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| No ponies yet. |
Spent the day in Antsirabe with Rindra and her mother. As usual, spend more money than I should have but needed to get items like blue paint for my co-workers rooms, paint brushes, dogfood and just staples for me to eat. My diet has taken a hit. I eat usually just a single meal a day and try and get some food off the street vendor or at the local restaurant. Though the food I eat there is of the same type I feel comfortable with - potatoes, meat and not much more.
I finally found and bought some eggs - not found here in Sahanivotry or Manadona. The hardest part is getting them back on the trek and taxi-bruss without breaking. But tonight it was heaven to taste fried eggs again after almost four months without. I cooked two but then had to cook two more.
We officially called Manda and confirmed him as my tutor. We'll start with some training for him in the official Peace Corps way next week. We also called the LDS couple to give them the bad news. Another discussion was had with Cr. Clertant about what his hopes are for me in teaching sensitization sessions. It's a little optimistic and scary to think that I can master the language enough to teach with it but if I fold the vocabulary in and work at it perhaps I can.
Saturday, 3 June 2023 (110)
Today Rindra, her mom, even Dobby and I are going to Antsirabe. There we'll meet up with Samson. The plan is to get Dobby her second shot (2 of the 4 or 5 required). We also found a vet in town who will do the spading operation but we first need to get her all the shots. We also talked with the Taxi-bruss driver on the way home yesterday and questioned him about bringing a dog on the vehicle. He said as long as it was in a box and stayed in my lap that it shouldn't be a problem. We'll see. I'm still not likely to tell them I have the dog in the box. We'll attempt to keep it quiet until we're not able to.
I'm up at 4am this morning as Dr Clertant asked if I would be interested in observing at the least, if not participating in a circumcision. The early hour seems to be a tradition according to him. It wasn't till nearly six am that the seven family members arrived. Even though the arms of the 18 month old were somewhat incapacitated by wrapping his arms in his shirt - I was asked to hold his arms down.
A needle with something to numb the procedure was injected in his penis area and a few cuts were made. The worst part was the use of a soldering iron to seal the cut. Not a medical grade, or even sanitized soldering iron - just your everyday soldering iron used to fuse two wires together.
Then off to Antsirabe with Rindra and her mom and Dobby in her box and large rice bag. "Great camouflage", one off the other PCVs would later call it. Even if some think it ok, we'd just keep it low key and not tell anyone. It worked out well and Dobby didn't make any noise or try and get out.
She got her second shot before we dropped her at my room at the Green Park Hotel - one of two officially accepted Peace Corp hotels. The rest of the day was spent shopping for things needed or thought needed. Then I had dinner with four of my G58 PCVs - Tahlia, Sarah, Julica, Emily and Nada (she had to get back to Manadona for her cat) and four of G57 PCVs - Becky, Jesse, Thomas and Kathryn. Sam and Rindra (technically a Peace Corps LCF) choose not to come along as Rindra had her mother along, and I thought they were going to attend a musical concert in town for Mother's day (which is tomorrow here in Madagascar).
It was great to hear about the other PCVs experiences being four months in country longer than us. They are all Agricultural and Education PCVs. It is true that each of our experiences are different and unique. Some have busy schedules and demands made of them. Some like me - not so many demands, at least not yet. My town is very small compared with Nada's just down the road in Manadona. It's probably about four or five times larger and likely the work at the CSB there is also proportionally more.
I asked the other group if every day still seemed like an adventure to them. They responded back,"if you are doing it right." We went to a very foreigner restaurant. It's called L'insolite, a very fancy place. Almost everyone there was French or spoke it. Dinner cost about 450,000 ariary for nine of us. That about $104 for food that is very western including duck, steak, ice cream, and most had wine.
Sunday, 4 June 2023 (111)
I had thought to head right home this morning as it is more complicated carrying around a 50 pound backpack of supplies and a dog in a box/bag. But Sam talked me into staying a bit. We had lunch and found another - that makes three - American style groceries stores.
On the taxi-bruss back, the road claimed a victim - a semi-truck got stuck in the road just where they had made repairs a day or two ago. The traffic in both directions was staring to add up. I decided to walk the rest of the way not knowing how long this could take. 3-4 kilometers later a van offered to take me, and another, the rest of the way. Ten minutes after we arrived home, I saw the red taxi-bruss (we had been in) drive down the main road. We saved ourselves a few minutes but it cost us some exercise. But I was home early enough to do some sorely needed laundry - by hand of course.
Monday, 5 June 2023 (112)
Painted Yantz's room. Took most of the day and there was nothing I could do about the mold in the walls but paint over it. No amount of paint coats seem to hide it. I had bought three 8k tubs of blue paint. It took two and a half of them. It will take another trip to Antsirabe to get a couple more to paint Sarah's room next Monday. The darker colors do best and cover in just a couple coats. I feel even painting is work that I am happy to do as a Peace Corps volunteer and fits in with why we are here. It's just not proper that I am paying for it all.
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