Independence Day

For the past month everyone has been talking non-stop about vignt-seis, Independence Day! According to every Malagasy person I've ever talked to, its the biggest holiday of the year, and people start talking about it months in advance. So I was expecting...something?

I made plans to meet up with some other volunteers and spend the holiday together. The day before we hung out, I got food poisoning (life lesson: never eat shrimp when you're not on the coast), we sat on a balcony of our hotel and people watched/watched drunk people set off fireworks inside a store front (probably not a good idea), and went to bed expecting to be woken up by a big party for independence day.

Instead, I woke up to a 4 person marching band outside our hotel at 6am. It was terrible. But funny? And we assumed it was a precurser to the parade that was supposed to happen later that day. So we got breakfast and waited around to see where the party was going to happen. By lunchtime when we hadn't seen anyone, and no parade, we felt a little suspicious. So we asked someone where the parade was...and apparently we had missed it. I'm not really sure how, since we were eating lunch and breakfast right downtown...but oh well. So we assumed it would be more exciting that evening. There was a carnival set up in front of town hall, so we went to explore that. We saw a man powered ferris wheel (no joke) as well as a ring toss to win moonshine liquor and the "kick a soccer ball in a hole" game. That was fun. I considered going on the ferris wheel until I saw the base made of rotting wood...seemed a little iffy.

So we gave up and had our own party.

I'm hoping my own celebration for 4th of July will be more exciting...but I'll be alone at site, so not sure if that will happen. In any case, Happy Fourth of July everyone! I hope you have warm weather, outdoor barbeques, fireworks, and the strawberry, blueberry american flag cake that I eat every year...(family, you know what I'm talking about!)