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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.