Akany Avoko - village life

At the moment I am the only volunteer living at the centre, although the lovely Paulina and Patty from Poland live down the road for the next week and a half. There are other volunteers coming, but it's nice to get settled in on my own to start with. Also nice to be able to have the big bright double room until it's next required by a couple! The volunteer house sleeps 6. The first week I did spring clean with the help of the fabulous Lorna and the gorgeous CAMS girls (6 vocational training teens). The kitchen is a little dark but that's made up by the fact that the there is a balcony with a hammock on the first floor, overlooking some buildings and tropical plants, palm trees and bright flowering hedges. The sun setting behind the main office building is a beautiful way to watch the day end.

I wake up around 5am with the sounds of people stiring and getting ready for the day ahead, kids playing, showering, washing clothes...they are day people, night time is for sleep! So I read or doze for a couple of hours and my alarm goes off, I make porridge with banana, have a glass of vazaha-priced juice and go to the market, or riding. I go up to the childcare centre and play games and read to the babies, who are just soooo gorgeous. It's a bit like being in a house full of crazy people, they way they act sometimes, there is a lot of jealousy and grabbing going on for adult attention, undestandably, as there are about 10 or so of them. My second visit there I encountered Sanja, 4 or 5, I'm not sure, Malagasy kids are smaller than Vazaha kids, she was rocking on her feet with a big grin singing "Od Macdonal adafar E I E I O Moo moo here adamoomoo dere hereamooderamooevewhereamoomoo". The sweetness of children.

I start lessons at 11.30 with the on-site primary school, 4 classes. I will next week be allocated activities with different age groups, then at 4 I teach teenage boys from the boys home down the road. 6 of them help around Akany, kind of vocational training, and they seem to really enjoy the lessons. After playing English word Bingo with them the other day, they yell out "Bingo!" when they see me. Teaching the older girls and staff with songs seems to be the way to go, thanks to my wonderful mate Ali for giving me those ace songs sheets!

Equestrian happiness :)

Centre équestre du Rova d'Ambohidratrimo is an amazing horse facility, expertly run with quality horses and fabulous staff. Andre the owner speaks good English and wants me to try all his horses. We went for a long ride on the weekend with Zu, a VERY good rider, who doesn't speak English but gives me excellent instruction through Andre's translation. I can't believe I've found somewhere in Madagascar with a menage and well trained horses in dressage and jumping. I jumped a 2ft double for the first time since I was a teenager yesterday! I know, only little stuff, but maybe I'll go bigger next time.

After my 7.45am Preschool English lesson, I stroll to the centre in 20 minutes, through cobble-stoned villages, picking up some rice cakes along he way. There are a few "Vazaha" callouts, but mainly people politely say "Bonjour Madame". They are used to us whiteys in Ambohidratrimo (pronounced Amboodatrim) as Akany usually has up to 8 volunteers at one time, so it's mainly the children being sweet. Refreshingly, there are very few beggars here, which is probably down to the fact that it is a fairly affluent area.

Rice, the fried stuff and rhum (YUM!)

The majority of Malagasy eat rice 3 times a day. The price of rice to them is like the price of oil to us. Wet rice in the morning, dry rice for lunch, then any combination of the 2 for dinner. With veg and meat if you can afford it. I eat lunch at Akany every week day, so get my fair share of rice, and am findng myself craving it sometimes in the evenings as well. There have been a couple of occassions where I've had left over rice for breaky too! Sounds healthy BUT most of it is white rice, so pretty junky really. So I try to get my wholegrains from oats in the morning instead.

Most little shops in villages sell some form of fried stuff. sweet, savoury, in between, battered fried veg, potato cake things with or without curry, Moof balls (like a doughnut really), deep fried bananas, and my favourite wheat free options, little cakes made of rice or casava flour. Yet to find one in Ambohidratrimo to top the awesome ones in Ambatolampy though. For 1.6p you can buy one, but it's hard to carry that denomination of coin around with you, so I ususally buy 10 at a time and stuff myself silly. Coffee shops are a little walk in store where you stand to drink your coffee with condensed milk and stuff yourself with fried cakes. I am in my no coffee phase right now, so haven't had the pleasure (or opposite, I've heard mixed reviews!) of the Madagscar coffee experience. Choclate on the other hand, MY OH MY they make good chocolate here! Must be the vanilla.

The rhum (rum) is Mada is AMAZING. So good it's dangerous. Of course you mix with coca cola, so, once again, how healthy! 1 pound 50 will buy you 500ml rhum and a big bottle of coke - although I haven't yet drank 1 of these to myself luckily. I'm glad I have good toothpaste with me.

So, despite having good intentions of a good vegetable rich diet here (which, apart from all the afore mentioned calories, I do!), I will probably leave Madagascar with a few extra kgs. Oh well, gotta get into the local scene!

Akany Avoko - Ambohidratrimo

My new placement is with Akany Avoko, 45 minutes north of Tana. It's a children's centre for approx 140 kids and teenage girls awaiting decisons by the court on their various family situations. It's gorgeous here, such a nice atmosphere. Volunteers live on site in one of the buildings, it feels like it's own little village. This week is induction, so I've been hanging out with the babies and little kids, just getting a feel for the place.

Ambohidratrimo is more suburban than Ambatolampy. I haven't seen a zebu cart here, although in a village halfway between here and Tana, zebu seem to take themselves for walks down the main street. The market is very civilised and they are used to vahaza here as there are often volunteers at the centre.

I will be teaching English and music and my schedule for next week is looking pretty chockers, looking forward to being ultra busy! http://www.akanyavoko.com/

Teaching is fun!

My 20 minute lessons with the grade 4, 5 and 6 years olds are always good fun. There's really nothing like a classroom full of  40 beaming faces greeting you with a loud "Hello!" and waving madly, obviously ecstatic to see you again. I respond with "How are you today?" and the reply "I'm fine thank you!" in metered chorus. They are total parrots, teaching them words such as window or door, then pointing to a chair and asking "What's this?" inevitably begs the repsonse "What's this!" so back to basics, I need to play out their response and walk through the motions. We are now onto the difference between "This is" and "That is", with me sitting on a chair, patting it rhythmically to the words "This-is-a-chair" and then they copy, I walk away from the chair and throw my arm rhythmically at the chair saying "THAT-is-a chair" - total basics, I have been taking the English language for granted for so long, I never even noticed all these differences in how we say things. Learning French on the other hand, with all these masculine and feminine differences - what's that about?! Glad I don't have to teach that but it's hard to learn.

I took an English club last week of fifteen17-21 years olds, beginners, the teacher explained to them that I don't speak English or French, and then LEFT THE ROOM. I couldn't believe my eyes. But it was great, somehow I had them playing Simon Says using "Please", referring to my French dictionary intermitently, smiling faces of "he" and "she" on the board and hand signals, we got through a lot. I wasn't prepared, however the English club yesterday, 100 pupils. Somehow I fudged through the half hour but I really don't know how half an hour in a class as big as that can be of much benefit to them since they get no individual attention at all.

Teaching is kind of like being on stage, I think I like it!

Dodging zebu carts

 Zebu are a hump-backed cow which are sacred in Madagascar in many tribes. They are used as beasts of burden, as you can see here, again, out my back door. This is the RN7, the main road through the South of Mada. As well as the semi-trailers, crazy taxi-brousse drivers, the chickens and the pedestrians, I am constantly faced with these possibly ferocious bull creatures. I haven't looked too hard to be honest, but I assume the bulls are the strongest, so I haven't yet been up to pat one - apart from a calf - photo to come, but dodgy internet connection is impeding the upload!

I also see them a lot out riding. I ride twice a week at Rodeo Grill with my guide, Eddie, taking me through the most beautiful landscapes of rice paddies, eucalypt plantations, rural villages of mud brick houses and thatched roofs, children staring at the odd sight of a horse, people asking Eddie how much I pay him for this luxury...it's about 6 pounds fifty for an hour's ride, the equivalent of about 2 months private school education in Ambatolampy. Yesterday we passed a particularly large, muscular bull tethered by it's horns to graze and I noticed with the length of the rope available to him, he could have reached us. He seemed interested in my horse and proceeded to move quickly to greet us, luckily my horse (Lady Fountain, a 20 year old ex-racehorse) is quite responsive and I kicked her into a fast trot to dodge the beast. We could have been mince meat man. The zebu carts cause constant diversion of our trail, especially on Thursday, which is market day, when the farmers travel for hours to sell their wares in the bustling market in Ambatolampy. Eddie and I attempt conversations in my crappy French and few Malagasy words, and his stunted (but ever improving with my assistance!) English. Our catch cry after a long gallop is "Tsara be!" "Very good!". We have many discussions about mud and rain, which affects where and how fast we ride.

 

The view out my back door and over the back wall.