Back in the Mada, Back in the Mada, Back in the Madagascar….

Despite the lag in posting here, I have not had a whole lot of time to be reflective. I only had one week of so-called vacation before I was recruited to take over the reins of the cyclone relief project. While it’s okay to have some income, the pay is not great (because they recognize my lack of experience) and it requires some background that I do not have. My predecessor can whip out numbers and rates of work in a second. This is the first time I have seen this type of work up close, and I haven’t a clue as what is expected/possible from villagers in a food-for-work program.

When I first arrived in Antalaha, I had thought that the cyclone could not do much more damage than was still around from Hudah in 2000 and Ihary in 2002. Gafilo, as this one was called, managed to rip up roads, blow down houses, and generally disrupt life. The effects of Hudah were far greater, still evident fours years on. The best business to be in Antalaha is the hardware business. Everybody needs to rebuild after cyclones, and in less traumatic times, people aspire to improve their surroundings little by little. Not everyone, of course, like the people who had not repaired their roofs since the cyclone in 2000. The funny thing is that donors had given out plastic sheeting for shelter that had lasted until now. This would reduce the demand for their handouts, so they asked the producer to make the plastic more degradable!

As I find frequent place to say this, I shall repeat that there are so many things that are invariable around the world. Kids playing for a camera, for example. I don ‘t know, maybe I left the US before I had much exposure to children. Though I was once one myself ;-), I am the youngest of four, so I never had a sibling to torment, uh, to look after. (Lucky for you, Marcia – imagine GI Joe coming after YOU!) But I used to react unfavorably to American kids when they got cranky overseas with their parents. Maybe they had been pampered in order to get them to agree to stay in Asuncion, for example. Part of it had to do with the sound of the American English language. Too many nasal sounds, wrong accentuation.

I can get myself into trouble in about seven languages, but interestingly, the one I “like” amongst them also has explicit nasal vowels: Guaraní, of Paraguay. But the intonation of local speakers makes the language amusing, if not attractive. At a cookout once, a drunken Paraguayan told me he spoke several languages, including Japanese. A friend who was present asked him if he understood the greeting, “Inẽe ne cason.” He replied that yes, it was commonly used. In his drunkenness, he failed to recognize that it was a phrase in Guaraní meaning, “Your pants stink.”

Sorry, I’m rambling off to the wrong continent. This subcontinental island, Madagascar, should be enough to occupy my thoughts for a long time. This is the kind of place that gets under your skin. A South African friend just left after being here for about 12 years. It was his post that I took over. I am sure he will be back, for work or vacation. This is also the longest I have stayed any one place since leaving my parents’ home at the end of high school. Heck, I got married here. But since the year 2000, we have been hit by three cyclones in my little town. Cyclones are an annual event, but I have not heard of any one town having such shit luck over a similar period.