Back in Tana

I just wanted to let everyone know that I made it back to Tana (aka civilization) safely. I have a lot of blog posts to type up and post, but this past month was great. It is really weird to be back with a bunch of English speakers now, but I'll get used to it.

A Picture of My Mahajanga Host Siblings

My host siblings! Fabien (23), Miangaly (9), and Joelle (24)

Leaving Mahajanga

Friday we had our last language classes! It was weird. At the end our teacher, Olga, told us that we were much cooler than the last group and she wished us lots of luck in life and with marriage and our future families. It was really cute. Then we had a few random talks with Roland concerning any last minute ISP details. That afternoon we hung around and went to some markets and then to the cyber café before heading over to Bolo, any ice cream place, because Roland had invited all of us to go. It was so good (but the sundaes were pretty expensive, but it didn’t matter because he was paying!).

Getting home was interesting. I had asked Monsieur Nicolas, our homestay coordinator, where the bus stop was so he took me over and waited with me for about 15 minutes until I finally got on one, and even then I was literally only half in, with the guy who holds the door standing behind me holding me in. After about 2 minutes we were pulled over by the police because not everyone was sitting. The policeman pulled the driver out of the bus and talked to him for about 10 minutes before the driver ran back and drove away really quickly. After about a minute someone else stopped us, and it turned out that it was M. Nicolas who came to get me off the bus and drive me home. That night we had couscous with cheese for dinner, that Joelle made, and it was so good!

On Saturday morning, at breakfast, my mom turned to me and said that the girls (meaning me and Joelle) were going to be cooking lunch and then Joelle told me that this time, she’d be helping me instead of the other way around, so I had to quickly think of something to make. I decided to make chicken parmesan with noodles and veggies. The two of us set off for town to buy things. We managed to find everything we needed between Score (a big supermarket) and another market and then headed home to start preparing things.

The first thing we did was make our own tomato sauce. Then we started preparing everything else. The meal turned out really good and everyone really liked it, so that was a success! That afternoon I hung around with some of my siblings and then showered before we headed to the pot d’adieu for all of the host families. We all went down to the center and hung out outside for a while and took pictures by the water. Then we went inside where there was a lot of food and a few different people talked. First Roland, then M. Nicolas, then a host dad on behalf of all of the families, and then Jimmy on behalf of all of the students. Afterwards we just hung around for a while before I went with all of my family down to the boardwalk. I walked around with my sisters before joining back up with the rest of the family for dinner. We went to a place where you sit down and point at the raw meat that you want, and then the person marinates the meat and grills it in front of you. It was really good. Then we took a taxi home (and set up a taxi for the next morning).

Sunday morning I got up early and had breakfast, then said goodbye to my parents (Miangaly was asleep so I couldn’t say goodbye which was sad) and went into town with Joelle and Fabien. We sat together on the boardwalk for a while and exchanged email addresses/facebook names before we said goodbye and they left. Then we got on our taxi-brousse special and took off. We all signed our names on a sheet that was also stamped and signed by a host dad who is a kernel and it is good we did. More on that later.

We drove for a while and then stopped about 250 km into the journey to eat lunch. We all went to the same restaurant, which in retrospect was a bad idea, because they got really confused about our orders and some of us were served really quickly (like my table) and others had to wait about an hour. We finally got back on the road and just continued driving straight because we had about 300 km left. About 40 km outside of Tana we were stopped by the gendarmes, which is normal, but normally they just look at the driver’s papers (or see that we are all vazaha and do nothing) and wave us on, but this time, after seeing the papers, the gendarme asked for our passports. Our driver tried to tell him that we were students and showed him a bunch of other papers, but he was insistent. Eventually the driver gave him the sheet with our names, and thankfully my name was first on the sheet, so the gendarme said my name and asked for my passport, which I had easily accessible, unlike most of the people in my car. He looked at my passport and saw that I had a good visa but then looked at my birthday and said (in French) “born in 1990? Zazakely!” (zazakely means little kid in Malagasy). Then he came around and shined his light in my window and then waved at me and blew me a kiss before waving us on.

When we got into Tana we got dropped off at the hotel and Rivo came to meet us with pizzas for dinner which was nice. We ate there and then went to bed because we were all so tired (but I took the best shower I have taken so far in Madagascar! The pressure was amazing and the temperature perfect).

This morning we came to the center to get our ISP stipend money and on the way made hotel arrangements for tonight. After having cake for someone’s birthday, we headed back to our hotel to move our stuff to the new hotel, then I went out for lunch with some people and then Cassie and I (the other girl going back to the villages) went to get our taxi-brousse tickets. At the station we randomly ran into Madame Bakoly, the homestay coordinator from Tsiroanomandidy so we talked to her for a little while and decided that we’ll call her tomorrow night when we are settled into our hotel there. Then we went to shoprite and got new sim cards that will work in the villages before buying some food to bring them and heading back to the center.

My new number is 033-81-694-05 (so if you want to call me it is 011-261-33-81-694-05)

Nearing the End of Our Stay in Mahajanga

Tuesday, again, was a typical day. Although many things in Madagascar are unpredicatable, our mornings are always exactly the same. French for an hour, Malagasy for an hour, and then snack for 20 minutes. On Tuesday though, we had something new for snack! There were “fleurs d’amour” which are basically fried dough with honey and are incredibly delicious. After snack we split into 5 groups to go visit NGOs. I went with 3 other students to visit FISA, an NGO that works with the IPPF (or the International Planned Parenthood Foundation). The NGO visits various communities to talk to them about family planning (the average family here is very large and often can’t financially support all of the members). They also offer services at the office. Couples can come in to talk about family planning and their specific situations and people can also come in for free HIV/AIDs testing. Between January and September, there were close to 5000 people who came in for consultations and over 1000 who came in for testing (although only 2 tested positive). The woman we talked with was a program coordinator. She was really nice and spoke French and a little English, which is always fun (people really like getting to practice their English with native speakers when at all possible).

The afternoon wasn’t too special. We went back to the SIT center to eat and then I went to the Alliance Franaçaise to do some work and use the internet. After a while a group of us headed over to Quai Ouest, where I got what was called a pressed fruit juice, but was basically just a smoothie. It was unexpectedly delicious so I am super glad that I got it. After that I went home and just hung around with my family. My sister didn’t come home and my mom slept through dinner, so dinner was a late (around 9:30) quiet affair with just me, my little sister, my brother, and my dad.

Wednesday morning had a sad start. We learned that another student would be leaving us that night, so now we are down to 19, rather than the 21 that we started with. We had a long talk with Roland about the circumstances and what had already been done and then we had French and Malagasy. Instead of having a normal Malagasy class, we had what they called a “devoirs” (homework) but it was actually an open book/note quiz/test type thing. I didn’t think that it was too difficult, although I know that there were some people who had a fair amount of difficulty with it.

After snack (we had fleurs d’amour again because they saw on Tuesday how much we liked them!) we split into groups of 4 to visit public schools. I went with 3 other students to a public middle school about a 10 minute walk from our rented classroom space. When we first got there we were all surprised by how big the building actually was. It was a lot nicer than I had been anticipating, although I don’t know why I was expecting something not as nice, because I didn’t have any reason to think it wouldn’t be nice. We talked for a while with the principal and vice-principal to learn about the school (such as a typical day, how many students/classes there are, and the difficulties they face, just to name a few) and then we got to go sit in on an English class. The class was learning about greetings. The teacher would give some sort of greeting and then ask the class for synonyms. Afterwards we got to add some synonyms so they were able to learn something new from us! The teacher wanted us to come back again later but unfortunately I don’t think that it will be possible.

The student who was leaving came to eat lunch with us, so we were all happy to see her, although she was obviously sad to be leaving us. After lunch I had another ISP meeting with Roland just to go over some logistics. It is looking like I will be heading back to Tana with the group on Sunday and then going down to Tsiroanomandidy on Tuesday and to my village on Wednesday. On Monday I am going to run random errands around town (such as buying some things for my host family) and use the internet for the last time for a while.

After my meeting I went to the cyber café to do some homework and then I was able to skype with a friend from home (that is 2 times in 2 days! First Rose and then Shalli!). Afterwards I went to say a final goodbye to the girl who is leaving and returned home. After showering my mom helped me a little to prepare for my Malagasy presentation tomorrow (it will be pretty easy. We just need to talk about some aspect of the culture, in French, and then give 10 Malagasy words/expressions concerning the topic). After that one of her students, who is 11, showed me her science notebooks and I asked her a little about how her teacher teaches them the material, as that is what I will be looking at for my ISP in the village. It was helpful. Then my older sister came home and we made paper cranes together (I looked up the instructions online because she had previously asked me about them). I made cranes of 3 different sizes and then Miangaly took them all to play with. It was super cute to watch/listen to, because when she is playing by herself she talks a ton (and today it was mostly in French so I understood almost all of it!).

Thursday morning, after language classes, we were going to visit CSBs (centres de santé de basse). I went to the one in Amborovy, where I live, with 3 other students (2 of whom also live here). We were able to talk with 1 of the 2 doctors there and she told us a little about the different services they offer before taking us on a little tour. We were able to see the consultation rooms, meeting rooms, the room where women give birth, and the room where women can sleep after giving birth.

After lunch I made a quick trip to a cyber café before going to catch a taxi-be to go home. I ended up having to wait about 15 minutes for a number 6 to show up and then about 2 stops after I got on we had a flat tire so we had to wait while that got replaced. I finally made it home (thankfully we didn’t wait at stops for about 5 minutes like often happens in the afternoons) and did a little homework until my dad was ready to go back to school (he is the director of a public middle school). I went with him, thinking that I was just going to be able to sit in on a class and maybe talk with a teacher, but much to my surprise, I was introduced to a class of at least 50 students (but probably more), told that I had an hour, and left entirely alone. It was crazy. I asked the students what they wanted to do, and the hour basically ended up being an English lesson wherein a student would give me a word in French and I would then write it on the board in both languages. When we did colors I also had students write the Malagasy words on the board, more for my benefit than for theirs, although I didn’t tell them that. There was one boy sitting in the front row who spoke really good French and was able to help me a lot. At one point in the middle their normal teacher came by, heard that they were being loud, and gave them a stern talking to. I don’t actually know what he said, because it was in Malagasy, but they were much quieter after that. Somehow I managed to fill the hour by doing vocabulary and talking to them a little in English (and then translating into French for comprehension). When my dad showed up it was a big relief and I was happy to be able to go home, although it was certainly a fascinating experience.

That night we had fish to make up for the bad fish on Sunday. It was grilled and actually really good. I think the difference is that her the fish is incredibly fresh (we are on the water) so you get it just off the boats and it tastes really good. I don’t know what we are going to do this weekend, but it is sadly our last weekend in Mahajanga (we leave to return to Tana early on Sunday morning).

A Busy/Lazy Weekend

Saturday 10/22

Saturday morning I got up around 8 to have breakfast and then hung around for a while. Both of my older siblings were gone so I just read a lot. A little before lunch time Joelle got back and it was time to prepare lunch. We ended up eating a little late and then had to rush to go. Joelle was meeting in town with one of the students from my program to talk about environmental issues, and I was going in with her to introduce them. We waited for Miangaly and Raida (Zack’s niece) to come back and then the 4 of us left. We got on the taxi-be and then Fabien got on after us. He had fallen while skateboarding and his hand was bloody.

When we got off the taxi-be we walked to the Alliance Française. The girls went into the library and I introduced Joelle to the student and they went across the street to talk. I checked some different things on the internet before the girls came outside. I took them across the street and then went back to my computer, but then soon realized that they were probably being really annoying while they were trying to talk, so I went across and got them so that they could play with photobooth on my computer. They loved it, so now I have a ton of adorable pictures on my computer.

After they were done talking we all went to get icecream and then headed back home. We were all pretty tired (no one had slept well the night before) so we helped prepare dinner and then called it a night.

Sunday morning I got up and had breakfast and then waited around until Joelle was ready to cook. We prepared a picnic lunch together! We made 3 different tortes (sort of. . .) The dough was made by literally just mixing flour and oil and then we made a sauce with tomatoes, onions, and a mixture of boiled milk, sugar, water, and cheese. On top of the sauce we put on more cheese and zucchini, and then on one we put fish and on the other we put chicken. On the fish one we put on a top layer of dough and glazed it in egg wash so it would brown. We also made a strawberry tart and packed everything up to go to the beach.

The program had organized the afternoon at the beach so when we got there we found a lot of people already there eating with their host families. We sat down to join them before going in the water. It was really fun to go in with so many people who all were comfortable with one another (all of the Malagasy people were more or else accustomed to us being vazaha so they just played with us like it was no big deal). I saw a lot with Miangaly, who would come up behind me and just jump on me. It was fun. We hung out a lot on the beach and swam a lot and then people started leaving. My family decided to stay to watch the sunset so we stuck around and were the last ones to leave by a long period of time. Before sunset I swam again with just my mom and Miangaly and then we got out to watch the sunset. I was sitting on the beach farther down from my family and a Malagasy boy came up to talk to me. He was 13 and wanting to practice French so I talked with him, but I could never hear what he said on the first try and so I had to constantly ask him to repeat himself.

That night we walked back home in the dark and then prepared dinner, but it turned out that the huge fish we made was bad, so dinner ended up being bread and cheese.

Monday morning was a normal class day, starting with languages and then we had someone come talk to us about the economy in Mahajanga. After lunch, rather than being free, we had a session on ISP, and then we were free for 2 hours. I went to the internet café and then headed over to the port where we had our next session. We got to go on one of the boats there and see a lot of different things. Then Cara and I went back to my house to talk with my parents about the education system. We ended up talking for a while, until about 8, and then Joelle and I walked her home. When we got there Cara’s dad invited us to eat dinner with them, which we declined, but then insisted that we stay to eat mangos, so we did. Then we went home to actually eat dinner, but it wasn’t ready until about 9:30 because Fabien didn’t start cooking until we left with Cara. I was really tired so I showered and fell asleep right away.

On Monday afternoon, I received some good news! Roland had heard back from Madame Bakoly and my family in the villages is excited to have me back! But according to the other girl who is going back to the villages, Roland said that there is no internet in Tsiroanomandidy, so if that is the case, I may be sort of cut off from communication for most of the month of November. But I will have my phone (and ideally will be getting another SIM card so that I will always have service) so phone is always an option! I will post my numbers (I will have 2 assuming I do get another sim) before I leave incase anyone wants to call/people can give me their numbers if they would like me to call (I think that it is a lot cheaper for me to call, although I know that skype credit can make it a lot easier to call from the US).

Visiting Katsepy!

Friday 10/21

Today we didn’t follow a normal schedule at all. Rather than have our language classes as normal, we went to visit Katsepy, an island off the coast of Mahajanga. The ferry we were going to take was supposed to leave at 7, so Roland told us to be down at the dock by 6:30. For this reason, I got up at 4:45, because my mom said that it would be necessary to leave at 5:30. My host brother (who took me to the dock) and I left the house at 5:20 and the neighborhood gates weren’t even open yet. The trip took significantly less time than my mom had said it would and we ended up getting off the taxi-be at 5:50, way earlier than needed. The dock was a 2 minute walk from the taxi-be stop, but there were already students there, so I joined them and we sat around and waited for everyone (including Roland and Candy) to show up.

While waiting around, a man approached me and one of the boys on the program. He asked how many people were in our group and when we told him that there would be 22 in total, he tried to tell us that there wouldn’t be enough space on the ferry but that he had a boat that could hold 25 people and that he would be happy to take us all across. He tried to convince us of the fact that the ferry was full for a good 20 minutes before finally giving up. It turns out that the ferry was very full, but we did all fit. I ended up in a teensy-tiny little room behind the captain with 10 other students and we were all incredibly gross, sweaty, and hot by the end of the ride because that room isn’t meant to hold more than 3 or 4 people, particularly not for over an hour.

When we finally reached land, we were all incredibly happy to get off the boat and breathe fresh air. To get off involved walking through the ocean, so all of us had really sandy feet/shoes. This wouldn’t normally be a huge issue but we went into a restaurant to talk with Chantel, a peace-corps volunteer from Alaska who has been stationed in Katsepy for the past 2 years. We were sitting on mats and got them incredibly sandy.

Chantel talked to us a lot about the island/village and about how she spends her day as a peace-corps volunteer. She is 31 but had always had it in the back of her mind that she wanted to volunteer so after working at Macy’s for a few years and realizing that she wasn’t really doing anything productive with her life, she applied and was accepted. She was originally sent to Niger but was pulled out for safety reasons and sent instead to Madagascar in December 2009 as part of the first group of volunteers to go back in the country after the crisis of March 2009. She works in trying to help the farmers improve their agriculture, but also said that she has a lot of time to lounge around on the beach and interact with the community. She has learned a lot of Malagasy in the past 2 years, but said that she still finds herself in situations where people are talking too quickly or something else rendering her unable to understand anything that they are saying.

After talking with her for a while we gouted (snacked), of course, and then she took us on a little walk to show us different parts of the town/different buildings. We first walked through the “market.” She was telling us that all of the vendors sell the exact same things and she doesn’t understand how they are economically able to support themselves. I don’t understand either. How can they make money when what they are selling isn’t unique and therefore people have no real need to buy from a particular person?

After that we went to see the mosque. It was the biggest, nicest building we saw and Chantel said that a lot of money has been put into it over the years. Then we went to go see the schools. There is both an EPP (public primary school) and a public collège, or middle school. She was telling us how the EPP building has 2 classrooms for 5 classes, so children only go to school for half of the day. It is sad that there isn’t enough space for them to get real educations. After that we went to see the CSB (centre de santé de base – the center for basic health). This week they were running a mother-child health program, so there were a few women there with small children who had just gotten shots, or been weighed, or something else along those lines. Then we continued walking and saw the Catholic Church. Comparing it with the mosque was fascinating. In comparison with the ornate mosque, the church was literally built of leaves and didn’t stand out at all. It looked just like all of the houses around it and it was so weird to see the differences. The door was locked so we couldn’t go in, but the door had slats in it so we were able to look in. There were a few benches and some pictures hanging on the wall, but that was it.

After our walk we were all really hot so we went back to the restaurant to have some cold drinks and then I stayed there with some people to just sit and chill. We talked a lot with Chantel about varying topics, this time mostly not related to the peace-corps, but just about life in general. While we were talking with her, a woman came up with an adorable toddler. She sat down next to me and smiled a lot and then eventually started asking me for money for the baby. I told her no and wouldn’t pay attention to her for a while. After some time, I mentioned to Chantel that she kept asking for money and she explained to me that the woman is an alcoholic, but she still breastfeeds, so her child has many problems. She said to definitely not give her any money because it would just go towards alcohol.

We had brought lunch with us to eat. I had a tuna sandwich (with cheese and mustard, which isn’t a combination I normally do, but it was really good), corn and pickles (what a weird veggie salad to make!), and pineapple. I always think that it is funny when we bring picnics with us because we are basically a group of 20 foreigners who come into a little village and bring with us more food than most families have ever seen at 1 time. It is ridiculous. After lunch we hung out for a little while and some people went to buy mangos. I didn’t get one because I’d had a lot the day before, but apparently each mango there only cost 100 ariary (the equivalent of 5 cents! Ridiculously cheap!) and they were apparently pretty good. When it was time to go, we didn’t take the baka (the ferry) back, but rather ended up taking the boat owned by the guy with whom I had talked this morning! All of us fit in. I was in the front and had to help hand out life jackets and then we took off. During the ride, the man we had talked to stood up front and sang with us/danced. He was super amusing and made the ride very enjoyable. Of course, I was soaked by the end of the ride, as was my backpack. My pants dried quickly, but then I got on the taxi-be with my backpack, which I had to put on my lap, and when I got off it looked like I had peed in my pants. I took a shower right away (I was disgustingly sweaty) and then decided to do some homework. We have a 10-15 page paper due next Friday so I’ve been working on that and have already made it to page 7! Not too bad at all, and probably much farther than any of the other students (I think only 1 or 2 others have even started to write).

Last night it was just me, my parents, and Miangaly at home. We watched some movies and then put on NCIS in French. The voices they chose for the characters are so weird! I much prefer the normal voices. Then I taught my parents to play uno while we waited for our pizza to come for dinner. The pizza here always has such weird toppings! We had 2 different types that both had shrimp on them and then we also had a 4 cheese pizza, but one of the cheeses was basically just laughing cow cheese. It was good, just strange!

Lots of Things Going On

Wednesday 10/20

I was sort of in a hurry when I wrote about Wednesday before so I’m going to give some more details now. Around 1:45 am I was woken up by a lot of dogs barking. Apparently what is happening is that authorities are going around and killing the random dogs that live in the street and that is what was happening. Of course I hated to hear that, but there is absolutely nothing that I can do about it, which is hard to accept.

Wednesday morning was normal. We left the house at 6:30 to ensure that I would be on time for my 7:30 meeting with Roland. We basically only talked about how my homestay here in Mahajanga is going and then we talked about random logistics of going back to the village (although it still isn’t certain because we haven’t heard back from Madame Bakoly who was going to go talk to my family there).

At 8 we started French class, like normal. Today in my class we all took a newspaper and picked an article. We had some time to read and comprehend the article and then we explained the article to the group and gave 2 new vocabulary words that we had found in the article. Then was Malagasy class at 9. We went over adjectives today, and learned a whole bunch of new words which I really should sit down and study at some point (probably either tomorrow afternoon or this weekend) to aid in my comprehension when I go back to the villages, where only 2 or 3 people actually speak French.

After Malagasy, instead of having snack, we grabbed snack to take on a special taxi-be that the program had prepared for us. We all actually fit, which is surprising, but it was definitely one of the biggest taxi-bes that I have seen in Madagascar. M. Nicolas (one of the homestay coordinators) came with us, leaving all of the SIT staff at the center. We drove out about 25 minutes into a village where we arrived at the doany. We were greeted by some villagers who helped us prepare to enter (girls with hair down, and everyone wearing lambas). Then we went in and were greeted by the Sakalava prince of the Boeny region (who Roland had been certain wouldn’t actually be there). Thankfully, the prince spoke French, but none of his assistants did. He talked to us about his job and the succession of the throne and then we were able to ask questions. Before leaving we all shook his hand so I can now officially say that I have shaken hands with a prince.

When we got back to the center we had lunch. We had noodles and shrimp! So good. There was also mango again, which was great because as I said, the mango here is amazing. I wish that you all could try some because you’d adore it. After lunch people were beginning to disperse when Roland showed up. Normally he just says hi to us, but today he called us all together and said that he wanted to talk to us as a group. He began by saying that he heard that our morning had gone well, but then told us that he had some sad news to share with us. Madame Jo, one of our language teachers in Tana (as I already explained), passed away yesterday. As he started talking to us, Hanta came in and she started crying, which started a chain reaction and there were many teary eyes in our silent room.

After our discussion I went to a cyber café for a little while before going to hop on the taxi-be to head home. The taxi-be took forever because at almost all of our stops we waiting for about 5 minutes, which isn’t normally, but I think it is because the afternoons are slow here and they want to have as many people paying as possible so that they can earn the most money, which makes sense because the drivers rent out the bus and therefore want to be able to make back more than what they paid in the first place.

When I finally got home my little sister was watching a movie and my mom was taking a nap, so I did my Malagasy homework. We had 14 or 15 new Malagasy adjectives to translate and then we had to write a phrase with each one. About an hour later, with the help of 4 dictionaries (Malagasy-English, English-Malagasy, Malagasy-French, and French-English/English-French) I was done. Then I read for a little while before getting ready to go to the beach. We had decided yesterday to go to the beach to swim a little and watch the sunset. On our way there (we walked) I heard someone say “oh hey there, vazaha” and I looked over and a few people from my program were driving by in a taxi-be. When we got to the beach I saw another group of students there (I knew that people were going but had already agreed to go with my family). I hung out with them for a while before going in the water with my sister. We started by playing on the beach in the sand/water and then actually went in. When she plays in the sand she builds random things and talks constantly. It is really cute to watch, even if I almost never catch what she is saying (I think she switched between French and Malagasy and she is speaking really quickly and in a quiet voice).

When the sun started to set we were sitting in the sand near the water and it was gorgeous. There were some boats that had just come in and were right near the sand and the combination of those with the colors was amazing. I think we are going to go back to watch the sunset again so that I can take pictures, but also so that we can stay later (my mom doesn’t feel comfortable staying too long after the sunset when there isn’t a man with us, which probably isn’t such a bad idea, especially when I [who garners attention] am there).

We decided to take a taxi-be back (instead of walking) and it ended up being 8 or 9 of the students from my program with my host mom and sister. The driver commented on how he had been lucky today because there were a ton of foreigners who had taken his taxi-be. We were the first ones to get off. When we got back I showered (I was covered in sand/salt) and then hung out while people prepared dinner. While I was showering, the electricity went out, but it wasn’t that big of a deal because they put out candles and the water still worked (I still have a bucket shower, but I get water myself from a spigot in the bathroom).

Dinner was pretty good. We ate beef (zebu) and zucchini in some sort of delicious sauce. Of course we also had rice (because it isn’t a real Malagasy meal if rice isn’t included). There were a bunch of ants which had been in the place mats so we had fun trying to kill them/brush them off the table. Apparently these ants bite and it really hurts, which is so much more annoying than just having normal ants!

As I was writing this blog post a lot of my family was also in the same room, and were commenting on the fact that I type quickly and don’t need to look at the keyboard (I was watching the tv at the same time, but it is in Malagasy so I don’t understand anything and can concentrate on what I am writing, even though I’m not looking at my computer screen.)

Thursday – 10/21

This morning we left the house pretty late because my host mom took forever to get ready. I don’t know what she was doing but it really did take a long time (which is weird because she gets up at 4:45 every morning so you’d think that she would have more than enough time to get ready) and I ended up having at least half an hour after breakfast to read while just waiting for her to get ready. When she was finally ready to go (around 7) we went out to wait for the bus, but one didn’t come for about 10 minutes, which is weird because normally in that period of time there would be about 3.

When we got to the center in the morning, Roland and Hanta came in to talk to us more about Malagasy burial traditions and to tell us about how the program is sending their condolences to Madame Jo’s family. We made a card for them, that everyone signed, and the program is buying a lamba which she will be wrapped in before burial, which I think is really nice. Hanta is going to fly back to Tana this afternoon and then on Friday morning, at 10, Hanta, Rivo, Sidoney, and Lydia are going to go visit the family. The burial will then take place at 4:30 in the afternoon and Hanta will return to Mahajanga on either Saturday or Sunday.

We had language classes like normal and then after snack we had a visit from a diviner. Apparently he is a prince and he came in wearing a crazy outfit with lots of bracelets. He spoke Malagasy, French, and some English, which was nice. After telling us about what he does, and showing us the sikidy, the seeds of a tree, he decided to do the fortunes of some student. He told one boy that he could be a very successful politician if he wanted to, but that he would have to go through many hard times before he became famous. He apparently has the same birthday as Didier Ratsiraka and will follow a similar career path should he decide to actually go into politics. He also told another girl that she will be sick often if she doesn’t make sure to drink a lot of water all the time and then another girl that she will have a happy life, will have 2 kids, and will have a lot of responsibility in her family.