Don't Pick My Pocket!

I sure wish I had pictures of this one!

Yesterday Dad and I, the Adams and the Shupes went 'downtown' to do a little shopping at Prochards.  It's kind of like the market place in Nassau, a billion little stalls all bunched together.  Everyone in the city must have had the same idea, because there were a million people and traffic was pretty much at a standstill.  After we had been sitting in the same spot for about 15 minutes, Elder and Sister Shupe, Sister Adams and I got out to walk down the street. The street was packed with people and cars and even pedestrians weren't moving very fast. 

When we'd walked a couple of blocks, I felt my brand new blackberry phone taken out of the back pocket of my levis.  I know it was a dumb place to have it, but I had forgotten to take it out and put it in my purse.  Before I even realized what was happening, I had spun around and grabbed the guy by the arm and growled at him, "Give me back my phone."  While I was doing that he was handing it off to another guy, so I grabbed him with my other hand; and let go of the first guy and grabbed my phone back.  I looked down to make sure it was indeed mine, then I 'whacked' the second guy two or three times and told him, "Don't take my phone!"     Then I turned around and walked off.   

Don't mess with the blonde missionary lady!

Things are a little different here

When we first arrived in Antananarivo the end of July, it seems like my thinking was "this is not like home", or" I can't find this or that", or "I miss....".  I am so thankful that I have gotten over that kind of thinking!  Now, we can pretty much make do with whatever we find - sometimes we find what we need or something that will work, or we just do without - and it is usually okay.  Things are just different here!

When we were out at the airport recently, I went into the bathroom.  There is a room with four little stalls with doors (thank goodness!), two for men and two for women.  Sure glad I had my tissues in my purse!  When I went out to wash my hands, standing next to some man washing his, is when I noticed the roll of toilet paper hanging on the door knob of the door out to the terminal.  Things are a little different here!

We came home one night after a really busy week, when about all we would do at home is go to bed, and instead of a big black dog waiting for us - we found a big old slug crawling around on our kitchen floor!

Building practices here are a little different.  The house they are building next to our house basically has no mortar between the bricks.  Sure hope there is never an earthquake here, this is how all of the buildings are built.  After they get the brick all up, they put a layer of plaster over it so that it looks like it is a nice, solid concrete building.

The scaffolding on building projects is a lot like in Hong Kong.

As they build the next floor on top, they put bamboo all throughout the inside top floor to hold up the roof/floor of the next story.

Sometimes 'things' just disappear, like the sidewalk that connects this stairway to the side of the road!
You have to be really careful where you walk!  Lots of hidden hazards!

As cars drive down the streets, if they get a flat tire or have engine problems, they just stop right where the are and fix it.  Doesn't matter that their are LOTS of cars wanting to get around them.  When it's fixed they will go!  Things are different here!

Things are different, but every day is a new adventure.  What adventures we are having!

Catching Up

We have had a crazy 6 or 7 weeks!  It has been crazy here since the beginning of November with LOTS of visitors from South Africa, conferences and Mission Tour.  We are certainly glad that we have our jobs to do and President and Sister Adams do the 'wild and crazy' things, like traveling all over ALL of the time, and speaking at all of the meetings in different places. 

The second weekend in November Elder and Sister Cook from the South Africa Area Presidency came, they brought with them Hugh McKee and Never Phiri.  They toured several of the areas in Madagascar looking at meeting house needs and possibilities. 

Dad and I went out to the airport to meet them when they came back from Tamatave to drive everyone in to their hotel, and then the Senior Couples prepared potluck lunch for all of them on Sunday.   

When I first started making arrangements for their trip, I was really intrigued by the name Never Phiri and commented that I was excited to meet someone with such an awesome name. Never Phiri is from Zimbabwe and has worked for the Church in South Africa for quite a few years. He was a super nice guy but doesn't know why his parents named him that.  His parents certainly gave him quite the legacy to live up to with a name like that.  I would think that it would give him confidence and courage all of his life.   He did love it that I really liked his name.  When we took them back to their hotel, I got a picture with them.  

Never Phiri, Sister Cloward, Hugh McKee

The next week was really calm in the office because President and Sister Adams were in South Africa for Mission President Seminar.  

The fourth weekend Elder Mkhabella, an Area Seventy, came from South Africa for District Conference in Tamatave.  They all traveled down there for the weekend so it should have been calm here in Tana, but that was the weekend of the shooting here in our neighborhood.  Since President and Sister Adams were out of town, and the Shupes had gone to Tamatave that weekend, also; Dad and I were busy trying to make sure all of the missionaries were safe and accounted for.  

THANKSGIVING

The 'old' people got together and had Thanksgiving dinner at the Adams.  Elder and Sister Shupe had arranged to get a turkey brought up from Tulear for Thanksgiving.  Gaby, one of the Malagasy guys that help the Humanitarian Missionaries, had killed, cleaned and plucked the turkey and brought it into the office for the Shupe's to take home to cook.  He was a pretty weird looking turkey with his head and  his feet  still  intact.  I'm used to Butterballs that you get at the store!

I think that was the toughest turkey I have ever eaten.  It definatly wasn't a butterball, cooked  in a Cook'in Bag!  Everything else was good and we had a fun time together and played some fun games.

It wasn't like being home with all of the family, but it wasn't quite as strange as the year we had Thanksgiving Dinner in a bar in the Bahamas!  

Robert and Janell Todd from the Pleasant View 5th Ward are the Senior couple down in Antsirabe (about 3  1/2 hours south of Antananarivo) and they are doing a marvelous job down there.  When they were called to come here, they were given the job of getting the Antsirabe District ready to become a Stake.  They have worked miracles down there, and the District is doing awesome.  They are about ready to become a Stake.  Their District President was recently called to be a counselor in the Temple Presidency in Johannesburg.  It is going to be great for the Malagasy people to go to the Temple and have someone there who speaks their language, and knows many of them.  The Todd's are training their second District Presidency now.

The day after Thanksgiving, the last weekend in November, Elder Gidy, another Area Seventy from South Africa, came for District Conference in Antsirabe.  While everyone was in Antsirabe for District Conference, Elder and Sister Renlund, the Area President from South Africa, flew in and joined them in Antsirabe...

AND THEN THE CRAZINESS BEGAN...

The next seven days were super busy as the Renlunds and the Adams traveled all over the mission holding Zone Conferences.  Monday was Zone Conference in Antsirabe and travel back to Tana, Tuesday was Zone Conference in Tana and fly to Reunion, Wednesday was Zone Conference and a fireside in Reunion, Thursday was travel from Reunion to Tana then on to Tamatave, Friday was Zone Conference in Tamatave.

We sure have awesome missionaries here!

Saturday morning Dad and I got to go down to the Carlton and have breakfast with Elder and Sister Renlund and then take them to the airport.  What an awesome experience.  They are super nice, 'real' people.  We totally enjoyed our visit with them.  What a big job they have for this area of the world, and what great people they are.  All of our missionaries 'felt loved' when they left the Madagascar Mission.  

The next couple of days Elder van Reenan, another area seventy, was here for meetings.  The Senior couples had a potluck dinner for him on Saturday night and got to visit with him.  He has been here several times since we have been here.  He is another awesome man.  He knows Brenton and Janeen Salveson from our home Ward and often gets to see them when he is in Utah. 

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Dec 10 and 11 we had transfers, missionaries going home and new missionaries coming in.  And then training for the new missionaries on Thursday.  It is always sad for us to see the missionaries go home.  This time an AP and a former AP went home, we really get to know and love these young men.  It is kind of like sending one of your own missionaries out all over again - except that they are going home to their own families so you are also excited for them.  

Elder Smith and Elder Rasmussen, both were APs.

Update on the gun battle

  We've been learning a little bit more about what the gun fight was about the other night.  A group of seven Indi-Pakistanis were trying to abduct a guy and hold him for ransom.  They followed him to our Gastros and attempted to kidnap him there.  The two guards up the street at the police station who stand at their gate with AK47s noticed what was going on -- and that's when the 'fun' started.
  Our guard, Feete, said that one of the gang was standing in the driveway to our complex shooting up the street - that's why it sounded like like they were right in our parking lot.  Our apartment is the first one as you come  into our complex.  That is also where he died, right in our driveway!  Another one was shot just across the street from us.
  Three of the seven were shot and killed here and the other four ran away.  The police chased them down our street and all the way down into Analamahitsy.  They got away; but I don't think they will be coming back to this neighborhood.  I'm sure they didn't plan on all the police and guns in this neighborhood.

That's our car on the left, just inside our gate.  The Humanitarian couple, the Richards, live on the right.

Gunshots in the Dark!

  We had a little excitement last night!  About 8 pm we were both sitting at our dining room table working on our computers when we heard what we first thought were some fire crackers.  It didn't take long to figure out that they were gunshots and there were LOTS of them! They were very close to us, some of them sounded like they were out in our parking lot. 
  We turned off all the lights and sat here in the dark for a few minutes, then started worrying about all of our missionaries.  I had talked to the Richards, who live next door to us, a couple of hours before and they were up at the Mission Office calling some of their kids in the US.  First we called them to tell them to stay there if they were still at the office, but they were home and hearing the same things we were.  Since President and Sister Adams are down in Tomatave this weekend, we called the APs and had them check on all of the missionaries to make sure that they were in a safe place.  They were all fine.
  On Thursday of last week they had announced the official results of the elections that were held a month ago; since then there has been a military 'take over' in ten of the provinces, mostly down south.  We were worried that some of the political unrest was making it's way to Tana.

  We live right by the prison here, in fact our back 'yard' wall is the wall of the prison.  Just up the street from us, between our house and the Mission Home, there is a police station and military installation where they have soldiers with machine guns standing by the gate at all times.  Also, down the street a couple of blocks is another police station.  We are pretty much surrounded by people with guns. 

  After the initial shooting right by our house, it sounded like it moved down the street a ways before it finally stopped.  I'm sure it didn't go on for more that 15 or 20 minutes, but it sure seemed like it was a long time.  Everything was quiet the rest of the night.  And I do mean quiet, no traffic on the street, no dogs barking - just quiet. 
  This morning when we went out to go to Church, I kind of half expected to see bullet holes in the back of our car.  We couldn't see anything wrong. We talked to Elder Richards early this morning and he  had been out front checking things out.  The guard, we have a guard at the entrance to our complex 24 hours a day, he was telling a bunch of the residents what he had seen going on last night, but Elder Richards doesn't understand Malagasy so didn't know what he was saying.   When we got to Church we cornered one of the members who is with the police.  He told us what had happened and then gave us his phone number so that we could call him at any time day or night.  After Church Dad took a couple of the missionaries down to our house and had them talk to our guard to see what his version was of what had happened last night.
  A group of five or six armed East Indians went into Gastro's, a Pizza place about 100 yards up the street from our house, planning to rob them.  We're not exactly sure when the shooting started, but you can imagine with all of the gun power on this street, it didn't take long until a few shots turned into LOTS of gun shots!  Two of the robbers were shot and killed and the others took off; that is when the shots started going down the street.  Apparently the others got away.
  These guys must not have checked out the situation very thoroughly or were overly optimistic, with all of the police and military right here on this street it probably wasn't the best place they could have chosen to rob.  I know of a 'List' they could go on!  "World's ________ Criminals".
  Everything is calm and quiet tonight.  We are sure glad.

Spring is Beautiful

  Spring is beautiful over here with all of the jacaranda trees in bloom, you can see their gorgeous purple flowers all over the city.  Down towards the 'downtown' area is a lake with a statue out in the middle,  it has these beautiful jacaranda trees all the way around it.  It is quite a sight.

You want to be careful walking under a jacaranda tree.  The flowers are like little cups that fill with water in the night and then as the day warms up the little cups of water turn upside down and the water spills out.  Sister Richards thought that a bird got her really good the other day when she walked under one of the trees!  She was relieved to see it was only water.

   Whenever you go anywhere and get stopped in traffic - which is ALL of the time.  There is always someone that comes up to your car with their hand out begging for anything that you might give them.  Lots of times it's the little kids, but it is people of all ages.  Apparently, no one feels ashamed to beg here.  I just had to take a picture of this lady with two babies.  After we took her picture we gave her something.

  Most of the people here have very little.  More than 70% of the people live on less than 2,000 AR a day, which is less than $1 USD.  I can't imagine what it would be like to try and find enough money each day just to feed your kids.  These two babies don't look like they are starving, but we have seen some who are really skinny and do look like they are starving. 
  The lady and her two kids who live by the garbage dumpster down the street from us look hungry.  They sit there all day and go through what everyone throws away, hoping for something that they can use or eat.  When we take our garbage out I try to put some things that they can eat or use in plastic bags so that it doesn't get dirty.  All of the garbage dumpsters all over the city are gone through numerous times before the garbage is finally hauled away.  We are so blessed!  It makes us feel guilty that we are so blessed, and so are our children and grandchildren.

  I've always told Dad that 'I am not a pioneer'.  Living here must be a little bit what it was like for our pioneer ancestors.  Most of the people have no indoor bathroom, they have to haul whatever water they use, dirt floors, one room houses, no glass windows, hopefully they have shutters that they can close.  We live in a nice little apartment, but many around us live very humble lives.  Every day I am thankful for my toilet that flushes and the water that runs out of the tap for a shower, even on the days when it is just a trickle and you hope it will be enough to get the soap rinsed off.

  Just to the side of our house they are building another level on a two story little building.  They build them out of bricks that they make out of the mud out in the rice paddies.  During the winter here they make bricks out in the rice paddies; I guess that is why each little rice paddie has a 'lip' all the way around it.  They clear out the mud making bricks and then when it rains, it floods each individual little rice paddy and the water stays in the field to water the rice.  When they have a bunch of the bricks all made they stack them all up with a hollow spot in the middle and then light a fire inside to cure the bricks.  As you drive down the country you see lots of little mounds of bricks 'smoking' out in the rice fields.
  As we have watched him build we have noticed that he puts a 'little bit' of dirt and water between the bricks, then taps on them until they look even with the others around it.  This afternoon he was putting a piece of wood all around the top, he's probably getting ready to put the roof on.  It's none too soon for the roof as it usually rains every evening now. 
  He will end up putting some plaster or concrete looking stuff on the outside and then it will look like it is a concrete building and will look very sturdy.  But we know what is really on the inside of those walls!  There is an eight story apartment building just down from the Mission Home, and it is built the same way.  Sure hope there is never an earthquake here - everything will crumble!

Missionary Work

    A few days before our October 30 missionaries were to depart, Elder Cloward and I went teaching with Elder Randall and his Malagasy companion.  We went to see two families that evening.  The first family lived in a little house down this alley.  Elder Randall said that we could drive down there and it would be okay.  As we got driving down there we got lots of strange looks from some of the people walking along; the further down there we got we really started to understand those strange looks.  It got to the point that we had about 6 inches on each side of the car, and that was after we had folded both side mirrors in.  When we got to where their house was, we pulled over as much as we could, which wasn't much, and people just had to walk around the car.
  Their house had the main room that was big enough for a double bed, a little love seat and a cupboard with a television on top.  It had a real wooden door and a little window way up high with a shutter that would close.  There was some kind of other room also cause when the little boy had to go to the bathroom they went in there.  It had concrete walls and a  concrete floor.  The room was really clean, everything had a place; because there was No Room for anything to be out of place!
   The little family that lived there had a five year old little girl and then twin boys 22 months old.  Often the Mom and Dad would be gone, either working or looking for work, and the five year old would tend those two little boys, feed them, change them and take care of them for hours at a time.    The little family had been members for several months and they were teaching the Dad's cousin and his fiance over there. It was awesome to talk with them about the importance of families.
   When we first walked into the house, the little girl started to scream and cry and climbed back to the back of the bed as far away from us as she could get.  From what I understood, it was all of my white hair that had her so scared.  I've heard a few times that I look like a ghost.  By the time we left the little girl was my good friend, holding onto my hand and trying to climb up me.
  In order to get our car out of there half the neighborhood came out and they took down a fence so that we could get turned around.  The whole area knew that we had been there!

   The next family, a mother and three kids (a 14 years old girl, 10 year old boy and about a 6 or 7 year old girl), lived in a little one room wooden house out in the middle of some fields; I think they were rice paddies but don't know for sure because it was dark by the time we got there.  We walked along this little raised path out in these fields to where there were about 15-20 little one room 'houses'.  The lady had met us about half way along the path.  When we got to her house her 14 year old daughter was sitting on a bench seat out of an old taxi busse studying on a little 2x3 foot table by the light of one little candle.  Dad had a flashlight in his pocket and he stuck it to the metal ceiling.  It really lit up that little room.  All of his flashlights have certainly come in handy.
  They had fabric hanging over the door and the one window.  There was barely enough room for a double bed on one side with their belongings stacked on the bottom of the bed, and a twin bed on the other wall.  In between there was the seat out of a van, a little table that they could eat on and then another little 2x3 foot table against the other wall that had a couple of pans  and a jug of water under it.  Almost all of the people here cook on little charcoal burners either just outside their door or just inside the house.  It is always smoky here.
   This sweet lady that lives there is working like crazy just so she and her three kids can survive, and what she is worried about is making sure that she has a temple recommend.  She knows that she won't actually be able to go to the temple, but she wants to have a recommend.  The church here will help families to go to the temple in Johannesburg for the first time when they are going to be sealed as a family.  She won't be able to go because her husband is in prison.  She would like to get a divorce from him but she doesn't have the money to do it.  She was such a sweet lady, and it was wonderful to get to visit with her and to help teach her a little bit. 
   Going into these peoples houses and seeing how sweet and humble they are really makes you realize what is important and how much we need to be doing to help them.  It sure is humbling.

We  have a sign in our office of the definition of a missionary:

I love this little sign.  It certainly keeps things in perspective.




  

Gardens grow all over the world

  It has been a pretty crazy month here.  The days seem to be flying by, and we just hope that we get everything done that we need to.
  The garden out front is growing amazingly well.  We have lots of little green tomatoes on our tomato plants, and the zucchini plants are heading for the gate, they may end up out on the street at some point.  Dad takes really good care of it, he waters every morning before we head to the Mission Office and again in the evening if it doesn't look like it is going to rain.

This picture is from a few weeks ago.

Dad spent part of Saturday staking his tomato plants.

Spring is here!

     Spring is here and the garden is doing well.  The lettuce is growing like crazy, and the tomato plants lived through the transplant this time.  The cucumbers are a little iffy and slow, but the zucchini plants are growing here just like they do in Utah - we will have 'plenty' with just three plants!

Greg waters his garden every morning before we go to the office.

     After the fun weekend in Antsirabe, the week started off pretty calm.  Tuesday night Greg got a call while dinner was cooking, and one of the sister missionaries needed some medicine.  By the time he and the Office Elders got over to their house, it had been decided that they should take her to the hospital.  When you hear the word hospital over here, you are not exactly sure what you are going to get.  They took her to the hospital not too far from where we live.  They drove into this little courtyard and there was a little exam room on one side, radiology on another side, and admitting on another side.  When they decided to admit her, they put her in a wheelchair and pushed her up this open air ramp to the second floor where they put her in a 'tiny' room.  Her companion had to stay with her, so someone took an air mattress and some sheets and blanket down to her.  The room was so tiny that they had to fold the air mattress in half and she huddled on that during the night.  The next day they moved her into another room that had a bed in it for her companion. 
     It was Sister Pani who was sick, she is now pretty much my adopted Tahitian daughter.  She is a sweetheart.  She got here just after we did, so we have a great bond going.  They finally let her go home on Friday, and I'm still not all the way sure what they decided was going on with her.  But she is doing much better now. 

Sister Cloward and Sister Pani in the Malagasy hospital.

Sister Pani has lost over 30 kilo since she got here, I need to follow her around and see what I can get rid of. 

     We took Sister Adams and went back up to the drainage project site the other day.  It just amazes me the different 'layers' of life and living that goes on in this city. 

This is just after we left the main road and started to go back into the neighborhood where they are doing the drainage project.

     The whole city of Antananarivo is built on hills, everything here is either up or down, nothing is level or flat.  You will be walking along a street or walkway and all of a sudden a head pops up, followed by the rest of the person, or two or three.  It gets dark here about 6 pm and everything pretty much shuts down.  Imagine walking along this walkway - and there are no street lights - you could easily fall in one of these stairways without even realizing it was there.
























 

      They have covered all of the drainage pipe that they have put in, and now they are making stairs on top of it.  The people will be able to walk up and down this alleyway, even during the rainy season, without getting washed away.

Just a few weeks ago this was a deep trench with 24 inch pipe in it.

This is back in the neighborhood near where the pipe comes out of the little alleyway.

    The best part of going back in this neighborhood is seeing all of the cute kids there.  They love to have their picture taken, and then they always want to see it, and then they laugh and laugh.   The kids are really cute, and there are Lots of them back in there. 

These little boys have a chameleon on a stick, and there were two more in the tree that they were trying to get to climb on other sticks. 

Sister Adams with some of the kids.

 This little girl is always there when we go.  She is sure a cutie.  All of the kids are usually barefooted; I remember when I had tough feet and loved to go barefooted.  Some of the people wear flip flops but a lot of the time they are barefooted.

     Yesterday four of our missionaries went to the lemur park here in Tana.  Last night they called Sister Shupe, the nurse, and told her that one of the lemurs had bit three of them and was also going around biting some of the other lemurs.  They were wondering if it was anything they should worry about!  This morning they all went down to the hospital and got rabies shots.  They have to get five shots in all, they got three of them today and then go back on Friday for the other two.  Either the lemur has rabies or he was having a really bad day :(.  Anyway, all of the other missionaries are going to stay away from that park for a while.

     Thursday evening Greg and President Adams went to a meeting at the US Embassy.  They talked about the elections which will take place on Friday, October 25, here.  They don't think there will be any violence, but want everyone to stay away from crowds and be prepared for anything.  Everyone we have talked to think that it should go pretty smoothly.
     Another thing they talked about was that there is bubonic plague here in Antananarivo, and the place where they have found it is in the prison over by Lizy's Art Gallery.  That is exactly where we live!   About 10-12 feet out our back door is a 20 foot high wall that happens to be a common wall with the prison that they are talking about.  They said that it is spread by the fleas on the rats in the prison.  So if we can just keep the rats and fleas inside the prison and not over here, we will be fine.  There are three Senior Missionary apartments right here in our complex, we are all getting our houses and little yards sprayed again this week. 
     We all take our doxycycline every day, it is for malaria but it is also what you would take to keep from getting bubonic plague.  We take ours faithfully every day, even more so now!

We are having a great time here.  New adventures every day!  We love you all!  We also love email!!!

Fun weekend in Antsirabe and Ambustra

   Early Friday afternoon we left Tana to go to Antsirabe with President and Sister Adams for the Zone Conference down there.  We had dinner with Elder and Sister Todd that evening and had a fun time visiting with them.  When we get to see the Todds it is kind of like 'going home' for a little while; it is really fun to have them here with us. [For anyone who doesn't know, Elder and Sister Todd just live 8 houses down the street from us in Provo.]
    Saturday morning all of the missionaries cam to the Todd's house for Zone Conference.  The Todd's have a great house with beautiful flower beds and an awesome garden - complete with gardener.

Some of the missionaries arrived by pusse posse  

 

 

It seems like almost all of the pusse posse drivers in Antsirabe run barefooted no matter if it's hot, cold or raining buckets full of water; while the ones in Antananarivo usually wear flip flops. 
    While they had Zone Conference, Marcellin took Greg and I on south a couple of hours to Ambustra.  Ambustra is known for it's wood carvings.  Marcellin had kind of 'preordered' a nativity and a wooden chest for us.  I was super excited to see them. 

They are both beautiful.  The detail on the nativity is amazing.  The chest has a variety of Malagasy scenes all over it and is really awesome.  After they settled on a price for these, we had to go to the bank to get some more money; we hadn't brought enough cash with us.  Then while we were waiting for them to get everything packaged to bring home, we were looking around the store and found some more good things.  We got some little figurines depicting Malagasy life here; they all have children in them. 

So then we had to make another trip back to the bank for more money.  That was a very happy shop keeper!
   We got back to Antsirabe for the last part of Zone Conference.  What an awesome group of missionaries.  It is wonderful for us to get to be with them so much; they have such a great spirit about them. 

    Sunday morning we went to Sacrament meeting in Antsirabe and then went up to Andranomanelatra to their Sacrament meeting.  This second little branch meets in a house that they use for a church.  There is a room about 10 feet by 20 feet that is the 'chapel', there are also two small rooms across the hall from the chapel that were filled to overflowing; and the hallway as you walk in was packed like sardines.  When we got there, people moved around and they made room for us in the 'chapel' room, they weren't going to not let us sit in there.  There are four rooms upstairs that they use for classrooms and when it rains.  There were 164 people at Sacrament meeting!  What a faithful little branch.
    Two little deacons were passing the sacrament, they had to come back for more water - but they only have two bread trays and two water trays, so only two deacons can pass.  Today, Greg went down to the Distribution Center and got one more bread tray and one more water tray to send down to them.  He only got one each because that is all that there were. 
  You should hear these people sing!  They put their whole heart and soul into it, it gives you goosebumps.  I took some pictures of a few of the people that were there.

    On the way back to Antananarivo, there is one little area that you drive through where there are several people sitting by the side of the road selling rabbits.  As you drive by, they will usually hold them up by the ears to show what they have for sale. 
    I had told Marcellin that I wanted a picture of the rabbits, so when we got to this lady he stopped in the middle of the road so we could take her picture.  When she saw that we were taking pictures, she held up two rabbits.  Then she came over to the car hoping to sell a rabbit.  Since we weren't going to buy a rabbit for dinner, we gave her some cookies for her baby.  She was all smiles after that.  We are going to print the picture and take it down and give it to her next time we go down there.  We've heard that many times the people really never get to see themselves and what they look like.  They usually don't have mirrors in their houses or glass in their windows, and the water in the river is too dirty to see their reflection. 

What an awesome weekend we had!

Drainage Project

    This morning Greg had to go over to the drainage project to check on the stones they were delivering and to pay for them.  He talked me into going with him.  Wow, what an experience! 
    The project is only about a mile or so from where we live, but it was about three worlds away.  There are several levels of life and living that go on here - there is what you see when you drive down the street, and then there are several 'layers' once you get back into the neighborhoods behind the typical every day scenes. 


    We parked the car on the street by the Fukatony office and then the Fukatony president took us 'back into' the project site.  We went down several different little alleys until we came to a main thoroughfare that was about two and a half feet  wide, some of it was stone paved and some was hard packed dirt.  There were little stalls where they were selling some of everything along this walkway, and it wound in between buildings here and there.  Part the way the pathway has a building on one side and then a wooden railing on the other, it looks and feels like you are walking the old city wall in Jerusalem.  Everything here is either uphill or downhill, I don't think there is much that is a flat, level surface.  Over the railing and a bout 20 feet down is someone's little patch of yard with their laundry hanging out to dry.  As you walk along, all of a sudden you will see a head coming up above the surface of the walkway, out of a two foot wide space between two buildings.  When you look, there is a trail with steps cut in the earth and it is a main walkway that lots of people use. 
  Once we got past most of the buildings, there were some really steep concrete stairs that went down, then switchbacked and went down some more.  After that it was mostly a walk across a dirt area that was part garbage dump, storm drainage, and kids play area.  Along with lots of dogs and chickens. 
    When we got over to the project site we could see that quite a bit of work had been done.  They had moved all of the pipe sections into place and connected them and there were several guys hauling bags of dirt up the slope to pack around the pipe.  They are going to put a good layer of dirt over the pipe and then make steps out of some of the stones that were delivered today.  This was a main thoroughfare for these people in this neighborhood when it is the dry season and they want to get it usable again as soon as they can.  It looks like that when it rains it becomes a 'rip roaring' water slide. 

This is the pipe from the top side

 The view from the bottom.  On the left at the end of the pipe is a 'public' bathroom.

    They are trying to get this project done before the rainy season starts.    By the sound of things tonight, the rainy season is starting.  This is the third night in a row that we have had some pretty good rain.  Everyone says that it starts raining for a little while every day in November and December, and then it really rains in January and February!  Tonight we are getting pretty good rain by Utah standards.  It will be interesting to see what happens in January and February.
   They don't have enough money to buy as much pipe as they need to completely enclose the drainage, so they are planning to line the trench with the large stones and take it on down the hill to a fairly deep drainage ditch.  There are some houses not far downhill from the end of the pipe that will get flooded for sure if they don't get the stone lined drainage ditch deep enough.  Today when we were there, there was a woman outside the door of the house doing her laundry.  It just amazes me how clean they can get their laundry with just a couple buckets of water.  They have to haul whatever water they use, so they use it sparingly. 

Dad was taking a picture of me so that the people wouldn't think we were just taking pictures of them.

This is the house that could get flooded if they don't get the channel  at the end of the pipe deep enough. 























The local Ward in this area is providing a lot of the labor for this project through Mormon Helping Hands.  Some of the missionaries went over this afternoon and hauled rocks for a while. 

The Mormon Helping Hands that were there when we were.  Bishop Roger is just behind Patrick, who is kneeling; then the Stake Patriarch is just behind behind him.  Elder and Sister Shupe and a couple from the Ward were also there.