random things

2011/08/13 random things

So before I head out on vacation, I thought I would tell you some random things.

First, my experience, generally speaking, has been that whenever I speak Malagasy with people their first question is: American? Alternatively the question is: Peace Corps? And then conversation follows about how PCVs in Mada are mahay (capable, smart, this translates broadly) at Malagasy. In addition, on more than one occasion I have been told by a Malagasy person that French speaking tourists are haughty for not speaking any Malagasy or not even trying. My point? Americans tend to have a positive light on them here and it is really nice, especially after traveling other places, where people have been haughty to me for being American.

Second, so another vazaha gets into my taxi brousse with his apparent guide (or maybe Malagasy female road companion? they seemed super cozy and he only speaks English and she didn’t really speak English) and was in a tizzy because the bottled water they had just bought was already opened. The concern is that maybe it is a recycled bottle with dirty water inside. They return to the vendor to exchange, and he does not allow that.  They return to the brousse and the woman thinks that maybe she had already opened it herself and that it is no problem.  The vazaha says, well worst case scenario it is just tap water.  I don’t think he knows what this “tap water” is made of here.

Third, Madagascar is a country of dialects.  My dialect for example, is Betsileo, which is very close to the standard/official language with a few vocab changes and more sh sounds included.  See previous postings regarding East TN and me for more detail.  Some dialects also include much more French.  In my town French is spoken with tourists, numbers and prices sometime are in French, and we use French when there is just not a Malagasy word for what we are talking about.  But it is not French heavy.  In other places French still plays a huge role in their dialect.  For the most part Malagasy people can understand people from other regions, but sometimes there is a problem.  In Fianar this week, a volunteer who now lives there, had her old “site brother” shipped down via brousse to celebrate the fact that he passed 6th grade.  He is from Diego and speaks Sakalava.  So in a room of this volunteer, the now 5th grader, myself and another mutual Malagasy university friend, conversation was insane.  The volunteer (who has been in and out of country since 2008 and is super mahay Malagasy) had to translate essentially between two Malagasy people.  It was a sight.  I thought it was really interesting and a cool experience, then I remembered I am going on vacation to Mahajanga, where I believe Sakalava is spoken, and I am going to be so confused.

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