Update 2

Manahoana! (hello)

Writing this post Thurs 9/1 from my new home for a few weeks. I am still terrified every second we are on the road, especially today when in a normal car and not our slightly larger buses. The family has a car but no one wants to drive it often. There are no street signs, none! No stop lights/signs, names of streets, nothing. No double lines, meaning that passing people on the wrong side of the road is always acceptable. When coming around a corner too fast, slowing down isn’t necessary, only need honk once as a warning.

Had a few experiences since my last post. We went to a palace on the outskirts of Tana that was used by the Monarchy before colonization. It was a pretty cool trip and we were lucky to be guided by a professor from the University here. When we visited it happened to be some sort of Memorial Day and so there were quite a few natives that had gone there to pray. It was pretty bizarre to just stand by and watch as people performed small prayer ceremonies and our professor just spoke over them, explaining to us what they were doing. I’m gonna trust him that it wasn’t too insensitive and just yet another cultural difference.

Afterwards we went to a few prayer sites near by which were also incredibly and unusually active. There were 3 of them at the same site: a small room for sacrifices, a dark room for some sort of meditative prayer and then an open area with a small wall that enclosed a bunch of singing and dancing. There were 3 shocking things that happened here, the first was that we saw an albino African who essentially just looked white with blonde hair. And if that wasn’t different enough, an adult kept lifting her up and showing her to us because she looked like a “vazaha” and then based on that fact, expected us to give her money/something. The 2nd may not be fun to read and involves the first prayer site so skip to next paragraph if needed. But when we got to the prayer site, I happened to see a duck get sacrificed. They slit its throat while it was stretched over another person so that the blood could trickle down his neck and back as well. This very well may have been the first animal I have seen killed in person.

Finally, one of the members of our group was “blessed” by one of the people there. I didn’t get to hear exactly what was going on but I looked over and this taller Malagasy man had his hand on my friend’s head (the most sacred part of the body to the Malagasy) and was saying something in their native language. I would say that all 3 events are pretty inexplicable from my standpoint but I thought all were worth sharing.

Tuesday we got a chance to go to an open-air market and walk around without one of our professors to guide us. We obviously got a lot of stares and a few people yelling “vazaha” which means “foreigner” in case you forgot. But overall I felt pretty welcomed there. Got to try some traditional Malagasy food called koba (pronounced koo-bah) which is made of pistachios, rice flour, wheat and a few other unknown ingredients. No matter how hard I try to describe it, I can guarantee that you are picturing it wrong, but it is served in a log form that the vendor cuts a slice from. It has a purplish center with a light grey ring around the outside and is then wrapped in banana leaves. It was pretty good… for a few bites. Possibly an acquired taste though.

Yesterday we visited our program center where we will be having class and I finally found internet and made that last post! The night was spent with our host family I am gonna make a post about my living situation here but I think I got pretty lucky.

Today we had to get to school from our homestays but luckily we had some help. Most people had a parent or something walk with them or show them the bus route and I got my little 14 year old brother to help me out. It was pretty hilarious when he dropped me off at school and said (translated) “alright, I’ll be back here at 4:30. See you then.” After school all of us stood around waiting for our parents like it was the first day of 2nd grade. “What time are your parents picking you up?” is not something I have heard in many years. The buses are incredibly crowded with about 4-5 people for every 3 seats. Even if there wasn’t a seat, a board of wood was available to branch the space in between seats. Most crowded bus I have been on had 24 people plus a baby and only 4 rows of 4 seats. Given the size of the average Malagasy person, I’ll just say that the buses were not designed with me in mind haha.

-Ben