August 10, 2013

Saturday, Aug 10

It’s been another crazy week.  We had 7 missionaries go home and 3 new ones come.  With all of the goings and comings and us still trying to figure out what we are supposed to do and how to do it – it has all made for a bit of craziness.  Oh well, we must like it because we are doing well. 

Everyone here is wonderful and very helpful while we are trying to get into the swing of things.  I get to be out in the outer office and see all of the missionaries as they come in and visit with them, so you know I am doing good and loving that.  Fréde, the APs, and the office Elders are all working on getting me up to speed.  I learned a lot with all of the missionary comings and goings this week.  It’s good they were a small group coming in because next month we get 16 new missionaries, with only 3 going home. 

Tuesday evening Sister Adams cooked dinner for all of the departing missionaries, the APs, the Shupes, us and Adams – dinner for 15.  She is an amazing woman.  I go up and help her, for just a little while before everyone comes, but she does all of the cooking.  She always fixes a green salad and a fruit salad.  She says that she doesn’t think they eat green salad type of vegetables much, as you have to wash the lettuce leaf by leaf and soak in Clorox water, as well as all of the other vegetables and fruits, before you can eat them. The food preparation that you have to do here is taking a little getting used to!

Dad is being really good about washing everything as soon as we bring it home so that it can go in the fridge ‘ready to use’.  Washing dishes is another matter – You have to wash with soapy water, rinse with filtered water and they rinse with filtered Clorox water.  Hopefully, if we are really careful about always doing it correctly, we won’t get sick. 

Tuesday after dinner we had a little testimony meeting.  What an awesome way to end our first week here.  Those missionaries are pretty awesome.  Being the Office Couple definitely has it’s perks.  We get to work closely with all of the missionaries, hear all of their good stories, and we go to all of the dinners.

Wednesday morning the two Malagasy Elders took a taxi ride home and the other 5 went to the airport to fly home.  Most of them have lost weight while they were here, one as much as 50 lbs (That’s because they are eating ‘street food’ and not being careful about washing what they eat properly).  President Adams and ‘company’ stayed at the airport for a little while and picked up the three missionaries coming in from the Ghana MTC.  One is a Malagasy and two are from Tahiti.  We had a fun time getting to know them and their new companions at dinner on Wednesday night.  Thursday morning they had a bunch of orientation and instructions, lunch (oh, darn we had to go eat again!), and then they went off with their new companions. 

Friday we ‘had’ to go to lunch again with the APs, Zone Leaders, Adams and us.  This has been a great week for not having to cook.  But I understand that it has all come to an end for a while.  No new missionaries until middle of September.

Saturday is our P-day.  We got up this morning and walked down our street and looked at all of the little street vendors down by the corner.  There were seven little kids with a cart, four little ones were riding on the cart and three others were on behind.  I asked them if I could take their picture. 

We went shopping at Jumbo’s and Leader Price today, it was Dad’s first time at a store.  We spent over 500,000 ariary at one store, but we have enough food to eat for a while now.  We are starting to learn what you can’t get here and what you use as a substitute instead.  They have tortillas which surprised me.  No brown sugar, but I have heard that Marcellin can get us something that is a ‘close’  substitute.  There is something like sour cream that is okay for cooking with but not very good to eat as a topping on tacos. 

The traffic today was terrible, it is most of the time, and they drive crazy here!  It took us about an hour to go 6 miles to the store.  Apparently, Thursdays and Saturdays are the days that most people get married.  We found out that traffic is usually pretty bad on Thursday and Saturday mornings; but it was still bad when we came back home in the afternoon!  Traffic is usually very congested.  Lots of cars, trucks, scooters, taxi beys and people walking in the road everywhere!

There is a river over by Jumbo’s where lots of people wash their clothes. They then lay them out on the bank to dry.  Just above where they are washing their clothes is a little dam and above the dam is a whole ton of garbage.  Life for the majority of the Malagasy people is pretty humble over here.  Most of the people live on the equivalent of $2 a day.  They eat mostly rice with a few vegetables in it. 

This is the 'laundromat' along the river over by Jumbo's.  This is just below the dam.  They wash their clothes in the river ad then lay the out on the bank to dry.
The picture below is of the river just above the dam where they are washing their clothes.  It is clear full of junk and garbage

For public transportation there are mostly ‘taxi beys’.  They are usually a 16 passenger van with a back door that swings open, and they cram as many people in there as possible.  There is a guy driving (and often talking on his phone) and another guy who mans the back door and collects the money.  Today we saw one so full that the last guy on couldn’t even get inside.  When the missionaries move from area to area they use the taxi beys; it costs them a little more when they have to strap their luggage on top.  Often a 5 hour trip in our car will take a taxi bey 9 hours, as they have to stop at all the little towns along the way.  Along the way there are places where they will stop for a potty break and there will be people there selling food for the passengers. 

 

This is one of the crowded taxi beys.  They are continually getting on and off out of the back door.  They are driving down the road with people still hanging out the door!

The guy in the above picture is pulling one of the carts that we see along all of the roads.  They are usually barefooted running down the road.  This one is empty, but many of them are piled super HIGH.  The really lucky ones have zebus to pull it!

You see these carts everywhere.  They use them to haul everything.  There are some with bigger tires that they use to haul huge loads, and the one pulling it is usually running down the street barefooted.  They are right there running down the street with all of the cars, scooters, and taxi beys!

  

We don’t have internet at our house yet, hopefully sometime this next week.  We are going to try and go up to the office either tonight or tomorrow and send this.  We are also going to try to skype, hope it works!

Please tell everyone that we get email just fine.  We even write back!  jcloward@clowardh2o.com or mgcloward@clowardh2o.com. 

We love you all.  Hope to hear from you soon and talk with you on skype.

Love, Mom & Dad