Life in Madagascar
Life here will quickly become normal to us so while things are still new and unfamiliar we thought we would try to give an idea about some of the differences we have found living in Madagascar compared to the UK.
Driving around Tana is slow but whereas traffic in England can be frustrating, it is the norm here so everyone seems quite chilled on the roads. There are people everywhere, walking on the roads or sat by their market stall with children tied on their back or playing quietly in the heat. There is a lot of poverty here and people have hard lives trying to earn a living. There are hundreds of market stalls selling things like fruit, meat (that has been hanging in the sun all day) and a range of car brake disks! Watching street-sellers chase would-be customers down the road trying to sell them paintings or caged birds and watching people on bikes carrying precarious loads means you never get bored while driving here!
Freshly bleached market vegetables |
Shopping takes ages at the moment because everything looks different and is written in French so you don't immediately see what you want (of course, quite often they just don't have it here). And I have Bethan with me so a lot of time is spent returning items back to the shelves that she has decided we need to buy! Every price is mentally divided by 4000 to see if its a reasonable price compared to England. I look forward to the day when I see a price in Ariary and know if its good-value or not. We have found a place where we can get fresh milk so we don't have to use UHT anymore. Also I now know the meaning of "lait cru", which I didn't when I bought some last week. Consequently, I have now learned how to pasteurise milk as a result! When we get home all the fruit and vegetables are bleached in the sink and rinsed with filtered water. Bethan is particularly enjoying the mangos here, which are just coming into season. It is very strange to have had the English summer and now be approaching "spring" here in Madagascar. We've had our first rain in the last few days as its coming to the end of the dry season but its getting hotter as we approach the summer months when there will be a lot of rain.
Washing apples in filter water |
Bethan and a praying mantis |
We feel very settled in Madagascar and have found a church (Tana City Church) that is English speaking and similar to our home-church in Buckland so we are really pleased about that. It has also helped us meet people here as we adapt to life without our family and friends nearby. Becki has been doing a lot of flying training in the last week and should soon be ready to start taking passengers. We will try to update this blog regularly with stories and photos of some of her first MAF flights.
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