February 1

We have offically ended our program orientation and have started our homestays. It is amazing to get to stay with a family here. I have three younger brothers, who are all so cool! And I'm pretty sure I have the best parents ever! :) I can't wait to get settled into a routine here, with going to classes and finding my way to and from my house. It's definitely a bit of a challenge using my French skills because since getting here, even though we've had to listen to a lot of things in French, we haven't had to speak very much. But trying to explain what kind of farmer my dad is and how we deliver birds around New England is challenging to say in French, along with things like explaining political or religious views, or how I will receive credit back at GW for the work that I'm doing here with SIT. But in time, I'm sure that I'll get more comfortable with it. I find myself something slipping a word out here and there in English, in the middle of a french sentence, like "for" instead of "pour." My brain is definitely not used to thinking in French.

Earlier today, before meeting our host families, we got to do a "drop off" where one of the SIT staff helped us to get a taxi and negotiate the price. We were then dropped off in groups by the taxis in different neighborhoods of Tana, where our objective was to explore the area, and the surrounding areas, and find out what the names of the surrounding neighborhoods were. It was an awesome experience to get to just walk around rather aimlessly. My group was sent to the more financial/business type district of Tana, where we saw a lot of different banks and things of the sort. I saw a pair of the coolest sandals ever, but I didn't have enough money with me to buy them, so I'll have to go back at some point. Unfortunately, the sandals that I brought with me give me awful blisters. :/ Anyhow, when we did our drop off, we also saw an amazing chocolate store, some different clothing stores, book stores, street vendors, and men playing some sort of Malagasy game that is similar to checkers. Then after we walked around for a couple of hours and did some errands, we negotiated a taxi fair back to our starting point. It's interesting how that is done here, because a lot of the roads are not marked by name, and often times people don't know the names of the roads, even if they're on a map somewhere, so when telling a taxi driver where to go, you have to explain it by what landmarks are in the surrounding area. It was different, but we did it successfully and made our way back.

We also recently were given cell phones! Woohoo! I can now text and call locally and internationally for seemingly good prices. Plus, all incoming calls are free! :)

Well, I'm headed to bed, for my first night here at my new home! :)