Treizième Semaine

Okay, woah, Blogger just changed everything on me!

So I know you all have just been desperately awaiting this week's blog... I wasn't going to post because I didn't think there was anything interesting enough. But then I started thinking about it and, on the contrary, alot has happened this week!

So let me start by telling the story of how I was stalked and proposed to. This guy who is friends with my host aunt, Nadia's friends has been trying to hang out with me since we went for a night of karaoke at this house. My aunt told him he doesn't have a chance (and I was never very nice to him...) but he stated that he "just wanted to be friends". Which is interesting because he would randomly show up at the internet cafe when I was there, pose with me in pictures I was trying to take with the kids as if we were a little family, show up at my homestay house while I was in my pajamas and say "I have a car outside, come to my house.", pay for my taxi home and tell me he wants to "present me to his family." Does this sound like things friends do? So anyway, one day I gave him my USB to take those pictures, so in order to get it back as soon as possible, I agreed to his offer of coming over that night for more karaoke (forcing Nadia to come with me). I successfully retrieved the USB and, still being affected by my throat cold, started reacting to the smoke and asked to leave. Nadia stayed behind to sing more songs and Christian came in the car with me to go home. He starts talking to me about how he wants to have a relationship with me and I was very rude and direct about the fact that it was ridiculous that he was even talking about that and I told him to leave me alone. Two days later, he sends me a text message that says “I want that u knoe: I love u and we will married if u accept. Please answer Caren.” First of all, if you have to beg someone to answer a text message, do you honestly think you have a chance in marrying them? I think there’s something wrong with this guy… Anyway, I think I have made it fairly clear that I want nothing to do with him but it’s been an interesting experience that I will certainly never forget.

Aside from that, Nadia left to go find work on Thursday. She’s going to Tulear and then to Tana. It was a solemn day when she left and I cried again when I hugged her goodbye, just like the grandmother. But on a positive note, I moved into her bedroom so now I have a door that closes, my own big bed, a TV with some bootleg DVDs and a small closet to put my stuff in! I am only in here for 5 days though because I will be moving to the cheap hotel with some other SIT kids finishing ISP on Tuesday. But it’s still nice to have a little bit of privacy while I’m still here.

In addition to that, I just keep getting spoiled, and my ISP Advisor left town the other day so he left his Fort Dauphin internet connection with me! So temporarily, I can have internet in my homestay and take it to the school to work and the Mahavoky hotel, and never have to pay those snooty Kaleta people again! (Although I probably will a couple times just because it’s delicious.) So I am currently posting this blog from my homestay suite. ;) In a couple days I will have hot running water at the hotel and you can officially start calling this more of a vacation than study time.
Especially since I am really almost finished with my project!! I’m still working out little details and I sent it to my advisor to look over when he gets a chance so hopefully I can finish it and have it fully edited before the weekend. As of now, it is over 30 pages long. I already mentioned that it is about local production and the economic market of wood charcoal in the town of Fort Dauphin. I may have started out too broadly so now it’s just been difficult to choose what bits of information are worth talking about or not so I can try to make it as economics based as possible for URI credit. I feel like I should have a ceremonial burning of one of the printed copies, using wood charcoal as my fuel source. Wouldn’t that be ironic? I obviously won’t do that though.

So basically, this upcoming week is very exciting because all my SIT friends are returning from their various ISP sites (villages, rainforests, distant cities and islands, etc.) and sharing stories and making plans to take what we can from Fort Dauphin before we leave forever! This is our last real academic responsibility and it is almost over! Whenever Allie and I talk about going home, we get all jumpy and nervous because it’s coming SO SOON. More about the end in later posts though… I can’t get too ahead of myself.