Around the World in 85 Days: Sunday On The Beach

So Sunday I woke up in my cheap, but relatively nice (as I would later learn) hotel room. Luckily the room had a ceiling fan and a stand-alone fan as well as it was quite hot and humid.

This was the view from my room – not bad, eh?

I walked down to the restaurant which was deserted (the guy had told me the night before that no one would be there on Sundays) and found this little waitress lady and asked if I could get some breakfast. It’s always fun to deal with Malagasies who a) aren’t expecting you and b) definitely not expecting you to speak Malagasy. So she kind of frightenedly scurried around to get me some breakfast which was relatively good.

[“Breakfast” in Madagascar, like so many other “Western” things was adopted from the French. For all the raving about great French cuisine, they sure don’t care about breakfast. Breakfast at any hotel (which is the only place you could actually get a “breakfast” type meal, is always coffee or tea (or hot chocolate if you’re lucky), bread and jam and butter and honey (which they always list out like that as if jam and butter were separate menu items or some fancy treat) and then usually there’s some fruit juice (like 6 oz worth). Suffice it to say, this breakfast was perfectly typical, so I added an “omelet” for $2.50, which is invariably 2 eggs, scrambled and left to fry in ¼ of oil. What usually separates above average breakfasts is how good the bread is – I vaguely remember this bread being more than the 300Ariary (15cents) street bread.]

So I ate as fast as I could (which as most of you know is not very fast) and went back to my room to get ready for church. Took a cold shower (which was nice considering how hot it was), put on my wrinkly white shirt and headed off to the church. Found a taxi that took me there for 3,000Ar ($1.50) and found the church relatively easily. Wow, the church was full to the brim. I was about 15 or 20 minutes late and I had to take a seat on the back row. I talked to some kambanalahys (twin brothers) who had been baptized a year ago or so ago and were stoked to go on a mission. Halfway through the meeting, E. Oyouko (he’s from the DR Congo) came over to me and asked if I would bare my testimony (is it bear or bare?) at the end, so I said yes of course. So I did, which was fun and a little nerve wracking. I felt like I could still speak pretty well, but when I tried to read a scripture I was struggling with pronouncing some of the words. I went to JAS (Young Single Adults) Sunday School which was funny to be back in Mada at a YAS thing instead of a missionary. The kids were really nice and cool.

After church I chatted with some of the JAS (Tahiana said “I got to go get me some grub and hit the sack” and he said to tell Hansen Hi and that he’s still kamo be lol) and the Branch Pres and his wife and Oyouko and Kurtis (his companion). Oyouko and I spoke mainly in French which was fun – we talked about Congo and the church and political situation there. Kurtis had originally served in Reunion so we talked about that and how much better P-days were in Mada ; - ). After that the missionaries walked me out to the bus station so I could go to the taxi-brousse station to get a ticket to Diego.

Once I got my ticket (be here at 5pm, you’ll get to Diego by noon tomorrow at the latest, costs 52,000Ar [$25]) I just started walking around town. Mahajanga was DESERTED. Seriously no one anywhere. I think because there are lots of Muslims they all take the day on Sunday and don’t go to church and don’t run their shops. But I strolled around and took some cool pictures:

Ate lunch at the Kohinoor which is a good Indian restaurant.

Story time.

So I took a poussepousse there (rickshaw). The poussepousse drivers in Mahajanga are all Atandroy (a tribe from the far south with crazy accents) so when he took me to the restaurant I didn’t have change to pay him and he didn’t have change to give me. So was like “oh, hold on a sec I’ll get some from the restaurant”. So I walk inside and it is equally deserted. No one. Then this vazaha (white dude) gets up from the corner and approaches me. The following conversation ensued:

Him: Bonjour

Me: Bonjour…. Euh, est-cequevouzparlezMalagache?

Euh, non. Qu’est-cequetuveux?

Euhhhhhhh. Je doit changer le vola pour la poussepousse ?

Quoi?

Je mila..dangit. Je doit… Ilfautque je euuhhhh. Je veux manger ici, mais aloha je doit payer le poussepousse

Tuveux manger ici?

Oui, je peux manger ici, n’est pas?

Euhhhc’estferme.

Ah bon. Je ne peux pas manger ici?

Maintenant?

Oui. Pour le dejeuner.

Euh, iln’y a pas des cuisiners.

Vousservez le dine a quelleheure?

A 5 heures.Tuvuex manger ici?

Oui.

Attend.

(So I waited)and then this Malagasy lady comes out – hallelujah!

Manahona blah blahblah

So she explained to him (in what I swear was Malagasy) that I wanted to each lunch here, but I needed change to pay the poussepousse first. The guy was like Oh! So I he went and paid the poussepousse himself and I sat down and they told me to order the bhiryani, so I did. And it was good. Then I actually chatted with this guy and found out he was from Reunion but his wife was Indian and her brother owned the restaurant and they were just here on vacation. So we actually ended up chatting about Reunion and New York City (of course, lol) and Madagascar. Somehow our second conversation was fairly pleasant and understandable, while our first one was a disaster. Ate my yummy bhiryani (sp?) and got a pousse back to the center of town. I took some pictures at the Big Baobab:

Went back to the hotel, packed up my stuff, got a taxi to the bus station, and I was on my way.