Vacation with JB-Rahohire

What an amazing site, Ranohire! After hours of completely flat landscape of dessert with millions of ant hills, we stopped at various rock formations. In the middle of these huge rocks stands a harmoniously built resort, Jardin Du Roy/Le Relais de Reine. Kids enjoyed horse back riding though the wild fields surrounded by rocks, while I and JB walked along the horses admiring the magnitude of it all.

Vacation with JB-Ambalavao

It took us good 4 hours to Andasibe, one night sleep, then 3 hours to Tana, then 3 more hours to Ambalavao. There we stopped at a hand made paper studio, where they also weave silk. They soak tree fibers, and hit it with wooden hammer until the fiber becomes all blended. Then they dilute the dough into water, and layer it down on framed net. Then once the bottom paper layer is done, they pay down dried flowers to decorate. It gets top layers of pulp then sun dried in their courtyard. The sun was just right for us to walk around and sit outside for lovely lunch. I saw Laiyane enjoying steak for the first time there! We took off again after lunch to continue the road to Ansirabe for the night. Scenery was picture perfect everywhere. Green rice patches through red earthed hills, with red brick houses, under beautiful blue sky. Even a very good painter could never paint this beautiful scenery that we saw along the road.

Vacation with JB-Andasibe

A few hours of winding road through mountains would take you to this beautifully situated resort, Vakuna Lodge. We had our first night sleep there, and enjoyed the afternoon at the lemur island. They have one very old Sifaka(the dancing one)lemur, and we were told that he only drinks fresh morning dew on clean leaves. In the evening, we had cozy meal by the wood burning fire, followed by children's little game of billard with halabajee(grand father), JB. We were cold, even with longs pants and jackets un in the mountain. The next morning, we couldn't even see a few inches in front with thick fogs in the mountain. It was very serene, and smelled nice.

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!