This is a typical day in the eyes of Dannielle...

So it’s my turn. I would like to begin my first blog by pointing out that publishing my thoughts to the public in an entertaining way isn’t a hidden talent of mine. J

These last few weeks have been a blur. I don’t even know how many weeks it has been. Everything is running together.  But I won’t bore you with the last few weeks, and just focus on what took place today.

Ever since this past Sunday, the girls and I have been getting up 0600 and taking a walk to the Indian Ocean. That just sounds epic. It’s absolutely beautiful! It takes roughly 30 minutes to get there. Close to the beach, there are a few nationals who set up their own coconut stands. They sell the whole coconut, coconut milk, and something that seems to be fried coconut meat.  We have this plan to buy from the same vendor every day. We started this plan today, and bought two coconuts from this gentleman. We asked as best we could with the very, very little Malagasy we have learned in the past five days, for coconut. The gentlemen called to a young girl near by, and she came back with two coconuts and a hatchet. She starts whacking away at these coconuts, and eventually we have two opened coconuts.  And by “opened,” I mean a hole in the top that’s about an inch and a half in diameter, just enough to slurp the milk out. What we really wanted was the meat. But, such a simple task to request was far too advanced for our incredibly limited, hardly existing Malagasy vocabulary. However, throwing the coconuts on the tile outside our house solved the issue, and we happily ate our coconut meat.

The best way to describe learning Malagasy, is like trying to learn German from a teacher who only speaks French when you only understand English. It has been a little discouraging; but today was much better. We learned numbers! It’s practically a formula. The science person that I am loves formulas. And so, numbers was a much better. Malagasy is a difficult language to learn, but I’m determined to keep trying.

I know this doesn’t seem like a lot, but that’s all I did today. Oh, and the girls and I made dinner for the team. Mexican casserole. Yum! Yum! But going to the market, buying raw ingredients, scrubbing the heck out of anything that breathes before boiling it to practically vapor and then cooking a meal has become a normal task of mine. We then played some games together, had some good laughs, and now it’s bed time. It’s well beyond missionary midnight here (and that’s 9pm, or 2100, for those of who don’t know what I’m talking about). So veloma!