Mail Update

Also, fyi apparently writing "Jesus Saves" on mail helps it arrive safely. So do that if you want it to be protected. Seriously--thanks to those of you whohave already written. Will write more soon!

My Rite of Passage

To go to the bathroom here (let's get down to it), you squat on two bricks over a hole in the ground. It is called a kabone. My family's kabone is down the street with the pigs. Plus, you can't go outside when it's dark out (circa 6pm) for fear of dogs and witches, obviously. So at night you get a po (pronounced poh)--a lovely bucket with a lid that you get to clean in the morning (I clean mine in a creek--not the same one we get water from, don't worry). In any case, so one night around my first week, before bed, I saw a spider in my room about the size of my hand (we're talking body to palm here). I thought about making a brother deal with it, but realized that for ME, this is the worst that could happen, really. So I had to deal with it myself. So I got my po, and I scraped the thing into it with cardboard (and that thing CLUNG to the wall), then flung him out the window, only he wouldn't fling and so I had to bang my po on the wall to knock it out and the handle broke off, but the spider did fall out. I spent the next 15 minutes shaking visibly (ha). I spent the rest of the night trying to figure out how to explain to my family what the hey the handle to my po was doing around the corner outside of our house. Africa is officially my home.

Pardon my French (or, my first time teaching)

I figure I have to give you at least one story. so here it is: the first day we taught in practicum (oh--fyi I'm teaching English here), we had to do something random. So I taught them this camp song called Herman the Worm in which a worm eats his entire family. So I was explaining the story to them, and we got to the word worm, and I drew a picture, and they shouted out a Malagasy word. Now, I suspected it's meaning, but instead of clarifying or explaining, I paused awkwardly then moved on, leaving them to believe the song actually means Herman the Shit. Yes, the shit. Sixty Malagasy children can now sing a song in which a shit eats its dad. AWESOME. I know you now feel better about the world.

A Request: to help me STAY alive

No seriously. This is not a joke. I have a HUGE favor to ask. I found out that I will have electricity in my one-roomed house and I can buy a little boom box. And I am DYING without music. Ha. So please--I beg of you--burn me CDs and mail them to me. I don't care if it's something you already know Iike, something you think I might like, or something you just listened to--I would appreciate every bit of it. So seriously--if you love me at all, start burning CDs and sending them to me. I will love you forever. I swear.

Business: to let you know I am alive

My sincere apologies to those of you who were curious over the past month or so. I am in training until the end of August (I swear in August 28th!), and it's pretty much boot camp. They have slightly over two months to teach us enough to send us into the middle of nwhere all by ourselves for 2 years. Ha. Plus there's no internet, so please understand the light gap in communication. Let me update you quickly (we're in Tana briefly for a yellow fever shot):

1. Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who's sent me mail. It literally brightens my day (Amy I am still GLOWING from your care package) and reminds me that I'm not SO far away. Okay I am. But seriuosly--thanks. I will write back as soon as I can. Please keep writing!

2. I would just like to point out that I will come home fluent in Malagasy--a language only spoken on one island in the world. Ha. Whatever--I'll just get in the habit of talking to myself in Malagasy.

3. My new home!! YAY. Okay. So in September I will be moving to the city (of 6,000) where I'll be living for two years: Mahabo. It's 45km from Morondava on the west coast. I will be visiting it in about a week and will tell you more eventually. I hear it's so hot on the coast that you just drip sweat constantly. YUM.

4. Morondava is my banking town so I'll be there about once a month and there is internet there so that's how often I'll eventually be updating.

So now you know.


OH, and fyi training right now is in a city called Manjakandriana. I live with a GREAT family--I have 3 brothers (including twins), 2 sisters, a brother-in-law, a nephew--though the number living with us varies. My Dadanaivo makes me corn when he thinks I'm down, my Neny never believes me when I say I'm full, and one of the twins (Faniry, age 14) and I are pretty much bff. I really lucked out.