Madagascar School Project Blog

Beautiful new gardens are under way with healthy green plants and some about to produce. We gave each parent a large plot of land to work in their own time. Our committee member and gardener buys the seeds and suggests what they plant. He oversees the work, and helps by digging drainage ditches between the plots to allow for healthy plants during the rainy season. This will allow busy parents more freedom to choose the time that suits them best to care for their gardens, and ensure us a steady flow of fresh vegetables for the lunches.

Our cook, Seheno arrives at Kathy’s house at 7:00 every school day to pick up the rice, vegetable, onions, tomatoes, salt ect. for the meal of the day. She works along with a helper, Aina, and her 2 year old daughter, Mbolatina, to prepare the lunch which is served at 11:15. All sixty four students, and the staff each eat a big bowl of rice with a vegetable mixture served on top. Then the smaller children leave for the day, while the middle aged children start their school day, and the older group carry on for the full day. Our cooks finish and go home around 1:30 each afternoon, and for a month of that schedule Seheno is paid 30,000 Ariary which is equivalent to $20.00 for the month, which she shares with her helper. So as you can see, our money goes a long way here.

The children were treated to a Christmas party in which they received a little toy (doll or car) and a mask. The three biggest boys of the school accompanied Kathy to the local store so that students could drink Coke and Orange drink and have a cookie each. A real treat for them!

The children also received their very first report card, written in Malagasy on one side and English on the other. They were quite a challenge to write, as the Malagasy language doesn’t have words for many of the terms we use in education. Our patient directrice, Raline, worked long hours with Kathy to get them to adequately express the thoughts on evaluation observations.

As the construction of the ceiling and new building progress, Malala, our chef d’equipe and the workmen, sleep on the floor in the classrooms. Malala gets to enjoy the comfort of a mattress, made of grass, lent to her by the college. These people work so hard, and are so willing to do whatever it takes to make the building right for us that it is really inspiring.

In order to save money on the building, I, Kathy, am buying all the materials for the Madagascar School Project. This cuts out the cost of a middle man, and helps us to make the most appropriate choices as we go along. It does lead to adventure however, as we are subject to the changing weather and the questionable ability of some of the vehicles we hire. One cannot rent a truck in Madagascar, but one rents a truck with a driver, or a taxi. Going to the nearest town with hardware stores and lumber mills, means walking two and a half hours, and then taking a short bus ride. In order to get to a bank, Kathy then has to take a bus to another village closer to the capital. No one accepts credit cards, so one has to travel with cash.

Our first trip home with materials we hired a four wheel drive vehicle. It got half way up a hill in the country and couldn’t make it any further. We stopped and the helper ran off with two empty coke bottles to find some water in a rice field. Before he came back, another truck came up and wanted to pass, so we had to roll back, off the road to allow him by. After giving our overheated engine the water it needed, we all pushed as the truck crept inch by inch up the hill. The helper and Malala, putting a big rock behind each wheel every time we gained a little ground. We made it, and now had about one third of the cement we were going to need home, along with many other supplies.

The second trip, I didn’t go on, as report cards had to be out the next day and there was much work to do through the day and night for that. We got a phone call from Malala saying that they were broken down for the fifth time, but hopefully would make it soon as they were at ‘the ten tombs’, which is only about six kilometers away. They made it, exhausted, and went to sleep without taking time to eat supper.

On trips to town, we rarely take time to eat lunch, as there is always so much to do and the traveling itself, there and back takes four to five hours. It is not safe to be out after dark here, so one has to be on one’s way home by three in the afternoon. One also can’t be sure of the availability of washrooms, so drinking water is kept to a minimum those days.