IST

After three months at site, PCVs return to Mantasoa to go through In-Service Training (IST). This is a two week program in which the first week is with a counterpart of the PCV's choice, and the second week is more focused on how to begin projects. I chose one of my ACs (same as a CHW but I'll be calling them AC from here on out) to attend the first week with me. We talked about the PC approach to development, project design and management, nutrition and cooking demonstrations, and also the values of Malagasy and Americans. The last topic was...interesting.

When we first arrived for the training, my stage was very excited to see each other. We exchanged all kinds of funny stories from the first three months at site. We also exchanged stories of frustrations. It can be very difficult to be the only American in your community. There are many cultural exchanges that either the Malagasy don't quite understand or the PCV doesn't quite understand. Then all the volunteers got together and vented about these frustrations. It was comforting to talk to people going through similar situations at site and can understand the rollercoaster of emotions. For the record, we do love our sites, our jobs, the Malagasy, and the country. The PCVs and the counterparts each came up with the top five values for the different cultures so that we better understand each other. These values are specific to the groups that came up with them and I just thought they were interesting to compare.

Values of the Malagasy (what our counterparts decided)
1. Kinship
   -Family comes before job/money
   -Important to visit sick friend/family member and bring food/money
2. Respect
   -Elders
   -During speeches, show respect to audience by apologizing
   -Appearance is a sign of respect to those around you
3. Cultural Practices
   -Turning of the bones (Famadihana)
   -Asking for blessings from the ancestors (Joro)
   -Circumcision (Sambatra)
4. Taboo (Fady)
   -Taboos in places (ex. can't plan beans in certain areas)
   -Taboos on certain days (ex. can't work on Thursdays)
   -Taboos about behavior (ex. the father can't sit on the head of the bed of the daughter/sister)
5. Food
   -Sign of respect
   -Doesn't belong to one person but to the community

Values of Americans (what the health PCVs decided)
1. Tolerance
   -Gender equality
   -Value differences
   -Diversity
   -Positive relationships with animals
2. Independence
   -Personal space
   -Privacy
3. Discretion
   -Platonic relationships
   -Sexual relationships
4. Work
   -Practice what you preach
   -Taking initiative
5. Constructive Criticism

During the second week we learned about grant writing, specific programs for projects, and of course language. I'm looking forward to returning to site so that I can organize all the information we talked about and decide on a project. I have a big meeting with my ACs in August to talk about what my counterpart and I learned at IST, project ideas, what the next steps are, and hopefully a three month plan. It seems I'm about to become very busy!

You know you're a PCV when:
-PCTC now seems like a super nice hotel
-Hot showers have become a luxury

My New Gasy Family

During my installation and first few hours at site, a woman came up to me and said, ‘Nice to finally meet you, I’m your new Gasy mama!’ Since then I have gotten to know her and her family, and they invite me over for lunch on the weekends. As a thank you I decided to cook spaghetti for them. They watched me closely to learn how to make the sauce and I encouraged them to try to make the sauce again in the future if they liked it. I thought the spaghetti turned out well even though the sauce was a little watery and my Gasy family claimed there wasn’t enough salt. However, after the spaghetti the still brought out rice and loaka (the food that’s served over the rice)-a whole other meal! At first I thought maybe they made the rice and loaka as a backup in case they didn’t like the spaghetti but that wasn’t the case. My Gasy family just simply stated that they aren’t full until they’ve eaten rice!

You know you’re a PCV when
-You’ve gone to bed before 6:00pm.
-You consider staring into space to be an acceptable pastime