It's my second week in my village, I am still reeling from the newness of this place, the aloneness and the expectations when one day I find myself transported back to a situation I know quite well, change some of the details and I've been here before many many times. Sitting through interminable meetings in a language I do not understand, mist likely making outrageous commitments I will never be able to keep simply because I don't know what is being said or asked of me and I am reverting back to just nodding and smiling.
The meeting
It is Wednesday morning, and on Monday I had been told we would be having a meeting at the kohlerena; I wake up pull myself out of bed and force some bread down, I am not feeling well. I put on my mostly clean white shirt and make the short commute to the kohlerena office, all of about a min and 45 seconds depending on how many people I stop and say hello to. No one is there, because I am on time and no one is ever on time in Madagascar
So I sit on the step and wait for a while, chatting with the neighbors in the mean time. My counterparts show up a couple of min later and we immediately launch into a conversation about how the kohlerena doesn't have any money. I am getting pretty confused because I was sure they had told me we would be having a meeting with all kinds of people that more. So after about ten min of this conversation I ask when the meeting is going to start, and they say "oh yeah-didn't we tell you it wont be until 2" They then launch into a long and complicated explanation as to why this is but I don't really understand most of it, but essentially it boiled down to people being late. I told them I was going to go home and study Malagasy but really I just came back to my room in the mayor's house, flopped down and my bed, still not feeling well and slept the rest of the morning away.
I dragged myself out of bed again around to be greeted by the smiling faces of these two teenage girls who live near me. I asked them what they were doing, they said they were going to go to school, well they were not going anywhere very fast, the proceeded to stand there and stare at me while I ate my bread, fixed my hair and changed my shoes twice -I couldn't figure out what else to do- I just wanted a couple more min to clear the sleep from my eyes and pull it together but they continued to stand around and stare even when I told them I had to work. Finally I stood by the door said Azafady (excuse me) and more or less kicked them out.
It was back to the office for me, where people had already started to gather, lots of people. More people than I would have imagined could fit into that little room, it quickly took me back to my many meetings in the basement of Lao Family Community center in St. Paul. The differences were stark but in some ways it was exactly the same. Instead of a dingy concrete community center with florescent lighting it was a small palm leaf and bamboo building with the only light coming through the open windows and doors. Instead of sitting around a u-shaped conference table we sat on the floor and the few benches and chairs that were available-many of them borrowed from the neighbors. Instead of discussing human rights and grave desecrations we were discussing farming and forestry management, and instead of the conversation being in Hmong it was in (to me) equally incomprehensible Malagasy. Though the differences were so many it felt so similar, I was the only white person in the room, I didn't understand what was going on most of the time, the expectations were huge, and I felt like I was in way over my head.
For the 1st 30 min, or so, I made a really concentrated effort to pay attention and follow the general flow of the conversation but my mind quickly started to drift. This is how the rest of the meeting played out in my mind "Why am I feeling so crappy? Is it something I ate or is it just the Mephlequine? Oh wait need to pay attention there is my name again, who knows what they just said, I just nod and smile. Though I again try to follow the conversation an argument breaks out and I am quickly lost ..."hmm...I wonder how Claudette is doing in her village" wander wander wander "why don't I get mail from my friends? Just family? Oh wait they are talking to me again, they've just asked me something, and not having any clue what they are talking about I nod and smile-I've probably just agreed to something impossible, now I am determined to pay attention so I can figure out what I have just said yes to. 2min later I am lost again and I remain that way for the rest for the rest of the meeting, another two hrs or so. Like the meetings I had with the Hmong community this one is lasting three times as long as it should. The meeting is now finally over and I once again smile, nod and shake everyone's hands.
I've probably just promised to build them a new road, bring electricity to the village, get them all computers (I know I heard my name and computer in the same sentence at least once), live here for the rest of my life and give over any children I may have to their cause. So if I never come home it is because of this meeting, not because I don't want to eventually come home but because in my incomphrension I promised to do the impossible. I know this is going to come back and haunt me, I can just see the scene, some one asking why I haven't done X yet and me saying "I never said I would do X" and them going "yes you did at that 1st meeting..." But for now I am enjoying the comfort of a situation I have been in before, long meetings that I don't understand.