Moringa Update

Hello internets!

I wanted to post an update about my Moringa tree project. As of last Friday, the project has been fully funded! Thank you so much to everyone who donated to this – because of your contributions we will be able to plant 3,900 trees at 78 schools across five different communities! The students at these schools will not only benefit from improved nutrition, but the communities will be able to use the funds from selling Moringa seeds to purchase new school supplies. In the impoverished rural communities where these schools are located even small changes like this can make a big difference for students.

We’ve begun the process of distributing the trees, as right now is the ideal time for planting. It is also important that the schools receive the trees before June 26^th, which is Madagascar’s Independence Day. We’ll be celebrating 54 years of independence from France, and from what I’ve heard it’s going to be quite a party. It’s also essentially the end of the 3^rd trimester and the beginning of Grandes Vacances (winter break). Since this is a school-centered project, it’s important that it be carried out while there are still students and teachers at the schools!

All Peace Corps projects require a contribution from the host community, to ensure that they are invested in the program and to build a spirit of mutual cooperation. For this project, one of the community contributions is to arrange transport for the trees from Association Tinoñe’s garden here in Ambondro to the various participating schools. My counterpart and I have been working hard to ensure that all 78 schools know that their plants are now available. Some of these schools are located up to 20 km away, so organizing transportation is difficult. The communities are very excited to be receiving the trees, however, and many people are lending their ox-carts to schools so that they can come here and pick them up. We’ve also spaced out the distribution over several weeks, to give all the schools adequate time to organize transport and make their way to Ambondro.

As for the training session, we’ve set the date at June 21^st. This is a Saturday, so there will be many cars headed to Ambondro for the market, making it much easier to organize transportation for the attendees.

Everyone here is very excited to see this project happen! I’ll be sure to post more updates during the coming weeks!

Thank you all again for making this a reality!

An Androy Funeral

Hello all!

Peace Corps - South Goes to a Funeral

Last weekend I had the privilege of attending a funeral in a small village just outside of my town. I was lucky enough to have several other volunteers from the south join me for the event.

The culture of the Androy people (my region) can be quite different from that of many other areas of Madagascar. Funerals are one of the most important celebrations for the Androy, so attending this traditional ceremony was a wonderful insight into the culture of my host community.

I and the other volunteers spent the morning of the funeral preparing our traditional dress. My counterpart’s family found us some traditional cloths, and helped us put them on properly. They also braided the girls’ hair and painted their faces. It’s normal for Androy men to carry sticks or spears to ceremonies like this, so one of the children carved out walking sticks for the men. After we were all ready, we joined the rest of the family for the walk to the funeral. It’s the custom here to provide the family of the deceased with either money or animals, and some of the people we were walking with had brought a cow. There was a bit of excitement when the cow, perhaps sensing its impending demise, almost broke free. However, the others were able to restrain it after a brief struggle. Those of us without cows brought some money to give to the family. Although we carried our cash with us, many of the other families put theirs onto sticks which they carried in front of their groups like a banner.

When we got to the funeral, we were given the chance to announce our arrival by firing a rifle. Each of us took a turn with the gun (loaded with blanks!), while everyone else looked on and cheered us. After this, we circled around our cow and preformed the traditional Androy dance along with all the other members of our family. It was a bit frightening, as the cow clearly still wanted to escape, but we managed to avoid any injuries. We then met with the family of the deceased man and we gave them our money as an expression of our condolences. After this was finished our family danced again, this time in front of all the other families. I’m not sure how well we managed to pull off the dance, but everyone there seemed to love it!

After this, we were taken to a small tented area and treated to lunch – a huge bowl of rice, beans, and meat. We then waited for the other families to arrive and go through the same process that we had. After an hour or two, we met with the head of the family, who thanked us for our attendance. We were then taken to another house where we waited a few more hours before being fed even more rice and meat. The family then provided us volunteers with a beer and a goat to express their thanks for our attendance. We were all a bit shocked to receive the goat, and we had trouble figuring out just what to do with it.

Side note - it’s moments like that, when you’re sitting in a tiny village discussing what to do with your new goat, that you feel like you’re really getting the “Peace Corps” experience.

At this point it was already late in the afternoon, and having done everything required by Androy custom, we decided to return home. We thanked the family for having hosted us and we began our walk back to town. One of the other volunteers, having grown fond of our new goat, carried it back on his shoulders!
By the time we got back to my house it was already late in the afternoon and we were all quite tired. We decided to give our goat to my counterpart’s family, since they were the ones who had taken us in and guided us through the ceremony. While they prepared the goat, we made pancakes and reflected on our very unique day. It was quite the experience!

Moringa Project

In other news, my Moringa tree project has been approved by the Peace Corps! This project will provide 50 Moringa trees to 74 rural schools in the Androy region. The schools can sell the seeds from the trees in order to purchase school supplies and other basic materials, and the leaves of the trees can be used to supplement the diets of their students. In a region where food insecurity is a very serious problem, this will help to prevent malnutrition for these young students, while also increasing the incentive for them to attend school.

We still need to raise about $370 for the project, so if you can, please visit this website to donate to the project.