Antananarivo, Madagascar!

I'M HERE!  Arrived Saturday after a three-hour flight from Johannesburg, met by the Mission President and his wife and the two secretaries who are my neighbors, and two helpful missionaries who took my bags.  On the long way to my apartment/townhouse we drove through winding, narrow streets lined by tiny tin-roofed shops selling veggies and fruit, meat hanging from hooks, every kind of clothing etc.  Huge numbers of people walking everywhere, zebus pulling a cart, a man toting huge oil drums piled about eight high.  The rice paddies soon appeared on both sides of the road, divided into plots with rice growing at all different stages: high and green or low and stubbly.  In another area, men forming bricks from the red mud and setting them out to dry.  The houses here are all made of those red bricks, plastered over.  The scene (except for the rice paddies) reminded me of the medinas of Morocco and the poorer villages of El Salvador but this area seems poorer and more heavily populated.  The city was built for a population of 250,000 and 2.5 million live here.  It is very polluted. The average salary is $2.00 a day.  Somehow life goes on.

Our townhouse was a pleasant surprise.  It's in a compound of ten townhouses, with tall iron gates which need to be unlocked and a front patio of cement where cars can be parked.  Another iron door to unlock, then inside doors.  A living/dining room area with a small fireplace, a small kitchen with new stove and fridge, new washer and drier outside on the back patio--a concrete area enclosed with high plastered walls, where you can hang clothes.  But you have to bring them in quickly or they become covered with red dust.  Three rooms upstairs--two bedrooms, a study/ironing room, a toilet in one tiny cubicle and a bathroom.  The bedrooms have doors opening onto a balcony with railing from which you can see over part of the city, including the king's and queens' (many queens!) palaces--burned in an uprising some years ago and now museums.  A guard sits at the entrance to the compound and a rail is closed across the entrance at night.  Simple but plenty adequate for our needs!  At night the dogs bark and the traffic keeps roaring by, and in the morning the roosters start crowing around 5.  I like the noises!  A huge contrast to the almost complete lack of noises at night in Rappahannock County.  (We do have owls and coyotes...)

Today I met my companion, Florine Rastoalimanga.  She is a wonderful person and we will have a lot of fun together.  She doesn't speak much English, so we communicate in French.  I have a built-in Malagasy teacher and she an English one!  More later...


Soeur Florine and me, missionary companions!