Back in Madagascar

Salama! Finally I am here! In the capital of the 4th biggest island in the world. After 6 days in Madagascar these are some of the things I’ve learned:

1) We are very white. When walking in the streets, people stare at us. They smile at us, wave at us and shout “bonjour vazaha”, thinking that every white person is French. We are VIP’s in this country.
2) We are very rich. We can get a bus ride for 1 Norwegian Kr, and everything else is also cheap. No wonder people think we are wealthy. If the poor people see us, they come running. It is terrible to say that we don’t have money (when actually we do). I could write a whole post just about poverty in this country, but I think this will do for now…
3) It is hot. We wear t-shirts, shorts and sandals every day. Lovely!
4) God (Andriamanitra) means the King who smells good. The people who don’t believe in the loving God we Christians believe in, pray and give offerings to their ancestors.
5) The service in church lasts at least 3 hours. What takes most of the time, are the announcements. Why not just write it all down on a piece of paper for everyone? Well, they can’t afford the paper.
6) It is a sin to clap in church. Instead you have to raise your hand and wave!
7) Everything is mora mora (take it easy). In Madagascar we own the time, not the opposite.
8) Internet is very slow. Which is why you haven’t heard much from me yet. I don’t want to spend a lot of time in a small Cyber cafe when the sun is shining outside.
9) How to make a good Sunday dinner from scratch. In short: we killed a chicken, cooked potatoes (bought them in church (!) to support the church building) and we oHowHomade buns for dessert.
10) The traffic is terrible (no mora mora here!). People are selfish when driving. What matters is that they can get from A to B. If there are people in the road the drivers honk at them, after having “pretended” to drive over them. They want to get to their destination ASAP, even if it means driving in 100 km/h in a small, narrow street. On top of it all, people don’t use seatbelts…

A short update of my situation: I live in the Youth Centre in Antananarivo, together with the three other Norwegians. I am loving it! We are going to Antsirabe on Saturday to learn Malagasy for 2 weeks. Then Eline and I will go to Fandriana for 1 month, before we’ll go back to Antananarivo and live and work in the youth centre for the rest of our stay. We will also work with children here. Our main task will be to teach English.
Since I am becoming Malagasy Fotsy (a white Malagasy person), I have bought a Malagasy simcard. My phonenumber is: 032 5062 687. You can send me messages, but I am not sure if I’ll receive them. If you want to say something important, write it in an e-mail. I will check my Norwegian simcard once in a while too, in case you write messages to that number… But you can also call me! That would make me very happy. If you would like to send me letters, the address is:
Centre FKTLM Sabotsy Namehana, Antananarivo 101, Madagascar.
But you probably should expect that it might take a while. Mora mora, you know! ;)

Well, I think I will go out in the sunshine now. Can’t really say I miss the Norwegian autumn! :)Enjoy the rain for me!