It's Snowing in Mada

It’s Snowing in Mada.

As you likely know, each Monday here in Fianar I teach at Semafi. Semafi is a school for deaf children across town from me. I wake up early each Monday, hop on the bus to the bottom of the hill, stop for a quick street food breakfast on the way, and then walk the rest of the way to the school. By the time I get there, I am usually sweaty, tired and ready for a nap (an hour long walk up hill almost the whole way will do that to a person). I love hanging out with the students at Semafi, but it often takes me some time in the morning to get into the groove of teaching crafts. This past Monday was a different story. I arrived, I listened to the Bible story during the quick worship service, sang and signed the Malagasy National Anthem while some students raised the flag, then I was almost jumping up and down with excitement to get started. First, I had to find scissors, but that was only a minor obstacle. Armed with 800 pages of white printer paper and a couple pair of scissors, I was ready. We were going to bring January into these classrooms. I wrote, “le neige” on the board, showed the students a few examples, and they got cutting. At first, they didn’t really understand. But, after cutting random shapes and unfolding the first snowflake, they were almost as excited as me. As they each cut lots and lots of snowflakes, I hung the snowflakes on the wall around the foam butterflies that were already hanging. As if I needed to get more excitement going, I grabbed my camera to take a picture of the “snowstorm in Madagascar.”

 

I made sure to bring my example snowflakes home with me to add more decoration in my house. So, now of course it’s snowing in my house as well. If there’s snow where you are, I hope you are enjoying the cold and spending lots of time curled under blankets with apple cider reading a book next to a window where you can see the wonderful white stuff outside. Here, in the heat, I will sweat, drink cold juice, and spend lots of time outside for all of you. 

A Red and Green Christmas

Happy 2015 to you all! The Christmas season is often known as a very busy time, so as expected my calendar was packed for the month of December and the beginning of January! So, my apologies for the lack of blogging, but I have returned! I will just give you all a quick update on how I spent my Christmas holiday.

A small part of me was worried going into this Christmas season to be celebrating away from home, but my community and family here made the whole thing go smooth. Also, because there were so many celebrations, events and preparations, Christmas happened in a whirlwind.

The biggest Christmas celebration that I took part in was on Christmas Eve at the church I attend at Masombahoaka. We had an evening service, followed by a combination concert of Scouts (similar to Boy or Girl Scouts in the states but more closely associated to the church), Solofin’Davida (the choir I sing with), and English Club (that I teach with a group of Malagasy friends).  Being active in two of these groups made for a busy evening. Myself and my friend Marcella (who also sings in choir and teaches English Club) spent the evening running back and forth between singing with choir, changing clothes for the next choir song, and helping English club to perform (her conducting and me running the music). English Club sang 4 songs (Lord I Lift Your Name on High, Above All, Joy to the World, and We Wish You a Merry Christmas) and performed a mime of the Christmas story. It was amazing to see them singing together and see how they have grown and learned so much since English Club started in September. I sang and danced with more songs than I can count with choir, and even had some of them memorized in Malagasy (even though I don’t understand what they mean….).By the time the service was finished around 11:00pm, I was definitely ready to sleep, but I was so grateful for this time with my community. I am so thankful for the groups here at Masombahoaka that have invited me into their smaller communities.

On Christmas Day, there was a church service in the morning and then lunch with my family here. It was a lovely day to relax some after the busy-ness of preparing for Christmas. In the evening I prepared to head to Antananarivo with my host sisters, Nomena and Aina. In Antananarivo, we spent time with their other sister and her family and picked up my parents from the airport when they arrived. I was lucky to have my parents arrive in Madagascar for almost two weeks to visit and meet my community here (more on that later).

Here are some pictures from Christmas:

The English Club singing Lord I Lift Your Name on High 

The choir performing

The choir again

My friend Marcella dances and sings with the choir.

Christmas Dinner! Rice was in the big blue pot and the loaka (side dish, for this meal it was chicken) wasn’t quite on the table yet. You can see, we started the meal with a pasta salad, a salad like this, or something more like a potato salad, is very common for the beginning of a holiday meal. 

I hope you all are having a spectacular January!