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I am walking down the busy street near the market on a Friday morning. It’s market day, so this means there are more sellers outside than usual and everything is bustling. There is loud music coming from down the street, probably a seller trying to attract customers. There are people selling almost anything that you could want, clothes, both new and used, pans, computer parts, cell phones, jewelry, and art or other things for tourists. There’s food too, bananas, greens, onions, dried fish, fresh milk, rice, meat, and much more. And, snacks, the street food sellers are on every corner with fried things, juice, more fried things, some packaged crackers and cookies, and an assortment of things made with peanuts. Sometimes I hear someone say “Bonjour” or “Bonjour vazaha” and I know they are talking to me, they assume that I am French, but mostly I ignore their comments. I pass a child, maybe 7 or 8 walking down the street and she says, “Bonjour,” to her, I respond, “Salama” and she smiles at my speaking Malagasy. There are taxi-brousse (the public bus system that uses large vans) stuffed with people traveling fast down the road, swerving around the potholes, and occasionally restarting the engine as they continue to coast. My feet are dirty from the street even though I just washed them this morning. I pass a variety of people as I walk, a man in a business suit, a woman with a colorful basket full of garlic on her head and a baby on her back strapped in with a piece of cloth, two other vazaha (foreigners) walking with wide eyes and cameras hanging from their necks, two men pushing a large flatbed cart with 4 very large bags full of green onions up the hill, neither of them wearing shoes, a man whose teeth are nearly gone with a dirty face and a large winter coat holding his hand out to me, and a group of young girls wearing school uniforms headed home for lunch. I pass animals too. Sometimes, someone will pass pushing a cart with a freshly killed pig, or the pig will be walking alongside them as they swat it with a stick to keep it moving. There are dogs, mostly very skinny; searching the ground for some food someone may have dropped, especially by the butcher.  There are chickens, most of the chickens by the market are for sale with their feet tied together with a small piece of string but they still sit eating the bits of rice around them.

I decide to take the bus to the top of the hill instead of walking today. I get on the bus and find a seat next to a mother and young boy, the mother pulls the boy into her lap to make room for me to sit. I sit and reach for money to pay for the ride. It’s 200 ariary from the market to the end of the bus line, where I will get off. I silently hand the man 500 ariary and he hands back my change, with no words exchanged. When we reach the end of the bus line, I still have a little walking to do. I get off the bus and head the rest of the way up the hill. I pass tsena kely, a smaller more expensive market that I sometimes go to when I realize I forgot one ingredient for my dinner. There are small shops selling snacks along the road too, I decide to stop and buy a mofo akondro (a breaded and fried banana). I continue to walk, eating the banana out of the piece of newspaper that the seller wrapped it in. Finally, I round the corner past the church that I go to every Sunday and sing in their choir. I pass the geese outside one house that are always noisy. There are fewer people now as I am inside the campus of Masombahoaka and most of them know that I am not French, so they say “Salama” and I respond. I pass Nomena’s house, and go around a few more corners and through a wooden gate. My neighbor is cooking her lunch, she says, “Mondroso” and invites me in. I say “Misaotra” and continue on to my house. There are chickens strutting around in the grass around the banana trees and the laundry that I washed this morning is hanging on the line. I am home.