malagasy magic
i am writing to you from a cyber cafe in antananarivo (tana) the capital of madagascar and one of the places in the world that has a different looking keyboard that is causing some typing difficulties, so i apologize for any more mistakes than usual and for my lack of contractions as i cannot find the apostrophe key.
this is a childhood dream come true. i am in madagascar where i will be able to see animals that have evolved without influence from other places. i will get to watch lemurs dance and chameleons change, aye aye picking grubs out of logs, and hike through some fascinating terrain. it should be amazing. so far, madagascar looks little like any other country that we have visited, well of course there are some similarities, but it really looks different. there are people on the streets selling fresh fruit, vegetables, meat hanging from poles, clothing, and a variety of household items, but the rice patties are on either side of the road surrounding small shacks and planing your viez of the finer houses on the hills of the capitol. flying into the capitol we had a viea of this beatiful country that is sometimes called the red island and you can see why when you spot the red color of the clay that coats the ground. the roads in tana are paved, but i think that most of our trip will probably be spent travelling over dirt roads in crowded minibuses. i think, along with laos and cambodia, that this is one of the most undeveloped countries that we have visited. the peopel here seem to be very poor, but also very friendly and polite. we are staying with a lovely servas family- the father is the president of a company that works with foreign companies in madagascar, i am not sure what the wife does and they have three children. we are planning to head south, but are not exactly sure of our plans yet. i hope i will have a chance to write a bit more tomorrow when i can worry less about power outages.
bon nuit, (goodnight)
nabia
this is a childhood dream come true. i am in madagascar where i will be able to see animals that have evolved without influence from other places. i will get to watch lemurs dance and chameleons change, aye aye picking grubs out of logs, and hike through some fascinating terrain. it should be amazing. so far, madagascar looks little like any other country that we have visited, well of course there are some similarities, but it really looks different. there are people on the streets selling fresh fruit, vegetables, meat hanging from poles, clothing, and a variety of household items, but the rice patties are on either side of the road surrounding small shacks and planing your viez of the finer houses on the hills of the capitol. flying into the capitol we had a viea of this beatiful country that is sometimes called the red island and you can see why when you spot the red color of the clay that coats the ground. the roads in tana are paved, but i think that most of our trip will probably be spent travelling over dirt roads in crowded minibuses. i think, along with laos and cambodia, that this is one of the most undeveloped countries that we have visited. the peopel here seem to be very poor, but also very friendly and polite. we are staying with a lovely servas family- the father is the president of a company that works with foreign companies in madagascar, i am not sure what the wife does and they have three children. we are planning to head south, but are not exactly sure of our plans yet. i hope i will have a chance to write a bit more tomorrow when i can worry less about power outages.
bon nuit, (goodnight)
nabia