2010/11/25 Mangoes are in season
But they taste like gasoline to me. It is very strange. In a few months, avocados will be in season and those taste like creamy heaven. Halloween was a success in Fianaratsoa. It wasn’t a total shit show and no one had anything stolen and no one was arrested. The party was on the roof of the hotel and the music was provided by an ipod with little speakers. I’m really looking forward to Thanksgiving as well. While we were in Fianar there was a political rally/concert going on to get people to vote yes on the constitutional referendum where the main change is lowering the age of President so that the current leader can be a legitimate leader. We definitely just observed from a hotel balcony and stayed the hell away.
So I have lived at site for a month now. It seems like much longer though… One of the biggest differences I feel like I am running up against often is how much I can get done in one day. Which is not much. Last Thursday I had the day off and needed to go to the bank. Well there isn’t a bank where I live and I don’t have an ATM card. This means I actually need to write out a check to myself and take it to a bank teller and have it cashed. But first I had to get to Fianaratsoa first. To do this, I have to pack my backpack and walk about 2K (not really that far and it is flat to the station) to the taxi-brousse station. Now I had a seat reservation for 8:00 but all that means is that I have my spot saved, not that the brousse will actually leave at 8. The brousses don’t leave til they are jam packed with people. So we eventually left around 9:30 but waiting wasn’t too bad, Soraiya and I got some cold house yogurt (homemade plain yogurt usually just sweetened with sugar) and samosas for breakfast which was good. It is an hour ride to Fianar and we got to the station there around 10:45. The bank is going to be closed from around 11-2 for lunch so we hauled ass up a super steep sort of paved hill for what seemed like forever, and it was so hot. I got to the bank at 11:10, but thankfully there was still a teller that apparently wasn’t too hungry yet. I prepared before I left and already had my check filled out, in French, and there is twice as much crap to write on checks here and I have to look up how to spell out numbers in French. But I didn’t leave the bank til noon because it takes so damn long. Soraiya and I went to a cyber café (we didn’t know that the wireless had been set up yet at the MEVA not 30 feet from this cyber café) where I sat online for 30 minutes which cost me 1000 ariary (50 cents, but this was not budgeted into my finances so I was annoyed) and couldn’t get a single page properly loaded up. So Soraiya and I checked our mailboxes across the street (thanks for the package Natalie & Jane!) and then since everything was closed for lunch we had lunch at a hotely and then hit up the grocery store in town and headed back to the brousse station at 3:00. We have to be back by dark, we aren’t permitted to travel at night, something about it being dangerous and there being road bandits. Thankfully the brousse left around 3 and since our compound is on the way to the brousse station, we get dropped off there and don’t have to hike it back. So to summarize this day I travelled 120 kilometers in one day to go to the bank, eat food and go to a store that was literally out of everything that I needed to buy. Frustrating.
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