We spoke to Rachel again on Saturday, February 25. Here’s her latest news.

- Yesterday morning in language class Rachel gave a 2 minute technical presentation, in Malagasy, on farming. She thinks it went pretty well.

- Last week Rachel converted a trash heap into a garden at the home where she’s staying while in training.

- Rachel washed clothes for the first time since she arrived; knee-deep in a river near a waterfall. There are rice paddies all around. She said this is one of the most beautiful places she’s ever seen. (And she’s seen a lot of beautiful places - Dad’s comment.) It’s hard work, but worth it.

- Rachel has seen a lot of plants and some animals found only in Madagascar: exotic birds; an animal that’s a cross between a hedgehog and a mole; a spider the size of an egg; native tree species.

- Rachel’s feeling fine, though the anti-malarial medicine (doxycycline) bothers her stomach a bit. She needs to be sure to take it on a full stomach.

- Chef Rachel has learned to cook some typical Malagasy dishes, including anana sy hena, a kind of greens and meat with local spices.

- Next weekend Rachel will travel to Antananarivo, the capital, for a few days. The following Wednesday (March 8 ) she will have an opportunity to visit her site, Voloina (near Maroansetra), for four days. This will give her a chance to see where she’ll be spending the two years following training and talk to her Malagasy counterpart. (Should be exciting and helpful to get a better idea of what her living and working conditions will be like.)

- We asked Rachel what she wants us to send her. She asked for some real luxuries: a vegetable peeler; multivitamins; seeds to plant in a garden.

- Rachel mailed us a copy of what her job description will be when she gets to her site as a PCV. (Until the end of training she’s a PCT.) We’ll post a copy when it arrives.

Rick & Teresa

The following email was transmitted from the Madagascar Peace Corps Training Center on February 17, 2006.

Also, we spoke on the phone with Rachel on February 20. She is very excited about her field site, Voloina — a village about 30 km from the town of Maroantsetra on the east coast of the island. She said that is a coveted posting and she is really honored to be chosen to go there. Besides the expected environment PCV duties, Rachel will also work in some way in maternal/child health programs. More on that later, no doubt. For now she is focused on her 3 months of training in Sambaina near Antananarivo.

Teresa & Rick (Rachel’s mom & dad)

Manao ahoana! (Hello)

I am writing this from Sambaina, a town about 30 km from Tana. We all arrived safely in Tana and I’m now settled with a Malagasy host family nearby. I adore my host family. I’m in a highland house surrounded by rice paddies with two sisters, one of whom is 18, married and has a one-year old “zazakely” (little baby) and eight other family members. Have had rice for dinner and breakfast. Will get used to it! All in the house are absolutely lovely. I couldn’t be happier! Learning to use a bed pan and wash from a bucket in the outhouse and other fun things…

Find out my field site on Saturday and will visit it after the first few weeks of training. Other PCTs are great–just fabulous people–all so glad to be here. Getting to learn a few Malagasy words…more language training today. The daughters at my house speak French, which is nice, but they try to avoid using it with me. All are very patient and highly amused by my ignorance…

I see Iambo’s and Steph’s [Rachel’s half-Malagasy sister and brother] faces in all the men and women here. Makes it feel a little more like home… There’s nowhere else I’d rather be right now. Am just so happy…life is hard, but this must be the most beautiful place on earth.

Miss you all …wish you could see it!

Veloma!

Rachel

Madagascar The fourth largest island in the world after Greenland, New Guinea and Borneo, Madagascar is located approximately 250 miles off the coast of south-east Africa. The island features three very different ecosystem types. The eastern coast is covered in fragmented tropical rainforest. The central highlands of Madagascar are heavily cultivated, and the landscape there is defined by extensive stepped rice fields. Much of the western coast and south of Madagascar are covered in a unique “spiny forest” or “spiny desert” of drought-tolerant endemic plants and baobab trees. A fringe of coral reef extends along the west coast–great for diving!

Travel to Madagascar:
Philadelphia–>New York–>Dakar–>Johannesburg–>Antananarivo

Well, I’ve now hit the one-week-before-departure mark! I will have applied to join the Peace Corps exactly one year prior to my assignment. It’s been a long–and expensive–haul (never imagined gear and doctors visits and travel to say goodbyes, etc. would amount to this much!)–but I know it’ll be worth it.

I’ve spent far too long getting my 2 bags packed at around 80lbs–crucial decisions had to be made on gear will need to last me 2+ years. If nothing else, the packing process has been good advance training in minimalism. Luxury items like my good sketchbooks and extra film and batteries have had to go, as have about half the clothes I originally intended to bring. Between my mosquito nets, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, boots and tevas, camera gear, solar AA battery charger, solar-powered short-wave radio, anti-insect clothing (am anti-deet on skin!), sunscreen, binoculars (for looking at lemurs!), family photos and a few essential books, my 80lb limit wasn’t far off. Bah–who needs clothes, anyway? Ok, so I’m exaggerating. No birthday suit displays, I promise.

Starting Feb 12th I’ll attend two days of “staging” in Philadelphia at the Sheraton Society Hill (my friend Jenny, who is currently a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon, has written me letters about the incredible beds there–her group has apparently been dreaming about them ever since their arrival at post). Soon enough I, too, will learn to appreciate the little things.

On Feb 14th 2006 I fly from New York to Johannesburg (via Dakar), overnight in South Africa, and then fly Air Madagascar to Antananarivo, arriving in Madagascar on Feb 16th. After arriival, it’s ten weeks of intense training, site assignment, several months on my own as a “Peace Corps Trainee”, then finally swearing in–at which point I morph from a PCT to a PCV and become a full-fledged Volunteer…

Hooray!