I spent last weekend in the city of Fianarantsoa. Formerly the second biggest city in Madagascar (after Antananarivo), today the city of Fianarantsoa is no more than a ghost town. People leave by the droves every day, escaping the lack of work and industries for bigger cities like Antananarivo, or tourist towns such as Tulier. The people left in town are among the poorest in the country, and the shacks in which they live, many perched on hills high above the city center, are no more than one or two-room clay boxes with no electricity or bathing facilities.

Yet, it was in those hills this weekend that I spent my time; meeting the most amazing women I have met in a long time. These women are beneficiaries in a huge multi-agency program aiming at reducing the percentage of food insecurity in the southern and eastern parts of Madagascar. Part of the program is targeting women-headed households with pregnant women or children under the age of two to provide women with training on income generating activities, as well as food to complement what they are already eating with nutrients-filled CSB and oil, helping to avoid stunted growth in children, and/or malnutrition in the same children, as well as their mothers.

This was a two-day trip, in which I mostly tagged along with my Malagasy co-workers, who were introducing the program to the beneficiaries as well as signing program agreements with the centers in Fianarantsoa chosen to keep track of the families, as well as distribute the food that will be given to them. My job was mostly to look pretty and hear the word “vaza” mentioned a half a million times, as they referred to me. The exciting part for me came on the second day, when I was able to hold a focus group with several of the beneficiaries, as well a visit the homes of three of them.

I was humbled, and honored to have met these women. They have been chosen among the many vulnerable people in their communities for being the most needy of all, and they truly are. Notwithstanding the hardship they are living through, their resiliency and ability to laugh out loud impressed me beyond believe. They joked, and laughed, and were so positive about the results expected from this program, that I was hopeful for them, as well as ashamed for all the times I have complained about not being able to afford any frivolous want we westerners think as important, many times hearing others and ourselves say things like “ I NEED a new ipod,” or “We really NEED to remodel the kitchen, it is outdated,” etc.

Two of the things I struggle the most when visiting other countries are my position as a privileged westerner, and whether or not my thoughts and plans are realistic or too western for the population I am serving. It is not rare for me to stand in a corner and watch people walk by as I ask myself what I did to deserve such a privileged life, as opposed to the random Malagasy, or Dominican, or Turkmen, or anyone else in the world struggling beyond belief to make it through the day. My family is by no means rich by American standards, and yet, here I am, in Madagascar, able to live here for six months without pay (the fact that the money comes mostly from school loans I have to pay back is another matter), able to afford simple pleasures a Malagasy would never even consider. What can I say, I feel guilty.

I thought of the same two points as I sat in the two-room home of the first beneficiary I went to visit (I will call her Lany). She is a young mother with a six-year-old daughter and a husband in prison (One of my coworkers later mentioned she thought the family was “better-off” than others in the program based on the fact that they had chairs…I wondered if the chairs were even theirs). Lany told me her priority in going through our program was making sure she gained skills to help her get her daughter educated. Her daughter is currently in a program sponsored by a local organization, in which they provide 24 children in the community two-year scholarships to attend pre-school classes before heading to regular school. Lany’s daughter is already lucky, given the fact that the average woman in the program has 4 children, and only 24 in the whole area are chosen every year. The organization covers the 11,500 ariary tuition per month, per child (roughly $5.75 US), while the family has to cover 800 ariary per month (roughly $ .40 cents). Lany told me how her family (11 people live in the two room shack) struggles to cover their part of the tuition, sometimes going up to three months without paying. The family’s contribution cover’s the preschool teacher’s fees, so when a family doesn’t pay, teachers many times get angry and bar the child from coming to class until they have the money. I was shocked and angry by this. They are so used to it, it had long been internalized and become a normal part of life: No money, no school.

I wondered why Lany’s daughter wasn’t attending regular school since she was already six, and there are public schools in the area. She said that though tuition at public schools is free, there is a 5,000 ariary fee per year that must be paid per child ($2.50 US), and since her family cannot afford to pay 5,000 ariary at once, the preschool program was her daughter’s only shot at learning to read and write, since she would probably not be able to go to school the following year or any other year, for lack of money.

Two things struck me about this revelation. One, the way in which many organizations in developing countries march in with an idea of what is good for the community, and throw money (waste money) on programs they claim are helpful. The organization that pays for Lany’s daughter to go to preschool spends 11,500 ariary PER MONTH on each child in the program, adding the 800 families have to chip in as well, it is a total of 12,300 ariary per month, per child (about $6.15 US). Regular schools cost 5,000 ariary PER YEAR. Why in the hell, I wonder, does that organization spend so much money to send 24 children to preschool (295, 200 ariary to be exact, including the families’ contribution), when they could use one month’s payment of preschool for 24 children to send 59 children in the community to regular school for an entire year. The preschool program runs for two, ten-month terms, bringing the running total for 24 children (in 20 months of preschool) to 5.904.000 ariary ($29,520 US), which could send almost 100 children to regular school for 12 years of education each (first to twelfth grade). WTF is wrong with this organization? Lany said the organization runs the preschool at their own facility, probably a good way for a tax deduction in the states at the end of the year, while 100 students are denied 12 years of education. Families in the area don’t complain of course, they rather have their children learn rudimentary reading and writing skills in those two years, than nothing at all, since they can’t afford to send them to school no matter what.

The second thing was that I could have easily handed Lany 5,000 ariary. Shit, I could have easily paid the 60,000 it would cost to send her daughter to school for all 12 years. But I didn’t, and I won’t. First, doing that would further accentuate people’s beliefs that all foreigners are walking gold mines; although compared to Lany’s circumstances the gold mine thinking is kind of true (as I was sitting in her home a man who’d heard there was a foreigner visiting stopped by with a little boy he claimed was mute and needed help…my help; Lany and my coworker told him to go away). Second, who can guarantee the money would be used for her education anyways? In a family of 11, even if they want the kids to go to school, food is priority number one, not education. Besides, why Lany’s daughter, and not the girl or boy next door? If I help one kid in such a direct way, what good am I doing for the thousands, millions of others I could not help?

I was mentally exhausted after that first visit, and still had two more visits, and another 2-hour training that day. I don’t get to complain about exhaustion though, I am way too privileged to complain when people like Lany have to sell charcoal on the side of the road for 12 hours a day to feed her family a bit of white rice and nothing else. I came in with ideas of pulling women together, forming savings groups, women associations, making them financially independent by working together. All Lany wants is training on how to manage what she alreay has: the ability to buy charcoal and resale it on teh side of the road for profit. She dreams of expanding her business to also sell beans, and other dry prooducts. This alone, would help her with her goal of sending her child to school.

Not that my ideas are bad or unrealistic; I just have a lot to learn still...

The Purse Incident (this is a long one)

My school program director came out to see me last weekend. She is flying through five or six African countries in two weeks, which I think is crazy, but if anyone can do it, it is she. It is funny that she came out on a weekend, because as it happened the organization I work for is not open during that time, and closes at 1:30pm on Fridays, the time her flight landed in Antananarivo. Not only that, but everyone in my unit is out of town, working on a roll-out with our consortium partners for the implementation of a new program targeting issues of food insecurity in the eastern and southern part of the country. All of this meant that she flew all the way here, and was only able to hang out with me. Not that I’m bad company, but her time here might have been a bit more productive had my organization been open.

Anyway, she was stuck with me all weekend, so Friday and Saturday were spent going around town talking about my work, how I’m doing, and all those good things social workers talk about to make sure others are dealing with situations as they should, and see how they can help if they’re not. We ate good food, then rented a taxi for a couple of hours on Saturday and went to a beautiful artisans’ market. We bought a few things (Malagasy people are very skilled at wood carving, and I expect to go back to that market and bring back tons of things), and stopped several times on the way back to take pictures, one time stopping at a house where the family makes brooms to sell on the side of the road; there were tons of kids running around, and we took beautiful pictures. Had more good food for dinner then parted ways so she could rest and I could hang out with a few people my roommate has introduced me to.

Sundays are a true rest day for Malagasy people. It’s a day spent at church and with family, and very few people open for business. We got up late, and seeing how I have no family here, and I don’t go to church, we decided to go for a late breakfast at a cute restaurant that just opened on the grounds of the city’s train station. After eating we took a taxi, and stopped by the nearby market called “Anakelly” (hopefully I am not butchering that) to buy some fruit and take pictures. Most of the stalls were closed, and people selling were lined up along the main street (Rue de l’Independence), so we headed that way. We’d bought a few things and were standing around trying to convince a little girl and boy that we did not need to buy plastic bags or limes, when out of the corner of my eye I noticed a pretty fidgety guy coming towards us. I thought he was coming over to sell something or beg for some money, but instead he quickly yanked the purse I had hanging around my neck right off, and took off running. I was shocked, although I’d heard the reports on the rise of theft in the city, I’ve traveled in several countries before with nothing of the sort happening to me, so it was very unexpected when it happened.

A lady selling fruit tried, unsuccessfully, to stop the guy as he ran towards the deserted web of market stalls, and I noticed another guy running after him, later concluding they were probably together, as he never came back. All I managed to do was throw a pretty annoying scream as the guy yanked the purse off, but I literally stood there thinking that running is not my forte, and even if I caught him I didn’t know if there were other people with him, or if he had a weapon. I was happy later on when my program director told me the same thing went through her head, and I knew not going after the guy was the right decision. I was a bit shaken, but as I always do, I started rationalizing the guy’s actions: Unless he is a sociopath, which I highly doubt, no one chooses to commit crimes because they like it. He was dirty, and jittery, probably homeless, hungry, nervous, or high, or a combination of those choices, and here come the two “vaza” (as they call foreigners here) looking all clean and happy and entitled, and buying whatever they want; the perfect targets for a robbery. In most societies being known as a criminal is something shameful, and I bet it is no different here, so the guy is probably an outcast, with little possibilities to get a job. He stole to eat, or get high, or, as I like to imagine, to feed a hungry family with little kids like the ones I see on the streets here every day, hands extended out (even babies hardly a year old do it), inhaling all the fumes from passing cars, waiting for a few coins to be dropped into their hands to get something to eat.

I was not mad at the guy. There were no tears, no what ifs, no tantrums, just the realization that this is something that could, and does, happen to people every day, many of whom are living from paycheck-to-paycheck and loose their money to thieves and have nothing else to pay their bills or feed their families, and many of whom get hurt in the process. That is not my case, and so getting angry for me represented a mourning of things that really don’t have the significant value of other things: life, taking care of loved ones, etc.

Now, I’m not a saint. This was a complete violation of me as a person, as a visitor to this country, as someone who came here to work for free to try to help people prevent falling into the situation that guy found himself in when he made the decision to rob me; but I do also realize that that profession is probably not that guy’s childhood dream, but something he does to survive, as wrong as it is, and not trying to defend his actions. Plus, after I realized I had also lost my apartment keys I have to admit I was a bit sour, but by then I’d had about 5 beers, and was more concerned about not getting completely wasted in front of my program director, than I was with how I would get into my apartment (my roommate happened to had left that same morning for Ambubambe, located in southern part of Madagascar, on a work trip for the next five weeks).

We spent the rest of the day trying to contact people from my office (cell phone and phone numbers were also in my purse), calling my bank in the states, not being able to get through to the bank in the states, and then having to get a hold of my parents through skype to have them do it (and of course having to explain to them how I lost the card, that I was ok, that no, the guy had not broken into my apartment, that I was safe, etc, etc).

My program director was leaving the country that night, so since I couldn’t get into my apartment, and couldn’t get a hold of my work supervisor, I stayed in my program director’s hotel room for the night, then walked myself to the office wearing the same tank top, sandals, and skirt from the day before to get everything solved.

As I was in the office, I received an email from the US embassy in Antananarivo saying a couple of their guards had found a kid playing with a purse and thinking it was unusual checked the purse to find that it was mine, and had my drivers license and credit card still inside (needles to say, the cell phone, digital camera, apartment keys and money were not found). While the lock to my apartment door was being changed, one of the drivers at the office took me to the embassy to get the items recovered, and then to the police station to report what happened, which was another adventure.

The driver was told by the two police officers behind the counter (in Malagasy of course) that he had to go to the store and buy three blank sheets of paper, one to write what happened and the other two to then go to the building next door and make two copies of he statement written. After this was all done, the two guards had to recheck what had been written by asking me what happened (one of the guards being particularly interested in knowing if I’d been at the market by myself or with a boyfriend; the boyfriend part being the point of interest). After that, the paper was given to another person in the office to be typed up (yes, with a type writer!), then that type-written copy, and our three hand-written and photocopied copies were stamped and handed back to the guards who proceeded to hand-write all the information onto another pre-typed piece of paper, where I also had to provide them with my date of birth, place of birth and my parents’ names and whether or not they were still alive or were deceased. After a couple of minutes of me asking why the hell they needed that information if they didn’t even know where the Dominican Republic was located and my parents did not live in this country, I gave up and gave them the information they wanted, which they wrote onto the paper, and then proceeded to hand-write onto a notebook (I’m not even making this shit up!). The pre-typed sheet of paper was given to me (I don’t know what they did with the remaining two million copies), and I was told I had to carry that paper so that if I saw someone on the street with my things I could stop them and demand that they accompany me to the nearest police station to testify how they came into possession of the items (yeah right I’m gonna do that shit! And what are the damned odds that I will randomly stumble upon someone on the street using my shit?).

However, notwithstanding the fact that I had just spent 2 hours seeing the same information being written and re-written and re-typed and photocopied over and over again, I was told that I had to come back to give a face-to-face statement to someone else in the office on Wednesday morning (the guy was already gone for the day…it was 3:30pm), because that day’s statement was not the formal one (WTF!). Screw that crap! That appointment was at 8am today, and it is now 2pm, so I obviously did not make it to that! What’s the point?!

The only thing that’s made me angry is people’s reaction to what happened to me. Every Malagasy who asks me what happened then says, “oh, you need to be more careful;” WTF! The purse was ON me, not on the ground, not on a chair, ON me, he YANKED it OFF my body. I keep wondering how it is I’m supposed to be more careful. I think I will ask the next person who makes that comment what it means to be “more careful” in Madagascar. What do you guys think it means? I think I might start carrying a condom in my purse.

To Begin...

I’ve never blogged before. The closest I’ve come to it before this has been in the form of status updates on Facebook. That does not seem to be enough at this point. I am starting this blog in order to answer the rain of questions and emails I have been receiving from you, friends and family, and as a way to keep you in the loop when it comes to my life here in Madagascar, and wherever else the wind carries me.