Oh, Hello There Madagascar...

So I’ve made it to Madagascar, safe and sound, and after a 16 and ½ hour night’s sleep and a weekend of doing nothing but drinking espresso and watching E! I am fully rested. The picture is one of Antananarivo, the capital, which is built up on this huge hill, and jam packed with houses and narrow roads. I have had a few successes in my lazy weekend; I learned a few words of Malagasy and French and also bought an avocado and three tomatoes in the market. This obviously equals guacamole fun night while I spontaneously spurt out ‘hello!’, ‘goodbye!’, ‘see you tomorrow!’, and ‘how much is the tomato?’ in broken French and Malagasy. But…enough about my super fun adventure. What about Madagascar? I’ll just pass by any description of the ‘smells’…there are raw meat/butcher stands everywhere…in the sun…in the tropics. Any whiff of fresh fruits or spices is quickly overcome by that smell. Gross. As for the people, I think I kind of need to hang out some more to make any substantial opinion, other than they are very nice, a little standoffish, but there are few things cuter than a little Malagasy girl greeting you in French or a bus of little Malagasy kids on their way to school singing. As for the animals…sigh….I have only been in Antananarivo, making my way from the office to home again, and interesting wildlife is scarce. There seems to be more wildlife in my house than anywhere else in Madagascar, which accounts for at least one addition to my French vocabulary—‘souris’. While it may have taken almost a year to have a mouse in my house in Lesotho, it only took 3 days for one to wonder into my abode here. Unfortunately, there are no eager Basotho to spear it for me, and the housekeeper said we will leave it to the traps. That will be fun to wake up to one morning, almost as fun as hearing it ramble around my room when the power went out. EEK! On top of mice, I do get to share the house with some more exotic pests, geckos. Which, while I’m not a huge fan of creepy crawly things, it is better than spiders and I don’t really see them. However, they make this awful sound. I looked it up online to make sure I was attributing the correct sound to the geckos, and it is exactly how they describe it—like a bottle cap being drug over a tile floor. It is just crazy that such a little thing could make such a loud and annoying sound. Every time I hear it, it makes me jump and slightly scares the crap out of me. Among other houseguests, I’m rather surprised I haven’t been carried away by the mosquitos yet. They are a plenty, but don’t seem to bite too frequently, I can count all my bites on two hands, which I’m taking as a win. And there is no malaria here in Antananarivo, so BONUS! But the most fortunate attribute so far is the current absence of spiders (knock on wood)…I know I will run into a fat hairy one eventually, but I thankfully have not yet. Whew. On the other hand I get to share the house with two of the nicest dogs ever. They are great company in this huge house by myself, although they don’t really offer any protection or defense against the household pests. I watched one dog watch the mouse mosey across the floor tonight—not run but mosey, like it owned the house, which it of course now does (but I guess I’m one to talk—I was plastered to my seat from the moment I saw the mouse). They are my constant shadows too; you’d think I had a pound of bacon in my back pocket. But I do really like them. One is this super shaggy whitish/blondish dog named, of all things, PEETA! So naturally, I’ve been calling him Mr. Mellark just because I am hankering for a connection to the ‘The Hunger Games’ (under no circumstances can I read that series again until I have read at least 5-6 other books, or finally finish And the Band Played On). I’m pretty sure he was named way before ‘The Hunger Games’ even came into being and it is probably Pita and not Peeta, and you can feel free to judge me on this, but it is funny nonetheless. The other one is a reddish jumpy dog (and yes Whitney, I’m ready for all of your redheaded/Weasly jokes about the irony of me watching a red headed dog) who is also adorable and I think all she really wants out of life is to constantly be pet. Lolita, her name, regardless of what I am doing, drinking hot coffee, typing, eating, what-have-you will push whatever I have out of my hand and make me pet her. It is rather entertaining to live with two dogs; their company has been invaluable these past few days. In regards to the plants, they are beautiful in the city, so far kind of similar to what we have back home in Illinois, but it is like they are on steroids. I saw a 7-foot poinsettia, or at least it looks like a poinsettia, it was just huge. Hopefully as I venture into other places in Madagascar I can see more of the plants and wildlife, and most importantly, lemurs, guinea fowl, and crazy plants. I can’t wait. On that note, I’ll wrap this up or it will become super long, and I have to wake up early so I can figure out how to take the bus into work. Which, I’m thinking, will warrant a blog post all on its own. Take care and have a lovely Memorial Day weekend!