When I Grow Up...

I have so much I'd like to accomplish in Ankazambo. Since IST I've spent a lot time thinking about my goals and what is realistic. I'm probably still being too ambitious but what is Peace Corps if not the hope that you can help change the world. Or at least a small rural community in Madagascar. With that, the only way I can accomplish anything is with the support and trust of my host community. They have been, and continue to be, amazing in that regard. Hopefully I keep doing a good job and don't screw things up. My biggest fear here is that I'll some how lose the trust of my community and end up being short of what they needed, or worse causing harm. I'm confident enough to believe I am good enough most of the time but the thought is always there. I think that is one of the hardest parts about Peace Corps service, or I'm sure development work as a whole, is staying out of your own head and remaining realistic without confining yourself to a limited agenda for fear of reaching too far. It's a delicate balance to keep that I certainly fall to one side or the other of many times a day. Which is probably the most surprising part of service to this point, the drastic mood swings. I've always been a bit of a moody person but this work definitely makes sure to keep you in your place. A great meeting is followed by a conversation you couldn't follow. Which is followed by fun time spent with friends. Which is followed by finding out a part of your garden has failed. Which is followed by a new planned activity that sounds so great! And so on and so forth. And that's all in one day. Every day is a roller coaster. Luckily there has been a balance so far. Never too high or too low. Enough struggle to stay humble and driven but enough success to get out of bed in the morning. Oh the life.

I'll structure my plans and goals the way I presented them to my counterpart because I think it makes sense. First will be a couple of big projects I'd like to do. Then some smaller projects that can fill in things and should be easily doable. Next secondary (outside my sector) projects I'm thinking of doing. And finally my biggest, grandest, most unrealistic dreams that I'm more so hoping will inspire the people here to keep dreaming big after I leave than actually expecting to accomplish. But a man can dream can't he?

There are two big projects. The first of which has already had some ground work laid and might require some funding help from my generous friends and family. My community would like to get one or more pedal pump irrigation systems installed. They are basically man powered pumps that can pull large amounts of water into places that are not close to a water supply and thus hard to farm on. The aparatus itself is genius and the way you pump the water is a foot powered system that looks a lot like an elliptical machine from the gym. It is simple to maintain and operate and I'm about 80% sure we can use bamboo for piping from the water supply to cut down on costs. I need to run some tests on that first though. To go along with this I want to start a farming co-operative for my town. This would be great for a few reasons. First of all, even without the irrigation system, getting people together to share ideas and goals is always a helpful and wonderful thing. With the irrigation system it does a couple of things. It communalizes (Word thinks this is not a real word but I like it so it stays) the land that the system will be serving which makes sure that many can benefit from it and cuts down on potential conflict over it down the road. The second thing it does is put a group in charge of the upkeep of the system. The last thing I, or Peace Corps, wants is for a big project like this to be down and fall apart down the road. Of course taking all the pictures and shaking all the hands is a great way to start but if the system falls apart as soon as myself, or even a volunteer to follow me, leaves then it was all for naught. A co-op protects against this. I have already been in touch with the NGO that supplies them and am in the process of setting up a site visit with one of their technicians. There are many communities with volunteers in the region who also want this system. There are even some who don't have volunteers and want to get in on it which is beautiful. By pooling our orders into one big order we can get even better pricing than the already low price they give. The NGO very much wants to work with Peace Corps so I feel really good about our shot of pulling this off. It would be so huge and make a huge difference in all of the communities. This is still in the very early stages so a great number of things can still go wrong. But I think this is realistic.

The second big project is with the blacksmith's co-op. Currently almost all of their selling is done on an order by order basis with random trips to markets and fairs making for some good money influxes throughout the year. They are already in a very good position and do a pretty nice job for themselves in no small part because the volunteer I replaced did a very good job. I want to expand them into regional markets on a regular basis. There are two weekly markets within easy biking distance of my town and three large towns with daily markets within a short (by Madagascar standards) car ride away. I don't think selling in the market town I go to, which is super close, would be super beneficial because all the people there that would be interested either have the knives or know where to get them. The region knows how good these guys are at their job. Which is why I think spreading to the farther markets is doable. The names Ankazambo and Loharanonkariana (the co-op) carry weight around the whole region. They are know for the quality of their work so finding a customer base would be relatively simple. The ground work will be finding taxi-brousse drivers we can trust to ship the goods and sellers in the markets to hawk the wares. These would both be very easy to pull off. The brousse companies are very protective of their images and take it very seriously when they take someone's many for a service. And they are willing to stack an ungodly amount of stuff on the tops of the brousses so space is no issue. Finding sellers would also be relatively simple. We just have to go to the towns and speak with people to find the best person for the job. The next step would be doing some local radio spots to announce that we are there. Everyone listens to the radio so these are very effective and cheap. Then just keeping production up and maintaining a good inventory. They already have a great storage building that is hardly used and I know they can handle keeping track of all the product being stored and then going out. We (myself and my counterpart) are very excited about this. I think this also is a very realistic goal to have accomplished in two years.

The smaller projects I have in mind are mostly trainings I'd like to do with people and many are in conjunction with the bigger projects. I'd of course like to continue expanding gardening in my town and the surrounding areas. I'll do full on trainings on many different topics (bed prep, companion planting, pest management, waters management, compost, etc. You know, really sexy stuff) both with my fikambanana (co-op) and other people and groups. There is a current fikambanana in the town next to mine that I will start having trainings with very soon. They also might get in on the irrigation systems. Yay! I'll also do trainings on chicken farming which there is a ton of interest on here. That could potentially lead to another fikambanana as well. Bee-keeping trainings have also been requested and should be provided as well. I'll need to bring in another volunteer who is very good at that because I am admittedly weak in it. Plus bee stings hurt. With the blacksmiths the small things are mostly tied to the expansion in markets. Inventory control and increasing their bookkeeping skills will be important.

The secondary projects I have in mind mostly have to do with the children in town. While annoying and the bane of my existence most days I still feel they should get some Peace Corps love as well. I've already had a training on tooth brushing and hand washing with requests for more so that will continue. I also might do a school garden/English club at a local school that has expressed interest. We'll see on that because it could potentially become a big time user.

Now for the dreams! The farming dream would simply be that production would be so high that we could sell in the market. I'm not sure that it can get there in two years but it is doable. It will depend on how fast we get the irrigation system in place and start growing things. Having the fikambanana already in place will also be a plus for this because there will already be a body (theoretically) capable of running the market operation and handling the ensuing cash influx and payouts. For the blacksmiths my grand dream if for them to sell their knives in tourist markets in big towns. I think we could make a killing on them. First of all the rustic look of them is, I think, a good selling point because they look like they were hand-crafted in a small village. They could also stylize them a bit more for the tourists and make some designs on the handles and blades. If we get to it that would be decided by basic market research. Sell both and see what sells better. I think the key will be selling it with a story. Each knife would come with a paper or small booklet explaining where it came from and who made it. It would have pictures and all that jazz. We'd make them up in French and Malagasy to sell to a wide audience. For one thing tourists can pay more money for this product than locals can, so much money can be made. Another is that I think, by selling the story, you're giving people an awesome souvenir to take back and show off. “I went to Africa and bought this local made machete. This guy Fizel made here's his picture.” Sounds good right? I can see people in Paris showing off their Malagasy knives over wine, cigarettes, a baguette, and some high quality cheese (yummmm cheese). But that's why those are dreams. A little unrealistic, especially in a 2 year period, but not out of the question. I hope they at least spark some imaginations for the future.

So, I have a lot I'd like to get done here. I go into it knowing some of these things will fail for many unexpected reasons. But I'm hopeful. I have a great community to work with which is the best start possible. Hopefully by putting these out there I will make myself have to accomplish them for fear of shame when returning to the US. Hold me to it!