Buddha in The Attic by Julia Otsuka Review

The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka Review

Written on 10/27/2014

I will make this short and sweet just like this wonderful little novel. Julie Otsuka uses imagery and a verse like writing style to tell the tale of a group of Chinese women that travel across the ocean to America in search of a better life in the years before World War II and attack on Pearl Harbor.

The rhythm of her words make this book a quick read, like swimming across smooth waters. Otsuka uses a collective voice that unities the women in her story, but still uses individual stories to push the narrative along. Its a very unique and beautiful style of writing that makes her novel like a 129 page poem.

Through the beauty of Otsuka's writing is the tragic story of these women's lives. They left everything they had and traveled miles across the ocean to get what they had been promised by their husbands-to-be, a dream life. When they arrived on the west coast of the United States, they found far less than the perfect life their husbands had wrote home about.

They worked endless, back-breaking hours as farm workers or housemaids. Some had made it into a Japanese part of town and enjoyed a life not too different from what they had left. They had children, they lost children. Some learned to love their husband, others dreamed of murdering him.

No matter what kind of life they were able to build, the attack on Pearl Harbor changed everything again. Some were left to live alone while their husbands were arrested. Some lost jobs they had worked hard at since there arrival. All were banished from their home, leaving everything behind again for an unknown destination.

Otsuka beautifully tells the tale of such a tragic time in American history and makes each woman's story impossible to forget. 

First Week of Classes!

The First Week of Classes

Written on 10/24/2014

Three weeks ago, I went to the Director's office and asked if my schedule was ready. He laughed and commented on how "misoto" (a word that doesn't really have a English translation, but means being disciplined) I was, and said that the schedule would be ready by Wednesday because of the electricity problems my community has been having making everything take a little bit longer than usual. Even though class was suppose to start the Monday, October 6th.

Long story short, After many visits to my directors office, the schedules were finally posted last Friday! Which meant classes would officially begin this past Monday, October 20th.

I will be teaching four classes of beginner English, what is similar to the 6th grade level, each class being 50-60 students. I don't know my students ages, but my guess is my students range from 10-18 - most of them being about 12. There are a few students in every class that I'm assuming, from there extremely bored appearence and the fact that they already know everything I'm teaching - that are repeating the 6th grade, which has already proven to be difficult.

My first official day of class I only had one class in the last time slot of the day. I made my way over to my classroom and started to get things ready to go. Class was going smoothly until clouds rolled over the sunlight and made the room extremely dark, so it was impossible to see the board. Then, it started pouring so it was impossible for the students to hear me. Luckily, the rain didn't last long and I was able to at least introduce how to say greetings and introduce yourself, but unfortunately they weren't able to write anything down. But still, first class = success.

The next day, I went to a class, taught it wonderfully. I made my way to the teachers lounge and when I walked in they all started laughing...I had spent the past two hours teaching the wrong class. Luckily, it was the right level and they were suppose to be learning English at that time. Unfortunately, both classes were confused there following class when they had a new teacher.

A big struggle of the week was still not being great at Malagasy. Not so much for my students, they understood what I was trying to say most of the time with hand gestures and such, but for me. Most students were really nice and understanding of the fact that I'm not great at English, while others continually mimicked my Malagasy or said thinA gs like "She doesn't know Malagasy!" While watching my class.

Which brings me to my other struggle, the continual and very talkative audience for each of my classes. At the beginning of every class, students enter my classroom and as soon as I begin to speak, a crowd of students starts building outside my windows. It's not always a bother, but it's really hard to focus on teaching with a constant audience of students just staring but not learning. Its different for me, and I am different fort them. I'm sure once they get used to me it will decrease, or I'll get used to them.

My favorite part of this week was teaching the verb "to be." I taught pronouns (I, You, He/She/It/We/They) and then the conjugation (am, are, is, are, are). And then lastly, a few fun adjectives (Happy, Sad, Good, Bad, Okay, Fine). While teaching the adjectives, I made silly faces with hand gestures to help them remember. Then I had students come up and we said what pronoun and conjugation, and then I tried to get students to make the different faces. They thought it was so funny. It usually ended up being me making incredibly silly faces (aka the classic grumpy cat face for "sad") while the students I brought up to help laughed and then attempted to make the funny faces...or just laughed at stared at me until I let them sit down.

I still have a bit to work on with my teaching - most notably my timing and board management. But even from the first class to the second class I can tell students are getting used to my style of teaching quickly and I am excited to see their English skills increase slowly but surely! 

Shrimp Sauce! Yum!

Crevette Sauce: The Recipie from Heaven.

Written (and eaten) on 10/3/2014

Before I left for Madagascar many people asked me a similar question, "What will you be eating there?"

Not have any idea, but knowing rice was the staple food, I replied with, "Rice."

Four months and endless spoonfuls of rice later, I can tell everyone that I was correct. Rice is the staple food here in Madagascar. It is eaten as the main dish for breakfast, lunch and dinner with a side dish ("loka in Standard Malagasy, but "rue" here in Mahanoro). I am fairly certain I have already eaten more rice here than I have ever in my entire life.

There is a saying here, "Tsy vary, tsy voky" which means, "No rice, not full." I am constantly made fun of for my small portions of rice and I astound my friends when I cook meals without rice. The other day I ate lunch at my friends and we had a spaghetti dish called a compose (spaghetti with green beans and carrots, mash potatoes, mayonnaise, and an assortment of meats). When the meal was over and I was sufficiently full, they went outside the kitchen and brought back a bowl of rice to complete the meal.

That being said, I am writing this blog for a reason: To share the amazing recpie I made today (that included rice) with the world.

I was taught how to de-head and de-skin (otherwise known as "clean") shrimp the other day by a friend and was determined to create my own delicious meal with shrimp in the near future. I was looking through the cookbook that PCVs had made and given to the trainees, entitled Mampalicous (which is a play on "to make delicious." All verbs in Malagasy start with the letter "m". If you want to make a verb reflexive - you are doing the verb to something or someone) you add "amp." My friends are always confused when they see it because it means nothing in Malagasy.)

I saw this recipie, commenced salivation, and decided I would make it today. It was with-out-a-doubt the best meal I have made myself here in Mahanoro.

Okay, okay. Here it is.

(My edits are in bold. I have a hard time following recpies ver batum. Mostly because I usually make mistakes or forget to buy an ingredient. Also because I am only cooking for one person a lot of the time and not for a small family. What I made serves two people..or one person for two meals if you save the leftovers for supper).

Crevette Sauce (Natalie Kruse, Ifarantsa)

Ingredients:

6-10 small tomatoes (I used 4. Not for any real reason except that I only bought four at the market.

2 small onions, chopped (or about 1/2 a big onion)

2 small green peppers, chopped (or one big green pepper)

1 small bunch green onions, chopped

Salt, pepper and curry to taste (I added a little bit of cayenne because I wanted my sauce to be a little spicy)

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 Tbs sugar (I just put some sugar in. I have no idea how much)

2 Tbs oil (again, I just eye-balled it)

1/2 can tomato paste (I used a whole can which is about 2-1/2 Tbs tomato paste)

1/2 kilo shrimp (I used about 15 shrimp, I am assuming the more shrimp you use, the more people you can feed)

Steps:

1. Clean the shrimp and set aside. Start boiling water.

2. Blanch the tomatoes (This is why you started boiling the water). Slip of the skin. cut into chunks and set aside.

3. Saute garlic, green peppers and onions in oil until translucent. (I misread this and put all the onions in but save the green onions for later).

4. Add tomatoes, sugar and a little bit of water. Cook for 10 minutes.

***this is where you should start cooking your rice***

5. Add shrimp and a little more water. Cook for 8 minutes (I didn't add more water because I felt I added too much water at step 4.)

6. Add spices, tomato paste, and enough water to achieve desired consistency.

7. After a few minutes, ADD THE CHOPPED ONIONS and let cook for another 5 minutes. (..ops...)

8. Serve over rice! You could also use pasta. I wanted to use pasta but there wasn't any at the market today. Also, I bought bread to sop up all the sauce because I didn't want to waste ANY of it.

9. Maztoa! (Enjoy!)

First month at site!

The First Month at Site!

Written on 10/1/2014

I have officially been at site for one month! *Applause*

Its been so wonderful having some time to relax and get to know Mahanoro. For the first time in a long time, I have had the chance to really take it a day at a time. It was a lot of making sure I left the house and doing my best to improve my language skills every day.

My favorite part of this past month of no obligations has been having the time to just meander through Mahanoro and get to know the streets and the people. In America, it was so uncommon for me to have the opportunity to just walk around aimlessly without worrying about getting back in time to finish homework or get to work on time.

The other day, I left the house to get sponges to wash my dishes and I took the long way and just enjoyed soaking up the sun. It reminded me of "Dolce Far Neinte" from Eat Pray Love. The sweetness of doing nothing.

That being said...I am extremely excited for the next months to come because I start working at the school on October 6th!

I'll be teaching 6eme (the equivalent of 6th grade)! It will be the students first experience with English, which will be fun and exciting but, of course, not without its challenges. The other day I was working on a lesson plan for teaching the verb to be...which doesn't exist in the Malagasy language. But luckily being an American gives me an edge of quirkiness that will hopefully keep students interested. From my experience practicing teaching in training, I know 6eme can be quite maditra (naughty) and I've been told by many that I'll need to be a strict teacher to keep them in line! Hopefully I can find a happy medium between being strict and having a fun class! I know I've had teachers who found a way to make it work, and I'm hoping I can have the same fun, respectful, and engaging environment in my classroom.

My site mate is also returning to site soon and we will (hopefully) start our community center in Mahanoro this month! I am excited to see what will become of this project and excited to get the community involved in making it happen! Its been so nice to get to know everyone and I've been talking up the community center a lot to all the people that have wanted to learn English and everyone seems interested in getting involved.

And when Novemeber roles around I'm already working on planning a little vacation with my stage mates to Andasibe (a National Park) and then I have In-Service Training for two weeks at the end of November. Just in time for all of us to be together for Thanksgiving!

It should be an exciting month of actives and work, but hopefully I'll still be able to get my days of sweet nothingness in!

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen Review

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen Review

Written on 9/30/2014

At a point in this monster of a book, a character reads War And Peace in a three day marathon of reading. At the end of it, she feels as though she has lived and entire compressed lifetime.

I finished Freedom in three weeks and then it took me a week to grieve the loss of the life I lived vicariously through the characters before I could write this blog post. Just as trying to sum up the life and value of a person at their funeral is beyond complicated and not without its difficulties, so is explaining how moved I was by this book.

Franzen unfolds the distorted perfect picture of suburbia in the Burglands - a nuclear family with an always working father, Walter, stay-at-home mom Patty, hardworking older sister Jessica, and independent younger brother Joey....and Walter's rock star college friend Richard Katz.

A seemingly perfect family dissolving into madness isn't an entirely new concept for a book, but the way Franzen tells their story - with multiple perspectives and intensely intricate details always kept me reading late into the night.

As an entire work Freedom is about all the different types of love that exist in modern day America and how every one of them can drive you into insanity and/or grief. Not just the love for your partner, children, parents, friends, and yourself - but the love for competition, money, basketball, ambition, music, horses, sex, drugs, obsession, and any other object of affection or devotion.

Each character has many passions that build depth beyond the characters of many novels I've read before. Patty is a competitor that, as an empty-nester, has run out of things to compete for leaving a feeling of emptiness in her life. Walter is compassionate about the environment and changing the world that pushes him to the point of a fanatic nature freak. Joey wants more than anything to independently become financial superstar at age 19 and gets into a bit of a conundrum in his attempts. And Richard Katz thoroughly enjoys not caring about anything enough to really be in love with it - a true rock star persona.

What was missing from this book was really Jessica - I can't tell you much about her - and the book could've done without intense descriptions of environmental issues that although added to the madness of Walter's conservation aspirations, was hard to get through when I knew I still had millions of questions unanswered at hundreds of pages left to read.

Although, I must admit when I finally turned the to the 562nd page, I was weeping because the life I had lived with the Burglands was all over and was left hoping for a few hundred more pages with this family I so loved and had just started to admire. 

Spiders...oh my!

Spiders.

Written on 9/27/2014

Normally I'm not one to chat about the negatives in a situation, but I feel like the situation unfolding in my house could turn into a positive one...or at least not as negative as it feels right now.

There are spiders in my house. True, there are spiders in every house. They are just a part of being a person. Theres good things about spiders too, they eat mosquitoes and other bugs, and aside from be creepy looking, don't bother people.

The spiders at my house could and probably do eat cockroaches. THEY ARE HUGE. The first time I saw one it was O.K. I was able to avoid its space and continue with my day.

The next time one scurried out of my backpack up my arm, and after a hard swipe away from me down my leg. NOT O.K. I am not usually one who likes to kill animals, especially spiders because of their helpful qualities. But I decided at this point that this creature needed to die.

My problem was that because I was so mortified from the experience of having a gigantic spider crawling on my body, I didn't want to get anywhere near it. Instead I spent about five minutes staring at it hoping the people in the office across from me weren't watching this entire encounter unfold.

I looked quickly around my room for something to smash it with. My running shoes and a broom caught my eye. Without moving to quickly, as to not scare this gigantic creature, shoved my shoe at the end of the broom and slowly crept it closer to the spider.

I made my attack and found out that not only are these spiders disgustingly gigantic, but also terrifyingly quick and crawly and creepy. I had no idea where this crawling nightmare went, except that it had scurried to the direction of my bed.

SPIDERS 1  -  ME 0

I was sure the little bugger (as I don't want to curse on this blog..but you can put any type of vulgar expression in place of guy and it would fit) was awaiting its revenge in my pillowcase.

Before I went to bed that night I checked every inch of my bed, checking my pillow case and every crevice of my sheets with a flashlight. After deeming my bed safely spider-free, I pulled my mosquito net down and started tucking it into my bed.

Just as I reached the last tuck near my headboard, I saw it. The spider. Alas, a different equally terrifying spider sitting just inches above my pillow just outside my mosquito net. I dare not get out of my spider-sheltered bed, and had nothing but a book to my disposal to swat at it with. I stared at that...bugger...for a good 30 minutes hoping it would decide to leave. It didn't.

I kept looking at that book but, unfortunately (at that moment) I rather enjoyed and  wanted to finish the book and new there was no way I could read it with spider guts on it, and this spider would most definitely leave a lot of entrails. I decided my best bet would be to scare the spider to scurry up to my roof.

Thankfully, the spider decided to run up to the roof on its own and I was left alone to stare at my ceiling in fear until I finally fell asleep.

SPIDERS 2 - ME 0

I hadn't seen a sign of a spider in a few days...until today. I was cleaning up for lunch and walked into my kitchen and saw the carcass of a spider in THE MIDDLE of my floor. I half expected to look up at my walls and see some terrifying phrase written in blood.

Yes. That was a reference to Harry Potter.

I swept the carcass away and I KID YOU NOT, that creepy little bugger started to move again. It just happened to start to die of natural causes IN THE MIDDLE OF MY FLOOR. I am now terrified that its spider friends saw me put it out of its misery by feeding it to the chickens outside my kitchen and thought it was cold blooded murder.

SPIDERS 2 - ME 1

Obviously, I am a bit psychotic. Luckily, I've chatted with my Malagasy friends and they all assured me that no spiders here bite (and that cockroaches don't either)...so theres that. And my sitemate informed me that in time they don't look as big...which I'm sure was meant to be reassuring but still left me wondering whether there is something bigger and scarier lurking in my room.

Nonetheless, I feel I tackled my first truly terrifying experience in the Peace Corp without too much grief. Yay! And I am sure in the next few months I won't jump five feet in the air and scream like a little girl every time I see a spider.