Limited Updates

Hi everyone, I regret to say that it turns out I will not have much Internet access over the next six weeks. The sim card in my phone has suddenly stopped working, so I will now only be able to get onto the Internet by using a friend's computer, and that will only be possible a couple more times over the next six weeks. In addition, we are heading into the bush on Saturday, where logging onto a computer will not be an option. I do wish I could consistently share my experiences with you as they happen, but I will just have to recount everything to you all when I return, which will be equally as enjoyable. I'm having a great experience, I'm in a terrific place, and I really am lucky to be here. So with that I will take a rather long break from my blog, and hopefully an opprtunity for an update will arise in the next few weeks. I hope all is well.

Jesse

Communications Hiccup

Jesse has been derailed with a SIM card failure on his Verizon Blackberry.  He may switch to France Télécom's local "Orange" service in Madagascar.  Today he went to the famous lemur reserve at Berenty.  They will be heading into the bush in next week or so for some infrastructure construction.

dave

Fort Dauphin Center

Building a Schoolhouse, Ft. Dauphin

This past week was mostly spent hammering, sawing, and carrying planks of wood between work sites. We are constructing a school that is 18 meters by 6 meters in area, and it requires a lot of work. The school will provide education and a sensibly comfortable learning environment for thousands of children in the coming years. We spend 5 hours per day under the sun, and the amount of sweat I produce even walking 100 yards is obsene. Fortunately there is a consistent supply of treated water so we stay well hydrated. I am excited to see the final product, and even after the first week of construction I feel very accomplished. There is a real purpose to every step in the process. Simple tasks such as hammering nails and sawing wood take on a substantial importance here; we are doing something that will greatly benefit this community, and that makes me very happy. As an aside, today I ate goat tongue and it was delicious. It was cooked in its original form, long and curved, and part of the throat was still attached. It tasted like a lamb chop and was surprisingly tender. I have been really pleased with the quality of the meat here--it is a real treat. We swam at the surfing beach today, I think I might have to try surfing some time soon. I'm getting better at conversing with the Malagasy children, and that is a a lot of fun. They are incredibly friendly. Samsara! (Cheers)

Fort Dauphin

I'm now in Fort Dauphin, a town of 60,000. This town might have some of the most beautiful landscapes I've even seen. Jagged mountains meet pristine beaches, and the coastline boasts waves that would meet the standards of any professional surfer. while Fort Dauphin is quite aesthetically complex, life here is very simple and very poor. My group of 8 volunteers consists of 2 Germans, 2 British people, 1 Canadian, and 2 Americans, almost  all in their early twenties. There are 4 men and 4 women. We have a British group leader and a few Malagasy guides who are awesome guys. The group gets along great, and we are becoming close. Our living conditions are basic. We sleep in tents, go to bed at 9 pm, wake up at 5 am--which is actually very nice--have breakfast, and get on with the day. There is no warm water, but there is electricity and there are western-style toilets. This will change when we are in the bush, where living conditions become even more basic--a couple of years ago Azafady did work in an area where the European and American volunteers were the first "vazahy," or foreigners, that some of the indigenous Malagasies had ever seen. But for the next few weeks we will be in the same campsite. Breakfast is bread and butter, lunch is rice and either beans or vegetables, and dinner is rice and either beans or meat. Although the selection is limited, I do eat a lot, so I've managed to avoid becoming overwhelmingly hungry so far. Today we took a trip to the national park and saw some lemurs. They are incredible creatures! Then we went for a swim in the ocean when we got back to town. We've also gotten a tour of Fort Dauphin, had a party for the opening of the new Azafady office, and been briefed on our upcoming project work. Also today I joined in on a game of basketball with some locals, which was a lot of fun. I was a good foot and a half taller than everyone else, and I could tell from their laughter that they were thoroughly entertained. But I think I also made them reconsider the age-old saying "White men can't jump."

Fort Dauphin

Tana, oct 3-5

Hi everyone, I am in Madagascar and it is fantastic! I am thrilled. I'm writing from my blackberry and the internet is very slow. Frankly I'm surprised it even works. Tana is a fabulous city, and yesterday I had the opportunity to walk into the center of town, a couple minutes walk from my hotel. Rue de l'Independence is a beautifully bustling street with the typical reminders that you're in a developing country: cars continuing to drive through you as you cross the street, the smell of local fried fruits and pastries, the occasional waft of urine. All in all i had a lot of fun walking along this main road, negotiating with local vendors (who are very aggressive) on prices with my French, which is starting to come back to me. After I paid one man for a cow hide drum, his friend followed me back to my hotel, pleading for me to buy one of his string instruments. i enjoyed his company and finally conceded at the door to my hotel, paying him a few thousand ariary (a couple dollars) for his instrument. The  people here are very welcoming, and the children are particularly cute. I could write a lot more and I will eventually, but I am about to board my plane to Fort Dauphin to join up with Azafady. I will try to post photos later. Everything is good!

Trip preparations

In only three weeks I will board a plane to Antananarivo, Madagascar. The flying time will be a total of 18 hours, with a layover in Paris. I will be in the country for 10 weeks, and although at this point I'm not completely sure what I'm in for, I do know that it will be a tremendous and meaningful trip. For ten weeks I will be working in and around the small town of Fort Dauphin (Tolagnaro), which is located on the southeast coast of Madagascar. I will be one of 15 volunteers working with a humanitarian NGO called Azafady, which means "please" in Malagasy. Madagascar, like most African countries, has a lot of problems. A weak economy, overpopulation, and climatic shock are the source of rampant food insecurity and malnutrition. Less than 50% of people have access to potable drinking water. One in ten children dies before the age of 5. Simply put, the quality of life in Madagascar deserves improvement.

To help fund my trip, the Tucker Foundation at Dartmouth has granted me a $4,000 stipend as part of the Tucker Fellowship I received in August, for my plans to engage in international volunteer work with Azafady. For 16 years, Azafady has had the objective of improving the quality of life in Madagascar, and its efforts have proven to be quite effective. The staples of Azafady's approach to humanitarian development include building schools, implementing more sustainable agricultural practices, building wells to provide access to clean drinking water, and teaching English as well as basic health/sanitation, all catering to the needs expressed by Malagasies living in some of the most remote and poorest areas of the island. These are the types of projects I will be involved in, and most of my service will be in the form of manual labor and construction work. Perhaps the most meaningful aspect of my experience will be learning about and interacting with the Malagasy people--seeing how they live, understanding better the sources of their poverty, and discovering what brings fulfillment to their lives.

Madagascar will surely be a beautiful place to live for ten weeks. It offers an extremely unique variety of flora and fauna--80% of its flora species are endemic to the country. Sometimes called the "eighth continent," Madagascar is considered to be one of the most biodiverse places in the world, which is why deforestation and slash-and-burn agriculture are so threatening to the island's ecology and the ecological sciences in general. Along with community development, Azafady also focuses on environmental conservation, so I very well may be involved in spreading awareness of and helping to eradicate high levels of deforestation and environmental degradation.

Hopefully I will have my visa soon, and my tent--I will be camping for almost the whole ten weeks. I leave New York on October 2, and I arrive in Antananarivo (Tana for short) on October 3. I will stay two nights in Tana, so I will have a full day to walk around the city, which should be awesome.

Jesse