Trantry ny Krismasy!

Merry Christmas! And a soon to be Happy New Year! As I type this I am listening to Kaley’s Bachelorette CD (shout out- miss you girl!) with my roomies Katie and Nicki here in Mantasoa, Madagascar. We live in a beautiful paradise that looks a lot like Washington state (so I’ve been told). We live on a lake in the rain forests outside of Antananarivo where we can go canoeing, mountain biking and hiking everyday. There are rice paddies, fresh fruits, gorgeous flowers and beautiful birds. It’s almost as 180 as you could get from the deserts of Niger- and our clothing reflects it. We are currently all housed together on a single compound that is reminiscent of sleep-away summer camps, complete with chefs that cook our every meal, and cleaning ladies that also do our laundry once a week. We are being spoiled rotten right now, and we know it. Today, as a Christmas present, our training staff is taking us to Andasibe Nat’l Park. It’s the only home of the indri- the world’s largest lemur whose call is said to be one of the most haunting noises in nature. It will be the sound that I will be waking up to for the next two years as my post is in a small town right outside of Andasibe. Yes, I found out my site placement finally, 2 months and 1 evacuation later! For the next two years I will be living in Antsapanana, with a lot of available projects at my fingertips. I could/will be doing some tree nurseries and fruit tree grafting, setting up vegetable gardens and working with ecotourism. I was told by my APCD (Associate Peace Corps Director) that I will be working closely with an NGO known as SAF/FJKM around the Andasibe area. I’m really excited by the prospect of my future job and projects and the fact that I’ll be able to go camping with the lemurs every weekend. I’m also super psyched that I share a banking town (Moramanga) with Katie and that we’re not too far from Nicki. I actually have a sweet “cluster” of people nearby; Amanda is within biking distance of me (I think) and Monica lives in the banking town. Kelly, Tom, Jaja, Jackson, Aaron, Dacia and Hannah are all pretty near too so we’ve got a great group. I’m sad that Chantel and Steph are pretty far away, but now I’ve got great excuses to visit the rest of the country. Mike is also set up in a sweet national park position right outside of Ranomafana- 11 lemur species, bird watching, beautiful botanicals and rare orchids. Others have great posts near the beach, or near dinosaur fossil archaeological sites or even in the unique spiny forests in the south where the various baobabs give it a Seussian appearance. Most are very excited about their posts and prospective jobs so it was a good Christmas.
Speaking of Christmas we also did a “Secret Santa” which has been tons of fun this past week. Mine got me a cute turtle figurine made of conch shell, a great wrap skirt, a beautiful hand crafted Malagasy kerchief, and this beautiful stationary with pressed flowers in the paper. We made paper stockings for each trainee and LCF here for ‘Krismasy’ and hung paper snowflakes and had a small decorated Christmas tree (just a large pine tree branch). We had our morning classes all snuggled up by a fire. And all day long we ate. It was a ridiculous amount of food- complete with sugar cookies on Christmas Eve, pancakes for breakfast, fruit cake for ‘morning pause,’ hot dogs for lunch and for dinner turkey, ham, and sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top. They even rounded up some coconut ice cream from the capital for us, made us apple pie, mango cobbler and mint brownies. American gluttony at it’s finest- but we will soon be in the community eating rice for every meal until post so we enjoyed the feast tremendously.
In other news, we had our first market experience (a very successful one), learned Malagasy carols, and have started a most epic game of “Mafia.” Throughout this holiday season I have somehow managed to become our stage’s representative of the Jewish religion. I’ve regaled the Malagasy and my fellow trainees (some of whom have never known a Jew before) with the story of Chanukah and the other Jewish holidays. I’ve also given a few presentations on bike maintenance and repair to my fellow trainees. We also got a brief history lesson on Madagascar and I would recommend anyone looking for a chuckle to check out the latest in Madagascar politics. A year ago a radio DJ decided to declare himself president (though there already was one and had been on for several years) and due to technical difficulties surrounding a speech made by the then president, the DJ has somewhat succeeded at becoming the president. It’s certainly interesting, and I wish we had internet and news at our fingertips to read more about it.
Though it’s been two long months of close quarters and consolidation, many of us have formed really strong bonds and friendships. Our impending departure from the training sight is both sad and exciting. Our language will improve in leaps and bounds once we move off site into a host family for the last three weeks of training. It will also make swear in that much more sweet as it will be the last time we’re all together again, at least until IST (in service training). I’ve got a good group of friends here that will be a great support for me especially in the beginning, so I’m very thankful. I’ve also been healthy ever since Niger (a little bit of hip pain- probably over exercising after being sedentary for so long) so that’s been great too. Life in Madagascar is pretty great right now though the holidays were a challenge for me with home-sickness. I miss you all and am glad to have been able to chat with a few people this past month. Send me text messages or try and call me on Skype. My phone service will be pretty good at site and I won’t be changing my number after all.
Sorry if this entry doesn’t make the most sense or flow very well. As I work on learning another new language I find my English skills lacking. Anyway, I miss you all. I hope Santa was very kind to you this Christmas/ Chanukah season and that you ring in the New Year (new decade) in health and with your loved ones all around. I know I miss mine. Next time I post it will be 2010 and I could be a sworn in PCV! Woohoo!