Reinvigorated

In case you didn't read the last post, I'm relaxing in Tana after a visit from Mom and Meredith.  Tomorrow I'll hop a plane back to Sambava and return to Ambohimanarina, where it's quite possible they'll be surprised to see me.  There were definitely some people that saw our luggage and thought I had packed up to go home.  Today I marked the occasion, possibly my last time in Tana for about 5 more months, by eating a hamburger and some ice cream.  Not bad.

I'll be back in my village cleaning up my house and enjoying my new American things.  I've got new(!) Time magazines to get me a little bit up to speed and a Kindle full of books, plus so many other goodies that I couldn't be more appreciative of!

I've been a bit uninspired with the blog lately, so post a comment or email me if there's something you'd really like to hear about.  For now I'll add a few photos for your enjoyment...

Photo from a bike ride near my village.  There's a small house wherre I would totally live if it was a few thousand miles closer to my family.

Vingt-six family lunch this year.  Yes, I'm huge.  They tell me all the time.

Morning rainbow!  It was a full rainbow but I couldn't capture it all.

Relaxing on the beautiful beach in St. Marie.

Relaxing.

Oh My God! There's WHALES!

Hiking queens.

Check out the cassava.  And yes, I'm so cool.

Waterfront dinner.

Pousse-pousse.

Supermarket in St. Marie.  Yes, we have a few "vazaha" style supermarkets on this island.

Beach breakfast!

Whales!

Is that a rooster or a really tall chicken?  You decide.

Family visit!

My mom and sister, Meredith, took 2 weeks out of their busy life and work schedules and endured ridiculous hours of travel to come visit me here in Madagascar!  Seeing them was indescribably awesome.  We went to Marojejy National Park, spent an afternoon in Ambohimanarina meeting all my friends and Malagasy family, saw the cities of Sambava, Tamatave, and Antananarivo, and relaxed on the beach and saw humpback whales in Ile St. Marie.

The highlights:

• Lemurs in the wild are really awesome.  In Marojejy we saw silky sifakas, white-fronted brown lemurs, and bamboo lemurs.  Pet lemurs, however, are kind of freaky, especially to Meredith.  For some reason we could not grasp, the tourists in St. Marie find them cute and endearing.

At the entrance to Marojejy

• Whales are also really awesome.  We saw humpback whales a stone's throw from our boat, which was awesome but also a little terrifying since they are huge!

• Another awesome thing: hot water.  We had some mishaps trying to control the hot water flow in our various hotels, but it was definitely a luxury to have even a few minutes of hot water.
• Sundays are useless.  I always forget this because Sunday is the day that everyone in the village is around, but in the city almost everything is closed.  Luckily this allowed us to do some laundry, use internet in our hotel and relax a little after hiking for 3 days in Marojejy.
• Food is awesome.  We ate sooo well! 

Marojejy breakfast!

• I can still use a fork.  Just barely.  Here everyone eats with just a spoon, so I found myself struggling a little in the fancy places where they gave you forks and knives and often no spoon.
• I eat a lot of rice.  I didn't quite realize this until I saw the expressions on Mom and Meredith's face when I started serving giant spoonfuls of rice onto their plates.



Cramped car ride.

• I can't take a serious photo.  I don't know what it is, but I can't help myself from making silly faces.

Nothing better than drinking a coconut!

It was super awesome to see my family and also to have a nice vacation.  I was certainly sad to see them go, but it won't be too long before I see them all in America.

Hanging out with both my American and Malagasy family!

Canoe trip in St. Marie

Family time!

Enjoying the beautiful beach