Thanksgiving and a German

Monday, November 29, 2010

So, the political situation described in my last post turned out to be nothing after all (as far as I know). Forces loyal to Andry Rajoelina stormed Ivato and arrested the mutinying military officers. Everything is back to “normal.”

This has been a good week. All the volunteers around Ambanja came in for Thanksgiving. I had to teach in the morning and evening on Thursday, but was able to get out of the latter. We had planned to buy a turkey, but that fell through. We then considered buying the materials necessary to make Mexican food (beans, rice, peppers, and flour can all be found here), but then decided it would be easier to eat vazaha food at the classy Palma Nova restaurant (which I described a few posts back).

Friday we all took a taxi-brousse to Ankify beach, picking up PCV Molly (who came in from her site on the island Nosy Be via ferry) along the way. So, in total 8 Peace Corps volunteers and 3 Malagasy friends hung out on the beach all day to celebrate Thanksgiving. I brought my guitar, Katie brought her excellent portable speakers, and we all swam and relaxed until the sun began to set.

People returned to their sites in waves on Saturday and Sunday. While some of them relaxed at my house on Saturday, I went with my Malagasy friend Anthony to his uncle’s house. Anthony had told me that his uncle was a German expat living here in Ambanja, married to his mother’s sister. He also told me this German man had an electric guitar, drum set, keyboard, harmonica, and a plethora of djembes.

I took my guitar and walked with Anthony for about half a km to the market. He said his uncle’s house was just a little bit past the market. The common Malagasy response to questions about location here in Ambanja is taloha (which means “before” or “up ahead”).

I knew the house might not be so close, but it was still quite an unpleasant trek. I trudged along for an hour on the shade-less dirt road, my legs pretty burnt from the beach the day before. When we arrived, we were greeted by Anthony’s aunt and led into the house.

His uncle was a stout, white-haired, gray-bearded bespectacled man. He was quite friendly, but the language barrier was a bit awkward. He (obviously) spoke German fluently, as well as French, and a little Malagasy, and could understand slow English. I spoke in English, Malagasy, and terrible French, and he responded in French, Malagasy, and broken English.

We discussed the beauty of Madagascar and the plight of its people and its environment. I explained the concept of Peace Corps, and he explained that in his opinion Madagascar just needed more money. To each his own.

Unfortunately, Anthony had not informed him that I was coming over (not a big surprise—my experience has been that Malagasy people tend to show up and leave without much notice) and had to leave before we could play music, but I did see his extensive djembe collection. I would be extremely pleased if he also possessed the alleged electric guitar and drum set.

So Anthony and I made the trek back to my house and I played guitar there.

On Sunday I had to grade more papers of students whose first try was, let’s say, less than satisfactory, whether that meant completely ignoring the extremely explicit directions, or shamelessly copying their friend’s assignments.

We learned in training that while cheating is seen as wrong here, it is culturally acceptable for Malagasy teachers to ignore it when it happens. Nevertheless, it was still shocking to see it practiced so blatantly.

I’m currently in the process of making my end-of-trimester test, which I will administer next Monday and Tuesday. I can imagine how fun it will be to try to prevent 70 students, crammed into small desks and practically sitting on one another’s laps, from copying.

As far as I know, I leave for Diego next Wednesday, December 8 and then fly to Tana on Thursday, December 9. Then I’m re-united with all my friends from pre-service training (PST) for a week of in-service training (IST). I can’t wait!