so i spent a long time typing a blog update and now it's all gone!

2-17-08
School is going pretty well. SOme of the lectures are difficult, but others are okay. VEry dependent upon the speaker and the time of day (French in the morning!!) On weekends and sometimes after school I swim at the beach, hang out at a cafe, or play beach soccer. I gave my 'little bro' a frisbee the other day. he really loves it, but is also really bad. I guess i shouldn't expect much from a 4-5 yr old. At first he was pretty shy, but now he's really bold around me. Yesterday he got me to draw cars and a motorcycle for him. He really loves MOTO's.

I've been to church twice now. I don't understand any of it as it's all in Malagasy, but I do recognize a couple of the tunes. I'm learning how to read and sing along, even if I can only recognize a couple words-- Jeso; Ra ny Christy; mofo. My family goes to a Catholic church, I think. They know that I am protestant, so my cousin picks me up at 5:30am and we walk. I'm pretty sure it's early to avoid the heat. People dress nicely and cram in shoulder to shoulder on small wooden benches. There's a lot of music, which most people just know. My cousin has a small taped hymn book that we share. After the sermon pretty much everyone is required to put money in the offering. We get up in rows and walk around behind the alter and put money in a basket. There are many baskets of different colors. My cousin always instructs me to put my money in the purple basket, but I'm not sure why. Last sunday I took communion. I was a little worried about the sanitation issue, fearing a communal cup. Lord protect me! However, when I got up there each of us got a small cup that the wine was poured into.

Many times when I get back from school I hang out with a couple cousins and help them learn English. I think they have a pretty decent vocabulaire, but their pronunciation is horrible. It's a struggle to understand, but I want to help. Learning English is a way out. People who speak English can get better jobs, and those that are most proficient can get jobs as translators.

So other than classes, we've also taken an overnight trip to Andohahela Parc National. Due to a mountain range (Anoosyenne??) there is a dramatic rain shadow effect. Pretty cool to have distinct zones in such a small area-- foret humide, transitional, et seche. Rain forest all the way to spiny desert. We split up in groups with the CEL students (Centre Ecologie a Libanona) and did an inventory on a 10m x 10m plot of transitional fourre. Talk about amazing sic wicked cool plants!! Madagascar has a whole family to itself-- Dideracea. Crazy Euphorbes, Malvaceae, and Cucurbitaceae that you can't recognize. It was pretty difficult to communicate with the Malagasy students as French is also their second language. Even if our inventory was less than perfect due to communication difficulties it was still worthwhile and really fun! That night I also saw a tenrec on the way back to my tent. DOn't know what kind as it was dark, but still really cool! I guess I'd imagined that they would move differently. That night we also danced to American and Malagasy music. Ghost Busters theme, EVERYBODY DANCE NOW, all the music here is pretty upbeat.

The next day we went on a short guided tour, followed by swimming in a natural piscine. (Mom, fresh water's okay as long as it's not stagnant where a certain type of snail can live... ie i'm okay) Pretty decent sized waterfall into a pretty decent sized lake. I got to jump off a tree, swim, sit under a waterfall, climb up a small cliff, jump off a small cliff, etc. It felt like home! It was also cool to hang out with the Malagasy students, encourage them to jump-- Alefa!

What else? Madagascar smells different-- charcoal, outhouses, frying food, fish, soap-- warm, think smells. Can humidity effect smells? I do all my laundry by hand. We were taught in Manatantaley by several women who laughed at our ineptitude. Honestly it's something that I enjoy-- soap that's different but perfect, my own green plastic bucket and orange plastic cup. Small pleasures. If I weren't in Madagascar I would also have some strange dreams worthy of mention... Je pense que c'est tout.

Tomorrow we;re going on a day trip to QMM, a mining companny with local projects that are rather controversial. BUt maybe I can say more afterwards....

Update 2-21-08:
I got sick and could not go on the day trip...diarrhea. But I got a debrief from a friend. Basically QMM spent the whole day being politicians towards us students. Later I found out that the same company has mining project all over the globe and is going through some international law suits right now. DOn't have time for details, but if you're interested, I'm sure you could look them up online.

I'ts been raining alot (and windy!!) due to hurricane Ivan. Tana (Antananarivo) is being flooded! We're leaving tomorrow for a 4 day trip to Berenty. I hope it doesn't rain the whole time. Lemurs, yea! So far I've only seen one in my friend's backyard in a cage...

Right now I'm trying to figure out how to combine plant research with public health for my ISP. (Independent Study Project). I love plants...now I want to see how I can help people with that love.

much love, em