In the United States, cars are often viewed as a type of miniature home. You keep them clean, you install music systems, you don’t let just anyone inside. It is your own personal space for when you are on the road.
Here in Madagascar, when you look at car, you do not think of any of that. You don’t even think about who owns it. You think let’s attach as much as possible to this motor to get from one point to another. And trust me—that’s exactly what they do.
A taxibrousse (bush taxi) is my main form of transportation. Take van with 5 rows of seats (including that of the driver). Remove any and all cushioning. Add as many people as can fit (the row behind the driver can fit at least 5 but it’s more fun to aim for 10, having some people sitting where feet should be, facing the others, their legs alternating—I’d draw you a picture if I could). Children under 5 do not count. They just sit on laps. I cannot emphasize this enough—if you see someone on the road, you can (and will) fit them inside. Clown cars are normal cars. Throw luggage and a goat on top of the van. Keep some chickens under the seats (I have gotten my ankles pecked on multiple occasions). At least one person is a puker, vomitting into a little plastic bag and throwing it out the window. The sound and smell will inspire others to the same end. At least one mother will be nursing her baby (or child. . .), at least one person will try to talk to you to the point of irritation, and at least one person will fall asleep on you. Now blast obnoxious music as loud as possible, throw the ricketty van onto either a road that is more potholes than road (don’t forget we took away seat cushions—we’re talking hard metal slamming your butt for extended periods of time) or a road that winds so much EVERYONE will puke. Does that give you an idea?
There are variations, of course. Shorter trips mean you cram more people in (my short trip from Mahabo to Morondava takes at least 2 hours for 45k—my long trip to Tana is over 18 hours). Longer trips mean numbness and lack of sleep. Buses in cities are the same thing but for short distances. Traveling in a camion is the same but much bigger, with no seats.
Now, many tourists cannot handle this (particularly when they’re trying to get to a city that has an airport and they can therefore avoid it). They’ll rent cars to avoid it. But with time you really do change your perspective. You are at point A and need to get to point B—does it really matter if you do so with style?
To help you better understand (and in order to make you think of me as an extreme badass), I will describe a trip I took with two close friends, John and Travis (also volunteers here). Before school started, they visited Morondava and we took a trip to the Tsingy, a fascinating park with strange rock formations and caves (don’t worry, I’ll show you the pictures in November). Normally, people rent 4x4s to do the trip. By 4x4 it takes 5 hours or so to get to Belo, and after that 4 hours to get to Bekopaka, the village with the Tsingy. We planned to do it all via taxibrousse
We lucked out and found a Malagasy driver with a 4x4 on his way to pick up his clients in Belo, so he let us hop in for the first part of the trip. His clients had the same plans as us, head up to Bekopaka Monday, spend Tuesday and Wednesday in the park, then head back to Morondava Thursday (a serious deadline for us, as John had an airplane to catch back to his site). The driver said we could tag along with—if his clients agreed. He told us to stay put in Belo while he picked them up—he’d stop by with them so we could discuss. We waited—and watched as he later drove right by us without an explanation. Yes, I understand that if his hands were tied by his clients there was nothing could do—but I find it more entertaining to pretend he totally screwed us.
We quickly wandered the town, looking for ANYTHING on wheels—we worried that if we didn’t arrive that night, we’d get in trouble with John’s flight. Fortunately, after an hour of searching (quite a goose chase), we found a camion heading to Bekopaka. Along with 70 people and some poultry, we crammed inside on top of the luggage and supplies, and we were off. I was eager to spend some quality time with my knees, which I hugged in my allotted foot of space.
By 4x4, it takes 4 hours. Camions are less graceful, so we counted on more like 6 hours. We asked around, reassured by everyone that we’d arrive at Bekopaka that evening—probably after dark, but who needs light to set up a tent? Reassured by everyone, that is, except a gooky old man who said we’d get there the next morning. Oh, that silly man. His sense of time really is old-fasioned of something. Right??
Aaaand, the winner was the old man. We left at 4.30 Monday afternoon. We arrived 8.30 Tuesday morning. 16 hours. It would have been only 4 had we been in that original 4x4. Instead, we ate supper at miniature tables and chairs, and then broke down, spending hours in the middle of the night watching men who were clearly not mechanics try to hammer a large camion wheel onto something too large—after they’d cleaned off grease with little twigs.
Meanwhile, we were exhausted and freezing (who brings blankets when the sun is cooking you almost as much as the body heat?). Our first solution was 3-way spooning in the dirt road. This didn’t work as well as I seem to remember the Voyage of the Mimi might have suggested in the 6th grade. Finally, women took pity on us and gave us a blanket.
The camion was magically fixed, and we all piled in as the owner yelled, ’’Not yet ! It’s not ready yet !!’’ John, whose tall body did not fit well (leading him to spend the first leg of the trip hanging onto the outside) at one point strapped himself to the top. I think hehad the best seat in the house.
Travis spent a lot of time having his thigh grazed by that old man I mentioned earlier. I was coughed by small children (TB anyone ?). We inhaled the smell countless men drinking the moonshine they make around here. We listened to people puking. Our bare feet rested in some goo I have yet to identify. It was amazing.
In the morning, we got rid of half of the people (uh, it didn’t feel much more spacious). Some guy busted out a radio and blasted music for us. One man hid himeself in a lamba (big piece of fabric) to sleep. The owner stopped the camion, ran to a hill with a gun, and shot some kind of bird. That bird’s neck was then cut over my backpack. And it suddenly became okay to touch my butt. Now, I don’t getting coughed on. That’s life. I was even patient when some guy’s armpit was in my face. But getting groped at 7 in the morning isn’t exactly my cup of tea.
Regardless, we got to the Tsingy, safe and mostly sound. We promptly bathed in the river we were told contained crocodiles (but I guess they let you go if you stayed near the edge?). We ate rice and set off for the Tsingy. I’ll let the pictures speak for me, but we rappelled down a dark hole, walked through the maze of beautiful rocks, and climbed around in caves. Plus we saw a decent amount of lemurs.
At the end of the day we set up our 2-person tent with strings (the poles were missing in Morondava—the tent was actually hovering above the ground between the trees), swam with the crocs again, and prepared to look for a way home in the near future (the camion wouldn’t make our deadline). It must be said that sharing a small tent was one thing last December. Doing it in the heat? At one point the boys started taking over my space from both sides—dirty and hot, and I don’t mean in a sexy way. I ended up sleeping outside, on the beach. Sometimes a girl needs a little space.
Luckily, we found an amazing French couple (from Paris) who let us join them the next day for the other part of the park (we hopped into the back of their truck with no guide, no food, no water,and no shoes for John, since they had been stolen from under our flying tent). They gave me a ride home Thursday (John and Travis don’t speak French, and found an English-speaking couple who took them home). We ZOOMED through the journey that had taken us so long earlier that week, and got near Morondava in time for sunset at the baobabs.
It was a beautiful trip.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
What I did for summer vacation
As a Peace Corps Volunteer (one of the few professions where you are on the clock literally 24-7), Heaven forbid I have 3 months of vacation like my students. I’m required tohave a summer project. Did I teach special English classes or train English teachers? No no. I believe the 3-month break was created for a reason, and I intended to preserve my sanity. So instead, I played with lemurs.
Okay that’s only half true. Yes, I did get to hold lemurs and all that jazz, but it wasn’t like recess or something. I was an assistant to a researcher from Duke—the amazing Meredith Barrett, whose blog of the summer can be found at lemurhealth.blogspot.com. I could give you a long and legit explanation of what we did and what we were trying to discover, but where’s the fun in that? Besides—you can find that at her website. Random comments and observations are much more fun for me. And hopefull you too.
Before even meeting the girl, I promised to go into the middle of the forest with Meredith with no expectations except a lack of water and some kind of connection to lemurs.
On the camp in the middle of that forest (note: the camp is owned by Becca, an ex-Duke student who now teaches at UT Austin—and she was totally doing research in Madagascar while pregnant—what a rockstar): The Peace Corps apparently prepares you for a lot of things, like extreme heat, isolation, teaching a classroom of 70 preteens, and living in research camps. The bucket shower we were allowed every 3 days was not only an unexpected surprise considering the water conditions, but it reminded me vaguely of Mahabo. Different bucket, same concept. As did the rice and beans we had for EVERY meal. It was as if they were trying to make me feel at home. The bathroom was (sadly) better than mine (quite a statement, considering it was just a hole in the ground). There were 3 vazahas (2 more than me and Mahabo combined). Early to bed, early to rise. The lack of heat you can see and the addition of shade was confusing. It reminded me of something by the name of autumn. So THAT was all fine.
Here’s what was strange. Now . . . I realize some of you are into that whole biological field research stuff, but I have to be honest—I do not have the patience for all the rules and regulations. All must be even and random and big enough but small enough and often enough. And THEN—when all’s said and done—you have to PROVE beyond a DOUBT everything you say. One hint of evidence to the contrary and it’s all out the window. No. Definitely don’t have the patience. Like with Meredith’s project. She’s essentially (ha—sorry for the serious over-simplification—seriously, go check out her blog—she’s even got videos) proving that lemur health is negatively affected by human development (basically). But does she really have to spend time proving that destroying the homes of lemurs is bad for them? Is anyone silly enough to not get that? Why not let her ACT on it, instead of providing evidence to support the statement. In ANY case, so that was all very enlightening and makes me feel oh so much better about my decision to be an English major. Ha. Whatever that’s another story for another time.
But then again, science won me over for the summer, so I shouldn’t talk. It allowed me to stop teaching English for a moment, and start setting out little traps at night with pieces of banana inside which were magically replaced in the morning by mous lemurs. Or rats. Or ants. It all depends. It kind of reminded me of a video game. You go up to the trap and slowly open that closed door. You kind of hold your breath. You try not to jump if you open the door to an ugly (and smelly) rat.
If you’re lucky, you’ll see a groggy mouse lemur—confused and ready for bed (they’re nocturnal—which means big beautiful eyes). And I swear they stretch and yawn—I swear. I think mouse lemurs are a cross between mice and bats. You’ll see what I mean when I post pictures in November. And they’re all so different! We’d open the cage and I’d hold them while Meredith did her thing. Some looked TERRIFIED, making their big eyes even bigger. Others were sleepy and cuddly (those are scientific descriptions). Some opened their mouths and tried on their fierce face—only I’m afraid it was more cute than intimidating. Most wuld squish up their face at some point—usually in an escape attempt. Those pudgy ground bats. . . oh so cute.
So that was fine and dandy. But then we moved from the Morondava area to the East Coast. Hang on let’s make a list, just for kicks. You can get the more structured version of it all from Meredith. I’m less into narration than random reflections in any case.
1. Tamatave is a larger, rainier version of Morondava. I’m just saying . . . a live in the best part of the island, that’s all.
2. The aye-aye is quite possibly the most ridiculous animal I have ever seen. No wonder it is taboo to lots of Malagasy people. Would YOU want to run across that at night? That death face? If ever you have children, make them aye-ayes for Halloween, and they will be the scariest kids on the block.
3. The fossa, on the other hand, is incredibly beautiful. Your kids can be that for. . . prom.
4. Wait. I have to stop writing. All that painting has done a number on every muscle in my right hand. The price we pay for a little color in our lives . . . .I’ll write more tomorrow.
OKAY. My hand is fine now. So, there were several unexpected (okay, I was warned about some of them) differences that came with our change in location. I’ll do it in paragraphs but not lists, because this computer keeps trying to auto-format things for me, and I do NOT appreciate it—if I want to do something I’ll do it—I don’t need a computer telling me what to do. Also the space bar is not so stellar which is rather frustrating to say the least.
We lived in little huts. For the most part this was fine, but there were a few glitches. It rained a lot, and my hut had several holes in the roof. This meant that not only did I chill in rain by day, but I got the outdoor experience by night as well. When rain is allowed inside a small hut, you’ll find that the air is constantly moist. Soggy mornings are less than pleasant,but hey—it’s a change from Mahabo, right?
I did get a new hut, but lived in fear of fleas, as the person living there before me was an animal lover and let dogs sleep in her hut. Fortunately I turned out fine.
We would often do around 10k (the one day I kept track) of hiking into the forest and then back again (occasionally twice a day). Into the forest here meant UP. And up in mud an drain. The result of THIS was something of a rebirth of the trench foot. My feet were so constantly wet that most of my toenails actually separated from my toes. I had to cut them ridiculously short to avoid any possible snagging emergencies.
We also had leeches. They came up your pants (those naughty creatures), forcing me to tuck pants into socks (on the river forging days, I wore socks with sandales solely to avoid leeches), and they’d come down in the rain. One day I had 8—including one on each eyebrow. After you get rid of them, you keep bleeding, and as I tried to clean one shoulder, an arm would smear blood everywhere—to the point where my light blue tank top turned brown.
The commute to the village with the forest where we worked including hours of hiking up the mountain, and multiple river crossings. Add to that the complication that I puked violently for no apparent reason before we left—and once we got up there, we wouldn’t be able to get ahold of medicine if it ended up being anything. Fortunately it turned out fine.
We bought all our food before climbing up the mountain, as we couldn’t get it once up there (unless we paid someone to go down the mountain to get it). Now, I mentioned that we used bananas in the traps. I’m just going to say—bananas kept for 3 weeks start to get FUNKY. But while WE couldn’t stand the smell, the mouse lemurs apparently were into it. We think they were getting tipsy on fermented banana.
So the Malagasy student Meredith was mentoring was analysing poop. An interesting job, I know—thank goodness I was not assigned to poop collection. They created a little shit stove (seriously) in order to try the samples for analysis in the States. This was fine, okay whatever (I can’t tell you how many laughs we got trying to make superheroes out of him and a vet friend who was up there chopping off dog balls—you can get so creative with unusual jobs—we considered making action figures—but get real—we’re not THAT bored). But one day, he decided to put the oven near the kitchen/eating area. The smell is tattooed in my mind . . . it’s like a stew, gone very wrong. I’ll leave it to your imagination. Needless to say, the oven was moved.
Story has it that once someone put a toilet seat over the usual hole in the ground we use as a bathroom. I guess he didn’t want to squat. After a while, however, they noticed foot prints on the toilet seat. I guess the villagers didn’t get it and squatted on TOP of the seat. Awesome.
Shawn and JulieAnn will especially like this. I made a quilt. I guess I needed more work, so I made one out of the chunks of fabric we use called lambas. I’ll post pictures of that too, don’t worry. It’s funny, because in the States you’re so precise about measurements and everything is so exact. I had no ruler, so I simply tore the fabric up with a ‘’this looks about right’’ attitude. I then sewed it by hand in the forest. It’s SHOCKING that it actually worked out alright—especially since it’s a bunch of smallish squares. There are actually 2 quilts. I used 8 lambas, for the colors—but this meant a LOT more fabric than needed for one. In any case, I’ll show you eventually.
One other main thing, and then I think I’ll leave the rest to Meredith. Though I’m pretty sure she’ll mention this. So a nearby village invited us to a ceremony. The family throwing the party had connections to the forest we were doing research in—one of the men used to do work there. But so a family decides to celebrate their ancestors, so they throw a party, in which they buy a bull and kill it. Other families give a little money, and in return get some of the meat. So it’s kind of a good way for the village to have meat from time to time.
But the whole thing was much crazier than that. There was taoka everywhere (their moonshine which is ridiculously strong and some say it is the cause of every town’s crazy person). And there were BUCKETS of betsabetsa everywhere (the lighter wine-esque version)—and little kids would steal cups of it. And then the whole village was all gathered in the center, around the big bull tied up on the floor. And then—all of the sudden—they ran at it with a machete and HACKED at it’s neck. The guy next to me got blood sprayed on him. After the head came off, things got a bit hectic. Men squatted everywhere, chopped up meat into little cubes on giant leaves to later be put in piles to distribute (and the cubes could be anything from some good meat to nothing but skin and hair—no joke—waste not, want not). Little children played with raw meat (and then grabbed my hands). Little dogs thought they were in heaven. We walked in blood. We created our own private bathrooms behind somewhat desserted trees. And then we walked back up the mountain. It was all in all a good party. And the freshest beef you’ll ever eat.
Okay. I’ll leave it at that, throw in a couple other entries, and I promise the next ones won’t be so long coming. Plus pictures in November. And remember to check out Meredith’s website. It’ll give you an even better idea of my summer vacation.
Okay that’s only half true. Yes, I did get to hold lemurs and all that jazz, but it wasn’t like recess or something. I was an assistant to a researcher from Duke—the amazing Meredith Barrett, whose blog of the summer can be found at lemurhealth.blogspot.com. I could give you a long and legit explanation of what we did and what we were trying to discover, but where’s the fun in that? Besides—you can find that at her website. Random comments and observations are much more fun for me. And hopefull you too.
Before even meeting the girl, I promised to go into the middle of the forest with Meredith with no expectations except a lack of water and some kind of connection to lemurs.
On the camp in the middle of that forest (note: the camp is owned by Becca, an ex-Duke student who now teaches at UT Austin—and she was totally doing research in Madagascar while pregnant—what a rockstar): The Peace Corps apparently prepares you for a lot of things, like extreme heat, isolation, teaching a classroom of 70 preteens, and living in research camps. The bucket shower we were allowed every 3 days was not only an unexpected surprise considering the water conditions, but it reminded me vaguely of Mahabo. Different bucket, same concept. As did the rice and beans we had for EVERY meal. It was as if they were trying to make me feel at home. The bathroom was (sadly) better than mine (quite a statement, considering it was just a hole in the ground). There were 3 vazahas (2 more than me and Mahabo combined). Early to bed, early to rise. The lack of heat you can see and the addition of shade was confusing. It reminded me of something by the name of autumn. So THAT was all fine.
Here’s what was strange. Now . . . I realize some of you are into that whole biological field research stuff, but I have to be honest—I do not have the patience for all the rules and regulations. All must be even and random and big enough but small enough and often enough. And THEN—when all’s said and done—you have to PROVE beyond a DOUBT everything you say. One hint of evidence to the contrary and it’s all out the window. No. Definitely don’t have the patience. Like with Meredith’s project. She’s essentially (ha—sorry for the serious over-simplification—seriously, go check out her blog—she’s even got videos) proving that lemur health is negatively affected by human development (basically). But does she really have to spend time proving that destroying the homes of lemurs is bad for them? Is anyone silly enough to not get that? Why not let her ACT on it, instead of providing evidence to support the statement. In ANY case, so that was all very enlightening and makes me feel oh so much better about my decision to be an English major. Ha. Whatever that’s another story for another time.
But then again, science won me over for the summer, so I shouldn’t talk. It allowed me to stop teaching English for a moment, and start setting out little traps at night with pieces of banana inside which were magically replaced in the morning by mous lemurs. Or rats. Or ants. It all depends. It kind of reminded me of a video game. You go up to the trap and slowly open that closed door. You kind of hold your breath. You try not to jump if you open the door to an ugly (and smelly) rat.
If you’re lucky, you’ll see a groggy mouse lemur—confused and ready for bed (they’re nocturnal—which means big beautiful eyes). And I swear they stretch and yawn—I swear. I think mouse lemurs are a cross between mice and bats. You’ll see what I mean when I post pictures in November. And they’re all so different! We’d open the cage and I’d hold them while Meredith did her thing. Some looked TERRIFIED, making their big eyes even bigger. Others were sleepy and cuddly (those are scientific descriptions). Some opened their mouths and tried on their fierce face—only I’m afraid it was more cute than intimidating. Most wuld squish up their face at some point—usually in an escape attempt. Those pudgy ground bats. . . oh so cute.
So that was fine and dandy. But then we moved from the Morondava area to the East Coast. Hang on let’s make a list, just for kicks. You can get the more structured version of it all from Meredith. I’m less into narration than random reflections in any case.
1. Tamatave is a larger, rainier version of Morondava. I’m just saying . . . a live in the best part of the island, that’s all.
2. The aye-aye is quite possibly the most ridiculous animal I have ever seen. No wonder it is taboo to lots of Malagasy people. Would YOU want to run across that at night? That death face? If ever you have children, make them aye-ayes for Halloween, and they will be the scariest kids on the block.
3. The fossa, on the other hand, is incredibly beautiful. Your kids can be that for. . . prom.
4. Wait. I have to stop writing. All that painting has done a number on every muscle in my right hand. The price we pay for a little color in our lives . . . .I’ll write more tomorrow.
OKAY. My hand is fine now. So, there were several unexpected (okay, I was warned about some of them) differences that came with our change in location. I’ll do it in paragraphs but not lists, because this computer keeps trying to auto-format things for me, and I do NOT appreciate it—if I want to do something I’ll do it—I don’t need a computer telling me what to do. Also the space bar is not so stellar which is rather frustrating to say the least.
We lived in little huts. For the most part this was fine, but there were a few glitches. It rained a lot, and my hut had several holes in the roof. This meant that not only did I chill in rain by day, but I got the outdoor experience by night as well. When rain is allowed inside a small hut, you’ll find that the air is constantly moist. Soggy mornings are less than pleasant,but hey—it’s a change from Mahabo, right?
I did get a new hut, but lived in fear of fleas, as the person living there before me was an animal lover and let dogs sleep in her hut. Fortunately I turned out fine.
We would often do around 10k (the one day I kept track) of hiking into the forest and then back again (occasionally twice a day). Into the forest here meant UP. And up in mud an drain. The result of THIS was something of a rebirth of the trench foot. My feet were so constantly wet that most of my toenails actually separated from my toes. I had to cut them ridiculously short to avoid any possible snagging emergencies.
We also had leeches. They came up your pants (those naughty creatures), forcing me to tuck pants into socks (on the river forging days, I wore socks with sandales solely to avoid leeches), and they’d come down in the rain. One day I had 8—including one on each eyebrow. After you get rid of them, you keep bleeding, and as I tried to clean one shoulder, an arm would smear blood everywhere—to the point where my light blue tank top turned brown.
The commute to the village with the forest where we worked including hours of hiking up the mountain, and multiple river crossings. Add to that the complication that I puked violently for no apparent reason before we left—and once we got up there, we wouldn’t be able to get ahold of medicine if it ended up being anything. Fortunately it turned out fine.
We bought all our food before climbing up the mountain, as we couldn’t get it once up there (unless we paid someone to go down the mountain to get it). Now, I mentioned that we used bananas in the traps. I’m just going to say—bananas kept for 3 weeks start to get FUNKY. But while WE couldn’t stand the smell, the mouse lemurs apparently were into it. We think they were getting tipsy on fermented banana.
So the Malagasy student Meredith was mentoring was analysing poop. An interesting job, I know—thank goodness I was not assigned to poop collection. They created a little shit stove (seriously) in order to try the samples for analysis in the States. This was fine, okay whatever (I can’t tell you how many laughs we got trying to make superheroes out of him and a vet friend who was up there chopping off dog balls—you can get so creative with unusual jobs—we considered making action figures—but get real—we’re not THAT bored). But one day, he decided to put the oven near the kitchen/eating area. The smell is tattooed in my mind . . . it’s like a stew, gone very wrong. I’ll leave it to your imagination. Needless to say, the oven was moved.
Story has it that once someone put a toilet seat over the usual hole in the ground we use as a bathroom. I guess he didn’t want to squat. After a while, however, they noticed foot prints on the toilet seat. I guess the villagers didn’t get it and squatted on TOP of the seat. Awesome.
Shawn and JulieAnn will especially like this. I made a quilt. I guess I needed more work, so I made one out of the chunks of fabric we use called lambas. I’ll post pictures of that too, don’t worry. It’s funny, because in the States you’re so precise about measurements and everything is so exact. I had no ruler, so I simply tore the fabric up with a ‘’this looks about right’’ attitude. I then sewed it by hand in the forest. It’s SHOCKING that it actually worked out alright—especially since it’s a bunch of smallish squares. There are actually 2 quilts. I used 8 lambas, for the colors—but this meant a LOT more fabric than needed for one. In any case, I’ll show you eventually.
One other main thing, and then I think I’ll leave the rest to Meredith. Though I’m pretty sure she’ll mention this. So a nearby village invited us to a ceremony. The family throwing the party had connections to the forest we were doing research in—one of the men used to do work there. But so a family decides to celebrate their ancestors, so they throw a party, in which they buy a bull and kill it. Other families give a little money, and in return get some of the meat. So it’s kind of a good way for the village to have meat from time to time.
But the whole thing was much crazier than that. There was taoka everywhere (their moonshine which is ridiculously strong and some say it is the cause of every town’s crazy person). And there were BUCKETS of betsabetsa everywhere (the lighter wine-esque version)—and little kids would steal cups of it. And then the whole village was all gathered in the center, around the big bull tied up on the floor. And then—all of the sudden—they ran at it with a machete and HACKED at it’s neck. The guy next to me got blood sprayed on him. After the head came off, things got a bit hectic. Men squatted everywhere, chopped up meat into little cubes on giant leaves to later be put in piles to distribute (and the cubes could be anything from some good meat to nothing but skin and hair—no joke—waste not, want not). Little children played with raw meat (and then grabbed my hands). Little dogs thought they were in heaven. We walked in blood. We created our own private bathrooms behind somewhat desserted trees. And then we walked back up the mountain. It was all in all a good party. And the freshest beef you’ll ever eat.
Okay. I’ll leave it at that, throw in a couple other entries, and I promise the next ones won’t be so long coming. Plus pictures in November. And remember to check out Meredith’s website. It’ll give you an even better idea of my summer vacation.
Aaand we're back
Okay. I got home yesterday (today being the day I write this by hand, not type and post it). I celebrated by cleaning the centimeter thick layer of dirt on literally everything. And I got rid of the five million termites and spiders who seem to think we have some kind of time-share and promptly took possession of my home the day I left. This morning was our first teacher’s meeting (during which I mostly twiddled my thumbs—or I would have if that were something I did), and when I showed up at the school, I received all the love from you that has been collecting over the past 3 months. Meaning a handful of packages and 30 letters. Have I mentioned that you’re amazing? After the umpteenth demand after my blog, I’ve decided it’s finally time . . . Where do I even begin?
I am currently sitting in a makeshift bed (my normal sheets also had that layer of dirt I mentioned), listening to a CD from the lovely Matt Emery which he so cleverly calls ‘’Mixagascar.’’ (Love it, by the way.) I’m using my wooden swing as a table, since I’m sort of revamping my house and it’s therefore not attached anymore. Can I just say that windows with slits area pain to paint? EXHAUSTED. But my house (aka cement box) will be even better when all is said and done. Don’t worry—I’ll show you pictures eventually.
Other than that, it’s good to be home. I’ve missed the small town—the crickets and early bed time—the fact that breakfast food is gone if you sleep in until 6.30. I’ve also missed my market—which has changed location, sending me on a treasure hunt for my favorite vendors. In the process, I heard again and again, ‘’Welcome back! Don’t you remember me, Betania? THIS is why we are friends. . . ‘’ Silly me. Of course we’re friends if you said hello once. And obviously I remember EVERY interaction, no matter how insignificant.
Winter is starting to wear off—meaning hot nights and hopefully an end to this wind thing that fills my nose with dust and dirt. My school’s only other English teacher has retired, making me the one and only. I’ll let you know how that goes . . . And I’m trying to mentally prepare formy trip to the US in November (Minnesota for a month!). Only about 6 more weeks before I’m off—CRAZY. And I promise I’ll post TONS of pictures when I’m home and have free internet. Luckily I have friends who take pictures. I am still prefering to live life instead of taking pictures of life happening. That doesn’t mean I’m not incredibly grateful for friends who actually are documenting our time here . . . So there’s that to look forward to.
Okay. On to bigger and better entries.
I am currently sitting in a makeshift bed (my normal sheets also had that layer of dirt I mentioned), listening to a CD from the lovely Matt Emery which he so cleverly calls ‘’Mixagascar.’’ (Love it, by the way.) I’m using my wooden swing as a table, since I’m sort of revamping my house and it’s therefore not attached anymore. Can I just say that windows with slits area pain to paint? EXHAUSTED. But my house (aka cement box) will be even better when all is said and done. Don’t worry—I’ll show you pictures eventually.
Other than that, it’s good to be home. I’ve missed the small town—the crickets and early bed time—the fact that breakfast food is gone if you sleep in until 6.30. I’ve also missed my market—which has changed location, sending me on a treasure hunt for my favorite vendors. In the process, I heard again and again, ‘’Welcome back! Don’t you remember me, Betania? THIS is why we are friends. . . ‘’ Silly me. Of course we’re friends if you said hello once. And obviously I remember EVERY interaction, no matter how insignificant.
Winter is starting to wear off—meaning hot nights and hopefully an end to this wind thing that fills my nose with dust and dirt. My school’s only other English teacher has retired, making me the one and only. I’ll let you know how that goes . . . And I’m trying to mentally prepare formy trip to the US in November (Minnesota for a month!). Only about 6 more weeks before I’m off—CRAZY. And I promise I’ll post TONS of pictures when I’m home and have free internet. Luckily I have friends who take pictures. I am still prefering to live life instead of taking pictures of life happening. That doesn’t mean I’m not incredibly grateful for friends who actually are documenting our time here . . . So there’s that to look forward to.
Okay. On to bigger and better entries.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)