Madagascar?

Today I'm wondering whether I'm still actually in Madagascar. Its been a vazaha kind of day....

I finally had a friend come visit my site! Monica came to visit for a few days and when she showed up in Tsarasambo, the town went crazy. Now there was a second white person to stare at. Crazy. Things to do in my town are limited...so we did what everyone else does...walked to the market, sat on the bridge, and played with some little kids. Everyone in town was super excited to see another vazaha and they kept telling her how good she was at Malagasy and how bad I was at malagasy. This woman who I buy tomatoes from at the market kept saying..."Oh Monica. You're so good at Malagasy. Corey is still so bad." Yes, I'm still not fluent...but I also only ever talk to this woman about tomatoes, so I'm wondering whether she should be the true judge of my Malagasy skills...Anyway, it was great to have a friend come visit. And she showed up with a fully charged laptop and the newest episodes of Modern Family. So eventually we just kicked the kids out, and watched Modern Family and ate funfetti frosting. Not a bad way to spend an evening...

A few days later  we went to Tana on a brousse that left on time (shocking) and only broke down once (also shocking). Tana is an interesting city because its really the only huge city in Madagascar. And spending time in Tana is like stepping into another world, especially coming from my little town on the coast. First of all, its not super hot. Thank god. Second of all, there are lots and lots of cars coming from all directions making you feel close to death whenever you're in the vicinity of a road. And lastly, its full of vazahas...meaning there are lots of things for vazahas do including eating pizza, going to a grocery store, and using wifi internet.

Since neither Monica or I are here very often, we decided we needed to make the most of this trip. So we started off at Palladios, a really pretty restaurant with an outdoor patio, real cocktails and really good pizza. We quickly found out that they had a massive rat problem as well....the rats would hang out in the trees next to us, or jump from the trees to the roof over us. Sadly, I've started to get used to this...so it didn't actually bother me that much...the pizza was still delicious. And according to Monica, the rats could possibly be chinchillas, making the whole situation a little less gross.

And then today was full of surprises. I went to the office to check on my computer, and discovered that its not actually dead (false alarm) but it just doesn't recognize the battery anymore! So as long as I can plug my computer in...it still functions. That was a nice surprise. And another nice surprise...eating a bagel for lunch! After getting lost and walking in the completely wrong direction, we finally got in a cab and made it to The Cookieshop, an American restaurant serving bagel sandwiches, iced coffee drinks and brownies. Is this Madagascar? And let me just tell you, it was amazing. I had a real bagel sandwich with real bacon and real cheese and real mayo. And they had Starbucks-esque iced coffee drinks, and carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Sorry for talking about food so much, but you just can't find this kind of food here! I don't think rice was even an option on the menu, which is unheard of in this country! We both left the restaurant with mild food comas...but it was worth it. Who knows when I'll find another bagel! (River Road still wins for best bagels though....)

And then, to make the day even better, we went and got massages. An hour, full body massage was $4, which is even affordable on my Peace Corps salary. It was super relaxing, although I did have to try really hard not to laugh through half of it. And since we did vazaha things all day, we had to finish with a taco dinner.

Wifi, tacos, hot showers, bagels and massages....definitely a nice mini-vacation. If only that quarterly report would finish (or start) itself...