2011/07/26 1 taona
For those of you who don’t know how to read a calendar, I have been gone for a year, and haven’t seen most of you for even longer than that. Moving on, I pick poor places to vacation regarding swimming capability. What I mean is as follows: last Christmas I went to Manakara (in the south eastish) and it is impossible to swim and even really stand in the water without having your suit ripped off you by currents (it got awkward). So for vacation this summer before I head to the rainy cold training center to train the new version of my training group, I am going to Mahajanga. This is in the north westish. Now, according to Lonely Planet on page 177 of the Madagascar book “North and south of town are beaches, although most are not suitable as they are plagued by SHARKS and strong currents.” So I may get to see sharks! That would be really cool. Actually going on vacation here also means the following: I have to do it on the cheap and dirty on a whole new level, and to get to Mahajanga I will be in overcrowded taxi brousses for about a total of 24 hours to go about 1000 kilometers. So I am breaking this trip down into small pieces to make it there with my sanity. But on the bright side I can get my tan back, eat/drink coconuts and have seafood brochettes on the beach. Also I hear there are some pretty nice hotel pools.
On the site front, I was NOT prepared for summer break. I went to a training seminar and a VAC meeting in Tana the day I finished with school, then I got back to site and was smacked in the face with complete boredom (so now I know what it is like to be an environment volunteer! Jokes). Now I can study Malagasy more/sit around with people and gossip, and go to tutoring once a week which is fun. I started a spinach garden (which I am pretty sure will never sprout because all the chickens were already all over it, I really need to make a fence), and I have started to weave scarves with Emma. If the spinach ever grows I promised the Soalandy women I would cook the vazaha greens for everybody vazaha style if they cooked rice. I am also trying to train the puppies but it is really hard because I don’t have any bribe treats and they have fleas so I don’t actually want to be near them. Generally speaking it is going pretty much the same, except I finished a year in country, so that is really nice to check off on my calendar. But that doesn’t mean I only have one year left! Let the countdown to the beach commence.
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