A Trip Out East

I’m back! After an almost weeklong trip to the east coast, we safely made it back to Antananarivo after a long day of driving. We left for our trip on Tuesday. Before we even made it out of Tana, we were stopped by a long brigade of cars/motorcycles. Our drivers told us that it was the president! Then we continued along until we stopped at a memorial for the victims of the massacre of 1947. There were a couple mass graves as well as a commemorative rock. Then we continued onto Moramanga for lunch. We ate at a restaurant called Coq D’Or (the golden chicken). It was supposed to be a Chinese restaurant, but we ended up eating fried rice, oriental vegetables, fried chicken, and shrimp scampi, so go figure. Then we got to walk around the town for a while. I walked around with a group and we met a man who spoke English. We talked to him for a little while, but then things got a tad strange. He asked to touch Jimmy’s face, and Jimmy was so shocked that he said yes. Then he turns to Cassie and says “can I touch your face for a very long time?” Before receiving an answer, he stuck his hand out and put it on her face. After a few seconds we decided that it was time to leave after that very strange encounter.

After our walk around, we met back to met up with the group to go to the museum of the gendarmerie. It was on a big compound which was absolutely gorgeous and there were a bunch of kids running around and playing with one another. The museum had a cannon display as well as a few rooms of pictures and a room full of guns. The guide was nice but got hooked on talkinge a love to us about love potions which was funny at first but then just got weird when he told one girl that she needed to watch out because someone was going to use one on her. After that we got back in the busses and headed on to Andasibe.

When we arrived in Andasibe, we split up into rooms. I was staying in a 5 person room, but there were only 4 of us in the room. We had 2 double beds and a single bed which was nice. The room was really nice, except for the fact that we only had the back half of the toilet seat. It was sort of strange and incredibly uncomfortable, but it was only for 1 night so it wasn’t that big of a deal. After settling in, me, Chie, and Ely decided to go out and watch all of the kids that were playing outside the hotel (there was a large, open, grassy area in which they were playing). We ended up playing Frisbee with a bunch of them, which was super fun. Surprisingly, almost all of the kids spoke French which we hadn’t been expecting. After a while, some more people came out to play with the kids and we all had a really good time. Then it was time for our night walk.

We met up with our 2 guides and drove down to a random road. We didn’t really see much during this walk (and it was drizzling for most of the time, which was gross) except for a mini lizard. It was basically a half hour long wet walk. Not super fun. Then it was time for dinner and bed. The next morning we were headed to the national park of Andasibe to see the Indry, the main lemur specie in Madagascar. We split up into 3 groups and each group set off with their own tour guide. At first we just saw a native bird and lots of native plants, but then our guide pointed out a lemur hanging out in a tree! It was super exciting! The guides all knew where the lemurs hang out so we were able to see a bunch of them. It was crazy to hear their calls (I have a short video so that you all can head) and to actually see them jumping between trees. They were super adorable.

At the end of the walk, our guide took us to see a big, sleeping snake that they had found that morning. We were able to touch it, which was both gross and cool at the same time. When you touched its stomach, it expanded which was weird and unexpected. After that we had lunch and hit the road for Vatomandry. The road was super long and full of twists and turns (but we only had 1 person get sick, and she made it to the window) but we finally made it and drove up to the beach! Our hotel was literally right on the beach. Right after parking we all hopped out of the vans and ran down to the water (Indian Ocean) and got out feet wet (a few people went in in their clothes, but I didn’t really feel like dealing with wet jeans). After the initial excitement, we split into bungalows. I was in a 6 person bungalow which had 2 double beds and a single (I got a single!) as well as a shower and a toilet (if you can call it that. . . We ended up getting the only bungalow that didn’t have a normal toilet. Instead, we had a squatter toilet, although it did flush). Then we all actually changed into bathing suits and went to play in the ocean. The water is much warmer than you’d expect, especially since it is actually the end of winter here, but the waves were huge and there was a big tide, but it was still super fun, even if you do end up completely covered in sand. That night we ate at the hotel where the staff were staying (they stayed about a 7 minute drive away) and then went back to our bugalows to hang out.

On Thursday morning we had French and Malagasy classes, and then a “drop-off.” Basically, we were told to split into groups and walk through the markets and end up at the staff’s hotel to eat lunch about an hour and a half later. Most of the stuff were things we’d seen before, but the prices were better (and the people were more willing to haggle) and the shop owners were nicer. After lunch I walked back with a group along a river and then the beach before swimming again. After that I went back into town with a few people, but we decided to go over a bridge instead of turning onto the main market street. It took us into a more rural, residential area where we ended up meeting someone who spoke English. Then we ran into 2 kids who were “sledding” down a hill. They had these huge, dried leaves that were the perfect shape for sitting on and were sliding down a hill on them. After a lot of weird communication (they only spoke Malagasy and we can only speak a little), we got the point across that someone wanted to try. It was super funny to watch the boys watching a vazaha sled down the hill.

Friday was similar. We had French and Malagasy classes in the morning and then we went to do a courtesy visit with the assistant to the head of the district. She told us a little about the town and then just the students were dropped off at a restaurant to eat. After that, me and 2 other girls decided that we wanted to look at the schools in Vatomandry, so we set off to do that. We didn’t know where any schools were, so we wandered a while and followed a sign which led to a rural development planning building. We followed the road behind that and ended up on a street parallel to the main one, but this was entirely residential. As we were talking we heard someone call out to us in English, and it turned out to be the same man we had met the day before. He gave us a general direction to go in to find a primary school so we headed that way.

We then ran into a group of people playing dominos. They invited us to join, but we said that we were looking for the school, so one of the men hopped up and walked us through people’s backyards to lead us right to the school. When we walked in there were 2 men eating in the yard and they took us back to the house where a teacher lived. We felt bad because she had been napping, but she was happy to talk to us, even though she was hard of hearing (which meant that we sometimes got answers which were interesting, although they had nothing to do with the question that had been asked). After a while she was having a lot of trouble making out what we were saying so she told us where we could go to find the director of the school. We set off to find her but then realized that it was nap time for most people, so we decided to go see if the mean were still playing dominos.

When we walked up, all of them were happy to see us again, and one man ran inside immediately to get stools for the 3 of us to sit on. We played dominos with the man who had led us to the school, but the most amusing part was watching them try to write our names on the scoresheet. My name was the most messed up: somehow, it was written as “Leky.” Cassie became “Katsy” and Charlotte was “Charolo” or something along those lines. I really don’t know how they got leky from Rachel, but whatever. They laughed when I then spelled it out and they realized how badly they spelled my name. Then we went back (and swam again, surprise!) and had a big group meeting to talk about what we had noticed in Vatomandry and to share how we had spent our afternoons. Because it was our last night as a group on the beach, we decided to spend it mostly together. We hung out a lot and even went swimming again at night, which was super fun.

After sleeping for about 4 and a half hours, 7 of us got up to watch the sunrise. It was absolutely gorgeous rising over the ocean and I am so glad that I got up, even though I was super tired by the end of the day. We left the bungalows around 8:15 and headed back to Moramanga for lunch at the same restaurant (and were served the exact same meal as we had been on Tuesday, which was fine because it was all really good). Then we kept driving on to Tana. The whole ride took about 8 and a half hours, and we had 3 people get sick (but 2 managed to get their heads out of the window, and 1 had a bag), but we all made it back safe and sound. The ride back was really pretty, although again full of twists and turns. Then I headed back to my host family where we had an American-like dinner: spaghetti and sausage. There were some slight differences, but it definitely wasn’t a Malagasy dish. (It was weird not to have rice though, I’ve gotten super used to always having rice with lunch and dinner, and sometimes even breakfast).