the music of my childhood

So as I was driving back to DC this last time, I popped in a tape (yes, tape, as in...our car has no CD player) and was immediately brought back to my childhood. The tape was one L.J. Booth, and between him, Clay Riness, and Fred Small, I was transported back to Bluebird Springs Campground and the Great River Folk Festival in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. Music can do amazing things...it can make you laugh or cry, forget your troubles, make you incredibly happy or incredibly angry. I remember being at a Fred Small concert and listening to him sing this song called Scott and Jamie. It had to have been 1989 or 1990, I don't remember. But the song was about a gay couple trying to adopt two previously abused brothers. It's such a sad song, one that ends with the boys being taken away from the couple by social services. As I sat there as a preteen, I just remember being moved to tears by the song.

As much as I love Fred Small's music, I have to say I love Clay Riness more. Some of my best memories of the Great River Folk Festival involve watching Clay in concert with my dad (watching the concert with my dad, not watching Clay and my dad together in concert). His best song ever is, in my opinion, Coming of Age, an incredible account of the trials and tribulations of growing up. Please, if you have some time and have never heard Clay Riness, check out the following YouTube videos (feel free to check them out even if you have heard of him!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqppURFXVmM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWKK05AKgc8

Keep in mind these are old school Clay Riness recorded in 1986 or so. I swear I could listen to these songs over and over and never get tired of hearing them!

I often thing about going back to the Great River Folk Festival - try to get the old gang together. We'd do some log rolling, browse the amazing selection of traditional crafts, attend the Friday night concert. I'm sure the music would be fantastic, but it just wouldn't be the same without Clay, Fred, and L.J. Maybe I'll start a campaign to get those guys to come back for a reunion concert.



ps - both Fred Small and L.J. Booth seem to be available on Rhapsody; and you can find a lot of Clay Riness on YouTube or the following websites.

http://www.myspace.com/clayriness
http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/ClayRiness

Here are some photos from our most recent time in the New England area. The butterflies are from the zoo in Providence, Rhode Island and the puffins pictures are from Maine.

jen's random ramblings part 1

Every time I sit down and try to post something on the blog, I stare at the screen, type a few words, then delete them and start staring again. I want to write about Madagascar, but that makes me miss it, and honestly it's a little depressing. I want to write about traveling the U.S. but don't feel like it's really that exciting. I want to write about jobs I've applied for but I don't want to get my hopes up.

So I'm going to talk about something not related to any of these. I'm going to talk about something that's been bugging me for a couple weeks now. I'm going to talk about the ridiculousness called Jon and Kate Plus 8. Now I realize that this show is heading into it's 5th season, and that since I've only been out of the loop for roughly 1 year, there were at least 3 seasons of this show before I left for Madagascar. But I had never heard of it until the end of March, when the drama shit hit the fan and there were accusations of affairs and whatnot. Now, I don't really want to hear about all of this, but I honestly cannot get away from it; it's on the morning news, in magazines, on the radio...everywhere. So when I was channel surfing a few days ago and saw the famed title on the DirectTV guide, I just had to tune in to see what the uproar is all about. Needless to say I lasted all of 1 minute before I had to turn it off. I really don't know what the appeal is. I think it's ridiculous and I think if you don't want paparazzi taking pictures of your children, you shouldn't have agreed to make a show out of their lives.

That's it. I just had to get that off my chest. I can't wait for the reality show craze to be over.

Oh wait, there is an upside to all of this attention to the Jon and Kate Plus 8 saga...I don't have to hear about the Octomom any more! Crap. Do you think I should I have put a trademark sign after Octomom?

Jen

yes, we are back in the USA

Sorry for everyone who has wondered the answer to this question for a while now. I kept meaning to write this post but just kept putting it off because, well, it's sort of depressing. For those of you that haven't heard yet, we were evacuated from Madagascar due to continued political unrest. The Peace Corps suspended the Madagascar program and all 120-something volunteers were flown to South Africa in mid-March. We spent about a week there before closing out our Peace Corps service and returning to the Unites States.

Aren't you so glad to be back?...everyone asks. The honest answer to that question is...no, not really. Of course it has been great to see family and friends, but we were also loving Madagascar and expecting to spend another year there. We miss our home and our friends back in Madagascar, who will undoubtedly suffer more from this coup d'etat than we ever will.

Homeless, jobless wanderers that we are, we've been spending the last 5 weeks traveling the U.S, crashing on people's couches, and looking for jobs along the way. We started out driving south through Memphis (yes, we were walkin' in Memphis, and yes, we had our feet 10 feet off of Beale), and on to New Orleans. I'd never been to the Big Easy and Dave was so excited for me to enjoy my first hot boiled craw fish.



From New Orleans we headed to Washington, DC, then on to NYC. We'll be heading back to DC soon to attend a career fair put on by the Peace Corps. So although our Madagascar adventure looks to be over, we still have a lifetime of adventures ahead of us and I will do my best to keep this blog updated with some of them!

A typical sunset from our front porch.

We'll hopefully be seeing those again soon!

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.

at the market

Rice and meat...what more do you need???

this is the life...

world map project

Remember how I mentioned before about painting a world map mural? Well, this is most likely the wall it will be painted on...a "town hall" of sorts. Can't you just picture it?

finally a current photo!

So this is about as current as it gets...this picture was literally taken about a half hour ago. I didn't want you all to forget what we looked like!

hour and a half on the internet and 3 pictures later...

Now for some more pictures...yah! Remember how I told y'all we wear only flip flops here and we have become connoisseurs? Well, it's hard not to when there are sellars at every market with rows and rows of flip flops!

I know by some of my other pictures some of you think all we do here is party! :) We just forget that things that are normal to us now are still fascinating to you - as they should be! Anyway, here's another photo of a fuel efficient cook stove that we made. We had an awesome turnout for this training session as you can see.


And finally, how could I forget the spiders? This is just one of the many things I've learned to live with here. The coin next to this big mamma is about the size of a US half dollar. I know...right! I don't think MN spiders will over bother me again!

some fun pics

So I wanted to upload some pictures but it's going really slow so I have to pick and choose wisely. Therefore, here is an awesome picture from the end of our training in April. We had a talent show and 5 of us lip-synched to Bye Bye Bye...that's right, we lip-synched to *NSYNC!

This one's from our IST (In Service Training) in August. We had a contest to see who could find the most ridiculous frip shirt...frip is the used clothing they sell at markets here. I think Chris and I blew away the competition!

If I can get online tomorrow I'll try to get some more pictures uploaded. On this connection, even doing 2 is testing my patience!!

I almost forgot

If anyone has specifics questions regarding living conditions, projects, etc. feel free to post a comment on the blog. If you're wondering about a certain thing, chances are others are too. We'll respond as soon as we can; we typically have internet access every 4 weeks or so! Ask away!!!

One Day More

I guess it's finally time to tell you about the duck...warning, story does not have happy ending!! Some time ago we approached a friend about getting a duck or two for pets. We asked how we would go about doing that, and she told us we had to get a few duck eggs, and then find a chicken that was brooding to sit on the eggs and hatch them. Apparently a chicken raised duck is better than a duck raised duck – maybe they learn to find food better, who knows. She said her chicken was brooding, so we just had to give her some eggs. We asked where we could get some and she looked at us in that special way that people look at you when you ask a really stupid question (but, oh, that's right there are no stupid questions!) and said “an'bazary.” Of course...at the market! How could we have been so naïve? Needless to say we though it was crazy – who knows how long these eggs were at the market or if they we even fertilized. But we bought 2 and sure enough about a month later there was a duck chick wondering around her yard (one had died already). Unfortunately, a week later we learned that our duck was very (lost) and more than likely maty (dead). By now it's probably very maty...hahaha.

So no duck anymore – but we have inherited a few chickens that know our yard is a safe haven for animals (most animals at least, not the cats that shit on our porch) and who frequently escape the torturous kids next door. Then, of course, the kids ask us to chase the chickens out of our yard so they can catch them.

So it is in Madagascar where a duck with a chicken mom is never given a second glance – I think there's probably a lesson in that but we'll save that for another day.

I bought a new pair of flip flops this week – these would be my “dress flip-flops” if there is such a thing! Some friends of ours who also served in the Peace Corps on a tropical island warned us that we'd become flip-flip connoisseurs...they were right!

Well, married 5 years now and still in love...spending every waking hour (and non-waking hour) together hasn't changed that (that's a good sign, right?) :) We ate spaghetti for our anniversary meal – no rice on that special day! In fact we cut way back on rice – and haven't even had it for breakfast since October-something. In June we had bought a “goony” sack full of rice (somewhere between 200 and 300 cups...we measure things here in kapoaka's and I'm not sure the exact conversions, but it started out with 200 kapoaka's in it). Anyway, we though it would last us about 6 months, but now we're pretty sure it will last us the rest of our service.

What else do we eat if not rice, you ask? We've gotten pretty creative at cooking – pastas, breads, cakes, deviled eggs, homemade tortilla chips and salsa, and of course lots of popcorn! We eat “street food” also, but cut back on that after a couple bouts of gihardia and intestinal worms – but trust me you don't want to hear about that. Now we make sure our street food is fresh and if it's meat, masaka tsara (well-done)!

We've also cut back on our water hauling trips. It's rainy season now and we made a small but worthy water collection system out of bamboo. When it pours our buckets fill up in a matter of seconds!

We've been here almost a year now and I've read quite a few books...books as diverse as Grapes of Wrath and Twilight (apparently it's huge in the States – I wouldn't know but another volunteer handed it to me so I read it). One I'd recommend to everyone is called Sex Lives of Cannibals. Check out the book from you local library if you want a hilarious account of life on a still developing tropical island. It doesn't take place in Madagascar but there are many similarities. I found myself laughing out load – Dave kept asking “What? What?” Then he read it and understood. Our friend Jennine read it next, now I have my dad reading it too! It's contagious!

Well, here's our work plan for the year. We're still trying to get a meeting with our “partner organization” to review it. We've been trying for about a month now, but so things go here. At the end of this month we should be planting trees for the reforestation project I described months ago. In March, after the rains let up, we plan to paint a mural on the “town hall” building with anyone that wants to help. The mural will be a huge world map – a little educational tool for the community. Most people think Etazony (the U.S.) is near France. By the way, Etazony is Malagasified from the French Etats Unis, the lasting effects of French rule though 1960. Also, we are still working on building fuel efficient cook stoves and hope to expand that project to nearby fokontany's (the smaller villages surrounding our town).

In February or March we will probably be submitting a proposal to raise money for 3-5 wells in our town. We have pumps now but people on the edge of town are too far from those pumps and get their water from the river, which is also where they bathe, shit, wash dishes and clothes. We plan to submit the proposal to Peace Corps Partnership Program, where it will be posted online and then anyone can donate money. Once the project is funded we will be notified and can start the project. I will keep you all updated on the progress of this project and if interested, you can donate too. Right now we are still in the creating a budget phase of the application.

A few months ago now we started a small tree nursery and grew about 20 seedlings. Our fiends (a.k.a. all the neighborhood kids) helped us plant about 5 trees in our own yard and a few more in their own yards. They loved helping (they're great at digging holes) and keep bothering us about planting more. So this coming winter (probably August – remember we're in the southern hemisphere) we plan to make a larger nursery with those kids and then plant trees in and around our town next November/December when the rains start again. The trees will not only help with erosion control but provide some much needed shade (especially helpful when the sun passes directly overhead...twice a year!).

We're also coordinating some training sessions in our town with other Peace Corps Volunteers. We have a friend in the Small Enterprise Development sector that will visit and do some basic business training. Also we hope to get a Health sector volunteer to talk about what they do (our town is interested in getting a health volunteer here too). Probably we'll also have other Environment volunteers visit to talk about their own work and projects. It's a great way for our community to learn more about Peace Corps and the various projects around Madagascar, but also a good excuse to see all our friends!

I guess it's about that time for Obama to take over the presidency. It will be interesting to see what changes occur, especially (for us) concerning Peace Corps. It's strange following US news from another country, if you can even call it “following.” About the only news I've heard since the election is gas prices went down, Hillary Clinton is the new Secretary of State, and we still don't know who the new MN senator is?!?!?! Don't tell me the problem is hanging chads...it's probably all those absentee ballots coming in from obscure places like Madagascar! Anyway, the best news we get comes not from the BBC or VOA, but from my email subscription to the News From The Stupid Zone!

I think I need to wrap this up now or go on all day...and regardless of what you all think, I do have other think to do! :) I hope you all have enjoyed this installment of Dave and Jen's Excellent Adventures. Stay tuned.

Jen

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Dave and I just returned from a fantastic little getaway to the very south of Madagascar. We spent 6 nights in the spiny forest, at a private reserve called Berenty...and saw so many lemurs I couldn't believe it! Here are few pics - sorry they are so small but it takes so long to upload large photos here - hope these are good enough!

Baby sifaka just hanging out.

Me in the forests of Berenty.

Red fronted brown lemur

Mother and baby ringtail lemur in the spiny forest.

Sifaka crossing a road in Berenty.

Ringtail lemur warming himself up in the sun after a cool night.

Dave and a Baobab tree.

Synchronized sifakas!

Us, our friend Nancy, and some of the Berenty staff members

Election Day!

This is from the election party we attended at the American Ambassador's house in the capitol (I'm in the front row with the blue shirt)!

october update

I finally have some time to sit down at a computer and tell you all a little bit about what we're doing and how we're doing!

We can't believe we've already been in Madagascar for over 7 months – the time is just flying by! A good part of our daily routine is taken up by cooking; because we have no electricity or running water we have no way to really keep leftovers. So we are always cooking 3 times a day. The Malagasy people eat a lot of rice – with every meal including breakfast. Dave and I definitely eat more rice than in the States – we usually eat rice once a day, sometimes twice, and on the rare occasion 3 times. We also make a lot of pasta and bread baked in our “Peace Corps” oven, a pot with an inch of sand in the bottom and empty tin cans to set the baking dish on. This works great and we're able to make breads, biscuits, and cakes! We also eat a lot of fruits and veggies – especially tomatoes, bananas, carrots, and whatever else happens to be in season. The mangoes area coming into season now and I love the mangoes here! A Malagasy friend also taught me how to make a cold salad using un-ripe papaya! We also eat a lot of eggs, fish (we are only a few miles from the coast), and zebu (the kind of cattle raised here). Needless to say we eat well and are staying healthy!



As I've said before, the organization that requested us is the national park service of Madagascar (ANGAP – Association Nationale pour le Gestion des Aires Protegees). In July we helped them put together a grant proposal for a rather large reforestation project in the park, and word is it was accepted and the money will be disbursed soon by UNESCO. This project will probably take up a lot of our time, as well as helping to prepare the park for tourists – it is a new park and mostly those who visit now are researchers. We have already made friends with research students from France, Germany, and Belgium. We are also working with a very “mazoto,” or motivated, farmer that approached us about compost and gardening intensification techniques. He will be planting a large tomato field in November and has offered us a small section to plant as well. Another project we expect to spend a good amount of time on are the fuel saving cook stoves, of which there is a picture posted on the blog. One of the main pressures on the park is deforestation, often for cooking purposes. The cook stoves are made of all locally available materials, and decrease the amount of wood needed to cook. We expect to soon be traveling to smaller villages on the periphery of the park to teach them about the impacts of deforestation and how the cook stoves can help relieve these pressures.

As if that's not enough to keep us busy, we often let the neighbor kids come over and play on our porch – we have a box of toys and games that they love (especially the matchbox cars and the wooden tops that my dad sent us!).

As for the weather – well, it's really hot and only getting hotter, but I'm starting to get used to it. People here say the hottest months are October, November, and December. The rainiest months are January and February. It apparently rains a lot – we'll keep you updated as we make our way through our first rainy season here. Like I said I'm getting used to being sweaty all the time – the only time it really drives me crazy is at night (however, we did have a nice rain yesterday evening and it was actually cool enough all night to use a thin blanket!).

As for world events – well, we're very uninformed at the moment – we have a shortwave radio and can sometimes get the BBC or VOA for about 15 minutes in the evening before we lose the signal. We sometimes catch the summary of the news and know that the race is down to McCain and Obama and we also know their running mates. We also know gas is ridiculously expensive but we don't know how much (it's still costs more here...about $6 - $7 a gallon). A volunteer friend of mine was sent a bunch of newspaper sports pages about the Olympics, so I'm catching up on those – I guess that only makes me about a month behind!

As for mail – thanks a bunch to those who have sent letters and/or packages! It's great to read about how you all are doing...unfortunately mail at our site seems at times to be very slow. Just today I finally received 2 packages that took 3 months to get here...while we've received letters in about 2-3 weeks! We've been sent both first class mail and priority mail and first class takes about twice as long. Some people had emailed me and asked what would be good to send – so here are some things that we can just never have too much of :


1 – LETTERS! (cheap and easy – and we love to read about you – but don't send postcards, apparently those get stolen and stuck on the wall of a post office somewhere)

2 – popcorn (not microwave popcorn – duh!)

3 – oatmeal/granola/other breakfast type goodies (rice for breakfast really sucks!)

4 – newspapers or clippings on local/US/world goings on

5 – CHEESE (any non-perishable, i.e. velveeta, canned cheese, dry Parmesan, etc.)

6 – crystal light type drink mixes – we drink a lot of water!!!

7 – magazines (hunting/guns, science, news, even gossip...anything BUT Newsweek)

8 – any good 'ol American snack food – candy, trailmix, you name it, we'll eat it!


Okay, what else can I say? There is so much – this country is so beautiful and the people are so unique and vary so much depending on the part of the country you are in. People on the plateau (central Madagascar) are more Asian looking, the people here on the coast more African looking. The cultures and dialects vary just as much, and Dave and I really enjoy the Sakalava people and culture. We are integrating well and people have been very accepting – many have never seen a white person that (a) doesn't speak French and (b) speaks Malagasy! The pace of life is slower here, but again, the time is flying by.

We plan to be in the capitol again and will have access to internet early November (3rd - 7th). I get to see the dentist (an American dentist) for my routine cleaning on my birthday! Hopefully my b-day present will be no cavities! Will write again then – take care everyone!

Jen and Dave

ps – In the next couple of weeks I am getting a pet duck! It's still too young yet to take from it's mother...which is a chicken. Long story...but this is Madagascar and crazier things have happened! Someday I'll elaborate...

This is the building where the ANGAP people work, and also where we sometimes work if we're not out doing stuff with people in town.

This photo was taken on "vingt-six" (June 26th, the Malagasy Independence Day). We had a parade through of all the different school kids from our town and the surrounding villages.

Here is our backyard. Our garden is coming along nicely and we've already eaten green beans. Hopefully in about a month we'll have ripe tomatoes to eat!

This is me and a friend from Canada drinking THB (the only domestic beer in Madagascar). It's no Yuengling, but it is beer.

still more pics...aren't ya'll excited?

This is Dave and our friend Jennine standing in front of our house...it's really big for Peace Corps Standards!

These are some of the kids that come over to play...we bring our the mat and a box of toys/games and play with them until either they or we are tired out!
This is a clay fuelsaving cookstove that we taught our counterpart (who works with us on a day-to-day basis) how to make. Many people in the town are now interested in making one too!

This is called a "taxi brousse" and it how we get aruond in Madagascar! Usually the stuff on top is piled twice as high!

Here's Dave standing in our "kabone." Pretty sure you can all guess what it's for!

Here's a view of our town (which I cannot name here due to Peace Corps rules and regulations) from the bridge!

Stay tuned for more photos tomorrow!

Jen