I wrote this entery a little over a week ago but was unable to post it as i discovered the hard way that everything in Tana, except the ice cream shop, is closed on Sundays. So here it is a a little late but better than nothing i hope.

Well I've seen my new home, Anivorano-est, it is a pretty amazing place and I have some photos but I left the correct cord for uploading them back in Anjozoro, our training site. I am in Tana waiting for a ride back to Anjozoro. We have all made it back from site visit, but I got immediately shipped back to Tana because of a minor eye infection, it has been a great opportunity to meet a large number of current volunteers as a large number of the education volunteers are in town on their way to their mid service conference.

Site visit was exciting, frustrating, scary, fun and very challenging. We finally left Tana on Monday morning, after a fantastic Sunday here in Tana. We got to use the pool at the Deputy Ambassadors house, and our Assistant Program Country Director (APCD) had us all over to his house for dinner, it was a veritable feast. Thanks Leif. So we left Tana feeling relaxed and very eager to go on site visit. We ended up not getting out of Tana until much later than expected because this is Madagascar. The driver was late, we had to make multiple stops so our counterparts could run errands and the traffic was bad. We had 6 PCTs and 5 counterparts in our car. I was the third person to get dropped off. The ride out to Brickaville was relatively uneventful; we safely delivered Jeanette and Jonathan to their sites. Unfortunately we made it to Brickaville much later than planed and there were no more boats going to Anivorano, so my counterpart and I got hotel rooms and hung out in Brickaville for the evening. Brickaville was a mess, it had flooded during the cyclone and the water had just receded so the whole place was muddy. The next morning we got up to catch the boat at 9, and because this is Madagascar the boat didn't leave until 10:30. The boat we were riding in was something like a very large canoe, with a small motor on it. There were about 30 people in the boat and a couple hundred pounds of goods. I am still surprised that that little tiny motor was able to push us all up the river. It did take five hrs though. It was one of the more uncomfortable rides ever, we were essentially sitting on 2 X 4s, but it was also beautiful. We arrived at my site around 2pm. I met the mayor's family and pretty much just hung out with them for the evening. One of the mayor's sons took me on a bit of a tour of the town and then we watched some hilarious Malagasy music videos and went to bed. The next day I sat through a couple of extremely long meetings during which I understood nothing and got a tour of the town from the gentlemen who runt he farmers cooperative.

Anivorano is so vastly different from anything else I have ever experienced. It is much more like what I had imagined a tropical village to be like than Anjozoro is. It is pretty isolated but also relatively well supplied. There is a road coming in to the town and a small train station so goods and people can come and go relatively easy. The landscape is very tropical, lots of palm trees and many tropical fruits like lychees, mangos, vanilla, passion fruit, pineapple, and all these fruits which I have never seen before.

There are about 2,000 people in the town of Anivorano but the commune (surrounding area) has about 10,000 people. I am assuming most of them are farmers. There is a decent sized market in the town were I will be able to get most everything I need. The houses in the area are mostly made out of palm leaves and sticks; they are raised up off the ground slightly to improve air circulation and because of the flooding. There are a lot of ducks and geese in the town but not many cows or chickens. The people on Anivorano seem to be much more impoverished than those in Anjozoro, there are food security issues, and many of the children are malnourished. Comparatively my host family in Anjozoro is pretty wealthy. The situation was pretty overwhelming, there is so much need and they are so excited to have me coming to help them. But I don't have the slightest clue where to start or what I can do, but I am really starting to look forward to the challenge.

I don't have a lot to say about my site because the entire situation was so overwhelming and I was only there for a little over 24 hrs. But though challenging it was a fantastic experience and I am looking forward to going back and making this place my home for the next two years.

Tamatave is my banking town, and my new favorite place. It is a decent sized city, the second largest in Madagascar and has everything a girl could hope for. The hotel we stay at is right on the Indian ocean, though you cant swim there as the undertow is extremely strong, it is great to hear the waves crashing on to the beach and to just put your feet in the water. The city is full of great restaurants, cheap internet cafes and other PCVs. One of the best parts about site visit was meeting the other PCVs in my area, I like them all and according to the PCV rumor mill the Tamatave region has one of the most active social networks in the country, probably because we have so many PCVs. It is possible that it is the most densely populated region (PCV wise) in the country, but I could be wrong.

So that is a very brief description of site visit. Fantastic and horribly challenging at the same time. Getting back to Mantasoa and seeing the rest of my Stage was fantastic, coming back to Anjozoro felt like coming home and I was horribly disappointed when the Dr.s told me I had to get back in the car and come to Tana because of a measly eye infection. But I am headed back in a couple of hrs and this way I get to update you all. We will probably be back in Tana in about two weeks on our way through town to go visit a model farm and learn about rice farming.

Until then.