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.