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!