A Letter to Stephan

Dear Stephan,

How are you? I hope you're having a good day. Everything at the office going well?

As for me, I'm fine. I was surprised when you started quoting to me from my own entries, but I appreciate you being so interested in what I write. I've never had a boyfriend like you. You keep surprising me.

Like the day we first sat and had coffee. When you told me your favorite singer was Micheal Bolton, and that you were truly sad that he'd cut his hair. I didn't know what to say, so I just laughed. When I was laying in bed that night, I kept asking myself, "Why can't I stop thinking about this guy? "

Also, you're always very well dressed. American guys hate to admit that they care about what they look like, so I'm used to men being kind of ignorant about clothing. But you know exactly what kind of jeans look great on you and what style of T-shirts to hunt for at the market. And your fashion advice for me never ceases to impress me.

But what really floors me is how openly romantic you are. I've never had that before. You're very earnest and sweet and it just makes me fall in love with you over and over. On top of this, you love to be silly, (I love your fake stories about your village, Proust, back in Mexico), and I adore being ridiculous with you.

I'll see you later today. I'm putting a kiss in this blog entry. Can you feel it?

Love,
Lindsay

The Ancient American Chicken Dance

As an American overseas, you're constantly asked to explain your strange, esoteric country. Questions like, "Why are Americans so violent that they fight each other in big stadiums for an audience? There's rock music and flashing lights and everything. And why doesn't anyone care if someone gets hurt?" It's not easy. Particulary when John Cena is just as popular as Celine Dion in developing countries.
Recently, I was asked to talk about another national castastrophe; American Weddings. What do Americans do? What do they eat? How do they pray? What do they wear? While discussing it, I mentioned that, in the states, people like to be really silly just after a wedding. Silly in what way, everyone wanted to know. "Oh, you know," I said, "like, we do the Chicken Dance."
"Chick-en...Dance?" All the teachers I had speaking quickly exchanged the traditional, Malagasy, how-do-I-handle-this-expression with one another. I jumped in with an explanation.
"See, we have a dance that looks like chickens. And we dance it whenever someone gets married. There's a special song for it. I've done it lots of times." Their curiosity kicked in and they smiled a little. "Can you teach it to us," they asked, "at a party for some English students?"
And so, that's how I committed to bringing our beautiful American tradition to the far reaches of the globe. As of tomorrow, a whole new population will be clipping the air with beak-hands, flapping their elbows, wiggling their tailfeathers and throwing themselves into a do-si-do. Will it end up at any weddings? One can only hope.

some little stories

I know, I'm a reluctant writer. But, enough people have mentioned to me that they're checking my blog that I feel like a return to regular blogging is the right thing to do.

Here are two recent moments in Volunteer Life; Madagascar.

Do you like it?

Yesterday, I accepted an invitation to a teacher's house for lunch. I didn't think too much of it. She's an English teacher at a private school, wants to practice speaking, etc. Her kids came to my temporary room at a Teacher's dorm in Majunga (where I'm staying for summer break) and walked me to the house.
The house was typical Malagasy style. Packed to the brim with oversized furniture so that one side of the dining table is inaccessable. A TV was buried between bureaus and beds and was blaring Whitney Houston music. All the normal stuff.
"Okay, let us have lunch," said my hostess. "I made spaghetti with tomatoes and anchovies. Do you like it?" Sure, I said. Not thinking.
We sat down, everyone watching me to see when they could start eating. Once I helped myself, they dove in. The pasta looked pretty clumpy, but I took a small lump. Then I tasted it. It was incredibly disgusting. Like vomit with noodles. I swallowed and looked up to see everyone waiting for my reaction. I offered a smile.
"Do you like it? It's easy to make," my hostess assured me. "You just take some tomatoe paste and a can of anchovies. You put them together and you mash it, you know? Do you like it? You can make it at home. Here! I saved an anchovy for you!"

Ha Ha!

My marital status, or lack of one, has been a major concern for the people of Maevatanana. "Lindsay," my neighbors say, one hand on their hip, "we've got to get you married." I always say that it would be wrong for me to get married without my parents' blessing, and this seems sufficient as an excuse. For the women at least.
The men are another story. Each one seems positive it will only take a glance, an accidental brushing of the hand across a desk, and I'll be helplessly in love. Two guys in my town, Jacque and our Director of Education, are by far the most determined to win my heart.
Jacque is a young, handsome guy who works in our market selling fruits and vegetables. He's too sweet, he just isn't for me. He's a very high-maintenance, forward guy. Two things I absolutely cannot handle.
As soon as I'm in his section at the an-tsena I hear, "Lindsay! Heh, heh." I always say hello and look over what he's offering for the day.
"Good morning! I am nice to see," he says. What do you need? When I ask for carrots or potatoes he grabs 10 or 11 and throws them into my basket. No, no, you don't pay. Then I get what I like to call THE LOOK. This is an expression Jacque is hoping will communicate his love for me. I just give him a casual nod and continue on my way, listening to the women tease him in my wake.
My other suitor is the Director. Even by Malagasy standards, he's very short. Everyone in town calls him "Kely-kely" which translates to "little guy." He's very educated, very involved in the schools, but his hieght puts him at level with my breasts. And he's not shy about acknowledging them.
The Director asked for some help filling out a form, in English, on a day I had off, so I went to see him. His office was plush. A tall, deluxe office chair was behind a big, shiny desk. His bald, tiny head was lost in all the reflective surfaces.
We worked through the form. He asked me how my work was going and I straightened up to answer him. Suddenly, it registered with him just how much more height I had on my side of the desk and he immediately tried to make amends. He struggled with the bottom of his chair and then, in bouncy intervals, (squeak-a-squeak-a-squeak!) raised himself up by about five inches.
"Ah, okay, hah hah! Now, you tell me, uh, how things are, yes?" We chatted, then he gave me a ride back up the hill to my house, laughing the whole way.
"I saw your friend, hah hah! She was brushing her teeth! I was just coming in from a small trip hah hah! I caught some fish!" If only he knew how funny he really is.

If nothing's right, what's wrong?

The other day I had an epiphany. It came about while I was coco broussing my house and crying. When you coco brousse you use half the dried husk of a coconut to rub the dirt off of your floor. You do this with one foot on the brousse, moving it back and forth, while your other foot keeps your balance and hops along sideways to get you across the floor. When you do this while crying, it means you're having a terriffically bad day.
My bad day kind of snuck up on me. It was a mixture of frustration and holiday depression. After spending Christmas with people very unlike my family on an island so hot we all called putting our swimming suits on "getting dressed", I bought a hammock. What I didn't know was that this hammock would bring me nothing but problems. I just saw it and thought Wow! I could put this in my house. It will be great.
That hammock meant having hooks welded,(one week) a hole gouged in two of my cement walls (one week of talking about it and one very noisy day) and new cement used to sloppily fill them in after the hooks were installed. Then, I discovered the hammock was too long and sitting in it meant sitting on the floor and looking like an idiot. All of these things were going through my head when it hit me.
This is why people go home early. Because they feel this bad and can't stop and they pack their bags, give Mcar the finger and get the hell out.
I didn't want to be one of these people. I sat in the idiot seat to think about it. What would make me feel better? Nothing came to me. I stared at my feet, which were high above my head at this point, and then I realized-I could shorten the hammock. It's made in such a way that the ends can be altered, I just never noticed.
I jumped up, made my hammock a little bit smaller and then flopped down on it. As soon as I was in, I began rocking back and forth in that wonderful way that only hammocks do. I stopped crying. I made myself swing some more and thought, I could really get used to this.

Just call me Leitjea

Everyday, I'm asked about my family back home. I have a recitation I give to every curious Malagasy person. "My mother's name is Dee-ann-ah, my older brother's name is Cam-ehr-ohn, his wife is Tah-MEE and their baby is called Johnn-ee. My younger brother is Cohl-een and my father is Rrroi."
As I recite this little diatribe, it's punctuated by the listener's comments and expressions.
"Dee-ann-ah! Oh, tsara izany! That's a beautiful name!" They say this about everyone in my family, eyes wide with adoration at our exotic, white names.
Then the inevitable, "And what is your name?" I say that my name is Leend-say and their wonder evaporates. Their faces look as though they've been confronted with a calculus problem.
"What is it? What did she say? Luhn-dza? Is that her name?" A taxi brousse driver once wrote a ticket to Leitjea, the strangest mutation to date.
This is a problem I never saw coming. It's my name! What about it presents such an issue? The first group of Malagasy I met, those who trained me and are often around Americans, had no difficulty pronouncing "Lindsay" the same way everyone back home does.
Briefly, my middle name, Nicole, was leaked and for an afternoon I had everyone calling me "Nee-Kohl". I don't really mind, anything's better than white girl, but I've only gone by my first name and didn't feel right about dropping it.
One person, a woman who sells me the bananas I eat for breakfast, has found a solution. Every day when I approach her table she says, loudly, "Mana-oahana Mah-Dear! Hello my dear!" It always makes my day. So much so that I refuse to buy bananas from anyone else.

Looking for the sunlight in Madagascar

Where to start? I'm currently worn out from a much-too-long trek around my banking town looking for a company called Madasolleil. After asking for directions ten different times, baking in the sun, turning in circles and side-stepping all the cat-calling pous-pous drivers, I finally gave up. I decided to make a quick internet stop and then just get lunch, try to find it later.
Just as I was walking up to the internet cafe Alliance de Francaise I saw a white van with a small satellite on top and a big blue sign exclaiming "Madasolleil!" in bright yellow letters. I almost fell over. I found the proprietor reading a paper and chatted with her about a possible project in January. She said it sounded great. Now all I have to do is pay for it somehow.

My In-Service Training is coming up which means I'll get to spend some time with all of the Americans I came here with. Immediately afterwards is our Christmas break and I don't know where I'll be headed. Apparently a few of my fellow volunteers are planning the first "Dirty South" Christmas down towards Fort Dauphin and that sounds like a lot of fun. However, a lot of people are headed to Nosy Be, which is supposed to be tropical paradise, so I don't know what to do.

I'm getting to know my town a little bit better, I sent my mom a beautiful Malagasy tablecloth and it got to her with no problems, I thought I was broke and found out I was far from it and now I have work with the TV station to look forward to. My site partner has fallen in love with a gorgeous Malagasy man named Parany, (which translates to "The Last" which I think is infinitely cool) and has started an AIDS awareness club in the high school. Lots of good things are happening.

Now my students drink the water

Well, the big news at the moment is that my classes are under control. For the most part. I learned the hard way not to ask them to sit boy-girl-boy-girl (this caused such a big fight my Director had to come in and get the kids to calm down).
I've also learned just how much my students love to sing. The love it so much that, one of my classes, given the option to leave class for the day insisted they not leave because they hadn't yet sung. "Hira! Hira, Madame-a," they yelled. I explained they were getting to leave. "It's a party," I said, "go!" But they wouldn't until I promised them we would sing the next time I saw them. Who knew?

Other news: my camera has been replaced thanks to my beautiful, wonderful mother whom I worship at every opportunity. Her generosity has granted me not only a wonderful new camera but also gorgeous new tank tops, a necessity where I live, and many wonderful letters. I'll never know what I did to deserve such a perfect, angelic being as a mother.

I'm hoping to get started on some media work in January. I've befriended the crew at the radio/TV station with the help of a wildly popular english lesson on the radio five days a week and now they want to do some kind of TV project. I've also been informed there's a German NGO not far from me working to train Malagasy filmmakers and videographers, so I'm hoping to meet her soon, but so far it's all talk.

In the meantime, I'm starting to have visitors, some of which are my students. The fomba, (the tradition), is for them to come to my house, mention how hot it is, then ask if I have any water. Because I'm a good hostess and just as hot as they are, I comply and run to my water barrell to fill up a glass. Sometimes the water is drunk. Other times, a single sip from a full glass is all my guest wants. That, and a chance to see what white people have in their houses. I'm happy to show it.