2010/10/31 October 19
So a few more things about how I live in East Tennessee aka Ambalavao. People in other places of this country make fun of the people in this region and laugh at the southerners. They are really into cockfighting, but razors are only used in the big time fights in Tana when the Russian and Chinese and French expats are betting.
So I saw a dead body yesterday, twice. After I was done teaching yesterday before lunch, I stopped to attempt socializing with the other teachers that were hanging out in front of the main office. This normally does not happen, I am usually the only teacher left when the bell rings, I try to maximize what little time we get to attempt education. I tried to capitalize on this opportunity and when I went to say bye I’ll see you folks later, the one, semi good at English, English teacher told me I had to hang back so we could go pay our condolences. So I went with all the teachers and the principal to a retired teacher’s house, apparently her husband had died that morning or the night before. He was on the table in the living room, jaw held closed by a handkerchief because the rigor hadn’t set in yet I guess. We stood in this room while people talked and prayed and while I was extremely confused. We left and then I was told to come back at 4 to help mikarakara sakafo, which means to prepare food. They also told me to wear a lamba (but I don’t think you are supposed to wear red because that is the color of death shrouds I think here). So some teachers picked me up and we walked back to the house at 5 and people were genuinely confused by my presence or they said tsara fomba to me if they knew me, which means that I did a good job being Malagasy. The two female English teachers and I stood around getting smoked out by the firewood and then we went on a journey to get water, which also confused the Malagasy people in that village who didn’t know who I was. It is the fomba (culture) here to give money in an envelope and give it to the family of the deceased to help them out and whatnot, so one of the teachers collected all of our envelopes and then we went back in the room with the dead husband (and the coffin that had been made for him during the day was now on the floor waiting for him) and they spoke for a while, gave a relative the stack and then I got walked home by two older ladies that I didn’t really know. But it was good they walked me back because it was hellah dark and scary. What I didn’t get to see was that the family had to stay up the whole night and I believe then the body can be buried in the morning. So they make a ton of rice (a ton even for Malagasy people who consume on a per capita basis more rice than any other country) and huge buckets of coffee and receive visitors til morning. I am experiencing Malagasy culture backwards, first I went to a famadihana (the turning of the bones), then the fandevenana (the funeral), so now I need to go to a wedding, a circumcision (which are a big collective event), a baptism then a birth. In some areas they do these ceremonies where everyone gets hammered and they get their ancestors to possess certain people so they can ask questions about their future. That sounds wild and I’d like to go. But I can also see humpback whales migrating through here July-September and I think me and Brianna are gonna get on that one first.
Three volunteers from my group have jumped ship back to America, and my in service training is in less than two months. So that is something nice to look forward to.
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