New Year, New Challenges, and Old Projects

Hey everyone! It’s time for an update on the goings-on here in the south of Madagascar.

Mbe tsy avy ty orañe

The new year has just begun, and from the snow-covered streets of New York to the tragic deaths of many Malagasy people during the recent cyclone, the weather is proving to be no one’s friend. That’s just as true here in the southern Androy Region, where we’re several months into what should be the wet season, and mbe tsy avy ty orañe (it’s still not raining).

 Androy naturally has a dry climate, but people here can normally count on the months of December through March to bring heavy rains. This rainy season provides the region with enough water to farm, which helps the Tandroy people to make it through the long dry season. However, while the rest of the island has been suffering through cyclones and torrential rains, Androy has remained exceptionally dry. Instead of rain, we’ve been treated to day after endless day of heat, sun, and heavy winds. The latter is the most destructive – it creates dust that carries away soil and kills plants. Many crops have already died (including most of our permagarden), and if the rains don’t come soon then the whole rainy season might prove a loss for Tandroy farmers. Everyone is talking about the possibility of a kere (famine) this year.

There’s still time to prevent that, and if we see some rain in February people will be able to plant their bageda (sweet potatoes) and everything will be ok. If not, then 2015 may prove to be a very difficult year for the Tandroy people. Life remains hard here in the south of Madagascar.

School Rehabilitation Project

                Rain or no rain, life goes on. I’ve heard back about the primary school rehabilitation project, and we've gotten the green light! If all goes well, then we should be able to begin fundraising soon!

Journées des Écoles

                From February 18^th to the 20^th all of the schools in Madagascar will celebrate Journées des Écoles (School Days). This celebration usually features speeches (obligatory at all events in Madagascar) about the importance of education, games, and dancing.

The Ministry of Education has declared that the theme of this year’s event will be “Un élève, un arbre” (one student, one tree). All the schools will receive a bit of money that they can use to buy trees. It looks like most of the schools here in Androy are looking to buy Moringa trees – a great opportunity to reinforce and expand the Moringa-planting project that we carried out last June!

To prepare for the planting, my counterpart Josoah and I collaborated with the midwife who runs the local health center to hold a training session for all the school principals in my commune. They learned more about the nutritional and health benefits of Moringa trees, as well as some easy ways to integrate Moringa into traditional dishes. There was a lot of enthusiasm among the principals – all of whom received Moringa trees last year, and will receive even more in a few weeks. We’re hoping to do more Moringa-related activities during Journées des Écoles!

Until the next time!