Babies, Brushes, & Banana Peanut Butter

This April I had the awesome opportunity to work at an orphanage, La Maison d'Arnaud, in northern Madagascar. As part of a site-exchange*, I and two other Volunteers (one third-year education Volunteer who lives at the orphanage and one health Volunteer from my Peace Corps entry group) facilitated a week of health-related activities with the children and staff!

A nutrition cooking demonstration was our first activity on the week's menu. First, we made our own peanut butter with the Malagasy orphanage cooks and nannies, then mashed some sweet bananas into it. We got to feed it to the babies for morning snack, and they went BONKERS for that stuff. One baby actually cried when we ran out of it! Then with enough vegetables to feed a small elephant, we went on to make a hearty, nutrient-rich soup. If you don't believe kids like eating vegetables, then you wouldn't have believed your eyes to see the kids slurpin' up this soup at lunch. But they did enjoy it, and so did the staff! (Shout out to my Volunteer friend Jenna, who was the mastermind behind our cooking plan).

Stomping Out Malaria in Madagascar!

Shaking. Chills. Vomiting. Sweating. Aching.  

It's anything but fun. It's painful. It damages your body. It can even kill you. It's malaria: the world's buzz kill.

Malaria cases and deaths are prevalent in multiple regions of the world. Just in 2015, there were about 214 million malaria cases and 438,000 deaths throughout the globe. However, while malaria can be devastating, it is also completely preventable! One day, it can be totally eradicated. So as part of the global effort to eradicate malaria through education and resources, April is designated as World Malaria Month and April 25th (today!) is World Malaria Day.

In accordance with World Malaria Month, I and two other Peace Corps Volunteers facilitated a malaria training over two days at a women's prison in Madagascar. In our training we discussed malaria symptoms, science, and prevention methods. All the women participated with excitement and especially had fun acting out how malaria is transmitted! On the second day, we hung bed nets for all the women in the dormitory, which is one of the most practical and effective methods for malaria prevention. The women created a great atmosphere with their enthusiasm and energy during the activities. In the end, we had 40 women empowered to stomp out malaria with their new prevention education and resources!

Jesus Jukin': An African Easter

The congregation sings a Malagasy song while a group of women preform a choreographed dance.*

The sun is rising
The Son is risen
And I rise with them

I watched the soft pastels of early morning play across my yard. There was no doubt this was the dawning of an eventful day. Eventful not just because it was Easter Sunday, but because it was Easter Sunday in Madagascar; eventful not just because it was Easter Sunday in Madagascar, but because I was going to church on Easter Sunday in Madagascar. Chances are, if you attend church in Africa on Easter of all days, there will be dynamic energy and color. I could already sense the day's vibrance as I stood in the morning light.

Dressed up and ready to go, I sauntered over to the village Catholic church with my neighbor. As expected, Easter church hit the ground running in eventfulness from my fist step over the sanctuary's threshold. As unexpected, the actual first eventful occurrence was getting my hair caught in the priest's goatee scruff during the cultural cheek air-kiss, which almost led us to miss and kiss each other on the lips. (Truly, I am the master of first impressions).

Tropical Depression

Wow, has it really been five months since I've written my last blog post?

Oops.

Well, anyway, the good news is that I'm still kickin' and livin' in Madagascar, and despite my blogging silence, these last few months have indeed been eventful. For example, I:

-Went on a Thanksgiving trip to the east coast (50% work, 50% play)
-Facilitated volleyball games and drills at a Peace Corps sports camp
-Went on a Christmas/New Years trip on the west coast
-Taught nutrition at a school's youth health club in my region
-Visited a cocoa farm
-Visited an awesome national park near my home (Ankarana Park)
-Hung out with my awesome community
-Started a Volunteer sports and fitness group
-Completed more of my home gym
-Began planning activities and projects for my second year of service
-Survived rainy season!!!

Yet, while these last few months didn't lack in eventfulness, they weren't exactly easy, either. During the rainy season (December-March) travel and work become much more difficult. Road outages were a huge problem all throughout my region, and otherwise it wasn't unusual for me to often be stuck inside my house. So things felt a bit slooooooooooow, and, at times slightly depressing. Doesn't it sound so poetic, though, to feel depressed while it's raining? I thought so, which led me to write this about rainy season:

Rainy season in Madagascar
A season of grey and green
A season of cloudy days
A season of cool nights
A season of stillness
A season of growth
A season of mold and mildew
A season of trial
A season of thought
A tropical depression 

It's no top 20 country song, but you get the point. And while rainy season was a little slow, depressing, and inconvenient, there was, if you will, also a silver lining. First of all, the crops and vegetation were pretty happy from the rain at least. Second of all, coming out of rainy season, I actually feel much more connected with and comfortable in my community and Madagascar. I think that might be because I really had to buckle down in life to keep myself from going totally insane; in the process, I was reminded of how much I truly love being here in Madagascar, how great my neighbors are, and how much I care about fulfilling my two-year mission and commitment. Now I'm even happier and more confident about where I am and what I'm doing here. 

That's the neat thing about rain...a tropical depression might be a storm, but its nature facilitates growth. And a period of depression might be a tribulation, but it can be an opportunity to foster strength. So it goes with my rainy season in Madagascar.