March 2

I cannot believe that it is already March! Time has gone by so quickly here, but at the same time, I feel like when I think back to when my flight landed here on January 26th, it seems like it was ages ago. I could hardly say hello in Malagasy, had no idea what to expect out of my time here, and knew virtually nothing about the culture here. Now I am in my second homestay, getting ready to head from Mahajanga to an island off the North Coast called Nosy Be, before heading back to Tana. I have now learned at least three or four different ways to say hello in Malagasy and have even convinced some people here that I actually know how to speak Malagasy, although that is far from the truth. For instance, yesterday when I took a taxi to an interview I had with the first assistant to the mayor of Mahajanga, I initially asked how much it woud cost (you have to negotiate the price prior to entering a taxi here), and since I asked in Malagasy, once I got in the car, he tried to start having a conversation with me in Malagasy. I got the first bit, where he was talking about how much rain we had been getting lately (due to a tropical storm that has been lingering here for days, causing some flooding, power outages, and other issues), but then he quickly lost me, and I had to tell him that I speak "kely kely fotsiny," aka just a little bit. But it is encouraging to be able to understand some things now and be able to pick up on little parts of peoples' conversations.

Going back a little, I want to share a little bit more about what my time here in Mahajanga has been like. We have visited hospitals and clinics, schools, churches, a mosque, and a doany (which is where certain ancestral relics are kept, from the Sakalava ethnic group which historically lived in this area of Madagascar), a television station, city hall, and the port, in addition to some others and some explorations that we have done on our own as well. There is so much to share about all of these things and since I have not been keeping up with journaling or blogging, I am sure that I am going to end up forgetting some things.

But I will do my best to go through these visits and explain a little bit about what they were like. For the clinic visit, I ended up going to a small clinic that had a maternity ward, offered vaccinations, medical consultations, had a small room that was a pharmacy, and offered family planning services. All of these things except for the medications were offered free of charge. However, due to the current political crisis here, and the lack of funding from the state, sometimes the doctors and other workers, like a guardian who is always there, have not been paid in over a year. Also, there have been fewer patients during the political crisis, and since the country is facing more poverty now during this time period, the clinic has lowered the prices of the medications from 1.35% to 1.15% to help the people. It was so interesting to see the many differences between a clinic in the US and a clinic here. They also had an interesting kind of family planning option that I think is worth noting. It was a necklace that had two different colored beads on it, that allowed women to count the days of their cycle so they would know when they were ovulating. I have a feeling that is a less reliable option, but an option here none the less. We learned that now it is more common to have fewer children, like 2, 3 or 4 mostly because the cost of living is too high to have a huge family, but traditionally it was looked upon as being the best if a couple could have 14 children, 7 boys and 7 girls.

The school visit for me was rather rough. Throughout the beginning of this week, teachers went on strike, so there wasn't school in a lot of cases. So when I went to visit a primary school here in Mahajanga, there weren't any kids around to speak of. There were a few outside playing because some parents continued to send their children  even though they knew there weren't any teachers there. But the director of the school was there and explained some things about the education system here and how that primary school was run. It was a little difficult to get her to answer some of our questions, but we did learn things like in the past, the school was funded by the state, but during the crisis, since there is a lack of funds, the parents have to pay a small tuition for their students to be able to go to school. She also told us that often times there are students who do not even have pens or notebooks because they simply cannot afford them, and when she sees that, she does what she can to use her own money to buy the school supplies for the students.

The church visit was more along something that I could relate to. The man who gave us the tour and talked to us explained mostly about what Protestantism and Christianity are, which I already have a pretty decent background in, but it was definitely interesting to see the inside of the church. It was quite large, and all of the pews were pretty close together (my legs would definitey be too long and it would be far too uncomfortable to sit in these pews) and made very simply from wood, without any padding. From experience going to church in Tana with my host family, these are definitely not the most comfortable pews I have ever sat in.

The mosque visit was fascinating since I had never been to a mosque and had no frame of reference for what that experience would be like. We had to wear lambas, which are basically just pieces of cloth that are worn here. The men wore them around their waists sort of like a skirt, and the women had to either wear one like a dress and have one covering the head and arms, or wear a long skirt and a lamba over the head and arms. As we were putting the lambas on and getting ready to walk into the mosque entrance (where you had to take off your shoes), I heard a "tss tss" noise, which is a culturally acceptable way to try to get someones' attention here, so I turned towards the noise and had a Muslim woman come up to me and fix my lamba the right way for me because apparently I was showing too much skin on my arms. It was an amazing moment and I loved that she helped me out like that because I had no idea what I was doing. She didn't say anything either when she did it, she simply hissed to get my attention, fixed me up, and sent me on my way in a very loving and motherly sort of fashion.

Lastly for now, as this post is taking longer than I expected, the doany visit was also quite interesting. We had to wear lambas to the doany as well, but instead of wearing them over our heads we had to wear them as dresses. We learned that normally for someone to visit the doany, they cannot wear underwear or bras, but just the doany. Luckily, exceptions were made for us. The wearing of lambas, among other things, were "fady" aka "taboo" that we had to respect. We also had to wear our hair down, and the color black was not allowed to be worn. It was definitely an interesting visit, and great to have been able to visit a church, a moque, and a doany to get a broader view of the three most prevalent religions here in Mahajanga.

That is all for now, I have to go work on some homework since it starting to pile up a bit. But I will post again asap!