Hopes

I have been living in Fianarantsoa for over a week now.  I have not started teaching yet, and will not start until October.  So, this first month or so that I am here is about getting settled, working towards knowing the map of the city, knowing which market is good to go too, learning how to cook, and learning to love my new home.  Sure, some days have been harder and some days easier.  But, I find that the day is always better when I force myself to go explore.  That is how I will learn the streets here and begin to be comfortable, even if it involves a lot of getting lost. 

The school that I live at, Masombahoaka, sits almost on the top of a very large hill.  My house is small by American standards, but great for what I need.  My neighbors are all people who teach or work at the school.  One of the families has just part of my Malagasy family, I cooked and at with them the first few days I was here, and on Sunday’s after church for the year.  One of their daughters, Nomena, has helped me to go to the market, cook my dinner, answer all of my, often confusing, questions, and we continue to laugh through it all.  We often cook together, or go on adventures looking for things, and she with her, I helped to kill a chicken.  I did not actually use a knife, I left that to Nomena’s skilled hands, but I held the bird during the cutting and helped to pluck the feathers.  It was an adventure.  Nomena’s mother is Miandry, and there is always much laughter there too.  Like, when Miandry mispronounced “snack” and said that we were eating a snake.  There is also Papa, his name is actually Joseph, but everyone calls him Papa.  He is my site supervisor, but mostly, he is just Papa.  He is full of laughter and jokes as well.  One of the first few things that he said to me when I got off of the taxi-brousse (the bus that runs from town to town) as I arrived in Fianar, and into the taxi that would take us up the giant hill to Masombahoaka, was, “you already stopped for lunch?  Well, in Madagascar you must have two stomachs!”  I learned shortly that this was because there was a second lunch waiting for me when we arrived, but at the time I was very confused. 

I have two more sisters, they are Margot and Elina.  Margot is the self-proclaimed extremely talkative leader of the English club that I will be working with.  English club is a club for youth who want to learn English.  I think they will be mostly between the ages of 14 and 20.  We will have some formal English lessons, but also play games, watch American movies, eat American food, and whatever else we decide will be fun to learn English and about American culture.  Elina is another leader of the English club; she is a student at university in Fianar.  We have adventured together as well, we went to the viewpoint, it is another very tall hill where you can see the whole city of Fianar, and to the lake that is near where I live. 

A few days ago, standing on the deck at Nomena’s house she asked me, “what did you hope Fianar would be like?”  I responded that I hoped that people would be helpful and nice, and that I would have fruit trees in my yard.  I have bananas in my yard, and Nomena’s yard has a mango tree and a peach tree.  So, I have everything that I hoped for.