Thursday, August 2

·        6:15 – Wake Up

·        6:30 – Go for a 30 minute run. The road is very crowded today because it’s market day! Everyone is biking or hauling on cow-carts vegetables, fruit, clothes, and various wares to sell in the village. See Riche, my town driver, on the road and ask him if he can come pick up my gas tank on Saturday morning. Most volunteers cook on little gas stoves and, depending on how often and what food you cook, the tanks need to be replaced every 5-10 months.  I can’t carry the tank back in to Ambilobe to be exchanged on my bike so I hoped Riche could drive it in for me and meet me there. Come home and do 30 minutes of strength exercises in my kitchen.

·        7:45 – Sweep, do a well-run for water, shower, hang running clothes out, get dressed. Attempt to refill my water filter but notice is it extremely dirty and spent 20 minutes cleaning the filter with an old toothbrush.

·        8:45 – Make breakfast of eggs and coffee and eat on porch.

·        9:00 – Journal, do some crosswords, read, go over itinerary with my parents so I can make reservations in Ambanja this weekend for hotels.

·        10:30 – Walk to market. Look for Belia, my sister, to help her sell some bed linens she has bought from Tana but a friend tells me a Gendarmes lehibe (important person) has come in to visit so she has stayed at home to host; My host brother is the chief of the Gendarmes in Betsiaka. Walk home to get bike and head out for family’s house. Stop by Nicholas and Suzanne’s to ask if I can come for dinner instead of lunch and we chat for a while.

·        11:45 – Bike to family’s house. The Lehibe has left but lots of people are gathered around talking about the strikes. I am happy to be able to participate in the conversation and they ask me how strikes work in the States.

·        2:30 – Bike home and determined to tackle the maggot problem. Take out all the books and materials on my bookshelf and spend the next hour and a half dumping out thousands of maggots all over the porch and picking out pages and books that are salvageable/still readable. End up throwing away most of the books, as they have been completely eaten through. Cut out some plastic strips from my table cover and line the inside of the little shelves to (hopefully?) prevent further problems. This is maybe one of the grossest tasks I have done in Madagascar.

·        4:00 – PSI arrives! PSI is an organization that works in most regions throughout Mada on various health issues such as family planning, HIV/AIDS, malaria, potable water, diarrhea, and mother and child health. They have a really cool program where they will bring a portable “cinemobile” to small villages and spend two nights doing presentations to the community on any number of health subjects using pop culture, videos, and music (basically the draw of technology) to get people interested. I had asked them to come back in January but they said they had to wait until the road was better… 8 months later they have arrived! We chat for a while, they give me advice on my termite problem (Just spray your [small wood and dried leaf house] in gasoline! Thanks, but no thanks.), and we make a plan for the evening. They leave to drive around Betsiaka blasting music from their car and announcing the program over a loudspeaker.

·        5:00 – Walk to Suzanne’s to help prepare for dinner but everything is already ready from lunch. Nicholas has exciting news and we sit and meet about our water projects. We met a technician in Ambilobe a few months ago who has built some pumps in the city and Nicholas asked him if he would be willing to come to Betsiaka and help us build. Nicholas says he sounded enthusiastic and was willing to give us a great price, which means I can start applying for funding for the pumps! I am planning to go through an organization called Water Charity, an international NGO that provides funding for Peace Corps water projects.

·        6:00 – Suzanne, Rozia, and I walk over to the EPP where PSI is holding their event. They present on HIV/AIDS and family planning to a big crowd. The presentation is a little disappointing. I’ve seen them be very interactive and engaging in the past and I felt like they showed too many lengthy movies, but at least there was a public conversation. I know a lot of people in Betsiaka who still believe in one of three myths about AIDS: 1) It doesn’t exist. 2) It’s only an “African” disease, i.e., not in Madagascar. 3) It’s created by white foreigners to scare and control people in developing countries.

·        8:00 – Walk back to Nicholas’ house and we eat a late dinner.

·        9:00 Suzanne and Nicholas walk me home and, exhausted, I go straight to bed.