Living with the Mosasy Family

This blog post is about home stay and a little about training. Also, about the time I found my deep hatred for mosquitoes and geese, the time I found a new fear of the dark and of witches, and the time I found a new appreciation for running water and toilets (especially located indoors).

A few words about language training; it's never ending.
A few more words about the Malagasy language in general; it isn't easy, most verbs begin with "M" and have at least three syllables. Example: Mitsangatsangana means to take a stroll/wander around. Also, the letters C, Q, U, W and X do no exist in the Malagasy language. A lot of words are derived from the French language or are very similar to the French words for things. Malagasy only use French numbers when it comes to prices, dates, phone numbers and almost every other time you use numbers except for the time, which can be confusing, being that I am not mahay (knowledgeable) at French numbers, nor any French whatsoever. But the language is sing songy and very beautiful.We had language class 4 hours a day during PST (Pre Service Training).
A breakdown of our daily PST routine; woke up around 4:45 on most days because that's what the family was used to, and roosters are loud whenever and not just when the sun comes up, ate breakfast and headed to language lessons at 8AM, at noon headed back to host family and ate lunch with them and tried to utilize the language we learned in the previous hours, at 2PM headed to the local commune and were taught either about the Malagasy culture or technical skills for our sector, in my case, health skills. Then at 5PM ish headed back to host family and helped cook dinner, tried to communicate, ate and went to bed immediately after eating. *** Fear of the dark bit.***Little to no electricity means no street lamps, meaning you can't see even three feet in front of your face. It being a foreign country, in the countryside with no light when the sunsets translates into a very quiet and scary place. And to add to it, some Malagasy believe in witches. These witches are real people who allegedly roam around the countryside at night, wreck havoc and leave poop on your doorstep. Conclusion, get me inside, I now have a fear of the dark and anything that lurks around in it.

My family in our kitchen.

But throw a few snack breaks in there and maybe a shower once or twice a week (** no running water, bucket showers require time and energy to heat water on an open flame) add some soccer games, mitsangatsangana-ing on the weekends, dodging angry geese on the roads (evil, evil, evil animals that have something against all human beings), resisting the temptation to scratch mosquito bites, and some clothes washing in the river (** again with the no running water situation) and that's home stay in a nut shell.

The river I washed my clothes in.

Fandrisana hanging out the window.

My family was wonderful though!  My dad was said to be a priest, not the case however, because we/they never went to church nor work. My mom was very young and took care of my host brother, 2 year old, Mosasy, and my host aunt was a seamstress. The dog's name was Pito, he was the loudest dog on the block, hands down. We also had some other family live with us for a while, who were equally as welcoming and were equally as entertained by my poor language abilities and my American loudness and enthusiasm.In the 6 months I have been in Madagascar, I say with full confidence that the Malagasy people are some of the nicest people I have ever met.

My little brother showing me where his ears were.

Mosasy, Pito, and Bebe.