Faux Cap

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We leave for Tulear tomorrow to start our marine unit, leaving behind Fort Dauphin until the beginning of December, and I cannot honestly say that I will miss it.
Sorry for the long period of time lost between posts but I will try for a recap:

1) Village stay in Faux Cap in the hamlet of Mahabibo
we werre there for 5 days, Zoe and I, in a small village of people who only spoke Malagasy
our day tipically looked like this: wake up with the sun (around 6) climb out of the tent and be ushered inside the house for coffee sweetened wish coco powder and condensed milk, folowed by rice mixed with zebo milk
after breakfast we were off to the bageda fields with mom to dig bageda(sweet potatoes) and all of this was acomplished before it got really hot, usually around 9.
after that we would go home and either sit in the shade and read, weave mats, grind corn, or dance.
Our village stay family was quite interesting, it consisted of about 16 children varying from the ages of over 20 to tiny babies, one Dad and 2 moms-which was in interesting dynamic...
after lunch we would sit outside again, sometimes gathering the strength to go and collect wood to use for cooking diner and then begin to danse around 4.
We would dance until it got dark, large circle dances with moves that one would expect to see in an african-malagasy traditional dance circle, drums and high vocals included.
We also did not bathe all week. Water was a 4.7 Km hike and so there literally was none in the area.
I think if Zoe was not there it would have been much more frusterating and difficult, luckly she is awesome, fun, optimistic and from the wonderful NW USA so we had much to talk about and cope together with a conpletly different way of life than either of us had experienced before.
At the end of the week we literally danced those 4.7 Km to the place of the grand fete, where we were to be rejoined with our entire group and preform our dances to rival villages and each other. It was a long time to dance (you can view a pic of the road in the pics i uploaded)
What an interesting time.
2) I found my memory stick, or rather it was returned to me. THere is a lot to be said about a culture where a really expensive piece of electrical equipment that is not readily available in the country is kept for a period of 4 weeks in an internet cafe and when I got back to ask and find it nothing was to be said, as soon as I walked in they opened a drawer and handed it to me. Excellent customer service.
3) My homestay Mom, Delphine, delivered 2 babies in the bed next to mine and I had no idea what was going on. Background: Antandrory women do not make any noise during child birth
I was taking a bucket-shower, came out and my mom usered me to the bed to look at this new born baby, and when I enquired further she said that she just cut the umbilical chord...pretty awesome, eh?
Though when I needed to go to the bathroom later than night I went to the toliet and on top was a bucket of placenta, so I decided to just suffer and hold it till the morning.
4) Marc Ravalomanana, le president of Madagascar has a monopoly on the cheese, yogart, milk, butter, and cooking oil industry

love

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