the end (vita)

ok so.

nope not ready to write this bye

18

All efforts to avoid congestive heart failure disappear when i discover that i can buy deep fried bananas off the street for 5 cents a pop. Help me jesus

17

 dunno if this will work but this is Surgi playing the lukanga!

16

Blog post 4

I sink back into my life here in Tana. It is not hard. Here, where my family is small and quiet. My dad is not shirtless and booming here, he is little and scared of oranges that are too sour, flash floods, and also the neighbors dogs. His moustache is turning white. Here, soap operas are religiously watched and murmured about quietly. Here, If you want to be silent at dinner, its okay. If you want to go to bed at 8:45, so does the rest of the family. 

Meanwhile, tomorrow I begin my non-school days. I am no longer sitting in class. For one month, the loud cluttered streets dirty gutters and falling apart buildings of Tana make up the walls of my classroom. Children are playing around in the watery trash soup next to me and I am sitting staring at a rare functioning fountain, waiting for my interview with a random gasy rapper, learning. I have coaxed my taxi driver into explaining to me why he likes to listen to hira vavaka (hymnals) on the job, learning FOANA. I am not a real human being, I am an investigatrice. I have transformed into a detective girl in plainclothes. I am on CSI Miami. i am a jungle explorateur. My prerogative is to attend every concert within earshot, talk to everyone who will talk to me and at the end write 50 ish pages. It is also on my wishlist to attend a famadihana (dance a lot, sing songs and dig up the bones of your andestors) and a tromba ceremony (drink a lot of rum, play the accordian and become possessed by your ancestors).

Needless to say IM A LITTLE EXCITED. 

( My dad also suggests I should attend a circumcision. We shall see. it would most likely mean i would have to see a grown man eat a foreskin on a banana. but Im not entirely opposed. )

and also spazzing out with the amount of free time i have (which is all day every day). 

Knowing me, this will soon become not enough time at all. Mamy be ny aina.Tsy andriko 

15

Yesterday i ate a fish eye ball on the beach. Dont worry it  was cooked. It pretty much tasted like a fish (surprise!?)

I also had the experience of going out for drinks in what was essentially a prostitution ring. Sex tourism is really big here on NOSY BE (island off the NW coast)  so we were the only young women in the place who weren't , a. Malagasy and b. Hanging off a creepy ancient french man reminiscent of of a Gringotts elf. Its legal here if youre over 18.

It was weird. However tried to remain open minded. Both parties are technically profiting , and it provides a level of financial independence for these females whose country's education/economic systems have failed them. But, still makes my stomach whirl whenever i see a white haired geezer  fingering the hemline of a 19 year old with hair extensions. On the bright side, the live music in the place tended towards the over-50 crowd, so we got to rock out to frankie vallie and stevie wonder.

Also, i bought an avacado off a woman's head for 50 cents and it was masiro be (= real yummy). Also went skinny dipping in the indian ocean. Dont worry there were no geezers  present.

15

Mahajanga. Maahhhhajanga. Haven't been able to write much bc im stressed. 'stressed' being relative - i spent all day sunday on the beach and right now im sitting under a fan drinking a frappacino. BUT! There is actually lots of school-related things to be doing. And it is harder to do them when i am sweating out my eyeballs. 

Highlights:

-My fam here is insane. There is a mom a dad and approximately 800 children/newphews/nieces/kids of friends/ random ppl who swing by on the weekend/unknowns. Dinner is minimum 8 people. I love them they find me hilarious.

-My dad likes to not wear a shirt on talk nonsense in a booming voice.

-My mom likes to sit outside under the mango tree, yell at her kids to cook more rice, and refer to me as vazaha "efa voki vazaha?" already full vazaha? Vazaha knows lots of words. Vazaha will kill the chicken.

-Oh yeah i killed a chicken. With a knife. My 13 year old brother/newphew taught me. He told me I gave it a slow death, thats why it was twitching so much. Noted.

-My family likes to make me dance and then tell me im a good dancer while simultaneously dying of laughter. Confusing. 

-Doesn't help that my 800 siblings/cousins are all accomplished ballroom dancers. I went to class with them (they go 3x a week) and ended up getting almost molested in a corner by a rando during the Meringue. Afterwards the instructor aggressively held my shoulders and yelled french numbers in my ear bc my foxtrot was 'ratsy be' i.e. terrible. 

-I was on the 7 o clock news (not just me, all the vazahas of SIT) bc we visited the local tv station and because we are news. I had an interview where i talked gasy too fast and confused the word 'sad' with a random music group ive been learning about. example: "i am Rolling Stones to be leaving mahajanga in a week!"

-Consequently, i learned the gasy word for 'famous'

-I cooked fajitas for my fam with guacamole. My 10 yr old brother said it was the only vazaha food he has liked. Win. mahay mahandro ny vazaha - vazaha knows how to cook. But does not know how to foxtrot.

13

Things that are different:

The oranges are green

you eat the avocado with sugar

tortillas have disappeared from the earth

On the way to school I see a man sitting in a dumpster, I see a cow leg hanging from a hook, there is a boy looking at me over his shoulder, smiling over his blood-streaked pousse-pousse “vazaha?!”

I come home and my dad picking guavas off the porch tree. Guava jus at dinner isan hariva

Taxi rides are max 5 dollars

I am telling the big-eyed dirty city ankizy tsy manana vola! but they are reaching into my pockets anyways

My race is instinctively yelled to me several times a day “vazaha!?” “vazaha?!” in case I didn’t know

I hear myself parting ways on a Friday night, saying bizarre things such as 5:30 tomorrow? Because we want to go running under a sunrise.

When I sleep until 7:30 it is “sleeping in”

When I stay up past 10 it is “late”

I am a celebrity to my neighbors

My neighbors are asking me for 500 ariary please he wants cigarettes

When I see a white person I notice

When I see a person washing a pig intestine on the street, I don’t

Things that are the same

The oranges are still orange on the inside

Sometimes I eat crackers

Coffee at breakfast

There are nephews who come to visit

There are tv commercials telling you which type of noodles to eat

There are silly soap operas

There are piano lessons

There are grandpas forgetting their glasses upstairs ah les lunettes encore!

There are grandchildren squirming at the dinner table je peux m’excuse s’il te plait

But no you must first finish your rice

I need to buy toothpaste

I need to buy sunscreen

I have written an essay in a coffee shop. The wifi code is Cheesecake

I have had iced coffee with whip cream

I have a mom who is worried about my bug bites, a dad who is telling me to set my alarm maraina be!

I am TAMANA BE

12

I really suggest that everyone once in their life take a journey through the Malagasy diksionera. This language is kind of hilarious. I literally read the dictionary for fun……………… wish I was lying.

SINCE most people haven’t heard of Malagasy and you probably don’t have a dictionary lying around I will help you out

Interesting thing #1: there is no word for “to be”

Interesting thing #2: the sentence structure is backwards yoda speak “eat corn I” “have book you”

Interesting thing #3: It is a simple language. For instance, bibi is animal. Bibikely = small animal = insect. Bibilava = long animal = snake. So cute.

Interesting thing #3: pretty much any word that exists in Malagasy can be doubled and this tweaks the meaning to weaken the word slightly. Example: kely = smallà  kelikely= kind of small. Mipetraka = to sit à mipetrapetraka = to sit around. Indray = again à indraindray = sometimes

For some reason I just find this really adorable. And fun to play with. 

There are also many hilarious words where you feel like the whole history and culture of Madagascar is sitting right in your mouth when you say it. Par exemple

Masay = the second wife in a polygynous family

Manjehy = to measure by spanning with the hand

Manakobaka = to slosh clothes around in water

Fotsy rora = technically means white person spit but also means “who speaks but is not listened to”

Mandry fotsy = to go to bed without eating, especially without eating rice

Fanantazana = the act of collecting in a basket

Dobodobohana= to be made to thump like a drum

Baiko = a foreign word ; a command

Bao = a pole for carrying burdens across the shoulder

Antsamotady = a sling for throwing stones

Antsanga = trash and mud deposited by flood water

Valim-babena = the duty of grown children to help their parents

11

Other inspiring moments from the village stay:

-we are walking back from mamboly ovy (planting potatoes) and my stops and catches a grasshopper in her hands. ‘tsara be!’ she rips off the legs and wings and says she will bring it home for milalao ny ankizy (so the kids can play with it). I tell her that obviously I want to eat it if possible… this has been my goal since I ever conceived of coming to Madagascar. She nods. This is not at all strange. When we get back she clips it to her hat and it is staring at me all morning while I write field notes. Strangely this makes me lose my appetite while I eat lunch. but at dinner she grills it up for me and it tastes really soft and nice. I decide to go with tail first rather than head first. It is dei mafinaritra

- on the last day at breakfast I spot a giant spider outside the window. When I look closer I see that there are actually approximately 1037 of them all chillin in their webs right outside. I am leaning out the window to take a picture when my mom is pushing me to the side. Silly! why take a picture when you can nab one with a broom and bring it through the window! She is telling me they are nice, they are fanofody (medicine) for a word I don’t understand. I look it up and realize she is telling me they feed these to chronically crippled children. It is crawling all over her pink sweatshirt. It is GIANT. And then it is crawling up my arm too, sure, why yes this is so naturelle. My sisters think it is hilarious.

10

Got back to Tana today from a week long village stay. Hmm how to explain ? I was put purposefully with a fam that tsy mahay frantsay (did not speak French). Roland had perceived my level of nerdiness with the Malagasy and thought I could benefit from some straight up immersion. well

 So on Friday morning I was brought home by my dad Faly (literally means ‘happy’) in a janky blue automobile owned by the school. On the way we passed a sleeping volcano, casual. My dad was missing his four front teeth and had an excellent crazyman smile. F – A –L –Y tattooed the knuckles of his right hand, ADIOS between his finger and thumb.  “tia miteny malagasy” “dei mafiniratra!”

We live in the fokotony (town) KABAHABA. Our house is a room in a two story brick ‘traditional’ style casa with a cluttered porch. Chickens all around. There are 2 beds. One is my bed and the other bed is for the rest of the fam. There was a mom a dad and three daughters age 8 – 12. There are two tables, a dresser and a radio and a window. Also a rice bag full of all their clothes.  My dad shows me his guitar, it is broken but he has fixed it with a fork and a leather strap. ‘mahay?’ I play redemption song for them and they think I am a genius. Yet to be discovered that my dad is actually boss at guitar even though he only plays hira vavaka (church hymns). my mom is beautious and holds her hair up with a red clip in the shape of a dollar sign. She is strong looking and has good eye wrinkles. ‘dei mafinaritra fa afaka miteny gasy satria tsy mahay frantsay isika’ à how great that you know Malagasy because we do not speak French!

….about that. This was me starting my third week of language learning……………………….. dei mafinaritra!

My mom’s brother lives in the room downstairs with his wife and two chidlers. Grandma and grandpa and random cousin live in the house right next door. Older sister sells petrol in the shack across from that. Cousins live around the corner. My mom’s tanindrazana (ancestral land) is here in kabahaba so her fam is literally everywhere. They are stuck deep in 5+ generations of mpamboly ovy . of mpiompy omby (potato farmers. cow raisers). This is what they do. They tell me several times. They say it with such swagger I feel like a loser trying to explain my parents’ desk jobs. ‘insurance?’ Faly asks me about my dads commute and I am at a loss to explain a 4-lane highway.

Oh forgot to mention THESE PPL ARE TINY. I am literally a gangly white giant amongst them. Also there are three kittens. I have never seen a kitten eat an ear of corn before last week. Or a bowl of rice. New things new things.

The girls come home from school and are literally silent to my attempts to make them talk to me. I am asking them stupid questions ‘Do you like food? Do you like school? Do you like pencil?’ They are staring at me in the face. I look up the word for ‘shy’ in the dictionary.

These are my days:

-we mitsangasangana (walk around). They take me on walks literally through fairy lands. I feel like we are tiny ants crawling through a crazy magical landscape. Sometimes my dad makes us stop and do photo shoots. Sometimes they play in the rice paddies but I cant go in because I might get a parasitic worm. Sometimes we mipetripetrika (sit around) and mijeryjery (look around). I am struggling with finding a word stronger than dei mafinaritra which they say for anything that is relatively nice at all, including eating a chicken neck for breakfast.

-I follow my mom to the fields and sometimes help if she lets me. She will not let me put the giant bag of soja on my head. She will let me mamboly ovy (plant potatoes). I have my hands in cow shit and pine needle fertilizer for much of the morning. Dei mafinaritra!

-people come up and watch me pull soja plants. They are confused. They are wondering what is the vazah doing here pulling up soja plants? They are wanting to know – ‘why is she here?’ ‘does she speak malagasy?’ they are especially wanting to know – ‘does she eat corn?’ ‘does she eat sweet potato?’ this question comes up without fail every time. ‘how much corn?’ eating corn is a hilarious joke in kabahaba, I think because everyone grows it, but no one grows it to sell it to anyone. They grill it and eat it for tsaki tsaki (snack). They cut the stalks with a machete and eat them while they mipetripetraka, while they are staring me in the face. It becomes my fallback for talking about how I like kabahaba: ‘mihinana katzaka betsaka (I eat a lot of corn).’ People literally think this is the most hilarious thing ever. I make friends.

- I juggle the baolina (soccer ball) with the ankizy (neighborhood chidlets). I play a lot with my 18 year old cousin who is crazy athletic. Sometimes she has to stop and breastfeed her 6 month old infant while I sit idly by and ponder the state of my unused ovaries.

-I try to ‘play’ with the kids in the neighborhood but this usually entails them staring at me, waiting for me to tell them what to do. I teach them hopscotch and how to say ‘wazzzapp??????!!’

-a lot of the time I sit around and observe people working. There is a lot more time here than I’ve ever experienced anywhere.

-sometimes I draw with my sisters. I learn the word for ‘to teach yourself’ mahay hoazy. Also an inexplicably hilarious word for the residents of kabahaba.

-I speak Malagasy ALL THE TIME. By the end I am a semi competent at making complex sentences and comprehending when old grandmas want to ask me if it hurt to get my nose pierced. Roland tells me im the most advanced they’ve had anyone at this stage. I literally read the dictionary for fun. Nerd win

-I walk the 7 mile round trip to the market/church. I am literally sore from this. Coincidentally, this is something my 8 year old sister does every single day. At church (Lutheran) we sit outside because we are tara­iki be (late)so there is no room inside. I sketch the mountain across from me and amass a crowd of literally 30 children. I feel awkward because they are paying attention to me instead of Jesus. I ask my mom ‘mety?’ ‘is this okay?’. She shrugs. Jesus can wait.

- we respectively eat 6 small mountains of rice for breakfast lunch and dinner. With the rice we eat  sometimes potatoes sometimes beans sometimes egg. Sometimes akoho (chicken). the whole chicken. They give the chicken head to the youngest. They encourage me to eat chunks of fat because this is the best part! You must eat it! I do not eat it. They are happy to eat it for me. They like the calories.

- I sit on the porch and mitendry gitara (play guitar). I write some songs but don’t think they will work anywhere besides this one guitar capoed with the fork the way it is. Faly tunes the strings on a whim to fit however he is feeling at the mo, whichever church hymn he is wanting to make us sing to. I ask him how long he has been playing and he flashes me his gum line - ’30 minutes!’

When it is time to leave my 8 year old sister suddenly and unexpectedly starts bawling her eyes out. This is really distressing for me because I was hoping to escape this veloma (goodbye) with dry eyeballs, but this was not in the cards. Ive never cared so much about a family I knew for less than a week. They tell me to come back, to bring my whole fianakaviana !! ..tempting. 

9

A summary of my weekend because it was funny:

Friday:

First experience going out in Tana to experience le night life. Not gonna lie, this was not so much a casual ‘girls night out’ as it was a full scale boite operation intensely orchestrated and planned by, yours truly,  monsieur they-see-me-Roland.

However, was grateful. Because. Being white in Tana freaks me out sometimes during the day and I had yet to be out past 7pm. SO yeah the boite experience was great and was a reminder of the realities of alcohol tolerance – lets just say I bought one drink and ca suffit. Side note: there were many geckos in places where they should not have been (context: this is the nicest night club in Tana)

Saturday:

Slept in (till 9 *gasp*) and helped my dad make the fried eggs because my mom was doing the laundry. This was about 5 minutes after him being all progressive and saying that household chores should really be shared, that the man is called the chef of the famille but that is not really the way it should be.  Ironic but hes the cutest so idc.

We went to visit my other sister and her perpetually confused looking tiny adorable 9 month old bebe Leonardo. We were all going to go to the zoo but the garage door was broken so instead just me and my mom went (?) mora mora. She spent many tense minutes speaking with the zoo officials so that I could get in with the Malagasy price (because the price for foreigners was “lafo be “ = way too expensive = less than 5$). Wabam I was now her daughter-in-law obvs. I saw lemurs lemurs and 4 giant tortoises (!!!!!! GIANT) a lot of birds and 5 camels (?). also regressed to about 6 years of age. My mom tried to buy me cotton candy, held my hand while crossing the street, and continually referred to me as a “zaza lehibe” = big child. did not contest. It was the best ever.

After we went into town and she bought a cooking pot and also a mat for the bathroom with giant feets on it because I thought it was funny. We met up with dada and they deliberated for several minutes over which pastry to buy and then we ate it on the car on the way home. !!!!!!!!!!!! BEST DAY EVER.

Sunday:

Did not go to church because I was writing a paper (heathen). IT’s fine though neny and dada are super chill about me skipping out on jesosy. After we went to a family reunion (happens once a month). We got there early and within 5 minutes I was handed a karaoke microphone and instructed to sing. Uhhh. 

When everyone got there there was much quoting of the baiboly and talking in Malagasy and then there was food on food on food on food . can’t explain. Let’s just say the self-service with the meat would have been preferred but I ended up with about half a cow and 3 chickens on my plate. Not even going to mention the pasta couscous  crackers or RICEEEEEEEEEEEE. and cake. Vary betsaka MISAKAFO BETSAKA. It got to the point where I was earnestly chugging the dreaded “jus naturel” in hopes that I would have a nice vom sesh later. Malheureusement this has not come to pass. After rejecting several offers to MIHINANA BEBE KOKOA (eat more) everyone realized there was a Britney Spears song on the karaoke machine (going continuously during dinner) that I , obviously, knew and wanted to sing for everyone. Did not know the song at all but do not worry because I ROCKED it  and then I sang Hotel California, I turn to you by xtina Aguilera and my heart will go on, with help from my 12 yr old cousin. I also did a solo version of the previously mentioned song about “the white people are washing their hands” but no one cared/noticed.

There was a pretty sunset on the way home as I was squished into the back corner of a hollowed out frame of a van, with a single red plastic rosary hanging from the place where a rearview mirror should have been. Gotta love mads. Taxi be times with the fam. It is now almost 10 so way way past my bedtime. Love you all !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! /also in love with the world probably due to the half cow in my belly. Gnight = TAFANDRIA MANDRY  

7

My host parents responses whenever I tell them I am marary kibo (sick to my stomach) (doesn’t happen all the time but. happens):

“ah. It is in the air”

“mm yes it is the cold shower you took last night”

“eat more”

“you eat so little”

“you must get in your bed and wrap yourself in your blankets”

“you must drink hot water to get rid of the mud in your stomach”

“ahh. Yes. the wind”

“eat this bread”

“you are hungry”

They really are nice people. I love them. 

6

Just got back from a petit excursion wif the neuf meufs. They are great. We visit:

Moramanga (literally means cheap mango. I got really excited because I love mangoes but then realized that mango is actually an old slang term for slave. Sad.)

-          Chinese food restaurant and Melissa gets the chicken head! Lucky. Now you must eat it.

-          Gendarmerie museum – probably the best museum in Madagascar and half of it was destroyed by the cyclone. Last year. Yet to be repaired. We are the only people there and our guide, among other things, tells us how to correctly pack a spliff in a cigarette, load a homemade semi-automatic weapon, and warns us to watch out for love potions, all in a maroon and navy sweatsuit. He was le shit.

-          We get told several more times to watch out for love potions. They will give you taraiki – originally meaning “to be late” but for young people it means “to love too much”. We will s’en fou de our vie in the etats unis, we will forget our families, we will stay until we die. Il faut en croire eh!

Vatomandry

-          Beach. Sunburn. Indian ocean. The waves are too big for swimming but we are contented to stand knee deep and still end up with 5 pounds of sand in our bathing suits, w/e

-          Cutest bungalows ever owned by the cutest woman ever Odetta who tells us to eat a lot so we can have “des gros titties”. Love her.

-          Had French/Malagasy class once which consisted of playing musical chairs, counting to ten, and singing a song which roughly translates to “the white people are washing their hands, the white people are washing their hands now the hands are clean!” Real life ? Yes.

-          Sat in a sketchy printing/scanning shop and had a kid burn me 16 tracks of Malagasy music off his laptop. “t’aime ca?” “oui je le veux”. It cost around 75 cents. “tu fais ca souvent pour les touristes?” “non” He tells me this is what he went to grad school for. His favorite artiste is black nadia

-          Jumped in a pousse-pousse in the pouring rain (3 of us) and had a skinny teenager bike all our fatasses down the main road. We splurged and gave him 2000 ariary which was supposedly “a lot” (less than a dollar)

-          Bioluminescence on Valentine’s day. Words don’t explain. Google it. Slept maybe 3 hours and got up to see the sunrise on the mer indien. A lil anticlimactic but fun nonetheless.

Andasibe

-          LEMURS

-          Chameleons

-          MOUSE LEMURS. Literally died of cute overdose.

-          Yummy soup

-          Indry lemurs only sing for 4-5 minutes a day and I saw two singing their hearts out right in front of me I almost cried. Overwhelming even though I am surrounded by stupid Polish vazahas with giant cameras. Will try to load a video. Want to remix it into something bamf.

o   Side note: Malagasy view indry lemurs (biggest ones) as ancestral. Other lemurs, people in la brousse (aka middle of fucking nowhere) eat because they are starving. Pauvrete is a sad thing

-          Giant land snail

The whole thing was grand. Semi got a tan. Checked chillin with lemurs off the bucket list. Pas mal. 

4

quelques images de my room:

cute huh!

3

Fun Facts about Moodogooscoo/Mads/Madagasikara/Gaskahhhhhh

-the language here has no word for "to be"
-3/4 of Mad's govt budget comes from foregn aid
-the music video channel is hilarious
-the Malagasy dont think of themselves as African or even black
-you eat rice with a giant spoon
-sometimes people eat baguettes for breakfast
-there's .164 of a doctor per 1000 habitants
-also 1 shower/toilette per 1000 habitants
-famadihana= digging up and reburying your dead family members. Yep. Happens errday.
-80% of popn rely on food they grow in order to eat
-my host mom thinks im anorexic
-the first book translated into Malagasy was The Bible (baiboly)
-how high your house is on the hill = how high your social status is
-the malgache word for dad is dada
-tana is technically in a region that is 'cold' - im fucked for whenwe go to mahajanga
--i saw a 2 year old in a snowsuit
--winter hats are not uncommon
-im a 5 min walk from a Pandora store (wut?)
-dirt is red. Water is brown.
-my host mom has 6 brothers and 7 sisters
-in Mads, children = wealth. regardless of whether you are capable of feeding them
-fihavana= malache for 'youre a stranger but youre my brother so lets get along /social harmony, egalite, fraternite'
-all the taxis ar from the 50s not a joke



I could go on but i wont bc we are going to a dancing spectacle

2

Sooo la vie est commencé. The last five days have been a dream blur. I’ve been at three different beauteous hotels with flush toilets and the nine girls are awesome. We are all insane in a good way and have already come up with a code word for diarrhea (kiss kiss karaoke) so I would say we tore down all boundaries pretty toute de suite.

I am sitting at my desk Lot II J 82 WE, Ivandry, Antananrivo. My mosquito net next to me makes me feel like a princess.

Anyways will attempt to be chronological here:

Orientation was lot of us sitting around watching Roland talk (approx rate of 2 words per min), having snack time and going to bed at 9 every night. We also took van rides into the paysage to visit some palaces (palace is used loosely here – the precolonial palace was literally a one room with a very tall roof and a bunk bed. Lots of wooden bowls and spears on the walls. Post colonial palace looked like a special bird flew in a giant size dollhouse from Angleterre and plopped it next to a huge rock where they used to slay zebu (special cow with giant hump) back when Europeans were still just vazahas (white people)in weird pants that bought your spices. This is a weird weird place). We also went to three tombs which are basically located in this awesome village where, as far as I can see, there is always someone playing an accordion and no one wears shoes. People drop honey, candy, and sugar on rocks near the tombs as offering to the gods because – I am not kidding here – “Life is sweet”.

This is a place where you literally give gummy bears to a God called Neny Be (Grandma) if you want your children to be blessed.  These people are the chilliest ever.

We also went to a market and I bartered for flipflops and a pair of earrings all of which cost me less than an American dollar combined (it was 2100 ari ari). I almost got smacked in the face by 3 live goose that a man was swinging around from a rope tied to his wrist. That was cool. It was also enlightening to see that many goat chicken zebu livers all on one table under one roof.  There was a lot of mud and a lot of people staring at me. It was fun!

The staff are:

Roland (director man) is a white white gentle giant from Kansas who came here for Peace Corps and ended up staying for 20 years. He speaks Malagasy, French and English, all very slowwwllly. This is the Malgache way. Mora mora [moo-ra moor] = easy easy. There is no rush here ever. He is big. He has no hair. He is awesome.

Hanta is assistant director and is Malgache woman that I am having trouble describing because she is literally too nice that no words suffice. Her laugh makes me feel like my brain has turned into a baby panda. She speaks French even slower than Roland and when she went to Texas one time everyone thought she was Mexican. I want her to adopt me.

I could go on with the other staff members but you basically get the gist that I am landed in a soft smiling paradise. People were not lying to me when they told me Malgache are the nicest ever. Even when people are yelling vazah to me on the street I feel like they are my bffls. We got in a cab (cab literally from the 1950s there was no dashboard, shocks or seatbelts) and us and the cab driver literally laughed the entire way to the restaurant for no apparent reason other than we were vazaha (white people). We would say one word in Malgache and he would crack up into his steering wheel dying of laughter I felt like I was on some kind of weird happy drug. It’s on my list as the top 8 minutes of my life.

Meanwhile, every hotel owner of every hotel we’ve been to has told us to come back soon! No but just like, to hang out. The second one asked what an American hotel owner would be doing in this situation and was surprised to learn he/she would probably be in a random office building somewhere behind a swank desk instead of sitting around drinking beer with the guests. Maisssss ca fait pas du sens quoi…

So… you get the picture. The hospitality is a real thing. I have been with my host family 0 nights. This is the first night. They are:

Pere: Andriatahina Rakotonirainy

Mere: Jeanette Ravaoarisoa

Frere: Sitraka Andriatahina

(oh yeah forgot to mention all the names have like 34 letters in them) fml.

The dad (nickname Tahina) is a retired IR professor and is a skinny tiny man with a strangely abrupt enormous laugh. The mom is a librarian and is quite possibly the most timide malgache I have ever met here. The son is 23 and does something with computers and French people he also likes photography. They also have 3 older daughters that I will probably meet. They all speak French except for the mom. She is half Chinese. Their house is really cute in a neighborhood not far from Tana (theres a flush toilet (!) and a shower (!). And a tv). They keep telling me not to worry about noises on the roof it’s just cats running around. T’inquietes, c’est les chats. This will be awesome for my French. We are probably the same level language wise, except for Jeanette. I feel like they were a little insulted I didn’t eat more rice but they are grateful I actually speak French because I guess their last student didn’t. Also, they were surprised to learn there were black people in New England. Ah bon? They like chilli sauce which comes in this plastic bottle and is kind of a fluorescent red color but I ate it anyway hopefully it won’t give me the kiss kiss karaoke.

In other news, there is a pretty nice Jesus poster above my bed. It is of Psalm 54. They are excited to take me to church. I told them I wasn’t raised with religion and they seemed fine with that, besides the fact that technically that makes me one of the “men without regard for God” mentioned in aforementioned Psalm 54. The ones that Jesus describes as “strangers attacking me” and “ruthless men seeking my life”.

Oh well. Tsara be ! [sara-bay] = very good. I don’t think they take it too seriously because the son described church as “boring” and put his head in his hands right in front of them at dinner, alors.

My princess mosquito net is calling me.  

I don’t know the word for sleep in Malgache yet but if I did I would insert it here. Instead I will say Faly mahalala anao [fah-ly mah-la-la-la now] = nice to meetcha! 

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Alors.... Je suis la. I thought i was gonna die on my flight to Joburg. You know a 14 hr flight is going poorly when you are already bored out of your mind and then you realize that, wow you actually have 10 hours left. Rough but i survived. Travel zen


We took a walk down the street from our hotel and my observations were as follows

Overstimulationoverstimulation3hoursofsleepinthepasttwo days. Pretty orange flowers. Trying to walk nonchalantly while literally everyone is staring at you like.... wtf is this awkward white girl doing here.. A woman with a bag of rice the size of a small hippo on her head, barefoot. That guy is 45 and rocking a spiderman hat. Props. After five minutes we have amassed an entourage of like 25 highschool aged boys who are trying to speak to us in italian. Rollin deeeep.  Bonjiorno! No, pas de tout the word for hello is salama, or something. almost get hit by a car but just once.


Malagasy people are petite. i feel like an awkward albino giant like a big abominable snowman in the supermarket. But i do not feel unwelcome because there is definitely a friendly vibe in the air.


I really only walked down one street and am really just writing this so i can stay up past 8 pm, but these are my scattered sleep deprived first impressions. 8:22 and it is this chicas bedtimeeeeeee peace oooot