Aza Adino - Don't Forget

Being in the Peace Corps allows you to meet the cream of the crop in the country. Just because you are American, you get to work with government officials, extremely educated persons, and everyone who has all the decision making power in your community. Paradoxically, your neighbors are people who are extremely, or the most, marginalized in the country. My house is in a beautiful area of the village, but it is the poorest. Some days I'll look outside and see the children playing soccer and laughing and punching each other. I know them all by name now. I wonder if I will ever see them again after I leave after two years and where they will be. Will they still be here? Sitting on the dirt staring at the road, everyday, like their parents, for hours.

I was talking to the mayor this week about a project I'm working on and he just told me he was tired. He hasn't received two months salary and I just watched him rub his face in his palm for two minutes. He has the equivalent of a phD. He then looked up and asked me, "Why did you want to do this?" My answer was the stereotypical answer that I give to everyone that asks, but I really wondered what could justify my wanting to be here to him when I come from a place where most in this country only dream of. How do you answer that question? Are we truly a bunch of rich kids who want to take a two year vacation in poverty.

Ever since I graduated college until the present, I always had this strange assertion that I could never live with myself if I didn't know what living in complete poverty was like. I was such a lazy bum in college. I didn't appreciate the value of money. My tuition was paid for, I didn't have to work, and I managed to be a complete mess. I never attended class. One day I showed up and realized I had a midterm to take. I failed that class twice because I thought it sucked, frankly. The first quarter in college I never saw daylight. I slept in all day because I loved sleep and no one could tell me to go to school.

Somehow I graduated and through the generous protection of the bubble I lived in, I managed to get a job and kind of succeed. Meanwhile, I had friends who didn't have half of what I had and were so much more responsible. I always envied some of them, without them knowing, because they had so many skills that I lacked, when maybe they envied me for things I was unconsciously taking for granted.

Needless to say, this experience has showed me that if I had been the way I was in this country, I would probably not survive. Here, in Madagascar, the chances are stacked against the youth. Those who refuse to strive probably have no chance of escaping. Most of the kids use half of their parent's monthly salary for them to attend elementary school to high school every year. Tuition increases exponentially if they want to go to college and if they graduate, job outlooks are bleak.

It's been difficult for me to accept the reality of the situation. You go in wanting to do "things", but the reality is, one person cannot fix a systematic issue. At the same time, you go in with eagerness and you are faced with the reality that perhaps your help is not necessary and perhaps you are not even well liked as a foreigner.


They say Peace Corps is like living in a fishbowl. The first month I arrived I would walk down the street with stares and "oh look its the vazaha!" "Vazaha! Buy me ____!" Just yesterday I was walking home and a group of hecklers stopped me, one of them after taking a piss, yelled out "It's the Vazaha! He doesn't understand this language!"

But, on the other hand, you have completely priceless moments where you are teaching an English class and a kid gets you by surprise at how extremely, extremely intelligent he is

So I write a sentence on the chalk board "How much does an airplane ticket to America cost?" and the Malagasy English teacher asks the class to identify the subject and the verb.

This one kid raises his hand, stands up, and says that the subject is the "airplane ticket" and "cost" is the verb after about 10 other students get it wrong.

So curiously, I ask him, why is "the airplane ticket" the subject and not "America"?

He answers: Because the interrogative form, "How much" is acting on "the airplane ticket", not "America."

Honestly, I didn't even know the answer to my own question. I just asked to see what his answer was

Moments like this make this whole thing so worthwhile. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

Outtie.

(Happy Birthday Pi)