Village Life--August 2008

So Corie is not a vegetarian anymore! She's been adding fish and shrimp to her rice on a regular basis now, and eating basically whatever people serve her because that is showing respect to them. Although summer in her village brings very stormy seas, so not much fish is available now. Fruit is also rather scarce now, but in different times, lots of starfruit, pineapple, oranges, lychees, mangoes and bananas are available. She's been working hard outside in the rice fields, which is turning her skin brown, and her friends tease that she will soon be black, like them! A typical day finds Corie roaming the streets and gets her many invites to sit on neighbors porches and talk. This is part of her job as she learns the customs, more of the language and also what's important in their daily life. She's learned how to weave mats, more about Malagasy humor and feels like she's turned some people around who were previously a little scared of Corie. Villagers are very superstitious and belief in ghosts & witches is very common. They all have sayings and proverbs that they live by. The mayor of her village wants her to paint another mural on the commune building. When I called Corie this summer in response to a cell phone text that her phone was charged and she wanted to talk, I called early and woke her up. She answered in Malagasy and continued to talk in Malagasy even after I told her it was dad on the line, she was still half asleep! She laughed and told me she sometimes dreams in Malagasy language now. After her trip to Tana, she learned how to write grants and work better with NGO's in Mad. In prep for this trip the mayor called in all the surrounding communal village reps and 15 presidents of the councils to meet with Corie and present their ideas. These are some of them: a group wants to hike into the forest and plant a tree nursery to develop a firewood source, another group of 15 farmers want to learn how to plant a higher yield of rice, a women's group wants to learn how to make the more efficient clay cookstoves, (see the instruction sheet Corie illustrated) another... how to raise more chickens.

Most days sees her up at 6am, 6:30 at the latest. If it's past then before she opens her door friends are knocking wondering if she's sick. She's in bed by 8 or 8:30pm...exhausted after working in the fields or riding her bike to neighboring villages. There are roosters everywhere, in fact a big rooster fight took place on her porch the other day. Rats are also around. A rat ate part of her shirt recently. She also found a large scorpion in one of her file folders and called in the kids to get rid of it. The kids don't know how to swim and are very afraid of the water. She has begun teaching english in the local middle/high school..she likes to do this and her teaching methods differ greatly that the very formal 'French' way: copying word-for-word what the teacher writes on the board. The kids took her to a party the other night and they had a DJs and brought in generators so they could hold a big dance in the school house that lasted all night long!