Le Saint-Laurent Antananarivo

... gros caillou Je sais trouver des fourmis dessous. - Essaye c'est bon, c'est doux, oh! Il en faut vraiment peu, Très peu pour être heureux ! [Mowgli] - Mais oui ! [Baloo] Pour être heureux. Il en faut peu pour être heureux Vraiment très peu pour être heureux Chassez de votre esprit tous vos soucis Prenez la vie du bon côté Riez, sautez, dansez, chantez Et vous serez un ours très bien léché ! Cueillir une banane, oui Ça se fait sans ...

... Madame" (with the case of the young men this seems to be customarily directed to my breasts) and lots of huge smiles. Definitely seems a friendly place so far! I find myself at the Place de Independence - a jacaronda covered square which is a mass of purple blossoms and with fabulous views over the rest of the city below and rest my sweaty self for half an hour or so. It seems the square is the place for breakfast as ...

... girls surrounding me asking me questions. I spoke French (trying to practice) while they struggled to ask questions in English. I let them polish off my meal while making a quick exit after realizing that they all want me to take them back to my hotel room and pay for sex. In retrospect, I need to be more aware of this sort of thing!!! Back at the hotel, I watched the game in the comfort and quiet of my room and begin to fall asleep as I write...

... the city. I am astonished. I have never seen such poverty. Not in the East bloc 30 years ago, not in Sri Lanka 20 years ago and never and nowhere in Thailand. I wish Broekske was here. SHE would take pictures of this. I do not dare to do this. Whole families are literally lying and living on the street, for months already, without washing. Their clothes probably never washed. The streets smell like old blood and intestines. Here, life chickens are meat ...

... than a few inches big. School starts on Monday, or we'll at least have meetings to figure out the new schedule and curriculum. Some of the classrooms were still missing roofs last week and the teaching hours may be readjusted since rooms will have to be shared. Hopefully, the rooms will be fixed and it won't be an issue, even though I'm sure the kids enjoy not having to figure out what the hell I am trying to ...

... already has, and what it will get, or will need to get. When we went to the police station on Friday there hadn't been any fatalities or serious injuries reported and I haven't heard different. Right now we are still staying at a family's house, and Peace Corps is trying to find at least temporary housing here. If not, though, we may be staying in the capital for awhile until a better plan is made. Which seems strange, since ...

... several caimans (a kind of crocodile), peacocks, and giant giraffe-necked tortoises. These latter were especially interesting because several males were attempting to mate with a female. This would seem like a complicated business considering their huge shells, and indeed it was not an easy process. They made more noise that I would have expected, and they moved faster than I've ever seen giant tortoises move. The female played hard to get, and the males positively rushed ...

... kids can practice speaking English and read English books......so if there are things you are thinking of donating, keep an ear out for when I get that project off the ground in Jan. or Feb. The weather is beautiful as it is just coming into summer here in the southern hemisphere. Today it is hot~ probably around 85 or 90 and the temps will keep climbing! I am lucky that my site is a bit in the mountains of the high plateau so I wont have it quite so bad......only ...

... out will all the best classes. I had the class for two hours on Friday and I'm pretty sure all the smart a's got put in the same class. There's three kids to each bench desk, and one of them at every desk made a remark anytime I said or did anything. Or when they asked a question and I didn't understand. I never realized how annoying eye rolling is (because it's one of my favorite ways to express myself) but if I had one more girl smirk and roll her ...

... of lemurs, and several chameleons. The next day we went on a hike and saw the Indri lemurs (the ones that look like little kids dressed in panda suits). We laid on the ground and watched them high in the trees eating and playing as they woke up and then we hiked further into the forest and they came close to the ground and started jumping from tree to tree!! It was really cool, they were so close- we took lots of pics! We also saw some brown lemurs. This past week we ...