Hi everyone!

I'm currently in Fianarantsoa, south of Tana, on our Tech Trip. We're gone from the PC training center (PCTC) for a week, traveling around and learning the technical aspects of rice farming etc. The road we have been on is generally good (the national north-south highway), but there have been many a carsick traineee. This is due not exclusively to the curvy roads, but also due to the fact that the PC drivers are possibly the most aggressive in the country, and are also provided with some of the only cars that still operate on all cylinders and can have their brake pads replaced frequently.


So far, it's been great here in Madagascar. I had, I'm pretty sure, the nicest house in the village and one of the nicest families for the home stay. Our bathroom (kabone) even had white tiles around the hole (no indoor plumbing- but you never have to worry about faulty toilets!) that they swept daily. Pretty deluxe! That made my first month much easier than it was for some of the other trainees, so I feel pretty lucky. We are now full time (aside from this week's trip) at the PCTC until we go to our sites the first week of May. I will be somewhere between the Lac Alaotra and Parc National de Zahamena.

For the tech trip, we have gone to various volunteers' sites to learn about what they are doing and also see them in action in their communities. There is definitely a wide variety in what people do, from SRI (Rice farming), to reforestation, to environmental education. I still have no idea what specifically I will be doing, but time will tell. I know I will be near a national park, so maybe something with that. A lot of the focus of the PC is on helping provide alternative income strategies for people living around protected areas so they don't slash and burn the entire forest. There isn't much of it left.

Language:
I seem to go between thinking I'm pretty darn good and wondering how the hell I'm supposed to get by on my own, depending on if I'm talking to someone who is accustomed to foreigners and can fill in words for me or not. The PC guidelines for language progress talk often about "sympathetic interlocutors," which at first just seemed ridiculous, but now I know what they mean and I'm really happy when I find a sympathetic interlocutor to talk to; it makes me feel like communication really will be possible eventually. It is, in general, not too hard of a language to learn. Verb tenses aren't that complicated, and there is no conjugation of verbs. However, (and this is a huge problem) I would hazard a guess that about 99% of verbs start with "m." Then, to make a noun out of those, you add a "p" after the initial "m." Example. Mianatra = to learn. Mpianatra = student. Seems simple, and it is, but everything ends up sounding the same, which complicates the whole affair. All in all, I have hope, but I know it will take a while before I feel proficient in the language.

That's all for now; I'm pretty tired. Sorry it's not super organized, I'll try to do better next time. There won't be internet for a while, but then I'll be back. Keep on keeping on!