Some days in the Peace Corps are hard as hell and others are just too wonderful for words. Today was so rewarding, for many little reasons. I woke at 5:45 am to the sound of Marie Iodile and Mama ny Mesido pounding breakfast rice and to the clucking and scavenging sounds of the chickens, ducks, and geese that make the rounds through my garden each morning.

Opened my front door and, as if on cue, Nivo and Zelika appeared (two little girls from next door) and asked if they could look at “boky kely�—the same National Geographics and other kids’ magazines they’ve been paging through for the last three months. It doesn’t seem to bother them to look at the same pictures over and over again. They’ve started pointing to little girls and animals and giving them their own names and pretending they’re a part of whatever scene is depicted. Nivo then looked at my empty water bucket and asked if she could fetch water. She knows whenever she does I reward her with a handful of peanuts or—when I’m feeling very generous—a raisin or jelly bean or two.

Full of water, the bucket is too heavy for her to carry, so she has started grabbing a little helper and a bamboo pole. Each child shoulders one end of the bamboo, the water bucket hanging between them and somehow not splashing all over.

I then grabbed a tin plate and headed a few huts down to where Mama ny I-forget-who cooks mofogasy [a sort of bread made of rice flour and baked in tins on a fire, I think t] each morning. I always buy four for 200 AR (10 cents) and she often gives me a cadeau of a 5th one.

On my way home, I pass Dady ny Jo (Dady means grandmother) and her daughter. Dady ny Jo, to my great pleasure and surprise, is wearing the pair of reading glasses I gave her before leaving for IST in Tana. Had not seen her since, but when I gave her the pair of glasses she was so pleased and in awe of them, I feared she might not wear them. This is a woman who looks 85, walks with a back bent from years of harvesting rice and forest greens, but is at most 65 years old. Before having the glasses, she squinted to read facial expressions and could not give villagers proper change when they bought edible ferns from her in the market on Saturdays.

Mom and Dad had the wonderful idea of sending me three pairs of reading glasses to give to those who really need them but could never afford to provide them for themselves in my village. It appears Dady ny Jo wears them all the time now. When we stopped to talk, she was grasping her back and hobbling down the lane with her daughter, on the way to the little hospital in Compagnie, the next village down, to get “fanafody� [medicine] for a terrible pain in her back. I felt so sad for her, but she thanked me again for the glasses. Now she can see clearly as she makes her way to the clinic.

Her daughter was carrying two hand-made baskets. When I complimented her on them, she asked if I could buy one from her. I have so many baskets already, but this was a perfect size to neatly store magazines and the toys in the cardboard kids’ box in, and she clearly needed the 1,500 AR to buy medicine for her mother (a crime—1,500 AR for a day’s work to make the basket!) so I agreed. The two women went on their way after making me promise to “mandalo� [visit] them soon.

When I got home, I enjoyed hot mofogasy with to-die-for Pennsylvania Dutch cherry preserves (sent by Dad) on them. Then Riche [ree-shay] showed up with his band of little siblings, who proceeded to eagerly raid the new toy basket, excitedly removing the stuffed chicken and dinosaur and beach ball to play with in the yard (also courtesy of Mom and Dad’s packages).

Riche said again how much he missed me and singing English songs and playing on the beach while he was away the last two months mining quartz in the forest. He boasted that he, at 12, had mined 10 kilos of optical-grade quartz. (His father later mentioned proudly that Riche had produced 8 kilos of “vato“—still impressive!) He then pulled out a pocketful of stones he had kept and carried 35 km through the forest back to Voloina to give me. A few are really lovely, with colorful mineral crystals formed inside chunks of glassy quartz.

Marie Iodile brought me a little dish of “mangahazo� (taro root) for a snack. She just returned from her “tanimboly� (garden outside the village? t) where she dug the roots up that morning. At lunchtime, I returned the dish to her full of the lentil soup I cooked last night, which she really likes. We have a nice little food-sharing system going.

I spent this afternoon�mitsango�ing kafe (harvesting coffee) with a team of little children—the boys no older than 12 but machete-bearing nonetheless—in the forest between Voloina and Compagnie. It was wonderful! Riche and his older brother and the other little boys climbed up into the coffee plants, many robust as trees, and stripped the branches of their red, blackening, and still green berries. These were then tossed into the baskets Nivo and I held on the ground at the ready. Eventually, the boys resorted to breaking off branches laden with many berries too high to reach and tossing them down for me to run my cupped hand along, stripping the fruits from their little ant-covered bunches.

Occasionally, I was distracted from my coffee collecting when my eye caught a neat orchid growing on the coffee trees or nearby mango and avocado tree trunks. It amazes me that even though the orchids’ forest has been disturbed by farmers to make way for crops like coffee and fruit trees, they have managed to modify their host-species requirements to continue to grow and reproduce. So fascinating to me, these little plants that cling to the trees and branches everywhere you look, here. I found a few fallen on the ground, still attached to limb segments of felled or fallen trees and brought them home with me along with my basket full of coffee.

When we got back, Nivo showed me how to “mitoto� [pound in a mortar] the coffee fruits to prepare them for drying in the sun. She is only 8 but so strong! She wields the giant pestle with much more skill than I’ll ever be able to.

[Rachel said on the phone that she later roasted the coffee and pounded it again so that she can use it to make coffee when she has guests—her sister Sarah, for example.]

We also collected “ravimbazaha� or “mangahazo� [taro leaves], which Nivo and Riche and I then pounded. Riche then taught me how to cook “ravitoto� (pounded manioc/taro leaves), a first for me. I added some curry and powdered milk and onion and it almost tasted like Indian saag paneer [spinach with homemade cheese]. The rice I ate it with is the same batch I harvested, dried, and pounded myself with Marie Iodile, a few months ago.

A good day.