Driving

As almost every foreigner notices, Google Maps is very limited and there are no street signs in Madagascar. So if you're driving in an unfamiliar area, at some point you're probably going to come to a fork in the road and not know which way to turn. Or maybe you'll be close to your destination but not know the exact spot so you'll have to roll down your window and ask a local how to get to the town hall, a restaurant or tourist attraction. Basically prepare to get lost. Side note, when driving through the country it's best to have any white skinned people (or vasa) duck down when passing a police check station to minimize your chances of being stopped. That is, if you don't want to waste time arguing about some stupid made up rule you broke. You can also avoid the argument by giving into their "fine" but I would rather not fuel their corruption with bribery. So we told them we would pay the fine in Tana (Antananarivo, the capital) but we wouldn't give the money directly to them. Today they gave up after fifteen minutes and let us go because "Sunday is a holy day". We weren't as lucky as last week. It took us only 5 minutes for the same issue then. The police came up to us and after a checking the car's paperwork, asked for Elaine and I's passports. They tried giving us a fine for not also having a certified copy of our passport from the town hall in Tana. But what is the point of a copy if you have the real deal? Today the national police brought up the same issue but didn't even check our passports, which proves once you get pulled over once, they radio all the other police check points to look out for your car. Yay more harassment! Worse yet, in the south, which is much poorer, the police are rumored to radio to bandits down the road which cars look like good targets, particularly at night. The roads are so straight you can see a car coming from 15 km away. They have plenry of time to set up a road block to turn you into a sitting duck or make you pay a fee for their help moving the barrier. So much for the police badge saying "Division of Public Safety". Every time we managed to get past a police check point, I did a little happy dance.

While driving with friends, I've quickly learned many different driving courtesies. If you look in the dictionary for the definition of a windy road, it says: "Madagascar's central highways".We drove 11 hours today, 11 hours of constant twists and turns. When entering a turn, unless you are familiar with the road (which we were not) you have no clue whether you are entering a 30˚ 90˚ or 150˚ turn, which can result in some exhilarating G-forces. Most lanes are the size of a US one way road plus the shoulder. Because roads are super narrow you can get stuck behind a semi-truck for miles, especially when exiting small towns. To try to mitigate this, you can give a short honk when coming up on a slow car or truck to say: "Hi! I'd like to pass please!". Slow cars will either honk back in acknowledgement, turn on their left turn signal to indicate its safe to pass, or the right to indicate a car is coming. And because, we are good people, whose mothers taught us not only to say please but also thank you, we give another short honk as we pass, turn on our emergency flashers on for half a second after passing, or wave. However, the latter is not very commonly used. The same rules apply to traffic which, by the way, is horrendous. Prepare to turn off your car repeatedly. If you happen to be in a part of town with multiple lanes, and you would like to change lanes, good luck trying to do it on your own. But if you ask a driver in the lane next to you with your blinker and a short honk they usually are happy to let you in once traffic moves forward again. It also helps to have a passenger who can get out and wave at the driver. Once you've arrived at your final destination, its common for a street merchant to come help you parallel park. And again because we like to say thank you, its common to give 200-500 Ariary (6-15 cents).

The thing about Malagasy roads is sometimes they are in great condition, and sometimes its better to drive next to the road.

Here's to safe travels in my last few days and to not being stopped by police.

Volcanoes

Today I had a little science experiment to explain how volcanoes work and what it looks like for a volcano to erupt. I preceded the experiment a skit version of the Pixar short "Lava". I translated the song into French for the campers to understand and sang as Sophie and Elaine morphed into magnificent volcanoes erupting, going into extinction, reawakening and falling deeply in love. The campers then made volcanoes in a convenient sand pit. Some decorated the volcanoes with some small flowers and vegetation. We then took vinegar, mixed with dish soap in a glass buried in the heart of the volcano and added baking soda for a nice lava eruption. The campers absolutely loved the volcanoes but I think they loved the skit more. (You can thank Elaine's goofy acting skills)

Persevering through language barriers

I grew up speaking English and French, and last year I began learning Dutch to be able to converse with my grandparents in their native tongue. I also thought it would also be nice to understand my cousins when they talk behind my back. Amongst the ten staff at Camp Fi, we also speak Korean, Spanish, German, and Malagasy, (obviously).

Océane has been giving the American staff lessons in Malagasy.  Last week Jessica filmed us introducing ourselves to include our laughable accents in the opening ceremony presentation for Camp Fi 2018! It has been an adventure for all of us as we try to converse with locals or practice together. For example, it is not uncommon for one of us to ask for the hot sauce by saying “sakay por favor” instead of “sakay azafady indrindra”; often accompanied by “DARN IT!” as we realize our brain is processing the wrong foreign language.  Or today, Laura asked me “How do you say, how do you say in French?” and I responded “Cómo se dice”…..SILLY BRAIN! UPLOAD A NEW DICTIONARY, PLEASE AND THANK YOU! If only it were that simple. Instead, our brains tease us by responding, “ERROR. FILE NOT FOUND”. So instead we continue to laugh as we butcher word pronunciations 50 times before finally getting it right.
us far we have learned how to introduce ourselves and say simple phrases such as: “we are students and teachers at Camp Fihavanana”. I found Malagasy very phonetic once I got the hang of the vowel sounds. The trickiest vowel for me has been the letter “o” because it sounds like a long “u.”

Learning Malagasy and camper names outside of the mini class sessions have been a huge challenge, because natives like to drop syllables randomly. To make it even more confusing different people will add different accents or drop different syllables, making it nigh impossible to visualize the word said. Manahoana means hello in Malagasy but it is also pronounced

Manôan, and Manôna. And it gets even worse with people’s names. Unless the name is French derived, I haven’t been able to correctly pronounce any camper’s name until I see it written. However, it’s worth the effort to see the camper’s eyes light up when we correctly pronounce their name. Two days ago, I finally memorized every single campers name!

Organizing a camp like Camp Fi has taught me to be creative in my English and Chemistry lessons and soccer practice to surpass the language barrier and maintain the attention of 30 restless teenagers. The song “Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes” was came in handy to teach the campers body parts in an entertaining fashion. Campers have never heard of classic American games like red light green light, ninja, scoot your butt, WAH, Simon says, or classic camp songs like “baby shark”. Its weirdly awesome to see high schoolers playing red light green light with the enthusiasm of a 5-year-old who has never played it before.

Staffing Camp Fi is a lesson in perseverance. It demands the courage to be goofy in front of teenagers who have never seen a clown, be VERY wrong when learning new names and words, the creativity to have conversations in Malaga-lish and the boldness to direct 30 sometimes stubborn teenagers only a few years younger than you.  

I don’t know…it would still be cool to upload a new dictionary into my brain.

Church Around the World

There are several Catholics amongst the 2018 Camp Fi staff. There is one thing that united us every Sunday, even before I met the Malagasy staff, Mass. Bao invited me to join her for mass Sunday, and although I only understood a handful of words over the course of an hour and a half, I still managed to recognize the different parts of the service. There were more songs and the congregation sang with more gusto than the average church I’ve been to. Listening to the “Our Father” was awesome, it was almost a dance, everyone held hands and swayed back and forth to the song. I even knew one word: anaranao, (hallowed be thy name). I was also impressed at how packed the cathedral was, Bao and I got there about 5 minutes early and it was already packed, whereas in all the churches I’ve been to in the States and Europe, 80% of people arrive in those 5 minutes. I have never seen a church as packed as in Moramanga, back in the States or Europe unless it was Christmas, Ash Wednesday, or Easter. There was also a flight of 10 swallows flying above the crucifix and chirping happily. Overall it was a lovely experience, I saw a few familiar faces from the hotel staff and I can now say I have heard the mass given in five languages.

Arriving in Madagascar

The whole journey began at San Fransisco Airport at 10pm where I flew to Chicago, and then Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to Antananarivo, Madagascar. The first day in Madagascar: I got off the plane at 3pm local time and navigated through customs as power faded in and out. At baggage claim there were a bunch of locals trying to take my luggage and help me skip everyone in line through a second line of customs and then take me to their taxis. So thanks mom for preparing me for that. Then I found Robert one of Jessica's family's rice drivers. He speaks Malagasy and broken French. Then I napped as I waited for Dahe's flight to arrive an hour later at the airport.  She is from LA and flew to Delhi and then Mauritania and then Antananarivo, Madagascar. Together, we flew around the world to get to Camp Fihavanana.

Madagascar countryside

ALEFA! (Let's Go!), we started the 2 1/2 hour drive to Moramanga.  I tried to stay awake to watch the beautiful scenery and the crazy traffic like in movies of people walking every which way around the cars but passed out after 30 minutes. After two hours we stopped in the middle of a small town to wait for a family friend who was bring a cake for Jessica's dad's birthday. So we resumed our ride with a cake between Dahe and I and an additional passenger. I thought it was just around the corner but when I asked how much longer and Robert responded still 2 hours. At this point we were driving along a road with frequent pot holes, passing cars and trucks every 5/10 minutes but otherwise it was a pitch black ride through the jungle. Two hours later Dahe woke me up to ask how much further. At this point we were starting to wonder what was happening to us, hoping we would get there before midnight. We were so thankful to not be in what felt like a horror movie alone. Neither of us had cell reception or had heard from Jessica since a brief "Yay you're here!" at the airport. But apparently, only 1 hour left. I thought: "maybe we are getting somewhere."

One hour later, "how much further Robert?" I was expecting to hear him say another hour, but instead I was pleasantly surprised to hear: "15 minutes" ...my heart almost leaped for joy! Sure enough fifteen minutes later we pulled left into the hotel and there was Jessica and the rest of the staff to welcome us and invite us to the birthday party. When Malagasy people party THEY PARTY! I felt immediately welcomed by the friends and family around the table and there were a number of them dancing, including Jessica's dad. I left for bed after 45 mins because naturally I was exhausted after traveling for 27 hours and being out of bed for 44 hours.