Well, I have been in Madagascar for just over a week now, and I must say, it feels like much longer.

I am staying with Kim and Sue (for those of you who don’t know, they are leading the church here – Vision Valley) in a room above their garage. It’s a perfect fit for now, and so far I haven’t had to use the guard’s toilet either... My hosts have been wonderful, really making me one of the family and keeping the boys out of my space with the threat of much bottom pain (Sue asked me to say that).

I brought my mountain bike over with me, and have used it every day so far – it’s a hair raising experience, but I am getting fitter. The mini bus taxis are built for midgets, and I have almost come out cripple a few times, so the bike or walking are definitely the more preferred modes of transport. I plan to buy a small motorbike as soon as possible – one of the guys in the church, who’s leaving in August has a Yamaha 350, so I’ll probably get that.

Then I’ve started at Vision Valley school – but not teaching for now. I will probably teach Social studies from the beginning of the school year (yes, yes, I’ve heard all the jokes already). So for now I am in the library – computerising the whole place and getting it ready for when the students return in August (yes, I’ve also heard the jokes about me being a librarian). There is a preschool up to grade 0, then a primary school and the high school currently goes to grade 11. It’s also about 40% Muslim, which makes for an amazing field for the gospel. For now it looks like I’ll have the grade 7s as my register class next year.

The political situation here is also going downhill steadily – it seems the locals aren’t happy with the youngster who ousted Marc the former president – there is a shortage of many of the basic foodstuffs because the new president shut down Marc’s companies (he was the dairy king, along with being president). So we have daily demonstrations in the streets with people shot every now and then. We’ll see what happens. We just don’t go out at night so don’t really experience much of it personally.

Living with the Midgleys and their 5 boys is indescribable... Sue does things with soya you can’t even do with real mince – we’re thinking of compiling a cook book – Sue’s soya madness in Madagascar. I’m constantly laughing at the boys too – seeing Reece playing with his dinosaurs – putting them in little groups and saying to me, “Look uncle Rob, the dinosaurs are doing church”. Or looking intently at his banana smoothie – “This is a holy smoothie”. Finally the two elder boys playing with their lego – not building planes, or cars... but churches – with guest speakers, deacons explaining the creation with dinosaurs... Never a dull moment! Talk about living in and through the local church!

We’ve started having filter coffee at church now – coffee wrapped in a cloth and then dropped into a normal coffee urn. There are around 100 adults in the church – maybe a few more – with about 60% locals and the rest mostly parachurch guys or teachers at the school. 4 eldership couples, a couple of deacons and a whole bunch of saints...

I guess one always needs to talk about the weather at times like this – it’s very similar to Pretoria – coolish in the mornings and evenings and warm by lunchtime. Just with a haze of permanent diesel fumes in the air. And mosquitoes. But not malaria carrying ones.

The Internet is VERY slow and HORRIFICALLY expensive! Cellphones aren’t much better – smses cost around R1.90 each.

School breaks up around the 20th of June and only restarts at the end of August, so I’ll probably work parttime and do some holidaying then...

That's all for now, but will add some more soon!