The end of training is in sight!

Only one night left at my host family's house, then packing at the training center and swearing in. I fly north on the 5th. (The roads are so bad that they've deemed the north a 'fly site', since three days on bone-jarring roads is cruel and unusual punishment and dangerous to boot.) The last week has been a bit stressful, with three 5-minute technical presentations in Malagasy (the last one delivered to some of our host families) and our final language test (trainees have to achieve intermediate high proficiency before going to site). But we're almost officially volunteers!

Language-wise, going north should be interesting; I've mentioned that I'm learning Sakalava while speaking Standard with my host family? Well, in my town, they apparently speak Tsimihety, Betsimisaraka, and Antaimoro dialects. All pretty closely related but it should be interesting to see what hybrid dialect I end up speaking.

I mentioned rice planting last time; this was made difficult by a local taboo ('fady') that forbids cultivating the rice fields in April in my training town. Apparently rocks will fall from the sky if you do; we ended up practicing in a mini-field in a nearby town (see previous post for pic). The fady are an interesting phenomenon that vary hugely between regions, towns, and even families. In addition to the rice planting, it's fady here to sleep with your feet pointing East (so you don't kick the sun as it rises). Up at my site, it's apparently fady to work the fields on Tuesdays or Thursdays. Should be interesting to see what else I come across.

I'll leave you with another quick recipe: Cucumber or carrot salad (super easy). Peel, halve lengthwise, and thinly slice cucumbers, then mix with white vinegar, salt, and oil to taste. Alternatively, you can do the same thing with grated carrots. For some reason, salad vegetables are rarely mixed.

Catch you all in about a week--R

Pictures!

A tanrec, kinda like a hedgehog













Learning how to plant rice












Me and my host family outside our house











The town where we did training, Anjozoro














Walking along the river in the rice fields

In Tana for a few hours to open up bank accounts, so...internet again! Training continues; we practiced making compost piles yesterday and got to try our hand at planting rice (very muddy work indeed). The garden we planted two weeks ago is sending up seedlings in every bed, which is gratifying to see and apparently surprising to the family that owns the garden, as they didn't expect to see results so fast!

I mentioned the avocados piled with sugar dessert in the last post and my mother commented, correctly, that it sounded like something I wouldn't like. The other night, my family surprised me by having unsugared mashed avocados with dinner, which made the rice taste like Mexican food (a refreshing change). I'm not sure if it was due to my mangled attempt at explaining this, but the next day they came up with another variation: mashed avocados with yogurt, condensed milk, and sugar. Surprisingly, this "guacamole yogurt" was the best dish of the three. So there, if you want to attempt some Malagasy cooking...

Yipes! Gotta go! I'll post again in 3 weeks or so!