Mary Ann meets the world: Madagascar

Friday was the last day for the students before Christmas, so there was a big gathering at the school; to give thanks for the year and for celebrating christmas together. Of course the Norwegians were asked to participate on the celebration, to sing a Norwegian Christmas-song and tell about how we celebrate Christmas. We got our friend Stine, who is from Denmark and works for NMS to help us to sing and talk about christmas. We sang “Du grønne glitrende tre” and I think it went ok, because some of the students asked to get the song on CD when we were finished.. And after 4 hours of sitting and listening to Malagasy songs we were going to eat together; rice, meat and some vegetables and a banana for dessert!

There is a tradition in Madagascar that says that if you have guests at Christmas-time you give them a turkey or a chicken as a gift. This celebration was no exeption, even though they gave money to buy a turkey instead. And we, as guests got money to buy a turkey. And as participants at a program like Green Network we think it’s quite weird to recieve money from the people we are here to help. So the next time we attend a morning-service we will give the money to the offering.

Yesterday we had a baking day and we made brownies, cupcakes and made animals and christmas-stuff out of almond-fudge. (marsipan) We had made a suggestion to have a movie-night with the students that are left here because they can’t afford to go home during the Christmas-vacation. So we took the cakes and went to the hall to watch a movie, and of course the movie was; Madagascar! It was a huge success, and they want to watch a movie tonight as well!

Here are the boyschoir: