Time is going by fast now. Since my last post I have been somewhat busy. I traveled to Tana to help at Peace Corps’ 15th year anniversary celebration (Prisca joined me and sold scarves at the Small Enterprise Development booth), and I met a distant relation – David Haslinger, a volunteer on the east coast. He assures me his name used to contain two s’s. I think we should drop an s, too.

After a few days in Tana, a dirty, crowded, expensive (well, relatively, anyway), fun city I left for Fianar, a 10 hour night brousse trip south. I arrived at 4 in the morning to another reunion, this time with my regional volunteers. Unfortunately, a lot of people had contracted giardia but it didn’t stop us from enjoying Halloween at a local club. My friends and I arrived late otherwise I’m sure Ryan would have won the costume contest. I have never seen such a sexy bag of rice.

I visited my friend Katie’s site before going home. Katie and I are starting a program for 12-14 year old orphaned girls in her town. We will train them on business skills with the expectation that they’ll start businesses during summer vacation (winter here) which will help them pay the next year’s school fees. I’m very excited. It will be my first attempt to do training in Malagasy, and am really glad I get to work with Katie.

I’ve been a little busy even in Sandrandahy. I’ve attended a few meetings with Prisca’s association. They recently received a big box of school supplies from employees of an NGO here, and the US embassy supplemented with money to buy notebooks. Together we distributed school supplies to 183 kids who had been identified as too poor to buy their own supplies. I saw parts of the commune I hadn’t seen before, and saw the stomach-clenching signs of poverty so obvious in other parts of Madagascar but less noticeable in the more affluent highlands. Or am I just used to it here? It was quite a shock.

There were a few days of meetings in town about silk weaving. The guest speaker was a stylist from Tana and I felt I was more Malagasy than he was: he spoke French more than Malagasy, seemed bothered by the flies, and didn’t eat the lunch we all shared. He also needed electricity so refused to spend the night in my counterpart’s house even though the meeting was two days. I thought some of his ideas were valid but after he left the members wondered why a stylist was sent to train them who didn’t know how to weave or embroider himself. It’s a valid point and caused a little self-reflection on my part until I remembered that I don’t pretend to know how to make silk. Some of the patterns of haute couture he showed the weavers were laughably hideous but of course the members are much too polite to question his taste....in front of him.

I spent Thanksgiving in my banking town, Ambositra. Unlike most volunteers, I can get to and from my banking town in one day so I’m there frequently, at least once a week. After the quietness of village life, Ambositra seems like a bustling big city, but it’s still pretty small. There’s no nightlife to speak of, no movie houses, no internet or entertainment of any kind. After doing all our errands, Katie and I pass time and wait out the frequent afternoon down pours at the Alliance Française. Katie is taking French lessons there and I bum off her membership to hang out at their library and chat up the staff there who think we’re very strange to speak Malagasy and not French. One day we arrived just as the center was reopening from its 2.5 hour lunch break. The only guy there was a little up in arms because a rat had set up residence on the window sill. It was making a nest in someone’s wire in-box, and was completely occupied arranging plastic bags and oblivious that we three were watching and discussing her fate. We spent about 15 minutes repeating things like “It’s really not shy,” “No, it’s not scared of us,” “I’m a little scared of it,” and so on. Finally, a young guy came in with a 2x4 and whacked her dead. He held her up by the tail to confirm to us how dead that rat really was.

That seemed like a perfectly reasonable way to pass an afternoon here.

On Thanksgiving, we were determined to have gin and tonics and left our dinner restaurant in search of alcohol. The one tourist hotel did indeed have gin, it only took three guys to find it and it was delicious. After a couple of drinks we went back to the restaurant where we started, buying some street food snacks in case the restaurant was closed since it was 8 pm already. But the restaurant was waiting for us. We ordered pizza and opened the delicious bottle of red Taylor had brought on her way down. By the time dinner was over it was 9, an hour past our normal bedtime and we were fading, and tipsy. Or at least Katie and I were...we never drink anymore. The waiter approached us and said they’d close the restaurant and clear the floor to let us stay and dance. They couldn’t imagine a holiday that didn’t involve dancing! It was such a sweet offer, but we explained that this holiday was all about eating and drinking, and we had done that well. So maybe I’m not yet fully Malagasy after all.

Next up: more meetings about setting up a regional handicrafts association in my banking town, meeting with a chicken farmer about an egg-selling business, conducting some English classes (yes, I finally gave in), and counting down the days until I see my fellow volunteers again. Things continue to go well at site but I’ve never had a “Peace Corps high” without being with my American friends.