Phone call from Corie--June 17, 2008

Just a few days after Father's Day, Corie called. She can only call when she charges her cell, which happens when she visits her banking town, about 2.5 hrs via her mountain bike. It had been over 3 weeks since we'd last heard from her so it was great to learn the adjustment /transition to village life was better than her first week in the village. She is focusing on the positives and she's also starting to learn this dialect of Malagasy. It's totally different than what she learned in training. She's made new friends with members of the Environmental Club started by the previous PCV. In fact, several teens come to her hut every night to talk, play checkers and cards and keep her company. They say they feel sorry for her because she lives alone, whereas most villagers do not. Malagasy rarely spend time alone, and Corie is learning to adjust to this way of life. Health wise, she's doing OK except for small sores covering her lower legs. Some sort of microbes or chiggers they say that all PCVs get. The villagers wouldn't let her go into the rice paddies anymore because they say her legs needed to stay dry to heal. They were on the verge of infection when she called the PC doctor and he put her on anti-b. She then described a...
TYPICAL "Mad-a-who-ha" DAY:
Up at 6, cook rice then open the hut door prior to 7 otherwise people will knock on her door to make sure she's not sick! Then go down the street to visit her adopted 'older sister' and her family, where she drinks coffee with them and hangs out for awhile in the mornings. Then more visits with neighbors, morning chores like laundry, weeding her garden, and sweeping, etc. Then back to the hut for lunch (more rice) then sometimes a siesta like the rest of the village. After nap, she opens the door to the little kids and does lessons with them or draws or writes because afternoons are pretty rainy now. Not much time spent at the beach because of rain this time of year. When she's not doing that, she can be found in the rice fields working with people a few days a week. Village life is mostly centered around rice. Talking with folks and helping them harvest or process rice usually takes all day. She said it's 'work to eat to live'. Most of their existence is centered around planting, raising, chopping and harvesting their rice crop...all by hand. Drying the rice means spreading it all out on a mat after it's chopped and literally watching it dry all afternoon and shooing away the chickens and birds, who will eat it in a minute. Sometimes it might take her the entire day just to visit one or two households because she stays to help people work with whatever chores they are doing. At night she is entertained by the students who visit, eats dinner and lights a candle if she stays up past dark. At 9pm, the end of the day, she's pretty exhausted.
It's been a real adjustment for her but after 2 months 'in-village' she's finally learned to go with the flow and not worry about having the 'American way' of an exact daily schedule and accomplishments. She got a little kitten to help get rid of the rats in her hut, but he needs to grow a bit. The rats are bigger than the kitten right now!
On June 26th, Madagascar celebrates independence with a huge 5-day party. All the smaller villages around hers come and visit her village. They set up a big stage and sound system with generators brought in for the occasion. Corie was asked to give a speech and introduce herself to all the villages. She practiced and did it. Her friends said she appeared a bit nervous but did OK, but others said she did great for a white. The party starts every day around 10am, stops at noon when everybody goes home to cook rice for lunch and a short nap then back at 2 when the party and dancing starts again, breaks for dinner then starts up again. Corie asked to go to the late nite party and her teen friends tried to talk her out of it. Too much bad liquor there and too late. She persevered and learned the dances and said it was a great time. The boys protected her from drunks and were pleased that she went after all.
She recently took several teens to Rantabe, about 5 hours away of walking, to attend a large 2-day meeting of regional Environmental clubs hosted by Wildlife Conservation Society. She stayed at the school there and enjoyed the trip. That's the news from the phone calls. We expect the next call in mid August when she'll visit the capital city for a large PC meeting. She should also have Web access then for a few days.
The mayor has given her the OK to start a mural on the clinic interior wall. She was going to much earlier but the head nurse died unexpectedly and Corie attended her funeral and was told there was a mourning period when it would be disrespectful to start a project at her clinic.