Homelessness, Goats, Sheep and Other Animals

I arrived at my “small tree lined town” (Lonley Plant about Ambanja) over 2 weeks ago. This small town is triple the size of my site in Guinea. Luckily they were not lying about the trees. But the karma gods are getting me back. During training it was so cold that I only took a bucket bath once a week. These days I need at least 2 showers a day to cool off and get some of the sweat off. Living an hour from the coast sounded marvelous from the training site smack in the middle of this huge island. The reality is that it’s HOT and HUMID!

I understood that coming to work for an organization meant that I probably would be spending some time in an office. I never fathomed that I would be living in the office….literally. After 2 weeks of house hunting I am still homeless. My demands are too great. I don’t want a huge house but I want an indoor toilet. Only the vazaha (foreigners) have toilets inside and there is an unwritten rule that the house must also have 7 rooms.

Last week our office got a visit from the big boss in the capital. Just as he is leaving he casually mentions that the office will be moving to a location five hours north in anywhere from 2 to 10 months. So after painfully looking at houses for the last 2 weeks asking for one year contracts I was a bit surprised when everyone in the office seemed to already know including those helping me look for houses but never mentioned it to me. In addition, my service ends in 10 short months therefore; I will have the joy of attempting to integrate into 2 communities and house hunt 2 times for a 10 month service!!

Before coming to site I heard rumors of working with essential oils, cocoa, cloves, vanilla and ecotourism. All very exotic and exciting. You can only imagine my reaction when my first assignment is to figure out how to install professionalism into the goat and sheep exporting business. However, not to complain too much as my work took me to a very touristy area to look at greens and lettuce last week. I was able to swim in the ocean and even take a speed boat crammed with people splashing through the sea. I am living the glamorous life of working with an organization but not without paying the price of sitting through weekly staff meetings, helping create budgets, occasionally staring at the computer and submitting receipts (improperly stamped) for reimbursement. One could say this might help me transition back into an office life. I think it might deter me from ever taking an office job again. Once advantage here is that our meetings are all in Malagasy so I have an excuse for not knowing what is going on.

When the office guard asked me if I knew how to play basketball, I said yes because after 7 days at site I was sick of telling people I was not good at things like speaking Malagasy. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this innocent response would have repercussions coming in the form of practices and games. After my first Sunday game, Club Moment, asked me to play with them in a tournament in the regional capital. Hesitantly, I affirmed that I could play in the evenings because I was supposed to be there for work. As an afterthought, someone asked me my age. For some reason, I actually replied honestly. My invitation was immediately rescinded. The team is for women 35+ but they still allow me to practice with them and play in the weekly games against the young girl’s team (ages 17 to 20). After speaking proudly with various people about how I was playing with Club Moment someone immediately asked me if I had a kid. Since we were speaking English I knew it was not a language problem, so I was a bit taken back by what I thought was a random question. Apparently, I play with Club MAMA!!

Sunday after the game exhausted and sprawled out on my mattress on the floor under the window I heard a thud. I turned my head as quickly as my tired muscles would let me and a small black furry animal was staring at me from the other side of my mosquito net. When I finally got up the nerve and ran out of the room. The guard returned with me and swiftly plucked it up by its wing and casually strolled out the door. Once outside he tossed the bat just as it unhappily chirped and tried to fly away.