay the park entrance fee and arrange a guide for your visit. In a departure from our normal hiking and camping practice, we hired two porters to carry our packs to and from the campground. We arrived at the Park office Friday afternoon, after finding a place to sleep for the night, and it was hopping with other tourists. Friends had warned us to properly vet any potential guides using the «Livre d’Or », a registry used by visitors to rate their guides. After hearing stories of guides tossing their cigarette butts on the side of the trail, making uninvited passes at women, and refusing to honor the agreed upon itinerary, we wanted a good guide.

We were also warned that during the tourist high season, finding a good guide to go out in park overnight with one client would be tough. During this busy time, a lot of visitors are interested only in taking day trips to see the sights easily accessible by car. Guides know this and avoid making overnight trips, preferring instead to take as many day trips as they can, with as many clients as they can, to maximize their earning potential. This proved to be the case with us. Upon arriving at the Park office, guides besieged us and offered to take us into Isalo. Then, after learning we wanted to spend two nights out camping, nobody seemed available to go out with us. It was frustrating and at one point I walked out of the office to check on the truck and cool down. While I was at the truck a young guy approached me and offered to be our guide. He introduced himself, Dolphin, and explained he was a guide-in-training with two years experience and wouldn’t mind going out for two nights. Not having many other options, we vetted him against the registry and agreed to go with him. He arranged to find two porters and we agreed to meet at the Park office early Saturday morning to get an early start.

With the details of the park visit hammered out, Kristen and I struck off to explore some of the sights around Ranohira. We took in a nice exhibit at a nearby museum and then wandered out to La Fenêtre, a rock formation with a cutout in the middle, where visitors can go for a spectacular sunset. Arriving a bit early to witness the sunset, we took in the scenery, which was very picturesque in late hours of the afternoon. Some rocks sported strikingly green lichen that contrasted nicely against the orange hues in the rock. After La Fenêtre, we wandered out to a posh hotel to watch the sun go down. «Le Relais de la Reine » is an up-market, French-owned hotel built harmoniously into the landscape. The choice of building materials, colors, and layout reflect the extreme level of detail that has gone into the hotel. (Just for comparison, check out where Kristen and I spent Friday night after our drink.) We sat on an outdoor landing and enjoyed a drink as the setting sun reflected off nearby canyon walls.

Saturday morning came quickly and we waited for Dolphin at the Park office. He showed up late; we learned afterwards that his watch would not keep the time, something we all laughed about throughout the trip. We watched the porters walk off to the market, wearing our packs, to buy their food for the two days, and then Dolphin, Kristen and I headed off to the park.

During our two days we saw about as much of the park as is possible without a 4×4 vehicle. We walked across fields, through canyons, over mountains, and down crevasses; swam in natural pools, in water that was unbelievably clear (and cold); spotted all kinds of birds and three kinds of lemurs, including a little baby lemur still clinging to and breastfeeding from its mother; marveled at miniature flowering baobab trees that could have been over 1000 years old; and drank in the expansive landscapes like thirsty travelers. Living up on the plateau and around the corridor has made us a tad claustrophobic and eager to spend time in the wide open country.

We camped both nights at an established campsite that had running water and a proper toilet. Both nights the camp was completely full. Apparently tour group operators bring their clients to the camp for a real “backcountry” experience. It’s a pretty slick operation, complete with guides, porters, and cooks. Both nights after dinner when the clients had been fed and were sated, the tour staff broke out guitars and drums and worked through a long set of Malagasy classics. In our tent, a stone’s throw away, we enjoyed the music the first night, but the second night the band played until 11:30pm and kept Kristen awake.

Monday morning we broke camp, packed up and watched as our backpacks, again strapped on to the porters, disappeared ahead of us towards Ranohira. We walked slowly, groups of incoming visitors and their guides passed us on the narrow trail, and we settled back slowly into the reality that we were going back to Fianar and that the next day Kristen would be leaving bright and early for a trip into the field.

Back at Ranohira we saw our packs leaning against the outside of the Park office. We settled our bill with Dolphin and the two porters, and Kristen made sure to add our review to the registry. As we drove back to Fianar we schemed up more ways to take advantage of Kristen’s days off.

The Accidental Dignitary

2005-08-19T20:41:00.000-04:00

Presidential Ride

About a month ago we were up in Tana for about a week taking care of some business, and on Friday, when the week was over, we decided to break up the return to Fianar by spending one night in Antsirabe. Antsirabe is about a two hour drive south of Tana and the city has a charming feel, thanks to its interesting architecture and wide boulevards. We stayed the night at a cute bed-and-breakfast and had the place to ourselves. We enjoyed a walk about town, a nice dinner, and a bit of shopping during our stay. A few key Malagasy phrases kept the persistent pousse-pousse (rickshaw) drivers at bay; unfortunately, the beggars proved more insistent. Then, after a leisurely walk Saturday morning, we loaded the truck and headed south to Fianar. During the drive, traffic was light, the weather clear, and the going easy.

This last part came to an abrupt end around noon, when we arrived at the bridge leading to Fatihita, a small town north of Ambositra. About a kilometer before reaching the bridge we noticed lots of cars stopped and pulled off on either side of the road. Not realizing what was going on, and not thinking, I simply drove on past the parked cars until I saw soldiers blocking access to the old bridge, at which time I pulled behind an army truck to park. During the Crisis of 2002, supporters of Ratsiraka, the former president, blew up the bridge in an attempt—that worked—to halt the flow of goods and people to the capital, Tana. When Ravalamanana, and his party, assumed power after the Crisis, the government built a temporary one-lane bridge over the collapsed one, and construction on a new bridge, financed by the EU, began. Construction on the new bridge wrapped up recently, but for as long as we’ve been here, traffic was still made to use the old one. And, on the way up to Tana we noticed that a big grandstand, decorated with Malagasy flags, had been set up for what appeared to be a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Now, on the way back down to Fianar, we discovered that we were arriving just in time to witness the grand opening of the new bridge.

After stopping, Kristen quickly hopped down from the truck and joined a crowd of people who had gathered by the old bridge. Soon afterwards, an official caravan of dignitaries began to cross the old bridge from the other side of the ravine towards us, en route to the grandstand. About 50 meters from the end of the bridge a midnight-blue Land Cruiser sporting diplomatic flags and dark-tinted glass (and probably bullet-proof, too) stopped and out stepped the Malagasy President, Marc Ravalamanana. At the bridge, someone in the crowd next to Kristen said in a surprised voice, “That’s Ravalamanana!” Kristen, who was only some twenty feet away, told me later that the President looked young and full of energy.

Behind the President came a flock of guards and other diplomats, including a heavy-set, big-jowled man who we concluded must be the head of the EU for Madagascar. The procession made its way to the grandstand and we then spent the next three hours waiting for the official ceremony to end, so we could continue our return home.

There were literally thousands of people in attendance at the bridge opening ceremony. We could see across the bridge to the other side and people spilled down from the hillside. Food vendors circulated among the parked cars and crowds of people selling fried chicken and fish, steamed crawfish, boiled cassava, oranges and bananas. In addition to all the spectators were many soldiers and police. In fact, security around the President was pretty high and included bodyguards dressed in suits, as well as armed guards around the grandstand and sharpshooters on the hillside above the grandstand.

On the whole, it was all pretty spectacular. After three hours, and what seemed like an eternity of listening to Malagasy speeches, the official opening ended and the big-wigs made their grand exit by taking leave in three helicopters. The less important officials, traveling by more modest means, queued up in their vehicles along the old bridge. Unknowingly, when I ignored the other parked cars and continued right up to the old bridge, I secured pole position among the other parked cars and bush taxis, which had by now jockeyed for position in every open space of asphalt and were tightly packed together back as far as the eye could see. The logjam of cars prevented the official entourage waiting on the old bridge from moving, so soldiers began barking orders at the parked cars to make enough room for the cars to pass by.

In the confusion that ensued, we somehow got mixed into the official caravan going south over the new bridge. A soldier looked at our white truck (and maybe our white skin) and green plates and just waved us into the pack of other white official vehicles. Only happy to comply, I turned on the hazards and fell into line with the other cars as we were among the first cars over the new bridge. After we passed the grandstand, we slowed to maneuver through the “cocktail” party going on along the road after the bridge. We, the official caravan, crawled along at a snail’s pace for the first couple of kilometers while we waited for soldiers to clear parked cars from the road shoulder to free up traffic. Finally, we hit open road and we waved to the other white vehicles as they passed us, one by one, and sped off to their final destinations.

The bridge delay cost us a daytime arrival to Fianar, but nevertheless we were in good spirits: we had a close brush with the President, saw three helicopters take off and drove with the official caravan over the brand new bridge. However, maybe more exciting to us was deciding what to do with the huge bucket of strawberries we had bought in Tana.

Home Sweet Home

2005-08-17T13:34:00.000-04:00

Kristen and I have finally settled into our apartment and we thought we should post some pictures of the place. Locate the white truck poking out of the garage and then count the next two arches to the right, these three arches are all part of our apartment (plus the upstairs portions, of course). The building was originally built as part of a vineyard operation, but now has been partitioned and converted into seven apartments. The layout is very nice. There is an inner courtyard with a patch of grass that will eventually be landscaped with flowers and trees. It also has a very strange fountain, but we aren’t complaining because we are hoping it provides some white noise against the barking dogs at night. A clothes-drying area is being constructed atop two garages, which will be nice when it is finished. (The shot above was taken from here.)

Our neighbors, the Fruendenbergers, are also American and Mark is Kristen’s mentor for her fellowship. They moved into their place a couple of years ago after their other apartment was destroyed by fire during the 2002 Crisis. Until we moved in, they were the only residents in the entire complex, which is probably because theirs was the only place completely renovated. Our place was mostly finished when we moved into it mid May, but it has taken until now to get all the little details hammered out. Now that it’s done, we’re very happy and feel well settled. Check out the blueprint to get a sense of the layout.

The other units are in the last stages of completion, although this doesn’t mean they’ll be habitable before Christmas. Construction around here is maddeningly inefficient and illogical at times. It’s not unusual for a wall to be put up, cemented and painted, only to later see it chiseled apart to make way for the electricity or plumbing. Take two steps forward, one step back. The landlord has been busy showing the units, but he’s been having a hard time filling them. We did hear news that a Malagasy family is moving into a nice three bedroom unit soon, but we’ll see if that turns out to be a truth or fiction.

How many workers does it take to install a toilet?

School Days

2005-08-06T10:39:00.000-04:00

Can you spot the vazaha?

Here’s a class picture from my month-long intensive French language course. The local chapter of the Alliance Franco-Malgache puts on language courses periodically and this is the second one I’ve taken since being in Fianar. We covered a range of topics, most dealing with some aspect of French language and culture, and I was often called upon to provide the American perspective. As the photo reveals, a few nuns took the class, and frequently they provided the class with much unintended hilarity. One day, after working on personal presentations to make to the class, a nun put the class in stitches when she declared the obvious: she was single, and a practicing Catholic.

Skype

2005-07-31T03:42:00.000-04:00

Since living in Madagascar, we’ve experimented a bit using Skype, a kind of Internet telephone, to talk with Kristen’s family. I don’t really have the technical expertise to explain how Skype works aside from saying that you use your computer, the Skype software, the internet, and a microphone to talk to other people. To get a more technical explanation you can check out the review from PC Magazine. The best thing about Skype is that it’s FREE! We had some initial kinks, but our last conversation was clear and the lag was hardly noticeable. Email and the blog are good for keeping in touch, but now we want to use Skype to talk with more of you. If you’re interested in joining the conversation, here are the steps you need to take to get up and running on Skype.

Consider your connection speed. We tried using Skype from home with our dialup connection and found the reception not good. However, with us using Kristen’s office connection and Rob on cable modem, the reception was great. So, we’d say Skype is not recommended for dialup users.

Download and install the software on your computer. Point your web browser to www.skype.com/ and follow the links to the download page. The file is about 6MB in size.

To get the best results and reception you really need a headset with a microphone. Before leaving for Madagascar we stopped by Best Buy and bought a set from Logitech for about $25. The headset has two jacks: one for the microphone and the other for the headset. You really need the microphone close to your mouth while speaking in order to have the clearest reception; however, you can choose to not plug in the headphones and use your computer’s speakers instead to listen to the conversation.

Once the software has been installed, choose a username.

Then you can search for contacts (easily done from the Getting Started Wizard dialog box under “Search for Other Skype Users”). You can enter in our username, kppandedp, and you should find us and then be able to add us to your contact list.

Set up a time to Skype via email. Since we need to plan to be at Kristen’s office, it’s usually better to give some advanced warning. And, we’ve found it’s usually best to arrange something during the weekend, since the office is mostly empty then. (FYI, the time difference to Madagascar right now from the East Coast US is 7 hours.) Be sure, in the email, to let us know your username so we can add you to our contact list too.

It’s that simple, try it. Hope to be talking to some of you soon!

FOOD CRISIS IN NIGER!

2005-07-28T08:15:00.000-04:00

Hungry children in Niger

There is a food crisis Niger, the country where we served as Peace Corps volunteers. Niger was our home for over two years, and is still home to many people who we cherish deeply. Family members and friends who came to visit us in Niger can attest to the astounding and humbling generosity of Nigeriens. In a country so poor, people share so much. Our friends in Niger taught us what it truly means to give, and to receive. We feel compelled to ask you to consider donating to help the people of Niger. Our individual donations might seem small, but together they can and will save lives.

Niger is the second poorest country in the world. Even in a good year, a sizeable proportion of the population is malnourished. This year has heralded in the worst famine in Niger since 1984. People our age remember the song “We are the World” from elementary school, written to raise money for the famine of 1984, which encompassed much of the Sahel. Of Niger’s 13 million people, nearly one-third are on the brink of starvation: 800,000 of them are children. The lack of rain and locust invasion in 2004 is primarily to blame for this condition; however, Niger is perennially in a state of food insecurity. That there is a crisis this year isn’t surprising. We were working in Niger last fall and in late August, we witnessed the second rain of the season in Tahoua (in north central Niger); the rainy season usually commences in late May. We also heard reports from current Peace Corps volunteers, particularly those living east near the city of Zinder, that in their region the millet grew knee-high, and then stopped, never producing any grain.

To read, see, and hear more about the crisis in Niger, follow the BBC’s recent report on the subject. Friends of Niger, an organization that we are members of, also has information about the crisis.

Until last week, the response from the international community had been abysmal and inadequate. U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland said on CNN earlier this week that had the international community responded to Niger’s food crisis when asked, the cost of treating one hungry child would be approximately one dollar; today the cost is 80 dollars. In the past couple of days, some relief activity has finally commenced, but more help is needed. From our experience as volunteers, the “hunger season” between July and October is particularly difficult for Nigeriens. This year it is disastrous. By now fields have been planted, labor demands are high, and food stores from the previous year have likely begun to run out (for those who got a harvest last year), and all farmers can do is watch the skies for rain clouds to come. Assuming that the rains are decent during the growing season, people will be able to harvest their millet, beans, and peanuts in September or October. This is why the timing of relief now is so critical.

Please consider helping further relief efforts in Niger. Time is of the essence. We know that making a choice to donate is a difficult one, especially deciding whether to support the acute problem of today versus the problem of food security in the long term. Also, choosing an organization isn’t always straightforward: Do you choose one that earmarks donations for Niger specifically, or do you support an organization generally and hope that the funds go towards programming that will ultimately help countries like Niger? Personally, we are going to divide our donation between a development organization and a relief one. These aren’t easy questions to answer and we can only suggest that you do what feels right to you.

For those of you who wish to earmark funds specifically for Niger, we can suggest making a donation to one of the following:

U.N. World Food Program

Save the Children

World Vision

Feeding stations for children facing starvation in Niger are staffed by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). To make a general donation to this organization, please follow this link.

To help support general development programs in Niger, in order to help the country become more food secure in the long run, we suggest supporting the following Non-Government-Organizations. We got to know the country directors of CARE and CRS when we were in Niger last fall, and trust that they are doing good work.

For those of you living in or near the San Francisco Bay Area, Tiffany Martindale (RPCV Niger ‘98-’02) and Josh Schnabel (RPCV Niger ‘00-’02) are selling bumper stickers at $7.00 a piece that read Kala Suuru and Sai Hankuri (“Have Patience” in Zarma and Hausa, respectively). For a bumper sticker, please contact Tiffany: maycinga@yahoo.com.

And finally, please consider calling, writing, and emailing your elected representatives in Washington, DC to implore them to immediately increase the U.S. contributions of humanitarian and food aid to Niger.

Contact information for your US Senator or your US Representative.

Thank you for helping. Much love, Kristen and Dan

Weekend at Park Ranomafana

2005-07-15T07:06:00.000-04:00

Hiking in the forest

We spent last weekend hiking in Parc National de Ranomafana, about 60km north of Fianar. Kristen had been out in the field since Wednesday visiting communities around the park where SantéNet is working. When her plans called for her to spend Friday night, and then Monday and Tuesday in Ranomafana, it made more sense for me to come out and spend the weekend with her in Ranomafana than for her to come back into Fianar, only to turn around and go right back two days later.

The road leading to the park is, by Madagascar standards, pretty good. However, with that said, back in April we took this route to attend a conference on wild silk production, held just outside the park, and on the way back to Fianar I had to move up to the front of the mini-bus to avoid upchucking. Potholes and S-curves truly make for some exquisite motion sickness, and I now understand why many Malagasy travelers do a dose of Dramamine before starting any long journey by car. I found driving better than riding: a top speed of 15mph helps.

Bad for setting land-speed records, the slow speed, however, was perfect for taking in the scenery. At one point, there was park property on the left and non-park land to the right, juxtaposing two very different possibilities/realities. I saw people felling and milling eucalyptus trees to my right. To accomplish the latter, the foresters lay the felled tree upon make-shift scaffolding, and then, with one person standing above and another below, they carve planks from the bole with a 6-foot long saw. As I continued the drive I saw more tell-tale piles of amber sawdust dotting the hills and valleys and wondered how many board-feet of lumber comes out of this area in a year. The other side of the road, by contrast, was a dense mat of vegetation—a mixture of trees, ferns, and other greenery—that looked impossible to walk through. Considering Park Ranomafana is only about 10 years old, it looks like the conservation efforts put in place have had some benefit.

Not to be misleading, though, the park itself is far from pristine, as we found out during our hikes. There are still exotic, introduced species in the forest composition, with wild guava being one of the most aggressive. Lemurs and birds that eat the guava fruit and later disperse seeds via their feces hinder eradication efforts of this species, our guides told us. We also encountered zebu cow-pies in the forest (but none of their authors). Some livestock owners leave their cows in the park to their own devices, and only seek their animals when they need to sell or sacrifice one. And, even when we walked in the primary, old-growth forest, we found an occasional cut tree stump indicating the presence of some recent human activity.

In Malagasy, Ranomafana means “hot water.” The hot springs that surround this area are the inspiration for the name. There are baths and a heated swimming pool in town with a two-tiered pricing scheme for locals and strangers. We had read in the guide books that the facilities, on a hygienic level, were not up to code, so we opted not to bathe there. Others, who didn’t share our same standards of cleanliness, took advantage of a warm bath or swim to help ward off the winter chill. The only ranomafana we encountered came from the shower in our bungalow, which was a welcome blessing after our cold and rainy hikes.

Calm before the storm

We hiked both Saturday and Sunday, with Erica, a third-year Peace Corps volunteer who has extended to work with SantéNet in Fianar. Saturday, we signed up for an afternoon and nocturnal hike, the total time out to be around 5 hours. That afternoon we hiked mostly in the secondary forest, which was full of trees, bamboo, ferns, and orchids. We also visited a small waterfall that was booming with water. It began raining about an hour into our hike and very soon we were pushing the limits of our Gore-Tex outerwear.

We didn’t see much wildlife, unless you count the leeches, which found us quite appetizing. Even with our pant-legs tucked into our socks, the leeches managed to infiltrate our defenses. Erica suffered the worst, her ankle-length socks provided little defense against the persistent suckers. However, Kristen won the prize for most prominent leech attachment: her face. The leeches are more a psychological menace than a physical one, although if they are disturbed or forcibly removed after attaching, they secrete an anticoagulant that makes the wound site bleed spectacularly. (Note: Hi, this is Kristen, sneaking into Dan's story. I'd just like to state for the record--especially if my Mom is reading this--that as soon as Dan saw the leech on my cheek, I wanted it off. However, Dan and Erica insisted that if 'we' just left it on for a few moments until it was done feeding, then it would be easy to pluck it off and my cheek wouldn't bleed one bit. The few moments seemed to stretch on forever, and while everyone else was watching the mouse lemurs, I had to keep prodding them to check my face with the flashlight to see if the leech was 'done' yet. My calmness ran out as the time moved towards 10 minutes and I made Erica remove the leech. Judging by all of Erica and Dan's chuckles, the experience was more fun for the observers. Luckily there is no trace on my cheek of my temporary 'friend')

For the nocturnal hike, our guide told us to bring bananas and meat to lure mouse lemurs and civets to a designated feeding spot. We had reservations about engaging in this questionable practice, but ultimately decided to go along with it since these animals are only active during night and usually reclusive. And, sure enough, upon arriving at the designated spot, we found a clearly habituated civet waiting for a morsel of meat. Eventually another showed up to make a pair, but they were to be disappointed this night because we drew the line at hiking with raw meat in our packs. The guide took our bananas, peeled a couple to rub on some trees, and stuck some others on nearby branches. Soon afterwards we saw movements in the shadows and our flashlights revealed a mouse lemur, the world’s smallest primate. It was cute, and the way it flitted about the branches reminded us more of a bird than a mammal. We took pictures and were glad to have seen these animals, but decided ultimately that the whole experience was a bit sad and disturbing. The civets just looked sad and cold and the lemur appeared jumpy and strung-out. Maybe being so close to the civets--who find mouse lemurs tasty--explains the mouse lemur's erratic behavior.

World's smallest primate

Sunday, we hiked in the morning—again in the pouring rain—but this time up into the primary forest. On the way up, we saw a chameleon, a Grey Gentle Lemur, high up in a patch of bamboo plants, but not much else except, of course, more leeches. Kristen had fun playing in the streams and spent some time reliving her childhood looking for crayfish. She flipped over one rock and found a fresh water crab, about the size of a quarter. The highlight for me was seeing so many orchids in their natural setting. Our guide told us the time to see the most orchids in bloom isn’t until the warmer months of November and December, but we did see a miniature species proudly sporting its pink blossoms. I look forward to going back just to hunt for orchids, which me might do Thanksgiving weekend.

Update and musings from Fianar...

2005-06-22T14:33:00.000-04:00

Kristen is off attending a conference on Population and Health in Kigoma, Tanzania. Kigoma is near the border with the DRC, Burundi, and Uganda and right on the shore of Lake Tanganyika. After the conference ends, she’ll stick around for the weekend to pay a visit to the chimps made famous by Jane Goodall’s research.

In the meantime, I’ve been left to my own devices in Fianar, which mostly involves keeping the ball rolling settling into our apartment. Even though we moved into our apartment two months ago, getting the landlord to push his crew to finish the last little details has been a chore. But we’re winning small victories every week. Last week we finally got a phone line hooked up to the apartment. However, only by me providing the transport for the workers and buying all the necessary equipment did this happen. That’s not entirely true, actually. The first thing the crew did upon arriving at the apartment was “recuperate” some telephone wire from a nonpaying client down the block to use for our hook up. After witnessing the telephone company's standard operating procedure I made a mental note to always pay the phone bill when it comes due.

The latest fight on the apartment front is to upgrade the electrical capacity of the apartment. We recently discovered after hooking our water distiller that the breaker box can’t handle the draw while there are other appliances running at the same time. It can run for about 10 minutes before it throws the breaker. The same is true for our other appliances with any heating aspect like the iron and toaster oven. A while back we were having BFD (breakfast for dinner) and wanted toast. Only by unplugging all other appliances and using flashlights were we able to do it. In a way it was romantic, huddling close together before the warm, red glow of the toaster watching the bread turn a golden brown, but on a practical level it was just ridiculous.

Two weeks ago we were up in Tana so Kristen could attend another conference. (Really, it seems like all she’s done since arriving is attend meetings and conferences; I don’t know when she’s going to have time to actually work.) I went with so I could do some shopping. Our purchases included, among other sundry items, a used Nissan pickup. It’s a good ole beater and should do us well these next two years. Its best feature is the expat “cruise through the police check points without stopping” license plate. During the drive down from Tana, after sucking fumes from overloaded, under-maintained bush taxis and camions, I loved reaching check points and being waved past the other stopped traffic. Its worst feature is a keyless entry and anti-theft system that works infrequently and inconsistently, often mistaking me for a would-be car thief.

Recently, we hired our first domestic helper, Bernadette, thus fulfilling part of our expat obligations. She’ll come by twice a week and do the cleaning that we can’t (or won’t) do ourselves. She’s already been broken in by other vazahas, a French couple, so we’re hoping that we won’t have to spend too much time or energy micromanaging her. By western standards, help is cheap and we’re happy to have the additional help. Who knows, if I don’t end finding any work to occupy my time I could focus my energies—and Kristen’s salary—hiring more Malagasy for odd jobs. I might even consider building an elite Malagasy fighting unit. The Malagasy have watched enough Kung Fu movies that they just might be dangerous. I just question whether they would be imposing enough to garner the necessary respect from the world’s other mercenary groups, should we ever get to attend a conference of our own.

I’ve started running again after a bit of a hiatus. The hills around here are killer. On the route that I generally take I calculated an elevation gain of 700 feet over 2 miles; I’m not sure if that’s really any great feat, but it leaves me fairly winded. During my runs I feel like Jesus is running alongside me. No, this isn’t a born-again testimonial. The road I run on is actually a private road that leads to a nunnery. Back when Kristen and I were living out of our suitcases in a hotel, we spent one Sunday walking out this way and were completely dumbstruck to find this fortress of a nunnery in the middle of nowhere. By all appearances, it’s more a fortress than nunnery. Tall walls, topped with razor wire and glass shards embedded in cement, surround the entire compound. From the locked front gate we saw rows and rows of identical efficiency homes, conjuring images of Soviet housing stock. We both thought it was spooky and uninviting. I sometimes see nuns in town doing errands and they look nice enough. Often they are behind the wheel of a large Land Cruiser, and I chuckle when I see these small nuns climb into and down from their rides.

But I should get back to running with Jesus, or Jesosy, as he’s known around here. During my runs-cum-pilgrimages, I can detour and visit an overlook that is home to a large statue of the Virgin Mary. At night the statue is illuminated and I often find myself humming “I don’t care if it rains or freezes…” should my gaze fall upon her. A bit further up along the road is a small, simple church. When running on Sundays, I pass many church-goers dressed in their Sunday finery. But it’s after this that things get weird for me. Beyond the church are a series of about 8 religious-themed huts that overlook a spectacular valley filled with rice paddies. For each hut there is a religious statue/icon built into the central pillar that holds up the roof. The icons, for the most part, are your usual suspects: the Virgin Mother, the Angel Gabriel, some apostles, and other notables. But, there are some others that don’t ring any bells whatsoever. So, either my Presbyterian Sunday school lessons are failing me or these mysterious icons are important local figures. A little further on is, literally, the crowning glory: a giant replica of the crown of thorns that Jesus wore during His crucifixion, suspended about 8 feet off the ground. The crown, measuring almost 6 feet in diameter, is made from iron and comes complete with barbed, spiky thorns, and whose tips have been painted red. The whole thing seems out of place to me and a bit macabre, but it’s the only route within a reasonable distance from the apartment where the air feels clean enough to be running. Each time I have run this route I’ve seen at least one person sitting under a hut, so maybe it’s meant to be a place of quiet contemplation. One thing’s for sure, they didn’t bother with subtlety. My turn-around point is about a mile past this, some ways before you actually reach the nunnery. Naturally, it’s marked by a tall wrought-iron cross by the side of the road.

The big buzz around town at the moment is the upcoming celebration of the Malagasy Independence Day on June 26. Since I go into town on a daily basis to shop, I’ve watched the slow build-up of excitement over the past couple of weeks. First, there appeared a gaggle of women seamstresses who set up their sewing machines in front of a fabric store and began turning out Malagasy flags in assorted sizes with sweatshop-like alacrity. I read in the newspaper that Malagasy households must, by law, display a flag on Independence Day, thus the eager fabrication and purchasing of these flags. Then I began to notice small bands of young boys lighting off firecrackers all over town. And, more recently, I’ve seen assorted banners and streamers on display and for sale in the markets. There are even a few rag-tag carnival rides that look like an OSHA official’s nightmare. I stopped and watched one of the merry-go-rounds the other day and the kids riding didn’t seem so merry. Maybe they somehow sensed that they were riding a potential death-trap. Most wore blank faces and held death grips on their seats while they revolved around a scary painted rendition of Mickey Mouse. When the ride stopped the kids happily hopped down into their parents’ arms. Earlier in the week there was an open-mic concert, which I heard was a big hit. The festivities begin their climax on the evening of the 25th, with concerts, dancing, and a fireworks show; on the 26th a parade and speeches conclude the official activities. We’ve heard that usually the weather is terrible the day of the parade—cold and wet—and the speeches go on for an eternity. And, as luck would have it, this year I will be sole American representative for the parade. Usually this “honor” goes to the Freudenberger family, our neighbors, but this year they’ll be away on vacation, and Kristen won’t be back from Tanzania yet, so that just leaves me. I’m glad I just remembered that I packed my flask; it’ll help ward off the cold and the boredom.

Sorry that there’s been a long lag in communications. You’ve been in our thoughts though and we really had a big time unpacking all our pictures and putting them throughout the apartment. It’s great being surrounded by familiar faces. I’d say things are improving on all fronts with each passing week. If you take my unfortunate starting point in Fianar—falling into an open sewer our first night in town—things really could only get better.

Kristen wanted me to include a couple of web addresses that you could visit if you were interested in learning more about the conservation efforts that are currently going on here in Madagascar. They are Conservation International (www.conservationinternational.org), and the World Wildlife Fund (www.worldwildlife.org). CI has a new "Explore Madagascar" page on their site--for kids--to learn more about Mg after seeing the new movie, "Madagascar." And also a good article by CI's president about what's happening in the environment field in Madagascar. And, WWF links to “Madagascar Beyond the Big Screen” right from their homepage.

Best to you all, Dan

Memorial Day in Manakara

2005-05-31T16:28:00.000-04:00

FCE train schedule for May 28th

Kristen and spent Memorial Day weekend (and our 4th wedding anniversary!) in Manakara, a sleepy coastal town on the eastern coast of Madagascar. It was a welcome break from Fianar and the cold and overcast skies that had moved in and settled over the area for the past couple of weeks. We took the FCE (see Crossing the Corridor by Drasine post) and it was a lot more comfortable than the drasine.

We left in the early morning, under the usual grey sky and feeling cold, but by the time we were descending out of the corridor, the sun had come out and we started peeling off our layers of jackets and sweaters.

The ride was long, but interesting. If we had wanted, we could have enjoyed unique culinary delights at each stop. Of course there was the ubiquitous banana and other seasonal fruit like papayas and mandarin oranges. At one stop we bought a bunch of finger-sized bananas to munch on. But the main attractions were the beignets, banana/rice cakes wrapped in banana leaves, samosas, little red sausages, crayfish, and chicken livers. It seemed like some passengers managed to eat something at every stop. We weren’t feeling that adventurous, so we stuck with the tuna fish sandwiches we brought from home, and the bananas.

We got into town around 3 in the afternoon. We were warned about the pousse-pousse (rickshaw) drivers at the station would, that they would overwhelm us and we weren’t disappointed. We weren’t interested in riding in a pousse-pousse, but we wanted help with our baggage, so I picked out a strong looking guy, negotiated a price, and off we went to our hotel. I couldn’t tell, but I think as other p.p.s went buy, they were taking the piss out of our driver because his fare was walking and not riding. We made it to the hotel, the Padula, which was right on the beach. It looked like it had seen better days, but compared to some of the other properties around it, the Padula was doing just fine.

The rough surf (and sharks) kept us out of the water, but from our room we could hear the waves and feel the breeze, which was lovely and helped compensate for the lack of hot water, absence of electricity, and sad mattress and straw-filled pillow. I thought Kristen might start crying at one point, but she soon took comfort in our guidebook. She read to me (in as convincing a voice as she could muster) that one contributing traveler thought the Padula was the best hotel they had stayed in during their entire trip. Our guidebook also recommended the food at the Padula, so after we checked in, we ordered up dinner for that evening: lobster (spiny) and fried fish (whole) as main courses and Bananas Josephine as dessert.

After making our dinner order, we struck off to see the town. There wasn't much to see aside from a game of soccer being played on a "pitch" that surly must have claimed many an ankle over the years, and a brand-spanking new gym, which-- despite advertising being open 7 days a week--was closed. By the time we made it back to the hotel, the sun had set and we were ready to have some good seafood. The lobster was quite good. Kristen really was impressed with a vinagrette concoction that was served in place of drawn butter. The fish, however, was disappointing; it had an earthy (that's being kind) flavor, and reasoned later that perhaps we made the mistake of assuming our fish would have been from the ocean and not the river. And the Bananas Joshephine for dessert was underwhelming. What's so special about sliced bananas served over yogurt? At this point, we began to question the credibility of our guidebook contributers.

The next day was Sunday and we awoke to the sound of music. The church next door was warming up for its service and treated us to Celine Dion's Titantic hit. After a revolting breakfast--blue band margarine and some coffee that even I couldn't drink--we struck off into town. We decided that we should really reserve our return seats back to Fianar, so we passed by the train station. The station was deserted, except for some kids playing inside and a guardian. We told the guardian we wanted to buy tickets for Monday's train and he told us to come back at 3, when the next train would be arriving and when there would be someone around who could help us. I was ready to leave, but Kristen's powers of persuasion are not to be underestimated because the next thing I knew the guardian was telling us to wait a minute as he mounted his bike. Off he pedaled and we waited for him to return on the platform.

Walking back to the hotel, with reserved and confirmed tickets in hand, we stopped and bought fresh coconuts to drink their milk. We grabbed a deck of cards, reapplyed suncream, and got some lunch. We had a lovely, leisurely lunch and the odd 65cl THB was drunk (mostly by me). Maybe it was the alcohol, but at some point we decided the Padula just wasn't quite the romantic getaway we envisioned for our anniversary, and that we should look for a better hotel. It had to be the alcohol that led us, after asking the restaurant owner for directions to guidebook-recommended hotel, to hop into a pousse-pousse. We spent the next hour fruitlessly trying to change our lodging, and after all the commotion, we wound up right back where we started.

Resigned to spending a second night at the Padula, we walked the beach. First we walked up to the jetty and warded off offers to buy precious stones and other tourist trinkets. Then, on the way back to the Padula we stopped and sat on a bench to watch a group of young kids doing flips and cartwheels off a high bank into the soft sand below. They were totally into it, so much so that they didn't even notice us noticing them.

The next morning we caught the train back to Fianar. We saw familar faces, other tourists making the same circuit. Kristen and I both agreed that Manakara is okay, but it's really the experience of the FCE that makes the trip worthwhile. As we climbed back onto the plateau, the clouds reappeared and engulfed the hills. But not before I was able to get a picture of some valley rice fields.

The train made record time back to Fianar and we picked up where we left off before leaving.

A Trip to the Paper Maker

2005-04-22T17:09:00.000-04:00

In one of our guidebooks we read there is a paper maker living in Fianarantsoa and it recommended making a trip out to his studio. We’ve tried to incorporate into our weekends a jaunt in or around the city thought this sounded like a good way to spend a Saturday. However, the directions in the book weren’t entirely clear; about the only place we could locate with any accuracy on the map was where Kristen and I would start arguing over how best to find the route. We consulted our hotel’s receptionist for more detailed directions. With the aid of a thirty year old map, he gave us enough confidence to strike off to find the paper maker.

The walk was pleasantly uneventful—our directions steered us correctly along the right paths. Along the way we ran into the paper maker himself, Mr. Maurice, who was returning home from doing errands in town. Maurice runs his studio out of his house and is a real family affair. In fact, he learned his trade from his parents, and now he’s teaching the art to the third generation.

Maurice’s home is completely dedicated to the paper making process. In one corner of his concession a cauldron sat balanced on three large rocks. The first step in the lengthy process is to cook down the plant material in the cauldron. In another corner stood racks of finished paper laid out to dry in the afternoon sun. Throughout the concession flecks of paper waste covered the ground like snowflakes. A little further in was a small out-building that serves as his gift shop. On display were cards with flowers pressed into the paper, photo albums, wall hangings, cute little paper boxes, and much more. The craftsmanship was really fine and we marveled at his inventiveness. However, what struck us more than the products was the array of flowers planted throughout the concession. Flowers of all sizes and colors could be found, along with greenery, like small ferns, and are used to decorate the various paper products. What a great fringe-benefit.

Making designs

Maurice gave us the full tour, starting from scratch and going all the way to the finished product. Kristen really got into the decorating phase of the tour and even tried her hand at it. Like a good salesman, Maurice left the gift shop until the end, and once he had us safely inside, he strategically stood in the doorway. We decided to buy a dozen note cards decorated with flowers. While we were picking out our cards we talked about what we were doing here in Fianar and that we were friends (and neighbors) with Karen and Mark Freudenberger. When Maurice learned we weren’t just some tourists blowing through town, he gave us the local discount. We thanked him for our tour and promised to return with any guests that might visit us during our time in Fianar.

Kristen designed the top two panels

Crossing the Corridor by Drasine

2005-04-11T14:48:00.000-04:00

On Kristen's first day of work in Fianar we stowed away on the drasine for a first glimpse of the shrinking forest corridor of old-growth forest. A probable first question might be what is a drasine? A drasine is a sort of train car, comprised of a single engine and some very stark bench seating. I imagine this kind of machine might be used to dispatch engineers and mechanics to broken down engines in need of fixing. However, on this day the drasine only dispatched the head of USAID-Madagascar and a small entourage of other AID employees along a portion of the Fianarantsoa – Côte Est (FCE) train line, which runs east and south from Fianarantsoa to Manakara on the coast. The route, some 160 kilometers in length, carries both freight and passengers, and because of the remoteness of this area, plays a vital role in linking small forest communities to the outside world. The train starts at an elevation of 1100 meters in Fianarantsoa and descends off the plateau towards sea level and the Indian Ocean. At one point the rail grade becomes the third steepest of any non-cog railway in the world. And, with the exception of about 30 kilometers of welded rails, the FCE is the one of the bumpier rides I've been on. The no-frills design of the drasine heightened this fact, and every nine meters the small car, and its passengers, jolted across the non-welded rail seams.

One real treasure of taking the FCE is how it transects so many different ecosystems, including a narrow corridor of old-growth forest. Seeing this corridor and getting a lay of the land was the reason we were invited to stow away on the drasine. For those who work in the People and Environment area of development in Madagascar, it seems as though the corridor, and its contents, occupies much of their thoughts. How large is it? (I've seen estimates for 2000 that put the forest area to be over 350,000 hectares.) How much has been lost? (The Fianar region of the corridor alone lost over 12 percent of its forest in the decade from 1990 to 2000.) What is happening to the wildlife in the corridor? (Scientists don't know for sure, but a Malagasy biologist in the Fianar area is currently studying the effects of forest fragmentation and its effect on genetic diversity in the local lemur population.) How are human communities faring in the face of changing forest resources? (This, too, is not entirely known, but there is a lot of interest with conservation and development groups to work with and support local communities as a means to ensure and enhance biodiversity and reduce deforestation.)

We left the station in Fianar mid morning and slowly chugged through the city limits and out into the countryside. The abundance of ramshackle housing impressed me, as did the proximity with which people erected their market stalls to the rail line. People alongside the tracks waved to us, especially children, and the conductor made liberal use of the whistle to clear the tracks of pedestrians. Soon we made it out into the countryside and buildings gave way to rice paddies and fields of cassava and beans. Not too far outside Fianar, we passed Madagascar's only tea plantation, Sahambavy; the light green tea leaves stood out against the darker green of the surrounding fields. A little farther ahead, the tracks and paved road parted ways and the drasine began its approach to the corridor.

The transition into the corridor was dramatic. Beyond a certain point I noticed the occurrences of rice fields and of eucalyptus and pine trees (both are introduced species) fell off sharply and was replaced by a dense mat of exotic (i.e., not introduced, but new to me) trees, vines, and other flowering plants. Banana trees planted by local farmers were part of the tree mix and many bore big bunches of green bananas.

The FCE boasts 67 bridges and 48 tunnels and we traversed and passed through our fair share during our tour. At the mouth of one tunnel we noticed a spider had built its web across the entire opening. A collective "AWWWH" came from the group as the drasine tore through the web. Like in the Gary Larson cartoon, I was impressed with the spider's ambition. Part of the fun riding the drasine was the freedom to stop at will and take in the sights and marvel at the "wilderness." And, almost always when we stopped somewhere the illusion of isolation would be broken. Out of nowhere farmers would materialize, give you a passing look, go around the bend, and be gone. We also experienced this phenomenon in Niger last fall with turbaned Touaregs, and I guess it shows that you now have to work pretty hard to escape the reach of human contact. Comforting or upsetting, it's a fact. We ate lunch at Mandriampotsy waterfall, which also offered spectacular views of the corridor. However, the effects of deforestation were also apparent from the same vantage point. Looking north and west back across the corridor, we saw hillsides cleared of trees and could imagine the fringes of the corridor being slowly chipped away. It surprised me to learn that the FCE actually helps fight deforestation.

Threatening the forest is Madagascar's rapidly growing population and an unsustainable agricultural system (essentially slash and burn). To grow enough rice to meet a household's needs, farmers in the corridor clear hillsides to plant upland rice. The soil on these sites is not well-suited for rice production and soon yields on these marginal fields decline. When this occurs, cassava gets planted next. This buys a few more years of food production before the native fertility becomes completely exhausted and the site is essentially sterile. At this point, that field is abandoned and a new patch of forest is cleared, and the cycle repeats.

Without the FCE, this cycle would accelerate more quickly. The presence of the rail line allows farmers in the corridor to focus on more sustainable agricultural practices, which basically involves relying on tree crops like bananas, coffee, avocados, and lychees. Farmers can use the train to transport fruits to outside markets like Fianar and buy rice, their preferred cereal, with the proceeds. The FCE won't stop slash and burn agriculture completely, but it does offer the hope of slowing it.

The USAID party disembarked from the drasine in Tolongoina and continued with their program by car. Bananas from across the region are collected in Tolongoina before being shipped to Fianar on the FCE. We went into one warehouse that was packed to the gills in bananas. They have 18 different species of bananas just in this region. We said goodbye to the group and rode the drasine back up to Fianar with Karen and even managed to cat nap during the bumpy ride.

Antananarivo II

2005-04-05T04:02:00.000-04:00

Panoramic look at Tana.

I have enjoyed walking with Kristen to work these last few days. The mornings right now are crisp and cool; most Malagasy wear jackets or sweaters, but I am comfortable in shirt-sleeves. By the time we've eaten and left the hotel, the city is already at a bustle. Most people walk fast and with a purpose. Cars jam the narrow streets and taxis fill and empty with fares. On the many stairs that connect the upper and lower sections of the city—and spare you from all the cars—it's not uncommon to see somebody taking stairs by pairs, evidently late for some rendezvous. If it weren't for the pollution, I'd feel invigorated by all the activity.

Somebody told us that an air sample taken in the tunnel of Antananarivo was as poor as Mexico City's in quality. I suppose elevation, topography, and lower (absent) emissions standards contribute to the poor air quality. Tana is nearly as high as Denver and its streets coil around and up and down the surrounding hills. This kind of layout makes it seem perfect for trapping stale air. Yesterday, after seeing Kristen off to work and exploring the city, I made the mistake of walking through the tunnel, which was packed with cars and trucks. I breathed through my shirt, but even still I emerged feeling dirty. Later, back at the hotel, I blew my nose and the tissue came away sooty.

Before the nasty tunnel experience, I walked along Lac Anosy, a good-sized lake in the lower part of town. There I found stalls filled with exotic plants and cut flowers. If I had to guess, I'd say the plants have their provenance from the tropical forests and the flowers are plantation grown. I wonder if ex-patriots fuel this market for plants and whether these plants are harvested sustainably. I have my doubts.

One thing we struggle to understand about Madagascar is why their poverty is so great. A few development workers we've talked to see Madagascar at the bottom of the heap, even behind places in West Africa. But to us, we see tons of activity and interest by outside donors an

2005-04-01T02:07:00.000-05:00

Antananarivo I

A look at Upper Tana en route to the Rova.

The first two days in Antananarivo have been spent getting our feet on the ground and accustomed to this new environment. Kristen has spent most of her time meeting supervisors and colleagues and finding out what they want her to do during her fellowship. She is getting a crash-course in USAID-ese, which at this early stage is confusing, but will ultimately be very valuable should she stay in the Development field.

As a TS (trailing spouse, or trophy spouse), I've had more opportunity to venture out into the city. The city is hilly and divided into upper and lower portions. Our hotel is in the upper portion, along with the Presidential Palace. Speaking of which, yesterday, trying to avoid traffic, I made the mistake of using driveway to the Palace to get back to the hotel. Soldiers with machine guns quickly pointed out my mistake and put me back on the right track.

During another walk, I headed up towards the old Queen's Palace and looked up into the telephone wires. There, in between two strands of lines, I saw spider webs, and in the middle of each were the biggest spiders I'd ever seen. It looked like they might be able to handle small birds. Those, aside from stray dogs, have been the only wildlife seen so far.

Then, for lunch yesterday, I walked down to Avenue de l'Independance looking for a restaurant recommended in the Brandt guide. This street is very busy with both vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The entrance to the main market is off this street and looked inviting, however I wasn't feeling bold enough to run the gauntlet yet. I did eventually find the restaurant, El Pili Pili, and ordered the Pili Pili Sandwich, which advertised chicken with fries, and a beer. I guess the description was more literal than I imagined because the sandwich arrived with both the chicken and fries inside the sandwich. It reminded me of when I was in grade school and would put potato chips in my PB&J. Sadly, but perhaps predictably, the Madagascar version did not meet my childhood expectations. The beer, however, was pretty good.

Some of our first impressions of Tana and its residents is how clean both the city and the people seem. Absent are the wandering flocks of goats, sheep, cows, donkeys and camels that we have come to associate with Niger. Also absent, thankfully, are the stench of human sewage and the sight of it in the streets and alleys. The people in the city dress more demurely than in West Africa, with most people wearing Western styles of dress. Kristen was told that in Fianar, the people are more colorfully dressed than in Tana. Beggars and hawkers still pester Westerners, but seem to be less persistent than ones in Niger. Appearance wise, the Malagasy seem much more Asian than African. This is what we read before arriving, but somehow is still surprising. And, stature wise, I'm up in the 90th percentile, which is a first for me.

This morning I met Kristen's supervisor, Philippe, and walked with him and Kristen to the office. The office is on the top floor of a newly constructed building. Originally, the space had been designed as a penthouse suite, but apparently that concept is not quite ripe enough for Tana, so it was converted into its current configuration of offices. But, overall the space is quite nice and the view is nice, as are the amenities like kitchen and fireplace. Philippe did mention that he has Nissan pickup that he will be selling at the end of April, when his container from the U.S. arrives. We'll probably look at it; he says it's in good shape and the price is in our range.

That's about all the news. We'll keep you posted as things develop here.