My New House

I hear with windchill, it has dropped close to -40C at home. It's hard to imagine that it is almost Christmas when I am dripping in sweat sitting next to the Indian Ocean eating lychees and mangoes. The only hint of Christmas I've seen was hanging on the wall of of a little Malagasy Indian restaurant that I went to for lunch. I have to say that a fat white rosy-cheeked Santa looks rather out of place in this setting. But hey, it may be also be a bit bizarre that I was eating Chinese soup in an Indian restaurant in Madagascar with an American and a Brit.

On the weekend, I moved into a new and wonderful one room house. The Malagasy family who I am renting from have been amazing and have given me dishes and furniture to use, and even put a brand new (and bedbug free, I might add) bed in the place. I have my own verandah and a coconut tree to provide shade. In many ways it is idyllic, although there are distinct reminders that I am living in a third world country. The electricity rather unreliable, and recently, city wide power outages seem pretty standard around 7pm for varying amounts of time. After about 7am, there is a high demand for water and there isn't enough water pressure to reach the higher parts of the city. So I have buckets of water scattered around the house for showering, cooking, and washing dishes when the water refuses to flow. There is no waste management system in Fort Dauphin. Garbage is generally dumped along streets or off cliffs next to the ocean. I have a hole dug in my yard for this purpose. It really makes a person realize just how much we take for granted (as well as how much waste we produce) in the Western world.

Last night I was forced to laugh at myself when I got into a fight with a very large and very hairy spider sitting on the wall next to my bed. I am happy to announce that I won the battle at the cost of only a broom handle that I had as my weapon of choice. I'll take monster spiders and cockroaches over bedbugs any day!

English teaching is finished for the Christmas break. Yesterday I taught my class the 12 Days of Christmas. Highly entertaining. Who knew that partridge was such a difficult word to pronounce. After class, three of my students walked around the market with me to help find a find string and nails to hang my mosquito net. They also graciously offered to help hang it, which ended up in an equally as hilarious Malagasy debate that I wish I understood more of. But as you can see from the photo above, it seems to have worked out quite well.

I wish everyone a very merry Christmas!

God Bless

Sorry for the delay!

Life is carrying along here in Madagascar. I'm trying to get my head around the fact that it is almost Christmas. I haven't heard one Christmas carol or seen one Christmas decoration yet. And it is approximately one million degrees today.

I spent the weekend in the bush village of St. Luce with the Azafady Pioneers. One of the other English teachers and I braved the taxi-brousse system and managed to make the 50km trip in slightly less than 10 hours. We showed up at the "station" at 9:15 and managed to find the driver (who was under the bus with a wrench) and in Malagasy decifer that he was going to Mahatalaky and planned to leave at 9:30. Great. In the next 3 hours, he left and came back twice. Another very full camion departed, which we were tempted to join until so many people got on that we would have been hanging onto the back for dear life. At about 12:30, our taxi-brousse rolled out of town with Laurie and I jammed into the front seat with our knees up next to our ears and two military men with rifles as seat buddies.

We made it to the village of Mahatalaky after only breaking down three times. We expected the taxi-brousse to carry on past the village of Angazety, but were informed that they were actually going in a different direction from there. Okay fine, we collected our things and started the two hour trek to St. Luce. About an hour in, the full camion that we passed up in the morning drove towards us on the road from St. Luce. Hilarious. There is nothing like travelling in Madagascar if you feel in need of an adventure!

The weekend was fantastic. We spent the afternoon on the beach, and the evening on a night walk through the forest. I managed to see the tiny mouse lemur and a couple of the pygmy chameleons (the smallest in the world). The stars were unbelievable, and I got to fall asleep to the sound of frogs and cicadas.

For those of you who were with me in St. Luce last year, you can be assured that the camp is much improved. There is a new well that produces water that is the color of herbal tea rather than black tea, and has an equally improved smell. There is also a new maggot-free latrine and showers that aren't transparent to the person showering next to you. Oh, the small luxuries!

Back to work today. I co-taught two classes at the local high school. Although my stunning rendition of Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes from last week was a tough act to follow. Haha.

Enjoy the snow at home for me! And thank you for all of the post that has been sent. I love it! I would be forever grateful if someone were to send Reese's peanut butter cups for Christmas!!

Lots of Love!

I've been in Fort Dauphin for two weeks already. It feels great to be back! Although it has been rainier than normal, we have also had our fair share of sun and have spent some time on the beautiful beaches of FD. I am definitely from Alberta...just had to start off with a weather report.

Things are on the verge of settling into some sort of routine. I spent the first week living in the Azafady 'crash pad', which is just that. I shared a room of bunkbeds with other volunteers and an astounding diversity of bedbugs, cockroaches, and mice. I have now moved into a great little house that I am renting from a Malagasy family. Pictures to be posted soon.

The long term volunteers are very much living within the culture and amongst the people. We do our shopping at the local market (also worthy of future photos). I managed to make my limited Malagasy understood and came home with a knife, sugar, salt, oil, and a variety of veggies. I feel a lot of motivation to learn the Malagasy language, so I can do better than just 'get by'. Thankfully, I am surrounded by wonderful Malagasy people who are always willing to teach a tidbit or two!

The English teaching program is about to get up and running. The local high school has one English teacher for 1000 students, so we will be helping the poor guy out until Christmas. About 110 unemployed adults have showed interest in taking English classes with us, in hopes of using that skill to find work. We are starting refresher classes with them next week, and will start modules in January. A year ago, when I was here as a pioneer in the bush village of Beandry, there were two boys who walked an hour almost everyday to practice their English with us. A few days ago, they walked for eight hours to Fort Dauphin so they could be placed in one of our English classes!

I hope all is well at home.

Aminy manaraka koa

London and Tana

I spent a fantastic week in London for a mini-reunion with a few friends from my Madagascar Pioneer scheme. We spent an evening reminiscing about the good times we had together a year ago. Wow, I still can't believe a year has already gone by since I last made this trip! And how strange to see everyone clean and in their 'natural' environments.

Of course, I had ample time to play the part of tourist as well as getting to experience life as a Brit. Tea in the garden, riding a double-decker bus, and eating fish and chips from a proper 'chippy'. I have to say that I am grateful for the person who decided it would be a good idea to paint "Look right", "Look left" at appropriate intervals on intersections for the foreign pedestrian. After a day of wandering the streets of central London on my own, I was mighty impressed that I only got honked at and almost became roadkill twice.

I flew from London to Johannesburg, and then on to Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, where I have been staying for a few days. Tana is a much larger, busier, and more polluted city than Fort Dauphin. My lungs have not been happy since I've arrived. While Tana is a much different experience than the part of the island that I know and love, I'm beginning to feel like I'm back at home.

The first night I arrived in Tana, I met up with one of the other Azafady volunteers and we went across the street to a little restaurant for dinner. The waiter gave us menus and took our drink orders. When we later ordered pizzas from the menu, the waiter shook his head and informed us that they didn't have pizza. Okay, so we chose something else. The waiter shook his head again and informed us that the restaurant actually had no food at all. Oh, Madagascar.

We have spent the weekend seeing the sights of Tana, including the old palace that was built for the last queen over a century ago. Today we went to the zoo, which strangely is also the place where we needed to go in order to get our working visas extended. Tomorrow we fly to Fort Dauphin. I have heard rumours that we may get to spend a couple of weeks out in the bush with the Pioneers. Hooray!! I can't wait to have some work to do, as I tire quickly of being a tourist.

Until next time!

Let the Adventure Begin!

My life isn't normally guided by messages from cookies (as much as I love cookies), but I thought this one was fantastically coincidental. Tomorrow I begin my travels to far away Madagascar, basically the farthest place (both geographically and culturally) a person can travel from our chilly home in Western Canada. With only a pack on my back, I head out with expectation of grand adventure and new experiences.

I will do my best to keep you updated on where I'm at and what I'm doing, and would love to get updates from folks at home as well! On that note, I'll interject with a plea for snail mail. Oh, how I love post! Just let me know if you'd like my mailing address.

Here's to adventure! Take care everyone, and see you in about a year.