I'm in Tulear AGAIN. Came in on a whim yesterday afternoon because the two Australian sisters, Clare and Michelle, are leaving so I just decided to come with them. I have to leave in a couple of hours (it's 8 am now) to hope to be back by kids' club at 3. Christina's not there and another gasy staff member, Lova, who speaks pretty good English is going to help out. We're supposed to do collection of sharp objects today and then figure out how to dispose of them. It'll be in a hole, but I don't know if we can dig a hole for their general use or if we should just use the ReefDoctor hole today as a model. But I'm afraid if we don't go ahead and dig them one they'll never dig themselves one. It's also fady to bury anything (fady being taboo) because burial has to do with the dead- hence the reason for all the giant poos on the beach- so this could stand in the way. I just hope I'll get back in time to figure it out. Egil is still getting settled and doing more observation than anything so hopefully he'll be better equipped to help more soon.
I finally am getting my buoyancy right with diving. Yesterday we did two hour long dives and I finally felt like a legit scuba diver. I'm glad I've gotten to have a lot of fun dives where I can just swim around and am not so focused on performing some skill when I'm not even 100 percent comfortable in the water.
Monday we did an AMAZING dive on the exterior at a site called cathedral. Since I don't have my advanced yet we had to stay at 18 meters and above but it was still the deepest I've ever been and the topography was gorgeous- rock and coral canyons and caves, just amazing. We saw sooo many fish. A couple of giant grouper almost gave us a heartattack; Will was my buddy and he grabbed me when he saw them so my heart skipped a beat automatically thinking something was wrong, and then we both went crazy not knowing where to look. Sensory overload. Now I'm spoiled and am only going to want to go back to exterior sites. But that being said, my two dives yesterday were at Ankaranjelita and Vato Soa, both of which I've been to and the latter of which I've been to at least 5 or 6 times, and they were really great dives since I'm getting the hang of everything. I start Advanced this upcoming week I believe. I'm going to try and not come back to Tulear until I have my Advanced because I think I'm mildly addicted to coming here. And my Denver app is STILL not up, and I'm going to guess it'll be up Sept 15 like it was last year.
Anyway, hope to hear from anyone soon.
Alex
Sorta Beautiful
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
I just got back from English with the new volunteer, Egil (not Edgehill like I originally thought). I’m sitting in the hammock outside the house because they are counting, IDing, weighing and measuring fish from a beach seine catch which they do about 3 times a week. It smells terrible. It’s a room full of juvenile fish dead fish spread out everywhere. Gross. And also really sad because the beach seines are horribly destructive. A beach seine is a large net (sometimes even mosquito nets are used) that is held by two opposite ends on shore and the other ends taken out into the sound by pirogue and weighted down. Then they are all dragged in by people on the shore. There are several people pulling each side in (it looks like two one-sided games of tug-of-war) and the net literally ravages the sea grass beds which are extremely important habitats for juvenile fish and sweeps up anything and everything in its wake. As you can see it is beyond terrible for the ecosystem and it has actually been illegal since the 1930s or somewhere around there but national laws aren’t enforced. Ifaty does have a law against it but Mangily and other villages don’t; and unfortunately people come into Ifaty at night and beach seine. We’ve even had them doing it right in front of ReefDoctor which is realllllly not cool. It’s people who are not Vezu (the ‘sea people’ of Ifaty and other coastal towns) who have moved to the coast from inland because the drought has devastated most of the agriculture and the sea is looked at as an infinite provider. We think the people that seine in Ifaty at night come from other villages, but we’re not entirely sure.
Back to teaching, Egil is a teacher in Copenhagen and here for a month to dive and help with education stuff. There is so much to do it’s a bit overwhelming. We need to make activity books relevant to the curriculum for Kids Club and we need to do something similar for beginners and advanced English. It doesn’t sound like much but I don’t even know where to begin. The communication barrier makes everything harder, especially when people who are supposed to help you translate don’t show up, like Pepin didn’t today. I was fine with the beginners today; we review the “how many are there?” activity and “to have” and “to be” and practiced simple sentences like “I am a girl” and “I have a pencil.” Pepin was supposed to show up and explain to them “who, what, when, where, why” questions but he didn’t for God knows what reason. Thankfully Egil could sit in with the advanced students. I still have worked with them one-on-one by myself and I am extremely intimidated to do so if I ever have to. I like working with the beginners, there is a regular group that shows up and they are younger so I don’t feel so ill-suited to the task. And I guess I just prefer kids. It was nice today how I could get the ones who did understand what we were doing really well to explain to a couple of the other ones who didn’t understand so even without Pepin we could make it work. I just translated the gasy work “explain” (manadava) to manitra and hanitra and they explained for me. Next time I’m thinking I might bring in a bunch of clothes in a bag and continue using “I have” and explain “I am wearing…”
Oh and another random side note… so yesterday coming back from Tulear we were late to the taxi-brousse station so we couldn’t fit in the afternoon brousse so we had to get on a cameo-brousse instead. A cameo-brousse is essentially a school bus sans windows, wheel axels, or breathing room where at least 100 people are packed into. “Cattle car” ran through my head a myriad of times during the course of the trip. At the beginning I was sharing a seat with two other women with the various body parts of the people standing in the aisle shoved in my face. But at the first police road check (there are several that stop the brousses in order to get bribe money for no reason) all the Vazaha got our passports checked and for some reason he pulled me, Alana, Katie and Josh outside and took us under some little hut with his machine gun to look at our passports like they weren’t real or something. I was already not in the best spirits so by this point I was seriously just pissed. Alana argued with him in French some and after going through all of our photocopied passports he let us get back on. But I was the last to get back on and they started the brousse before I was in the door so I was half way flying out and finally the eight men standing in the back got me shoved in where I proceeded to cry. Thankfully my sunglasses mostly hid it because all of the gasy people in the back were shouting and laughing at me and one awful huge disgusting woman next to me was grabbing my bag asking for money. Josh took it and held it while I got to spend the rest of the ride sandwiched between two gasy groins holding on for dear life as the brousse sped over sand versions of pot holes and my entire body would be lifted off of the ground. All I have to say about that little experience was that it was character building and I am going to do everything I possibly can to avoid ever taking one of those buses of death for the rest of my life. I’m going to eat beans and rice, veloma,
Alex
Back to teaching, Egil is a teacher in Copenhagen and here for a month to dive and help with education stuff. There is so much to do it’s a bit overwhelming. We need to make activity books relevant to the curriculum for Kids Club and we need to do something similar for beginners and advanced English. It doesn’t sound like much but I don’t even know where to begin. The communication barrier makes everything harder, especially when people who are supposed to help you translate don’t show up, like Pepin didn’t today. I was fine with the beginners today; we review the “how many are there?” activity and “to have” and “to be” and practiced simple sentences like “I am a girl” and “I have a pencil.” Pepin was supposed to show up and explain to them “who, what, when, where, why” questions but he didn’t for God knows what reason. Thankfully Egil could sit in with the advanced students. I still have worked with them one-on-one by myself and I am extremely intimidated to do so if I ever have to. I like working with the beginners, there is a regular group that shows up and they are younger so I don’t feel so ill-suited to the task. And I guess I just prefer kids. It was nice today how I could get the ones who did understand what we were doing really well to explain to a couple of the other ones who didn’t understand so even without Pepin we could make it work. I just translated the gasy work “explain” (manadava) to manitra and hanitra and they explained for me. Next time I’m thinking I might bring in a bunch of clothes in a bag and continue using “I have” and explain “I am wearing…”
Oh and another random side note… so yesterday coming back from Tulear we were late to the taxi-brousse station so we couldn’t fit in the afternoon brousse so we had to get on a cameo-brousse instead. A cameo-brousse is essentially a school bus sans windows, wheel axels, or breathing room where at least 100 people are packed into. “Cattle car” ran through my head a myriad of times during the course of the trip. At the beginning I was sharing a seat with two other women with the various body parts of the people standing in the aisle shoved in my face. But at the first police road check (there are several that stop the brousses in order to get bribe money for no reason) all the Vazaha got our passports checked and for some reason he pulled me, Alana, Katie and Josh outside and took us under some little hut with his machine gun to look at our passports like they weren’t real or something. I was already not in the best spirits so by this point I was seriously just pissed. Alana argued with him in French some and after going through all of our photocopied passports he let us get back on. But I was the last to get back on and they started the brousse before I was in the door so I was half way flying out and finally the eight men standing in the back got me shoved in where I proceeded to cry. Thankfully my sunglasses mostly hid it because all of the gasy people in the back were shouting and laughing at me and one awful huge disgusting woman next to me was grabbing my bag asking for money. Josh took it and held it while I got to spend the rest of the ride sandwiched between two gasy groins holding on for dear life as the brousse sped over sand versions of pot holes and my entire body would be lifted off of the ground. All I have to say about that little experience was that it was character building and I am going to do everything I possibly can to avoid ever taking one of those buses of death for the rest of my life. I’m going to eat beans and rice, veloma,
Alex
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Still in Tulear. Was hoping to work on my law school apps but the only one I care about isn't up. The heat here is starting to be unbearable and it's technically still winter I think. I don't know if it's the heat, the smells, the coffee, or the dairy that is making my stomach turn but I have felt so ill since Wednesday. I hope whatever it is passes.
This week we are doing coral bleaching surveys which will make me feel like I'm contributing at least something to the science aspect here. And it will add several more dives to my list which is good. I'm getting more and more comfortable but I'm not sure if the vertigo-esque feeling I always get post-ascent will ever go away. I must be really sensitive to pressure changes. Advanced training either starts later this week or maybe next week, I'm not sure when the new dive officer gets here.
We have a new volunteer coming today who is older, maybe 28? who is coming specifically to help with education. He is a primary school teacher in Holland I believe, so that'll be good for me. He's only here for a month though.
Oh yeh, Lucy ran into some trouble on her way to Tana. She got robbed and stepped in a hole carrying all her bags and snapped her ankle. I'm so worried about her. I don't know why the worst things always happen to the best people. It really does seem to be a general rule of the universe.
Hopefully I'll be back on soon cause I have to check on application stuff so email me!
Alex
This week we are doing coral bleaching surveys which will make me feel like I'm contributing at least something to the science aspect here. And it will add several more dives to my list which is good. I'm getting more and more comfortable but I'm not sure if the vertigo-esque feeling I always get post-ascent will ever go away. I must be really sensitive to pressure changes. Advanced training either starts later this week or maybe next week, I'm not sure when the new dive officer gets here.
We have a new volunteer coming today who is older, maybe 28? who is coming specifically to help with education. He is a primary school teacher in Holland I believe, so that'll be good for me. He's only here for a month though.
Oh yeh, Lucy ran into some trouble on her way to Tana. She got robbed and stepped in a hole carrying all her bags and snapped her ankle. I'm so worried about her. I don't know why the worst things always happen to the best people. It really does seem to be a general rule of the universe.
Hopefully I'll be back on soon cause I have to check on application stuff so email me!
Alex
Friday, August 27, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
In Tulear again! We are all in town tonight to have a fun goodbye dinner for Phoebe, one of the volunteers who has been here for 3 months. I'm finally getting to know everyone and they are all leaving, it's sad! We have 7 new volunteers and 2 new staff coming within the next two or so weeks though so that'll be good. I think the 2 staff are an Irish man and an American man, so that has potential.
The weather is getting hotter here, I guess it is technically Spring here I think. When I first got here it was nice and chilly in the mornings and at night, cool enough to wear sweats but still warm during the days. We had a few days of really strong wind so that the days weren't actually that warm but that just happens a few times with the changing of the seasons. Now it's hot, and it's almost getting too hot to sleep with any covers so I can only imagine how it's going to be 2 months from now right at the beginning of summer which is supposedly just suffocating here. We're in the desert, so it's dry heat that literally just bakes you alive. Who knows if it'll rain at all while I'm here. I should want it to since the country is in such a massive drought but I don't because then the mosquitoes come out and they affect me differently here than at home. My bites are like hard and just gross.
Yesterday on my dive I saw some huge batfish for the first time and several humongous decorated spiny lobsters and a huge school of cornetfish that was just amazing to see. We also saw this one huge (probably almost a meter long) blue and yellow grouper that always swims around with us when we go to this particular site (Rose Garden). It's unforunate how endagered grouper are because they taste so damn good.
Oh yeh, also yesterday I ran English by myself for the first time. It went better than expected. THere is one University of Tulear student who has been coming to stay at ReefDoctor some during the week to do his research on water quality in the village of Ifaty and surrounding villages and he is SO smart. His name is Jose, he's only 20, and he speaks Malagas, French and English- his English is probably the best of any other Malagas I've met. He took over and taught the advanced for me yesterday and he had this whole huge chart of past present future and conditional perfect simple and continuous tenses and no other Vazaha besides me even got it so I'm not sure how far he got with the Gasy students but he could do a hell of a lot better explaining it since he has two other languages besides English to communicate with them in. With the beginner's we reviewed some nouns and then the difference between singular and plural statements - like saying "There is one mango" versus "There are two mangoes." They don't have plural in Malagas so it's kind of a difficult concept for them. Then we went over "to be" and "to have" and the conjugation of those verbs with the subject pronouns. Teaching all of that was only possible because Pepin, the original English teacher, was there to help and to explain. They don't have the verb "to be" in Gasy either so without him there is no way I could have explained it. I also brought them a big bag of assorted biscuit wafer things that I decidely didn't want after absolutely gorging myself the past few days with Tulear food and homemade pastries some of the volunteers have made. Teachers always brought treats with them to my classes growing up so I figured it'd be a nice thing to do but at first I wasn't so sure because they didn't seem to know what to do with them. They were so hesitant at first to take any but eventually they were grabbing handfuls and at the end walked out with the whole bag and never offered me one. It's okay though ha.
I forgot to bring my adapter so I don't know how much more battery I'll have for this weekend which sucks but so I'm gona go now. More later.
Alex
The weather is getting hotter here, I guess it is technically Spring here I think. When I first got here it was nice and chilly in the mornings and at night, cool enough to wear sweats but still warm during the days. We had a few days of really strong wind so that the days weren't actually that warm but that just happens a few times with the changing of the seasons. Now it's hot, and it's almost getting too hot to sleep with any covers so I can only imagine how it's going to be 2 months from now right at the beginning of summer which is supposedly just suffocating here. We're in the desert, so it's dry heat that literally just bakes you alive. Who knows if it'll rain at all while I'm here. I should want it to since the country is in such a massive drought but I don't because then the mosquitoes come out and they affect me differently here than at home. My bites are like hard and just gross.
Yesterday on my dive I saw some huge batfish for the first time and several humongous decorated spiny lobsters and a huge school of cornetfish that was just amazing to see. We also saw this one huge (probably almost a meter long) blue and yellow grouper that always swims around with us when we go to this particular site (Rose Garden). It's unforunate how endagered grouper are because they taste so damn good.
Oh yeh, also yesterday I ran English by myself for the first time. It went better than expected. THere is one University of Tulear student who has been coming to stay at ReefDoctor some during the week to do his research on water quality in the village of Ifaty and surrounding villages and he is SO smart. His name is Jose, he's only 20, and he speaks Malagas, French and English- his English is probably the best of any other Malagas I've met. He took over and taught the advanced for me yesterday and he had this whole huge chart of past present future and conditional perfect simple and continuous tenses and no other Vazaha besides me even got it so I'm not sure how far he got with the Gasy students but he could do a hell of a lot better explaining it since he has two other languages besides English to communicate with them in. With the beginner's we reviewed some nouns and then the difference between singular and plural statements - like saying "There is one mango" versus "There are two mangoes." They don't have plural in Malagas so it's kind of a difficult concept for them. Then we went over "to be" and "to have" and the conjugation of those verbs with the subject pronouns. Teaching all of that was only possible because Pepin, the original English teacher, was there to help and to explain. They don't have the verb "to be" in Gasy either so without him there is no way I could have explained it. I also brought them a big bag of assorted biscuit wafer things that I decidely didn't want after absolutely gorging myself the past few days with Tulear food and homemade pastries some of the volunteers have made. Teachers always brought treats with them to my classes growing up so I figured it'd be a nice thing to do but at first I wasn't so sure because they didn't seem to know what to do with them. They were so hesitant at first to take any but eventually they were grabbing handfuls and at the end walked out with the whole bag and never offered me one. It's okay though ha.
I forgot to bring my adapter so I don't know how much more battery I'll have for this weekend which sucks but so I'm gona go now. More later.
Alex
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Lucy left today : ( I saw her off after our dive this morning. Hopefully I’ll find her in Angleterre sometime within the next year. I showed another volunteer, Clare, the program for teaching in the Republic of Georgia and she has traveled literally everywhere, over 100 countries, and she said it looked like a great opportunity and she even knew someone who lived in Georgia for a year and loved it. So plans for that are formulating in my head… I’ll leave that for now.
Anyway, I had my first Kids’ Club today with just me and Christina. It was great. They made the little mini-poubelles (I think I mentioned before) out of 4 halves of giant water bottles tied around a stick and stapled to each other. Then the little ones traced and colored more of the sharp object stencils we made and they decorated the trash baskets with those. Making the example was even difficult for me- I guess my motor skills are lacking- but the kids did really great. They all share so well and work together, it’s refreshing to see. Nowhere near like the States where kids scream if they have to wait one turn to play a video game.
Another part of the Gasy culture that is really amazing is how communal it still is and how integrated the families are with all age groups and members of extended family. Kids run around and play with knives and babies climb unsupervised up piles of bricks (these are two examples we saw the other day) but they don’t get reprimanded and somehow they also don’t get hurt. Kids and parents and grandparents all sit around and eat together in a circle. Four year old babies hold one year old babies on their hips. The older kids at kids club tend to their toddler siblings and cousins and are just so good with them. Kids are acknowledged by the rest of the community just as much as adults are, it’s beautiful. Westerners could learn a lot from people like the Malagas.
Tomorrow is my first English without Lucy as well. I think it’ll be okay though. One of the younger boys who has been to the last two Englishes, Pala, came to kids club today and was so sweet and smiling the whole time that I can’t help but look forward to it. One of the girls that comes, Coereia (pronounced sor-ay-uh) was on the 40 person taxi-brousse yesterday morning as well, just looking at me for the entire 2 hour ride, but smiling when I’d notice and smile. I wish I could communicate more, but smiles go a long way I think.
Alex
Anyway, I had my first Kids’ Club today with just me and Christina. It was great. They made the little mini-poubelles (I think I mentioned before) out of 4 halves of giant water bottles tied around a stick and stapled to each other. Then the little ones traced and colored more of the sharp object stencils we made and they decorated the trash baskets with those. Making the example was even difficult for me- I guess my motor skills are lacking- but the kids did really great. They all share so well and work together, it’s refreshing to see. Nowhere near like the States where kids scream if they have to wait one turn to play a video game.
Another part of the Gasy culture that is really amazing is how communal it still is and how integrated the families are with all age groups and members of extended family. Kids run around and play with knives and babies climb unsupervised up piles of bricks (these are two examples we saw the other day) but they don’t get reprimanded and somehow they also don’t get hurt. Kids and parents and grandparents all sit around and eat together in a circle. Four year old babies hold one year old babies on their hips. The older kids at kids club tend to their toddler siblings and cousins and are just so good with them. Kids are acknowledged by the rest of the community just as much as adults are, it’s beautiful. Westerners could learn a lot from people like the Malagas.
Tomorrow is my first English without Lucy as well. I think it’ll be okay though. One of the younger boys who has been to the last two Englishes, Pala, came to kids club today and was so sweet and smiling the whole time that I can’t help but look forward to it. One of the girls that comes, Coereia (pronounced sor-ay-uh) was on the 40 person taxi-brousse yesterday morning as well, just looking at me for the entire 2 hour ride, but smiling when I’d notice and smile. I wish I could communicate more, but smiles go a long way I think.
Alex
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
I came into Tulear for the day today because I'm not diving and just figured I'd come get some stuff done here. We fit a record 40 people in the taxi-brousse today, I'm surprised I got here at all.
I dove twice yesterday and twice the day before. Lucy and I were dive buddies yesterday and the first one we did a treasure hunt and the visibility was over 12 meters so all in all it was probably my best dive. The second diver yesterday my air gauge started jumping around with each of my breathes (down with every inhale and back up with my exhales). It's not supposed to move so that dive was cut short but no worries. I get slightly sea sick under the water since my body is just completely abnormal so I didn't mind coming up. The current was super strong too and I was exhausted.
The past four dives have been fun dives because our dive instructor, Teschna, and her boyfriend Morgan decided not to finish their contracts here and left ReefDoctor on Monday. I really like both of them and it is really sad to me that people can't just get along. Our new dive instructor gets here September 2nd and I'm scared no one will be as good for me as Tesch. Her and Morgan both successfully got me through a panic attack each so I got realyl comfortable with them in the water. The only positive thing is hopefully everyone left at ReefDoctor will hopefully be happy now and stop talking behind each other's back and the tension will be gone.
I'm finally at the point here where I feel at home here and can't imagine going home or being anywhere else. I'm almost nervous to come home. There's more I could write about English and Kids Club but I need to respond to the few emails people are writing me :( Hope everyone is well, I might come back to Tulear Saturday for a farewell dinner so until then,
Alex
I dove twice yesterday and twice the day before. Lucy and I were dive buddies yesterday and the first one we did a treasure hunt and the visibility was over 12 meters so all in all it was probably my best dive. The second diver yesterday my air gauge started jumping around with each of my breathes (down with every inhale and back up with my exhales). It's not supposed to move so that dive was cut short but no worries. I get slightly sea sick under the water since my body is just completely abnormal so I didn't mind coming up. The current was super strong too and I was exhausted.
The past four dives have been fun dives because our dive instructor, Teschna, and her boyfriend Morgan decided not to finish their contracts here and left ReefDoctor on Monday. I really like both of them and it is really sad to me that people can't just get along. Our new dive instructor gets here September 2nd and I'm scared no one will be as good for me as Tesch. Her and Morgan both successfully got me through a panic attack each so I got realyl comfortable with them in the water. The only positive thing is hopefully everyone left at ReefDoctor will hopefully be happy now and stop talking behind each other's back and the tension will be gone.
I'm finally at the point here where I feel at home here and can't imagine going home or being anywhere else. I'm almost nervous to come home. There's more I could write about English and Kids Club but I need to respond to the few emails people are writing me :( Hope everyone is well, I might come back to Tulear Saturday for a farewell dinner so until then,
Alex
Saturday, August 21, 2010
The staff here is basically split into two sides and they fight amongst each other like crazy and it makes me really sad. I like all of them but I hate them fighting and I hate hearing about it. Being able to look at it from an outsiders’ perspective, I can see just how petty it is and how much it’s about ego and pride. It just makes me not want to hang around the main house as much as I would. It just seems like I’m never going to get away from this kind of thing. I’ve been good about keeping myself out of stupid things like this for the most part the last few years, but even though I am without conflict, it also feels like I’m without friends since I’m not bonding with anyone over disliking someone else. I like being alone sometimes but I don’t like being lonely most of the time. I don’t like people fighting, I don’t see why people can’t just get along.
I am supposed to be going on my first fun dive tomorrow, but a girl who is leaving soon asked if she could have my spot (dives are MUCH more limited than I thought because one boat was stolen before I got here and the boat we have isn’t particularly nice and only 6 divers at a time can fit on it) and of course I gave it to her even though I didn’t want to. I’m such a pushover with strangers for some reason. But oh well, there’s nothing I can do about it now so no use complaining.
Today Lucy, Michelle and I went into Mangily and ate at one of the Malagas staff, Lova’s, house. It was amazing- so nice to just have a home-cooked meal without 20 people pushing for food and more than enough for seconds. We had pineapple and bananas and bread and rice and meatballs and stewed vegetables and salad. By far the best meal I’ve had in Madagascar, even compared to the restaurants, because meals in restaurants don’t come with sides or anything besides the one thing you order. There just isn’t an abundance of food here like at home. Children are lucky if they get to eat. They are fed last because the parents need to be fed first to have the energy to go fish or in the mother’s case take care of a family. If there is any left, then the children eat. At home, children dictate what is eaten a lot of the time. And they leave so much on their plates. Leaving food on your plates is unheard of here.
The amount the Vazaha here talk about food is really frustrating to me though. Because we don’t have access to the typical processed foods that most of us are used to, all anyone talks about is fucking food. I just want to scream at them, “HEY! Girl with long history of disordered eating here, can you please shut the fuck up?” But of course I don’t. And I guess my ancient history has absolutely nothing to do with them. But even without my past issues (that are just that, in the past), talking about all of this stuff that we can’t have because it literally doesn’t exist in this country is like complaining about something that you can’t fix. It’s just pointless and a waste of time and I swear there are better things to talk about.
I’m sorry I am ranting, it sounds like I’m not enjoying myself and that would be a lie. I really am. I was actually in a really good mood until we got back to the house after Mangily and I immediately got asked to switch my dive followed by arguing among some of the staff. Working at an NGO is hard; I wonder if it is as hard everywhere else as it is here. With no funds and limited people, basic transportation and sometimes low morale, it’s hard to get the things done we’re here to do. Right now the most organized thing about ReefDoctor is the education program- English and the Kids’ Club. And Lucy leaves next Friday morning and I take that over and I just don’t know how I can manage nearly as well as her. I had made all of these plans for English to try and teach them the basic grammar and structure of the language and as soon as I got there yesterday I just wanted to throw my hands up. No one can help me teach the way I know how to, so I am going to have to just teach them more random words and phrases that they can memorize. Even though they might not know the difference between “I am sick” and “I have sick” or “I am headache” and “I have a headache,” and even though that kind of thing would personally drive me crazy if I wasn’t given a formula for how to figure out the grammar in Latin and French, I guess what I would apply to myself is completely irrelevant to what I should apply to them. I just feel like I am teaching them incorrectly if I just gloss over words and phrases without them knowing why. But I have got to move on from that.
In English yesterday we had three new beginners, which was good, but I ended up working with them while Lucy went outside with the more advanced. Morgan and Pepin (a former ReefDoctor employee who is from Ifaty) stayed with me though. We ended up just doing body parts; I drew a picture of the body, an arrow to the part, and the English word. Then at the end we played “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.” The beginners are actually more adolescent rather than adults. The girls are really sweet as well, I like working with people who smile at me all the time. Most of the class is just us smiling back and forth, not able to communicate much more than that. But I suppose that’s not so bad. I’m going to have to rethink how I’m going to work this out, but I guess I can try to teach different sort of interactions, and different phrases, rather than the basics of the language. It’s too bad, but teaching them the “right” way might end up in them learning nothing, and we are getting new people every week and it’s going so well in that aspect I really don’t want to let any of them down. If anyone knows of any other catchy songs or good games we could sing or play, like “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes,” PLEASE send them my way. And if anyone wants to google easy English teaching methods or anything of the sort (since saying I have limited internet access is a gross understatement) I will love you forever. I know that means a lot.
Sorry for seeming so negative, I’m really not being that way, I just wanted to vent a little bit and hope maybe someone could shoot me some advice if anyone is even reading this.
Alex
I am supposed to be going on my first fun dive tomorrow, but a girl who is leaving soon asked if she could have my spot (dives are MUCH more limited than I thought because one boat was stolen before I got here and the boat we have isn’t particularly nice and only 6 divers at a time can fit on it) and of course I gave it to her even though I didn’t want to. I’m such a pushover with strangers for some reason. But oh well, there’s nothing I can do about it now so no use complaining.
Today Lucy, Michelle and I went into Mangily and ate at one of the Malagas staff, Lova’s, house. It was amazing- so nice to just have a home-cooked meal without 20 people pushing for food and more than enough for seconds. We had pineapple and bananas and bread and rice and meatballs and stewed vegetables and salad. By far the best meal I’ve had in Madagascar, even compared to the restaurants, because meals in restaurants don’t come with sides or anything besides the one thing you order. There just isn’t an abundance of food here like at home. Children are lucky if they get to eat. They are fed last because the parents need to be fed first to have the energy to go fish or in the mother’s case take care of a family. If there is any left, then the children eat. At home, children dictate what is eaten a lot of the time. And they leave so much on their plates. Leaving food on your plates is unheard of here.
The amount the Vazaha here talk about food is really frustrating to me though. Because we don’t have access to the typical processed foods that most of us are used to, all anyone talks about is fucking food. I just want to scream at them, “HEY! Girl with long history of disordered eating here, can you please shut the fuck up?” But of course I don’t. And I guess my ancient history has absolutely nothing to do with them. But even without my past issues (that are just that, in the past), talking about all of this stuff that we can’t have because it literally doesn’t exist in this country is like complaining about something that you can’t fix. It’s just pointless and a waste of time and I swear there are better things to talk about.
I’m sorry I am ranting, it sounds like I’m not enjoying myself and that would be a lie. I really am. I was actually in a really good mood until we got back to the house after Mangily and I immediately got asked to switch my dive followed by arguing among some of the staff. Working at an NGO is hard; I wonder if it is as hard everywhere else as it is here. With no funds and limited people, basic transportation and sometimes low morale, it’s hard to get the things done we’re here to do. Right now the most organized thing about ReefDoctor is the education program- English and the Kids’ Club. And Lucy leaves next Friday morning and I take that over and I just don’t know how I can manage nearly as well as her. I had made all of these plans for English to try and teach them the basic grammar and structure of the language and as soon as I got there yesterday I just wanted to throw my hands up. No one can help me teach the way I know how to, so I am going to have to just teach them more random words and phrases that they can memorize. Even though they might not know the difference between “I am sick” and “I have sick” or “I am headache” and “I have a headache,” and even though that kind of thing would personally drive me crazy if I wasn’t given a formula for how to figure out the grammar in Latin and French, I guess what I would apply to myself is completely irrelevant to what I should apply to them. I just feel like I am teaching them incorrectly if I just gloss over words and phrases without them knowing why. But I have got to move on from that.
In English yesterday we had three new beginners, which was good, but I ended up working with them while Lucy went outside with the more advanced. Morgan and Pepin (a former ReefDoctor employee who is from Ifaty) stayed with me though. We ended up just doing body parts; I drew a picture of the body, an arrow to the part, and the English word. Then at the end we played “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.” The beginners are actually more adolescent rather than adults. The girls are really sweet as well, I like working with people who smile at me all the time. Most of the class is just us smiling back and forth, not able to communicate much more than that. But I suppose that’s not so bad. I’m going to have to rethink how I’m going to work this out, but I guess I can try to teach different sort of interactions, and different phrases, rather than the basics of the language. It’s too bad, but teaching them the “right” way might end up in them learning nothing, and we are getting new people every week and it’s going so well in that aspect I really don’t want to let any of them down. If anyone knows of any other catchy songs or good games we could sing or play, like “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes,” PLEASE send them my way. And if anyone wants to google easy English teaching methods or anything of the sort (since saying I have limited internet access is a gross understatement) I will love you forever. I know that means a lot.
Sorry for seeming so negative, I’m really not being that way, I just wanted to vent a little bit and hope maybe someone could shoot me some advice if anyone is even reading this.
Alex
Thursday, August 19, 2010
We just finished with Kids’ Club today. It went really really well. The name of our lesson today was “the dangerous chain of sharp objects,” which explained the chain of events that can take place due to sharp pieces of trash being discarded on the beach and elsewhere. For instance, a myriad of people could step or fall on a sharp object: a woman carrying fish to Mangily or a man walking to his pirogue to go fish or a child playing football on the beach. A chain of events is then set in motion, starting with physical pain and the potential guilt of whomever dropped the object, the need of a doctor, the need of money and transport to the hospital in Tulear, potentially an infection or operation which will cost more money and time, and the inability to work during recovery. Christina explained all of this to the children and then they were divided into four groups of 8. (All of the younger children were outside tracing stencils Lucy made of various sharp objects- fish bones, open aluminum cans, broken coke bottles, pieces of glass, etc- and coloring them in. We are going to use these next week to decorate homemade trash bins we will make.)
There were four groups of 8 and each group was in charge of creating a mini-narrative of this possible chain of events and assigning who was going to act out what part in their group. Then at the end we had everyone come inside and watch while each group performed. We were a little nervous at first it might not work; maybe the children would be too shy or maybe they just wouldn’t quite understand. But it went off without a hitch. The kids really enjoyed it; some of them had quite a flare for drama and were really funny. Lucy, Christina and I were really really pleased.
Lucy is leaving next Friday so I believe (and pray) she has at least one more Kids’ Club. I think I’ve worked out enough that I can figure out how to carry on from here, but I’m still really nervous about it. Hopefully the fact that there will be no one else to do it and it needs to be done will ensure the fact that somehow the universe will come together and make it happen for me and for the kids. I’m not sure what I’m more nervous about now though, Kids’ Club or English. I’ve been working on some more English stuff, and think maybe next time I am going to try to do Pronouns and a couple of simple verbs and show how to conjugate them in the present tense. It’s just going to be hard though because literally no one else at ReefDoctor even knows what a pronoun is so if I can’t explain it to the people helping teach how can they teach it? But I think it would be really beneficial to the students to actually learn English properly with formulas and with solid foundational skills, like pronouns and like simple sentence structure. I might wait until Lucy goes to start trying to do my own lesson plans though because we won’t get anywhere if everyone else is confused. I just really don’t want to teach English in a haphazard way that doesn’t get across any of the basic rules of the language. I have always been so OCD about spelling and grammar (even if these blogs don’t necessarily show that, none of them are double-checked, my apologies) that working with people to try and teach these things who have no clue about the structure of their language is worrying me a bit. We’ll see what happens. I’m going to make some random vocab list posters for English as well through the time I am here like I used to have in my classes as a child and even in French and Latin class. Unfortunately the “posters” here are made out of really thin, easily tearable paper, and we only have thin markers to write with, so I already know they are going to look like shit. But I guess it’s better than nothing. It’s too bad I can’t leave them in the classroom as well, but we just borrow it. And the classroom is completely falling apart anyway, the roof is caved in and rotting, you can see the sky in parts. There is bird shit all over the desks, dust and sand everywhere. Not the best environment to do anything, much less teach. But actually we’re lucky to have anywhere at all to teach so I won’t complain anymore.
Oh yeh, yesterday, Josh and I officially got certified as Open Water Divers! Woohoo. A cold and two and half panic attacks later, I finally got it! We start Advanced next week. That should be interesting. We have to have in finished by the first of September because another volunteer, Michelle, is doing it with us and that is when she leaves. I’m gonna go get ready for dinner, I actually look forward to the beans and rice here.
Alex
There were four groups of 8 and each group was in charge of creating a mini-narrative of this possible chain of events and assigning who was going to act out what part in their group. Then at the end we had everyone come inside and watch while each group performed. We were a little nervous at first it might not work; maybe the children would be too shy or maybe they just wouldn’t quite understand. But it went off without a hitch. The kids really enjoyed it; some of them had quite a flare for drama and were really funny. Lucy, Christina and I were really really pleased.
Lucy is leaving next Friday so I believe (and pray) she has at least one more Kids’ Club. I think I’ve worked out enough that I can figure out how to carry on from here, but I’m still really nervous about it. Hopefully the fact that there will be no one else to do it and it needs to be done will ensure the fact that somehow the universe will come together and make it happen for me and for the kids. I’m not sure what I’m more nervous about now though, Kids’ Club or English. I’ve been working on some more English stuff, and think maybe next time I am going to try to do Pronouns and a couple of simple verbs and show how to conjugate them in the present tense. It’s just going to be hard though because literally no one else at ReefDoctor even knows what a pronoun is so if I can’t explain it to the people helping teach how can they teach it? But I think it would be really beneficial to the students to actually learn English properly with formulas and with solid foundational skills, like pronouns and like simple sentence structure. I might wait until Lucy goes to start trying to do my own lesson plans though because we won’t get anywhere if everyone else is confused. I just really don’t want to teach English in a haphazard way that doesn’t get across any of the basic rules of the language. I have always been so OCD about spelling and grammar (even if these blogs don’t necessarily show that, none of them are double-checked, my apologies) that working with people to try and teach these things who have no clue about the structure of their language is worrying me a bit. We’ll see what happens. I’m going to make some random vocab list posters for English as well through the time I am here like I used to have in my classes as a child and even in French and Latin class. Unfortunately the “posters” here are made out of really thin, easily tearable paper, and we only have thin markers to write with, so I already know they are going to look like shit. But I guess it’s better than nothing. It’s too bad I can’t leave them in the classroom as well, but we just borrow it. And the classroom is completely falling apart anyway, the roof is caved in and rotting, you can see the sky in parts. There is bird shit all over the desks, dust and sand everywhere. Not the best environment to do anything, much less teach. But actually we’re lucky to have anywhere at all to teach so I won’t complain anymore.
Oh yeh, yesterday, Josh and I officially got certified as Open Water Divers! Woohoo. A cold and two and half panic attacks later, I finally got it! We start Advanced next week. That should be interesting. We have to have in finished by the first of September because another volunteer, Michelle, is doing it with us and that is when she leaves. I’m gonna go get ready for dinner, I actually look forward to the beans and rice here.
Alex
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
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The other night I got probably the greatest compliment I’ve ever gotten. Lucy, Teschna, Morgan and I were eating bruschettes on bruschette alley in Tulear after dinner on Saturday (bruschettes are like mini-kabobs with 3 pieces of zebu meat, the middle one being fat and they are supposed to be eaten all at once) and I was hesitant at first because I’ve never been a fan of eating fat (I prefer filet mignon) but I ate it and it was really good. They cook them in front of you on a hot coal fire which is nice when it’s as cold as it’s been lately. After we finished all 15 that we bought between us (at 100 Ary each, so about 75 cents for 15) I said something along the lines of, “Wow that was amazing,” and Lucy said “I’m really glad you said that Alex. You really do make the most out of life.”
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Just finished my third Open Water dive, after one more tomorrow I’ll be done with my first certification! Woohoo! Of course I had another slight panic attack before even going down today. We were practicing kitting up in the water, and when I had to put my welt belt on I couldn’t get it because it is so damn heavy thanks to the cold water (I’m wearing 8 mms plus a liner so my buoyancy is up and I need more weights- 1-2 kilos each- to hold me down) and then after struggling I got so exhausted I was hyperventilating. But Josh and Morgan, who was diving with us today instead of Teschna, helped me out and I was fine. I think 8 weights is too many though, it was hindering my ability to swim parallel to the seafloor so I’m going to try 6 or 7 tomorrow and see how that does.
We went to a site called Coral Gardens that was really amazing topographically. There were little patch reefs scattered around a larger section of reef that was probably 6,7,8 meters tall in some place. We saw a crocodile fish, a lionfish that swam right up to us, a huge school of juvenile catfish, a ton of butterflyfish, parrotfish, chromises, and more. I really need to work on my fish IDing because right now that has taken a backseat since my primary focus is going to be teaching. It was a bit frustrating today having no idea what most of the fish were I was seeing.
Yesterday was adult English and we got three new women in addition to the two new girls from last week which is pretty awesome because when it started there were only men. So we had the four regular boys: Emile, Germaine, Victor, and now Richard, and then the girls: Lydia, Elaine, Hanitra, Coereia, and a fifth I didn’t catch the name. Anyway, we started off drawing a picture of the immediate environment of Ifaty- the beach, the sand, the sun, the trees, etc- and labeled everything in English. And slowly the picture progressed and came to include and variety of marine life, buildings in Ifaty (the Protestant church, a house, etc), and other things found there besides just the natural environment. After doing that and making sure everyone had a chance to copy all the words down and grasp their meanings, we tried to do simple sentences in the present tense using descriptive adjectives. An example would be something like “The moon is high in the sky.”
Over the course of this, I realized that out of the Vahaza teaching, I am definitely the most qualified to teach English. It’s been frustrating my lack of ability to speak in French but after studying it and Latin I have a pretty good working knowledge of grammar and syntax. For example, someone had written on the board “The octopus is/has…” with the object being for a student to fill in the end with an adjective and then read the sentence. But I immediately pointed out that that doesn’t work because “has” is possessive and it is an entirely different tense and without properly explaining that to the students they aren’t going to know the different between “is” and “has” and might think you could say “the octopus has blue” or “the octopus is eight-legs.” The other people helping teach didn’t even know what I was talking about. I might not have the training in teaching as a skill, but I do understand formulaic English. So I’ve started putting together some lists of nouns (people, animals, places, objects), types of descriptive adjectives (shapes, sizes, colors, amount, emotion, etc) and some simple verbs (fish, swim, walk, run, go, sleep). I’m not sure if I’ll show these lists to the students first and then the formula: “The _____________ (adjective) _______ (noun) is ______(verb) + ing.” So an example would be, “The happy girl is playing.” I am just not sure what the best order would be to try to show them this, and I’m worried I won’t be able to get the concept across because I don’t speak Gasy. Beforehand, though, I am translating as many of the words into Gasy as possible, but I am hindered by the fact I don’t understand any Gasy grammar at all so even simple things like making a world plural I don’t know how to do so I’m not sure how clear I’m going to be. Hopefully it will. The positive thing about teaching beginngers’ English and even the kids in Kids’ Club is that they are always going to learn something, because they are essentially a clean slate.
Alex
We went to a site called Coral Gardens that was really amazing topographically. There were little patch reefs scattered around a larger section of reef that was probably 6,7,8 meters tall in some place. We saw a crocodile fish, a lionfish that swam right up to us, a huge school of juvenile catfish, a ton of butterflyfish, parrotfish, chromises, and more. I really need to work on my fish IDing because right now that has taken a backseat since my primary focus is going to be teaching. It was a bit frustrating today having no idea what most of the fish were I was seeing.
Yesterday was adult English and we got three new women in addition to the two new girls from last week which is pretty awesome because when it started there were only men. So we had the four regular boys: Emile, Germaine, Victor, and now Richard, and then the girls: Lydia, Elaine, Hanitra, Coereia, and a fifth I didn’t catch the name. Anyway, we started off drawing a picture of the immediate environment of Ifaty- the beach, the sand, the sun, the trees, etc- and labeled everything in English. And slowly the picture progressed and came to include and variety of marine life, buildings in Ifaty (the Protestant church, a house, etc), and other things found there besides just the natural environment. After doing that and making sure everyone had a chance to copy all the words down and grasp their meanings, we tried to do simple sentences in the present tense using descriptive adjectives. An example would be something like “The moon is high in the sky.”
Over the course of this, I realized that out of the Vahaza teaching, I am definitely the most qualified to teach English. It’s been frustrating my lack of ability to speak in French but after studying it and Latin I have a pretty good working knowledge of grammar and syntax. For example, someone had written on the board “The octopus is/has…” with the object being for a student to fill in the end with an adjective and then read the sentence. But I immediately pointed out that that doesn’t work because “has” is possessive and it is an entirely different tense and without properly explaining that to the students they aren’t going to know the different between “is” and “has” and might think you could say “the octopus has blue” or “the octopus is eight-legs.” The other people helping teach didn’t even know what I was talking about. I might not have the training in teaching as a skill, but I do understand formulaic English. So I’ve started putting together some lists of nouns (people, animals, places, objects), types of descriptive adjectives (shapes, sizes, colors, amount, emotion, etc) and some simple verbs (fish, swim, walk, run, go, sleep). I’m not sure if I’ll show these lists to the students first and then the formula: “The _____________ (adjective) _______ (noun) is ______(verb) + ing.” So an example would be, “The happy girl is playing.” I am just not sure what the best order would be to try to show them this, and I’m worried I won’t be able to get the concept across because I don’t speak Gasy. Beforehand, though, I am translating as many of the words into Gasy as possible, but I am hindered by the fact I don’t understand any Gasy grammar at all so even simple things like making a world plural I don’t know how to do so I’m not sure how clear I’m going to be. Hopefully it will. The positive thing about teaching beginngers’ English and even the kids in Kids’ Club is that they are always going to learn something, because they are essentially a clean slate.
Alex
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Saturday, August 14, 2010
I have had a lovely morning in Tulear so far- had probably one of the best showers I have ever had and went shopping in the market here. Granted Lucy and I got ripped off left and right but I can’t help not minding given the fact that It’s maybe a dollar I’m getting ripped off of and the people here obviously need it more than I do. Maybe it doesn’t help the larger issue but I’m such a sucker. Oh well. We also ate at one of two bakeries here this morning, simply divine.
Oh yes, thank you to everyone who messaged me after I posted my blog yesterday! (katz, Ellen, beth, and Erica ) it really made my morning, and thank you everyone else who has emailed, I’m going to try to get back to as many people today as I can but the internet is still incredibly slow.
So I just wanted to tell people a little bit about the teaching I’m doing. So far, I’ve just been under Lucy’s wing, but when she leaves (which will be seriously depressing) I’m going to take over for her. I’m really nervous about it but I’m going to do the best I can. Kids’ Club is an hour or two activity once a week, right now on Thursdays at 3, where kids of all ages (toddlers to teens) from Ifaty come to ReefDoctor and we teach conservation education based on a curriculum ReefDoctor has made up. As the teacher, I will be responsible for creating all of the activities to go with the curriculum. For example, the Chapter we are on now is on pollution and rubbish and will probably take 4 or 5 weeks to complete. We had the introduction to the Chapter this past Thursday and Lucy and I just kind of came up with some simple activities to teach the 3 main types of pollution (land, water, and air) and old trash (like wood, cloth, biodegradable materials) versus new trash (plastic, metals, batteries, etc). We had them sit in a circle on the beach and had them go around and go in the center and select a piece of trash we had already collected from the beach (the beach is pretty filthy, especially by the village) and sort it into two groups to see if they could see the difference between new and old types of trash. At the end we re-sorted everything so it was correct and then explained. We have to go through a translator, Christina (she speaks fluent Malagas, French, and English), so it’s hard not being able to directly communicate with the kids. We can exchange a few words together but not so many, mostly just things like ‘sua bibi’ (very good) and ‘salama’ (hello) and then random French. I really wish I was better at French, I’m kicking myself for not working harder at that in school. We then did a few more similar kind of activities that had them moving back and forth a lot so they wouldn’t get bored to teach the rest of the intro. It doesn’t seem like anything hard to plan, but without Lucy’s help I would have been dumbfounded. I’m hoping I’ll just kind of pick it up as I go. I try and think back to being a kid and the kinds of games we did in school but I don’t remember anything except thumbs up, seven up because that was like the only game I ever liked enough to pay attention to.
Adult English is also going to be more difficult than I had imagined. I have only been twice because diving has interfered a couple of times. The first time I went we were locked out of the school so we just sat outside and played 20 questions with the subject thought of having to be something found in Ifaty. There were extra volunteers there and it was a lot more informal so it didn’t seem so bad. But yesterday, we sat in the school and first played hangman with different colors in English being the words guessed as kind of a warm up and for the benefit of the beginners, there were actually 3 new people there. Then we split them into two groups: beginners and advanced. The beginners worked with one of the locals, Pepin, who used to work for ReefDoctor and who speaks English and French very well, and went over words for the different parts of the body in English. The more advanced boys had to pick out a picture in a magazine (there is actually an Our State North Carolina magazine at ReefDoctor – so random, and made me pretty homesick) and write a description about it then trade with someone else to read the other person’s description and look through the magazine to find the picture based on the description. It went really well. A couple of them are pretty good, it just blows me away how some of the people here (usually our staff and some of the English students) are already fluent in Malagas and French and then almost English. I took French for 5 years and Latin for 7 and all I know in Latin is “canis est in via” and my French isn’t too much better.
I am still uneasy about being in charge of the class because communication is difficult and I don’t want to bore them so if anybody has any good simple games they can think of let me know! Right now we have 20 questions, eyespy, hangman, the magazine thing, and maybe like two more. But it’d be great to have more ideas, and so far nothing has come to me.
We are about to go to a marine “museum” that located at the university of Tulear, even though its supposed to basically be a museum of death, as in there are too many stuffed turtles and things of that nature. The poor sea life here is just decimated, the population has far exceeded the resources and so many people have moved to the coast from inland because there has been terrible drought for so many years. The sea is kind of looked at as a resource that infinitely supplies and is open to everyone, but unfortunately most of the coastal landscape has been devastated by deforestation of mangroves and the Bay of Ranobe has been stripped of its marine life through unsustainable fishing techniques like beach seining, which I’ll get more into later.
Hope everyone is well, keep the contact coming, it really makes me happy
Alex
Oh yes, thank you to everyone who messaged me after I posted my blog yesterday! (katz, Ellen, beth, and Erica ) it really made my morning, and thank you everyone else who has emailed, I’m going to try to get back to as many people today as I can but the internet is still incredibly slow.
So I just wanted to tell people a little bit about the teaching I’m doing. So far, I’ve just been under Lucy’s wing, but when she leaves (which will be seriously depressing) I’m going to take over for her. I’m really nervous about it but I’m going to do the best I can. Kids’ Club is an hour or two activity once a week, right now on Thursdays at 3, where kids of all ages (toddlers to teens) from Ifaty come to ReefDoctor and we teach conservation education based on a curriculum ReefDoctor has made up. As the teacher, I will be responsible for creating all of the activities to go with the curriculum. For example, the Chapter we are on now is on pollution and rubbish and will probably take 4 or 5 weeks to complete. We had the introduction to the Chapter this past Thursday and Lucy and I just kind of came up with some simple activities to teach the 3 main types of pollution (land, water, and air) and old trash (like wood, cloth, biodegradable materials) versus new trash (plastic, metals, batteries, etc). We had them sit in a circle on the beach and had them go around and go in the center and select a piece of trash we had already collected from the beach (the beach is pretty filthy, especially by the village) and sort it into two groups to see if they could see the difference between new and old types of trash. At the end we re-sorted everything so it was correct and then explained. We have to go through a translator, Christina (she speaks fluent Malagas, French, and English), so it’s hard not being able to directly communicate with the kids. We can exchange a few words together but not so many, mostly just things like ‘sua bibi’ (very good) and ‘salama’ (hello) and then random French. I really wish I was better at French, I’m kicking myself for not working harder at that in school. We then did a few more similar kind of activities that had them moving back and forth a lot so they wouldn’t get bored to teach the rest of the intro. It doesn’t seem like anything hard to plan, but without Lucy’s help I would have been dumbfounded. I’m hoping I’ll just kind of pick it up as I go. I try and think back to being a kid and the kinds of games we did in school but I don’t remember anything except thumbs up, seven up because that was like the only game I ever liked enough to pay attention to.
Adult English is also going to be more difficult than I had imagined. I have only been twice because diving has interfered a couple of times. The first time I went we were locked out of the school so we just sat outside and played 20 questions with the subject thought of having to be something found in Ifaty. There were extra volunteers there and it was a lot more informal so it didn’t seem so bad. But yesterday, we sat in the school and first played hangman with different colors in English being the words guessed as kind of a warm up and for the benefit of the beginners, there were actually 3 new people there. Then we split them into two groups: beginners and advanced. The beginners worked with one of the locals, Pepin, who used to work for ReefDoctor and who speaks English and French very well, and went over words for the different parts of the body in English. The more advanced boys had to pick out a picture in a magazine (there is actually an Our State North Carolina magazine at ReefDoctor – so random, and made me pretty homesick) and write a description about it then trade with someone else to read the other person’s description and look through the magazine to find the picture based on the description. It went really well. A couple of them are pretty good, it just blows me away how some of the people here (usually our staff and some of the English students) are already fluent in Malagas and French and then almost English. I took French for 5 years and Latin for 7 and all I know in Latin is “canis est in via” and my French isn’t too much better.
I am still uneasy about being in charge of the class because communication is difficult and I don’t want to bore them so if anybody has any good simple games they can think of let me know! Right now we have 20 questions, eyespy, hangman, the magazine thing, and maybe like two more. But it’d be great to have more ideas, and so far nothing has come to me.
We are about to go to a marine “museum” that located at the university of Tulear, even though its supposed to basically be a museum of death, as in there are too many stuffed turtles and things of that nature. The poor sea life here is just decimated, the population has far exceeded the resources and so many people have moved to the coast from inland because there has been terrible drought for so many years. The sea is kind of looked at as a resource that infinitely supplies and is open to everyone, but unfortunately most of the coastal landscape has been devastated by deforestation of mangroves and the Bay of Ranobe has been stripped of its marine life through unsustainable fishing techniques like beach seining, which I’ll get more into later.
Hope everyone is well, keep the contact coming, it really makes me happy
Alex
Friday, August 13, 2010
Friday, August 13, 2010
I can’t believe I have already been here over two weeks. Being here longer I’m picking up on things that I didn’t know at first, as far as different relationships between the Vazaha at camp (Vahaza is the Malagasy word for foreigner, so essentially Vahaza are white people) that were kind of unexpected to me. I just assumed that people working and volunteering at an NGO would somehow miraculously avoid mundane and petty drama. But I don’t know why I thought that because if anything, in an environment like this- fairly isolated with a few people trying to run one organization that is trying to do several different things (though all aimed at the same goal)- clique-ish behavior and issues characteristically melodramatic at times seem to thrive. It’s a bit frustrating; at least as far as some of it goes, because I thought the only thing on peoples’ minds would be helping the people of this region. But it’s hard mixing the place you work and live I guess, and it’s also just human nature. On the other hand, some of it can be fairly interesting. I would go into more detail, but it’s not really my business to go into.
Anyway, I started diving last week! And guess who had a full blown panic attack on my second Open Water Dive, equipped with sobbing and crying and my first bout of serious homesickness? Naturally, me. I had some serious issues with the mask clearing and mask removal underwater. It’s my fault, because I didn’t read my manuals properly, so I will be better about that when getting my Advanced Open Water and Rescue Diver certifications. The feeling of the rush of water on my face and the bubbles from the regulator going up my nose accompanied by my stinging eyes made me sure I was drowning. And the fact that I am doing Open Water training with another volunteer, Josh, probably didn’t help my nerves and feeling of extreme inadequacy so much. Also in all fairness to myself, all of the Open Water skills are meant to be learned in a pool, not in the middle of a sand patch in the Bay where we do them. But the dive instructor here is really great; her name is Teschna and she’s 23 years old from New Zealand. The panic attack was last Saturday and we quit the dive immediately. I was in a weird mood for the next day and a half just feeling bad about being so incompetent and scared. But Tesch planned a pool session for us by talking to the landlady of ReefDoctor who owns the Bamboo Club, a hotel in Mangily (the next village up) and we got on the boat Monday, rode over there, and did skills in the water so I could just get used to the feeling. I was completely fine, and it was also hysterical the sight of us in full scuba gear swimming around a maybe 4 foot deep pool with all the guests peering over the edge of the pool probably thinking we were incredibly strange. Then Tuesday Teschna and Josh and I went back out to the site (called Aquarium) where we were going to do skills again and I did them without a hitch. It’s so weird how terrified I was because I am almost positive I felt nothing like that the only other time I have dove back in the 8th grade in the Bahamas. But for me, it is always such an endorphin rush when I do conquer something that has literally brought me to my knees in terror (skiing freshly powdered double black bowls/getting carried down them, hiking up to the saddle in CO last summer when the last couple hundred feet of elevation seemed to go almost straight up, any form of public speaking, etc). The fact that I will go from being so scared to even get in the water to being a certified Rescue Diver is so cool. Even though I doubt anyone from home would ever trust me to rescue them in an emergency. I am also getting my Emergency First Responder certification while I’m here. We watched the first DVD for it on Wednesday. I can’t believe how capable I’m going to be by the time I get home.
I have a lot more stuff to say about Kids’ Club, Adult English, and random stuff, but I’m sure it will all come out at some point. I’m going into Tulear this afternoon with Lucy and 2 others for the weekend (the rest of the volunteers went to Isalo National Park until Sunday and I didn’t because I wanted to work with Kids’ Club and English and also I’m hoping to be able to do Isalo with my Dad –*take note Leigh* it would also be nice if you would respond to my text messages**) and we are staying at probably the nicest hotel in Tulear, running us about 45000 Ariary a night (about 23 or so dollars), fully equipped with HOT showers (I honestly thought they didn’t exist in this country so I might just spend two days in the shower), wireless internet IN OUR ROOMS, free breakfast (bread and tea), and who knows what other amazing wonders it has in store. So I will probably post some more entries this weekend (this and the past entries will be old by the time I post them) and please please email me anyone who is reading this. I can also receive text messages on my regular phone, so if anyone feels like just shooting me one to be really nice I would appreciate it beyond belief. I apologize for the fact skype and any other type of instant communication via the internet here is completely impossible and I hate I can’t talk to anyone through it. In order for me to find a decent internet connection I’m going to have to leave the country so I guess I’ll have to wait until the end of October. I actually enjoy not having internet, I’d probably be more homesick if I did have it. But it’d be nice to hear from someone, anyone, at any point on my phone just to be reminded that my home still exists.
Anyway, I started diving last week! And guess who had a full blown panic attack on my second Open Water Dive, equipped with sobbing and crying and my first bout of serious homesickness? Naturally, me. I had some serious issues with the mask clearing and mask removal underwater. It’s my fault, because I didn’t read my manuals properly, so I will be better about that when getting my Advanced Open Water and Rescue Diver certifications. The feeling of the rush of water on my face and the bubbles from the regulator going up my nose accompanied by my stinging eyes made me sure I was drowning. And the fact that I am doing Open Water training with another volunteer, Josh, probably didn’t help my nerves and feeling of extreme inadequacy so much. Also in all fairness to myself, all of the Open Water skills are meant to be learned in a pool, not in the middle of a sand patch in the Bay where we do them. But the dive instructor here is really great; her name is Teschna and she’s 23 years old from New Zealand. The panic attack was last Saturday and we quit the dive immediately. I was in a weird mood for the next day and a half just feeling bad about being so incompetent and scared. But Tesch planned a pool session for us by talking to the landlady of ReefDoctor who owns the Bamboo Club, a hotel in Mangily (the next village up) and we got on the boat Monday, rode over there, and did skills in the water so I could just get used to the feeling. I was completely fine, and it was also hysterical the sight of us in full scuba gear swimming around a maybe 4 foot deep pool with all the guests peering over the edge of the pool probably thinking we were incredibly strange. Then Tuesday Teschna and Josh and I went back out to the site (called Aquarium) where we were going to do skills again and I did them without a hitch. It’s so weird how terrified I was because I am almost positive I felt nothing like that the only other time I have dove back in the 8th grade in the Bahamas. But for me, it is always such an endorphin rush when I do conquer something that has literally brought me to my knees in terror (skiing freshly powdered double black bowls/getting carried down them, hiking up to the saddle in CO last summer when the last couple hundred feet of elevation seemed to go almost straight up, any form of public speaking, etc). The fact that I will go from being so scared to even get in the water to being a certified Rescue Diver is so cool. Even though I doubt anyone from home would ever trust me to rescue them in an emergency. I am also getting my Emergency First Responder certification while I’m here. We watched the first DVD for it on Wednesday. I can’t believe how capable I’m going to be by the time I get home.
I have a lot more stuff to say about Kids’ Club, Adult English, and random stuff, but I’m sure it will all come out at some point. I’m going into Tulear this afternoon with Lucy and 2 others for the weekend (the rest of the volunteers went to Isalo National Park until Sunday and I didn’t because I wanted to work with Kids’ Club and English and also I’m hoping to be able to do Isalo with my Dad –*take note Leigh* it would also be nice if you would respond to my text messages**) and we are staying at probably the nicest hotel in Tulear, running us about 45000 Ariary a night (about 23 or so dollars), fully equipped with HOT showers (I honestly thought they didn’t exist in this country so I might just spend two days in the shower), wireless internet IN OUR ROOMS, free breakfast (bread and tea), and who knows what other amazing wonders it has in store. So I will probably post some more entries this weekend (this and the past entries will be old by the time I post them) and please please email me anyone who is reading this. I can also receive text messages on my regular phone, so if anyone feels like just shooting me one to be really nice I would appreciate it beyond belief. I apologize for the fact skype and any other type of instant communication via the internet here is completely impossible and I hate I can’t talk to anyone through it. In order for me to find a decent internet connection I’m going to have to leave the country so I guess I’ll have to wait until the end of October. I actually enjoy not having internet, I’d probably be more homesick if I did have it. But it’d be nice to hear from someone, anyone, at any point on my phone just to be reminded that my home still exists.
Wednesday, August 04, 2010 -- Ifaty
The village of Ifaty is the closest village to us, which lies just South down the beach and is the edge is only about a 5 or 10 minute walk. It is comprised of sand alleyways running between huts that mostly serve as families’ homes, while a few do serve as shops. In front of the huts along the alleyways are stands which sell local food like sambosas (fried fish or zebu, which is the kind of cow they have here). There are children everywhere, families tend to be large. A couple of the locals who work for ReefDoctor have around 12-14 kids. The women tend to start childbearing early, sometimes as young as around 13.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010 -- Update
It is going to be impossible to update my blog every day or even kind of often because of the essentially nonexistent internet connection on site, but I figure I can type up entries on my laptop and when I go into Tulear every few weeks I can just enter them all at once.
So today I will have been in Madagascar for a week and 6 days at ReefDoctor. After about two days I got a bad head cold, so it has been impossible to start diving. I am hoping to do that tomorrow, but it will only take a couple of days to get my open water, then 5 dives to get my advanced, so I have plenty of time to get those plus my rescue diver and emergency responder certifications which will take a bit longer, but still I have 3 months.
I am surprised how well and quickly I am adjusting to most things, especially the fact that NOTHING is easy in Madagascar. Besides no internet, there is no running water and only random spurts of power from the generator. The toilets are basically glorified holes in the ground and to take a shower means to take your allotted bucket, fill it up with water from the bucket attached to the rope at the well, and then use a plastic cup to pour water on yourself and wash. So far I’ve only done this twice, and I don’t see myself ever doing it much more than that. We use bottled water to brush our teeth with which is a whole process in itself.
The vollie hut where I am staying is now completely full (there were only 3 of us when I first arrived) with 6 people. 2 Australian sisters arrived last night who are staying a month, a British boy named Josh got here the Sunday after I did and he is staying 6 weeks, and two other girls, Jenny and Rebecca, from Germany and Portugal respectively, who have already been here almost 5 weeks and will probably be leaving pretty soon in about week. Our hut is quite a walk from the main reef doctor house, probably about the same distance as a couple of blocks at home, but all in sand, and uphill if coming from the vollie hut.
Walking everywhere on sand is a lot more tiring than you would think, and literally there is only sand around here. The road we took to get here is even all sand, which is hardly efficient for taxi-brousse’s overflowing with people. Taxi-brousse is a local form of transportation and the way we get to and from ReefDoctor. A taxi-brousse is essentially a truck with benches lining the open truckbed with a wooden and metal frame over the bed and a tarp covering the frame. They don’t depart from whatever station they are at until they are completely full, which means you could wait at the station for hours so if you ride on one it is pretty much a whole day event. My ride here in one was extremely uncomfortable because I had pulled something in back from traveling 3 days with a ton of luggage (the staff at ReefDoctor told me I have the record of having the most stuff of anyone that has ever come here, including them who packed for a whole year- shocking.)
Besides the volunteers in my hut, there are 3 others who are doing 3 month stints and who have all been here about 9 weeks so far: Lucy, Katie, and Phoebe. Katie is the only other American and Phoebe is another Aussie. Lucy is a British teacher and has helped to reshape the education program here, which consists of adult English two afternoons a week and kids club, which is one afternoon a week teaching some children from the village the ReefDoctor conservation curriculum. I haven’t participated in kids club yet, but I went to adult English this past Monday. I’m going to try to learn as much from Lucy as I can before she leaves so I can continue with what she’s been doing when she’s gone.
So today I will have been in Madagascar for a week and 6 days at ReefDoctor. After about two days I got a bad head cold, so it has been impossible to start diving. I am hoping to do that tomorrow, but it will only take a couple of days to get my open water, then 5 dives to get my advanced, so I have plenty of time to get those plus my rescue diver and emergency responder certifications which will take a bit longer, but still I have 3 months.
I am surprised how well and quickly I am adjusting to most things, especially the fact that NOTHING is easy in Madagascar. Besides no internet, there is no running water and only random spurts of power from the generator. The toilets are basically glorified holes in the ground and to take a shower means to take your allotted bucket, fill it up with water from the bucket attached to the rope at the well, and then use a plastic cup to pour water on yourself and wash. So far I’ve only done this twice, and I don’t see myself ever doing it much more than that. We use bottled water to brush our teeth with which is a whole process in itself.
The vollie hut where I am staying is now completely full (there were only 3 of us when I first arrived) with 6 people. 2 Australian sisters arrived last night who are staying a month, a British boy named Josh got here the Sunday after I did and he is staying 6 weeks, and two other girls, Jenny and Rebecca, from Germany and Portugal respectively, who have already been here almost 5 weeks and will probably be leaving pretty soon in about week. Our hut is quite a walk from the main reef doctor house, probably about the same distance as a couple of blocks at home, but all in sand, and uphill if coming from the vollie hut.
Walking everywhere on sand is a lot more tiring than you would think, and literally there is only sand around here. The road we took to get here is even all sand, which is hardly efficient for taxi-brousse’s overflowing with people. Taxi-brousse is a local form of transportation and the way we get to and from ReefDoctor. A taxi-brousse is essentially a truck with benches lining the open truckbed with a wooden and metal frame over the bed and a tarp covering the frame. They don’t depart from whatever station they are at until they are completely full, which means you could wait at the station for hours so if you ride on one it is pretty much a whole day event. My ride here in one was extremely uncomfortable because I had pulled something in back from traveling 3 days with a ton of luggage (the staff at ReefDoctor told me I have the record of having the most stuff of anyone that has ever come here, including them who packed for a whole year- shocking.)
Besides the volunteers in my hut, there are 3 others who are doing 3 month stints and who have all been here about 9 weeks so far: Lucy, Katie, and Phoebe. Katie is the only other American and Phoebe is another Aussie. Lucy is a British teacher and has helped to reshape the education program here, which consists of adult English two afternoons a week and kids club, which is one afternoon a week teaching some children from the village the ReefDoctor conservation curriculum. I haven’t participated in kids club yet, but I went to adult English this past Monday. I’m going to try to learn as much from Lucy as I can before she leaves so I can continue with what she’s been doing when she’s gone.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
I made it!
I am on a computer in an internet place in Tulear and the keyboard is foreign enough to make it difficult to type so this will be short. So after 48 plus hrs in transit I finally made it here. I met some cool people traveling, including a Canadian soldier on leave from Afghanistan who told me a lot about that and also an Austrian businessman who got me hooked up with free stuff on the flight from Frankfurt to Johannesburg. He also offered me a free place to stay anytime I'm in Austria.Upon arrival in Tana I met a guy named Merlin (whom I will not be calling) but whose name is obviously way cool. I knew this place would be magical.
So far today, I have been walking around the 'city' of Tulear all morning with the ReefDoctor project coordinator Alana who has been filling me in on a lot of stuff about ReefDoctor and Ifaty and Madagascar in general. Three volunteers who have been here a month left this morning and they had nothing but good things to tell me. One even goes to Clemson, imagine that. I haven't met anyone else yet. We are going to the site after lunch so I will then. I'm thinking I probably won't be able to access the internet that often, as there is one dial up connection at the site between a good number of people. That will be good for me, but I apologize if I don't get to update this too often or respond to emails or other messages much. However, keep 'em coming! And anyone who wants a postcard, send me your address! I bought a bunch already.
I am excited about getting really involved with the education program in Ifaty as well as the kids club, which I think will be what I focus on documentary-wise. I'll tell more about that when I know more. I'm gonna go for now but I'll be back hopefully soon, pleae email me!
Alex
So far today, I have been walking around the 'city' of Tulear all morning with the ReefDoctor project coordinator Alana who has been filling me in on a lot of stuff about ReefDoctor and Ifaty and Madagascar in general. Three volunteers who have been here a month left this morning and they had nothing but good things to tell me. One even goes to Clemson, imagine that. I haven't met anyone else yet. We are going to the site after lunch so I will then. I'm thinking I probably won't be able to access the internet that often, as there is one dial up connection at the site between a good number of people. That will be good for me, but I apologize if I don't get to update this too often or respond to emails or other messages much. However, keep 'em coming! And anyone who wants a postcard, send me your address! I bought a bunch already.
I am excited about getting really involved with the education program in Ifaty as well as the kids club, which I think will be what I focus on documentary-wise. I'll tell more about that when I know more. I'm gonna go for now but I'll be back hopefully soon, pleae email me!
Alex
Monday, July 26, 2010
Pre-Departure Overview
Well, I am still in Charlotte, packed to within an inch of my life, and about to head to the airport where they will probably tell me I have to get rid of half of my stuff, in which case I will be totally screwed. I tried to pack light for Madagascar, and I still think I did, but I guess 4 ginormous suitcases say otherwise. Dive gear is large and heavy, and coupled with all the manuals and study guides I have I really don't think the amount of luggage I have is a testament to my dependence on 'stuff.'
Anyway, my trip to Madagascar is a volunteer trip through the British organization ReefDoctor which I found on the internet when I realized I needed at least a year to breathe before law school. I have always been really passionate about climate change and the human rights issues that go along with it. I also love children and want to see how I do at teaching because I am considering teaching abroad for 6 months when I get back. So when I found the ReefDoctor program it seemed tailor-made to me.
I am going to be doing 1-2 ecological dive surveys a day about 5-6 days a week in order to log data about the marine life and thus be able to monitor the conditions of the coral reefs. The reef system in Madagascar is the third most important in the world, i.e. its health is a huge factor in the balance of the oceans which in turn is necessary to successfully feed all of the millions of people that live directly and indirectly off of this reef. Because of increased water tempatures in the past 10 years due to climate change, the reef system in Madagascar has undergone a series of reef bleachings, meaning large amounts of the reef have died. Due to the death of much of the reef, fish populations have relocated to the parts of the reef that are still alive, putting too many in one place, resulting in overfishing, and consequently major issues with the village fisherman as far as their livelihoods and even feeding their own families.
Besides just monitoring the reefs, ReefDoctor aims to help teach sustainable fishing practices to village fisherman and conservation to the lcoal school children. That is basically as much as I know about what I'm going to be doing right now. I'm sure it will be a lot different once I arrive, so I guess I'll have to find out when I get there and keep this blog posted.
My internet service isn't going to be the best, so I'm not sure how much I'll be in contact with people or able to update this blog; again, I will have to wait until I get there to find out. Phone contact is going to be painfully limited. I can receive texts for free, and send a few. But if you text me, I'll probably just email you back. The best email to reach me at is alexjcotter@gmail.com. Hope to hear from anyone anytime!
Alex
Anyway, my trip to Madagascar is a volunteer trip through the British organization ReefDoctor which I found on the internet when I realized I needed at least a year to breathe before law school. I have always been really passionate about climate change and the human rights issues that go along with it. I also love children and want to see how I do at teaching because I am considering teaching abroad for 6 months when I get back. So when I found the ReefDoctor program it seemed tailor-made to me.
I am going to be doing 1-2 ecological dive surveys a day about 5-6 days a week in order to log data about the marine life and thus be able to monitor the conditions of the coral reefs. The reef system in Madagascar is the third most important in the world, i.e. its health is a huge factor in the balance of the oceans which in turn is necessary to successfully feed all of the millions of people that live directly and indirectly off of this reef. Because of increased water tempatures in the past 10 years due to climate change, the reef system in Madagascar has undergone a series of reef bleachings, meaning large amounts of the reef have died. Due to the death of much of the reef, fish populations have relocated to the parts of the reef that are still alive, putting too many in one place, resulting in overfishing, and consequently major issues with the village fisherman as far as their livelihoods and even feeding their own families.
Besides just monitoring the reefs, ReefDoctor aims to help teach sustainable fishing practices to village fisherman and conservation to the lcoal school children. That is basically as much as I know about what I'm going to be doing right now. I'm sure it will be a lot different once I arrive, so I guess I'll have to find out when I get there and keep this blog posted.
My internet service isn't going to be the best, so I'm not sure how much I'll be in contact with people or able to update this blog; again, I will have to wait until I get there to find out. Phone contact is going to be painfully limited. I can receive texts for free, and send a few. But if you text me, I'll probably just email you back. The best email to reach me at is alexjcotter@gmail.com. Hope to hear from anyone anytime!
Alex
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