Merry Xmas from Owen!

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

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

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

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

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

Owen's Album

West African Reunion

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

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

 

Blabla's new ride

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

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

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


Mainely Family
Originally uploaded by edaniii.

Why I hate Malagasy Banking

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

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

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

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

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

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:

1. Climbed Pic St. Louis; from that height you can’t see how dilapidated the town is.
2. Twice, drunks chased me: the first time was scary, the other funny.
3. Made it out to the countryside; appreciated how friendly people are outside of Fianar.
4. An unsolicited prostitute knocked on my door at 3:30am, offering bargain-basement rates. (No, I didn’t take her up on her offer.)
5. 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.
6. “Misplaced” 150,000 Dijeridoos somewhere.
7. KP and I celebrated 5 years of marriage (yeah)—by SMS (boo).

What's your guess?

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

"A [Madagascar] Late One"

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

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

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

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

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!

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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

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.