R&R

When I came back from a visit to Dadyn’i Jo’s hut late this afternoon, I found Maman’i Mesido from nextdoor pounding her own manioc leaves. I asked her what she was cooking with them (usually people try to make the rice-accompaniment with some kind of fat or protein, often coconut milk or small minnows and tiny shrimp), and she said it would just be the leaves. I went into the house, grabbed a ginger root, two small onions and some garlic cloves, and brought them over to her to flavor the ravinbazaha.

Quite often I’ll ask people in passing, as they often do me, what their ro is to be this evening. I get the reply, “ah, tsis’sy ro, niany” (nothing to go with the rice today). What they really mean is they have only greens, nothing yummy worth mentioning. Here, where you can always go out and collect wild greens or send children off with wicker baskets to wade in the river and catch minnows and crayfish when you need it, most families are able to provide for themselves. This way families can live on less than a dollar a day, as long as their rice stores last.

The usual gang of children crowded around the small oil lamp on my kitchen table this evening, faces illuminated in the flame’s orange glow, the rest of their forms dissolving into the darkness. Among them was the Riche, Richeal, Richard, and Nivo, sibling group.

I turned at one point to Riche to ask if he could take me to collect ravinbazaha (manioc leaves) tomorrow morning to pound and cook with an Indian spice packet I bought when last in Tana. Riche looked at me and said that he had to think about where we could get them, because ravinbazaha was sasatra (scarce) now. I thought this strange, having noticed all the women I passed in the village today on their way home from the mountainside, had baskets balanced on their heads, piled high with ravinbazaha for the evening’s ro.

I noticed today as I watched Riche playing with baby Dodon’i Julio, how his beautiful dark face had suddenly become mottled with light blotches of a kind of minor fungal skin infection that discolors the chocolate skin of many villagers in my region. I’ve read that malnourished people are most susceptible to it. I’ve only observed the blotchy skin-tone so far in older students and adults. It eventually goes away and people have learned to live with it, but it’s a bane to the vainer young women in the village.

As I heated up my dinner (half of what I cooked at lunchtime) I asked Riche what their ro was today. He bowed his head and said, embarrassed, “tsis’sy ro zahay, niany” (we have none, today). I looked at him reprimandingly, assuming he was exaggerating, and said he shouldn’t be silly. I then asked again what their rice-accompaniment was going to be. He shook his head and said, “Marina, Rachelle. Tsis’sy ro niany. Vary, fo.” (“It’s true Rachel. We’re just eating rice tonight.”) I told him he knew better than that, that I had told his mother if they wanted to be healthy the family had to eat things with vitamins and fat and protein, besides rice. He didn’t answer. Instead, Riche pulled out 100AR (5¢) from his pocket and said he was supposed to buy ananambo (mirangue tree leaves) to cook, but that he couldn’t find any for sale after he finished school.

I asked who was cooking that night and he told me he was, and that the rice was already done. Riche is a 13 year old boy who sacrifices everything to care for his 3 younger siblings. He is one of the most selfless people I will ever know, dividing everything he is given into a share for each little brother and sister, then pocketing it for later distribution. Since the day I first met the machete-yielding, scrawny little boy, he impressed me with wisdom far beyond his years.

When I asked why his mother wasn’t cooking, he said she was gone off to a village far away to try and sell used clothes. Knowing his father had been away for the last two months, mining quartz deep in the forest, I asked where his older (but less responsible) brother was. I was told that he had left this afternoon to try and find day work several villages away.

The four children, ranging in age from 13 to 2 ½ years, had been on their own for the last three days. I looked at Riche incredulously and asked if what he was saying could really be true, then noticed my dinner getting hot on the stove. When I stood up to turn down the flame, Riche got up and announced to his siblings that it was time to go home and made for the door. He knows I expect kids to head on home as soon as I’m done cooking, because I can’t make enough to share with everyone, and can’t bare to have so many eyes watching me eat entire platefuls of what they see as ro with no rice.

I told Riche to wait and removed the pan from the stove, grabbed a metal plate, and transferred the contents (spaghetti with my monthly ration of ground beef from Maroantsetra, tomatoes and green peppers) onto it. Riche usually objects to taking food I offer him, insisting that I need it, and that if I share with everyone I won’t have enough. I often have to coax him into accepting things. Tonight he watched me pour my dinner onto the plate and hand it to him to take home. He was quiet for a long time, then mumbled “misaotra, Rachelle e” before walking out the door, little brother Richeal following at his heels. That silence said everything. He needed the food that much, not just for his supper, but for Nivo, Richard and Richeal.

Maman’i Riche is not from Voloina, she has no education and no apparent skills, apart from childbearing. She’s from Mandritsara, far away on the other side of the forest corridor, and has no inherited land to farm, so must buy rice to feed the family. Her husband has been spending months off surface mining far away, but earns money from the rich Asian quartz buyers only when he manages to uncover valuable inclusion-free rocks. It’s a matter of chance and not skill, and sometimes he returns home empty handed.

Times like this are so hard. I love this family. I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer. I’m supposed to think up ways to help in cases like this. I should be figuring out a sustainable income generating opportunity for the family. Teach a skill, search for an income generating opportunity. But in this case, I’m at a loss.

If I hadn’t asked Riche what was for dinner at his house, I would never have known that the kids were alone and had nothing but rice to eat. My supper portion will feed four tonight. Spaghetti on rice.

I’ll go boil some water and make up a packet of TJs miso soup…

Don’t forget to look at August posts.

Thanks for the DVDs, received today. “I watched Shakespeare in Love” with friends in town and have brought the rest back to V. What a wonderful thing TiVo is [that is, copied TV specials thanks to TiVo]. It’s so nice to have a full day of calm in the village, making the rounds and stopping to talk in each cooking hut along the way with mothers and friends, then come home and watch an episode/movie by candlelight while I eat my rice and ro [vegetable stew, with meat or fish if available or tiny shrimp–not Rachel’s favorite!].Don’t know if life can get much better.

I can’t believe you [Dad] sent me cupcakes. Had forgotten they existed. Am saving them as a special treat when I finish my upcoming regional youth seminar in R next week. The Endangered Species Dark Chocolate is wonderful. Did you try a piece before mailing it–or was that the post fairy? [He did not; musta been the post fairy!] I’m eating the little Snickers as I write this [the letter has greasy finger marks on it] and remembering when you would bring a bar home in Tunisia and put it in the freezer, then bang it on the kitchen countertop so it fractured into lots of yummy frozen fragments. In Tana I noticed they now sell Snickers bars. They cost 2,500 Ariary each–what I spend on food for a day in the village. I couldn’t bring myself to buy one. Do you think the relative economics were the same in Tunis? If nothing else, Peace Corps has taught me to appreciate things. I hope I always remember that, even when back in the U.S. [where she is planning to be this Christmas!]

It’s so good to be home in my village again. A little girl (10 or so) from the village was bitten by a “sick” dog and died while I was away. I wonder what could have caused that… Don’t think rabies develops that quickly. It’s so frustrating having no capacity to determine causes of death here.

On the 11th of Sept. I’ll be leading a health/environment training seminar for select youths from M, V. and R’s regional environmental clubs. Will teach about local biodiversity, conservation strategies, family planning, and HIV/AIDS prevention. Am working hard preparing lesson plans and organizing the excursion.

At the end of the month I’ll be up-river to participate in a “checking-out the situation” trip (with WCS staff) in the village of M and to help train local community forest management council leaders to begin a system of ecological monitoring and human disturbance evaluations along a series of rainforest transects within their zone of conservation. Should be interesting work. Hope all is going well on your end, too. Much love, Rachel”

UPDATE on Sept. 22: The rice huller project is fully funded! Rachel’s friends and relatives contributed over $1,000 to it and then a Florida veterinarian who chairs a “Friends of Madagascar” group, decided to fund the remainder. We hope that Rachel will have the money in time to begin the project before her intended trip the the US at Christmas.

PREVIOUS POST: In order to implement her rice-hulling machine project , Rachel must raise $2,688.00 from friends, family and other organizations in the United States. The rice-hulling machine will help several surrounding villages in various ways and is especially geared toward making the life of women and teenage girls easier. If you are able to make a contribution, you can go to www.peacecorps.gov/contribute and select Rachel’s project (Africa Volunteer Project Number 684-059). Copying and pasting

https://www.peacecorps.gov/resources/donors/contribute/projdetail.cfm?projdesc=684-059&region=africa

into your browser will take you directly to this project. The information about the project posted on the Peace Corps site is unfortunately not very informative. For a better description, please see the description in this blog posted in April 07. Thanks for helping Rachel fund this project! t

Ringtailed lemurs in southern Madagascar near Fort Dauphin–my village kids have never seen lemurs like these

look in August, if you have not seen them yet! t

Folks in the village get their drinking water from a well in the center of the village, reasonably clean thanks to a European NGO that dug the well a couple of years ago (though Rachel boils and filters the water before drinking.) People do their washing in a little pool near the huts where the ducks and other animals go to swim/drink. People (and of course the animals) use nearby areas as a toilet, so it is pretty dirty. Rachel washes clothes there, crouched over a bucket, and often Maman’i'Linda or the girls help her. So Rachel decided to ask Papani’Linda to build two makeshift tables, one at the right height for adults and another at child-height near the little pool. He spent a day in the forest gathering materials and another day lashing the bamboo to make the tables and Rachel paid him the going rate (a couple of dollars) when he was done. So now they don’t have to crouch over the wash buckets–at least as long as the tables last. And Maman’i'Linda has a little added cash for the household and her husband has–four cigarettes, his share of the pay, to be smoked over several days, cigarettes being very rare indeed.

Rachel asked us to send some tiny earrings for the little girls she is closest to–in actual proximity since their hut is located very near Rachel’s but also closest to her heart.”I can’t imagine what I would do without Maman’i'Linda’s 8 kids to play with and love!” RAchel is still waiting for an occasion to give them the earrings in such a way that the family won’t feel beholden to her. Recently one evening she was sitting with grown-ups and kids, visiting. The kids were worrying out loud about what they would do when Rachel leaves–still 7 months away but… Rachel noticed that the youngest child, a toddler (and Maman’i'Linda is now pregnant with her 9th!) had the usual little knotted strings in her pierced ears and to distract the others, she decided to break out one of the pairs of tiny gold earrings. Maman’i'Linda took one look and, in Rachel’s words, “couldn’t help herself” . ‘I don’t have any earrings either,’ she said. ‘Would they fit me?’ Indeed they did fit, so Maman’i'Linda now has little gold earrings instead of her knotted strings–and sent a thank-you to “maman’i'Rachel”. And the toddler can wait until Rachel finds a suitable way to give the other pairs.

Rachel was in M preparing a program in environmental education for some of her teenage friends. She sounded great this morning (her evening) and got to talk to Kevin, another friend, and had a long chat with mom. She had some amazin stories to tell, as usual (see above or below). Her second project the rice-hulling machine that would serve several villages is now up on the Peace Corps website–not with the good description that is on this blog, unfortunately. She really hopes it will get funded and so does the butterfly-grower who was a friend of Rachel’s predecessor and is now one of Rachel’s contacts. Rachel visited him recently and saw his two potbellied pigs–very thin because there are no scraps for them to eat; the villagers consume everything and leave very little that can be fed to animals. The pigs, it turns out, are fed on rice hulls, and their owner has problems finding enough rice hulls to feed them. He has to go a long way to find any right now and has no way to bring back enough for the poor pigs. The rice-hulling machine Rachel hopes to get funded would be located relatively near him so the pigs would have more to eat–and the humans would profit in other ways.

There are a few new pictures up at Flickr - Rachel, Puppy, kids and of course lemurs!

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.