Who Am I to Blow Against the Wind

(The following post was originally written on July 8th, 2008)


I remember once reading that there are tribes in India which are unaware of the existence of the state of India. I can recall also finding that quite interesting, if not bordering crazy-talk. I now can appreciate that possibility with a slightly less skeptical perspective. There are 19 tribes in Madagascar, none of which are unaware of their country’s existence that I know of. But as a health agent, one of my duties includes doing pre-natal consultations (CPNs) with a nurse. On any given CPN day we could see between 20-50 girls. Easily over half do not know how many months pregnant they are, their birthday, or even how many years old they are. Every so often there is someone who doesn’t know what *year* it is. They couldn’t say whether we’re living in the fifteenth or the twenty-first century. I’ll do my best to explain what year it is. Sometimes I succeed, others I do not. So I’ve got my work cut out explaining what AIDS is and how to prevent it. Then with locals who do follow current events, I’m sure not getting any help from idiots like the foreign minister of South Africa who go on record saying they’re not worried about getting AIDS from recent intercourse with a prostitute because he “took a shower afterwards.” Or just ask the female minister of health in South Africa, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who recently denied any link between HIV and AIDS and recommends drinking beetroot juice as a cure. But I digress…

The other day I felt like I was in a bit of a slump, so I though I’d treat myself to a bike trip through Gulley’s Pass. There’s something calming about that place, sort of like an enchanted forest. So before I headed out, I rolled up my sleeves and treated the Trek to a tune-up of its own. Just gave the handlebar stem the old 1-2 with a hex wrench. I remembered the gears being sticky so I greased ‘em good; fixed it right up. Checked the brake pad alignment, gauged the tire pressure, and I was off! I had visions of the village chief in Marovala doing a little jig of joy when I arrived and accommodating my request to gather a group to give a speech to about AIDS prevention. Well I hadn’t made it 5 k before my damn seat broke off the bike! Faulty H-screw was the culprit. So I headed back into town standing up on the bike, as I couldn’t sit lest I sit on a narrow metal pole. I felt like I had problems up the…wazoo! Get it? It’s a jump…to conclusion mat! In any case, I got a replacement part from Samüel, my bike guy, and I headed back out into the bush. I made it all the way past Lavalila with no problems, and forged on into Gulley’s Pass.
It was a calm, serene experience. As I left behind the last of any villagers, my mind entered a transcendental state. I began a period of introspective analysis on who I was and what I defined my role as. The bumps flowed through the rubber of my tires, up the metal frame, and through my body as I grew into one with my surroundings. Then I heard a sound from my backpack indicating I’d gotten a text. Initially annoyed by the distraction, I grew quickly amazed. Ever since my arrival last December of 2007 they have said cell phone service will begin at the end of every month. January came and went, February, March, etc., and nothing. Now July, I found myself in Gulley’s Pass witnessing an incredible, joyous event. I checked my cell, which I had brought to function as a timepiece, and sure enough Isoanala reception had indeed just been turned on and was coming through full throttle. I later reached Marovala and received a jig from the village chief who then agreed to let me train his people on AIDS prevention.

As for my community here in Isoanala, all is well. I’ve sort of come to grips with my status as vazaha. Why fight it? It will never end, so nine times out of ten when someone says, “Ah! Salama vazaha!” I just murmur a salama back to them. I guess I’m comfortably numb about the whole thing, if you read me. Although I did get a healthy little wakeup call about where I’m at last week. On the fourth I had a couple buddies over in honor of America, as pictured above. While we were playing Drunk Driver (card game), we heard a mob run by outside my house screaming. We ran out to see what all the rhubarb was. Turns out some guy got busted breaking into a house, and he was literally running for his life towards the gendarmerie compound because he was being chased by a lynch mob. And *that’s* what all the rhubarb was. Personally, I think the mob should have just taken the advice Bill Clinton gave last winter when Barack and Hillary were slugging it out, that “everybody should just chill out.” But in any case, don’t let anyone tell you Isoanala is a joke.

On the upshot I recently found a poster of 213 circa 1990 at my weekly bazaar, which I promptly bought for 25 cents. Nothing like a young Nate Dogg, Warren G, and Snoop Rock to spruce up an apartment in Isoanala. Later that day my neighbors asked me to take their picture. They wanted my bike in the background and to hold their radio while posing, so as to infer they were people of a high enough status to be around such things I suppose. :-/