Ino vaovao?

I don't know if any of you have heard on the news yet, but we are having some political unrest here in Madagascar. First of all, we (and all volunteers here) are safe! We have been consolidated to larger cities around the country and are currently waiting to see how things unfold. I'm not sure what's available on the internet as far as news, but here's what we've been hearing.

A couple weeks ago there was a radio interview about opposition views of the current administration, and the president shut down the radio station. The mayor of the capitol city has some major disagreements with the current president, and he subsequently called for non-violent protests that turned violent in the capitol, including burning down another (president owned) radio and TV station. The following days saw violence, rioting, and looting in regional capitols around the country.

The mayor has now declared himself president. The two have apparently said they will sit down and work throught this peaceably; in the meantime we are waiting at our consolidation point to see what happens. If things stay this unstable for the next two weeks, we may be headed to another country until things get sorted out. Again, we are safe here. We have seen no violence, only heard about it. Peace Corps is taking good care of us and have good emergency action plans in effect.

I obviously have internet at our consolidation point, and will try to keep everyone updated. However, there's no gaurantee the connection will work especially with the civil unrest.

This has not made headline news but if you look I guess you can find stuff on the internet. My parents have been staying somewhat updated that way. At the bottom right of this page there may be some links to current news stories about Madagascar.