Adventures and Amoebas

Wow. So much to talk about and it has been such a short amount of time. I love that there is never a dull moment here in Madagascar. Always something new going on- always a new topic to explore.

Well first comes first: As many of you know from my past updates, I have not been feeling to well. Nothing too serious but when the cipro didn’t do the trick for me, and when my symptoms didn’t match up to what is normally seen here (usually bacterial infections of the gastrointestinal system- I was having similar troubles but not quite the same) I decided to go to the clinic. It was an interesting experience; for one thing, visiting such a place has made me much more interested in public health in developing countries and the quality of care given. Luckily I only had to wait ten minutes until a doctor saw me. He asked me a bunch of questions (and spoke really fast French which was tough for me to understand- luckily I had one of the program staff with me to help) and then did a quick examination. Immediately afterwards, he provided me with a list of five prescriptions that could each be used to treat my symptoms but he did not get to the root cause.  I started to feel better by nighttime and the next day- I will pick up this story later.

So, the next day was Saturday and I was feeling a lot better but not 100%. I had an amazing day with my host family! Fist I made them pancakes and maple syrup. I had gotten them pancake mix and VT maple syrup as a gift. When asking what I needed to make them, it was clear that my family had never made or even heard of pancakes before (although I am sure I would be the same way if they ever asked me to make Malagasy food!). I am so happy that they ended up turning out good! I am pretty sure that everyone loved them! We still have some mix and some syrup left so we will have to finish it up next weekend!!

After breakfast was when the real adventures began…They ended up taking me to this place called Gasikara. It was outside the city, a huge compound with little bungalows one could stay in, overlooking a beautiful lake. In order to get to the park part, one had to cross the lake (the buildings were on the other side of the lake). We did this in a little boat- they made us wear these ridiculous, gigantic, traffic cone orange life preservers because most people do not know how to swim here.

The park was amazing! The first part was this building with all these old Malagasy artifacts, miniature models of ancient sites, musical instruments and more! It was an interactive place as well- we could sit in the hairs and play with the instruments- it was really fun! There was this path that weaved up this beautiful hill which basically took you on a “tour of the country.” There were these little mini-regions that had all the vegetation, housing and even (fake) people that resided in that region of Madagascar. It was pretty cool! Take a look at some of the pics:

This is the entrance sign of the park- this pic is taken from the boat- too bad you cannot see my hot bright orange life jacket!

My adorable host sis Olivia picking rice with a faux Malagasy woman from some region or another.... cannot keep them all straight...

Oh and what is a park without lemurs!? I actually was able to pet them this time! It was so cool! This one up above kept giving my lemur kisses. There were a bunch of others of this kind and they kept trying to grab my camera at one point as well. They also tried to grab my hand- they were so adorable!!!!

The lemur-keeper (If there is such a thing?) was nice enough to let me feed this one. Except it was more of a tease, because in order to get a good pic I had to hold out the banana, with the peel on, at arms length for him to try and reach it. This cute little pissed off lemur face is the result of that tactic- 

After the wonderful visit to the park- We stopped at some roadside markets to pick up some fruit. These orange fruits are persimmons (called kaki here). They are delicious- my new favs! My family then took me out to a wonderful lunch at this delicious little restaurant and we had some Malagasy ice cream for desert which hit the spot. Yummmm!

After lunch, we visited my host mother's sister in the hospital who is recovering from an operation. I snapped a few pictures of the hospital because I just thought again, that it was very interesting to compare the access to healthcare here as opposed to the United States. I am very interested in public health and hope to research it a bit more when it comes to proposing my topic for the Independent Study. Anyways, this is a photo of the Emergency building, this is actually one of the nicer hospitals in Tana. Inside the hospital was not as bad as some healthcare places I have seen in developing countries but would not pass for sanitation in the United States. More on that later- I do not know too much about this topic right now so I am not going to pretend I do. Wait until my ISP to find out more!

After all of the day's adventures, me and my host family made a final spot to one of the highest points in the city of Tana to watch the sunset. Unfortunately, it was not the best night for such things because a large cloud decided to block the sun from our view- but it was still beautiful to see the view of the entire city, the mountains and the valleys. This photo does not do it justice. 

The two Olivia's on top of Tana! <3 Love her!

You may be surprised to find out now that my Saturday is not yet over. This Saturday night, the other students in my program and I made plans to go out to eat at a restaurant in town called Saka Manga (it means “blue cat” in Malagasy). It was super fun to be able to go out and have a vazaha night on our own and to eat delicious food. Things are so cheap here in Madagascar! I had: a glass of red wine, calamari and veggies for dinner, a mojito and fresh fruit with local Malagasy chocolate fondue for desert. Guess how much that all cost in American dollars??? Well whatever you guessed I am sure it is wrong because that only cost me $12. And every last bit of it was delicious. Too bad I woke up to my illness roaring its ugly head at 2:00 in the morning on Sunday. Later that day all that delicious food---- yup, you guessed it… was upchucked right out of me into the holy porcelain bowl. I’m sorry if that was too much information- but being in a country such as this, where all your peers have these problems at one point or another makes you very open about issues such as these.

Anyways, since we are on this topic now… I spent all of Sunday lying in bed, sleeping, having a fever and being miserable again. I though I was in the clear but maybe I was just making up for all the fun I had on Saturday. Well, to make a long story short, I ended up seeing another doctor today. She has affiliations with the SIT program and was super helpful, she actually gave me answers instead of just medications. Apparently was she thinks I have is an amoeba (or multiple amoebas? I don’t really know how that works… my microbiology days are in the past-) but she was able to write me a prescription for anti-amoeba medicine. I’m crossing my fingers that it works and that I will be in the clear!

I would I love write more but it is time for me to write a French presentation.. And to prepare for the cyclone tomorrow! There’s a cyclone that will hit the capital tomorrow- It is nothing for any of you to worry about, basically just a tropical storm with strong winds, it is much worse near the coast and I am not on the coast. I will keep you all posted on that too! Classes might be cancelled tomorrow!