An Easter Monday

Easter is a big deal here in Madagascar. Schools get two weeks of vacation or more, people spend time traveling to see family, and having big parties. For the Lutheran church here, there was worship each night of Holy Week for about 3 hours. Then on Sunday, Easter is pretty similar to how I am used to celebrating in Minnesota. Go to church in the morning (except extend the service to four hours), then have a good meal (except replace ham and potatoes with rice and chicken).

The one big difference for Easter celebrations here is Easter Monday. Everyone picnics. People pack up their rice and loaka (the meat or vegetables that you eat with the rice) and find someplace outside of town to have a picnic. I celebrated Easter Monday with Solofin’Davida, the choir at Masombahoaka and Skouts (similar to boy scouts but based in the church and pronounced skoots).

We met the bus just outside of church at 8:00am, and finally headed out around 8:30. Everyone came with their rice and loaka and lasary (like a cucumber or carrot salad with a vinegar dressing) and me with my salami and veggie sandwich, trail mix, and raw cucumbers (very strange food that we eat in the US.) We packed tightly into the bus, making six people fit in every four seats (in true Malagasy fashion) and thankfully, arrived quickly to our picnic spot.

When we arrived we found a good picnic spot and all laid out lambas (I guess one of the Malagasy versions of a picnic blanket). We spent the morning doing various activities. There we different games of pass the volleyball or other things happening, some people just chatting, but my favorite was the guitar. A few people brought guitars and I had my phone with all the lyrics to our choir songs. So, we spent hours and hours singing songs together.

When 12:30 came around we decided it was time for lunch. I got out my strange lunch and my Malagasy friends became terrified that I didn’t have any rice, so they made sure that I ate rice too. I was very full. Then they saw the trail mix that I brought with me (and that my parents brought from the states in December, thanks!). You know, a delicious mix of almonds, cashews, craisins. Pretty normal, right? This mix of strange things got passed around the group and each person timidly took one thing from the mix and usually responded with something like, “it tastes good but looks weird.” They said that you can find cashews in the south of Madagascar, and almonds are available here but just very expensive and raisins are available here but craisins are very strange.  Overall, lunch was delicious and we all got to share what we brought, they their rice and loaka with each other and me some trail mix.

For the afternoon, we spent some more time singing. Then, there was a group of us that played many icebreaker type games which mostly involved being super silly and dancing and singing. Of course, having a vazaha (foreigner) singing and dancing with a group of people is a site to see. So, there were huge groups of children that came to watch us play games.

Around 5, we started to make our adventure home. We decided to walk home without really realizing how far it was. We finally completed the 6 kilometer walk around 8pm. And I immediately fell asleep.

Easter Monday was a great day to spend time with my community. As my time here in Madagascar gets shorter and shorter these are the types of days that I am so grateful for. The days that I will remember fondly for years. 

Also, I apologize for the lack of pictures! Internet has been a struggle today. They will come soon!!

One more also, I would like to request your thoughts and prayers for my community here in Fianar. This past Friday, the 15 year old son of a Pastor in my community passed away. Please keep the family, the community here at Masombahoaka in your thoughts and prayers. Also, please remember the others here in Madagascar suffering from diseases that are preventable and treatable but often cause death here because of a lack of resources.