Giovanna The Cyclone

I stayed up late Monday night, and heard that the weather started changing into heavy rain and a lot of wind. And yesterday I woke up from some strange sounds that I haven't heard in this house before. It was a cyclone coming to town, and the weather was acting angry! We were sitting inside having dinner around noon, when we looked out the window that a tree fell really close to our house. It fell over the electrisitywire, so then we didn't have electrisity or water for some hours. But when the cyclone had left the area, it didn't take long until there was someone here to fix it! I was surprised how fast they managed to get it back, and now we have water and electrisity again!

There has been alot of damages in other parts of the country, so we were lucky here in Antsirabe. I have heard that in a town called Vatomandry there has been 7 out of 10 houses completely destroyed. And I also heard that some government buildings have been destroyed, but I haven't heard which or what kind. It is reported that three people have died, and we don't know how many injured. UNICEF has started providing emergency supplies to around 100.000 people. It's also said that there will be another cyclone coming next week from the Indian Ocean, but we are really hoping it won't.

Here you can see the outside of our house.

 Here is the tree that fell over our electrisitywire, and almost hit our house.

This is the tree from the other side of the hedge..

Us on our way to the market after the worst of the cyclone had left. It was not a lot of people in town today, and there was damages on some of the buildings on the way.

It's fun having mom here to "capture the moment." Here we are bargaigning with the vegetable-lady. We had to pay 2000Ar (6kr) for all the vegetables we needed for making tacos.

Some more damages at the school.

And this is the entrance of Tombontsoa.

- Mary Ann

Guest blog from my mother!

My dear mother arrived in the capital Antananarivo at February 6th, after a lot of problems with late flights and transfers. I was supposed to pick her up at the airport on the 5th, but when I was standing there waiting I got a phonecall from my grandmother that said that she would not arrive until the next day. I can honestly say I was a bit irritated after standing at the airport for 3 hours. But now she finally is here, and we are having a great time!

From now on, my mother has the word:

I'm honoured! Really nice seeing my oldest daughter again after 4 months. I'm proud of her taking this challenge and doing so good. She speaks the language enough to get around and to bargain with the kingadrivers.

Look here, my dear : I brought you some books for your studies.  Read'em and........! Exams in June.

This is a different world, a beautiful world full of people, animals, colours, sounds and odours.
I think we are "the talk of the town" here now. Not many white people around. When we walk down the road, the buses will slow down and everybody inside it are looking at us. We just take the "royal" wave back and get big smiles in return. Children will come up to us and smile and want us to take a photograph of them. When they see themselves on the screen, they laugh and seem to be having a lot of fun with it. We take walks here and that is a strange thing to do because they know we can afford to take the bus or a kingataxi, so why walk? I think we can see much more of everyday life here when we walk and we will easier get in contact with people.

Today we went to the market:

This is the dried fishmarket:     The same amount of flies as of  fish. The smell was indescribable.

Some of the beautiful children we met. They followed us around and were all smiles. These are not beggars, just happy to see strange, white people. Mary Ann: Are YOU comfortable with the situation?

In Norway we have a delicacy called "syltelabber"(pork's feet), here they have cow's feet. I wasn't tempted to try...I'm not sure they were fresh, kind of yellow.

But, meat will not be fresher than this:

Or this..

Or this..????

The only thing I know about this is that we found them in the "fresh food-section" of the market.

- Anita