I found Puppy waiting for me faithfully outside the hospital, next to my bicycle. The two of us headed off towards N for a nice 5-k bike ride/run along the coast. I’ve been visiting N more and more since the cyclone, visiting Zetine Marie about the Seecaline (Infant Health and Nutrition Clinic) project and passing meeting information on to my four students rehearsing the lemur play. It used to be that I’d get called “vazaha” all the time there by the kids I passed. Biking through the villages of V, C, and A is always so much fun—a little chorus of “Rachelle” follows me all the way. Then I get 5 km out to A-N and the kids don’t know me-or didn’t know me before. Today, all of a sudden, I got greeted by name all the way to Zetine Marie’s! Maybe it was due to the radio message about tree-planting day that got announced this week, or the kids talking about the play, or the new mentorship I’m starting to form with the mayor’s son from N. At any rate, it was lovely to have a little boy call out, “Mademoiselle Rachelle” from the EPP soccer field and not the conventional “vazaha!” That word has become like nails on a chalk board for every Peace Corps volunteer at this point in service. I have a 7 km radius now! Never again will I be such a celebrity, if only with the kiddies.

After lunch, duck egg salad with a packet of real mayonnaise from home, I put together a little gift bag and got ready to visit the “lopitaly” where Mama ny Sylvano [aka Dianne] gave birth two days ago. My gift was a plush lamb from Mom’s last envelope, a little story book about aye ayes, and a few bars of assorted hotel soaps from home—actually very nice soap—for Dianne.

When I arrived at the clinic, there was a large group of long-faced people assembled outside. I whispered to one young woman and she responded that a man had just died. Was he from V? No, From A. Was he old? No only 20 years old. He was not sick but drank “toaka” at the “ball” last night (the party to celebrate reforestation day). No one knew whether he drank too much or got a nasty batch of the home-made sugarcane rum. All were shocked and solemn. Somehow I still doubt the event will do anything to change the prevalence of alcoholism here. Just yesterday I went to Mama ny Pascale’s “labotika” [little store] to buy kerosene for my oil lamp and found Mama ny Kevin, young, beautiful, but with red eyes and nose, downing a 200 ariary tumbler of rum. It was 8:30 in the morning. Mama ny Linda and Bsoy are the only two sisters in that family who don’t drink. Mama ny Zulio, Mama ny Val, Mama ny Kevin, and Mama ny Bretot all take after their parents—well into their sixties and still alcoholics. All wonderful people whose children I love dearly. The predisposition must be genetic. Makes me sad!

Thank goodness Mama ny Linda has the sense never to touch toaka. She’s got enough to deal with with her 8 kids. I wish for her sake that she didn’t have so many, but I do adore every one of them. Especially Linda, Stella, Franko, Franklin, and Frankline…

Well, back to the clinic: I made my way through the solemn crowd to the little patient area, a cement room with three rusty beds and a bleached, tattered poster about SIDA [AIDS] prevention on one wall. In the only occupied bed lay Dianne, Mama ny Sylvano. Next to her, bundled up tight with a little pink bonnet tied below her chin, was a soft beautiful little baby girl. Dianne looked exhausted, herself bundled up in a sweater and ski cap, despite the midday heat. She had cotton wads stuffed in her ears, but a bright smile on her face at the sight of a visitor.

I’m not sure why the common philosophy in Madagascar is to keep sick people and babies bundled up in peak heat, when all others are sweating through their “lamba hoanys” [cotton wraps]. I think it would not be good for a newborn to be so insulated, but I’d never dare to say so. I asked how the labor went and if mother and baby were both healthy and was told that the doctor (not the midwife) delivered the baby. The delivery had taken a long time, so Dianne said. How long? Four hours! I explained that where I come from, women are commonly in labor for as long as 24 hours. I’m not sure Dianne believed me. When I asked Mama ny Dianne how they got their daughter to the clinic, she said that when Dianne’s water broke, they walked, of course. Of course. I just smiled and commented on how strong Dianne is. I took a photo of grandmother, mother, and new daughter and then we all began making preparations to move Dianne back home. Just day three after giving birth, but Dianne didn’t want to stay in the clinic with all the mourners and the body of the deceased young man in the room next door.

Before they could leave, they needed the doctor to come by and write out a declaration of birth in Dianne’s little grid-lined booklet. “What is her name?” I asked, having forgotten to do so earlier. I was told that she doesn’t have one yet but that they need to decide on one quickly, before the doctor finished writing up the statement of birth. Dianne then looked at me and asked, “Do you want to name her?” I stared in disbelief. “Me?” I explained that in the West we have whole books full of names that mothers can choose from. Put on the spot, my mind blanked and I couldn’t think of a single name. I should have suggested “Teresa” or “Margaret” [Rachel’s mom and sister], but instead the first thing that came out was “Juliette”, the name of the French-Swiss girl Mat and I just traveled to Masoala with last week. Dianne thought a moment, then Mama ny Dianne shook her head and said there was already a Juliette in V. Juliette lives down the lane and goes to church with them. There can’t be two Juliettes at church. Since I hadn’t provided anything more original, the two figured they’d go with what Dianne was debating earlier, a name I’d never heard of before that sounded like “Kanella”. “Kanella,” I repeated. “How do you write that?” Dianne looked at me, thought a long moment, and decided she didn’t know. Maybe the doctor could spell it…

Mama ny Linda came by as Linda and I were preparing to head over to the well to wash my long-overdue load of clothes, mildewy from weeks of constant rain and damp. Mama ny Linda had an exhausted look and was so hoarse from coughing she could barely produce enough sound to say “mbolatsara” [”still good = hello]. When I enquired she told me that she’d only been coughing for a few days and some “sakay tany” tea would help but she had no ginger. I went into the house, grabbed my olive-oil bottle full of rainforest honey and a large piece of ginger root from the market in M, and brought them out to her. She accepted gratefully and a little while later, my olive-oil bottle was returned empty. I always forget that when you offer something in Madagascar, you only offer the amount you are prepared to have taken because the “fomba” here is to take all that is offered, instead of our custom of politely accepting a reasonable amount and returning the remainder. Ah, well… I’m happy she has the honey. Will buy more next time I’m in M.

For now, I have “siramamy gasy” (”Malagasy sweet salt”, i.e., a block of homemade sugarcane molasses) to sweeten my tea. The “siramamy gasy” was a present brought over by Mama ny Noro soon after Mama ny Linda returned the empty honey bottle. Mama ny Noro just came back from M, a four-day journey on foot from V, the village my traveling onion-sellers come from. She carried a heavy block of solid molasses on her head the whole way, bringing over a beautiful piece as my “voandalana” (fruit of the road, i.e., souvenir of her trip). Such a lovely gesture! Today I gave away honey and was given molasses. Such is life in V.

Today was my second day back alone in V after the past three weeks of visitors. Every time I go away, I forget just how much I love this place. The house was bustling with kids all day, coloring in their new coloring books (sent with Mat by Libby), playing ball in the yard, and helping straighten the garden, fetch water, and hang my washing–for which each received a “special treat” of “voankazo maina”, a.k.a. dried apricots. I just got an envelope containing a new dried berry medley (her favorite from Trader Joe’s) so figured I could justify sharing my already open, long-rationed bag of apricots. All loved them, no surprise there, and several of the boys tore theirs in half and stuffed a share in a dirty pocket, “satria tia papako e!” (because Papa likes them, too). Soon after, Franko and Franklin ran up to my door with an egg in Franko’s outstretched hand. Small and a little misshapen, but they were excited that my remaining duck (still lodging with their birds, since I left for Tana after the cyclone) finally laid its first egg.