work. (or, the blog I never thought I'd write.)

Work here as a Peace Corps Volunteer is feast or famine: I either feel so busy and fulfilled by an ongoing project that I don't know where the week's gone or I feel I've done literally every possible thing I can think of to do in a day... and it's only 8:30 in the morning.

Though I do spend an exorbitant amount of time in my village in the latter state, the past month has been filled with interesting projects and activities. Here's a brief synopsis.

At the end of July, a team of researchers from a UK-based marine conservation organization visited Ambolobozokely for five days to conduct surveys and map the outlying coastal areas. Many small islands just outside of my village are home to several different species of sea turtle. I went with a team of these researchers to map the islands and act as translator. After only a half hour's boat ride across the bay, we landed on the first island, which lies on the northeastern edge of Madagascar.







Cerulean blue waves crash endlessly against its eastern shore carrying massive turtles munching on sea grasses and riding the waves. The beaches are important nesting habitats; the turtles return to the same beaches every year to nest. Juveniles have a very low survival rate, thus very few hatchlings will make it to adulthood. Those that do have to run the gauntlet of various threats; many sea turtles are caught in numerous fishing nets which are plied around the coastline of Madagascar.

We saw several Hawksbill turtles in just the short time we were there, including, unfortunately, dozens of Green sea turtle carcasses strewn along the white sands. Though the turtles are supposedly protected by Malagasy law, these precious creatures still wind up being slaughtered and eaten or sold at nearby markets. It is extremely difficult to manage environmental issues on any scale in this country, due to a lack of funding, infrastructure and manpower to actually monitor activity. In any case, it was interesting to work with this particular conservation group and see my village through new eyes.

The second, much larger project I took on recently was a collaborative effort with another PCV, Kelly Wilson, who lives only 27 kilometres away from me. Since she is my closest (white) neighbor, we decided it would be a good idea to host an AIDS awareness bike tour in our two villages. And because it is Peace Corps 50th anniversary this year, we thought we'd also take the opportunity to educate people about the great work that's been done by PCVs all over the world since 1961.

The short tour began on August 4th with two days in Kelly's village. A group of eleven volunteers and three Malagasy work counterparts from around Madagascar converged upon the village, performing educational skits, dancing (in dust), singing songs, giving speeches, providing condom demonstrations and watching a film on the dangers of promiscuity- all in Malagasy, of course.

Somewhat unluckily for all of us PCVs, the village was also hosting a massive party that weekend as part of an exhumation ceremony (long story- will explain some other time). What this meant for us is that a band was booming until 6AM literally right outside of Kelly's doorstep and none of us slept a wink. For two nights.

No mind- we persevered through, got our bikes packed up with all our gear and made our way to my village on August 6th. Traveling to Ambolobozokely is always an adventure- the road is pretty long and mostly sand- but at least it was downhill the whole way to the sea. Believe me, it's no fun going the other way. After a few bike breakdowns and a flash rainstorm, we arrived and ate a delicious lunch of fresh fried fish, coconut beans and of course, rice. We repeated the same spectacular events that we'd done the previous day, with a great turn out and lots of villager participation- even in the condom demonstrations! (Don't worry, wooden dildos were used, not live models.) And it wouldn't be a Malagasy event if there wasn't a dance party at the end that went til dawn, and that is one thing Ambolobozokely is very, very good at.

Just a week later, I hosted a brief visit to my village by none other than Peace Corps Country Director, John Reddy. He and his lovely wife Portia took a tour of town and enjoyed an ice cold Coke from the refrigerator powered by local windmills. The next night I joined them in Diego for a wonderful pizza dinner with all the Diego region PCVs. It was fascinating to talk about all the changes they've seen in Peace Corps since"way back in the day," when they served in Lesotho in the 1960's. John is a great Country Director and a strong advocate for PCVs throughout our experience. Too bad we couldn't convince him to join us on the dance floor later that night.

All in all, it's been an action-packed month or so. Now I'm sick with a case of dysentery, and that is keeping me running as well, but in a whole different way.