1. Madagascar The Mikes of the World

    Though focused on an outside visitor to my site and not on the villagers with whom I lived, this journal entry chronicles a day's thought at site in September 2007: A little while ago, something unprecedented occurred in our small town. Three Americans came to Soalala within the same week. After not seeing any Americans at all during the past year and seven months, this was quite a shock. The first to arrive (and the only notable one) was Mike – a professor from the University of Illinois who...

  2. Madagascar Not enough rice

    Traditional way to eat food, plant the plates on the matt, rice dishes in the middle, small amount of protein on the side.  Communcal eating, sand subs in for salt.  For our group of 6, this was not enough rice because in Madagascar, you always want more rice!

  3. Madagascar Basketball Court Repair

    These two young men work hard to restore the town's basketball court.  They somehow shimmied up the posts without a ladder.

  4. Madagascar Malagasy Fisherman

    A good day's catch for the man who lived across the street.

  5. Madagascar The airport at my site

    Low maintenance and overhead costs at this airport.

  6. Madagascar Each of us pulls..err.. pushes our weight

    Our host family owned a shuttle bus.  They took us to a nearby park to celebrate Easter.  We pushed our way back home.

  7. Madagascar New in town

    Almost at the end of my second year, an eco-tourism minded yacht landed in our remote corner of western Madagascar in a village that had never seen so many vazahas (foreigners) before.  Neither side knew exactly how to act.

  8. Madagascar Neighbor makes his new lakana (canoe)

    My neighbor built the roof on our hut from palm fronds around us, but his day job was to fish.  Here he prepares his office equipment.

  9. Romania Blinding Me with Kindness

    In the village of Catumba, at my home in the region of Moldavia, this November sun welcomed me to begin another eventful day in Romania Peace Corps.

  10. Kenya Too Cool Little Boy Joseph

    Just beyond the National Youth Service gate, where I live on the side of a hill overlooking Lake Naivasha, Kenya, are a number of very small wooden structures, where a number of families live. After I exit the gate on my way to catch a matatu bus just down the winding road, swarms of small children come pouring out of the houses. One way to avoid having to shake hands with a lot of germy kids is to give a GO-TA greeting, where you tap fists together than take your fist to you heart and than r...

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“Sunset at the Railroad” by PCV Nicholas Baylor Hall. Namibia, 2011.