Rainy Season

Rainy season begins late November and lasts through February. It looks like a different world at my site. What used to be dry, dusty, and barren has become green, lush, and full of growing produce. My yard alone has produced papaya, mangos, peaches, pineapples, pumpkins, and guava. Different fruits are abundant but quickly shift from the three week period of litchis for example to mangos everywhere I look. Sellers crowd the taxi brousses selling 3 pineapples for only 1000AR (less than 50 cents).

However, the abundance of rain makes transportation incredibly difficult. A trip to the banking town that used to take 1 1/2-2 hours now takes 4-5. The trip into my region from Tana used to take 8-9 hours but took one volunteer 24 hours. The roads are either dirt or pavement filled with potholes. The river banks have over flowed flooding the roads making it impossible for brousses to get through.

My first experience with the flooded road occurred in December. I waited 2 hours for my brousse to pick me up only to see the driver ride by on his bike saying he refused to drive that day. I hopped on a taxi-bicycle that took me 10 km. As we approached the flooded area, I saw tons of cars, trucks, people, and even sellers of food lined up on the side of the road and the river rushing into the road creating a new river. One brousse attempted to gun it through the new river. I watched the nose dip down and up while water rushed onto the windshield. I don't think it ran after that.

My taxi-bicycle driver carried my bag and held my hand leading me the through the river despite what I said ('Tsy matahotra aho' or 'I'm not scared). I took off my shoes and we walked through the shallowest part that was still up to my knees (at this point I was afraid of falling). Once I reached the other side I waited for another brousse to reach the flooded road and turn around, carrying me the rest of the way to the banking town.

As the rainy season continues it becomes increasingly more difficult to find taxi-brousses that are willing to come to the region. On a separate trip, the road had turned to mush and I walked 2 kilometers with my bags to the next town. It's quite the experience that the Malagasy go through 4 months out of every year.

You know you're a PCV when
-you kind of like watching commercials on torrented tv shows. They make you feel connected.
-seeing a goose on top of a car or a pig on the back of a bike doesn't even phase you a little.