Quatrième Semaine

This week I joined my host family at church. It was certainly a cultural experience. The church is called Apokalypsy because they believe the end of the world is coming soon and that all the pure people will be saved. They are Christian and follow the Bible, but not the same way. The women, including myself, wore white headdresses to cover our hair. Males and females sat on separate sides of the church on mats on the floor. We took our shoes off before going inside. It was very long and I did not understand a word, as it was spoken in Malgache. There was singing and dancing, which was often fun but awkward because I had no idea what I was doing. I can definitely say I was out of my comfort zone. But I’m glad I went just once to see what it was like. I appreciate my host family’s lifestyle a little more because of it.
We had made fresh lemonade the previous night! I beat up the lemons with the handle of a knife until they were squishy and cut them in two pieces to squeeze all the juice out with my hands. My aunt Nadia was impressed that I knew how to do it and she laughed and called me lazy when I told her I’d never done it before because we just buy the juice from the store. It was very watered down but it was nice to have something besides soda or hot water. After church we took the leftovers and “made more” by adding more water and tons of sugar to it. It was kind of hilarious… I just drank sugar water that smelled a little like lemon. That’s the “façon de Malgache”. On Sunday we went for lunch in “the bush” where my host mom’s fiancé lives. It was a fun little family outing and I ate a lot of good food. I cracked a coconut on a tree with my bare hands and ate the whole thing using a piece of shell as a spoon. We had to spend 5000 ariary each for the taxi though (which is only like $2.50 but here that’s normally worth 5 taxi trips around town). I explained to my aunt how we have to borrow money from the banks to pay for school and how some people can borrow more than others based on how well they pay things back, etc. (In laymen’s terms…) and she said that makes a lot more sense. She thought all of us vazaha kids just had lots of money to pay for this trip and everything and were just being frugal.
That weekend I ate zebu kidneys, zebu feet soup, cassava and a real whole tropical coconut… so much better than anything you can find in the states. I also learned how to say “I love you” in Malagasy: “tiako hanao” just in time for Valentine’s day! That day we left for our first camping trip to Andohahela National Park. We crammed 47 of us and the local ecology students onto one bus and had the longest bumpiest sweatiest ride ever to the campsite. It took us about 4.5 hours… But it was a lot of fun because the Malagasy students were singing and shouting and getting us all pumped up. We were singing Celine Dion together!
There were so many bugs there. A huge praying mantis was sitting cleaning his face right by where we were sitting… spider crickets were jumping all over the place, as well as actual jumpy spiders. But there was the most beautiful sunset over the shallow rock laden river. It definitely didn’t feel like a school day. At the site, we had a plant surveying assignment where we broke off into teams of 8 and looked at a 10x10m plot of forest. We had to identify and count and observe the different plants in our plot and write a report about our findings for Friday. In the process, Sidonie walked into this tree (that we had not been previously warned about) that gave her a horrible painful burning rash on her shoulder and neck. Of course that was in our plot… immediately afterwards she was viciously bitten by a gigantic ant on her arm. It was a little scary to do that assignment after that.
Before and after lunch we had a lot of free time. I took my ipod and my camera and first took a snooze in a tree where I encountered an orange chameleon! And then I went through the river and found a dry rock to lay on with my music and just look around at the scenery. A butterfly was flying around me and I made friends with it. Listening to the music and staring out at the river and the plants and mountains and butterflies and sky… it was pretty much like a movie. I realized that his was also technically my school day and that I really have nothing to complain about here. It’s so relaxing and beautiful. I just have to get over my homesickness.
We had a “promenade touriste” and learned more about the local plants on our way to the piscine naturel. The swimming spot was awesome with a waterfall and giant boulders to sit on. One spot the boulders formed a semicircle around the side of the waterfall and made a tiny little pool. The water was so deep though and it was really a test to my swimming abilities. When it was time to leave, I didn’t have the strength to swim back across. My stuff was all on the other side (purse with camera, ipod, everything and my shoes and clothes) and half of us were walking back up the other side so we wouldn’t have to cross over. I had no way to let someone know about my stuff on the other side so I just strutted a mile through the woods in my bikini, barefoot, holding a piece of hedgehog skin I had found by the swimming spot. I was almost a true wild woman. Luckily when we got back to camp, the folks on the other side had seen my stuff and taken it back. Perfect!
That night the CEL students were playing music and dancing with a bunch of us late into the night. I was passing out so I went to bed early with Sidonie in our tent away from the rest of them. When I got up to pee around 11:00, they were still partying! I also thought I saw a fossa just strolling along a few feet in front of me when I left my tent! I thought it might just be a dog but it was the right color caramel brown and walking quickly and low to the ground. I couldn’t get a good look at the tail before it veered off into the forest. I don’t think it could have been a fossa though because one of our professors said the chances of seeing a fossa in the wild are pretty much nonexistent. But I also saw a snail crossing the path to the latrine and it was literally bigger than my fist! It was the biggest snail I have ever seen but I was still worried it might get kicked or stepped on so I picked it up and put it safely on the other side, assuming that was its destination.
This weekend is all about relaxing with the internet and possibly going shopping around town before we leave for our next camping trip on Sunday. This time we’ll be going to Ifotaka for a lemur study so be prepared for some lemur news pretty soon (I hope!)