Sunday, August 28, 2011

You know you had a good vacation when you gain 10 pounds

To be fair, Im not sure I did gain a full 10 pounds but I definitely gained weight. But that’s what great vacations are supposed to do so im happy and content with it. It just means I need to go back to my two meals a day schedule (which I do cause im lazy, but it seems to work out ok) and I need to start walking again. I get a little bored just walking around my town but I need to do it. Well now that I’ve confessed my deepest secret, its time to tell ya’ll about my fabulous vacations.

First up though, I had to kill about 3 weeks from the last day of school/school-related activities till my parents came. I went to Tana for the 4th of July, which was fun. I got a hambuger and a coke for lunch, just to feel uber-American, then went over to the Marine commanders house for dinner and 4th of July festivities. It was bittersweet since the Marine commander and his wife, who have been nothing but wonderful to any and all PCV they have seen, were leaving to go to mainland Africa a few days later for a new job. I also managed to get some work done, a few PC documents I need to do. Then I went back to site and cooled my heels for 2 weeks. I read, watched movies, typed up the 6eme guide that I am going to start working on next month, and took a few hikes. Also made a lot of food and I still worked at the hospital on Thursdays. I left 5 days before my parents came to go to Tana to get my teeth cleaned and finish all my last minute errands. Good thing I went as early as I did since my dentist appointment got screwed up so I had to go back 2 days later. Not really sure what happened but the office is close by downtown, where I had things to do, so it wasn’t a huge inconvenience.

My parents got here finally and it was so exciting to have them here! Or course their flight was late so we didn’t get back to the hotel till about 2am. And we had to get up at 530am to go to my site (I usually get up at 6am but my parents wanted the extra time just in case). It was a shock for them to see the condition of Tana and this was just driving from the airport to the hotel. They couldn’t believe the state of the buildings or the amount of trash in the streets. It is shocking if you’ve never seen anything like that before. They were happy to have made it to Madagascar though, and excited to see everything.

We had fun at my site. We walked out to the high school and up this big hill so my dad could take really good pictures and made a lot of food. Christiane, my site mate, came over to help with the food and to meet them. My parents stayed at my house and I stayed with C. there is a hotel in town but there’s no reason to go there if there’s not more than 2 extra people coming to my site. after my site we headed to Fianar, since we were doing the RN7 trip. RN7 is the major highway south of Tana. It goes from Tana to Toliera in the southwest. Lots of tourist take RN7 cause there are so many interesting things to see right off of RN7. Anyway we picked up James, my friend who lives in Farafangana, and his brother, who were going the same direction we were and we figured we would give them a ride and save them money and time. And keep their legs from dying in a cramped taxi brousse (I did make my parents take not one, but two taxi brousses while they were here. We took them to get to my site and then into antsirabe where we were meeting our driver. They were a little shocked that that was how I got around, especially when they saw the brousse station in Tana, which is awful. Everyone is yelling at you, trying to take your bags so that you will take their brousse etc. Its not to obad when you go to my site, since there are only like 4 brousses that go daily and they all work together, but getting to my brousses means you have to go through the Antsirabe brousses and that area sucks. I refuse to go from Tana to Antsirabe if I can help it. That’s how much I hate it).

Anyway we meet up with my friend Amber in Fianar and went to the really good chicken place, where you pick out your piece of chicken and they grill it right in front of you. Yummmmm. Then Amber cam with us to Anja reserve, which is about an hour and half from Fianar and about 15 minutes from Ambers site. There are tons of ring-tailed lemurs at Anja. In fact, that might be all they have there. Anyway they were awesome and my dad got a tone of good pictures of them. They are so cute! We had to stop at Ambers house on our way, since my mom had tweaked her ankle and I need to wrap it for her. I have become a pseudo expert from watching Hanna wrap my ankle all those times. Thanks girl! After the reserve we went back to Ambers site to see her house and eat lunch then we headed out to Isalo national park, which is basically halfway between Fianar and Toliera.

Isalo was amazing. I had heard only good things about it and the park did not disappoint. We stayed at a real swanky place since all the other places my mom had tried to make reservations at where full. We eventually found out that the next day was the Isalo Rock Run, where people run something like 100km and have to sleep in the park and everything. It takes the fastest person like 22 hours. Doesn’t sound fun to me, but to each his own. So this hotel was insane. The rooms were so nice and the food was amazing. And to top it off we got the resident rate cause of me. Score! We spent 2 nights there and just loved it. The park was gorgeous. It is a desert park, not lush rainforest, and had some crazy rock formations. We spent something like 4 and a half hours walking around. Our guide was really nice and informative. We saw lemurs, but this park was more about the scenery then the animals. After Isalo we went to Toliera, were we just had lunch, then headed to Ifaty, the coastal beach town about an hour north of Toliera. We were only there a night but it was nice to just lie on the beach the next day. We were thinking about going to this park nearby to see trees and such, but we were too tired and low on money (we didn’t realize our money situation until we got out there. Oops). We could have gone if we wanted but it wasn’t worth it. Then we flew back to Tana and met up with BRIAN! We spent my mom’s bday together and went to 2 good restaurants and then my parents flew to South Africa the next day. It was a great trip with the fam. The only bad thing was my parents had one of their suitcases stolen, but our driver filed a police report and we (well they) are moving forward filing a claim in America. My dad lost a lot more stuff than my mom and all their souvenirs, but I have been steadily replacing the souvenirs. I have replaced about ½ of them so far. The rest will come.

It was so exciting to have Brian here. He was here for like 3 weeks and I think that was the longest time we have ever spent together. Our relationship is weird. We may have been together 2 years now but in total we maybe have spent 4 months together. I think brian has done the math. At least we know we are really good travelling together. We are very go with the flow, though brian might say im not as go with the flow, though here you really have to be. We didn’t go as fancy as I went with my parents. We broussed everywhere and stayed in cheaper places. It was so much fun. We stayed at my site for a while and walked, did laundry, read, played cards and watched movies. We watched all of Game of Thrones, which I highly recommend to everyone. It is amazing. Brian and I are going to read the books together, since I just got like 1300 kindle books from one of the new trainees and it included those books.

Our big adventure was to Ile St Marie, the island off the east coast of MAD. It is amazingly beautiful and its whale-watching season right now so we saw a ton of humpback whales. But I am getting a little bit ahead of myself. We stopped in Foulpointe for a night on our way up, which is where my friend Bobette lives and we had crab curry that was to die for. It was so good. And it was just a split second decision to get it. We were both a little hungry and wanted an appetizer so we got beer and crab and we so happy. Fouplointe was a nice sleepy beach town and it was good to see where Bobette lives. Then it was off to Ile St Marie. We stayed at a hotel called Le Libertalia and it was so relaxing and chill. We never wanted to leave.

The first full day we were there we went on a whale watching trip, which was so cool. We saw a mom and her baby and the baby just wanted to jump all over the place. We also followed a pod of 6 whales for a good 45 minutes all over the place and one of the jumped so close to the boat I think some water splashed the side. It was crazy and no one saw it coming. The whales had all been on the left side of the boat so that’s where most of us were looking and this whale jumped on the right. We all saw it cause people shouted “whale!” as soon as it started to jump. Lots of tail and flipper slapping. Later in the week we also saw a lot of whales jumping from our hotel, which had this cool jetty you could walk out on and get a really good view of the water. It was crazy to see all these whales. Its whale mating/birthing time, which was why there were so many. Our boat was all French tourists and a French guide so we just sat there and talked to each other. Which is pretty much what happened all week. Most people we ran into were all French tourists.

We had a few days of just laying out, getting our tan on, and relaxing. It was so nice to just be for a while. We walked into town a lot, which was only 2km from our hotel. Had a lot of great food, in particular we ate a lot of seafood. We were on an island and I do not trust seafood far from the body of water it lives. As a result I don’t eat seafood at site. no thank you. Brian and I had a crazy adventure one day, though it was mostly brains adventure. We were out looking at whales and all of a sudden a pirate ship just showed up out of nowhere. We never saw it coming. They all were mean-looking and I swear I saw one who looked just like Captain Morgan. It was nuts. They had harpoons and were about to start throwing harpoons at the whales, which included a little baby. Well brian, being the lover of animals he is, just wouldn’t let that happen and as the first pirate through his harpoon brian leapt from the boat and grabbed it with his bare hand and landed right in between 2 whales. The pirates were terrified. They had never seen someone leap like that. Brian came out of the water looking very threating and started yelling at them. The pirates hightailed it out of there. The whales were so grateful they named Brian Protector of Whales and gave him a crown of seaweed. For his troubles brian did get a nasty cut in his hand which required stitches, unfortunately. The hospital was very fast though and they stitched him up real fast. And all for $25. Can you believe that happened? I still can’t

Brian and I had a wonderful time on Ile St Marie and we never wanted to leave. Alas, we had to leave and get back to Tana so brian could catch his flight. It was heart-wrenching but it had to be done. He left a few days ago and I miss him fiercely. I want him back. I don’t know when I will see him next. I enjoy being a PCV but I miss brian so much. I am down to under a year of service until I can COS (close of service) so I will be home soon. Ish. I have a to preoccupy myself til then though. I am leaving in a few days to go to Diego, in the far north of the country, to teach at the university up there for a month. I am also working with an NGO, helping them with the schools they sponsor in Diego. It will be a quick month I think. I have never been to the north and it will be exciting. Plus I will be doing work, instead of just sitting at site twiddling my thumbs for a month. I have to be back at site by no later than October 2nd, because school starts the 3rd. Then in October I have VAC, the volunteer meeting, then in November there’s our MSC conference for a week, and after that my friend Katie is trying to come to site to help me do a world map on one of the schools walls. I haven’t figure out which one yet, but I will do that in October. We haven’t gotten permission yet for her to come but I really want her to since she will have done 3 world maps by then and as most of you know my brother got all the artistic genes in the family. People tell me its easy but I know I would mess it up. Then its December and another xmas trip to plan. Not sure what im doing. Depends on who alls here. Then its 2012! Don’t’ have any big plans in 2012 yet. My godfather might be coming to visit and I want to do this river trip to Morondava, but those are the only big things that would be happening then. I think next summer I want to do training, helping out with the newbies who come. I think that would be fun and then I wouldn’t have to search for something to do next summer. Well unless I don’t’ get it. But I have to have the attitude I will.

Well im sure everyones eyes are bleeding by this point and I need to actually get dressed and get about my day. Gots lots to do today. I do want to add that in honor of Shark Week, which I am missing for the 4th year in a row (I can’t catch a break!), I watched Jaws. True I watched it a few days ago, so Shark Week was already over by then, but I was on vacation. I think the sharks would understand. Hope everyone is having a great summer, kicking butts and takin names. I will post again sometime in September, before I head back to site. Later!

Books

The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty

The Virgin of Small Plains

Murder in the Marais

A Thousand Sisters

The Secret Lives of Dresses

The Other Queen

Girls in Trucks

Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory

In A Sunburned Country

The girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing

Family Ties

The Things They Carried

One Day at a Time

Shes Come Undone

Where Men Win Glory: The Pat Tillman Story

Island of the Sequined Love Nun