#vazaha

We've now arrived in the city of Tuléar (Toliara in the Malagasy spelling), on the southwest coast of Madagascar. This is also where I'll be for my ISP in April (well, I'll actually be at a research station north of the city, but it's not too far) and I've already fallen in love with it. It's much bigger than Fort Dauphin and has millions of delicious food options (things I've already eaten: pizza, lasagna, fish, ravioli, crabs, shrimp, yogurt, bread that isn't a baguette), as well as a lot more vazaha. Even aside from those things, it generally feels very different. In order to get to this little restaurant where I'm drinking a nice cold guava juice, I took a pousse-pousse (basically a rickshaw), which don't even exist in Fort Dauphin, but are everywhere here.` I'm rambling a bit here, so I'll just give a brief summary of the past few days: On Sunday, I got up bright and early, said my good-byes to my host family, and we were off to the airport. We had a little bit of trouble at security because our legalized photocopies of our passports had expired dates for our visas, but we managed to get through anyway. The flight was extremely short and we didn't even get water, but it was fine. We had quite a few lectures, but they mostly took place in a very nice classroom at the IHSM (Institut d'Halieutique et des Sciences Marines), part of the University of Tuléar, where we could see the ocean and the mangroves. We also got a tour of the little museum they run there, which had a lot of nice shells and other specimens, but most importantly a coelacanth. For those of you not particularly well-versed in your evolutionary biology, coelacanths were believed to be extinct until they were found off the South African coast in 1938. They're the oldest lineage of lobe-finned fishes and tetrapods (amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals). Probably this doesn't sound very exciting for those of you who aren't biologists, but I had my picture taken with it. We were staying at a campground at Namakia, south of Tuléar, which had mangroves and was very nice for swimming. We had some pretty delicious meals there at a restaurant owned by a Swiss ex-pat (I ate many a crab) and the last night, we had a sheep-roast at Jim's villa with the local villagers. It was quite the experience and the food was delicious. We also went to a lot of lectures, both in Tuléar and at the restaurant, so that was basically what was happening for quite a while. And now we're in Tuléar for the day, which is being really nice. Tomorrow we're heading north of here to Mangily, which is supposed to be wonderful, so I'll let you know what that's like on Friday when I have internet again.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I am eating so much more ramen noodles than I’m used to. My family has given me a lot of big bowls of soup with ramen noodles. The most interesting one was last night, when I got scrambled eggs and green onions in it. Pretty good, but I definitely preferred lunch today, when we had a huge fish that Tonton N’Aina bought yesterday at Evatraha with some taboara (squash) and of course, lots of vary (rice).Which brings me to my last point. Nearly every time I’ve eaten fish here, it’s been the entire fish. Complete with bones, head, and fins. The very first time this happened, we each got a little fish to ourselves. I was too hungry to care then, and since then I think I’ve gotten over it. Although I still haven’t brought myself to eat anything too near the head.