Epilogue

Well, I suppose I should start out by telling the story of how I got home. The last you heard, the three of us girls were flying on a delayed flight to Paris, 24 hours later than the original, at 1am. Well, no. After an entire day of being incredibly sick with my annual cold, carrying around a roll of toilet paper and stuffing snotty balls into my sweatshirt pocket, sitting like a hobo in the lobby of the Raphia Hotel, and trying to change my homecoming plans with people back home… we arrive at the airport late at night. Allie gets her boarding pass and says “see you on the other side of security!” and that is the last time I saw her. To make a long story short the night ended up consisting of Maddie and I crying and shouting in several different languages, many panicked international phone calls on a stranger’s phone, only to be found sitting on the floor of an empty airport lobby as the lights shut off listening to the sound of our plane taking off outside. Delta had apparently not notified Air France that they had changed our tickets. Therefore, there was no record of Maddie or myself to be on that flight. So… we went back to good old Raphia at approximately 3:30am looking incredibly defeated and they happily took us in another night for about $6 USD. 

The next morning I felt worse than ever with my head cold but the sun was shining and it was a new day. I knew that my mother had made some calls and gotten me on SOME flight home, but I was completely willing to take my time finding out when that was since I was dead sick running on 4 hours of sleep. So I start out by dragging my feet down to the lobby restaurant, order a tea, turn on my computer…. And my flight is in 4 hours!! Did I mention that it’s about an hour drive to the airport? …and that international flights are usually pretty booked so there is a long wait in line… Basically, I had to be packed up in a taxi at that second and I was still in my pajamas sitting in a restaurant.  All I remember is running upstairs and rambling to Maddie as I shove my things in my suitcase, throwing some ariary at the man in the little convenience store for some yogurt, cookies, and a couple oranges, and diving into the taxi Maddie so kindly hailed down for me.  Then I luckily was able to fly from Tana to South Africa to Atlanta to HOME, with no more than an hour at each transfer. It was the most surreal experience of my life. 

But the point is I am home now. I have been home for several months, enjoying the summer in Rhode Island and school is about to start. I was really surprised at how quickly I was able to jump back into life in the US. My dad even had me drive my own jeep home from the airport when I hadn’t been behind the wheel in four months. I did notice that I found large corporate stores like Walmart or the grocery store to be huge, bright, and freezing. I also found myself getting easily annoyed at my friends’ petty complaints and arguments. My parents were laughing at me the whole first day home at my enthusiasm about tissue boxes and the fact that I actually drank water from the kitchen sink. But I have to say that after only a week or so I was back to my old self. Wearing make-up regularly and purchasing an iPhone for myself. 

I would not say this experience didn’t change me, though. It certainly did. Not only do I know a lot more about camping, how a Non-governmental Organization works, what the main environmental concerns in a poor country are, and how to say many things in a brand new language that no one else knows… but I am more appreciative of everything, I have a much greater passion for a career in economic development and environmental management, and I feel like I am even more tolerant of things I used to be very picky about. Overall I am glad I had this experience. But if you asked me to do it again, I would probably change a few things. I have had this recurring dream that I end up back there, with or without people I know, and trying to find a way home because I just cannot deal with spending another four months there right now! This probably stems from the fact that it was such an ordeal for me to actually come home, and not the fact that I had a hard time there. But still… not for a while, please. 

Also, I miss my SIT friends so much. It’s strange that you can be closer to someone in a country halfway across the world than you are in the same country in which you both live. I hate that I never know when I will get to see Allie in Texas, or Anne in North Carolina, or even all my friends that live in Massachusetts or Connecticut!  But we will hopefully reunite one day. At least we are lucky enough to have social networking technology! I hope they are all just as excited about starting regular school again! Classes are indoors and not on a matt in the grass. When a class starts at 9:00, that means it actually starts at 9:00 and not just when we all happen to arrive… and there will be no women making us huge vats of delicious food to fight over and have three heaping plates full at lunch time. But I think we will survive.

Veloma, Madagasikara! Je vous manqué… un peu. 

Quinzième Semaine

So I have not fallen off the face of the earth. After we finished up our final projects and tests, we’ve been traveling a lot again to finish up the semester! Unfortunately I was hit with the sick one last time before leaving Fort Dauphin which stopped me from going out with a bang, but everything still went very well in terms of finishing up academic stuff. 

We left Fort Dauphin by plane into Tana and crashed at our beloved Raphia hotel for a few short hours before loading onto the Tata bus again at 5am the next day. We spent two whole days on that Tata traveling up north, stopping in Port Berge and some other place that I don’t remember on the way to rest. As we made our way up the island and down the plateau, the weather got a lot hotter and so did the food. We have eaten very well in the North since the food tastes so much better!! The growing conditions for things from vegetables to unique spices are much better up there than anywhere else on the island. Part of these successful crops is Khat, which is a mild drug plant. It's a very mild upper, like less powerful than caffeine, that people chew to help concentration, stay awake, or suppress appetite. So, ofcourse, when we got to the north, we all had to try it. Basically, it was the grossest thing ever. You chew on the leaves which are bitter and dry out your mouth and make you drool at the same time while turning your mouth green! You put in a whole branch full and keep it in there for 3-5 hours!! It was disgusting and needless to say, it did nothing. I actually fell asleep while chewing it which is the complete opposite effect you'd expect. I would have had the same experience chewing on any other random plant. But it did make for some really fun times while we were laughing at eachother's commiseration.

One of the stops we made on our way up was to the tsingy!! There we saw the fattest gecko ever…  don’t know what they’re eating but it’s working. The tsingy was one of the main sites I had been looking forward to this entire trip, right after lemurs and giraffe weevils. So it was really exciting to go and walk across them and learn about them. “Tsingy” comes from the Malagasy word “mitsingy” which means to walk on tiptoes! They are limestone that was once under the ocean and over millions of years weathered down to a spiky gray field of rock. Pretty awesome. 

Amber Mountain was our last major stop before the city. This was a pretty chilly place in a unique forest where essentially French colonists decided to plant various things from the other side of the equator “to see how they grew here” so the forest is so bizarre with strange evolved forms of pine trees and vines and all sorts of crazy stuff. It actually very much reminded me of the movie Avatar, if all the plants were glowing and there was a huge tree in which all the people lived. It was there that we found and held the smallest chameleon species on the mainland of Madagascar!! The second smallest in the world! They were almost too small to be real. They moved like little stick figure dinosaurs across your finger. That was really just amazing to see. I wish I could have slipped one in my pocket and safely carried it home. We also so the coolest tree gecko which basically becomes part of the tree and is INCREDIBLY camouflaged. It was pretty amazing.

The city of Diego-Suarez is very touristy! When we got there, it was Sunday, and apparently on Sundays the entire city just SHUTS DOWN. It was really creepy to see a huge city with NO ONE around. I felt like we were going to be attacked by zombies. The next day we went out very early and took small boats out to this island beach in the Emerald Sea. The water was the most beautiful teal blue color, absolutely crystal clear. The sun was out and there were no gray clouds in the sky. It was hot enough to swim but not too hot to run around. Literally the perfect day. We spent a little time snorkeling, when I stalked this one parrot fish for half an hour until I swallowed a bunch of sea water and got sick. But once we got to shore, I was fine. We were called for lunch where we were served coconut rum punch, French fries, salad, etc. Then we see the other boat bring in this GIGANTIC fish from the ocean and within 25 minutes, it was on our plate. Perfectly spicy… followed by grilled chocolate bananas for dessert. Easily the best meal in this country. The rest of the day was spent playing in the gorgeous water and laying in the sun on the soft sand then sailing back to the mainland in the afternoon. It was a wonderful way to say goodbye to the Indian Ocean. 

In the city we found way too many places to get good snacks, pastries, and icecream! But we were only there for a short time. Things were also pretty expensive in most places since it was a much more “vazah” inhabited area. So we didn’t go too crazy before leaving. But our time there still felt much too short. We flew back to Tana and got last minute shopping done. One person lost a bag along the way which was very stressful. Everyone is preparing to leave or has already left now.

Allie, Maddie, and myself are on the same flight from Tana to Paris on the day that was supposed to be my birthday but as it turns out after many hours of investigation that everything is delayed 24 hours. And so, my 21^st birthday will not in fact be 32 hours long, just a normal 24 hours, spent entirely in Tana. It could be worse, I suppose. One extra day in this city isn’t too bad. Just another excuse for me to eat too much icecream and pastries and gain a few more pounds before coming home. :)

Quatorzième Semaine

Well I finished my ISP, but still have a presentation on it next week. Now that almost everyone is back in town from their ISPs and I've been staying in the Hotel Mahavoky in the center of town with some of my friends, life has been great!! We all share stories with eachother and walk together and get our own meals. It's been great. I really enjoy not having to worry about leaving Kaleta before it gets dark becaues my hotel is right next to it! And having hot running water for showers has been AMAZING. I have taken my last bucket shower.

Since I've basically finished all my work, I've been able to spend more time on the beach when the weather's nice and goof around on the internet and get way too excited about home. I can also take naps and read more, although I have really run out of good books to read over here.

So that's basically it for now. Next week after presentations and final language evaluations we leave for the North to finish up our semester!! More about that as it comes. Until then, I will be enjoying my vacation. ;)

Treizième Semaine

Okay, woah, Blogger just changed everything on me!

So I know you all have just been desperately awaiting this week's blog... I wasn't going to post because I didn't think there was anything interesting enough. But then I started thinking about it and, on the contrary, alot has happened this week!

So let me start by telling the story of how I was stalked and proposed to. This guy who is friends with my host aunt, Nadia's friends has been trying to hang out with me since we went for a night of karaoke at this house. My aunt told him he doesn't have a chance (and I was never very nice to him...) but he stated that he "just wanted to be friends". Which is interesting because he would randomly show up at the internet cafe when I was there, pose with me in pictures I was trying to take with the kids as if we were a little family, show up at my homestay house while I was in my pajamas and say "I have a car outside, come to my house.", pay for my taxi home and tell me he wants to "present me to his family." Does this sound like things friends do? So anyway, one day I gave him my USB to take those pictures, so in order to get it back as soon as possible, I agreed to his offer of coming over that night for more karaoke (forcing Nadia to come with me). I successfully retrieved the USB and, still being affected by my throat cold, started reacting to the smoke and asked to leave. Nadia stayed behind to sing more songs and Christian came in the car with me to go home. He starts talking to me about how he wants to have a relationship with me and I was very rude and direct about the fact that it was ridiculous that he was even talking about that and I told him to leave me alone. Two days later, he sends me a text message that says “I want that u knoe: I love u and we will married if u accept. Please answer Caren.” First of all, if you have to beg someone to answer a text message, do you honestly think you have a chance in marrying them? I think there’s something wrong with this guy… Anyway, I think I have made it fairly clear that I want nothing to do with him but it’s been an interesting experience that I will certainly never forget.

Aside from that, Nadia left to go find work on Thursday. She’s going to Tulear and then to Tana. It was a solemn day when she left and I cried again when I hugged her goodbye, just like the grandmother. But on a positive note, I moved into her bedroom so now I have a door that closes, my own big bed, a TV with some bootleg DVDs and a small closet to put my stuff in! I am only in here for 5 days though because I will be moving to the cheap hotel with some other SIT kids finishing ISP on Tuesday. But it’s still nice to have a little bit of privacy while I’m still here.

In addition to that, I just keep getting spoiled, and my ISP Advisor left town the other day so he left his Fort Dauphin internet connection with me! So temporarily, I can have internet in my homestay and take it to the school to work and the Mahavoky hotel, and never have to pay those snooty Kaleta people again! (Although I probably will a couple times just because it’s delicious.) So I am currently posting this blog from my homestay suite. ;) In a couple days I will have hot running water at the hotel and you can officially start calling this more of a vacation than study time.
Especially since I am really almost finished with my project!! I’m still working out little details and I sent it to my advisor to look over when he gets a chance so hopefully I can finish it and have it fully edited before the weekend. As of now, it is over 30 pages long. I already mentioned that it is about local production and the economic market of wood charcoal in the town of Fort Dauphin. I may have started out too broadly so now it’s just been difficult to choose what bits of information are worth talking about or not so I can try to make it as economics based as possible for URI credit. I feel like I should have a ceremonial burning of one of the printed copies, using wood charcoal as my fuel source. Wouldn’t that be ironic? I obviously won’t do that though.

So basically, this upcoming week is very exciting because all my SIT friends are returning from their various ISP sites (villages, rainforests, distant cities and islands, etc.) and sharing stories and making plans to take what we can from Fort Dauphin before we leave forever! This is our last real academic responsibility and it is almost over! Whenever Allie and I talk about going home, we get all jumpy and nervous because it’s coming SO SOON. More about the end in later posts though… I can’t get too ahead of myself.

Something Fun

Because these blogs have been so boring during these four weeks of Independent Study. I thought I might make another attempt at uploading a picture. Here is a map of the country and everywhere we have/will have visited over the entire course of the trip! I apologize if it is too small to read.

Note that we are based in Fort Dauphin, our village stay was in Faux Cap, the capital is Antananarivo (Tana) and the other large cities are Tulear, Diego and Fianarantsoa. Almost everywhere else is a National Park or Protected Area where we camped and saw beautiful creatures. It's been quite a long "field trip" these four months.

Douzième Semaine

Well, what can I say about this week? It’s been a generally sad and stressful week to be honest. Nadia had to quit being my translator because it was too much walking and she’s also sensitive to the sun. So she recruited our cousin, Alex, who is not as easy to communicate with but he did do good work. I only needed one more day of interviewing anyway. In general my project is coming along. Research is basically done and now I will be writing and analyzing data. It’s not exactly what I envisioned but it is an interesting paper nonetheless.
My family is slowly disintegrating. Last time I was here there were 9 of us. Then my other aunt, Omega, went to Tulear just before we did. When I came back, the two kids that take care of our house were back in their village for the month because of Easter Break. Now this week, the grandmother has left to visit Omega in Tulear, and Nadia is leaving this week to find work in Antananarivo. So now it will be just my mother, my two little siblings, and me. When the grandmother left this week, it was a very emotional moment. I hugged her tight and started crying because I realized I would never see her again and she was so sweet and grandmothery. We were really beginning to have a connection I think.
Right at the end of my researching, I got hit with the sick. That familiar April cold that starts with the sandy golfball in the throat and makes me physically fatigued. Good thing it was after I had all my data collected so I have been able to sit in my pajamas all day with my coughdrops and tissues and write up my paper. I’ve also been watching many random movies dubbed in French like Just Go With It, Toy Story 3, and Passion of the Christ. That’s right, I watched Passion of the Christ. I can’t explain how it happened… I’ve been very bored sometimes.
Needless to say, I’m getting pretty ready to leave. As much as I have come to know my family, their life is becoming complicated and many of them are leaving before I am, so I feel like it is about time for me to go home. Plus, it’s just not as fun here without friends. Even the friends I have made through the program are still off doing their research in other parts of the country. I’m really excited for that last week when everyone starts coming back. Well, I hope you enjoyed this cheerful update! Haha I guess the fact that they’re getting more boring means it’s closer to the end, right?

Onzième Semaine

Well, I am safe and sound back in Fort Dauphin working on my Independent Study Project. It has not been very nice weather this week, unfortunately, but I guess that just gives me more reason to focus on my project rather than laying on the beach. (Even though the rain is really irritating me and making me more depressed) I have been doing a lot actually! Let me tell you a little bit about my project:
I am conducting research around the city to assess trends and variations within the charcoal market. Because almost everything in Madagascar is sold in the informal sector, “market prices” are interesting to observe. In the charcoal market, there is very much a ladder style production. The people who make it out in the forest will sell it to people who take it into town (sometimes bike boys with just a couple sacks or sometimes large vendors by the truck). These people will either sell it in town to consumers or they will sell it to a smaller vendor who will either sell it themselves or sell it to an even smaller vendor… etcetera. As the charcoal moves through town, the prices change based on transport. There are different types of wood that become charcoal as well and some are preferred over others which affects prices. So essentially my project is to go around town every day and interview different charcoal vendors about what type of wood they are selling, where it is coming from, how much they pay for it, how much they sell it for, and the quantity that they sell it on a daily basis. In the end I will use this information to compare the trends across all variables to determine what has the biggest impact on price. With this I should hopefully be able to narrow some thoughts about incentives towards conservation of charcoal wood and/or sustainable options.
That is probably the broadest and most laymen’s terms I can use but the important thing is that the next few weeks will be mainly composed of myself and my host aunt (who is also my project translator) walking around town all day talking to charcoal vendors, and plugging in/analyzing data. I’m very excited that Nadia is my translator because it is so much more fun having someone I know and can easily communicate with around me all the time. It’s also great for my studies because I know I will get more accurate information if I’m translating from English since my French is not the best. Overall, it means that she is staying in town so I will always have a friend during ISP! Also, my advisor is a young Irish guy who lives in town and I run into him all the time which is great because he can always give me feedback and advice throughout the project and I don’t have to worry about trying to contact him. Basically, everything is going great so far with that.
The only problem right now is that Nadia and I are sort of in charge of taking care of the house and the kids. This week, my hostmother and hostgrandma were fasting from Wednesday at lunch to Saturday at dinner for Easter. It was a little scary but it turned out not as bad as I thought. They have been at church basically all the time and have much less energy obviously so it has been Nadia’s responsibility (and mine) to buy food and bring it home to cook for the kids and clean up the house while still trying to be out all day doing my work for ISP. It’s a struggle but we made it work. Things will only get easier from here. In a way it’s making me feel more like this is home because I have real responsibilities, plus it is making time go by so fast because I’m always so busy!
I went to church with the family on Saturday to observe Easter. This launched an awkward dinner discussion about religion and my hostmother wanting to baptize me… I will just say it was awkward but I made my way out of it. I guess I didn’t realize that staying here longer would mean being more involved in family activity (which for the most part is CHURCH). I’m doing my best to respect it but as an American, it’s sometimes stressful.
Also, the people here are even crazier than before!! I don’t know why but nowadays when I walk down the street alone it’s like I’m the freak vazah that EVERYONE has to talk about loudly, laugh at, point at, approach and follow. People will start walking next to me and talking and then laughing because I don’t understand them. Sometimes I will walk by someone and they will just touch my arm, as if to check that I’m real. There were 22 of us around here for four weeks! How are the people not used to us? It’s not like I’m the only one in town either… I guess just the only one in my homestay area. It’s really getting to me and I don’t know how much more I can take before I freak out on someone (which could potentially affect my research because people might stop talking to me so casually during interviews). I guess I will just do my best and write up my paper for the next couple weeks. Hopefully the weather will get nicer and I can be at the beach. At least I can be thankful that I have not been sick at all or hurt and I have food and a roof to shield me from the rain.