Adventures in Guinea as a Peace Corps Volunteer

Saturday, September 08, 2007

Where in Madagascar Is Andrea Going to Live?

The morning after the 9 hour joyride, I biked out to my new site accompanied by another MCA field agent. The 30 minute ride was full of mountains in the distance, a flowing river and cleaner air. I was so happy to move out of the city into a small village.

When we arrived, we were greeted by the president of the village who showed me my new house. Lucy, my PC boss, had sent me a picture of the house via email. It is true that all the houses are made out of small sticks stacked up in a row and have banana leaf roofs. Going out a limb, I figured out that the picture of the house was not the same one that I was currently being show. For one, this house already had someone living there. I was told that I could live in the “kitchen” and she would live in her bedroom.

These generous people were working to accommodate me so I decided that it would fine to share this house for a bit. The detail that I was overlooking was that my double bed would not fit in my new room. Possibly sensing my pushed enthusiasm, the villager informed me that they would be building me a new house and they would start in 2 days. Much to my surprise they determined that it could be completed in 5 days. Reinvigorated but not quite sure where they were planning on putting the new house since there seemed to be no extra space, I agreed to return in 2 days to help build the house.

On Saturday, I returned to the village to see that they in fact put up the shell of the house, 4 poles and 4 more logs for the frame of the roof. The missing piece however, was that there were no other working materials. In addition, the whole of my house could be covered in 2 ½ large strides by 3 ½ large strides. Unphased by the state of things, we spoke to the president of the area who then asked for 120,000 Ariary ($60USD) to complete the house. (Pretty cheap for a house but under PC standards the community shows its commitment to the volunteer by providing the house.) Now, a bit confused and frustrated, I asked why I was not living in the house my boss had seen during her visit but there seemed to be no understandable response; oh, language barriers! I told them I was going to do a camp all next week, needed to talk to my boss and would get back to them.

Nonetheless, I really wanted to meet some of the other community members in my new village. Neither the president nor MCA agent budged upon my request, so I went up and greeted the various people who had been staring at me for the last 20 minutes. During the last visit, I had noticed that my “temporary” shared house had 3 beers and palm wine on the porch. This time, I got to meet the people drinking it on my porch as they stumbled drunkenly through a greeting at 8:30 in the morning.

Heading off to camp in Nosy Be for the week, I decided to get in touch with my PC boss. Her plan was to come visit me and work out the situation. As a result of her visit my status has shifted from no house, no work, and no community to a possible work position that should be defined in the next week or so and definitely requires another move. Thus, the housing drama continues. Nonetheless, one mystery was solved during her visit. I was never shown the original house or visited the community that Lucy arranged because specific members of that community determined that as an outsider, I would try to colonize them and steal their land as the French had done. The challenges of being an American Peace Corps volunteer!