Training

Peace Corps provides two week training after your first three months
at your site. The following things happened during my stay:

I visited my host sister (from my initial Peace Corps training).
Our encounter consisted of me talking to her in Malagasy and her
repeating several times, "You can speak Malagasy now," with her jaw on
the floor. I really wanted to give her a giant Aunt Monica hug but
hugging is not part of Malagasy culture.

Although all of my meals were provided, and many of them were
delicious, there were days on end where there wasn't quite enough
food—particularly because I am vegetarian. One day I ate corn and
rice with ketchup. I call this the Peace Corps diet. My stomach was
growling for much of the training and I am sure that I lost 5-10
pounds in the two week training. It is amazing how hungry you are
when you only eat rice and vegetables for two weeks. A side note to
this is the fact that I don't like rice which means that I don't like
Malagasy food. All Malagasy meals consist of large quantities of rice
and small quantities of loaka. Loaka is the side dish to the rice.
Essentially you eat 2-5 cups of cooked rice and about a half a cup of
beans or some other vegetable. Not liking rice in Madagascar could be
compared to not liking meat in the Midwest, not liking pasta in Italy
or not liking chile in New Mexico. It is a hardship and involves a
lot of hunger when I am not in charge of my own meals. On this note,
I watched Food, Inc. which is about the food industry in the United
States and how it is in urgent need of reform. The film is intended
to make you disgusted by foods in the US—but instead I gazed at the
screen awestruck by the footage of grocery stores and fast food.
Imagine! Isles of food! Imagine!

I attended a Q & A session with people living with AIDS and commercial
sex workers (heterosexual women and gay men). It was incredibly
interesting. I have never had the chance to talk with sex workers
before. At one point a volunteer asked the women why they decided to
go into this work. The translator didn't even translate the question
to the women, she just said back to us, "It isn't a choice. It is
what happens when there are no other choices." All of the women have
children and one of them was married. It was neat to experience the
feeling of my own judgment lift as the session went on. When I first
walked into the room I was looking at their faces, their
clothes—seeing them as alien to me in some way—a novelty and something
entirely foreign. By the end of the session, as their individual
stories and personalities came through, it was simply a group of human
beings. The male sex workers stories differed from the women. It
seemed to me that they were simply gay and could not really be gay in
a more normal way. Both the men seemed fairly comfortable with their
occupation and seemed to consider it a way to live their lives in a
culture that had no other place for them. One of them said that
some of their clients didn't pay because it was for love. The other
man was a hairdresser and has clients by appointment only on the side.
He said, "I am very lucky in my life right now." I also learned
that the health educators, when they do condom demonstrations,
sometimes demonstrate for groups how you put on a condom with your
mouth because a lot of men don't want to wear condoms and the mouth
method puts them at ease, shall we say. The sex workers do this in
the dark and the men never even realize the condom is on.

I attended a session about the ethics of development in poor
countries. We all shared our concerns and fears about helping other
countries. Is it ethical to go into another country and tell them how
to live their lives? As a business volunteer, to promote the values
of Western capitalism and demote the values of informal economy and
barter systems? Then again, is it ethical to pretend that poverty
doesn't exist? To patronize cultures by saying, "It's so quaint!" To
ignore the fact that on this world of ours some people have mountains
of opportunities while others are lucky to reach their fifth birthday?
Sitting in the session, I was reminded how easy it is for me to think
so hard about something that I am sucked into an intellectual vortex
of inaction. Luckily, my APCD (essentially by boss) shared her
perspective. She has worked for Peace Corps for over ten years and is
Malagasy. She essentially gave a testimonial that Peace Corps works
and is meaningful. Her name is Lucy is she reminds me a lot of my
mom—which is to say she is an amazing, intelligent and strong woman.
Her opinion means a lot to me and I left the session feeling hope in
a way that I haven't for some time.

I learned that I miss my mom. I was telling my APCD about how I
thought her and my mom would be best friends if they ever met because
they remind me so much of each other. She asked me what my mom's
name is and when I said it, "Dianne," I felt like crying. Just
because I miss my mom. I think that makes me pretty lucky to have a
mom that you miss even when you are 31 years old.

I learned how exportation works in Madagascar. In short, it is a
complex process that includes many things including bribing police.
On this note, I realized (again) that I seriously have no expertise
whatsoever with anything related to business. I find the
big-picture-theoretical-intellectual-philosophical-global-ethical-
economic concepts interesting but when it really comes down to the
application of it my brain doesn't work. It is sort of like how I
am passionate about why organic foods and products are important, yet
have no desire to weave mittens or grow turnips. What to do with
this self knowledge besides suck it up I cannot say.

I learned that I don't like speaking Malagasy in front of other volunteers.

I solidified my place in Madagascar Peace Corps mythology by sharing
the fact that one day I read a 600 page book (it was John Irving's A
Widow for One Year). In Peace Corps, there are legends and I am
hoping that in a few years it will turn into, "A few years ago, there
was a volunteer who read 1,200 pages in one hour." One such legend I
have heard is that a few years ago a volunteer read 500 books in her
first year. I have thought about this a lot, since right now I am
basically doing a self-directed survey of literature extensive enough
to earn a graduate degree, and have decided that this woman could not
in fact have read 500 books in one year. I think the accurate number
is probably closer to 300. My projection for myself is 100-150 per
year of Peace Corps.