A few weeks ago, I got a knock on my door and a man was standing outside it holding a tortoise. He offered it to me for 10,000 Ar. (about $5.00US my daily budget) so I bought it. It lived in my house for a few days getting stuck in corners and flipping over on it’s back and wiggling around until I got home. I kept dropping food in various nooks and it never ate anything. After agonizing for a bit, I finally let him go. I don’t think he was very happy in my house. My neighbor brought him back to me that afternoon. The next time I let him loose I did it under cover of night. He’s free and (hopefully) happy now.
One day I was sweeping my house and my neighbor came over and watched me for a bit and then grabbed a broom and started helping. She was appalled by the number of ants running around so she left and returned with a can of something and a rag and started wiping my cement floor down. A few minutes later I realized she was wiping my floor down with GASOLINE. I of course thanked her and forced to spend the rest of my day out of the house. This was a few weeks ago and since then her daughter has stopped by twice and offered to wipe my floors down again. I keep politely refusing, but I have a feeling they’re going to just come in and do it one day. Gives a whole new twist to the “kill ‘em with kindness” proverb….
A new volunteer, Caroline, has moved to a site about an hour away from me. She and I travelled on the taxi brusse to Sambava together. At one point (when the brusse was stopped) a cockroach jumped onto her lap and scurried onto mine. we both started screaming and spilled out of the brusse in a tangle of limbs and bags. People were of course staring so i started screaming "bebe lava" (bebe means bug and Lava means big ... OR ... long) - trying to coummunicat there was a big bug. everyone else poured out of the car looking very concerned. A few moments later caroline said "wait, doesn't bebe lava mean snake?". It does. we got laughed at a lot for the rest of the ride .... ah madagascar :)
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