A Typical School Day

On a typical school day (Mon-Fri,) a company offered school bus comes at 7:10 AM to pick us up. Then we continue to pick up another family. The road is neck-breaking bumpy, so when the weather is nice, we prefer walking to school.

Since all foreigners and rich local people send their kids to Lycee Francais, we get to see lines of 4x4s and pick-ups in front of the school, for the drop-offs and pick-ups 4 times a day. What a big mess!

The school director greets children at the elementary school gate. When passing the gate, kids say, "Bonjour Monsieur Director!"

Leo arriving in his class. Kids hang their back packs at the entrance, and puts their snack bags in the kitchen to begin the day.

Leo, the runner.

Yes, sometimes this boy walks,too.

Kid's Dance Class

Leo and Laiyane take dance classes at the Alliance Francaise twice a week.
Photo 1: This year in Leo's pre-kindergarten class, the teacher was concerned about his concentration. Apparently, Leo would pay little attention to teacher's instructions. We are not worried about it, but we (more me than Simon, since he prefers Karate to dance for a boy) proposed Leo a contemporary dance class to boost up concentration, and have fun at the same time.

Here is Leo's super concentration moment. See? It works!! (This is Dance Composition No 1. Note: This movement repeats throughout the dance.)

Photo 2: Laiyane is no longer into ballerinas, but she enjoys this dance class. For those who didn't know Laiyane well up to the age of 4, she basically wouldn't wear anything else but ballerina dress day and night, summer and winter. By the age of 4, the dress got so tight on her, that I even had to patch the dress with similar fabric, so she wouldn't left without THE ONLY clothes on earth. (Yes, she had drawers filled with other pretty clothes.)

Photo 3: Beautiful Malagasy girl in her white ballerina dress. I found her so picture perfect. Come to Madagascar, anyone can be a professional photographers. There are just so many picture perfect scenes.

Photo 4: Leo's movement practice. Notice how he studies his movements in front of a mirror, while others run around and make noise? He looks so obsorbed in his thoughts, I wonder what he is thinking.

Our Growing Animal Friends

Our animal friends are definately growing in numbers at our place in Tamatave!

First was our dog, P'tite Fille. She was born during the last year's cyclone among 6 puppies. She loves to play with children, and thanks to her, Leo has gotten over his fear of dogs. He used to be afraid of dogs so much, we sometimes had to walk around the block to avoid neighbour's dogs. Now he pets and hugs the dog like a pro.

Then, joined the baby rabbits. The rabbits are from a local market, Bazar Kelly. We can find the rabbits on sale only before big festivities, like Christmas and New Year's. Against the rabbit seller's strong advice, "Buy those bigger ones! These ones are too small. They will never be ready even for next year's Christmas!!" we got the cuttest baby rabbits. Within a few months, they ate through not only carrots and cabbages, but literally the entire flower garden and shrubs around the house!!
Don't worry. They will still be there even after the next year's Christmas.

Only two weeks ago, I went to a Halal chicken store. I'm not a muslam, but with the big muslam population here, many meat stores are Halal. Unlike other days, the cashier asked me if i wanted to buy his live chicks. They were 6 days old, and stayed in his dark back store, with piled up boxes of who-knows-what's-in-them! It could be their future, for you-know-who's sake!! Gees.
I said, "humm. why not," and came home with 1 kg of frozen chicken breast to make chicken curry with little peas, 1 whole chicken for the roast, 4 chicken drumsticks to try out home-made shaken' bake, and the 3 beautiful chickiri-papiri-doos. They are so cute that they don't even look like birds(I am scared of birds.) They are like these soft and fluffy yellow blobs.

Laiyane's First Tooth and 10,000 Ariary

It was late at night of May 7, 2009.

When Simon and I came back home, the babysitter, Josianne told us that Laiyane's tooth fell out!

Laiyane is 6 1/2 years old, and most of her classmates already had their tooth fairy’s visits, it was only natural for her to get very anxious to loose her first tooth since the beginning of the school year. Josianne wraped the tooth with sewing thread, and pulled it out, with no fuss, no pain. As I was watching Laiyane sleeping that night, with her precious tooth under her pillow, I could not help but revisiting all the lovely milestones that she has set out so far. I remember her beautiful smile with her jewel like first tooth. Her first walk. The first ride on a little yellow toy car. The first day at school. I wanted her first fairy's visit to be extra special.

I don't remember my tooth fairy visit, perhaps it's not in Korean tradition (I should confirm this with my parents though...) but my Canadian born friends' told me about their experiences. Tooth fairy would come and leave little coins under the pillow.

In Madagascar, little coins worth nothing. Stores won't even take them, because you can't even buy a pack of chewing gum with them. For Laiyane, who doesn't know the value of money yet, I didn't want her to race to a store with her proud earned money, and face the cold reality. So the tooth fairy left a brand new 10,000 ariary bill (equivalent to about 6 dollars? enough to buy 2 packs of gums, and 2 packs of juice)

I waited for the morning as much as Laiyane did. The first discovery of tooth's fairy's visit! I heard Laiyane searching under her pillow, and little footsteps marching into our bedroom in hurry. Her eyes almost filled up with tears from disappointment, with her chocked up voice, she announced the sad news. "The fairy forgot to leave me money... there is just this paper in an envelope..." and she pulled out the bill.

What was I thinking? To Laiyane, the paper money was worthless. Just a piece of a paper, she called it. She has waited for the shiny coins. The "real" money, like in her storybooks...

I remember when I was little, on a new year’s day, families would give their little children money as part of the annual celebration. I was about Laiyane’s age, and I would go to a store, to exchange all my paper bills with the smallest coins possible (just because it fills up my pockets more.) Then I would speed-walk around the block admiring the clinking sound of coins, feeling so much grown up, and important, as if I was an adult already.

Evacuations 2009

Against all my new year's resolutions, the year 2009 started in the most unexpected way. My resolution was to stay organized, and to enjoy well-deserved stability and peace of our second year in Madagascar.

So what happened? It was a just another day. I dropped off my kids at school in the morning, and came back home. Then the phone started ringing. Bad rumours say that there will be some kind of political demonstrations planned in town, and we should pick up the kids just in case it gets violent. Violence in Madagascar? I mean, these people must be the last peaceful mankind left on earth! They wound’t even hurt a fly, even if they really want to. I was thinking it was just an emergency drill from the safety department, never had I imagined this could be the beginning of our long continuing evacuation journey, across the continents, over more than 2 months period.

At the campsite, which is normally reserved for single status employees, each families were given shared based housings for the night. We arrived with basic stuffs for a couple of nights, but I was sure it would be one evening thing with a simple BBQ-get-togeter, and pool party. Kids raced between huge swimming pool, recreation room and ice cream machines all afternoon. No school and free ice-cream machine! Leo exclaimed with joy and said, “Wow! Why didn’t tell us we were going on a vacation!”

More people arrived the next day. By listening to what these late arrivals had to say, the drill sounded more like a real thing. Some president-owned-buildings were set on fire, and people were stealing from stores, some local people left dead on the road, and all streets were blocked for searches…We can’t go home for awhile. The worst one was, they may be coming after us TONIGHT!

I don’t know how everything went at the site, but after a few days, we were told to leave for Mauritius on the first flight the next morning. The bad news in this was, only wives and children would leave. All husbands stay. I felt as if I was blind folded, and sent off with my little kids to absolute uncertainty. Of course, it wasn’t like we were sent to a refugee camp in a dessert with no water and no food. It was rather a beautiful 4 star resort, by the southern part of Mauritius, where tourists come to get married, and stuff.

From then on, more positive attitude had to be taken, at least for the little one’s sake. It would be a vacation, as Leo believed from the beginning, and not a panic filled evacuation. Everyday was about new discoveries; fun plays with other little friends; and outings to the beach to collect shells; and most of all no schools!! They really missed two things left behind in Madagascar though…Papa and the generous ice-cream machine.

As if the family separation wasn’t enough, we had major cyclone hit, which left us indoor for days, and more violence in Madagascar, which putt of our return for days. The worst was the letter from the project we got the night before our long awaited return home, saying we are now to leave for a much longer evacuation to the point of origin. A long trip back to Quebec in the coldest months of the year? All we had were bikinis and sandals…

So we set off to Dominican Republic, kind of our point of origin, considering last 2 ½ years of expatriate before Madagascar. That’s right. Another destination for bikinis and sandals! We ended up having a great 2 months-vacation, close to Simon’s parents, Dorothy and Jean-Guy, who is already used to spend their winter under sunshine.

Now we are back in Madagascar, safely and happily. It is still turbulent in the capital, and our sincere thoughts are with those who live in political uncertainty everyday in any part of the world. In our town, Tamatave, everything seems quiet, and the crisis seems a thing of the past, at least for now.

Precious Father& Son Moments

Rough house play? These two know what it is!

Mummy, is TODAY my birthday?

Laiyane celebrates her 6 years of life on this planet!! Wow!!















January 3
Laiyane: Mummy? Are we having my birthday party today?
Ami: No, sweetie. It's your birthday today, and you can open the gifts today, but we will have a big party tomorrow.
Laiyane: Yeah! nice! umm...Mummy? Are we still having my birthday today?
Ami: Tomorrow, honey.
Laiyane: Oh. Okay. Is it now?
Ami: Oh, sweetie-pie. It would be after one dodo.
Laiyane: Is it tomorrow my birthday party then?
Ami: That is exactly it! You got it!


























January 4
Ami: Guess what, Laiyane! We are having your birthday party today!!!
Laiyane: Yes but...YOU told me it's TOMORROW!





























So started Laiyane's long awaited birthday party. I and kids made pinata with recycled boxes and color papers. Birthday banners were written by Laiyane, and they were hung nicely with clothes-pins across the wall. After setting up the room, we all jump into the pool for a well deserved cool-off session with our dear little friends! We sang birthday songs in four different languages, not even counting Malagasy, Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese and Polish who were presented. What a multicultural event! The pinata was tough, and every little friends had a go at it before it spilled out all the sweets! Good thing I didn't use the duck tapes from Canada, we would be still hammering that pinata now.







































































Big thanks to all those who came to make this day extra special!

Happy New Year 2009

Happy New Year to Friends and Family!

Christmas Holiday in Diego 2008

We saw old run-down colonial buildings, little restaurants and souvenir shops on a small main road in downtown. Like many cities in Madagascar, we can easily imagine how magnificent the place once must have been, by looking at the remains of the past colonization. Today, we see mainly many taxi drivers sitting by the roadside; idly chewing big bunch of green leaves, perhaps waiting for clients.

We then left for the Ramena, where we had a clear view to a beautiful mountain in the middle of the bay, called Pain de Sucre (Sugar Loaf Mountain) from our hotel balcony. We visited amazing Tingy valley (red earth formation in the picture on the bottom right,) with Simon's parents, and stopped in the dry forest to grill some chicken and fish on the way.
After the departure of the parents, we continued to Mer d'Emeraude. There, we took a boat ride, and arrived on a beautiful deserted beach for a picnic. Here, picnic doesn't mean nicely prepared cheese sandwiches and wine in a basket, but it is arriving and going out in the water to catch the fish on the spot. After the grilled fish, we continued our boat ride when the tide came in. Within less than a half an hour, our picnic area was completely under the 1 m deep water, and we were admiring whole new scenery from the boat. Snorkelling the clear turquoise water was sensational, and kids doubled up with us, and watched rays of colourful fish passing under us with passion.
Oh, on the way back, we ended up getting on a local bus. Which is a tiny car (with only 2 original seats,) and its trunk converted into passenger seats with homemade wooden benches. We were 10 people packed in about 1 square meter space, like sardines in a can. Then a fat-bottom-mama with her daughter opened the door, and I was glad nobody spilled out from the trunk. Not in my wildest dream, could I have imagined these people were coming in, too! With the most natural gesture, as if everything is normal, she loaded herself and her daughter, then a huge basket full of anchovies with about 1000 flies hovering on it. When the driver's assistance closed the door behind them, and we were literally piled up, rather than sitting side by side.
Not only we looked like over packed sardines in a can, but we smelled like ones, too.

The nature is always amazing here, and the magnitude of it seems so much powerful than any civilization.