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
Sorta Beautiful
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
--
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.
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