In the meantime, I am going to enjoy my last few days in Tana, even though this time is going to be spent stressing out about going away for a month to a place I've never visited, what my plans are for the execution for my ISP and of course, the omnipresent 15 page paper that has been hanging over my head. So on second thought, maybe "enjoy" is not the correct word to choose... No matter how my time is spent, I know one thing is for sure: I am going to miss my family here SOOOO MUCH!!!! They have been wonderful enough to take me under their wing and accept me as a part of their family. They were so happy to show me everything and I saw things in and around Tana that I would not have otherwise seen.
Before I get too disgustingly sentimental, there is good news: I will be seeing them for a few days after my ISP and might be staying with them for these few days. Yay! So its not goodbye after all!
Anyways, just a few pics and captions to capture my last week in Tana...
I had been wanting to prepare and American sakafo (meal) for my fam for a while- finally got around to it the last weekend I was here. Since Madagascar isn't really known for their cheese, and my family only has two burners and no oven my favorite American dish mac and cheese was out of the question. So, I decided to go for a less cheesy version of the Italian favorite chicken Parmesan.
Now in order to preface this story- my family had first of all never had chicken parm before and second of all, never even heard of it. So, I was not surprised when I walked into the Shoprite (grocery store chain here) and could not find mozzarella cheese let alone parmesan. I settled on some random cheese wheel which I later grated and put on top of the final product- It wasn't too bad, nothing like the city market cheese in VT that I'm used to but, as a cheese snob, I dealt with it. Also, boneless meat does not exist in Madagascar so, in addition to pounding and breading the chicken for preparation, me and two other family members spent 20 minutes carving the bones out of raw chicken thighs. Priceless.
If you were to go into a Burmese restaurant, you probaly wouldn't know how to serve yourself or arrange your meal. I guess that is a dumb analogy of how my family felt when I showed them that you take pasta first, then chicken and then top it off with some sauce and cheese and voila! Chicken parm!
Accompanied by some fresh, Malagasy green beans it turned out to be a pretty good meal! I bought a can of sauce at the Shoprite (probably not the best of decisions but, given our cramped kitchen situation with two burners I did not want to try and do the homemade sauce thing- I would be "azafadying" until the cows came home... azafady is the Malagasy way of saying anything from pardon me, to please, to excuse me and pretty much anything else. Azafady is a staple in the Malagasy vocabulary) Anyways, sad story- the sauce tasted like something McDonald's would make if they were to ever go into the pasta business, kind of sad, but the meal was still enjoyable.
As you can see, the McDonald's type sauce did not faze my family as they literally ate every last bit of everything! They loved it so much that for lunch the next day they had pasta, cheese and sauce (minus my delicious chicken unfortunately). It was nice to have an alternative of rice in addition to a great meal, Olivia being a great chef praise and a tri-cultural experience (if you include Italian of course). It was a good time and good eats had by all!
A few days later was another big day! My older brother Joe presented his master's thesis in front of an academic jury board. This required a lot of prep from the family including concocting little goodie bags of bonbons for the guests! This was really exciting for me, because being the six-year old I am, I got to eat the candies left over! Anyways, the presentation went well, unfortunately I was not there to see it because I was held captive in the SIT center working on my paper but it was another good time had by all.
To summarize, things have been totally crazy this week because it is the end of phase one of the program with classes and group excursions and such and the beginning of the second phase in which we commence our ISPs. Now, before any of that happens, we have had a ton of work to finish up from the first part of the semester, one of which involves a 15 page research paper due by the end of the week. Luckily I am all done as of right now, or I wouldn't be writing in this blog. I had a few opportunities to visit infant and maternal health centers and interview individuals on their views of family planning in Madagascar so I had enough information to easily write my paper. Now onto the ISP....
Before I get onto the subject of the ever omni-present ISP, I had a pretty ridiculous day today. Compared to life back home it was pretty ridiculous but, I guess it really could just be compared to another crazy day in Tana- So anyway, today was a national holiday and we didn't have classes, actually nobody had school in the country and most people were off of work. clearly,t he most rational thing to do on a national holiday is to have insanely populated street markets right? Well thats what people here do. So, in addition to their being crazy street markets there was this other market we heard of taking place in this giant stadium.
So naturally me and some friends decided to pack up and go. Unfortunately it was the "GO"ing part that was a problem. You see, we ended up walking around for probably thirty minutes trying to find the correct taxi be stop. Things here are not marked like they are back home, so when we stopped and asked people where the stop was for 153 and the pointed in a general direction, it was probably as helpful as someone telling you that they hid your sewing needle in a haystack. To make a long story short, we found the taxi-be stop right next to the location where we had started out, we were relieved to finally be on the taxi-be and headed in the right direction when suddenly, everyone got out, a bunch of people got on so that we were literally smushed like sardines in this vehicle and what do you know? The bus started going in the opposite direction of where we wanted to go. We knew that the location in the opposite direction was close so we decided to stay on the overcrowded taxi-be and wing it. Though, when we got off we did not have a great idea of where we were.
Luckily though, with my great directional skills- (I say this jokingly because I actually have horrible directional skills but for whatever reason, in Tana I have been able to find my way around quite flawlessly) we walked for a few minutes and stumbled upon a zoo that I had visited with my host family the first weekend I was here. I remembered that there was a taxi be stop across from the zoo that would take us where we wanted to be. Thank god for my memory!
Fast foreword to the stadium market: picture U.S. style convention selling anything you could imagine in little booths set up outside some sort of arena. That's what this was like. Apparently its like a four times a year thing that they have here and its totally fantastic. It was super clean, there were moon-bounces, trashcans, I really did feel like I was back at home. I bought another pair of crazy colored flowy pants, which God only knows when I will wear because they are ridiculous but I love them all the same.
After indulging in some popcorn and cotton candy we made our way outta there. I ran into my sister in the middle of a busy market, which was slightly ironic and then took a taxi to the swanky Colbert hotel where we met up with some other friends and indulged in some delicious Italian food down the street. We made our way back to the colbert to mange some sinful desserts (they are known for their pastisseries- I think I have a picture of their dessert case in one of my older posts) but I ended up getting a peach and mango sorbet which was totally magnificently yummy.
Back to reality after that- back to the center to work on my paper. But a good day was had by all, and now I'm done with my paper- which means I need to focus on my ISP. I am buying my taxi-brousse ticket tomorrow for Diego. I am super excited but very much nervous at the same time. I do not know what to expect and do not know a soul up there. Luckily we have some old program parters up there who are going to help me out and put me up in a homestay but nonetheless, its exciting, but a bit scary. Especially because the nature of my topic is so sensitive and difficult, it will add a new spin to scaryness. For those of you that don't know, prostitution is legal in Madagascar and is very common and thus, a hige problem. I am going to study female sex workers: the reasons why they find themselves in the business and the reasons why they do not get out. Don't worry though, I will be safe, it isn't as dangerous as it sounds and I and really excited to get started on it. I will keep you all updated!
I probably will not get a chance to update again until I am settled in Diego probably around the beginning of next week. So wish me luck in my two twelve hour taxi brousse rides on Saturday and Sunday. I hope I don't go crazyyyyyyyy
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