Rachel was in hospital for a day or two, two weeks ago, with reaction to typhoid shot. She appears to be over it okay. She called for a moment last Tuesday to say that she was in her village on East Coast and that it is really beautiful and we should call her back. (She had gone an hour out to a place overlooking the Bay of Antongil where she had reception. No reception in the village, but there is in the nearest town, Maroantsetra, so we shouldbe able to talk once a month when she goes there to do banking etc.) [from the Internet: On the northeast coast of Madagascar, Maroantsetra sits at the far end of the Bay of Antongil. Discover Madagascar at its best in this small and friendly little town. Located at the edge of Masoala National Park, thousands of unique species of plants and animals call Maroantsetra home.]

We were able to get Rachel and listen for about half an hour. Bad bounce-back effect on that call, so we didn’t talk much. Finally, we lost her. I think, maybe the battery on new cell phone ran out of power. Have not talked to her since. We were supposed to call yesterday (Sunday, March 19) at an agreed-upon time, but we were in NYC with big sister Sarah and did not have a landline to use. Can’t call her on our cell phone without paying a fortune. Have negotiated a rate of 50c a minute on landline through our long-distance carrier, IDT. A cheaper rate is available through Vonage, but we are not sure it is better for us for now. Have to call very often to make it worthwhile and we probably can’t do that.

Rachel said she was staying with Maya, the young woman she is replacing, in a small hut on stilts. Huts are made of reeds and banana leaf thatch. Quite sturdy and adequate for the environment; less tempting to crawling insects than concrete structures are. She will have a bed but was going to have to spend her nights as Maya’s guest sleeping on the floor mats. She will have a bicycle and helmet and Maya says that she bikes the 22 km into Maroantsetra once monthly, weather permitting. That takes about 2.5 hours, and the taxi brousse (public transport van) takes about 2 hours. (It probably stops very often along the way.) There is a toilet hole surrounded by a little thatch wall and a separate cooking hut.

For lunch they had had white rice that Maya grew herself and threshed together with a neighbor. It is indeed white, but when hand-threshed, rice is quite healthy because some of the outer husk remains thus the vitamins are not lost. It is eaten three meals a day, every day, so had better be healthy! They also had an omelet of duck egg and green onions. (Meat will very rarely be available, but eggs should not be a problem, I hope.) There is lots of fruit, I assume, and Rachel will be able to grow some or all of her own vegetables.

Rachel flies back to capital tomorrow, March 22, we think. Rick is looking into getting her a solar-powered battery charger that he noticed on line that can apparently provide energy for cell phone and IPOD. She did not bring IPOD but did take some homemade CDs and a player and solar battery charger for that. We may have to wait until we go there (hopefully in August!) and hand-carry that.

Rachel has only received one letter so far (we have sent 8, some with reading material and such as well) but other volunteers say that you do in the end receive everything. It just takes a long time. Be sure to not her new address in her own email from last week. It would be good to start using that Maroantsetra address as of now since mail takes so long to arrive.

Rachel has 5 more weeks of training near Tananarive before she takes off for her site for the two years. She is really looking forward to being there and getting to work Interestingly, Maya went to school with the daughter of a friend of ours from Tunisia and is presently applying to Brandeis (Rachel’s university) for grad school. Small world!

Best to all, Teresa (Rachel’s mom)