Its May!

Thank god! I really felt like April was the longest month ever, and here's why:

1. I kept having medical issues, when I actually had been really lucky up till now (from fainting and needing stitches, to getting food poisoning (or a parasite... who knows?), to getting a sinus infection, which I'm finally getting rid of!)
2. I didn't go anywhere. I stayed basically in Tana for the whole month of April, with maybe just a few short trips to Antsirabe. This meant that I got a lot of work done, and it actually was really beneficial in that way, because I will get a few more publications out of it, but it wasn't so good for my mental health.
3. It was my 7th month here in Madagascar (topping the record for longest I've been out of the US) and I had no departure date, so I felt there was no end in sight.

Now, we're in the 8th month of my grant and everything has changed really. I'm finally getting healthy, I have lots of satisfying work that I need to get done, I only have 5 weeks left here and there's still a lot of Madagascar that I want to see and experience. Plus, I have that American culture lecture to work on, PLUS Tabitha and Roxy are coming into town at the end of May, and it's always a party when they are here. The only sad thing is that it is finally winter here, which means that instead of being satisfyingly warm (sometimes way too hot) all day long, no matter where you are, there are fluctuations of warm and cold, so you never know what to wear, or when you'll be cold/hot. What's even worse is that it gets darker earlier, which is not only depressing but also limits general freedom, as things are not really open and it's not really safe to walk around alone when it's pitch black out at 6:30pm. However, the nice thing now is that I have more Malagasy friends, so I don't have to walk alone at night if I want to go out to dinner etc.

The funny thing now that's hard to explain is how normal I feel here. I'm so used to everything that nothing feels out of place and I even forget that I'm in a foreign country. For instance, there is a part of the road going from Tana to Antsirabe that seriously could be in Ohio... it's corn fields and then a Shell gas station. I mean, it seriously could be on the way to Miami University in Oxford! The strange thing is when I first saw it I was really confused by the rice paddies and mud huts surrounding this beaucolic mid-Western scene. Now, that feels completely normal to me and anything else would feel out of place. Rice paddies, mud huts, banana trees, children with no shoes, wearing rags, and apparently parentless running around... these are all now normal to me, and it's sometimes hard to remember a time when this wasn't the norm.

Despite becoming increasingly used to life here (I boast to my Malagasy friends that I'm "tsy misy vazaha, Malagasy be", meaning no long vazaha, very malagasy), I have prided myself on keeping up with life in the States. Any important news is either covered by newspapers or tv here, or my parents. Plus, I have wonderful friends who e-mail me frequently. So, I didn't really think that I would feel really out of it coming back to the States. I now realize that I've probably missed more culturally than I thought. In an effort to see what's been happening culturally, I thought to start with Hollywood, which seems to direct the path of American culture at the moment. To my shock and surprise, I found out that the 3rd (and final) Star Wars movie was opening in May. I seriously hadn't heard anything about here... nothing. I had no idea and didn't even think about it. I imagine that in the States previews have been playing non-stop on TV, action figures, t-shirts, video games, fast food promotions and pre-sold tickets... the whole deal. And in Madagascar, it's like Star Wars never existed! I'm now worried that more has changed than I realized and I'll get back to the States and a vanilla latte at Starbucks will cost $10 and the fashion of the early-90's with neon colors and Hammer pants will be back in style, and everyone will point and laugh at my dusty, travel-worn clothes from last season! So, that might be exaggerating, but the general idea is there. The subtle cultural changes that have occured over the past 7 months haven't made it into the newspapers or TV shows, or even news from my parents and friends. I can't help but wonder what I'll notice and what will seem so completely different and new to me when I'm back in the States, but completely normal and quotidien to everyone else around me. I'll have to keep writing once I'm back in order to share these emotions with all of you!