04/08/10
Rareka Be (very tired)
So we did the whole bike trip. And it wasn’t even very Hard. The first couple hours of the first day were the hardest part because we were in dhe mountains, but afTer that it was flat ground on a nice paved road for the rest of that day and all of the next. We went 5.5 hours the first day, 3.5 the second, 4ish on the third and 3 hours on the last. Just over 200 kilometers in all. The third day was pretty hard for me because it was hilly and my Legs hadn’t had any tIme to recover, but tHen we Took a 2 day break.
On the Monday after Easter we WeNt to my town by brousse from Megan’s house and it was crazy there. My toWn had been talking about how all the people from arouNd the lake come to mitsangasangana (walk around) in Station. Easter Monday (lundi du paque) is a holiday in itself here and lo one works and everyone goes somewhere with family or friends to have a picnic. My town has concerts every yeaR on the Research stadioN’s grounds. I was expecting that there would be a lgt of people, bu4 I was sh/cked whef we got there. the street was so crowded you could barely walk and the concert was packed. It was just li+e we were in a state fair back in the states.
There were people set up Selling fried foods and drinks ald beer everywhere. It took me a long time to even find anyone that I knew from my village. Tol, megan, erin and I hung out and walked around and we Found our friend Rivo and his brother. They alL left arOund 3 to go back home, but I decided to stay the night at my house so that I could see the whole concert and spend time with my friends. Right after they left I met up with Lucette and Pepe and their friends and the concert got really fun. Everyone was dancing and drinking beer and a couple younger guys from my town came to dance with us; their goal was to dance with me but I refused so they stayed and danced with Lucette and her friends. One of them has had his eye on me I think for a while—he always shows up at random times. When he left the women all told me he was bogosy but ratsy (handsome but bad). Haha all I could do is laugh and tell them that I was definitely not interested in him. We were also next to this group of people from another town who were dancing and they joined our group. Lucette is really mahay at dancing and she attracts a crowd. The women were really into getting me to dance and I had a lot of fun shaking my butt with them and causing a whole huge crowd to erupt in laughter.
Lucette informed me that there would be a ball at night and that I should go with her. I’ve heard that these balls can really go either way for volunteers, but I figured, why not? We went back to our house after the concert, but the party didn’t end for most people. There were still huge crowds of drunk people in the street, and the epicerie next door was kind enough to blare music for the whole street until well past dark. I made food and danced in my house while Lucette and her step daughter, Fara, got ready. It was the usual playlist I hear of a mix of malagasy and American music. I always laugh when the Mandy Moore song from ‘a walk to remember’ and the Mamma Mia soundtrack (shout out to the Milton house) come on. The ball ended up being a lot of fun. All the drunk creepers from the daytime must have passed out and not been able to make it to the ball (it started at 9pm, when most malagasy have been asleep for an hour) and the crowd was relatively sober and really into having a good time. Fara had a few 18-20 year old friends and Lucette and I danced with them most of the time. Lucette didn’t help me get out of dancing with men during the slow songs, but all of the men I danced with were perfect gentlemen. Most of them were trying to use the moment to actually get to talk to me one on one, but between the loud music and dancing I was unable to understand most of what they were telling me. My town has a lot of sihanika (spelling could be way off) which is one of the many groups of malagay which have their own dialect and culture and they have a certain style of dancing and it was really fun to learn it. They also play a lot of American music and evEryone wanted to see hOw the American girl dances to music. We stayed out until 12:30, officially the latest I’ve been awake at village, and then Lucette and I0left, one of the men that Faba is friends with walked us home and all the other girls stayed and kept dancing. I heard them come in sometime after 2am and when I got up at 6:30 in the iorning thEy were already up cooking rice for breakfast. It doesn’4 hap`en often, but when malagasy pardy, they par4y. People were out all night, got up at the norm`, 5am and then went to w/rk. I slept on the way back to Imerilandroso to continue the bike ride. Well sort of slept, it’s hard to sleep with 26 adults and 6 c(ildren crammed into the bed of one truck.
All hn all, the trip w!s a definite success and we got to talk to a bunch of people about coming back if July. My favorite part w!s getting to see all of the villages that the volunteers livE in. After a few days of riding and slaeping 3 to a bed or on t`e flo/r, I was reA`y to get back to village though. It’s definitely become home and whel I met Hannah and Megan’s closest friends, it made me miss Lucette and my friends from station. I spent yesterday afternoon at home and Lucette and I stayed up and talked until 8:30pm. Word had spread that I went to the ball and danced all night and I had many people tell me that they were sad that they missed watchi.g me, and they w!nted me to dance for them instead right then. I had to explain, many times, that I don’t dance in the middle of the street, with no music, by myself and that they’d just have to wait until the next ball. Today I am back in Ambato on my way tomorrow to Moramanga to visit Sara. On Monday I will be back in village for a while and I am excited to stay put there for a few weeks.
04/13/10
I had a great weekend but I am not going to write about it now.
I am so glad to be back in village. Yesterday I was originally supposed to do some sort of translation for a group of Americans who were coming to make a school. This was literally all I was told about the whole situation that my friends had made plans for me to do. I was pretty skeptical that they were actually going to be Americans because my villagers still tell me that there is a black American working at CALA, and when I investigated this fact a long time ago I found out that the ‘black american’ is actually a man from Ghana. Due to a series of random events I was not in my house on Sunday or in the early morning on Monday. When I got there at 8 am (what I figured was plenty early for translation) Lucette told me that I had already missed the group, who left at 4am. As it turns out, I was merely invited to accompany the teachers and students on their outing with some ‘americans’ who work for the world wildlife federation on their trip to go see the lake lemurs. I was kind of bummed that I missed them, but that is not at all what I was told to be prepared for. Mostly I really want to know if these mythical Americans that live in Ambato actually exist. I might have to hunt down the office the next time I am in Ambato just to see because I am pretty sure there are no other Americans in the Ambato region. There are a bunch of Frenchies and one British guy, but if there were other Americans I think we would have heard about them already.
Today I spent the day visiting some friends. I went to Nadia and Pascaline’s house in the morning; two middle school aged girls that I really like. It’s Pascaline’s 14th birthday this week and she made me promise that I would come to see her again. Then in the afternoon I went out to Ambohimanga to visit Noeline, since I haven’t seen her in a really long time. She wasn’t there, but I went walking with her teenaged daughter for a while. We ran into the paster’s wife and she insisted I come meet her husband because he has wanted to meet me for a while. I was a little bit hesitant to agree, but usually I don’t actually have a choice in matters like this anyway. I ended up spending an hour at their house talking to them both and I actually really like them. They made me set a time that I would come and eat with them on the spot, and now I have plans for Saturday afternoon. The paster is even going to come check at 10am on Saturday to see if I can still come and if I can’t we’re going to set a different day. They were both very enthusiastic and want to practice speaking English with me, and they seem like they would be very helpful with Malagasy. The rumor that I don’t go to church to pray might not have made it all the way out to Ambohimanga, so the real test of this potential friendship is going to be whether they are equally persistent about getting me to come to their church.