boo and poo’s land

We had a rare treat today for the whole day - absolutely perfect weather outside where the sun isn’t burning on our skins and the breeze was often a nice relief for us, too. This late morning, we took a nice long stroll to a local supermarket which we would usually take a bus to get there since it only costs us 10 cent each for a ride. As we took a walk on the top of a mound next to the roadside, Susie got to see a nice view of the river with brick ovens and rural landscape in the background. As we arrived at the supermarket, we splurged pretty much everything that we didn’t even bring enough of cash so we had to cut down a few of products out. We took a bus back home.

Later in the afternoon, we were invited to a deaf couple’s home. Dimby was invited, too, so he tagged us along to their home. They do have a big house compared to the other deaf people’s home. This guy has been working as a carpenter for a public hospital for many years. His wife works as a cook for Norwegian missionary as well as a president for Tana’s deaf club. They have 2 children - their son will be graduating from an university this January and their daughter is in her first year at a college. They do sign well and can interact with deaf people well, too which is a rare sight here in Tana. Even their cousins who are 9 and 11, especially the 9 year old girl, are very receptive to the visual conversations between us and the other deaf friends. Their dad is younger brother of the deaf carpenter. He signs pretty good as I was able to understand most of his funny stories about the carpenter. I can’t seem to remember the carpenter and his wife’s names yet I do remember their signs pretty well. Many Malagasies’ names are at least 10 characters long! Even the carpenter’s mom can sign, but not as well as his younger brother. But her face is really expressive enough for me to understand what she is trying to say to me. I could tell that this family is pretty loving close family. The carpenter have a few siblings living in France and the French embassy even won’t grant the carpenter a leisure visa to France just because he is deaf. He has to go with someone to France. He even got an air ticket to prove that he is returning back. The sad part is that the ticket is non-refundable and his siblings have helped him pay the ticket. I just hope that he’ll get to see a bit of the world out of Madagascar before his time is done here. He is pretty hilarious guy and he actually loves to tease my innocent Susie very much that sometimes she’d blush once in a while by his charming jokes.

Anyway, what else can I write here… oh yes, last week, I’ve finally started painting the walls with some ‘baby’ color backgrounds. I’ve only bought 3 primary colors (blue, red, and yellow if you didn’t know) and black paints. I mixed some colors with white paint that Akama’s wood workshop has and applied to the walls. The head carpenter had actually asked me on how did I create green paint. I was little surprised that he didn’t know how to make green paint out of blue and yellow paints. So he asked me to teach him on creating secondary colors - green, orange, and purple as well as light and dark tones (adding black and white, vice versa) He said that it was difficult to find a green paint that is a reasonable cost to him here in Tana. After finishing painting the background, many staff and students actually came to me asking me what are they for and gave me some compliments. Some staff thought that I was actually done with the painting. I think they are in for a big surprise once the students and I are done with the murals. I could sense that many students are excited about it because some students actually wanted to help me trace the outlines during their free time. I just let them have their own way while I relaxed… Also, last Friday, I had my 5e class sketch some their ideas for their own pieces on the mural walls. Many of their ideas were so common that a 7-8 year old kid could draw. So I just had to push them to the next level by asking them what they have seen on TV at home, or what they have talked with parents/friends before. They could use those ideas on the murals. Some got to draw better than their previous sketches. So I am really looking forward to painting the murals with the students soon!

Well, I have to end right now as it is past my bed time - 9:30 pm as I usually get out of bed by 6 am or earlier. I think that’s because many Malagasies here can’t afford electricity so they usually go to bed like an hour or two after the sunset and try to get up by sunrise so they can be productive during the sunlight. Ok, I’ll stop here right now then… Zzz…..

deaf kids in Tana, originally uploaded by gamma888.

They are from either 11e or 10e class which I cant remember. They are in my P.E. class and sometimes they do drive me crazy yet they are very obedient whenever they see my camera. Perhaps I should bring my camera to the PE class…

Adorable girls!!!, originally uploaded by gamma888.

They are from 12e class (first grade) and they would always smile whenever they see our presence!!! They are always a delight to see…

Brick Farm near La Digue, originally uploaded by gamma888.

I assume that this is a brick farm as those men were collecting some kind of heavy soil/cement from the river. There are many brick ovens along the river. You can see the red brick oven in the background. I am not sure what is the name of the village that is way in the background. After 3 months here in Antananarivo, I just never knew that there was actually a river there because it is always obstructed by a huge mound by the roadside. But I was able to climb up to the top of the mound and catch its striking landscaping beauty there.

November 24, 2007

It has been two weeks since my last journal. A lot of things have gone through my eyes like a racing car as everything was in blur. Also, due to the fact that we have actually forgotten that last Thursday was actually Thanksgiving Day. I didn’t realize it until I read someone else’s blog recently today about her Thanksgiving Day. Even the American embassy has sent us a courtesy email to remind me that its office will be closed on Thanksgiving Day a few days ago.

Last Sunday, we went to Tana’s Rova (King’s Palace) which unfortunately burned down back in 1995 and is still in rebuilding mode. It won’t be done until 2009. The reason for this slow construction was due to a  lack of fund. We walked around the Rova’s area which is on the top of city’s high hill. We stopped at a small Catholic church where a few martyrs were pushed out of the cliff by the order of one of the previous Malagasy queens due to her disdain for the religion, Roman Catholic.

Afterwards, we took a taxi to Ambohimanga which is classified as Uniseco’s World Heritage area. It does include another Rova, but it is more of like a summer palace for Gasy’s first ever king named Andrianampoinimerina (now you know why I haven’t been studying Malagasy aka Gasy much lately as there are awfully too many long vocabularies in Gasy language) back in the 1700s or so. While the palace that we visited didn’t impress us that much, we did enjoy the scenery of landscape the palace has to offer as it is sitting on one of the 12 Sacred hills. If I can recall correctly from reading the history of 12 Sacred Hills at Ambohimanga village, many pilgrims came to those hills as they found those natural hills to be very precious due to the fact that many royal ancestors were buried in those hills. The pilgrims come to these sacred spots to ask for blessings from the royal ancestors’ spirits. The hills were actually off-limits to foreigners for many years during the royal years. Also, at the village, there’s a nice ancient traditional gateway where on one side rests a huge, round flat stone which is about 20 feet high (I’d assume about 7-8 meter high). I heard that it’d take about 40 slaves to roll the stone to shut the gateway. We didn’t get to wander around the village as we were much drained out from walking around at Tana’s Rova area that morning.

As for teaching at (I just got interrupted by Dimby’s presence in our room now… now after 3 hours have passed, Dimby has finally left the room at 11:30pm… that’s why I don’t get to type my journals as often as I’d like to because it seems like as if Dimby is always entering our room every night like Kramer from _Seinfeld_ does like opening the door unannounced at such a random time to chat with us. I guess he just enjoys having companions in his home as not many deaf people hang out during evenings at all.) Akama, I think we are starting to settle down there. I have managed to get a few cans of paint for the small murals. What I am going to do is try to get every student involved in the octagon-like icons for the murals. I hope that the murals will give the school a colorful atmosphere for the staff, students, and visitors.

Now, it is morning as I was too tired to continue my journal. Anyway, Susie and I have to come up with a plan on going to Southern Madagascar for our 2-week December holiday. We have found that hiring a car with a driver is pretty expensive, 40 EURO a day (a driver, insurance, and accommodation included and petrol is not even INCLUDED!) but it is always negotiable. I hope to bargain for about 25 Euro a day. We hope to see as many places as possible because we haven’t even been out of Antananarivo area at all! Also due to the fact that we’re going through Southern Madagascar during wet season doesn’t even help us at all as many 4×4 tracks are impassable. We only have to stick with the blacktop road. We would like to go through many small villages as possible. I guess we can only go to a few small villages by hiking or so. We’ll see if we can try to come up with a final itinerary soon!

Yesterday, I went to a cybercafe in the morning only to find that there’s no electricity running that time. We have been getting blackout occasionally which is pretty much inconvenience for us whenever we go to a cybercafe or teach computer class at Akama! Finally after about an hour have passed, the internet was back on and it was time for me to catch up the emails and errands. Afterwards, I went grocery shopping to stock up. Then, I went back home and had lunch with Susie. Next, we left home to go to Akama to give an English class for the deaf people. Since Madagascar Federation of the Deaf had assisted us in securing our visas, they had asked us to return their favor. Of course, we happily wanted to give English classes for its members. About 10 people came to the class which was our expectation. We will continue to give out two more English classes in the next 2 months. Right now, I realize that I will be very busy for the next two months with work and traveling ALL just out of our pockets! I think we are now starting to watch our money trail as we didn’t realize that we actually splurged for the last few weeks. That’s where Susie is good at as she always reminds me why do I have to bring a big wad of $$$ in my bag almost everyday. I agree that it is better to carry a small change of $$$ on what you plan to spend each day instead of having a large wad of cash in case we have an urge to splurge on something. A Magnum ice cream bar which is a luxury commodity in Madagascar cost us about 4-5 USD which is even more expensive than in Europe and USA. I ate the bar twice already for the last few weeks. I just wish that our freezer is running well enough to store a couple of ice cream bins, but it isn’t so we occasionally have to buy a small container of ice cream in case we have the urge to slurp them out during hot days.

(Now today is December 1st and I have noticed that we havent been using internet much lately due to the fact that we have been getting many power cuts often daily. But once the rain comes during this month, the electricity will finally resume normally due to the functional aquatic dam. Also, I will post a couple of pictures here today after I upload some pictures into flickr.)

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.