Le Pavillon De L'Emyrne Antananarivo

... as I was in transit and supposedly checked by security. Anyway they found my bottle of vanilla rhum and wouldn't let me bring it in. I ended up spending most of the day in the KLM/Air France lounge which was nice and I could snooze a little there too. Finally was able to board the 7pm Delta flight and was happy to be going home :-)

... We said our good-byes to our awesome guides in Andringta, spend another night at the same hotel in Ambalavao, then headed to Isalo National Park for the next leg of the journey. We went for an afternoon walk though some grasslands and stayed at a neat hotel in the middle of the desert. It was like a place out of the movies. - The real treking in Isalo started the next day with a walk to Monkey canyon and Death ...

... to communicate quite easily with these guys. They are playing a version of rummy and I pick up on the different rules from the version I play with my father. I ask to play next and the loser obliges, however, the winner tells me I must wager a bet against him. Figuring that he's a card shark or this is a scheme, I wittingly agree to a small wager, 500 bucks or whatever the currency is (~$0.30). Imagine his surprise when I beat him rather ...

It is after midnight by the time we land in Antananarivo. We knew we needed a visa and we came prepared with pass pictures we ... did not need. There is a big cue for the visa. A big cue for immigration and of course, we are pulled aside by security. No, we do not have anything to declare. We are picked up by a man, who does not speak any English or French and (we think) his wife and daughter. The wife, with the little girl on her lap in the car, is ...

... I are sharing the new place until July. Then I will be working in a national park till school starts, rooming with 2 of my friends that will work there as well. I consider myself a people person, but am learning how much I value personal time. As claustrophobic as sharing one room can be, if housing stays as-is, Peace Corps won't replace my site mate. I've heard stories of site mates not getting along and know it ...

... that was because the roof and one whole wall had come off and we could see straight into our kitchen-and the closed off room that I hidden things from the robbers in. We grabbed what we could, trying to avoid the house collapsing on us, and made our way back. I am so thankful and grateful to my parents and everyone praying for our safety. Because even if I did everything to negate it, it still worked. It really was dumb ...

... it is probably normal. The look of the people is interesting too. Early settlers here were from Indonesia, so there is an asian/african mix, with a little european and arab thrown in...it sort of feels like how people would look if all the races got mixed into one. Malagasy is the language spoken with dialects varying between tribes and regions. In the highlands, where I spent most of my time, you see people in ...

... insisted I wait till after our Thanksgiving celebration. Florida was always warm during the holidays, but it is 90+ degrees everyday here and without air-conditioning it can be brutal. Even when I ride my bike to school at seven in the morning, the sun is beating down and I am sweating. So I am hoping the Christmas paraphanalia will help it feel a little more like the holiday season. I hope everyone is having fun and enjoying the festivities going on now. Let me know how you are doing!

After months of preparing to be a teacher, I finally taught! I had the butterflies in my stomach when I got to school, but it went pretty well overall. I had to ask where my classrooms were and one of the administrators showed me. They are the thatched rooms on the edge of the campus. Which is good because I don't have to worry about disturbing that many classrooms around me, but I can already see some holes in the roof that will make teaching interesting ...

... our own house finally. We loved our host family, but it is nice to be on our own. Aaron cooks all the meals and of course there is nothing prepackaged so meal prep is time consuming. We have no meat or bread in our town, no refrigeration, no dairy and no oven so figuring out what to eat is a bit of a challenge. You can't just have cereal for breakfast and a sandwich for lunch! Aaron cooks awesome meals though- at the market 74 km away we get fresh green ...