So far I’ve spent a lot of time walking around Diego and getting to know the neighborhoods a bit
The Diego transit house is comfortable and clean, there’s electricity most of the time and there’s an oven here. Clearly I made pizza and cornbread
Biked out to another volunteer’s site (17km each way, beautiful and mostly flat) and went to two different (awesome) beaches near her house, swam in the ocean and tried to avoid sand fleas (failed at that miserably, I have bug bites literally all over my body)
Saw a baobab tree on the road!! the first one since I’ve been here- so symbolic of Madagascar yet they’re most common in the West, which is sparsely populated and where there are no volunteers
There’s a cultural festival going on here in Diego- went to a performance in the square and watched some dancing, theater, etc, also they start blasting bad American pop at 10AM each morning
The guards and house coordinator cooked lunch for me and the other volunteers here- coconut rice and friend fish- delicious is an understatement. Interestingly, the Malagasy word for delicious translates literally to “has enough salt”
You can find anything here in Diego- wine, cheese, chocolate, even maple syrup (when Greg was in Damascus we had to bring him maple syrup when we went to visit)
Low points: week of 5/14/12
Everything is more expensive here than in the countryside
I feel a bit like I’m wasting time here in Diego because I want to be getting to know my town, setting up my house, integrating into my community and working on my Malagasy
