Backtrack: The public transport, taxi-brousses, embody all that is wonderful and awful about this country (actually, I’m just trying to be positive, they’re mostly horrible). The punishment and reward increases with the number of hours you spend on one. This is a photo with my PCV family (Sam, John and Carrie) after the dusty ‘trail of tears’; 14 hours to go less than 100 miles on one of the worst roads in the country. (breaking down in the windy desert and repairing the axel with a peice of wood did NOT help the situation)

I live in the formerly affluent vanilla region (the price fell around 2003, but they’re still bitter about it: “we used to wash the tables with beer, just because it was easier to buy one than go get a bucket of water!” ahh the good old days). That’s what everyone here does. The doctor, the mayor, the crazy drunk guy who makes me sign the back of gum wrappers then tucks them in his briefcase for the meeting he has that night – they are all involved in vanilla in some way and most, in my village, farm it. There is no natural pollinator of the vanilla flower in Madagascar, so the people have to do it by hand. Every single flower. One by one. I volunteered to go with a friend to help one day. Fortunately, she understood that I’d be exhausted and full of all the photos I could want by lunch, so I got dismissed early. It was a sweltering 5 hours of wandering through jungle looking for flowers. I’ll do it once a year for the free vanilla come harvest, but I’ll never call a Gasy lazy for taking a 2 hour siesta each day.

Thanksgiving photos from our friend’s bungalow that he lent us for the holiday. I live 25 km from the most beautiful, empty beaches I’ve ever seen. Jealous?

Don’t be. I also have to dig worm eggs out of my feet when I get careless with the hygiene.

Work: I spend a lot of not very exciting time helping the doctor and midwives at the health clinic (I live on the grounds). I’m most involved with the pre-natal care visits for the preggers and the family planning visits. Sometimes I take the health talks on the road (Health Fairs!) and feel the appreciation from the more remote communities (yay for chicken talons). I also spend a good deal of time making small children scream by stripping them naked and hanging them from a glorified meat hook to weigh them. Of coarse, I try to make it up to them with the cooking demo to teach mothers how to prepare weaning foods. Also, there’s the well project. I’m still in the middle of the process and frustrations, so I’ll refrain from a tangent, but here are some

pictures to prove that there has been progress.

Thank you again!

Moving on to more pleasant things: judging beauty pageants! Video footage to come in 2009 or when I have access to a really fast connection in this country.

I have some amazing friends both in my village and among the other volunteers near me. I manage to maintain a good balance between the Gasy cultural events and parties and small vacations around the Island to work with other volunteers. Stories from both venues are best shared in person over a beer, but here are some photos to give you an idea.