Vita (Finished) Month 2!

Where should I begin? Haha It’s been another great month at site and only 22 more to go! Haha I’ve been harvesting rice and reading a lot about gardening. I’m officially Malagasy now because I eat rice 3 times a day. That’s a lot of rice! Haha I enjoy it though and even crave it sometimes. My village calls me a white Malagasy haha. They’re great! This month has been harder for me though and I think I have realized how hard it is to be away from home and all its comforts. Yes, my village is great and helps me out a lot but it’s still very different here. I feel like I’m growing as a person because of that and really getting to know myself. I’m learning to live in the present moment and not in the past or future. It’s hard not to think of the past of being home or being home in the future, but I know this is where I should be right now.

June 26^th is Madagascar’s Independence Day, so we celebrated it for 3 days at my site. When I say 3 days, I literally mean 3 days of not sleeping haha. It was kind of crazy to say the least haha. We had dance parties that would start at 6pm and not end until 6am the next morning! I love Malagasy music and they love to show me how to dance Malagasy style so they can make fun of me haha. I love to play them American music and show them my pictures of Madagascar on my computer. It’s great that I have my computer and can make them CD’s and show them pictures and stuff. Since we have a generator I can use it at site too, so it’s nice! Back to the partying days, the kids at our primary school and the villages around us all sang and danced at this ceremony and it was really cute. I will have to say that we had the best dance haha, not to be biased or anything. Everybody got new clothes and stuff too because that’s when they buy new things is for major holidays. We ate tons of rice as well and watched a lot of movies. I think I’ve watched more movies here in the past month than I have in the last year or so haha. Almost every night recently there has been a movie or music videos to watch, so it’s been great. When I get back to site they are going to have a dance party for my birthday! Haha so that’ll be fun! They really do take care of me and look out for me so that’s really nice. Since I don’t eat meat since I’ve been here really they all know this now and always get me another side dish besides meat which is cute and nice because this lets me know that they are going out of their way to accommodate for me and another way that they look out for me.

Other stuff going on

Today is my 23rd! yay! haha a few volunteers have come into Fianar to help me celebrate which is awesome! I got a few packages as well and letters so thanks to those who sent me things, I was the happiest person ever to get food for my bday!! haha It really is the simple things here and things you would take for granted back in the States that really bring you happiness here. I really appreciate it and miss all you guys!! I can't believe I've been here for over 4 months now it really has gone by fast when I think of it like that. We have another training the beginning of August so I'll have internet then again and am going on vacation! woo! haha you might think that since I'm here it's like being on vacation all the time haha, but it's really not. While this country is very beautiful and wonderful its a hard life here and day to day can be really hard in a village that is extremely different from life in the States. I'm still getting used to the culture and customs here and am trying to 'fit in' as much as I can while still maintaining my own identity with myself. It's great though here and even though it can be hard I know that I have a lot of support through PC and other volunteers here as well which is really so helpful that you can relate with them and hang out almost monthly or so.

Sorry this probably isn't too exciting to read this month, I haven't had a lot of time to write before I got here so I'll try to update more specific things next month! Let me know if you have any questions as always!