Manahoana!

So far this trip has been filled with surprises, laughter, and lots and lots of French and Malagasy. As you may know, Malagasy government is going through some leadership changes. On Monday, the day before we left on our journey to Madagascar, riots broke out in the streets of Antananarivo. The president Marc Ravalomanana had shut down a local television station due to a special showing from Ratsiraka, the socialist president from 1972-1991 who has been exiled to France. This breech of constitution caused the people to riot in the streets and the local town square. This causes a lot of looting which followed by fires to several grocery stores and the president's privately owned radio and television station. The numbers of people killed in the fires are not exact quite yet but it is looking around one hundred, Many of the people killed in the fires were looters themselves. The rioters are asking for regime change, the mayor of Antananarivo (Tana), Andry Rajoelina. The problem is that the mayor is only 34 and the constitution states that the president must be 40 years of age. Also, international organizations are still recognizing ravalomanana so there is a lot of confusion. As of now there is a transitional government in place and more exciting news to come.

What this means for our trip is a whole other story. Once we arrived to Antananarivo after 30 long hours of traveling, we were taken to a hotel 30km outside of the city in a town named Ambohimanga. There we have been participating in orientation and waiting out the situation to assess our safety in Tana. The plan is currently that we will be moving our first section of the program to Mahajunga, 500km west of the city. The program will still remain the same; we are just going to play things by ear to do our best to stay safe.

We have been able to leave the hotel area several times, first to the market and second to the historic site of the king and queen of the Merina people (one of the eighteen ethnic groups in Madagascar.) The market was an adventure to say the least. We were each paired up with a partner and each given 9,000 Ariary ($4.50) to buy a few items at the market on Monday. The purpose of the activity was to practice our Malagasy and to get an idea of how much things cost. Our first venture outside the hotel was funny to say the least. All sixteen of us standing at the bus stop looking at what seemed like an already saturated bus, wondering how we all would fit. It was the equivalent of a 15-passenger van with 25 people. Several even standing on the bumper! Once we squeezed on we took the taxi-brousse and shouted Misy Miala to get off at the next stop. We unloaded and took in the smells, sights, and sounds of the market. There were chickens roaming the streets, raw meat hanging from the ceiling of stands, straw baskets, and piles and piles of clothes. We were set on purchasing a kilo of luscious grapes we found on a side street of the market. We had been told to think of 200 Ariary as having the purchasing power of one dollar even though it is only worth about ten cents. We asked the woman shakily in Malagasy how much the grapes were, She replied 360 Ar – we counter with 300 Ar after much confused discussion between the two of us and she agrees. A dollar fifty worth of grapes seems reasonable right? Turns out once we go to pay she said trios-mil (3,000) not trios-cent (300). We had just bought a small bag of grapes for the equivalent of $15! Kenna and I grabbed the bag, paid and then walked to the next stand. Once we got there we realized, we can't eat grapes anyways, it doesn't have a peel! We had just spent $15 dollars on grapes we couldn't even eat. Turns out we could eat them after all but one could just imagine the laugh we had after that experience. We did end up getting a deal on a pineapple (anana for Kirsten) and an orange soda. Quite a new experience.

Several people expressed interest in how to send me letters, the address is:

BP 8172

Antananarivo (101)

Madagascar

Make sure to send US mail only, things like fedex cannot be sent to bp addresses. I would also love to send all of you a postcard as well so if you could send me your address that would be awesome! Hope things are well in the States, see you all soon!