Hello World!

I have successfully made it Madagascar and after a few restful days outside of the city we are officially staying in the capital city, Antananarivo. We will move in with host families on Wednesday, but for now we are staying in a hotel. Although it’s only been a couple of days, it already feels like so much has happened. I’m going to have to just give some highlights, because otherwise this will be way too long.

So I arrived in Madagascar after approximately 12 hours on a plane which was almost exclusively in French. A French guy sitting in front of me tried to ask me for advice about filling out his customs form, which was ironic, because it was in his native language, and not mine. I was not much help.

So once I get through customs and found my luggage and then I was supposed to walk through and meet someone from SIT. I looked around for a while, but there was no one there. A nice Malagasy man came up to me and asked if i needed help. I tried to tell him that I was meeting people, but he kept insisting on helping me. We tried to ask at the information desk about SIT, but they had never heard of it. So my new found friend decided that I needed to come home with him to his hotel, which was very nice, and had a pool. I told him no, and although I walked away a few times, he kept coming back and asking me to come home with him. I found a payphone, but it only took Malagasy credit cards, which I didn’t have. A man in a uniform came up to me and asked if I needed help, which I did. He let me use his cell phone after some confusing negotiations about “crédit”. I got through to the academic director, and soon enough, some one came to pick me up. So, no harm no foul.

The first couple of days have been super nice, minus me being the first one to get sick. I haven’t really eaten anything in about 24 hours…but I think I’m getting better now.

The first day a group of Malagasy dancers came and performed for us. I think I will post a separate post with a couple of pictures. Everything here is really gorgeous, and the weather is amazing. We had our first Malagasy lesson, and then were let free in the Market place. It was definitely quite an experience to interact with a lot of Malagasies for the first time. We pretty much can only say hello, excuse me, how much? Thank you, and goodbye, so our conversations were pretty limited, but I was super excited about beginning to learn Malagasy.

We’ve also been eating a lot of rice and some meat dishes. One night before the rice was brought out I found myself wondering where the rice was.

All in all, things are going well!