MISSION MADAGASCAR!!: Madagascar- In a nutshell

The language is still coming along. Usually the times I see the most improvement are on splits, when I can lead. French is a very dirty language. That's what I tell Malagasy people when they ask why I haven't learned French. And now I have good reason to be upset with the language.

This past week, I was talking about shampoo with Elder Taylor (I don't know why we were talking about shampoo), and the conversation led to the kind that I had up in the shower. Taylor knows a little French just from being here for so long. So he informed me that my shampoo bottle, which says shampoo on the bottle, is actually conditioner. The bottle says, "Appres Shampoo" or something like that, which is French for, "after shampoo" I guess. So apparently I have only been using conditioner for 4 months, not a drop of shampoo once. You can imagine my upset.

Anyway, the Jas (I found out that I've been spelling Jas wrong, I always wrote Jazz) treated us to another picnic out in Manazary this week. Pasta, juice, and some other snacks. So I brought some of my American candy to give them. I filmed them eating warheads, cuz I never get tired of that. And I also brought some Smarties and tried teaching them how to smoke smarties. Funniest thing ever, they were all coughing so much. Check out the video on facebook.

Merry Christmas!

Fifi, Papozy, Hiavatra, Gracia

I got back to my roots this week on P-day, and got to run around barefoot for a little bit. The ground here is a lot more unforgiving than back home. So many gashes on my feet, ha. Me and Avotra, one of the Jas, were competing to see who could do the highest wall run. I had a good lead, but he beat me. I would blame it on the fact that he's black, but Malagasies are a whole different category of black. Short little people. He beat me straight up, sadly. There's a video for that too.

Oh, yesterday at church, we had an old missionary visit, he served in Analamahitsy for 11 months back in 2007. He knew Neil Locke too, thought that was cool. He bore his testimony for the members and translated for his wife, then they took off. But it was cool, we sat with them during the beginning of the meeting and had a nice conversation in pure English. I know I geek out about meeting Americans, but it never gets old.

Okay, so that's the update for the week. Not a huge amount of news from lessons. So to keep things interesting I decided to make a list of some observations I've made about Madagascar recently. To inform people at home, and to prepare missionaries coming here, so here we go.

1. Malagasies will listen to anything with a good beat. No matter how horrible the lyrics are in English, no one understands. So they like doing things like.. playing Lil Jon at a church activity, in the church. Hilarious.

2. I've made the observation before, but breast feeding is a very popular hobby around here. Constantly.

3. There are two ways to get around Tana, taxi's and taxibe's. Taxibe's are way cheap, but it takes a stinking long time to get anywhere. It takes about an hour and a half to go 9 kilometers.

4. To top off traveling, a ton of the roads are cobblestone, very bumpy rides.

5. Trash is everywhere, burning, piling up, being dug through, some people even live in it.

6. The word "vazaha" is a word you hear a million times a day. It literally means "foreigner", and sometimes people use it as a joke, or they just hate us ha.

7. Selling things as priced doesn't exist except in stores, but good luck on the road. Especially for us white people, they always try to rip us off.

8. Menu's at restaurants are pretty much always wrong. It'll say they have pizza, pasta, steak, rice, etc. But when you ask, unstead of telling you right then, they'll wait about 10 minutes to tell you they don't have anything but rice.

9. Drunks roam the streets, enough said.

10. Kids have found a free way to make soccer balls. They bunch up old plastic bags, a ton of them, into a big plastic ball, then tie it with a few strings.

11. Kids love testing our Malagasy by asking us what time it is. I had a kid ask me what time it was, every minute, for 6 minutes straight, I don't think he believed me though.

12. You feel strangely like a zoo animal sometimes. Get used to everyone staring at you, everywhere you go, all day, every day.

13. My view of cheap is very skewed now. Usually, eggs are 300 Ar (15 cents a piece), and now everyone jacked it up to between 350 and 380 (between 17 1/2 cents and 18 cents). I refused to buy eggs for like 2 weeks.

14. People think we're French, always. Whenever I ask how much something is, they tell me in French, and according to Francs. Then I ask how much that is in Ariary, so they tell me in French, again, but with Ariary. Then I have to ask how much that is in Malagasy. THEN I get the real price. That happens every time I buy something.

15. Rice paddies are not convenient at all, especially when they flood and the paths become useless. And get good at standing long jumps. You have to do it a lot to get from path to path, and if you fall.. you're screwed.

16. People love moving and not telling anyone. On Friday, I was talking to an investigator at their house. Then on Saturday, I knocked on the door, and a new person told me that they moved. Happens a lot.

All that said, this place is very different. But it's so sick. It's Africa! Who else in the world gets to know Malagasies like missionaries do? Coolest mission on Earth, that's for sure.

Love you!

Taylor