An assortment of things from February

2011/03/04 An assortment of things from February

PC PSA – With the 50th Anniversary of the Peace Corps this year, the PC has been putting out some PSAs.  Here are some youtube links to a few I really like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwuDH5BkHvw (“Conversations” really funny and short, and it is CC for Sissy)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2J8ljzZsRA&feature=player_profilepage (lonnng, but has like old clips, more of an overview of the PC for the 50^th Anniversary)

Madagascar: Carnet du Voyage – Some of you may have already heard about this short film, but you should also watch this.  It is only 11 minutes and I think is a pretty accurate snippet of Malagasy culture.  AND you can hear what “salut vazaha” sounds like at the beginning.  Now imagine kids and adults yelling that at you all the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaWEzsLVGiA

Andrew Zimmern has now done two shows here in Madagascar.  I am still waiting for the movie files to make their way in the PCV circulation to me so I can watch them, but you should.

http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Bizarre_Foods/Episodes_Travel_Guides/Madagascar

Avocados are coming into season.  Just thought I would tell you all.  They cost about 5 cents.    Also, we had VAC elections (call it Peace Corps student council for simplicity’s sake) and Brianna and I were both voted to head up our respective regions.  Go UT!

We had our first cyclone.  It sounds so exotic, but it’s a hurricane still.  Where I live just got the outside bands of the storm for the week or so.  But it rained so much.  It was so cold.  I even just sat my buckets out in the yard to collect rainwater because it is way cleaner than what comes out of the pump when it rains (brown water).  When the cyclone finally left, teachers greeted each other at school the next Monday with the Malagasy equivalent of “awesome the cyclone is gone.”  Then the very next day complained about how it was hot because it wasn’t raining.

So the sun (even though I wear sunblock) is harsh.  So before my students called me fotsy (white).  Now they call me mena mena (red).  Also, my students were asking if we had triplets in America.  I said yeah, we have twins, triplets, all the way up to scary octomom.  They thought it was funny to try and freak me out by explaining that when a mom has triplets, one is killed because the mom only has two nonos (breasts, say it nooh nooh).  I am pretty sure they were messing with me, but who knows.  Also speaking of vazaha things, I looked up the word for oatmeal because my English Club was interested in what we eat for our meals and the Malagasy for it is “vazaha rice.”  Which is funny, however, we do not eat oatmeal three times a day so it is kind of inaccurate.  They also think that eating bacon is hilarious.

There is one month left in this school quarter.  March 8^th is Women’s Day, so I don’t have to work which is pretty awesome.  On March 11^th I will be participating in a round table discussion regarding women with an NGO in Fianar.  Then I essentially have all of April off for Easter.

Oh also, there is a new group of volunteers coming here in March!  It will be so nice not to be the freshmen anymore!  These new volunteers are in the business and environment sectors.  A new batch of health and education volunteers will arrive in July.  Seven months down.  A few more to go.

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