Life In Fandriana

Well, this past week Ingrid Karin Swan has been settling down in the countryside, in the marvellous town of Fandriana. The experiences have been many and not at all boring! What makes this town so special for a European girl? I will try to explain, although the only way to fully understand is when you experience it yourself!

The bed that keeps me company in the night is situated in a small room in a dormitory of SFM, the only school that educates teachers in the country. But my bed is not the only thing in my room. Apart from a closet, a table and two chairs I have living company as well! The termites gladly welcomed me in my new room by showing me who’s the boss of the wooden furniture. Which is every furniture I have. After having slept in the wooden bed a couple of nights, I realized that maybe the termites weren’t the only ones enjoying my habitat. Red spots covered parts of my legs, and they were itching like mad. Eline suggested it might be flees. Some kind of bedbugs anyway - or maybe just mosquitoes who took a bite at me outside…? It stays a mystery…

Making food - Malagasy style
To avoid dying a person has got to eat. Eline and I make our own food everyday, and I’ve got to say we’re getting quite good at it! Now we even know how to do it in the Malagasy way, having no electric oven and all. We cook rice on a fatapera. It’s social, it’s fun and it’s good! And no, it doesn’t go faster with an oven. Then you just stand in your own boring kitchen and don’t get the chance to make fire and cook with the girls.

Working as a teacher
Eating is not everything we do, although it may seem like it from time to time. We have started our work as teachers here at the teacher-training school. It’s great fun, I really enjoy it! The students are aged from 18 to 45, so there is a huge gap. I feel quite young and inexperienced when I teach them, but since they don’t know much English I feel that I am needed, which is a good feeling. They don’t seem to mind that their teacher could be their daughter… Among the things I have taught them so far, are The Body and how to make questions.
Next week we will start teaching English from scratch in two children schools too, far away in the countryside. If you know me, you know that I can’t wait to start! The children here are so adorable!
Working like a Malagasy woman
I am starting to realize how spoiled we are living in the West. Here there is no such thing as a washing machine, a dishwasher, electric oven etc. Sometimes there is no water in the tap, and everyday you have to do your business in a hole in the ground. Washing clothes by hand is painful for the back, and washing dishes everyday is a bit tiring at times. I think I know one of the reasons why people in the West live much longer. They don’t do hard physical work like this everyday! And - especially in Europe – they’re not exhausted at 10 o’clock in the morning because of the hot Sun! But I’m also realizing that people here seem a lot happier than in the West. Can you imagine why?
A Malagasy woman also has to do her duties in the rice field. Her job is to plant rice, which is exactly what I did last Wednesday! The whole school went out to plant rice, and of course the vazahas had to give it a try. Trotting through the mud was fun, but at the same time disgusting and alarming. We were shown some frogs which had been picked up from the mud. Not the least was there a warning in my head saying: you shouldn’t walk in still-standing water in Madagascar, you can get Bilharzia. (A disease which in the worst case can cause death.) But I couldn’t just watch the Malagasy people doing it. And besides, if they could - so could I. So my rubber boots were put on the bank side, and weren’t far from melting in the heat.
Well, if I get Bilharzia in the near future, we all know why…

Enjoying the country; the climate and the nature
Every morning I wake up at 5 o’clock (at the latest). I go for a run among green rice fields and enjoy the break of day. I take a shower in the cold water before I eat breakfast and go to work at 7. Lunch (Norwegian “middag”) is devoured at around 12 or 1 o’clock. The eye of the day, as the Malagasy people call the Sun, smiles down at us everyday and makes us hope it will rain, which it normally will around 4 o’clock. After that there’s not much more to do outside, as the Sun goes to bed at around 7 o’clock. Not long after that, miss Swan is so exhausted that she too goes to bed, wondering what tomorrow will bring…