News from Madagascar
- Robin Malherbe
- Nov 27, 2009
Pic1: On the road
Hi there everyone
I thought I’d just write a quick update, as I’ve been back in Madagascar almost a month now after the quick visit to SA. What a wonderful trip, and spending time with you all made the return to Madagascar all the more difficult! But, as I’ve said, this is home. Home with its daily idiosyncrasies and surprises...
Like the people who bang on our yard door at all hours of the night, peering through the peephole and shouting in Malagasy; or the main road from the airport which has three lanes, so no-one really knows who’s meant to be in the middle; or the fact that there is no real middle class – only a missionary class; or that I’m sure there is more Chinese junk here than in China itself; or that one can fit at least two adults and three children on a scooter at the same time; or that one cannot find genuine DVDs, not even at DVD shops.... The list is endless.
Pic 2: Some of my neighbours
I was out at the sports club playing tennis a few days ago with a couple of friends, and saw rain clouds a-brewing, so jumped on my little scooter (that’s another story), and tried to zip home as fast as its mosquito-motor could take me. Needless to say it wasn’t quite quick enough and I rode into the teeth of one of the many tropical storms we have here. It was actually an amazing experience – one can see the clouds and storm approaching, and then it hits in all its fury, with needle-like raindrops biting into one’s skin. A fogged up visor. A complete soaking! And instant rivers through the suburbs...
Speaking about the scooter – a few weeks back I took my old dear of a Yamaha in to have a new back tyre fitted, and asked them to see why she was smoking and coughing worse than an old tannie on her front stoep. It turns out that the piston was damaged, which had in turn damaged the cylinder (amongst other things). I went to pick her up this afternoon, only to get two and a half blocks before she decided to go no further. The owner of the workshop is a parent of one of our school kids, so he kindly lent me a scooter to use for the duration of her surgery – again an experience I don’t necessarily want to relive. It’s got something loose in the front, so whenever one applies breaks it goes into a speed wobble which takes about 5 minutes to get over. I was passing a car the other day, which in turn decided to overtake another car. Before I knew it I was off the road wobbling along the dirt and dodging pedestrians and cyclists. I stopped to take photographs, to breathe and to let the adrenalin leave my system. But that kind of thing is kind of normal here.
Pic 3: Evan ready to go home.
Oh, so, back to the motorbike – it’s got a new tyre, new piston, had the engine rebuilt, had a new seat made, been resprayed in parts, has a new chain, had the electrical system sorted out (which had been a problem when driving at night), new fuel pipes, fuel filter, oil filter, stickers... She’s basically a new bike. I’m calling her ‘killer’. Mostly because she massacred my budget... R4000 later I’m hoping I get her a few blocks further down the road when I next see her...
I went straight back to school the day after returning from South Africa, and we are frenetically preparing the kids for their December (half-year) exams. Today they finally woke up to the fact that they are around the corner. Not a bad thing. Teaching is much more of a challenge than I expected! I’m not sure if it’s like this everywhere (you teachers out there will have to let me know). One of the major challenges is with English. (it’s many of these kids’ second or third language). As we are meant to be preparing them for first-language- English exams we face plenty of frustrations! And the fact that many of these kids have had very privileged backgrounds and are just plain lazy. I’m convinced I wasn’t like that when I was at school! But at least I have holidays from the 24th December through to the 11th January to look forward to. I’m hoping to get away for a few days – maybe up to Ile St Marie to experience some of their tropical storms and good sunshine in between.
Last weekend was excellent The young adults in the church had organised a Saturday outing to a lake three hours out of Tana for a picnic and to baptise three or four new Christians. So, armed with my Speedo, I jumped on board the bus ready for a day of splashing and picnic-ing. But it rained. All day. We had fun anyway, and it was amazing to see the four who were baptised beaming as they came up out of the water. The church truly is growing! Picnics in Madagascar are an interesting affair. Firstly, everyone brings pasta! Secondly, they play games together. Many games. Strange games. One of them involved musical sokkie-ing, like musical chairs. I thought only South Africans sokkied... And so after four hours in the drizzle we drove home. And a great day was had by all. Even Reece, the Midgley second-youngest who was carsick all the way there but looked none the worse for wear.
Pic 4: One of the baptised with Tanteraka
Speaking about the church growing – we really are seeing an expansion month after month, and the new name change to Tana City Church has gone without a hiccup. Most Sundays we run out of filter coffee early which clearly shows the growth, and we are also running short of chairs. We just bought some new sound gear – two new Yamaha speakers, a new amp, and new monitors (thanks to an incredibly generous donation of dollars from someone in Pretoria) and we hope to expand the sound gear with a new bass amp really soon. It’s fantastic to see the difference in worship compared to six months ago (not only because of the new gear!)
We are sending a team of three down to the Manambolo river at the beginning of next month to finish the building of the store room, put on the remainder of the roof and put up the water tower, and really look forward to continuing that work next June through to August once we are on school holidays, and we have more money...
So, I was mentioning to one of my grade 7s the other day that I was about to turn 40, and that I was expecting appropriate gifts from all of them, to which he replied, “so, something like a wheelchair?” I said that a walker would do just fine... Kids. Gotta love ‘em. It seems we have a celebrity in our midst – Sue led aerobics for the grade 10s and 11s last week while the regular instructor was away, and one of the Grade 3s, in all seriousness, asked Jeremy whether it was Hannah Montana on the stage. (I’m not sure which is funnier – the question, or Sue being proud of it...) The boys are all still loving school and thriving in the environment, even if Evan sometimes finds it difficult to tear himself away from his mom first thing in the morning.
