In this interview, we hear from Mj Haynes. Mj is a Peace Corps volunteer working as a Education volunteer in Madagascar. What Mj shares gives us a better understanding of the work volunteers do. We learn about the challenges, rewards, and personal growth that happens from volunteering in a new place. Mj talks about living in a different country, working with local people, and dealing with surprise situations. Join us as we learn about Mj’s journey and see how volunteering with Peace Corps can change lives.
Table of Contents
- Volunteer Experience and Motivation
- Living Arrangements and Cultural Integration
- Surprises, Challenges, and Personal Growth
- Community Projects and Interactions
- Advice and Support
- Practical Tips and Language Learning
- Final Thoughts
Volunteer Experience and Motivation
1. Tell us more about serving as an Education volunteer in Madagascar?
I teach 10th-grade English at my community’s local public high school. I am responsible for 3 classes of over 50 students each (160 students in total) which I teach in person about 9 hours a week. I also run a weekly English club at my high school with another English teacher.
Besides that as my primary project, I also assisted in the design and implementation of my community’s first ever English curriculum primary school (preschool to 6th grade), where I spend between 3-9 hours a week helping from more of a consultary and administrative position. At that school, I also help with my local teacher’s college English club every weekend as well.
A Day in the Life of a Teacher
It took a bit to get into a groove, but now each of my days is pretty blissful and calm. I start pretty early, around 0500, with breakfast (pot of coffee and eggs) and podcasts while I do grading for the class I will teach. Before class I check in with friends at my favorite cafe and get my ‘mofosira’ (fried rice treats) and I either go to my primary school or high school from 0900-1200 to teach.
Balancing Multiple Roles in the Community
On my way home I stop and grab my daily salad greens, and when I get home I prep and wash it, refill my water filter, and prepare my dinner while I eat lunch. When lunch break is over at 1400 I either go back to either school for English club; fulfill other social commitments with community members; weather permitting I love long walks and hikes, or (as I prefer in the rainy season) stay in and dry, and have folks come to me to kick back.
Regardless of how I fill my afternoons – I am typically home by 1700 to work out, then boil water for a nice toasty bucket bath before the sun sets pretty regularly at 1800ish every day. Evenings after that are all mine, and I am not long for the world by 2100.
Weekends: A Mix of Chores and Fun
Weekends are a little more exciting, I do my week’s shopping on Saturdays on our market day, and it’s also my day to eat out since until I buy more I am finally all out of groceries. Sundays, by contrast, are the most chill day of my week. The electronics shop I live above is closed, so it is the only day where music isn’t consistently playing from 0800-1700 as opposed to the other 6 days of the week, (no complaints, just that the vibe of Sunday is different!) so it is a really peaceful day that I enjoy spending time taking care of chores to myself while everyone is away at church.
This includes washing clothes, brushing/sweeping my floors, a week’s worth of meal prepping, burning my trash, et cetera. When my host family gets out of church, around 1200, I head over for ‘hot girl brunch’ with my host mom who is also my best friend here. After eating, gabbing, and doing some ironing, I head to my other school’s English club which always includes a really long and beautiful scenic stroll through my site to and from that perfectly starts the new week!
2. What motivated you to join the Peace Corps and choose Madagascar?
A Lifelong Dream of Joining the Peace Corps
The Peace Corps has always been a bucket list organization to get to be a part of since I was a kid. I actually contacted the Peace Corps when I was in high school asking if I could join as their website said ages 18 and up, but I was told to come try again after I had any kind of education or relevant job experience under my belt. My dream assignment was actually Mongolia (It still is, my next adventure after this one!), but how I ended up in Madagascar is its own wonderful story I love to share!
The Chance Encounter That Led Me to Madagascar
I was interning in South Africa in 2019 and set to graduate from university in Spring of 2020 and the incredible folks I was working with were asking me what my plans were after I graduated. I told them that my next plan was to finally join the Peace Corps – but somebody nearby heard me say that and came and jumped into the conversation asking “Did somebody here say ‘Peace Corps’?”
I was really embarrassed that I may have led him on that I was actually already a volunteer and explained to him that I wasn’t but was going to join as soon as I graduated. The guy insisted on a hug and he made me an important request; “When you join, you have to serve in Madagascar!”, where he was from. He told me that Peace Corps volunteers taught him English and told me how important the volunteers in his community were to him.
Unfortunately, I didn’t exchange any sort of information with the gentleman, not his name or where he was from in Madagascar. At the time the exchange was just really sweet and reinforced my desire to serve as meaningful work that people in the country we serve really appreciate.
A Delayed Journey, but the Right Destination
I would go back to the U.S. after the internship, and my and the world’s graduations and plans were all changed, courtesy of COVID-19, so it would be another 2 years of waiting for the world to return to any of its former operations before the Peace Corps would reopen, but when it did one of the first openings to catch my eye was seeing Madagascar come up again and I just felt like it was meant to be.
On both the best and worst days here I still think of how that guy making that suggestion actually came to be, and in that respect I have him to thank for it all; all because he was so thankful for the impact of the Peace Corps, to begin with.
Living Arrangements and Cultural Integration
3. Tell us more about your home situation:
I live in Fandriana, a town that straddles the line between urban and rural, with a population somewhere between 32K and 60K depending on who you ask. I live in a darling two-room apartment above an electronics store close to my town’s market. I enjoy amenities some other volunteer sites don’t, like a water tap (as opposed to a well) and electricity. Either water or electricity does work almost daily guaranteed, but you never know for how long or when. I have an outdoor bathroom, which features an actual toilet (very exciting), and an outdoor shower stall featuring a showerhead that “works” but in a very exciting way that makes me just prefer the bucket style.
Life in a Lively and Unique Town
My town is renowned for two things; highly educated people, and strong ‘toaka gasy’ (Malagasy moonshine). So, with that, I benefit from very diligent and smart students and very obnoxious market-day drunk locals. My town is large enough to host several small restaurants and bakeries, and a pretty substantial market that there are few things I can’t find there.
My site is also home to a teaching college and university extension, so I often run into a lot of community members excited to chat with me in English, which definitely is a perk! I can exercise here, but it attracts a lot of attention so I prefer to do it in the privacy of my apartment.
Fandriana also regularly hosts fantastic outdoor concerts, and sports events, and – I swear – there is a parade of some kind every week or two. If I am outside near a road when the parade passes, I never turn down an invitation to hop in, so I think I have been in about 100 parades so far. You never know if your day is just going to end in an impromptu parade or not!
Surprises, Challenges, and Personal Growth
4. What has surprised you most about Madagascar?
I had done a ton of traveling prior to coming to Madagascar and had in mind that nothing would truly surprise me, but it truly isn’t like anywhere else I have ever been. It is sometimes referred to as the 8th continent for good reason, I don’t think it has distinctly reminded me of anywhere else I have been, including mainland Africa. The roads are bad. I mean very bad. And I don’t think I appropriately, before coming here, thought about how big the island actually is, so when I finally started traveling I was very surprised by just how inaccessible it truly is.
I don’t suffer from carsickness like some of my pals here do, but traveling isn’t really a leisurely comfortable activity here, not at least until you get to your destination. That said – locals love meeting a ‘vazaha’ (foreigner) that can interact in any Malagasy whatsoever, and the travel here has all been spectacular.
Embracing Family and Community in Everyday Life
Family is a huge part of the culture here. I am not as close with my family as they are here, but it never occurred to me that I would be asked and have to answer questions about my family with almost every single introduction. Upon arrival here, I was shocked by how fantastically welcoming and endearing my host families here have been. You have to be prepared to have eyes on you at all times; people are curious about how you are going to do anything at any time and when you mess up they will laugh and you have to be ready to laugh with them. But those same family members and community members are ready to help you with literally anything along the way.
This isn’t the place to be remotely introverted either. The same neighbors still stop to compliment me two years later every time they see me handwashing my laundry, like it is still exciting to see a vazaha washing clothes as they do. The novelty of the fact that I (still) live here has still not gone away, and that makes every day a little exciting.
5. What challenges did you face while working in Madagascar?
The beginning was pretty rough; my Malagasy wasn’t at a level where I could keep up with what was going on, and there was an early game of ‘hot potato’ with me as the potato between counterparts where nobody was up for whatever responsibilities the position entailed until I just didn’t have a counterpart at all. But eventually, I had been in my community long enough to catch on to how things worked and my need for a counterpart decreased. By the time my second school year began, my Malagasy was at a level where I knew what and who to ask to keep myself in the loop and, most importantly, how to ask for any support I needed.
One of the aspects that I had always dreamt about with Peace Corps service was being picked up and dropped off somewhere alone at first I thought that was scary, but eventually, it just became the best part of the experience. Every day it is up to me – to figure out what is going on and where to be; what I should bring to it or wear to it; whether or not I am leading it or who else will be there; what is it for (surprising how many times the answer is ‘I don’t know’); it makes every event or obligation a kind of scavenger hunt or mystery to solve and even when you get it wrong, community members are stoked you tried and showed up at all.
Basically, the “me” that arrived here wouldn’t recognize the “me” now.
6. How have you changed during your time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Madagascar?
Oh man. I am living my best life here. I am easily living the healthiest I have in my entire life and I feel it – I have cut back on or quit all the vices I came here with. I am more focused on my wellness here than I have been anywhere else – I cook and eat better than I ever have; I sleep well; I exercise and do yoga daily; I study; I meditate; I journal and write; I read 3-4 books a month; I have filled my life with incredible habits and people and edited habits and people out that weren’t benefiting me.
Basically, the “me” that arrived here wouldn’t recognize the “me” now. I haven’t felt this fulfilled by what I was doing in a very long time, and I definitely have never felt more confident that “I am exactly where I am supposed to be” than I am here. And I not only mean that about the Peace Corps by and large, but here in this spectacular country, and here in this wonderful town, and even just getting to be a part of my amazing host family.
Community Projects and Interactions
7. Could you share some of the secondary projects you have been involved?
Secondary projects have been a favorite part of my Peace Corps experience here. While I faced challenges making connections with other teachers at my high school, secondary projects allowed me to also prioritize other stakeholders in my community, specifically ones who were enthusiastic about the opportunity to actualize their dreams with the help of a volunteer. Some secondary projects of mine included English Clubs, radio shows, recording audio resources for English teachers, hosting hiking trips and picnic trips, and collaborating with other organizations on English teacher training.
Building a Dream School
My favorite secondary project was co-founding my community’s first-ever English curriculum primary school (preschool to 6th grade). My former site Malagasy tutor expressed disappointment about the schools available here in town to her children, which led us to a hypothetical discussion about what our aspirational “dream school” would look like, comparing and contrasting our best and worst ideas and experiences between her and I’s educational experiences. The next thing I know, I come to see her and she is opening this school!
I get to work researching and curating curriculums that mirror American systems and train her teachers to assist in the all-English curriculum, and I ended up extending in order to stay here into the new school year to close out projects with teachers and staff at the school to ensure its sustainable success. Now parents that live in larger urban centers are moving here to Fandriana to the rural highlands for the opportunity to enroll their children in the school while simultaneously avoiding the expense and exhaustion of city life. A lot of Malagasy people stay in the cities to ensure their children have access to the best educational opportunities, so seeing a school like this one being brought to fruition at my site is a beautiful demonstration of progress for my region that I am incredibly proud of.
8. Any memorable experiences or interactions you’ve had with community members?
A Deep Bond with My Host Mom
The most memorable experience I have had with my community has primarily been in the really deep relationship I have developed with my host mom, and having had the opportunity to support her through a massive life change. My host mom is only 7 years older than me, so we meet more as peers or sisters. Gradually as I settled into life here at site she revealed that she didn’t want to be with her husband anymore for a variety of heartbreaking grievances, but culturally divorce is a challenging topic that still carries a lot of stigmatization. Knowing this, and treading carefully, I expressed that I was here as her friend for her and her children’s happiness and fulfillment in life and that whatever she wanted for herself I would always have her back.
Supporting a Life-Changing Decision
She ultimately made the decision that she felt would be the best for herself and pursued divorce, and it was an incredibly rough road to go down. Her husband has a lot of family in the community while she does not, and a lot of painful drama and gossip occurs with her at the center of it. On multiple occasions, I hosted her at my apartment or left events or other commitments to be there for her during this emotionally tumultuous experience going through this entire process essentially with no other support.
Recognized by Peace Corps for a Friendship That Matters
I would go on to have training with the Peace Corps, where I was pulled aside by some Peace Corps staff who told me they were aware of my host mom’s situation, and I worried for a moment that possibly my community had said something about it that now I would be in some sort of trouble for. Instead, they told me that she had called the Peace Corps about how I had gotten her through this incredibly difficult time and to say how grateful she was that they had sent me to Fandriana, and the Peace Corps staff were only pulling me aside to commend me on it as well.
Finding Purpose Through Helping a Friend in Need
Getting to be there for a friend through a crisis like this, having hugged her while she cried, and getting to be a positive force and ally of choice in her life at this depth in spite of our cultural differences and experiences has been one of the most intense, gratifying, and memorable experiences of serving here. Whenever I have ever been hit with doubt about whether or not I should have or was supposed to be here in the Peace Corps in Madagascar; knowing I was able to be here for my host mom through this dissolves all of that doubt.
Advice and Support
9. What advice would you give to someone considering serving as an Education volunteer in Madagascar?
Don’t get in your own head about it! At the same time you are learning Malagasy in pre-service training, you are also learning how to be a teacher. See what works for you and just present that back to your students. For first-time teachers, it can seem overwhelming getting up in front of dozens of kids, but allow yourself to just enjoy the chaos of it. In my experience, students are always very respectful and excited to learn from volunteers. They are a bunch of goofy goobers, there is no reason to be anxious in front of them.
Sometimes you will face other English teachers who are really deflective about working together, don’t take it personally. Remember you are the new kid in town, and just be patient and ready to work with them at their own pace. While two years fly by, you still can and should take your time to establish rapport and develop real relationships with your colleagues based on their needs
10. What skills or qualities do you think are most important for a Education volunteer?
Patience and understanding will take you far. While I teach the American equivalent of 10th grade, my student’s ages vary, between 13-22 years old, and each of my classes is over 50 students. In turn, their skill level is also incredibly varied, and it is nearly impossible to teach them all at a level that works for each of them, but you have to try.
With this considered, and with your and your student’s inability to fluently communicate with one another in the same language, many days become a lot of you trying to figure things out, while each of your students is also trying to figure things out at the same time. Enjoy the humor in these challenges; get goofy with it, allow exchanges to be silly and light, and demonstrate patience and understanding, and your students with demonstrate patience and understanding with you.
11. How has the Peace Corps staff and training helped you during your service?
It’s hard to pinpoint anything specifically from any of the training that I wished I had known in advance, I feel like the staff do a lot of great work to make the training relevant to our challenges and experiences. I just recommend going into it with the same professionalism you would anything else.
The Peace Corps staff here have been wonderful to me, pretty much anything I have been willing to sit down and talk over with them one-on-one has resulted in solutions that have fulfilled my needs and desires from the Peace Corps, but still held me accountable to Peace Corps policy and expectations.
Practical Tips and Language Learning
12. Anything that you packed or didn’t pack that you’d like to tell future Madagascar volunteers?
I packed so poorly before coming here, the entire first couple months at site were just making up for this;
- I did not feel like it was expressed to us just how much regular computer work would be expected of us, so a decent laptop will be important, I highly advise against Chromebooks.
- It gets surprisingly cold here in the highlands, and since upon arrival you aren’t aware of where you will be placed, some high-quality warm clothing will be a good idea.
- Most volunteers (including myself, unfortunately) have run into challenges with bed bugs or fleas, prevent this by bringing pest-proof mattress covers, pillowcases, sleeping bags, etc, whatever you research that sounds like a viable prevention or solution, because you won’t find them here.
- Bring your phone as protected as possible; case, screen protector, additional charging cords, extra headphones, etc.
- For some reason, it isn’t ‘encouraged’ to bring gifts for your host families here. I don’t know why; the culture of gift-giving is incredibly strong here and I felt terrible not having things to give them. Bring small thoughtful things emblematic of your community in the States, it provides a huge step up with integration. (You will have about 3 host families, a couple of counterparts you’ll want to build rapport with, and a couple of bags of fun-sized candy for the youths go a long way).
13. How has learning the language been?
Learning Malagasy has been an incredibly humbling experience that I still grapple with daily. I have had a very challenging time learning it, which at times has been incredibly disheartening. Some volunteers have flourished with the language, and for others (including myself) it has been a continuous upward struggle and none of it seems to come easily. Obviously, hindsight says I wish I had made more of an effort to learn it before coming here to take the pressure off of language learning, but truly I can’t imagine how it would have improved my experience here so far considering that in spite of my challenges with Malagasy I still thrive.
When you get here, you’ll discover if Malagasy clicks for you or if it doesn’t. Don’t determine this by looking left and right at other volunteers; that is deceptive. Just remind yourself that you want to be here, and you will find a way to learn and live that works for you. The Peace Corps also always responds when you reach out asking for assistance with language learning. Most importantly, your obstacles with language learning do not reflect your quality as a volunteer nor your value to your community.
Final Thoughts
15. Any last comments or observations you’d like to pass on to future Madagascar volunteers?
It has been an absolute dream to get to serve; both in the Peace Corps and here in Madagascar. While service has included its challenges, now, while I am nearing the end of my time in service, I have no regrets about choosing to serve nor choosing to serve here.
Navigating Challenges: Sexual Harassment and Safety Concerns
It is important that potential volunteers, especially female volunteers, are aware of how prevalent sexual harassment is here on a daily basis. All female volunteers experience it in some form during their service, and for some (myself included), it happens daily both at site and elsewhere in the country. Sexual assault is also common. While the Peace Corps offers many policies and resources to support volunteers who go through this, some feel that avoiding harassment means staying out of public spaces altogether (or only venturing out with a male chaperone during daylight hours). Trying to live normally without constant hyper-vigilance often means risking harassment.
Either approach affects mental health, and many volunteers have expressed that had they known this in advance, it might have influenced their decision to serve.
In my experience, this issue is not a reflection of the Peace Corps or Madagascar as a whole, but rather a combination of factors that don’t define the communities we serve. These incidents, whether witnessed or experienced personally, can also create opportunities to start discussions and advocate for change. My own experiences with harassment and assault led to the Peace Corps organizing a ‘Safe Schools’ training that involved counterparts and school principals.
My community even hosted a ‘Fandriana Against Sexual Harassment and Assault’ parade and rally. It featured a skit competition where students created scenarios to show how they would react to or prevent future incidents of harassment or assault.
Pre-service training will also cover this topic, as well as share preventative and coping strategies and educate volunteers on resources available to them. Potential incoming volunteers need to know the risks and be mentally prepared for the possibility of this happening during their service here.
Grateful for This Unforgettable Journey
It has been an absolute dream to get to serve; both in the Peace Corps and here in Madagascar. While service has included its challenges, now, while I am nearing the end of my time in service, I have no regrets about choosing to serve nor choosing to serve here.
If you have any other questions related to serving in the Peace Corps in Madagascar, you are welcome to do so via Linked In (search Mj Haynes, it should be me).
What are you waiting for? Opportunities like this don’t come often. If you have a passion for service and an adventurous spirit like Mj’s, apply to the Peace Corps today. Expand your horizons, push your limits, and create positive impact as a volunteer. You never know how serving as a Peace Corps volunteer could change your life.
The content of this post does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Government, the Peace Corps, or Madagascar Government.
