The Simple Life?

So I just got back from Maintirano, where my good friend Tabitha is a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) teaching English. Now life as a PCV is not easy, and I never really thought it was, but after this visit, I have new respect for Tabitha's daily life (and a little jealousy?)...

To get to Maintirano I had to get up early at 5:30 AM, to get to the airport in time for my 7:30 flight. My plane reminded my of a typical taxi brousse but for the air. It was a twin otter with about 21 seats. But the seats are uncomfortable bench seats made from rusty metal and thin foam... in general the whole thing doesn't give you much confidence, much like the regular taxi brousses. But there are way more car accidents than plane accidents here, so I took my chances. Any unused seat (and any room in the cargo bay?) is promptly filled up with whatever needs to be flown out (bags of vegetables, live animals, you name it)... security? Well, they barely looked at my ticket, and they keep the x-ray machines for the major international flights... no FAA or Homeland Security here, folks! I had a quick layover in Mahajanga and landed in Maintirano at 10:00 AM or so to meet a sweating, but glowing Tabitha with her bike. I was going to ride on the back, like I did when I was a kid, but my baggage unbalanced us, so we caught a ride with a departing pickup truck. The town is only a two minute ride from the airport, but it can seem like 15 in the early morning heat.

My overwhelming memory from this trip will be the heat. It's the hottest I've ever been and there is no reprieve, even at night. I've never been soaked in my own sweat for an entire day before and it's quite an experience. Tabitha said she just gets used to it and there are a few things to do during the day to help:

- sit in front of her fan, reading newly arrived (months old) People magazines (I now know all about the Jen and Brad breakup, thanks to our ever thoughtful and helpful People magazine)... but this option only works when the power is working, and gets boring and old after a few hours

- get milkshakes (really just milk, ice and sugar blended together), which are the coldest drinks you can find in town (sorry, no ice cream) or half frozen yogurt from ladies at the market... both just cost 1,000 FMG or close to 10 cents.

-come up with really delicious meal ideas with her site mate, Michaela... (okay, so not actually cooling, but distracting, and delicious)

So during my three day trip, these were our daily activities, except one trip to the beach (where I succeeded in getting slightly sunburned, despite the loads of sunscreen applied... the sun is just different here) and another trip to drink madrosoa (i think it's spelled right) which is the water inside the coconut. I have fun pictures of this and will post them as soon as possible.

Tabitha and Michaela live a hard life. They teach a lot of different English courses and they really work hard to help these kids succeed (I have pictures of the school areas and rooms as well). I went to two of Tabbie's adult classes in the evening and she is a really talented teacher with lots of enthusiasm... I know she picked the right profession. Their food always depends on the market, which depends on the season and what is brought in by plane and boat (there are really no roads to Maintirano). The market is an amazing place at the center of town where everything available in town is sold (Tabitha was elated when they had apples!). There are a few small grocery stores in town where you can buy more expensive items like cheese and boxed juice. Yet despite this dependence, they create magnificent meals on typical malagasy charcoal stoves, which resemble enlarged tin cans with a metal salad bowl on top. We had really delicious coconut, curry rice and philly, steak and cheese sandwiches with hotdogs... so maybe not a typical meal, but after all the work and heat, it was delicious! So I brought the bread and hot dogs from Tana, but still pretty impressive I think, given what you have to go through to get the ingredients.

One picture I wish I had taken was of Tabitha making coconut milk. She was a master and I was just amazed. She had no problem splitting the coconut, scraping it out on this special blade and then using a strainer and water to create the milk. When I first saw it, I was floored, but she did it in all of 10 min. and it did make excellent rice. I tried to do it on my own once I got back in Tana, but I didn't have the special blade and ended up taking chunks of skin out of my thumb with the grater I was using... oh well, guess I can't recreate province magic in the capital.

So, as hard and hot as Maintirano is, I just reveled in how laid back it is. Yes, it's hard, but that's expected and you take it in stride. Plus it just makes the little things that much more special... like the cooling breeze you get while riding a bike or drinking coconut juice in the middle of the forest. For some odd reason, I felt like I was a kid again... riding a bike around, not having to rush to be some place, and just enjoying time with friends. All in all it was a lovely time spent with Tabitha and it was great to see how she lived.

Getting home was another matter. Since I made last minute plans, I wasn't actually able to get a flight back all the way to Tana. My flight landed at Tsiromandidy (about 4 hours west of Tana) and I planned to take a taxi brousse the rest of the way to Tana. Tabitha has done this several times, so I didn't worry. The plane lands in the grassy field that marks all airports here and several pousse-pousse, the human pulled cart, are waiting for us (mostly me). They ask a ridiculous price, so I walk instead and find a cheaper pousse-pousse (there are no taxis here) close to town to take me to the taxi brousse "station", more like cleared area with barely enough room for any cars, but that qualifies as a station here. So, I'm riding through town, and everyone stops what they are doing to look at the vazaha. Something I'm somewhat used to, but it's still unnerving. Then I get to the "station" except I don't even realize it, because there aren't any taxi brousses. This is where the panic starts. Then I start asking the few men just hanging out in the shade in a mixture of my terrible Malagasy and French, and they all tell me that there will be no more taxi brousse until tomorrow morning. SO, I really start freaking out and I throw a small fit and draw a small crowd, mostly filled with children who want to stare at the funny, upset vazaha. The fit doesn't help produce a taxi brousse, but it does produce a sketchy man who wanted to take me in his car for $35 (about 10 times the normal price of a taxi brousse, not to mention how stupid that would be), so I just laughed at him and his high price and walked away from the now much larger crowd. I'm trying to hold back tears, wondering what I will be able to do, because there is no hotel here and I don't know a soul. But after I've walked a fair distance away, a driver of a taxi brousse approaches me and proposes taking me to the next closest town with taxi brousses to Tana for only $7.50... much more reasonable a price, plus a legit taxi brousse with a legit driver. So we left right away, picking up many Malagasy on the way, who got a free ride because of the vazaha, but I was just glad to get out of the town. On our way to this other town, we're stopped by the police and they tell us, among many things, that the last txi brousse for Tana will leave the town we're going to at 5pm... so in other words, we had to haul ass to get there, or I would risk getting stranded in another strange town, yet again. As we pull into town just a few minutes past 5, we see the last taxi brousse leaving town, maybe only 200 ft in front of us. My driver beeps his horn and waves down the other driver and I jump out of one taxi brousse and run and jump into this next one. Thank god there was room and that we weren't late getting to that town. All in all, I got into Tana only an hour later than I thought I would and despite several panicky moments, it all worked out. That's Madagascar for you!

Hope you enjoyed my stories and happy birthday to my mama, who apparently keeps getting older, but she always stays the same age for me!