Once again I am stuck in Tana because of a cyclone, and getting mixed messages about when I can go home. The cyclone hit the island yesterday a bit north of Tamatave as a category 4 storm (worse than hurricane Katrina), which I am guessing means some pretty bad damage, but as the cell phone network is down in the Brickaville area I can't call anyone and find out what is really going on. But my friend Helen has been able to get a hold of her friends in her village, about 150km north of Tamatave (250km north of me) and there are trees down and houses destroyed and flooding and all those really fun things that come with a hurricane. But as of 10am this morning the storm had dissipated to a "tropical storm" and is petering out. Though it is still raining like crazy around here.

I am going to try and go back to Anivorano tomorrow hopefully the road will be cleared by then, I have heard that it is cut by downed trees and mudslides. Until then I am spending the extra days in Tana hanging out at the Peace Corps Flop house, eating delicious meals with my friends and trying to stay dry.

Cyclones (the Pacific ocean equivalent to our hurricanes) are a frequent occurrence here in Madagascar, the east coast, and occasional the west coast as well, receive a pretty good battering on a pretty regular basis. The cyclone season here lasts from about January to early April. Thus far this season this is about the 4th cyclone that has hit Anivorano, but up until this point they have been pretty small storms and all it has mean is substantially more rain than normal and some strong winds. The winds blow of tree branches and flattens rice crops. The rain floods the river, erodes the hillsides and kills the rice.

Here in Tana we have been seeing a lot of really strong wind and down pours, the electricity is frequently cut which isn't too big of a deal if we are at the flop house as Peace Corps has an emergency back up generator, but when you are out and about trying to use the internet (like I am at the moment) it is a pain in the butt. Thank god I brought this computer with me and can continue to type even if I am not connected to the internet.

That is really all there is to this story. We are all safe and mostly dry, this cyclone has been an inconvenience for us Peace Corps Volunteers, more than anything else but it remains to be seen what it will mean for the Malagasy people. This year is going to be a bad year for rice in my community, first there was a drought and there was not enough water to plant the rice and for those souls that were brave enough to try planting it all died. And now there is too much water. The paddies have been seriously flooded and the rice has died once again. If we don't see a vast improvement in the weather I am guessing we will soon see a drastic increase in the coast of rice.