The thought of going to
(View of the the city of Antanarivo from the balcony of our house)
(Taxi stop at the rice fields with Ravika our escort)
Sarah and I left for
Even though
On Sunday we went to a church where over 12000 members attend. It was pretty amazing. They have a service at 6, 8 and 10 and it ran so smoothly. After staying in the capital city called
We arrived in Fianarantsoa late at night and we had an amazing welcoming. We were treated like royality.
The Theological college is built up on top of the mountain and the water is even more scarce here. You have to go to the reservoir half way down the mountain and carry it by buckets. Thank goodness that they saved some water for us in big barrels for us in our rooms. The toilets and showers are down two flights of stairs and you can’t flush toilet paper down the toilet, but the locals use newspaper for toilet paper. At night you cannot leave your room, so if you want to go to the bathroom you have to go do it in bucket and dump it out in the morning. When you take a bath you have to do the bucket thing with cold water and then save the dirty water to flush the toilet.
The life in the college here is very discipled. Most of them get up at 5 am to study and do their devotions, exercise, clean and make breakfast. Then at 7:30 they go to chapel and then to class. They get a two hour break in the afternoon to make lunch. Even though there is electricity in your rooms the locals cook their meals somewhere else. You have to start a fire using kindling and coals in order to cook your food. There is no way to keep things refrigerated here. You must buy everything fresh and eat everything that you have made that day. The main staple diet for the locals is rice 3 times and a few vegetables a day and if they are lucky a bit of meat sometimes. This life reminds me of living back in the early 1900’s (Ann of Green Gables time. Can you believe people still live like this!) By the end of my stay here I loved most of everything that their lifestyle had to offer me. It was so simplistic and not complicated! I felt right at home, a life of simplicity that I’ve always strive to have.
(visiting the married couple houses)
(eating with the students)
(checking out the classrooms with the teachers)
(Meeting the students at the first time at chapel)
(class)
(Clothes relay)
(teaching them how to play the card game spoons)
(washing my clothes by hand! A new experience for me!)
(Dina cooking over coals)
(eating Casava leaves with pork)
(special Malagasy cake)
(every Saturday at 6:30 am we had to clean the section that we lived in)
(Malagasy families)
(Ate with a special reformed women pastor named Yvette. They have no problems having women pastors in Madagascar)
The people here are also so different. I felt that I was in a bubble or another planet. They are so pure and innocent. They have not been exposed to the North American culture here and I felt I was amongst angels sometimes. They treated us like royalty or even movie stars. They followed us everywhere we went, even to the bathroom. The men were total gentlemen! They carried everything for me, even when it rained they would hold the umbrella. If I wanted they would have probably carried me everywhere I went. (I now know how movie stars feel!) They always put you first before their own needs and it was so refreshing and amazing to be treated like a lady.
Since there was so many students wanting to learn English we decided that we would teach the teachers from 8-9 and the Sarah and I split the students in 4 groups Sarah and I taught separately and took ½ of the students in the morning from 9-12 and the other half from 2-5. The English that we taught them was very basic and beginner’s level. They were amazing students because they were so eager to learn. My favourite time of learning was when I got time spend time with them outside the classroom. I felt that they learned so much more talking to them in their natural environment then in then in the classroom. For example I spent the whole afternoon with a family while they were cooking their dinner. We went through tons of vocabulary words in how to prepare dinner, the method, the products she used and so much more.
It is summer here right now and it is also the rainy season. When it rains it rains hard and they take every opportunity to collect the rain water so that they don’t have to get it from the reservoir. They also have very interesting animals here like iguana’s, gecko’s, large spiders and cockroaches etc. One night we had a frog in our room and we had a heck of a time trying to get it out because it kept on jumping away from us. In the end Sarah got it outside. Their food here is so delicous and tasty. It kinda reminds me of the food that I make. I even tried eating brain. It was very tasty, but I couldn’t get it out of my mind that I was eating brain.
During Christmas time we went to so many services, one on Christmas Eve and 2 on Christmas Day. Each service was at least 3 hrs and they did at least 3 to 4 offerings per service. Overall, it was a fun time fellowshipping and spending time with good friends. On New Years Eve we were back at
(Student's Christmas concert)
(Afternoon Christmas concert with the head masters family
)
When we left everybody was crying. I think we made a big impression on them. Personally I think they changed us more than we changed them. Their greetings and good bye’s are different from
(Glory's am and pm students)
(Graduation Day)
I’ve been back to
(Fianarantsoa is built on top of a mountain and most people walk everywhere)
(rice fields at Fianarantsoa)
(sunset in Fianarantsoa)
(animals at Madagascar)
(minature Belaur trees)
(Fields of Glory!)
(Catriona, Glory, Ginny, Sophia)
(Saw my ex-student Sophia's family at the airport in Joburg before heading off to Cape Town. Sophia's is visiting her Dad's family for the Christmas season. It was great to see a familiar face from back home!) You too can visit me!!!!
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