April 10, 2012
Manahoana!
We are back to normal after tech trip, language class in the
morning and technical training in the afternoon. But we had the afternoon off yesterday to
experience Easter (Paka) Monday in Mantasoa.
On Sunday, people go to church, but on Monday, they picnic with their
families and friends. Lake Mantasoa is a
significant tourist destination for Malagasy people in the area. There were a ton of booths set up with people
selling food and drinks and a ton of people walking around and playing in the
lake. This eventually ended up being a
ton of drunk people, which elicited our return back to the training center so
we wouldn’t have to deal with them.
Before that I went to visit my homestay family for the first time, which
was fun.
I am also now the official owner of almost 500 gigs of
movies and TV. Tara, a current
environment volunteer came to help train the environment people, and she has 2
one terabyte hard drives filled to the brim with movies. I now have 230 movies and a whole bunch of TV
shows. If anything happens to that hard
drive I am seriously gonna cry haha. I
may even be more excited to have it at home after this, since I haven’t watched
pretty much anything yet.
Finally, training just got really interesting because we are
now doing “mock immersion.” 7 am to 8 pm
we are not allowed to speak any English to each other or the trainers unless we
are in tech session or working on a project in a classroom. Shenanigans.
Although going to be really helpful because it is forcing us to
practice. There is a rewards system as
well as penalties. We all carry red
cards to give people who we catch speaking English. They then have to pay a fine. If you carry on 5 one-minute conversations
with a language trainer then you get a green card. Collect 5 green cards and you get a free
drink from the bar. The prizes get
better and better, including free laundry and Internet connection. Should get interesting…
Hope you are all well!
Still anxiously anticipating moving to Miarinarivo, even though the
training center is really fun. We have a
ton of April birthdays, so we have been celebrating those with bonfires, cakes,
and dance parties. On Friday we have the
semi-annual volleyball against the gendarmes (police), so that should be fun.
Talk to you soon!
-Sarah
Addendum to the language training: I didn’t get any red cards today and I caught
my teacher Rigo speaking English and gave him one. Winner! <3
No comments:
Post a Comment