boo and poo’s land

November 11, 2007

I think today is actually the first time in months where we actually stayed home for the most of the day (I had only went out to grocery shopping for less an hour while Susie stayed home all day long). I think it’s something we need for now as we have been going out of home on a daily basis.

Yesterday, we actually woke up simultaneously and had a nice bed chit chat like we usually do occasionally. Once I got out of the bed, I knew that I had to wash the clothes immediately before we started our day by going to Centreville to do some errands. Once I took a pail of soapy warm water out on the balcony, I was little startled with two men painting the balcony’s fence. I just realized that they had actually used a ladder outside to climb onto our balcony to paint the fence. Since the fence was wet in paint and the hanging wire had been unhooked, I asked Dimby’s sister to see if we can actually use their clothing wires to hang out wet clothes. She didn’t find it any problem at all. After a few washings of our clothes, I enjoyed hanging our clothes on their area because I got to encounter two large watermelon sized tortoises upclose. One was very active by walking around and taking a peep at me often. The other one was very still and probably sunbathing. After the hand-laundry, we set off to Centreville. Susie need to shop for her pants and maybe some shirts so we went to Chinatown where we found two malls that was actually run by the Chineses. I saw that behind many shops’ cash box sat many Chineses. I assumed that they are the owners of the shops. I could tell that they were Chinese fobsters for that they dressed like many local Chineses do. I think it’s actually the first time I’ve seen that many Chineses in one spot. We came to Chinatown here a while ago, but we ended up going to the wrong mall where we didn’t see many Chineses running the shops. Anyway, as Susie couldn’t find anything to her tastes, we went to a hotely where we had ate with Fanja and Dimby. We found the lunch there so delicious so we went there again only to order the wrong dishes. I don’t think Susie enjoyed her meal as we didn’t get our ‘Fraise’ drinks as they didn’t have it. We tried their passion fruit drinks and I thought it was delicious. After our lunch, we went to Dimby’s uncle and aunt’s pharmacy to get Actifed medicine for my month-long headache and sinus problem. Afterwards, we went to Shoprite to do a light grocery shopping. Then we went to Cookie Shop where we spoiled ourselves with American-style milkshakes and brownie that Susie craved for. The brownie was actually yummy that it was actually better than most cafes have in USA. After hanging out there for more than an hour due to a few magazines that they have, we went to a cybercafe where they were about to close until they saw us come in and we asked if it was closed… they said no and let us get in for half hour. I wanted to print the contract for the apartment listing for my condo, but the worker said that the printer was down and to come back tomorrow which disappointed me. So, I had immediately decided that I was done with the internet even though I had many things to do on the internet - book an air ticket to Johanesberg for Feb. 3rd, as well as look for a new itinerary for our December Malagasy trip. After the internet thing, we took a bus ride back home. We had prepped/cooked for one hour for our dinner which was just mashed potato and snow peas. But then since we had so much free time every evening, it was actually nice to prep/cook in old fashioned way instead of relying on frozen food often while back home. After dinner, Dimby stopped by and shared his experiences while growing up in a deaf school in Ansirabe. I could related his experiences to mine because we went through the same thing in a deaf institute. Susie admitted that she had some difficulty understanding Dimby. But I let her try to learn and be more receptive to him instead of me interrupting their conversation to interpret for her if needed. Sometimes, she’d have the conversations fly through her head without her conscious. It is like that she didn’t really care much about what Dimby said or so that she doesn’t really bother much to interrupt him and ask him to clarify what he was talking about. I don’t know if it is the way she grew up as she wasn’t exposed to deaf culture until she was 19. I know that I have to let her grow and learn more about herself when she is exposed to more new different environments. Sometimes I have to remind myself that she is merely oralist. That’s why I try to remind her not to use voice as well as mouthing that often since she tries to sign and speak at the same time which drives me crazy once in a while. Also, after Dimby left, Susie and I had a nice chit-chat on about how we are so different. We think differently. We do differently. We even write differently, too. I think being out in a new unfamiliar environment bring the true selves out of us to another level which could be both good and bad news for us

Anyway, I think I’m going to stop here for now and do my homework! I think I’m starting to get the hang of being a teacher even though it’s very challenging because I have to come up with new ideas to motivate my pupils at Akama. If you have any ideas, feel free to fire them away here…

November 6, 2007

Wow, it has been two weeks since my last entry for the Madagascar journal.  We have been very active for the last two weeks as we just resumed our teaching yesterday.  To describe the past two weeks is pretty impossible because we have done so many things.  But I can try to give you a glimpse of what we have done in that period of time here.

On October 24, Susie and I went for a flight to Dubai via Mauritius.  While we had a 6 hour layover in Mauritius, we were awarded with one-day visa so we could get fresh air of Mauritius’ beaches and ocean.  But we were disappointed that the nearest town is like perhaps 15 km away.  So we just basically hung out around the airport.  Just a couple of hours away from our departure flight, we bumped into a deaf Italian couple who had stayed in Mauritius for a week.  They elaborated on how nice Mauritius was and also explained what they have done in Dubai before they came to Mauritius.  It was nice to interact with them in a different language instead of Malagasy or American as Susie and I were kinda sick of each other.  After getting on the red-eye flight to Dubai on Emirate Airline’s 777 model plane, I was impressed with the plane’s interior as well as Emirate’s flight attendants’ sultry outfits.  There is something exotic about them.  After arriving in Dubai in the early morning, we went to our villa in Jumierah Island which is a man-made island with recent new development around.  Once we got to our villa, we had to wait for like almost an hour because everyone was practically asleep and we couldn’t get a hold of our villa leader, Himel.  But we got to find Ahmed and he helped us and we moved to another villa due to some lame reasons, and we were greeted by many familiar faces - Warren Smith, Oliver Westbury, JC, Yolanda, and Gilles.  We met our new villa mates - Toby, Emma, and Alan.  I’ve heard about Toby from a friend - CK whom she hung out often while in London.  We had to sign in BSL as many of them came from England (JC, Yolanda, and Gilles are exception as they’re from Belgium)  Now, the reason we came to Dubai was to attend Ahmed and Melly’s wedding celebration and that was next day so Susie had to do some last minute shopping while I just basically joined the villa gang to the Wild Wadi Water Park where I met many new faces as well as old faces, too.  Ahmed and Melly’s Arabic Adventure celebration was something very memorable as we took a 4×4 ride to the destination which is in middle of nowhere in the sandy desert (full of dunes everywhere!) in the early evening. We were greeted by Ahmed and Melly at the entrance.  In the middle of the courtyard was a Hookah spot where everyone could just lie down on the pillow and smoke some flavored tobaccos  like the Arabians do.  Also there was many delicious Arabian buffet as well as dessert.  Even they provided henna paintings for the guests, too.  It was definitely a tear-off page from the book, “1001 Tales of Arabian Nights.”  Also, we all had to wear our Arabian outfits for this celebration.  When our 4×4 were ready to pick us up at 1 AM, we were disappointed to leave the spot because it was so relaxing and wish we could sleep overnight there.  The rest of the week is up to your imagination as basically, we’d drink and interact during the evenings until 4 am or later and get up by noon to do some sightseeing or errands and then the same thing goes on until the wedding week came to an end.  As results of this, we came with new friends and got to know Arabian culture well and see what Dubai is all about.  Dubai is very much like Las Vegas - built up from nothing but sand!  I was surprised to know that Dubai is only 30 years old!

After the wild week in Dubai, we took off to Mauritius to revitalize ourselves - especially catching up our sleep and basically do nothing!  Also, we rented a scooter which was first time for Susie to ride with me and we did enjoy it very much for two days riding and sightseeing around Mauritius.  I’m just glad that I didn’t get to hike or walk that long because that would have knocked me out.  Instead, I just basically sat or laid down often!  Also, we’d beef ourselves up because the hotel package that we paid included free breakfast and dinner daily!  (most of them were in buffet-style)  I found that the southern side of Mauritius to be more charming and interesting than the northern side which is full of commercialism and glitzy.   The only side that we haven’t gone to is the eastern side due to insufficient time.  We could tell that we’ve been spoiling ourselves while in Dubai and Mauritius for that we’ve been missing our comfort food and accommodation.   As we were about to depart for Madagascar, Susie’s mood has completely changed 180 degrees around!  She has been pouty lately.  Hope she’ll settle down soon.

Now, my mission is accomplished as I have tried my best to sum up those two weeks with this journal.  I know that there is a few things that I’ve missed out but I’ll leave the journal the way it is because I just never believe in proofreading.  Now time for me to clean up my Dubai/Mauritius pictures even though I was disappointed that I didn’t get to take many pictures as I would have liked to!

yesterday we were riding on our usual mini bus route to work and just out of the blue, we just saw a random male stranger sporting in his red jumpsuit hitting a lady who was wearing her professional attire.  he just slapped the back head of the lady while walking and the lady just gave out a great “what the f%ck” facial expression when she turned around to see what the fuss was all about. it is just one of those days that we do see some intriguing situations out here in tana.

i have already typed up a couple of journals in my laptop but i forgot to transfer these entries into my exterior portable drive.  so youll have to wait for a while for these long entries.

, originally uploaded by gamma888.

more kids from my classes… they are 10-12 years old yet their physical frames are much like 8-10 years old americans… no global fast food chains are found here which are very fortunate for the kids here in tana.

photos do the justice for our adventures in dubai…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gamma888/sets/72157603106469741/