Amie’s Adventures Abroad

There is a story flouting around the Tamatave region about a PCV and a moment of cultural exchange he had with one of his Malagasy villagers. The story goes like this:

One day last year Alex was sitting under the coconut tree in his back yard with his neighbor, Fabrice. Fabrice, a young man probably around 16 or 17, had just scaled Alex’s tree knocked down two coconuts and then proceeded to open them up so he and Alex could sit in the shade, relax and drink the coconut water. It was a hot day and the shade and the coconut water was much appreciated.

After a couple of minutes of companionable silence, once their coconuts were done and had been thrown onto the compost pile Fabrice turns to Alex and asks “is it true that in the United States robots do everything for you?” Alex’s immediate reaction was “of course not” but instead of just spouting off the first thing that came to mind he gave the question some thought. After careful consideration of the question Alex turned to Fabrice, and said “yes, it is true” then got up said thanks for the coconut and went inside.

Once inside Alex looked at himself in the mirror, gave a little chuckle and said “Peace Corps goal number 2, completed for the day” *and went about making some lunch.

Now most people’s reaction on hearing this story is one of shock and outrage, how could Alex do such a thing, spreading malicious stories about how robots do all our work in the United States, but when you stop and give it a bit of thought there is a lot of truth in Alex’s response. Take a minute to think about your kitchen, and how many machines we have in a typical kitchen: stove-oven, dishwasher, microwave, toaster, blender, kitchen aid, telephone, refrigerator, vacuum cleaner, ect. In Madagascar, particularly in small villages like the one Alex live in most of these things don’t exist and they work they do for us is done by hand.

Food is cooked over a wood or charcoal fire, typically the firewood has been collected from the forest and carried miles to the house, then the fire has to be built and tended and the food preparation can take hrs. Once food is made there is no way to keep it for more than a couple of hrs. And there is no microwave to heat it back up; you would have to build a fire again. Everything is chopped and pounded and cleaned by hand, once you are done eating all the dishes are washed by hand with water that has sometimes been carried substantial distances, or sometimes the dishes are carried to the river to be washed there.

Clothes are washed in the river and dried on a clothesline or on bushes. Houses are cleaned on your knees and rice is hulled by being pounded in a huge mortal in pestle. So Alex was right, in the United States robots pretty much do all of our work for us.

* The Peace Corps Has three goals : 1) to provided trained technicians to countries who want them 2) to teach our host country about American culture and 3) to teach Americans about our host countries culture