Amie’s Adventures Abroad

There have been many days and nights in the past three weeks when I thought I would never make it this far, but here I am, I’ve made it through one of the hardest parts of the Peace Corps Experience, the 1^st month at site. The highs have been super high and the lows super low, but all in all things even out to a pretty good experience. Here is a little bit of information about where I am now and what I am doing. I’ll try to expand on this in the next couple of days while I am in the city and have access to the internet.

The Village

            Anivorano-Est is a town of about 2,000 people but it is the seat of a commune with about 19,000 people so it is a pretty decent sized town. It has a huge catholic mission, headed by a priest from

            As you try to imagine this place don’t think of what you typically imagine as

My Work

As always things are very nebulous and I am still trying to figure out what I am doing but I am starting to form some ideas about the work that I will be doing for the next two years.

I am working with a farmer’s cooperative here, called a kohlerena, while a lot of the details are still very fuzzy this is what I know. The kohlerena works with farmers in 7 fokantanys (or districts); the village I live in is the seat of the commune that governs these 7 fokantanys. The kohlerena is at least partially funded by ERI (eco-regional initiatives) which is funded by USAID, it might get funding from other sources as well but that is one of the many things I am still trying to discover. The kohlerena works with the farmers to export products (things like leeches, table pepper, vanilla, and other spices) and employees these men and women called PVs and PAs I don’t yet understand the difference between the two, but they are essentially farmers who have received some training and they work to train other farmers in methods to increase production. They do other things as well but again I am still trying to understand what those things are.

I have talked a couple of times with the president of the kohlerena about the work that they want me to do it includes helping train the farmers in SRI (system of increased rice production) build a number of tree nurseries, build a new road (that isn’t going to happen) and work on finding export markets for a plant called Tamotamo, which I think might be turmeric. While, I have a general idea of what they want me to do I have tried to not make many commitments until I learn more about the community and the cooperative. But in my daily battle to understand Malagasy I have probably already made many promises I will never be able to keep.

Bugs

I don’t know how I ever became an Environment volunteer. Besides all the more obvious reasons (i.e. no background in this work) is the fact that I DO NOT like creepy-crawlys and other things that go bump in the night. In training it wasn’t too big of an issue, but here in the rainforest they have a lot more bugs, big ones and small ones. At night before I go to bed I very carefully tuck in my mosquito net, not because I am worried about mosquitoes- there aren’t actually that many around at the moment- but because I really don’t want to wake up with a lizard, or worse a cockroach, crawling on me.

            When I close my eyes these days I see swarms of ants, not because I am any crazier than I was a couple of weeks ago, but because they are everywhere and in everything. I can understand why ants would want my chocolate or other foods but I am still mystified as to why they are so interested in the bobby-pins and the candles. The one that grossed me out the most was the morning I woke up to my tooth-brush swarming with ants. I threw that tooth-brush away; it was time for a new one anyways.