Congratulations Nomena & Gael!

I promise to be writing again with a post about what I am doing here in Fianar, but today, I just have a quick minute to say congratulations to my host sister, Nomena, and her new husband Gael. They had their civil marriage ceremony here in Fianar last Friday and will be having their church wedding in the future. Now, they are headed to Tana (the capital) to both start school. So, I am sad to see them go and leave Fianar, but happy for their new adventures! 

Here are some pictures! 

Gael, Nomena and I after the ceremony!

My whole big host family! This picture includes me, my host dad, my host mom, Nomena, Gael, my two other host sisters Aina and Mamy, Mamy's son Miaro, and the three cousins! 

So congratulations to Gael and Nomena! 

If all goes as planned you will be hearing from me with another post soon! 

Christmas in January

I was silly. I thought had finished my Christmas celebrating for the year. But, there was more Christmas! On Saturday the 24, I celebrated Christmas with Lyceé Masombahoaka. I spent the two weeks before preparing songs with some of my classes. Then, on Saturday, each class performed songs for the celebration. All of the classes sang a song or two in Malagasy, and then some also sang in English. It was wonderful to see them all singing and performing. There was also an auction as a part of the celebration. Most of the things for auction were food items (pineapple, cucumbers, red beans, bananas), but there was also a Malagasy basket that I bought. I was told later that my basket was “lafo” (expensive), but I decided that the experience of bidding in a Malagasy church auction (yes, in the middle of the church service of the Christmas celebration) make that basket worth the expense, 4,100 ariary.

Here are some pictures and videos of my students singing.

CE (in the primary school, these students are 7 or so years old). We sang Little Drummer Boy together. I tried to teach the whole song, but it was difficult. So, I sang the lyrics and the students chimed in for the “pa rum pump um pum.” It was a huge hit. We also all had awesome hats.

CM1 (also in the primary school, these students are 8 or so). We did a spoken version of C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S, a song that makes the word Christmas an acronym, “C is for the Christ child born upon this day, H is for Harold angels.” They did amazing for students who have not started formal English language instruction yet (I mean, I teach them English, but it’s not part of the regular curriculum).

6ce (these students are in their first year of formal English language class, and are about 11 years old)  sang Mary Had a Baby, which I taught using Pete Seeger’s version of the song. It was splendid. I have a video, but it would take days to upload with the internet here. So, you’ll have to wait until I get to the states.

I also had one of the students from maternelle (the youngest students, about 4 or 5) hang out with me for much of the morning. Mostly, she was really upset about something and I couldn't understand what, but sitting on my lap made her feel better, so then all was well. Sometimes events like this here in Mada get real long, mostly because I don't understand what's happening all the time. But, she made the day fly by.