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Yesterday was quite the day. I decided that the one thing I wanted to do was to visit the school I attended when I was here. I only went to K-3rd grade, but my memories of the school are as strong as if I had just been there. I walked the two blocks from the house to the American School of Antananarivo, and was immediately overwhelmed. The place had changed so much! Many new buildings had been added (but the place still seemed smaller for some reason), and it wasn't a little five year old me running around, there were new kids...and many new teachers. I found out that only four staff members remained from the old days. The reason for this is that the American teachers spend a few years in Madagascar and then move on to new places. The four teachers that remained were all either Malagasy or married to a Malagasy. I walked into my 1st grade teacher's room and there she was at her desk...and she hadn't changed one bit. Mrs. June looked at me as if she had never seen me in her life, but once I said my name she flipped. As you can probably guess I have changed and grown just a little since I was nine years old. Some of her current students asked me if I was "the same Georgie that's on the ruler?" I realized immediately what they were talking about. We had all written our names on our rulers in her class and she continued to tell her students stories about us. It was comforting to know that even though I had left Madagascar, a part of me had remained. My next stop was my Kindergarten teacher who was easily my favorite. As it turned out she had taken her one day off of the year that day. Thank God she had e-mailed me her cell number. I called her and she said that she was dropping everything that she was doing and was coming to pick me up. She waited for me outside of the gate at the house I'm staying at, and when I walked out she was taken aback (later told me she almost had a heart attack). We went to her house and sat for several hours just catching up on everything. When you look at the photo, keep in mind that the last time I saw her I was considerably shorter than her. Well, I now know that if I'm ever in a fix, or just need a nice home-cooked meal, she's always here to take care of me. Anyway, we're about to have a barbecue so I gotta bounce like a sifaka (if you don't get the analogy, search "sifaka" on Google images). Hope everyone is well and having a wonderful summer!
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Unka Konchog
non-member comment
Very Sweet
George, it's a real treat for me to get a window into a part of your life I missed. Keep writing and posting pix, I love it!