Visiting Katsepy!

Friday 10/21

Today we didn’t follow a normal schedule at all. Rather than have our language classes as normal, we went to visit Katsepy, an island off the coast of Mahajanga. The ferry we were going to take was supposed to leave at 7, so Roland told us to be down at the dock by 6:30. For this reason, I got up at 4:45, because my mom said that it would be necessary to leave at 5:30. My host brother (who took me to the dock) and I left the house at 5:20 and the neighborhood gates weren’t even open yet. The trip took significantly less time than my mom had said it would and we ended up getting off the taxi-be at 5:50, way earlier than needed. The dock was a 2 minute walk from the taxi-be stop, but there were already students there, so I joined them and we sat around and waited for everyone (including Roland and Candy) to show up.

While waiting around, a man approached me and one of the boys on the program. He asked how many people were in our group and when we told him that there would be 22 in total, he tried to tell us that there wouldn’t be enough space on the ferry but that he had a boat that could hold 25 people and that he would be happy to take us all across. He tried to convince us of the fact that the ferry was full for a good 20 minutes before finally giving up. It turns out that the ferry was very full, but we did all fit. I ended up in a teensy-tiny little room behind the captain with 10 other students and we were all incredibly gross, sweaty, and hot by the end of the ride because that room isn’t meant to hold more than 3 or 4 people, particularly not for over an hour.

When we finally reached land, we were all incredibly happy to get off the boat and breathe fresh air. To get off involved walking through the ocean, so all of us had really sandy feet/shoes. This wouldn’t normally be a huge issue but we went into a restaurant to talk with Chantel, a peace-corps volunteer from Alaska who has been stationed in Katsepy for the past 2 years. We were sitting on mats and got them incredibly sandy.

Chantel talked to us a lot about the island/village and about how she spends her day as a peace-corps volunteer. She is 31 but had always had it in the back of her mind that she wanted to volunteer so after working at Macy’s for a few years and realizing that she wasn’t really doing anything productive with her life, she applied and was accepted. She was originally sent to Niger but was pulled out for safety reasons and sent instead to Madagascar in December 2009 as part of the first group of volunteers to go back in the country after the crisis of March 2009. She works in trying to help the farmers improve their agriculture, but also said that she has a lot of time to lounge around on the beach and interact with the community. She has learned a lot of Malagasy in the past 2 years, but said that she still finds herself in situations where people are talking too quickly or something else rendering her unable to understand anything that they are saying.

After talking with her for a while we gouted (snacked), of course, and then she took us on a little walk to show us different parts of the town/different buildings. We first walked through the “market.” She was telling us that all of the vendors sell the exact same things and she doesn’t understand how they are economically able to support themselves. I don’t understand either. How can they make money when what they are selling isn’t unique and therefore people have no real need to buy from a particular person?

After that we went to see the mosque. It was the biggest, nicest building we saw and Chantel said that a lot of money has been put into it over the years. Then we went to go see the schools. There is both an EPP (public primary school) and a public collège, or middle school. She was telling us how the EPP building has 2 classrooms for 5 classes, so children only go to school for half of the day. It is sad that there isn’t enough space for them to get real educations. After that we went to see the CSB (centre de santé de base – the center for basic health). This week they were running a mother-child health program, so there were a few women there with small children who had just gotten shots, or been weighed, or something else along those lines. Then we continued walking and saw the Catholic Church. Comparing it with the mosque was fascinating. In comparison with the ornate mosque, the church was literally built of leaves and didn’t stand out at all. It looked just like all of the houses around it and it was so weird to see the differences. The door was locked so we couldn’t go in, but the door had slats in it so we were able to look in. There were a few benches and some pictures hanging on the wall, but that was it.

After our walk we were all really hot so we went back to the restaurant to have some cold drinks and then I stayed there with some people to just sit and chill. We talked a lot with Chantel about varying topics, this time mostly not related to the peace-corps, but just about life in general. While we were talking with her, a woman came up with an adorable toddler. She sat down next to me and smiled a lot and then eventually started asking me for money for the baby. I told her no and wouldn’t pay attention to her for a while. After some time, I mentioned to Chantel that she kept asking for money and she explained to me that the woman is an alcoholic, but she still breastfeeds, so her child has many problems. She said to definitely not give her any money because it would just go towards alcohol.

We had brought lunch with us to eat. I had a tuna sandwich (with cheese and mustard, which isn’t a combination I normally do, but it was really good), corn and pickles (what a weird veggie salad to make!), and pineapple. I always think that it is funny when we bring picnics with us because we are basically a group of 20 foreigners who come into a little village and bring with us more food than most families have ever seen at 1 time. It is ridiculous. After lunch we hung out for a little while and some people went to buy mangos. I didn’t get one because I’d had a lot the day before, but apparently each mango there only cost 100 ariary (the equivalent of 5 cents! Ridiculously cheap!) and they were apparently pretty good. When it was time to go, we didn’t take the baka (the ferry) back, but rather ended up taking the boat owned by the guy with whom I had talked this morning! All of us fit in. I was in the front and had to help hand out life jackets and then we took off. During the ride, the man we had talked to stood up front and sang with us/danced. He was super amusing and made the ride very enjoyable. Of course, I was soaked by the end of the ride, as was my backpack. My pants dried quickly, but then I got on the taxi-be with my backpack, which I had to put on my lap, and when I got off it looked like I had peed in my pants. I took a shower right away (I was disgustingly sweaty) and then decided to do some homework. We have a 10-15 page paper due next Friday so I’ve been working on that and have already made it to page 7! Not too bad at all, and probably much farther than any of the other students (I think only 1 or 2 others have even started to write).

Last night it was just me, my parents, and Miangaly at home. We watched some movies and then put on NCIS in French. The voices they chose for the characters are so weird! I much prefer the normal voices. Then I taught my parents to play uno while we waited for our pizza to come for dinner. The pizza here always has such weird toppings! We had 2 different types that both had shrimp on them and then we also had a 4 cheese pizza, but one of the cheeses was basically just laughing cow cheese. It was good, just strange!