Mud Huts and Soft Porridge

I can't believe that I have already been in this country for a week! I have been staying in my new village stay in Sexaxa, and I am having the most lovely time. I live in a compound with my mother (who is 25), her mother, and her two children (ages 4 and 1). My mother, Keroling, can speak a little bit of English, and we can usually communicate between ourselves. And she is also helping me to learn a little bit of Setswana along the way. Our compound consists of one house (which my mother made out of sticks and mud all by herself), an outdoor kitchen area surrounded by a wooden fence, and a little "bathroom" where I bathe twice a day.

**Side note: One huge difference about this country is bathing. During my homestay in Faux Cap, I wasn't able to bathe once (and neither did my homestay family). Here, we must bathe twice a day--In the morning and at night before I go to bed. This just goes to show how a slight change in access to water can affect the families which reside around the same longitudinal coordinates.

My family here also seems much more excited about and interested in my presence. I am constantly helping my mother cook, clean, fetch water, etc., and I feel much more integrated into the family's daily life. I'm am sure this has a lot to do with the fact that communication comes much easier here than it did in Faux Cap, but nonetheless, I am enjoying myself much more.

I share a double bed with my mother in the mud hut, which has actually not been a nuisance thus far. I am happy to be sleeping in a bed in general. Meals so far have consisted primarily of soft porridge (a mixture of cornmeal and milk) and hot tea. Sometimes, my homestay mother will prepare pumpkin or beans for me that she harvested in the fields. The meals are not extravagant, but I am happy with what is available...it is a good change from eating rice 24/7!

During the day, all of the students travel into the city for classes. We have our lectures in a small hotel, and we are on our own for lunch. I have started buying peanut butter and bread, apples, and yogurt from the grocery store for my lunches. I am really enjoying the availability of food items in this country, especially the Cadbury chocolate bars! It is nice to have a break from the village during the day as well. I find that division of time between the city and the village has made the experience a little more pleasurable due to the fact that I am not getting burned out with either setting. The days are a nice melange.

Last Sunday, I went on my first game drive! We spent a couple of hours in the morning driving through the wilderness of Africa, looking at all of the mega-fauna!! While riding in our crazy safari trucks, we saw so many elephants, giraffes, zebras, and a plethora of antelope. I am hoping to post pictures some time this week!!

And I have discovered my new mailing address. Hopefully, this address will be a bit more reliable, since Botswana is not experiencing any political stress at the moment. I am told that the mail takes about 10 days, but I will let you all know when I receive my first letters!

C/O Stewart Chirova
P. BAG TO 10 Suite 91
POSTNET TLOKWENG
BOTSWANA

"What I found appealing in life abroad was the inevitable sense of helplessness it would inspire. Equally exciting would be the work involved in overcoming that helplessness. There would be a goal involved, and I liked having goals." --DavidSedaris

When reading Me Talk Pretty One Day on the plane ride from Madagascar to Botswana, I came across this quote. Throughout this past week, and the following weeks ahead, I am trying to keep these thoughts in the back of my mind. I am still adjusting to this new place, and I am not expecting everything to be easy for me. But, if I understand that fact, I can confront my new obstacles with a sense of power rather than helplessness--a personality trait that I admire and hope to acquire.

<3 and miss you all!!

erin elizabeth

Metamorphosis

So I just got to actually watch the news story that I previously posted. The highlight of the entire story was hearing my little brother talking. He has grown an insane amount over the time that I have been abroad. Just hearing him talk on the phone, I can tell already tell a difference in his articulation. It is amazing to discover the subtle nuances of daily life that I took for granted before I left the country.

All is going well in Botswana. Matt and I have been spending the last two or three nights in a hotel, acclimating ourselves to the area, while the others have been staying in their village stay in Sexaxa. It has been nice to have some time to readjust myself, to "switch gears" from living on the quaint, island town of Fort Dauphin, to the landlocked, bustling tourist town of Maun.

I miss a lot of things about Madagascar. I will list them for you:

1) The people. I had spent a month and a half building relationships with an amazing group of individuals (students, professors, homestay family members, etc), and they were all taken away from me in a matter of days. I miss these guys a ton, and it will be interesting to start building a group of friends all over again. The people here are extremely nice and friendly, but the group in Madagascar will always hold a special place in my heart. I love and miss you guys.

2) The countryside of Fort Dauphin. I was basically living in a little Caribbean paradise for a month and a half, and I miss the ocean and the cool ocean breeze.

3) Classes at Libanona. The classes here are held in a conference room at a hotel. While that is all fine and good, it is not my quaint little peninsula that overlooked the Indian Ocean. Lunch will no longer be spent outdoors in the grass. I am now in an actual touristy town, and I miss the outdoors.

4) The accessibility and quality of fruit. They have fruit here, but I do not get to go into the market and buy freshly picked mangos and bananas from a little street vendor for 10 cents. Everything here is sold in packages, much like the US, and I despise it.

5) Speaking french. I didn't expect this at all. I was often times frustrated with the french language. But now that I am unable to use a language that I have been depending on for the past month and a half, I miss it. Matt and I speak the beautiful french language sometimes, but overall, it is just not the same.

Now, don't get me wrong, there are many things about Maun that I really like. The internet is fast. I can drink the water without getting dysentery. Items are much more accessible. The food is still tasty. But it is definitely a change for me.

Yesterday afternoon, Matt and I found our way to Sexaxa, the village where the rest of the SIT kids are staying (and also the village that I will be living in next week). We had an interesting time finding the correct bus, etc., but we finally made our way to the lovely little village. It was nice to meet some of the villagers and to become acquainted with the area. From just seeing Sexaxa for a couple of hours, I can already tell that this village stay will be a lot different from the one in Faux Cap. There are some people who speak English (thank goodness), and the families here are just not as poor as the families in Faux Cap. All of the villagers have access to Maun by bus, and a good portion of the villagers have lived in a larger city at some time or another. It is not uncommon for the villagers to have a house in the city, as well as the country. Also, all of the compounds are relatively close together, and the students are able to interact a lot more than we ever could at Faux Cap.

Ever since I have come to Botswana, I have felt a little bit lost (academically speaking). The past week has felt like a vacation in the sense that I have been travelling and living in a hotel in this new country. I think it will take some time to find a new niche for myself here in Botswana, but I suspect that it will all come in due time. Throughout this entire experience, I am definitely learning how to adequately adjust to and cope with change--something that has been quite difficult for me to handle in the past. I am proud of the way I have personally handled this entire situation, and I can already see myself morphing into a new and improved "erin elizabeth."

africa in the news!

Check out this link. It is crazy! The computer I am on won't actually allow me to listen to the report, but just seeing the pictures has me stoked! Thanks to everyone back home who is taking interest in my African experiences!

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=6717427

PS: the bit where my brother is pointing to the globe...I taught him that ;)

From lemurs to zebras in 24 hours!

I have arrived in Botswana safe and sound! (after quite a long journey)

Matt and I left yesterday from Fort Dauphin, and flew into Johannesburg. Because we were traveling on a chartered flight, we had an small issue with baggage...I was only allowed 20 kilos of weight, total. Because I was actually carrying 30, I was told that I was going to have to leave some of my things behind. But after about 10 minutes of freaking out, we eventually worked it out, and all luggage made it on to the plane. Woof.

When we had finally made it to the huge airport of Johannesburg, our connecting flight to Gaborone had already departed. Yet, amidst all of the craziness, Matt and I were able to secure another flight with Air Botswana (after an hour and a half of running back and forth across the airport like two chickens with our heads cut off). At least everyone there spoke English...

We arrived in Gaborone late last night, and the gentleman who was supposed to take us to our hotel had already left. Eventually, we found someone who had been waiting with the gentleman who understood our situation, and long story short, we made it to our hotel. We ate dinner at a crazy huge restaurant down the street from our own place of lodging. And there is only one way to explain my feelings at that point in time. Culture shock. I drank a ginger ale with lime juice along side a glistening pool, while eating an Asian chicken noodle salad. The bathrooms had granite counter tops and foamy soap. I didn't know where the hell I was. Just the day before, I was using the bathroom in an old broken down outhouse. It was, indeed, an intense situation that I did not expect to experience.

This morning we arrived in Maun, where we were greeted by our new academic director (who goes by the name Simba!!). We drove to a little hotel and talked about our new home. He described the structure of the delta, the megafauna, and the economics of the region. Botswana is actually a remarkable country, in terms of economics. All of its wealth has been obtained since 1966.

As Matt and I were eating lunch, we were bombarded with a ton of new faces, just out of class. It was a little overwhelming, but the dynamics of the group seem great...full of sarcastic individuals :). There is another girl here from UNC, and a couple of them took us out to show us around a little bit before class. And that is where I am now. In an internet cafe in Botswana!

It will be interesting to see how everything plays out here, and I can't wait to see what crazy things happen! I learned today that in a week or two, I will get to follow zebra migrations across the delta. Yes, be jealous ;)

erin elizabeth

when life hands you Botswana...

So many things have happened over the past week, and there is no possible way that I can condense every thing into one little blog post. I last left you the day that I discovered that I was being forced to leave the country--a sad day indeed. It was then that I realized that I wouldn't be able to study the ringtails and sifakas, that I would have to leave all of my new friends, and that I would have to basically start all over again in a new country with a new language and a new culture. And here I am today, sitting for the last time at the internet cafe beside my house, waiting for Matt to pick me up in a taxi so that the two of us can begin our new adventure in Botswana! And again, I am scared, nervous, a little overwhelmed, and completely and utterly excited!

**Note: Be cautious about what you read in the news. I am not saying that what you read about Madagascar is not true, but I truly feel that it is being hyped-up. Yes, there are problems in the capital, but the United States likes to enhance the articles that they publish.

My last week here in Madagascar has been pretty much amazing. The day (actually at the exact moment) that I discovered I have to leave, our group enjoyed an extremely amazing lunch free from rice of any kind--pizza with tomatoes, lobster, and swordfish, couscous with some delicious octopus, vegetable lasagna, ravioli, and desert (apple pie, pineapple cobbler, sorbet, shortbread cookies with fresh coconut, yogurt and chocolate sauce). It was unreal...I actually think my academic advisor planned it so that I could gorge myself with delicous food after hearing the sad news! I actually surprised myself with how well I coped with the news. While I was completely heartbroken, I soon realized what a great experience it would be to study the mega-fauna of Botswana. And by soon, I mean that I had decided to continue my studies in Botswana within the hour. I will be studying in Maun, which is located in one of the most beautiful deltas in the world. Once Matt and I arrive in the country, we will be living in another village stay, with people who do not speak french or malagasy.

**Side note #2: I am leaving the rice diet. I am told in Botswana, their staple food is some sort of cornmeal something-or-other. It will be interesting to compare the two.

We spent most of the week in Tulear hanging out in the country beside the Mozambique Channel near a house that my academic director had built. The mangroves were absolutely gorgeous! We camped in our tents under the starry night sky. During our stay, we visited a sea cucumber farm, hiked a mountain, swam in a BEAUTIFUL cave, and went snorkling among the coral reefs of the Mozambique! I truly felt like I was the one on spring break! One night, we roasted two sheep over a fire and had a lovely party with the local villagers (of course with a lot of music, dancing, and Three Horses Beer).

Two days ago, Matt, Jenny (another student who decided to go back to the states), and I began our voyage back to Fort Dauphin. We were not able to catch a flight in time, so we traveled for two long days by truck across southern Madagascar. It was really great to see the countryside, but the ride was extremely long and bumpy! It was absolutely impossible to even nap on the road. On our second day of travel, around 06h30, we got the truck stuck in a huge puddle of mud. The muddy, murky, parasite ridden water was up to our thighs as we all pushed the truck out of the mud hole! Oh what an evacuation experience. Otherwise, the trip was relatively painless. We arrived in Fort Dauphin last night, where I spent my last evening with my homestay family. My father was still gone, but I was able to talk with him on the phone and say my goodbyes.

Sorry this post is relatively short, but I will soon be boarding a plane for Jo-burg, South Africa. Matt and I will then fly into Gabrione (sp?), the capitol of Botswana, where we will be spending the night. Thursday we will finally be flying into Maun, our destination. It is there that we will meet our new academic director, there that we will meet our new group of friends, and there where we will commence our new adventure in Sub-saharan Africa. I have no idea what is in store for me there, but I know that I will, indeed, have another great adventure. And what is even more exciting is that I now have a friend with whom I can share my journey.

I know you will all be excited to hear about Botswana, but I am not sure what type of communication I will have, if any, with the outside world once I am there. I will be sure to update you all as soon as possible.

**Side note #3: Just a little reminder, my address will be different. I will post my new one ASAP for those interested.

So here I am, half-way through my program, beginning a new journey (I really just wanted to make my blog interesting for all of you lovely individuals :). When life hands you Botswana, one must seize the giraffe!

until then,

erin elizabeth

ps: thanks to all of my friends and family who have been sending me messages and letters of encouragement! i will need every bit of it!

life most definitely does through you curve balls

The last couple of days have had its ups and its downs. I currently have a lot on my mind, and I am in a situation that I never ever thought I would ever be in.

First of all, I have been told that I have amoebic dysentery. If you would like further details on the ins and outs of this lovely gastro-intestinal disorder, feel free to google it.

Second of all, the country has risen its security level, and the lovely University of North Carolina has decided that it is not safe for me to be in this beautiful, amazing country any longer. I have just discovered this a little over an hour ago. And I am completely and utterly upset. The rest of my lovely little group gets to stay, except for my friend Matt, who also attends a large, public university.

Plans are up in the air. I am supposed to be gone within a week. I haven't yet discussed this with the family, and I am actually about to call them. But I have been told that Matt and I can possibly continue our study abroad experience with another ecology group in another country. With a whole new group of people. In a whole new culture. This is insanity. And I am strongly considering gathering my wits and all of the courage left in my body, and voyaging off to this whole new world, hopefully with my lovely friend Matt.

And this country is Botswana.

lost in translation, or lack thereof

I am feeling much better today! Thank goodness for crazy antibiotic medication!

So, I now have more things to check off of my life to-do (or as my dear friend Lindsay likes to refer to it) bucket list:

1) live for a week in a rural african village in southern Madagascar
2) do traditional Androy dances with villagers under the beautiful African moon and stars
3) eat a ton of raketa (the malagasy term for prickly pear)--this is their famine food
4) get hair traditionally braided by the women of a rural African village
5) take part in a dance competition among all of the other tribes in the Faux Cap commune
6) know how to truly appreciate verbal communication

I feel that this post is going to be the most difficult for me to write. I am sitting here trying to sum up all of my experiences and emotions from the past week in my rural village stay. And as hard as I try, I'm not quite sure that I will be able to articulate exactly what I experienced in the middle of drought stricken southern Madagascar, where the people have no clean water (if any water at all), very limited medical assistance, and barely enough food to keep the families fed. If you want to remove yourself from everything familiar, everything comfortable, and place yourself in a truly humbling situation, I advise you to live for a week in a rural African village. There were indeed children with swollen bellies--with crusty eyes covered in flies. Anyways, let me start from the beginning...

It all began two Mondays ago. We had travelled to Faux Cap the night before and camped on a beautiful beach. Monday morning, all of the students voyaged to the little market in Faux Cap to buy some lambas (the wraps people wear here) and waste some time. The Malagasy students bought a goat to eat later on that evening. Little did we know, we were all soon about to partake on an interesting and extremely difficult adventure.

All of the SIT students were divided into pairs among the villages, and I was paired with a lovely girl from Georgia, named Catherine. (We have been labeled the southern girls, yet I, supposedly, have the most southern accent of us all!) Later that afternoon, our homestay father and his son came to Faux Cap to pick us up. The adrenaline in my blood was pumping. As we rode in the back of our instructors truck to the village, all I could do was laugh outloud (literally) because I knew I was getting myself into something extremely crazy. I was wide eyed.

I experienced so many emotions that first evening, just Catherine and I among probably 50 rural Malagasy villagers who we could not understand at all. People came from other villages close by, and the night proceeded with them all shouting and staring at us. I think that they thought that if they spoke loud enough, Catherine and I might understand what they were saying. Just imagine me sitting on a mat, outside a tiny hut, with a ton of Malagasy villagers shouting in my face. My emotions were all over the place. In the beginning, I was excited. And as the night ended, I was completely overwhelmed and frustrated.

The next morning, the Malagasy students came to the village. Each village of two SIT students were also paired with two CEL students to facilitate discussion, etc. And boy were we relieved to be able to communicate with someone! That morning, we went to our father's fields, where he grew corn, watermelon, and several different types of manioc. We helped weed a bit, and afterwards ate a lot of watermelon (which is white here, not pink). Along the walk back to the village, we identified various medicinal plants and learned their usage among the villagers. It was so wonderful to have the CEL students there to be able to translate actual sentences for us.

The afternoon consisted of (as most of the time in our village did) sitting around. We did a lot of nothing while we were there, and that fact bothered me immensly. I like to believe that the villagers don't always sit around like that, that they were altering their everyday habits because they had foreigners in their village. But I just could not understand how so many people could just sit around all day. Why weren't they off tending their crops. Why weren't they washing clothes, or looking for water, or doing something productive?

Late afternoons were usually filled by a lot of dancing. And when I say a lot of dancing, I mean hours of dancing. We would gather around in a circle, stomp our feet, raise our arms, shake our hands, etc. A woman would most often be chanting somewhere in the background. The dancing was one of my favorite activities. Not only do I enjoy dancing, but I was one of the few activities that we could share together across cultures. It brought smiles and laughter. It lessened the stressful situations a bit, and for a while, we could experience a little bit of Androy culture without the constant bother of verbal communication.

The meals were interesting. Because we were living is such a destitute area, and because the family didn't even have enough food to feed themselves, we brought our own food stocks and provisions for our mother to prepare for us. About 95% of our diet consited of rice. For each meal, we would go to a little hut at the end of the village, and sit with our father (and sometimes brothers), who would share our meal. Breakfast: rice with honey. Lunch: rice with a little bit of white beans. Dinner: Rice with more beans. Rice rice rice rice rice. The women never ate with us, and I don't believe the men even shared any of our leftovers. Only our father and the elder brothers were allowed to dine with us. This was another problem I had with the culture (even though I had expected to experience this during my stay).

My last issue with my time in the village stay was concerning the issue of gifts. Catherine and I had brought adequate presents for our family. We gave them honey, candy, pens, paper, and the family was free to keep all of the leftover food, water, and other provisions we had left over at the end of our stay. We brought stickers, balloons, and glow sticks for the children. Yet at the end of our stay, our father demanded more gifts from us. He demanded them from us at least 5 or 6 times, in many different ways. Now, I am completely understanding and sympathetic to the fact that these people have very little, and are living in poor conditions. But frankly, I felt like a tool. The only reason my father agreed to have us stay was because he thought we would come bearing tons and tons of things for him. That we were going to give away all of our possessions to him. He didn't care about us, about our culture, about where we came from, about our thoughts and our views and our families. We were not individuals, we were an icon. We were rich foreigners and we were supposed to give him things. This was, in fact, the most difficult thing for me to deal with. And it wasn't even the fact that our father wanted these things, but he was hoarding them. He would not share them with the others.

example: After we finished our long dance treck to Faux Cap and danced all afternoon, our group was given 5 or 6 bottles of juice and soda to share. I grabbed a bottle to share with Catherine, and assumed the others would partake in the celebration. But our father took them all for himself and would not give them to any of the others. By this time I was quite frustrated with them, and I walked away. When my thirst had been quenched I passed the bottle on to one of the women in the group who had danced with us (and who had actually braided my hair earlier that day). And at that moment, my father ran over, snatched the bottle from her had, and took it to the other males of the group. Needless to say, this did not improve my impression of the culture.

**Side note: I am fully aware that my culture is completely different than the culture of this village. I have access to a lot of things. I have never gone hungry. I have been expose to other cultures. I have travelled. I have had more opportunities. I knew going into the stay in the village, there would be many many many cultural and personal differences. But knowing this fact and actually experiencing it are two completely different things. It is much harder to deal with these situations first hand than to just know that they exist. (I apoligize if my angry rambling has become incoherent).

Good points about my village stay:

1) Getting my hair traditionally braided: I love having my hair played with, and to have it done by the lovely women of the village was a completely amazing experience. It was funny to see how they reacted to my soft blonde hair, and it was, in a way, a sort of bonding experience.

2) I learned to appreciate my homestay family in Fort Dauphin: While I was already completely happy with my family, just staying in the rural village made me appreciate the fact that I could communicate with my family here in Fort Dauphin, even if it is at times difficult to speak in French all of the time. Also, when I returned home, Jean, my homestay father, had prepared photos and Malagasy songs for me, which we listened to, sang, and translated together. We also had some lovely conversation about my life back home, my frustration with the village stay, and my hopes, dreams, and aspirations for the future. (although I will have you know this was super difficult to do in french!!!)

3) The weather was not normal while we were there. It was actually quite cool most days, and in fact it rained or drizzled each day! But I did get pretty sunburnt the last day...

4) I got to eat a coconut freshly plucked from our families coconut tree! yum yum yum

Bad things about the village stay:

1) Prickly pear spines hurt! The village was surrounded with these cacti and we had to use the bathroom quite close to them. My village stay counterpart (Catherine) had an unfortunate incident with this!

2) We got fleas. Quite uncomfortable when trying to sleep.

3) The people don't stop staring and yelling at you. 5 days of people staring and yelling at you is indeed quite draining.



Today I am leaving Fort Dauphin. We are boarding a plane for Tulear where we will begin our Marine Studies unit and then head out on our cross country road trip to visit various national parks and protected areas!! Hooray for snorkling and swimming in natural pools! Due to the political situation, we will probably not be going to Tana :( but will instead be staying in a town just outside. Bummer.

But, on a rather exciting note, I have secured an academic advisor for my independent studies project on the lemurs in Berenty! I will be working with a lady by the name of Josia, who is getting her Ph.D. in the UK and is studing lemurs. And she speaks English! Woot!

I am not quite sure how much internet time I will be getting in the next couple of weeks, but I will try to post as much as possible. I hope you are all doing well back home in the states!

loves of happy lovin' and sunshine from Madagascar!

erin elizabeth

ps: i tried to upload some crazy crazy village stay pictures, but the internet just wont let me today!

under the weather

I had alotted my time this morning to sit and write a long post from the past week. Unfortunately that is not going to happen at this moment. I've been pretty sick over the past day...fever of 101.4, chills, and gastrointestinal distress of which shouldn't be mentioned here. I am feeling a little bit better this morning, but not much. I will try to find some time to sit and write a long post in the next day.