Last week Anivorano and vacation in Nosy Be

A short blog today since we haven’t that much to tell since we are just doing nothing and chilling at pools and beaches! :)

During our last week of work in Anivorano, we have been helping Krushi and Alethiea with finishing the maternity and delivery room. They made really nice drawings on the wall. It looks so much lighter and more colorfull then it used to. The midwives and the other staff are all very pleased with the result. We also had to say goodbye to Presley, the coordinator, and the other volunteers. We are gonna miss them, after 4 weeks of hard work together. 

We have been teaching English in a secondary school. We gave two lessons about subjects such as malnutrition, AIDS, sport, smoking, khat and alcohol. The pupils were about 16y old. Most of the Malagasy people don’t speak any word of English, so the level isn’t really high, that’s understandable, since French is their second language. Their lessons (except of Malagasy and English) are all given in French. There were some really motivated students, who were really trying hard to learn English. It was so much fun to give the lessons since they were really interested.

On Saturday, we left for NOSY BE! Nosy Be is an Island in the West coast, which is THE holiday destination of Madagascar. We left at 5am to Ankify, where we took a boot to Nosy Be. After a half hour taxi drive, we reached our destination: Andilana! We have been staying in a nice bungalow, 2 minutes from the beach. About that beach, the most beautiful one we’ve ever seen! White sand, palm trees, turquoise see, islands,.. And the best of all: almost no people! Except of a few bungalows, there is only one big hotel in the neighbourhood. We also ate a lot of fish and see fruits, all delicious (and cheap). 

Today we moved to the Grand Blue hotel which is a lot more luxurious than our last bungalows. There’s a really nice pool and a whirlpool, the pictures are self-explanatory. We enjoyed again our whole day while doing nothing besides moving from the shade to the sun and back. Now we’re off to go out for dinner (3th time this day) and well spend or evening drinking cocktails at the hotel bar. 

See you! (Although we might consider to stay at this place, of course you can come and visit us!)

Alex and Renée

Life as a ‘Vazaha’

Life as a ‘Vazaha’

Vazaha is the Malagasy word for foreigner or stranger. Little kids point at you when you walk by and say ‘Salut Vasaaaaah’. Sometimes, they even call their little friends to come to see the vazahas. Really funny to see! The older kids are even making pictures of us sometimes, very weird feeling we must say. In the beginning, it was a sometimes a little strange, never to be able to walk around without being looked at or hearing the Salut vazaha. But now, we’re kinda used to it and we just respond with ‘Bonatsara’, what means something like hello. In Anivorano, the people are really used to vazahas walking around in the neighbourthood of the Maventy project, so they exept of the little kids, they don’t even bother anymore. 

Streetfood

Since 2 weeks, we started trying the food on the streets. (after being scared before to get sick) Everything is being sold in little portions and it seriously costs nothing at all! (about 4 cents per thing). The best stuff is according to Renée the friend bananas which are kinda similar to those from the Chinese. Alex favorite is the “durum”roll without meat but some vegetables inside. Further there are friend sweet potatoes which really fill you up and lot’s of “oliebollen”.  We also have our favourite place, were we sit down at a little table outside, and just eat with the locals. And until so far, no one of us got sick of this tasty food!

Giving birth in Anivorano

Friday, when we came in the delivery room to paint the walls, a woman was lying there, ready to give birth. Marina the midwife, told us we could stay to watch. So of course we stayed. All birth knowledge we had came from tv shows such as ‘sixteen and pregnant’, and we expected horrible scenes with lots of screaming and blood. It was nothing like that at all. Once the woman started pushing, the baby was out in 1 or 2 minutes! So, less spectacular then we had expected. The baby was super cute. We also saw the afterbirth, which went also smoothly. In contrast to Europe, the baby was immediately taken away to get dressed, measured and weighted. The mom was even out of the room before the baby. 

 

The delivery room before painting

Chillin’ in Diego Suarez/Antsiranana

This weekend, we stayed in Diego Suarez. Yesterday, we went to the swimming pool of the most fancy hotel of Diego, the Grand Hotel (a real vazaha hotel). We did nothing but lying in the sun and swimming. (Yes, you can be jealous now). Although it’s ‘winter’ here, it’s still about 30 degrees and sunny. For less than €15, we had a whole day entrance to the pool and a nice lunch included. 

Plans for the next 2 weeks

In an hour, we go back to Anivorano. The rest of the week we are probably gonna do some screenings, finish the painting of the maternity and the delivery room and make shelves for the storage room. Next Saturday, we leave for Nosy Be to have a little vacation (google it and get jealous again ;) ), we stay there until Thursday and then we go back to Tana to fly home on Sunday.

If we have internet again somehow we will try to blog! If not then we’ll see you all in about 2 weeks!

Another week in Anivorano

Hi guys!

We managed to have a little bit of internet in Anivorano, so, time for a new blog! 

This week, we have been screening in the deep country side villages. A normal working day for us looks like this: at 5.45h, the first alarm goes off. After (only one time!) snoozing, we get up (with or without ‘ochtendhumeur’) get dressed and eat oatmeal with cold water. We have upgraded from our pro-ana sandwich to oatmeal with some chocolate musli wohoow. At 6.30h, we start loading the truck with loads of people and stuff. Every morning, we play a tetris game to get it all in. To get you guys an image: we had a 4x4 Ford pickup ranger, On the front seat sat Presley, in the back Felix and Sylvie the translators and 2 volunteers on 3 backseats and then we had the outside backspace we’re we managed to fit in 6 people and all the material. This would have been already really uncomfortable on European roads, but nothing compares to Malagasy countryside roads. There are only sand roads, which contain more holes than Dutch cheese, and are extremely bumpy and muddy. They managed to build some bridges, but somehow, the water just runs over and under it. So, every morning we sit for 1-1,5h in the car, creating bruises and muscle ache on places you could never imagine. For us, Europeans, the ride was sometimes pretty scary, but we got used to it quickly. Thursday, after riding over some by nature created stairs and stones and scratching the bottom of the car, we finally got stuck in the mud. Thanks to all the guys, who pushed us out, while the girls were taking pictures alongside the road, we got out in 15 minutes. Yesterday, the car started to make extremely weird noises and weird smells, it still drove us to the last village. Unfortunately the car had more trouble on the way back and it stopped regularly. Luckily, we made it home. Besides the bruises it was an awesome adventure, and we had the nicest views of Madagascar ever. The nature is astonishing. We also saw our first baobabs. 

Today, we (Alex and Renée), Krushi and Alethea went to the Lac Sacré where a zebu (a cow with a bump on the back like a camel) was being traditionally sacrificed to the crocodiles. The ritual started with traditional singing and dancing. There were some women and a men, who seemed to be possessed. Really interesting to see. The zebu was killed after some rituals like throwing rum in the air. Then they had to divide the body into pieces with an axe while the crocodiles were already waiting for their breakfast. Half of the body goes to the crocodiles, and the other half goes to the attending people. We were fine with not having a part. After that, we spent the day washing some clothes. It took us 1,5h! We’re so grateful now to have washing machines at home. 

Tomorrow, we will go to Ankaranana, the national Park. Where we will hopefully see some lemurs. The rest of the volunteers are spending their weekend in Diego.

We all miss you very much, and especially the washing machines, our own  mattresses, enough seats for people in the car, Belgium fries, hagelslag, Doritos Chili, a warm shower, Facebook every day, asphalt roads, electricity 24h a day, .. But don’t worry, we’ll easily survive. At this moment, Alethea is cooking her famous Italian spaghetti sauce on our little BBQ, which we’re now able to get started in 10 minutes (we’re already BBQ pro’s) and we’ll have Dutch stroopwafels for dessert.

Have a good evening and you’ll hear from us!

Alex and Renée

(Sorry but no pictures, we’re using the NGO’s internet and we don’t want to use all credit!)

Photo update

This are the kids we met During our screening in one of the Villages.

One part of the clinic in Anivorano!

Update from Diego!

Hello everyone!

Here we are again, after a week of absence . Hope you guys didn`t miss us too much J. We don`t have internet in Anivorano  (the place of the Maventy project) but at the moment we are in Diego Suarez, a city about 2h away from Anivorano. So, here we go!

On Friday the 13^th, we took the taxi-brousse from Antananarivo to Anivorano du Nord. To give you an image about a taxi-brousse: it`s a mini-bus, mostly an old one. Ours was in that view kind of fine though. Then, they try to fit in as much people as possible. It`s not uncommon  that there are more people on the seats than there are seats. The roof is totally packed with luggage, packages, … They transport the craziest stuff.  Our departure time was at 15.00h, and, as real northern Europeans, we were there at 14.30h. Unfortunately, we didn`t really count in Malagasy time, so we finally left at 16.45h. Shortly, we can say that the roads make the Belgian roads seem brilliant. We don`t know were the drivers get their license, or whether they need a license at all. But after doing my (Alex) drivers exam 3 times, I`m probably not in the position to complain about that. After 22h of driving, trying to sleep in every position possible, we arrived in Anivorano. We got to our hotel,  “it’s tiny, but really cute and really nice”  (quote Renée). We don’t have warm water, neither electricity all day. But we manage to shower with a bucket, wash our clothes by hand (a Malagasy women teached us how to, after we we’re making a total fool of ourselves doing it) and cook our dinner on some coals . Compared to the rest of the village we live in the Hilton though, so you hear no complains from us. 

We met Presley, the coordinator of the Maventy project locally, who is an extremely nice and warm hearted man. We would really like to give him appreciation for the work he’s doing.  Beside us , there are currently 4 more volunteers at the project site; Ottilia and Emilie from Denmark and Krushi and Alethea from the UK and Scotland, who all are really nice to work with. 

From Monday on, we started with our work. We are doing the screening program, which includes measuring and weighing all kids under the age of 5 in different villages. The outcomes are immediately checked in the laptop for malnutrition. In that case, we provide the kids with multivitamins and peanut butter. The other job is helping the doctors out in the clinic. The medical students try to help out wherever they can which is helpful since there is only one doctor.  Besides that, we’ve been cleaning the delivery and maternity room, which included moving spiders and geckos. This week, those rooms will be repainted.

Every day, we wake up at 6 in the morning. Then we go to the market to buy some fresh bread, tomatoes and cucumber. With that, we create a self-called “Subway pro-ana”. You have to be creative when you don’t have any Nutella, ‘Hagelslag’ or ‘Speculoospasta’. 

So end, some remarkable notes:

-          One evening, just before going to bed, we found a frog ON TOP of our mosquito net. Luckily, Pierre saved us, wearing surgical gloves, after Renée tried to scare it with her flash light.

-          The car that we are using to go to the villages only starts by pushing it.

-          Today, we were able to fit with 27 people in a bus, which is about the size of a Renault Espace. After that, we got in a taxi, a yellow Renault 4L (yes, they are still used and common here), with the 6 of us.

Unfortunately, Lara decided to go home, we wish her a safe trip!

All the best and if we have internet, we`ll blog again!

Alex & Renée, (Pierre and Patrick)

Visit to the zoo

First an awesome view from Tana!

 

Hi again everybody!

Today we went to the Zoo in Tana and we saw some awesome lemurs, Crocodiles and baobab trees. We tried to upload some pictures but it took ages for these three so that's all we have for now. 

Below you see Lara and patrick with some new football friends.

 

Renée found a boy with a Ajax shirt.(We shouldn't forget next year to bring some PSV shirts)

We had dinner with Mika's family and driver Claude. We had some traditional Malagasy dishes which tasted really good.

We managed to arrange a taxi-brousse for Friday to go to the north. Luckily we are getting used to the traffic! Tomorrow we will try to get some stuff in Tana and wake up early so we're going to leave you now! (It is here still one hour later then in Europe!)

All the best!
Alex & Renée (Lara, Pierre and Patrick)

Antananarivo day 1

Manahoana!

Last night/today, we learned to sleep in 50 different postions at the airport. After our nice story of last night, we had to crash at the check-in part of Nairobi airport. Too bad for us, the Kenyan airways provided the most terrible chairs, so Patrick decided to lay on the ground, the rest did some yoga-excercises and Renee even managed to get a bump on her forehead from lying down. Against all our expectations, our Belgian chocolates didn't melt, in stead we froze. After 13h, we finally got on the plane to Tana. The flight went smootly.

Mika's dad picked us up with two drivers and brought us to the hotel. We were in 2 big SUV's and we experienced a whole new kind of driving. (and then they say something about the Belgians...) As you guys can see on the pic, finding a parking spot was even harder then in Brussels. Now we know why there are claxons in a car. Once arrived at the hotel, we got a really nice room and had some nice lunch.

With the help of :Mika's dad, the guys got a taylor-made suit for only 80euros, even though they both needed a lot more fabric then an average Malagasy person. :)

We got to see a really nice part of Tana and we were shown some really awesome views, as you can see below.. Now were going for some drinks downstairs in the nice hotel-bar.

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Tot blogs!
Renee & Alex (Lara, Pierre, Patrick)

Mission 2 out of 4 completed!

Dear everybody!

We made it to Nairobi! (Kenya). We are all compeetely fine (for the ones who are still worrying about us). The flight was really smooth, but after this we will be used to so much waiting. We're at Nairobi ariport now at a little kiosk with a computer. It is a quarter to 11. The next flight will leave at 8.20 in the morning so we have a wait to go.

Yesterday we had an amazing time in paris with amazing weather. Also thanks to Mika an Louise who guide us around! We really enjoyed it. We have to apologies though for all the people who got our backpacks in their face when we had to get in or out the metro. We're sorry! As clever as we are we got into the thalys 5 wagons to early and had to cross half the train with 2 till 4 packs per person. But we made it. Our hotel was really nice, although by opening the door you were already sitting on the bed AND the toilet. But we slept perfectly after running to get the last metro. Now we know all Paris train connections and we had our workout.

In 12 and a half hours we will be in Madagascar so you will hear from us soon!

Kwaheri, (goodbye)
Lara, Alex & Renee and greeting from the guys who are guarding our luggage!

Countdown!

http://www.webcountdown.de/?a=z4PHMms&k=R28X

Alexandra managed to create us a blog hurray! :)