May 25th to May 31st 2024
This past week was filled with a bunch of activities from playing tennis, judging more of the singing competition, going on adventures in Majunga, and grading presentations. I have tried to stay busy now that I only have one more month left here in Madagascar.
This past Saturday were the semifinals and finals of the singing competition, and man they were all so good. I really felt unqualified to be judging but I’m glad that I got to be part of it. For the semifinals there were 30 people and then we had to cut it down to 10 people for the finals. The cuts to the finals were difficult but picking the winners was even more difficult. All the finalists did such a great job and six of them probably could have won the entire thing. In the end we picked 3 winners and one runner-up. Manisa, Andry’s wife, got third so I was really happy for her. Even though the event on both weekends was really long (9 hours this last time), it was a great way to bring the community together and raise money for Operation Smile.
Sunday was my big tennis day. I got there around 8 in the morning and started rallying with one of the coaches I normally play with. While we were rallying a Malagasy guy and his son, who was about my age, asked us if we wanted to play doubles. I always like a little competition, so I agreed to play with me and my coach friend Francois on one team and the father and the son as the other team. We played a best of three sets and me and Francois came up on top winning the first 2 sets. At that point it was around 10 and I was pretty much done playing. However, the Malagasy dad still wanted to play. His own son said he was done so he asked me instead. I didn’t have anything going on, so I agreed to play a set. It started off really well for me and I won the first game, but then I proceeded to lose the next 6 games. I was faster and more athletic, but he kept putting the ball in annoying spots, so I lost. Afterwards, he asked me if I wanted to play another set. I said yes again because I am overly competitive, but this resulted in me losing again 6 to 1. Even though I lost, I had a lot of fun playing tennis that day.
On Wednesday there was an election for some of the local politician which meant there was no school. This gave me time to go on a little adventure around Majunga. In the last month, before I leave Madagascar I want to do a little traveling to the North of Madagascar. Since I had the day, I used it to gather information on the best way to get to the North of Madagascar. First, I stopped at Madagascar Air to see if they had any flights. They had no direct flights and were trying to make me pay for two tickets to go to one place. They remade their flights, so I had to go to Tana first no matter what, spend the night in Tana, and then fly to where I actually wanted to go. In summary not super convenient. While I was there, I also asked about my refund which I submitted for my canceled flight 2 months ago. They told me that it was still processing and might take over a year to complete. Yayy Air Mad, Yayy Madagascar I just love it when things are so easy here. Next, I stopped by the docks, and the people there told me that it would be a 3-day journey by boat, also not super convenient. Finally, I went to the bus station and found it that it was a 25-hour drive, and then another 2-hour bus ride, and then a 40-minute boat ride to get to the Island of Nosy Be that we want to go to. Still sounds like a pretty miserable travel experience but that was probably the best I could find. Oh, also on my way to talk to the bus station I was stuck in a 30-minute traffic jam as a herd of zebu was running down the road.
This was also my last official week of teaching. It was pretty anti-climactic because all the students were working really hard to prepare for their exams, so they didn’t feel like it was the end. I was able to take some pictures with a few of the classes which meant a lot to me. It is really weird to me that it is now all actually coming to an end. I also will have no idea what my actual impact on these students was. I think it was positive and hopefully I encouraged some of them to continue to learn English and be motivated to become fluent. I’m definitely feeling the end drawing nearer so it’s sad to see things end since this has been my life for the past 8 months. I’m also happy to be heading home soon and of what I have accomplished.