Mahafinaritra

Malagasy for beautiful and pronounced more like "Mafanatra" then how it looks. Though it's overused, much like beautiful is in our own language, I was overwhelmed by this single word yesterday. But first, it requires a whole story.
Sometimes the pollution, noise and busy/stressful movement of Tana can get to me, so I try to get out of town whenever the offer is proposed to me. This past weekend I went down to Antsirabe, which is about three hours south of Tana. Now, I've written about the taxi brousse experience in the past, and as it is really the only means of public transport between towns (except planes, but I'm not THAT rich), I'm forced to take them when necessary. I've now gotten used to the cramped quarters and the three hours passed quickly, while reading my book. As we arrive in town, we pass the taxi brousse station rather quickly. This confuses me, but as I don't understand Malagasy and was absorbed in my book, I did not realize that the driver had asked if anyone needed to go to the station, and instead to drop people of elsewhere. This posed a major problem for me as I was meeting my friend, Andry, at the station and I don't know Antsirabe well at all. However, Malagasy people being as nice as they are helped me and got the driver to turn the car around. The kindness of strangers here goes beyond normal.
I have been to Antsirabe before and this time Andry and I had a lovely day eating lunch and walking around a rather picturesque lake. However, it was getting late and we both needed to get back to Tana, so we made our way to the taxi brousse station. Now, I have a somewhat infamous reputation at this station, and because not many vazaha ride taxi brousses, everyone remembers me. A few weeks ago, I had left overs from lunch that I didn't want to waste, so I decided to find a starving child to give it to. So I'm standing at the station and this little girl, no more than 4, starts walking towards me in a red dress that's mostly rags and no shoes. My heart is touched and I become determined to help this girl and give her what meager food I have to give her at that moment. Perhaps I was a little too determined, and maybe walked towards her too quickly, because as she saw me coming she screamed and ran away. I was crushed, and meanwhile everyone at the station, about 30 people, find this situation ridiculously hilarious. I can't believe I terrified this little girl, and it actually upset me for awhile, but eventually I found another little boy to give it too, and he at least didn't run away from me. Everyone at the station also found this hilarious, for reasons I can't understand, and so I was laughed at until the taxi brousse left. This past weekend, I'm sure people remembered me, because as we show up, many people start smiling and watching my every move. There weren't any taxi brousses this time however and Andry and I were more concerned about getting back to Tana. All of the sudden, Andry sees something and starts running towards the road, yelling something back to me that I couldn't understand. Well, the only thing I could do was to start running after him, which again put everyone at the station in stitches to see the big, tall vazaha running after a Malagasy... apparently that doesn't happen often. Eventually I catch up with Andry, limping a little cause I'm not supposed to run with my knee, and slightly annoyed because he made me run and make a fool of myself in front of all the Malagasy. BUT it turned out we were lucky to find a ride with someone Andry knows, in a real car, that's way more comfortable than a taxi brousse.
The ride back to Tana was exquisite. First, a few minutes outside of town there are these gorgeous fruit stands, that pile fruit in the most artistic way. I tried to take pictures of it, but it just didn't come out right. Anyway, everytime I pass this stand in the taxi brousse, I always want to stop, but of course, the taxi brousse won't stop just for my meager fruit desires. So on this last trip we were able to stop and buy beautiful green apples (you skin them, of course, before eating them) and wonderful purple, Welsh grapes that were very rich in flavor. I would have been content with just that fruit for the ride back, but the ride became infinitely more fulfilling towards sunset.
I'm convinced that there is no other sky in the world like here. The clouds do the most amazing, unbelievable things, and if I knew the proper words for clouds I would describe them to you, but I'm no meterologist. The best I can do is compare, and in the summer in Ohio, you get maybe two or three different types of clouds in the sky at a time, and that's usually right before a summer storm. Here I swear there are 8 types of clouds all the time, and the sky before a storm is truly indescribable. Plus, the sky here is huge. It reminds me of the western United States, because you get the feeling you can see forever. Anyway, the sunset on this particular ride back to Tana had me nearly in tears. It started around 5:45 and continued until 6:30, and it took up the whole sky... literally, everywhere I looked there were amazing colors reflected on the quite poetic assemblage of clouds. I didn't even deign to try to take a picture of it, because any result would have just been insulting to the beauty. I wanted to get out of the car, sit on top of the hill and watch this amazing feat of nature unfold over rolling hills and rice paddies. Andry thought I was overacting, but apparently he's used to these types of gorgeous events in the sky.
So, this is my follow-up to my rather strange blog about my difficulty with insects (which continues by the way... I found my first cockroach in my apartment, big as two fingers put together... nearly had a heart attack, but that's another story). But I just wanted to put all of your minds at ease, and describe some of the beauty as well. It took me several days to write this blog, so even though the date says Jan 31, I didn't post this until Feb. 3. I've been very busy this week with work, and I actually hired an assistant to help me. Her name is Mirina and so far things are going very well. I also had dinner with two other Fulbright girls the other night, which was very nice and intellectual and made me feel very American, reminding of dinner parties my friends and I would throw at Vassar. So that's my news so far... my next blog will be about shopping at the markets here in Tana as per request of my wonderful grandmother.