February 17

On Tuesday, since Cyclone Giovanna hit, classes were cancelled, so I stayed home all day with the family listening to the rain come down on Tana. By the time it got to us it was a tropical storm, but as I drove around with my family in the afternoon after things had settled, we saw a few fallen trees and debris out and about in the streets. But since that day there wasn't anything we could do, I ended up napping some, doing about 20 challenging word search puzzles, thanks to the Barnes and Noble gift card that my bosses gave me before I left. I am so thankful to them for that gift! I also finished two books on Tuesday that I bought with the gift card as well. Since then, I've been pretty busy with classes and school work, trying to keep up with readings, do my Malagasy and French homework, and work on a current events paper and a cultural observations report. I've also continued to have some interesting experiences on the taxi-be, where I have actually been in mild physical pain from the taxi-be being so crowded and me basically laying down on people to fit into the bus. And let me just say, that considering the climate here, you can imagine the awful scent of body odor that lingers in the bus.

Yesterday, I got to go to talk with a couple people who are in charge of a Malagasy association that works with the preservation and educaiton of the Malagasy cultural heritage and riches. It was really great getting to hear about what they do here, who their members are, how they get funding, etc. They even said that I could become a member if I wanted to, and that they do have some foreign members, which is something I will definitely have to consider! I think it's great that they're trying to educate the Malagasy people of the importance of their culture and where it came from. We also had a nice little photo shoot after talking with them, where they wanted to get our pictures taken both inside, and outside.

Now that we're starting to settle in here in Tana, we're getting ready to pack our things up and head out of the city for a couple of weeks. We're leaving on Sunday morning, and heading for Majunga, a city on the west coast of the island, where it is supposedly very hot. We'll be stopping for a couple of nights along the way there to do some camping, so we'll see how hygeine goes for the next few days. Luckily, my mom and dad gave me some biodegradable wilderness wash from L.L. Bean for Christmas in preparation for my trip. I'm sure it will come in handy soon. We'll be staying in Majunga and continuing our studies for a couple of weeks, then heading to Nosy Be, which is an island off the North West coast of Madagascar, where we'll stay for a couple of days before flying back to Tana. I can't wait! I'm looking forward to branching out of Tana and seeing what other parts of Madagascar are like. Plus, I'm hoping that since Majunga is much less populated, I'll be able to go out and about more without being scared of the crime. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to have some sort of revelation on what I want to study for my Independent Study Project that I have to do during the last month of the semester. Perhaps I'll fall in love with Majanga or Nosy Be and decide to do my project there. Who knows what adventures await me in the coming weeks!