Thriller

As you may have suspected if you’re a loyal facebook fan, LEMURRRRS! This week was incredible. We camped for a few days near a village called Ifotaka, which is in the spiny forest. The name is quite applicable. There are scorpions, prickly pear, and these plants that look like giant coral covered in spines. But this is where sifaka (fluffy white dancey lemurs) live, so I’m cool with it. We did several studies of the sifaka in the area, which was so exciting because they’re not habituated so they’re really just wild lemurs chilling on these spiky trees. I followed one for an hour and a half through the forest, which resulted in some scratched-up legs but also a pretty long and adorable lemur nap that I witnessed. On a night hike, we saw tiny mouse lemurs peering out from the trees in the most impossibly adorable way. (When I told my host family about it today, they said “And you weren’t afraid?!” Just when I think we are starting to understand each other...) We also got to sit under a tree and chat (with one of our professors translating French/Malagasy) with a few men from the village about their beliefs and Tandroy culture, which is the people of this desert-y spiny Southern region. Their tombs involve the horns of as many zebu as the family can afford to kill during the funeral, but no less than three, because each serves a purpose in the passage to the afterlife. My host dad said to me, “The problem with the Tandroy is that all they ever do is buy zebu. If they spent money on other things maybe they wouldn’t be so poor.” I guess this is one way of looking at it—they are definitely a people who prepares a lot for the afterlife. They also have to burn down their house after someone dies. In Iftoka, we also saw some little girls bringing giant mosquito nets (donated by some NGO for the original purpose of, you know, preventing malaria) full of shrimp from the river. It’s tough for people to sleep in nets when they don’t really have beds (kids mostly sleep on the floor of the home), but they’re awesome for fishing.

Back at the camp site I had some adventures as well, most notably my slaughter of a chicken for our lunch. This was something that, as a meat-eater, I’ve sort of been wanting to do for awhile, but in the U.S. you can’t exactly buy a chicken for a few thousand Ariary, carry it on the back of your 4 by 4 for 7 hours, and then bust out the knife. After watching two friends do it, I almost wimped out (not going to make the obvious pun), but I’m glad I went for it. If you’re upset by this kind of thing, then just skip the rest of this paragraph as I describe. The first step is to place one foot on the chicken’s feet, and the other foot on the wings. Then you hold the head back with one hand while plucking a few feathers out of the neck where you’re going to cut—this makes it faster, though ironically I felt the worst about that since my chicken clucked a little bit and it seemed mean. Then, you pull the neck back taut, take the knife, and cut as fast as you can. It feels like forever, maybe 10 or 15 seconds, but you can’t stop because that’s cruel. I felt weirdly detached from the whole process until I had actually cut off the head, which fell into the sand. But while I held down the body, which continued to move a little bit, I felt really tender and gentle. A man from the village who was helping us kept telling me in French to hold it until it stopped moving completely. Even though it was violent, I felt better being aware of and connected to this violence. I knew it wasn't feeling pain without a head also. I felt more like a predator (even though some Malagasy family had raised these chickens, one of my professors had bought them, and someone else handed me a sharpened knife...) than like a murderer. That said, I was completely horrified and will now need therapy after my attempt to take an afternoon nap on my sleeping pad in the sun outside my tent was interrupted by the screams of our goat being sacrificed 10 yards away from me. I know it’s illogical for me to pontificate about the beautiful connection I had with my chicken and then cringe at the sound of another animal dying in the same way, but I can’t help my mammal-centrism. It was so fluffy!

After our big goat roast and hours of exhausting dancing with the villagers of Ifotaka, including some really impressive booty-shakers no older than 8 years old, we woke up early on Wednesday to go to Berenty. Though it’s super touristy (or because of it), this was in many ways so much cooler than seeing wild lemurs, because the ring-tails were brazen thieves of leftover food and nearly touched many of us trying to get at it. I had some awesome moments with sifaka in the forest as well. Screw bears. Sifakas were definitely designed to be stuffed animals for little children.

And now I have a few days to catch my breath in Fort Dauphin before my rural village stay all of next week. I will certainly have a lot to share when I return on March 3^rd. This evening’s dinner conversation got pretty deep—we somehow transitioned from my brother’s total certainty that Michael Jackson is buried on the moon to whether or not there are vampires in Pennsylvania (I explained that they all live in Romania and in Washington State-- yes, the Twilight movies have made it here) to 2012 and the end of the world as we know it. Maybe I misunderstood, but my family said that when there was a solar eclipse last December they were so afraid they locked all the windows of the house and didn't come out or look at it. I couldn’t tell how earnestly my host brother believes that the world is ending this December, though. He kept saying he read it on the internet, but my host dad said it was nonsense and nobody could ever know, because in the Bible, it says not even Jesus knows when the world will end. My brother said that on December 20th he’s going to eat some good food and then hide. I guess that if the world was ending, there are far worse places to experience it than here in Fort Dauphin, on the beach drinking vanilla-flavored rum by the light of Michael Jackson’s final resting place.

You're Beautiful

Dinner table conversation:

My dad: “So, you know how in America, on the 4^th of November, one celebrates the birthday of the United States?”

Me: “Um, sort of, usually in July we...”

My dad: “You live in Pennsylvania, yes? Well, is there a celebration that is like, the November 4^th for Pennsylvania? For to celebrate the birth of the Pennsylvania?”

Me: “Umm... original thirteen colonies...July...American revolution...”

Aside from communication difficulties (other gems include “Where can I do my laundry?” “Yes.” and “Are you done with school for today?” “Yes” “Where are you going?” “To school.”), my family and I are meshing really well. They love to compare differences between cultures, although their perception of American culture is mostly through Justin Bieber and reruns of Buffy/How I Met Your Mother dubbed in French. It seems like a lot of people here in Fort Dauphin, which is far more relaxed and surf-tastic, perceive the United States to be a lot like Tana, because “everyone is in a hurry there” and “they have small families.”

The past week or so was a little rough for me, because I was sick and then spent countless hours on my first taxi-brousse ride, which has been created specifically to maximize carsickness. I have a deep admiration for people who travel that way—you can do it up to 3-4 days, with stops only when someone asks to go to the bathroom. The delicate way to say this translates to, “A man is not a chicken!” because apparently chickens are perceived to have bladders of steel. The bus doesn’t have aisles because the seats have hinges, trapping you, but unfortunately it is equipped with an enormous stereo nailed to the ceiling that blasts a mix of Malagasy pop and James Blunt. The roads are so crazy that they frequently include things such as goats and rivers (Oregon trail anyone? And actually the whole “You have died of dysentery!” thing is a real concern...thank god for Cipro, the miraculous cure-all of such unpleasant afflictions.)

Today, though, I had a wonderful day, and I couldn’t stop thinking how happy I was to be here. My grown host sisters brought me shopping for what they called “fripperies” but as far as I could tell was clothing, teacups, snowboots, and vegetables. We took a public bus for a few cents each and stopped in a little shop to drink cold papaya juice and little fried samosas full of zebu. Hopefully the juice was not made with tap water or I will be facing round two of bacterial dysentery...not going to think about that right now. Sadly, the flip-flops that read “FREEDOM... TOO NOT IMMUNITY” were not in my size, but I did get a pair with a picture of a bus on them. I also bought an odd tunic that my sisters picked out for me, which turns out doesn’t quite fit my ribcage but is still very fetching if I don’t breathe. There’s a party at the surf shack tonight—I’m hoping for THB (Three Horses Beer—drink of choice here) and lobster, but I’d settle for octopus. Will update next week after our first round of lemur stalking in the spiny forest!

Le Chat Mange Le Cafard

It’s officially been one week with my homestay and two weeks since I left the U.S., so I guess it’s time for another update! So many things keep happening that it’s difficult and overwhelming to keep up. I really love Fort Dauphin, which is full of friendly people and has many awesome beaches. I am finally getting a little tired of the staring thing, though. Mostly children, because, though cute, they are so insistent and will awkwardly follow me for like ten minutes saying “Bonjour vazaha!” and/or creating clearly false sob stories (they’re well-dressed and well-fed-looking) in fairly clear French (which they obviously are studying at a good school) about how they can’t eat unless I buy an ugly necklace for approximately 50 cents. I do like that everyone always says hello to everyone, but I wish I could just say hi, smile, and continue walking. Also, people apparently perceive American girls to be “easy” here, so especially if you’re on the beach in a bathing suit, it’s acceptable to come up and hit on you brazenly or to make slightly rude gestures from afar in a group of teenage boys. I know how teenage boys behave and talk to each other in the U.S., but it would definitely not fly for them to stand in a group making sexual hand gestures and yelling “Hello I love you” at a girl directly because she was a different race.

However, the Malagasy people that I actually know personally are really considerate, call my by my name, etc. I love spending time with my host family—on Sunday we all sat on the beach drinking rum and coke (I’m allowed here guys!) and eating bits of octopus (hope Raf isn’t reading this. It was SO GOOD. Sorry...) The oldest daughter, her husband, and their two young kids just returned from vacation in Tana, and now the house is far more full than before, but in a good way. Nofy is 6 yrs old and really enjoys helping me learn Malagasy, since I’m basically as proficient as he is. My host dad is constantly trying to teach me, which is sometimes exhausting since he’ll just be like, at random times, “Kate! Where is your hair?” Sadly, I frequently do not know where my hair is. I almost always do in English and in French, but in Malagasy I often confuse it with my teeth and hands. Nofy also has an adorable little sister, Toky, who is six months old and thinks I am really funny-looking. I feel a certain kinship with her, as we both can’t communicate verbally and we both drink out of bottles (my water, her milk). Her aunts (the 13 and 14 yr old girls who sleep in the same room as me) always sing this really cute song with her in French that starts out “Tournez, tournez, petites mains...” (turn, turn, little hands) and then ends “Volez volez volez petite papillon!” (fly, fly, fly little butterfly). I wish people would sing nursery rhymes to me in Malagasy. Those things get stuck in your head forever.

Classes are going well, though as I expected, it’s all about the actual living experiences here. We’ve had several speakers, like someone who works for a mine and someone who works for the fisheries services here, but it is unbelievably hard to focus in another language and in 80 degree weather. We did a little field trip to the enormous mine—the largest ever investment in Madagascar—which is extracting titanium dioxide, a whitening agent. Think of me when you’re brushing your teeth! Tomorrow we’re interviewing fishermen in a village about their perceptions of the environment and about their lives generally. I’m definitely going to ask if they like whales. Ideas about animals are very different here—like dogs are akin to American rats. I learned how to say “The cat is eating the cockroach” in Malagasy on Sunday. I’ll end on that note, since it seems like it describes a lot of things about my life here, in both a good and bad way.

Complicated

So, it has been a whole week since the first day I woke up in Madagascar! So much has happened that it is impossible to describe everything, but I’m definitely “honeymooning” still as far as culture shock goes. We arrived to a hotel in the capital, Antananarivo (literally “city of a thousand” but it currently is about 3-4 million), and wandered the streets last Thursday night. It was very strange because apart from our hotel, with a few spare European tourists, we were the only vazahas, and people stared and laughed unabashedly. It’s totally acceptable to stare and point here, which is actually somewhat refreshing. No one ever stares at me in the U.S. unless I sneeze in a quiet room. I like being allowed to stare back and see what people are doing. After one night in Tana and a brief visit to a small and mildly depressing zoo (first lemurs of the trip though!) we flew to Fort Dauphin, which is much more laid-back, a city of about 50,000 on a peninsula.

We stayed at a place outside the city called Manantantely, which means “where there is a lot of honey (tantely)” nestled in some rainforesty mountains. The place was sort of a convention center in theory, taken care of by a large family, so there were cute children who followed us everywhere and loved peeking in our window and asking us for pens. Pens are really big here among more rural people, since they’re so necessary but hard to get. Our dwelling there was a bit of a stretch because it had some squat-style outhouses with cockroaches twice the size of my thumb and the showers were bucket-full-a-cold-water style. But after a few days there getting our bearings and getting our Malagasy sea-legs, we went downtown and attempted to bargain for food. I got in the meat group, which was quite a shock. The market was really beautiful and vibrant and cheap—if you’re buying something fun and delicious like pineapple (in Malagasy “mananasy” which has something to do with the word for “sweet” I think) or adorable little cans full of nuts and beans. But buying meat is a scene that maybe would be in a J-horror movie—it’s visually horrifying and you have no idea what’s going on. There are disembodied hooves laying in little piles on tables covered in flies. One woman tried to convince us to buy a slab of pork as she held it in our faces, smoking with the same hand, ashing her cigarette onto the table full of remaining meat. My group went the smart route and purchased a live chicken, which we held by the legs as is customary. It was very mild-mannered. I feel very conflicted about eating meat here. It’s rude to refuse, so with my family I am, of course. I try not to think about where it’s coming from—maybe that same market. But at the same time, the animals here are treated very well. They live such better lives than a slaughterhouse chicken I would eat in the U.S., I’m sure. They get to cock-a-doodle-doo constantly (seriously, at 3 am) and live in big yards and sneak into the house to peck bits of rice from beneath the table and scare the cats.

And this brings me to my homestay—it’s pretty awesome. I live right on the beach, with two parents and their two youngest daughters, who are thirteen and fourteen. Their four older kids live in houses next door, and one of their sons owns the surf shack and has promised to teach me. Also, we’re snorkeling for lobsters for dinner soon, which sounds amazing. I can also hear and see the ocean from my bed, and they set up a giant mosquito net so I don’t need to put up my little internal frame one. So far I haven’t gotten any more mosquito bites than I would during the summer in the U.S., but this mean black beetle bit my shoulder last night when I was doing my reading for class. I flung it out the window. My host sisters usually watch everything I do and smile at me a lot, and they’re very cute. They asked me if I like Justin Bieber and they love Avril Lavigne soo much. They have a giant poster of Angelina Jolie and they think it is Avril Lavigne. I don’t know why, since they have an actual poster of Avril right next to it, but I guess maybe they just think all American sex icons are her. I didn’t want to be rude and explain...

I’m leaving now to see my family in their home, but I hope this gives a small taste of Madagascar! I will tell more about the actual classes and ecology (read: lemurs!!!!!) when we start doing that more.

First and Last Post in Pennsylvania!

Tomorrow, leaving the house at 5 am, I'm flying from JFK --> Johannesburg --> Tana. There I will meet up with my program directors, spend the night at a hotel, and then fly together to Fort Dauphin for orientation. I won't have internet until I am through orientation, in about a week. Can't wait for my first real update! Thanks for all the good wishes, everyone.