Working on A Life

Experience is what its all about. And the stories. Post college most people go on to find a job, or apply to grad school. I decided just to live. This is my story as related to my family and friends. (This journal represents ONLY my views and none of Peace Corps or the US government.)

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Location: New England

We are working parents looking to make the most of whatever adventures we can find close to home.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Love Shack Madagascar

Greetings all,

Hello from Madagascar. I hope that this note finds all of you well and happy. Living life and enjoying it. Getting the most and the best out of things etc.

I’ve been here a bit over a week and am doing fine (minus all the stresses that accompany preparing for Graduate school from an Island nation in the Indian Ocean. I have a whole new respect for those few people that managed to do all this while they were actually serving in PC) now that I’ve recovered from the jet lag. There must be something about changing hemispheres that makes it worse than normal. It’s nice to be back in Africa, though, like most places Madagascar and its people defy easy classification into any category as large as that of a continent. I was beginning to enjoy the quieter hustle and bustle of D.C. but its no real substitute for how alive you can feel simply by being here. Antananarivo, Madagascar’s capital city located in the island’s central highlands (the altitude is almost 4000 meters), is a thriving metropolis in its own right at the same time more laid back and much less sterile (and I mean that in a good way) than its American and European counterparts. It is a city on foot as cars are much too expensive to own and operate for most of the population. Everywhere people are walking to and from various errands, stopping on street corners to chat and be social. Street vendors offer snacks and simple meals to passersby. Children play soccer with balls made of plastic bags and twine and adults play pickup games of varying seriousness in nearly any available open space. Chickens and Roosters dart out into traffic and back to get the smallest kernel of grain or elusive insect, narrowly avoiding a gruesome death themselves in the grill of a ubiquitous circa 1960s Citroen taxi (though apparently cockfighting is popular so perhaps death by auto would be preferred). Butchers hang their wares in their shop fronts, café’s set up benches made of old fruit crates and bits of brick on the sidewalk to lure in customers and impromptu “phone booths” where locals can borrow a cell phone for a small fee, spring up on every corner. Men and women carry their goods to and from fields, markets, and homes balanced impossibly on their heads (and some loads seem bigger than the porters!) with a sensuous grace that comes from a lifetime of practice and can only be found on this continent.

Because transportation is difficult, and often dangerous in overcrowded, under-maintained vans, neighborhoods as a unit of organization are much more important. Each has its own character, developed over time and refined by tradition. Most have markets where, if you can handle the hustle and bustle, you can find almost anything, prices negotiable. Some goods rotate days of the week. Souvenirs can be purchased in one market in Hectare 67 on Thursday and Friday while Wednesday you might only be able to find discount foam mattresses. Some neighborhoods have specialty markets where certain goods are sold in co-op fashion by groups of artisans and families. Down the street from the house is a garden market where decorative plants, planters and other basic garden materials are sold. (Because our neighborhood has fenced yards and gardens) I visited the “bamboo” market in order to get a better feel for things in a part of town more for locals than expats, not really knowing what to expect. Like anywhere I’ve been in the third world we were set upon soon after entering by a crowd of hopeful entrepreneurs attracted by our white skins and (ha ha) deep pockets. Most people were friendly though and as we moved through the market and looked at different pieces of the impressive bamboo furniture we left most of the group behind and dealt with craftsmen and women on a more individual basis. Prices were reasonable and any form of furniture available (upon request if necessary). I ended up negotiating for a bamboo lounge chair and handmade cushion. I found (after Morocco and even Ghana) that the whole process was quite laid back and pressure free. Perhaps I’m just getting good at it or perhaps I paid too much but in any event it was fun! Unfortunately, there is also a healthy underground trade in wildlife and wildlife products. I had the opportunity to buy some lesser Vassa Parrots (all black) who were so bored and miserable in their tiny little cages that they had stopped caring for their own feathers. Alas, I am confronted with the age old problem; do you rescue one bird from a horrible captivity or do you leave him there with the hope that by denying his captor business there will be no reason to trap more birds in the future? In the end I left the parrots and a piece of my heart behind. Sometimes, one can only hope for a better future. I know of some people that took the other road and have endangered tortoises roaming their gardens.

The neighborhood in which the house is situated, Ivandry, is a bit different in so much as its well-to-do. The houses are large and most have yards with 20 foot high walls or hedges, fences and full time security. Most, if not all residents have cars and so, paradoxically, the streets are quiet because they lack the more regular pedestrian traffic of the other neighborhoods. Instead of markets we have grocery stores and box retailers. This is both a bit sad and, having lived without these things for several years, much appreciated. Sometimes, I can’t help but feel a little guilty. It’s also a bit further away (I’m sure on purpose for embassy security reasons) from the city center than I would have liked. Otherwise, I can’t complain.

The house is awesome. It’s called Akany Fitiavana in Malagasy, or Villa of Love, or more colloquially perhaps, the Love Shack. Except that shack would imply something small, which is hardly the truth. As my father would put it its funky huge and roughly rectangular shaped. The floor plan is mostly open in the main part of the house with a beautiful antique parquet floor made of thousands of individual little wooden pieces. The dining room, living room and sitting room comprise one wing of the house and are all actually just one space, divided only by the furniture and a free standing fireplace that opens into both the sitting and dining rooms. The kitchen is in the back of the house and divides this main wing from the living quarters; a study, three bedrooms and two baths. The entire front side of the house (sitting room, living room, study, my bedroom and the master bedroom) is a series of French doors that we open during the day to listen to our personal collection of wonderful wild birds and catch the flower scented breezes off the garden. There is no need of lights during the day as the whole house is bathed in sunlight from dawn until dusk. A glassed in sun porch, where I read, write and spend much of my daylight hours at home, is accessible through the French doors in the living room. It provides a 180 degree view of the front yard and garden.
A side on view of the house from the front yard
A view of the house from the front yard


Of course, if the house is awesome than the garden is nothing short of spectacular. I fell in love with it almost immediately. A little overgrown and under-watered when we first moved in (the house has been vacant for some time while undergoing renovations) it was clearly a once loved project and with a little TLC from us and our dedicated and knowledgeable garner Dola it will be again. My mother and I have decided to start a book of all the seemingly countless plants found therein, which will be something of a challenge since we can only readily identify the smallest fraction, and many of those only generally (like palm). We’re trying to photograph each plant as it flowers in hopes of someday having something to compare them against. My current favorite is a tree with large, delicate purple flowers that, while simple, might be the prettiest I’ve ever seen. The garden in the front is a ring around a grassy rectangle that is perfect for lawn recreation. (though I’ve already managed to lose a wiffle ball over the wall into the radio Netherlands compound.) In the back, the garden consists of a series of large flower beds on both sides of the driveway and a second series of herb and vegetable plots in a ring around the outbuilding that holds the laundry room, pantry and the guards’ break/bathroom. All things considered it’s going to be a tough place to leave come August.

A view of the palm trees in the garden out front
Just a few of the many roses gone wild in the yard. Not african really but pretty!
A pretty yellow lilly-esque flower outside the window of my room
This little Madagascar Fody is the undisputed king of our yard
These little green lizards are everywhere!
There are at least two nesting pairs of these Myna birds on within sight of the yard. They are noisy but cool since they mimic all the other birds around.
We have a family of these stonechats that come eat little lizards off the plants by the sunporch
My favorite flowering tree produces these wonderful blossoms
My favorite avian visitors to the yard are a pair (at least) of Madagascar Bee-eaters
Their areial acrobatics are absolutely amazing.. capable of catching any flying insect midair.
Madagascar wagtails. We have a pair in the yard that dig for grubs when it rains and then beat them to death on the patio brickwork.
This tiny bird is a Madagascar White eye who visits whenever the trees have ripe berrys or seeds.
To occupy my spare time and in hopes of getting a chance to get out and see some of the countryside on someone else’s dime I have offered my services to Peace Corps Madagascar (who’s main office is basically next door to the house) and to USAID as an intern/will work for food and transportation volunteer. Peace Corps here is a totally different (and much superior) animal than PC Morocco, but since the details of the differences matter only to a few of you I will save them for more personal letters (so ask me if you really want to know). Suffice it to say that after several meetings at the PC office I almost cried at the injustice of it all. So far I’m doing a lot of database work, creating a central repository for all of the technical resources collected by the different sectors, but I’ve also had the opportunity to travel with the Environment Program director to a session for a group of new trainees at a local orphanage and womens’ shelter. Despite all of PC Morocco’s problems I find that I miss the lifestyle sometimes and it was very nice to be back again amongst a group of volunteers happily discussing the size of various parasites they have or how much they splurged on a cheeseburger the last trip to town. Not to mention that the orphanage, run by a group from England, is a wonderful example of how going green is to everyone’s benefit, even orphans and battered women in the third world. They have self-composting toilets, make their own charcoal briquettes, recycle everything, including making fresh new paper out of any old scraps they collect, raise their own fruit etc. The whole compound is almost self-sustaining since they sell their eco-friendly products. I was so impressed that I bought some recycled paper greeting cards… In truth, I would probably have bought them anyway since the designs are cute, but I’m happy to support a good cause and supply my letter writing habit at the same time. The kids were adorable and I had a great time, along with the trainees, playing with them after all the formal activities were finished.
One of the trainees makes a new friend for life
These girls may not have much experiance with cameras but clearly they get the idea
Since I was showing them the pictures as I was taking them they thought it might be funny to make faces. I didn't discourage them.
Not sure which girl won the contest. Cast your vote!

As exciting as all of this has been and continues to be I have been on one other excursion you might find interesting; that, in fact, you may have been waiting for. This past Sunday marked our first out-of-town family excursion. Actually, we started out driving through town to try and figure out the maze of one way streets and rotaries (roundabouts, traffic circles, whatever they may be to you) on the route to the embassy. Then we went out past the bamboo market and through the suburbs of the city into the countryside.

Most of the area surrounding the city is taken up by rice fields. Acres and acres of flooded fields and rice plants, all laboriously planted by hand one at a time. Great egrets and Madagascar Kingfishers ply the waters while Kites and Marsh Harriers effortlessly circle above searching for their morning meal. Between the birdlife and the guys with the fishing poles I concluded that there must be fish as well as rice in the fields. Rising up here and there from between the stalks are mounds of decaying brick in no discernable pattern which we later deduced to be tombs. When you worship your ancestors apparently there is no problem with burying them amongst your major food crop. The road cuts through some rolling hills and a few small villages over the next 20 kilometers and eventually, seemingly in the middle of nowhere (in fact it pretty much IS in the middle of nowhere) you come to a 4 hectare botanical garden and nature preserve called (perhaps not creatively, but effectively) Lemur Park. Its setting, bounded on one side by a rushing brown river (erosion is a problem during the wet season) that acts as a natural fence for hydrophobic non-swimming lemurs and on the other by an actual fence, which our guide informed us is not so impenetrable a barrier for the acrobatic residents. The countryside is a beautiful mix of natural geologic sculpting and agricultural landscaping with a few human dwellings thrown into the mix to provide a sense of scale. The park, run by French and Japanese non-profits is home to more than 50 lemurs representing 9 species, from the famous ring-tail to dancing lemurs to the tiny nocturnal grey and brown mouse lemurs. I am happy to report that the lemurs are every bit as cute as you might imagine. They are not especially shy even in the wild (much to their regret sometimes I’m sure) and in the park with its frequent walking tours and all kinds of people they clearly realize that they have nothing to fear. We arrived after the morning feeding (they have to feed them each day in order to keep them for escaping over the fence and “expanding their territory”) right about time for an early afternoon nap up in the treetops. Our guide coaxed a ring-tail down out of the trees with a promise of food and it walked right across my feet to reach some leaves. The “dancing” lemurs move across the ground in giant aerobic looking hops with their arms fully extended above their heads. Despite the fact that this was a more or less captive environment it was still terribly exciting and quite well done. The park is proud to report that the Lemur families within its walls are comfortable enough that they have begun to breed naturally. It was a great introduction to the flora and fauna of this island nation. We also saw several species of tortoises, some of which may live for more than 160 years and many species of chameleons in just about every conceivable camouflage color pattern. There was also a plethora of bird life including giant Hammerkop nests and a Fody nest complete with hungry babies. I was quite satisfied with my visit (with the possible exception of the service at the café) and would definitely return. It would be better if I had some company ;-)

A small community across the river from the park.
This baby fan palm is the national plant of Madagascar and my favorite species of palm.
Our first lemur encouter of the day was this sleepy brown leumr
Who only let my flash keep him awake for two photos...
...before dozing back off.

Madagascar is famous for its wide variety of lizards. We must have seen a dozen species just in this small park. Notice how he's watching me even while moving away
I love the clouds here. They are so sharply defined and vivdly white and clear
Something about this arrangement appealed to me.
Another chameleon another color pattern. No two were alike on the day.
I think this is the only chameleon that didn't watch me the whole time
This white or Dancing lemur was one of many we saw. There are two families that live on the preserve
This is an endangered mongosee lemur coming to see if we have anything to eat
Here is a dancing lemur dancing. They were so acrobatic and quick that taking their picture was extreemly difficult despite close proximity.
A curious ring-tail coming to investigate.
He eventually padded up to me and used my feet as a step stool to reach some leaves he was interested in.
One of several cool tortoises found in Madagascar and in danger of extinction through the illegal trade in wildlife.
This black-faced lemur was probably the most shy of the species we saw.

Well, that will about wrap things up I suppose. Not bad for the first week if I do say so myself. I haven’t managed to experience everything yet, but it is my sincere hope that over the course of the next five months I’ll be able to make the very most of this opportunity. I hope that you’ll all come along for the ride, vicariously at least, though the more the merrier in person! The visit would be well worth your while!

In the meantime,
Stay well,
Love and Luck in Everything
-Andy

The Lost Obroni Speaks

Note: This letter was never sent out to the group but I hope you all find and enjoy it here!
Greetings one and all!

As always, I hope that this note finds you well and in good spirits. Enjoying the day wherever you are and generally being happy! It has been months since last I’ve written and in the meantime I’ve hopped across countries and continents and states, celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas with family, explored the U.S. capitol city with friends, passed out valentines to strangers, gotten accepted to graduate schools, and crossed the equator. Having just typed that all out I realize that catching up in one letter will be next to impossible but I’ll do my best, as always, at picking up where I left off.

As I write I’m sitting on the sun drenched porch of our newest family home in Antananarivo, Madagascar, listening to the birds sing and the breeze whistle its way through our beautiful garden. I’ve been here a week now and I have much to say about this country and my experience already but I can’t in good conscience write about new adventures without first completing the record of the old. In any event I have some wonderful pictures of my travels in West Africa that I’ve been promising you all since October and it’s about time that I delivered on that promise.

When last I wrote I was sitting in an overheated and dilapidated internet café in the capital of Burkina Faso getting ready to depart for Banfora, a town in the southwest of the country. We had read in the guide book and heard from a few people that Banfora was a great place to visit with a very laid back atmosphere. Also, there were a number of nature excursions within biking/mopeding distance of the town and since at most of our other stops had little or no natural component or the nature was too hard to reach in public transportation considering the state of our language skills we decided that we couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Besides, we had missed out on hippos in Ghana and figured we had a better chance of seeing them in a lake rather than a river.

The bus ride from Bobo to Banfora was probably the first truly uneventful ride (aside from the fact that the bus was crammed to the gills and we were unable to sit together) we had yet had on the trip. Only about an hour long we arrived right on schedule, so much as we had one, and were immediately assaulted by a horde of hopeful guides and porters. So much for laid back. After a few increasingly agitated exchanges we managed to get the guide book out and attempt to find our hotel on our own. Normally this would have been easy in a town with two streets but, already frustrated it took us a couple tries. Once located, the hotel operator turned out to be a wonderfully nice man and he and I made friends. A fact that would shortly become critically important, as you’ll see. The room left a bit to be desired. The temperature was infernally hot and since we were unable to afford air conditioning at most places we were forced to suffer by with only a rusty, single speed(slow) ceiling fan, secured to the ceiling only by its electrical wiring.

The town, after escaping the crowd at the bus terminal, actually was charming in its own way. Small and compact you could walk everywhere. There were a couple of low budget hotels and some restaurants (we ate at a McDonald restaurant that I’m quite sure was not sanctioned by the franchise. Locally owned it served heaping portions of beef in every conceivable variation, dirt cheap since cows are one of the national industries, and the garlic potatoes were amazing. It definitely qualified as one of the best meals I’ve had in Africa that wasn’t strictly speaking African. Simple and yet delicious.) catering to a tourist crowd that favored places that were off the beaten track. We walked around the market and tried to stay out of the heat as much as possible. The first day we rented a couple of barely functional bikes from the hotel and rode a few kilometers out into the bush to the village of Tengrela. The village was beautiful and synced with my mental image of what an African Village should be. Wild lovebirds flitted about the tall trees. The lake itself was lovely and huge (dashing our hopes of easy hippos) part covered with water lilies (with saw tooth edges… no such thing as an easy meal here for anyone). We hired a boat (witch first had to be bailed out… no such thing as a watertight boat either) and were paddled out into the middle and back and a half hearted attempt to find some hippos. No such luck. It was still more than worth the trip out.
The basic plank boats I went hunting for hippos in. Tangrela Lake in the background was quite beautiful
A photo of me on the hippo hunt at the lake.

The next morning we had arranged to rent a moped (I had received instruction on how to drive it from my friend at the hotel) in order to get to the sacrificial pool and natural waterfall at Kartigula about 15 kilometers from the main town. Unfortunately our plans changed. Carly hadn’t been feeling well for a few days and overnight she came down with the telltale fever of Malaria… at least we finally guessed that it might be malaria since it’s notoriously hard to tell sometimes. First thing in the morning we located a lab that would do the simple blood test and we waited around for it to be completed. It came back positive and suddenly a trip to the hospital was in the works. My friend at the hotel guided us there and showed us where to wait and I put my French to the test to translate for the doctor and pick up the prescription from the pharmacy. I was surprised when the treatment turned out to be only 3 doses of medication to be taken over three days. We hoped for the best.

By the time we got all that sorted out it was past lunchtime. We voted to try and make the moped trip to the falls anyway, malaria and all. So we loaded up and attempted to follow the directions we had received the day before. It was supposed to be very easy and yet somehow we got mixed up and ended up covering miles and miles of back trails through the sugarcane fields, getting back on track only after about 5 sets of directions from locals. We were within spitting distance when the moped simultaneously broke down and ran out of gas. Thankfully, some men agreed to take it to the local village mechanic and have it fixed while we toured the falls (for only a small additional fee of course) and we were able to enjoy the falls and make it home (the right way this time) all in one piece.
A view of the Falls and the sacrificial pool at thier base. Most natural wonders became religous sites for the first inhabitants of the region
A view of the falls from the top.

With Carly on the road to recovery and our nature options exhausted we returned to Bobo to attempt to figure out transportation to Benin. As per our usual track record this proved to be not nearly as easy as we had hoped. With no direct bus available we were forced to take a long overnight ride back through Ghana and change over in Accra for a bus that went east towards Cotunu, Benin’s commercial capital. This actually worked out pretty well and allowed us to do an overnight stop over in a part of Ghana we would otherwise have missed out on in the town of Keta on the south eastern coast near the border with Togo. After a relaxing night to recover from the long bus ride we set off for Lome, the capital of Togo and from there to Ouidah, our first stop over in Benin.

Glossing over the transportation issues and the most bureaucratic border guards I have yet encountered Ouidah was awesome. We went there because it was supposed to be a center for Voodoo, which I am very interested in learning more about, and because it was one of the main depots for the sale and shipment of slaves (which is how voodoo made it to the new world in the first place.) The town is packed with history which is all displayed in poor museums filled with unenthusiastic guides speaking rapid-fire French. And yet the gravity of the place still manages to get to you. (And to be fair there was one museum on African women that was spectacular) The best parts of the town can be seen alone and on foot. There are fetishes on many corners and the road from the town to the beach where the slaves would have departed is lined with monuments and protective charms. On the beach itself is a symbolic monument called the Door of No Return etched with bas relief’s of departing slaves bound in chains.

This was an interesting yet typical meal. Ingredients: Tomato sauce, peanut butter, rice, noodles, hardbolied egg.
My favorite fetish in Ouidah. No idea what it means.
Another view of this intricate fetish.
A view of the Door of No Return looking out towards the ocean.
A closer look at the bas relief carvings on the ocean side (looking towards land)
One of the protective fetishes on the door of no return platform
I'm not a beach person but I could get used to scenes like this. Especially like the sack cloth sailboat in the background

From Ouidah we moved on to Porto Novo, the capital of Benin. It’s actually a very laid back feeling city because most of the hustle and bustle that is usually associated with a capital actually takes place in Cotunu. We stayed in another rundown hotel by the lake because we had heard that you could arrange boat tours from there to a village on stilts in the middle of the lake. Apparently, the slave hunting and blood thirsty kings of the Dahomey Empire had received word from their Voodoo priests that if any of their soldiers crossed a body of water the empire would collapse. They took this news rather seriously and forbade their soldiers the use of boats. The people whom they were hunting capitalized on this and built a village on a small island in the middle of a lake. All was well until the next wet season when the island ceased to exist. Not a people to give up easily they simply jacked up their houses and started carving more boats. Several hundred years later the village is a sprawling metropolis of more than 4000 people all completely inundated for much of the year. They have completely adapted to this environment, with fishing as a livelihood and handmade boats of all shapes and sizes. When we visited on a Sunday we saw many people poling their way to church. (Benin is a shining example of multi-faith tolerance. The floating village and every other city we visited had Christain churches, mosques and voodoo temples and for the most part they get along just fine.) Even the cows had floating pastures.

The stilt village on the lake outside Porto Novo. Called Aguegue
Another view of stilt village
A third stilt village view.
Floating cow pasture. The grass is replensihed each day by hand.
Our noble and tireless boatman... but unlike our other boatrides we had a motor for part of this one.
Last view of the stilt village.
Everyone headed to the church "parking lot"

Porto Novo also turned out to be a good place to take in some information about Voodoo. We hired our boat guides to take us around the city and introduce us to a Voodoo priest. It was an interesting experience though I’m still not sure what really goes on. The priest had a small living compound set up within his house where his personal spirit gods lived and communicated with him. We chit chatted awkwardly for a bit (how does one make small talk with a Voodoo priest and his resident ghosts?) and look at several other temples around the city.

The voodoo priest we met with in Porto Novo. He was a pretty intimidating figure.
Houses for the voodoo priests private spirits. They speak with him and are his connection with the spirit world.

Our last stop in Benin before heading back to Togo was the town of Abomey, formerly the seat of the Dahomey slaving empire. Each successive king swore that he would leave the empire bigger and stronger than he found it no matter the cost and each one built a bigger and better palace than his predecessor. Abomey is full of their ruins. We took a tour of one that had been restored by the government and were appalled at the barbarity of the human race once again. These were men that would quite literally kill you as soon as look at you and who made their livings selling their own countrymen into slavery. They decorated their palaces with murals and tapestries of new and interesting way to kill people. You would laugh at some of them if you didn’t know that they really happened to someone. Instead you want to cry. It’s certainly humbling and it’s almost hard to let yourself think about it too much.

We acquired, with our usual degree of difficulty, this time due to a long term taxi operators strike, transportation back over the Togolese border and on to the capital at Lome. I didn’t like Lome for a lot of reasons. It was a dirty congested city and it was difficult to get from place to place. It felt unsafe where most of the other places we had been in were different but still comfortable. Still, we managed to get out and see the Fetishers market where they make fetishes and sell ingredients. It’s become something of a tourist trap now but there is still an amazing collection of everything you could think to put in a witches brew. Dead birds, lizards, skulls, monkeys, snakes, organs, whole heads and tails of things, crocodile skulls and bits of things I didn’t even want to think about. There were hundreds upon hundreds of different things of all different species. We asked if they still collected specimens to sell or if they were only selling older models. Unfortunately they say they still collect regularly, though I hope they were just telling us that because that’s what they thought we wanted to hear. Everything was completely desiccated and older looking at least. I got roped into getting a travelers fetish from one of the venders but I must admit I’ve had pretty good luck since I “turned it on.”

Alas, our final experience of this phase of the trip turned out to be a negative one. We were robbed by a group of brigands on the main road by the beach directly outside the presidential residence as we were walking back to our hotel from dinner. We knew better than to be walking in the dark but misjudged the distance. The only good news was that they got away with nothing that would prove valuable to them. Nevertheless we were glad to escape Togo and return to Accra and our wonderful host family.
Ok.. there was ONE good thing about Togo. At least the Flag beer came in sizes bigger than 20cl!

The rest of the trip was a relaxed immersion into the culture of Ghana. Drinking palm wine in local cafes and eating local dishes at home and at our neighborhood restaurant, where we quickly became regulars. We screen printed more tee-shirts and hung our with the host fam, went to church and generally thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. When the time came to head back to the US it was the usual mixture of sadness and promises to keep in touch and the excitement of getting back home again.
Enjoying Palm wine with John and Prince. Made from tapping the sap of a plam tree. Its pretty good and gets more alcoholic the longer you take to drink it.
Enjoying a coconut from the tree out front.
Did I mention that religion was a big deal here?

Me and my new best friend and all around great guy, Kobby.

I headed down to DC where I would meet up with my family and friends for Thanksgiving and followed that up with a wonderful Christmas and New Years in Arkansas with my grandmother. Post holidays it was back to Boston for some time with friends and then again to DC where I took up temporary residence with my parents and explored all that the wonderful city has to offer.

Which… with the understanding that much was glossed over, left out or forgotten… gets us pretty much up to date with the sun porch and the bird songs. Of course, I’ll write soon with more details on life in the moment.
In the meantime, I would love to hear from all of you! Take care of yourselves out there. Do something exciting… remember to smile… The world is a magical place.
Until next time,
Stay well
Love and Luck in Everything
-Andy
The hope and future of Africa... and one mischevieous little boy :-)