First few weeks in Madagascar

Manaona Daula (Hello All),

This is the Malagasy greeting I say to a group of people as I pass them on the street. I’ve been trying to jog in the morning to sneak some exercise into my super busy schedule. Jogging is difficult as I have to run around large puddles, cows, kids on their way to school. Everyone in the small town is really friendly. They say hello to everyone; I mean everyone. It is a great way to meet people and practice my Malagasy.
Learning Malagasy has been an adventure already. There are so many words to learn. I just learn to laugh at my mistakes and celebrate small successes. I was able to successfully bargain at the market and ask the a cat if it wanted a banana. My host family is very helpful in learning the language. I live with a family who has two teenage kids who enjoy listening to American, French and Malagasy music on their radio and computer. The mom runs a small store and the dad is a security officer at Peace Corps. They have two cats and from what I can understand one of the cats is pregnant.
There are 41 other trainees in my training. 21 health and 21 education volunteers. A good number of the people are recent graduates from around the U.S. We just learned out sites and I will be at a site 300 miles northeast of the capital (Tana) near Lake Alaota.

Since I don't know how often I will be online(it may be a few weeks or months) please write to me as a better method of communication (Teena Curry, PCT Peace Corps, Corps de la Paix, B.P. 12091, Poste Zoom Ankorodrano, 101 Antananarivo, Madagascar. ) If you write to me then I will have your address and can write back.

I need to go now as more people are in line for the computer.

Thanks,

Teena