Night time in Talatamaty

I took these photos (after driving my friend Anri-Louise home) just down the road from where I used to live - where the night scene is a vibrant one, and where the urine smell is a strong one ...

What a story - the scavenging dog, the old lady filling a bottle and the customers waiting for their road-side stall food...

Now that's a bar! Drive through, park, sit ... You choose

But, to be honest, I prefer Anri-Louise's night-time homeward-bound photos.

The Housesitting Happenings

“It's not easy taking my problems one at a time when they refuse to get in line.” Ashleigh Brilliant

This could have been a quote by my friend Anri-Louise, except that she actually does take problems in her stride no matter how they line up or attack her all at once. I have never met anyone who has as many bizarre things happen to them as she does, and I have tried to document some of the more humorous stories previously. The other day someone told me she would read my blog more regularly if I wrote more about Anri. (Hello! What does that say about my material?!?)

Anri-Louise shares a house with one of the other teachers at our school, and so, when asked if she would house-sit for a family in the church she jumped at it – six weeks to refresh and breathe and lounge around in a real garden with real live plants. Her directions to me on how to find the place were as follows: “After the Toyota garage turn left. Then turn right into the second road. The first road isn’t really a road, but it looks like one. Once in the second road, travel until you see my house – the second green gate on the left.” I followed her directions pretty well, but was stumped by “the second green gate.” I drove up and down, turned around, asked people for the “vazaha”, all to no avail. It turns out the gate was red. And she isn’t even colour blind…

Her stay itself was also not without event. On the first morning she was startled awake by the naughtier dog of the two standing over her on the bed, peering through the mosquito net (literally through a hole it had chewed, with its snout inches from her face as if to say, “Wake up strange person, and give me some ATTENTION!”) The other dog, deprived of constant input (this is a family with children and a stay-at-home mom) acted out its insecurities and neuroses by going on a hunger and water strike.  Anri, now neurotic herself, set her alarm bi-hourly to check whether the confounded mutt would make it through the night.

The obsessive compulsive cat refuses to eat on its own too. In fact, it refuses to eat from its own dish, and even stole some courgettes (of all things) from Anri’s plate before she could stop it. The bath shocks one if one forgets to unplug the geyser first... but that is at least controllable.

A few days after arriving, Anri was sitting quietly in the lounge when the television emitted a loud blue flash, followed by an explosion of fireworks throughout the house – the electricity company had quite randomly pumped over 400 volts through the neighbourhood, frying anything electrical and popping light bulbs. The Internet was out, the TV was fried, and the only part of the fridge that cooled anything below room temperature was the deepfreeze. A fridge repairman was called out, and brilliantly managed to turn the cool box into an oven. The following morning Anri walked in to more-than-whiffy meat and a pool of butter escaping across the floor.

The joys of house-sitting! But at least all of the animals and Anri are still alive, and the garden has not been swallowed up by a giant sink-hole… Stay tuned – I’m sure there will be more Anri stories to follow!

Buzz lightear

Anri explaining to her class where exactly the mosquito was.

Both Sue and I are eternally grateful for having our dear friend Anri-Louise in Madagascar because she lightens the mood and keeps us in stitches daily. We aren't too sure how she keeps so optimistic with all the outlandish things that happen to her.

Just this morning she sent an sms to both Sue and me asking if we had any idea how to remove a dead mosquito from one's ear. She was most put out that we both responded with laughter and no remedy.

We're now calling her "Buzz Light-ear"

Upside down and backwards

Yesterday, sometime midmorning, before being flung from a desk in the Grade 5 class, Anri-Louise, the Grade 3 teacher, discovered that her beautiful purple top was inside out. She went to the bathroom to change but got distracted and forgot. 

And when she arrived in class one of her girls pointed it out: "Miss Anri-Louise, your shirt is upside down!" (Yes, this is her second language).

"Well, sweetie, it's actually not upside down, it's inside out, and that's because we're having INSIDE OUT DAY," Anri quickly recovered. And so she sent the whole class to the bathroom to put their shirts on inside out, and turned it into a game of observation - the first three staff members or students to notice that the whole Grade three class was "inside out" would each win a prize.

Amazingly quick thinking on one's feet, I say. And the whole class had a whole lot of fun!

So I cried over some cucumber

Anri, after being flung to the floor by a desk

Anri-Louise once again adds to the humour and cringe-worthiness of my blog...

There are bad weeks; there are positively horrid weeks; and then there are weeks like I’ve just endured. (This is more or less where I picture you, the reader, nodding with understanding and a sympathetic grin.) Rob has introduced me to you as the KLUTZ, but the past few weeks supersede all.

It all started with a drive to the doctor for a painful “belly”, as my school kids would call it, only to return with four separate, totally unrelated diagnoses – all needing treatment. The first set of antibiotics added an allergic reaction to the list and so it was back to the doctor again, an excursion taking a minimum of three hours through the hustle, bustle and fumes of Tana. The second set of treatment was more readily accepted by my body, but did less than nothing to the germs, and so I returned once again for visit number three. (Kim has suggested I return to South Africa for general maintenance – like a used car...)

I am okay, I tell myself, lying in the dark – the electric cables to my house having been stolen, and the month’s meat supply in a bloody mess in the bin. It is not so bad that the guard filled my new containers set aside for bed linen with soil for his gardening project. Serving burnt rice to my Church homegroup, I can also deal with. I am okay. I AM okay. I am OKAY.

But as we all know, when it rains it pours, and right now it seems to be raining “cows and pigs” (one of my little girls' cute quotes). I survived the school bathrooms when antibiotic number four again had my system rebelling. I laughed at the unbelief on Rob’s face when I toothpicked my filling out in the lunch room. I watched in a mirror as the dentist took 90 minutes to replace the filling using makeshift tools but saved me from a threatening abscess on the other side of my jaw. I apologised for breaking Kim’s louver window while trying to close it and for getting angry with Rob for absolutely no reason (that he could see). I lived through my cellphone staying behind in a taxi, never to be seen or heard from again. And then this morning I sat on the only broken desk in the entire grade 5 class and was catapulted to the floor in a heap.

But in the end it was a simple piece of cucumber that broke the camel’s back... I was eating salad at Sue’s; the cucumber fell to the floor (in slow motion), setting off a chain reaction only women would understand. Both men immediately fled the scene.

After a few bucketloads of tears I am telling myself once again that I am okay – mostly because of a tattooed smoker at the Three Horses Beer (THB) bar. Heading home from church he stopped me to take a picture of him with his friends... and then paid me for the job – all of $0.50! I laughed all the way home. I, a vazaha (foreigner), have just been paid 1000 Ariary to take a photo at a bar. Sure. God is still in control. And He will provide. Finances. Health. Some good luck. And laughter!

My odd Tana life

Mother and child outside my house

Today's blogpost is written by Anri-Louise, who I introduced to everyone previously here. She gives her perspective on life in Antananarivo, the capital city of Madagascar (photos by Anri too)...

Ah, life here is interesting … Earlier this week, having just arrived home after a long day, I found myself once again standing in front of my red gate delving into the depths of my backpack trying to discover the ever-missing house key. As usual, the neighbours stood staring at me, the strange vazaha (foreigner). I could have ignored the stares and taken my time to find my keys, but when my dear, faithful taxi driver pulled up next to my gate, parking himself in the middle of the wrong side of the road, lined up with the oncoming traffic to ensure my safety, I decided scaling the wall would be the better solution.

This wall-mounting procedure is quite a sight, but the neighbours have witnessed it once or twice before, so I am not too fazed about it. Today it turned a different corner. The process involves me (not-so-elegantly) struggling onto the wall, and then hanging my backpack and camera bag over the strategically-placed spikes. Thank goodness the Malagasies are short, so the spikes take some maneuvering skill, but at a manageable height. So, balancing precariously with my feet on both sides of the spikes, while considering my pants and muscle-tearing possibilities, a loud cheer erupted - complete with shouting, whistling and clapping of hands. What more can I say … the few neighbourhood stares had been exchanged for a peekpeak-hour, overloaded taxibus fanfare.

Life here is never dull. Unusual. Odd. Extraordinary. Bizarre. Harsh. Effort-filled. It is many things, but never dull! There is playing Call of Duty with the Midges. Reading (and interfering with) Rob’s blog. Dropping off photos to strangers in the streets.  Laughing at the crazy man with the whistle trying to direct traffic, or the other one running up and down next to our house singing and shouting. Practicing my science experiments before doing them with the kids and showering my entire upper body with water to the amusement of the cleaning staff. Free taxi rides, again, again and yet again from the same faithful life savers. Mistaking the Malagasy word for “to pee” with “friend” (or vice versa). Publishing a Grade 3 newspaper. Seeing three girls from my home group being baptized. Falling on my bum in the mud on the way to church. Watching people dry rice on the streets, turning the grains with their feet. Church leaders’ meetings changing venue because we are growing. Children digging through rubbish dumpsters. Playing stone-catching games, or at least attempting to. Boys swatting flies with plastic bags at the meat markets. Men playing cards. Ladies gossiping and laughing behind their hands. Rain coming down in torrents … inside the house. Life.

This is home. It is the place where I have to be and where I love being. There is life, love and laughter here. And this is good. There is sickness; there are troubles and struggles and faithful friends who pick up the phone to call and encourage. And this is good too. Life isn’t always easy, but it is very very good!

Mof kondro, or "friend banana in dough", is one of the yummiest treats in Madagascar.

The things children play with in Tana. Yep, all of the above - broken handbags, pails, chickens, stones. What a beautiful, uncomplicated way of growing up.

Gambling...

The alternative spelling for klutz: A-n-r-i

Anri in a tree with a Lemur. Fortunately she didn't fall out and it didn't maul her.

My good friend Anri-Louise, who teaches at the school with me, and whom I have known for many years is a delightful, engaging and hilarious lady, but a daily accident waiting to happen. It all apparently began when she was just 6, got her first bicycle and rode straight through a sewerage-filled ditch.

At first I wasn’t sure how it was possible for so many off-the-wall things to happen to one person, like the time she arrived at school and told me how her shoe had been washed off her foot by a freak flood of water in the street. She rescued the shoe but dropped her jacket into some glorious Mada muck. It smelled for weeks, despite the several washes. 

Many of her incidents have occurred at home, like the one that involved a hot water bottle and a frozen chicken. It was at the height of winter, and I was borrowing her only spare blanket, which forced her to prepare a hot water bottle. She duly climbed into a toasty bed only for the bottle to explode, scalding her jersey (sweater to the Americans) to her skin.  The store room with spare mattresses upstairs was locked, she couldn't find the key, and so she hobbled downstairs in much pain to sleep in the spare room - only to find that the water had leaked through the floorboards and soaked the mattress... Knowing that she needed to ice her scalded wound, all she could find, that was big enough, was a whole frozen chicken. And so, that night, she slept fitfully in a waterlogged bed, with a chicken strapped to her waist and had to deal with major burns and a soggy bird in the morning.

She has come to expect these incidents, and so goes to some effort to avoid them when she sees the potential for catastrophe. Like on “clumsy” days she will only deal with plastic plates, and won’t cook potentially-dangerous food. Recently she was hanging a mirror at home, perched precariously on a chair, and was most excited that she neither toppled off, nor broke the mirror, nor fell on her head. However, after washing her hands in the kitchen sink, and shaking them dry, she hit a sharp knife which was in the drying rack, cut her finger to the bone and ended up spraying blood around the kitchen. We just shrug and laugh.

Anri also manages to attract the weirdest men – like the one who walked up to her in all seriousness and declared, with a glint in his eye, “I want to be your man! If you know what I mean?” But that was at least less creepy than the drunkard who stalked her for half an hour crying, “I sleep alone, I sleep alone,” or the Rastafarian, dreadlocked dude in a red satin tracksuit who attached himself to her while she was at the airport getting ready to fly back to South Africa. I believe some proposals may have been given too. She’s also been followed home by a guy on a scooter, insisting she catch a ride with him, despite her protestations of “I’m way too big to fit on there with you”.

Holiday incidents too, have kept us amazed and amused... While travelling with her parents through Madagascar, and staying in a beautiful little lodge in the rain forest, she stepped out of bed one morning, straight through the floorboards (with one leg). Lying with her knee jammed in the floor, her foot in the foundations, and the other leg bent like a leg shouldn’t be bent, she couldn’t even call for help because (as she explained), “I was in my pyjamas!” 

Mostly I’ve been exempt from having to witness any of her episodes. But last year December a few of us went on holiday together to a beautiful little island off the coast of Madagascar. One afternoon she left us to go for a walk and to “clear her head”. We were on an island, it was kind of impossible to get lost, but when it started raining and night had fallen fast, we started wondering where she had got to. The next thing she burst into the room, hysterical, in tears, and the story emerged... She had gone for a walk, along the beach, but hadn’t seen the tide coming in and so got stuck around a rocky outcrop. To cut a long story short, she started to crawl back across the wet rocks, and slipped into a bed of sea urchins, getting their spikes embedded in her hands and feet.  A dog tried to rescue her by pulling her by the hand, but this just terrified her, so, with bleeding feet she ran away as fast as she could – only to be pursued by a local making “strange guttural noises.” I don’t handle emotionality very well, and so stormed out and left the girls to deal with her.

Another incident on the same island saw her delightedly skipping across some rocks, only to misstep and land waist-deep in the seaside sludge ... in front of the Malagasy Minister of Tourism, who was unable to keep her dignified composure.

Most recently when she called us to say she was bleeding internally because of a cyst, and that she had developed kidney stones, or that she needed a root canal but it was okay because the dentist discovered that she had no feeling in her tooth’s nerve anyway, our reaction was once again to shrug and say, “It’s just Anri. She’ll be fine.”

Just this week her coffee maker exploded, splattering the whole kitchen with brown gunk. (I say "exploded". This is not an exaggeration...)

What’s next? Who knows, but we wait with bated breath for our good friend Anri’s next mad “episode”.