Whoa I almost forgot we, I mean Joc still has this blog and that I should leave a post now and again.  I thought since we have been inundated with flying for the last 4 weeks or so I would share one of my flying days.  To be honest I am having a hard time separating days and flights as everything seems to be mixing into one long month.  I am not complaining as the flying has been a blast, just a little more than I needed at one time.

Anyhow because I brought my camera along on one of these flights I will pass on some details and pictures for those who may still be interested.

The flight in question was a vaccine campaign that was booked about 4 days before it happened.  That in itself was a huge stress for me as I had to come up with two available days in an already completely booked schedule, as well as finding 12 hours that we could put on the aircraft before the next scheduled maintenance.  You may not find that stressful, but I did, big time.  In the end though we managed to move some things around and pulled it off.

Vaccine campaigns are normally one of my favorite flights to do because there is no one in the back to complain about the bumpy ride or get sick in a bag because of the heat, just boxes and they don’t normally complain.  The other thing about these flights is it’s a full day of flying and you get to visit about 10 villages dropping off the vaccines and then heading off to the next place.  This particular day we were in the air by 6:00 which meant being at the hangar to load at about 5:00.  My colleague Patrick Keller split the flying with me that day in order that we could give each other a hand unloading and also to talk theology while enroute.

To be honest there is not a lot to tell about these flights which is why I like them so much.  Makes for a terrible story but that’s life.  We made it in to all the destinations delivering the vaccines, miraculously there was someone at each place to meet us and pick up the boxes, so all in all it was quite uneventful. Again I would say the events happened leading up to the flight, once everything was on board things went quite smoothly.  Below for interest sake you can see a few sights of what I saw that day on my delivery run.

5:00 getting ready to load with destinations kept separate.

Loaded and ready to head off
 
First light over the city
   

It’s not mist or fog it’s smoke.

First stop

Third stop

Again

Local termites, better off the runway than on but…..

Just leaving Besalampy

Cooling off in Amabatomainty

 
 
  Despite what looks to be white sand we are no where near the ocean, this place is like a dessert, but it made for a great photo

So that is a little of what my day looked like.  A lot of flying, some great conversation with my colleague and 7 villages set up to start giving needles.
 

Guess where we were today.

Guess what time it is.

Shame.

But i did manage to get some family photos taken. This is one of the out takes because my eyes are closed. Notice the glass shards on top of the wall…

Yesterday en route to Lac Anosi Judah was entertaining Asher in the backseat. After some shouts of laughter from the Younger we hear the Older say “it’s your turn!” (!) We asked what they were doing back there, to which the Older responds,
“We’re playing ‘schlack, schlack’.”
“Schlack-schlack? What’s that?”
“It’s a game! (duh)”
“How do you play it?”
“Well,… . i say “schlack-schlack” and then put the spoon into his hand. Asher does nothing.”

A few nights ago i went to Judah’s room to turn his bedside lamp off. He’s taken to ‘reading’ before he goes to sleep. I found him singing some interesting theology to himself, “God, you are a big whale that swallowed Jonah! God you are so big. (inspirational humming)”. He comes up with the strangest interpretations of the stories he hears from the Bible, which i suppose we all would if we weren’t to do theology within community. One thing i appreciate about Judah is that he often sings impromptu praise songs to God.

It’s been cooler the last few days, and windy! Which i suppose is good since we’ve hoards of things to get done at home in the next few weeks and hot weather would only make us think we needed to hang out at the pool. Josh is just staining the new steps for the ‘tree’ house and i overheard him saying to Judah that he was planning to also build a new bridge.

I’m still inside sewing up a storm. Almost finished the ‘reading nook’ cushions upstairs. (pictures will promptly follow) and have started on Christmas pressies. The beds in our house are all in a ‘fruit basket upset’ just now but hopefully we can get them taken apart and moved to the correct spot soon – the turmoil is tiring to my eyes. ha. Asher is attempting again to learn to sleep in Judah’s room. Soon Judah will join him there and we’ll see if they can co-habit at night time without waking each other up – this in preparation for when all our rooms will be full with relatives. I’ve also got a Christmas colour newsletter to assemble before the 15th. Strangely, blogging continues to be high on my priority list. I suppose in the future i’ll be glad of it, but just now it’s a dumb task as it doesnt seem to produce much of anything and seems to drain a lot of my time.

I mentioned briefly on Facebook how i met some Lithuanians at the cafe where Josh and i were taking lunch on Thursday. We rolled up to the cafe on the motorbike and saw a tour bus drive up at the same time. Knowing the wait time for food when the place is full we quickly raced ahead of them and ordered our “big hamburger”. The group came out and sat down near to us on the veranda. I heard them speaking Russian. It was such a strange meeting of very different worlds. Here i was dressed in a sundress, they were dressed for a northern winter. It was HOT out. I wondered for a long time where they were from and whether they would mind terribly if i asked them… so i did. I asked if they were from Russia (well, they WERE speaking Russian) to which they replied that they were from Lithuania. Ha. “No way!” i said. “I used to work there for 3 years!!” And so we got to talking. They are from Kaunas whereas i lived and worked in Klaipeda. They had vaguely heard of LCC. I asked them what had made them choose to come to Madagascar for vacation. One guy said, “The movie.” haha. Anyway, talking with them made me feel homesick for Lithuania again. It’s not that i’m unhappy here. It’s just that… Lithuania – the country – is my first love. It’s hard to forget her, hard not to want to go back. To be fair though, i reckon that should i ever go back i’ll realize that it’s the experiences that made it what it is in my memory. Madagascar is still pushing her roots into my heart and i suppose that when we’re called to leave i will feel the same kind of nostalgia for this place.

finishing off thanksgiving pumpkin pie for breakfast.

Wednesday we had topsoil delivered to our house. It normally comes in a zebu cart like this one.

Josh brought a ‘surprise’ home from his trip to… i dont remember… for Judah this last week. Some kind of big seed pod full of the softest fuzz you’ve ever felt. We played for a long time on the deck in the morning with that fuzz. Does anyone know what kind of tree that’s from?

covered in Raphia mud. waiting for a pre-madaschlope bath.

Asher, competing in the 11 month old’s marathon.

We finally made it downtown during Jacaranda blooming season to see Lac Anosi surrounded by the purple blooms. It was quite lovely. I dont mean to be cheesy here with the blurred edges, i thought it would hide the ugly part of the city in the background. haha.

Can anyone agree with me that i’m in desperate need of a haircut. ack!

I could think of innumerable captions for this photo, but i’ll let you do it. haha

this is a candidate for our Christmas photo for the newsletter… josh thinks it’s ugly and i said i was going for ugly this year. we’ve had way too many Christmas photos taken in front of lush tropical vegetation and then everyone thinks we live in paradise. Time to start taking some more ‘real to life’ photos i reckon.

Related videos to come.

It’s monday again. I’m not sure why Monday seems to be the day for blogging. However, i feel like my task list for these next two weeks is so gargantuan that i dont have the luxury of long blogging. So, my challenge for today is to list off what’s going on in 5 minutes or less…

-the house formerly known as the Slaubaugh’s (let’s call it #5 from now on, since “the house formerly known as the Slaubaugh’s” is too long a title and the house is in fact #5 – we’re #3) will be occupied again at the beginning of December by a bunch of guys who work for Canadian Flyers. They are (non-Christian) pilots and a mechanic who are flying for the Canadian mine(s) on the East coast of Madagascar. Currently they have a house/flat in Ivandry (otherwise known as the American district, think higher rent, more accessibility to shops and restaurants). Ivandry is about 45 minutes (if you’re lucky) drive from the airport (we’re 5 minutes away). So they are interested in living closer to the airport and i reckon living in a quiet compound with Canadian neighbours is probably an added bonus. Anyway, they’re moving in and have somewhat of a higher standard of living than missionaries who take what they can get. They took a look through the house and, apart from the obvious damages that the proprietor will repair, they asked if we couldnt give the house a fresh coat of paint and replace (supply where non existent) the hardware and fix up what needed to be. This job has fallen into my lap. Well, not really fallen, i’m the housing coordinator for MAF which means it’s in my job description i guess. It’s stressing me out mostly because a) i cant just call up some company from the yellow pages and ask them please to come and do all the necessary stuff because my language skills arent up to that and you never know what you’ll get as far as quality work from an unknown person. b) i dont know where to find the paint that this compound’s proprietor uses – the stuff they used for our house is good and i want to use it again for #5, but the painter whom the Lady in charge said i should ask has yet to reappear (he’s supposed to come back to our house to fix our water damaged walls). So, we’ve got a timeline to work within but i feel as though i havent any helpful resources. Gah! I’ve got that nauseous feeling i used to get at jobs where i knew i had to do something but didnt know how to go about doing it. yuck. Usually i’d ask Josh to sort of help me plough through these kinds of problems, but…

- Josh is VERY busy flying. The other pilot, Patrick, is out of country (again, the poor guy) on a seminar or training or something and Josh is therefore the only guy around to fly the plane. We are also currently being audited by MAF for Safety and Quality (although there isnt a Safety officer around > Patrick; and the pilot and plane are out every day all day).

- Judah is in school for today and tomorrow yet and then it’s Spring Break or “Vacance de Toussaint” (All Saint’s Day[s] – Here in this country where the dead play such a huge roll in the lives of the living you can imagine there’s a lot of ‘stuff’ going on at this time of year). Judah is back in school on the 3rd of November. After that there’s only one more month until his grandparents get here and soon after his uncles and aunts and cousins. The first few days of holidays i’m hoping that Josh will take off as duty days and we can go downtown to look at the Lac Anosi Jacarandas and go for ice cream at the patisserie at Colbert Hotel. Yum!

- Asher is currently pushing out his eye teeth and is a bear most days. He poops more than 5 times a day and last week had such terrible diaper rash he screamed when i touched it. poor guy. he’s sleeping better though, which is a huge gift. His walking continues to get more stable, although he still walks with his arm up in the air as though he’ll lasso you at any moment. ha.

- Because the family arrives in 6ish weeks i’m also thinking about how to prepare my house (and myself. ha) to host 6 extra adults for a month. It’s great to have everyone come at once because Josh cant take much more holidays than what he’s taking and it’s nice (and financially possible) to be able to go to the tourist places once rather than every time. But it’ll be full in our house when we’re here (and not at the hotels), which isnt so bad considering the size of our house – but anyway, i don’t think my family has ever spent as much concentrated time together in one place for that long. I’ve already started praying about it. I was really hoping the Canadian Fliers wouldn’t take #5 house so that i could put the overflow in there, but alas, they insisted on helping MAF out by paying the rent during the year’s wait we have until the new MAF family arrives.

Ok, that was more like 25 minutes than 5. Gah! I’ll post photos soon… maybe. if i get all my jobs done.

I’m sure i’ve blogged about Jacarandas before, but every year i see them begin to bloom i am taken again by surprise at how beautiful they are.

Photos obviously cant do them justice, but this is the one i see every time i drive to school to pick up the kids or drop them off early in the morning. so nice.

Today we went out for Megan’s birthday, a new friend of mine who is here with AIM/AMI for a year. We asked the waiter to take a photo of us and… well. I like it like this though because then you cant see all the things we check for in photos of ourselves. maybe we should start taking all photos of us like this? haha. That’s the new shirt i got for my birthday which is baggy in all the right places. pretty nice. For those who are interested, that’s Fiona (YWAM), Megan (AMI/AIM), Me (MAF) and Heather (AOG).

As we were leaving i saw another Jacaranda in the parking lot. I’m hoping we’ll get out to Lac Anosi in downtown Tana to see the lake surrounded by purple trees… although i’m actually quite sad that they’re blooming already because it might mean that they’ll be done by the time my family gets here. I wanted them to see it too. Shame. The one in the yard behind the house formerly known as the Slaubaugh’s (although i suppose we still think of it as that and will until the Canadian Fliers move in in December) isnt blooming entirely yet, so maybe it’ll still be blooming when they get here.

Very short (and too close up, sorry) clips of Asher toddling around.

Our passion fruit vine just dropped it’s first ripe fruit today. Pretty exciting! Can hardly wait until there’s enough ripe fruit for juice. Mmmm!

Look at all those flowers and unripe fruit! Woot, woot!!

Josh was just home for a 20 minute coffee break after bringing the truck to the hangar to see if someone could help figure out why it honks whenever we turn sharply. It makes me think of Brian Regan every time and i end up laughing the whole time i’m driving. “Go my favourite sports team!!” haaha.

He was expressing some frustrations and challenges he’s been having at work recently, one of which is a lesson he feels God is teaching him in this last month -> to not worry about things that are not within his (Josh’s) control. I wont go into details, but apparently he was stressed this whole weekend about the airport authorities making (more) rules that would make life for MAF increasingly difficult. This morning at the meeting it became apparent that it was all a big misunderstanding.

One of the other things Josh has to deal with personally, and i simply see glimpses of it and stew on it privately (or, here on the blog perhaps. ha) are the challenges of watching large “egocentric NGOs” waltz around the country “saving the world” but in reality… well. Perhaps i should just stop there and circumvent the badmouthing that could get me into trouble. All i can say is, rather donate your money to SMALL organizations or individuals you know are doing a good job accomplishing things with it than to big organizations who pay huge salaries and overhead expenses and dont seem to follow through with things until the help actually gets to the people. There is BIG BUSINESS in Humanitarian Aid, let me tell you. I’m sure this isnt a secret to anyone who lives in Africa and sees the ‘end’ of the money river, but it might very well be a secret to the thousands of people who give money to charity without doing much investigation. Just sayin’. Mind you, there are many things big NGOs can accomplish that smaller organizations cannot simply because of their size of organization and the amount of money they have to work with. And, they are capable of spending lots of money on lots of flights which helps to offset the costs for less big groups doing bigger work in the countryside.

There’s a rat living in our garage. I suspected it before, but today i finally saw it run from the garbage can to it’s home under the woodpile. ick. Time to get the poison out again i suppose. bleh.

I did some gardening on my own today. I felt like a true Canadian doing it. haha. We’re really, really hoping for the rains to start soon, it’s getting too hot even in our house which keeps the cool so well, and the dryness is at times painful.  Regardless, i’m pretty happy with the garden already. I like how i can think, “and next year it’s going to be even better!!” Moreover, i love how we’re the only people who seem to live in this compound, which means our lack of hedges isnt such a big deal.

Thanksgiving Weekend. I’ve heard that it was a fantasticly warm weekend in Manitoba this year… which means i cant even gloat to myself that we’re having hot weather here to make myself feel better that i’m not there. bah.

Judah has been hard at work making birthday cards/paintings for his family members who have birthdays this month. I realized they’d probably not arrive in time, if they did at all, so i took a few photos to post just to say, “we didnt forget!” Judah’s letter writing skills have vastly improved since the last time he did such an activity. wow!

This last week Thursday i hosted a playgroup again for the first time in a long time! One of the newer missionary women (with the white shirt) moved here just 2 or 3 weeks ago and brings her boy to boy’s club on Mondays, but hasnt any other kids to connect with on her side of town (they live the Nazarene compound, in case Rhonda was interested to know). So she asked if we were interested to have playgroup on a regular basis and she’d drive out to our end. Pretty nice of her. And it gives us an excuse as moms to get together again like we used to do when we had smaller boys.

I worked all day Saturday in the kitchen preparing a Thanksgiving feast for Sunday dinner. This included pumpkin pies (one of them with a praline topping which was pretty dang good if i do say so myself!) and whipped cream, stuffing (which i was disappointed with but everyone graciously said tasted good), mashed potatoes (which josh mainly took care of), and mesquite rubbed BBQ’d chicken thighs (also handled by Josh – they were delicious!). We invited the Santmyires over because Heather once said she grew up with Canadian missionary families in Zimbabwe and so considers herself an honorary Canadian. heehee. And we knew they knew what stuffing was and would therefore appreciate it.

While preparing the food i battled all sorts of bad attitude kinds of things and came away marveling at how moms past have managed to put together such a great meal at this time of year without seeming to have become cranky or just simply exhausted to the point of skimping on the details. Of course, it’s all worth it when you sit down to a great dinner, but man, that prep is a killer!

My favourite part of the day was how the flowers i saw on the way to church exactly matched my table linens. LOL. It was a glorious day too, which was also a blessing. It’s actually been really hot today and yesterday and i’m starting to feel a bit nervous about our trip to the coast in December (i know, i wont get any sympathy from any of my readers in Canada). 30C is simply too hot for me… and for Asher i think too. Ever since the temps jumped up in the last few weeks he’s been more cranky and unable to settle for sleep than usual. Coincidental with a change in his schedule or something, maybe, but i reckon he may just have his mom’s distaste for the hot weather.

You can see in the back the last terrace that the gardener has put in recently. I said to Josh how i’m recently feeling very content living here… and content to be staying here for years yet – i really think to a large extent my garden has a lot to do with that… and i think the LORD has something to do with that! (well, and also the renewed sense of purpose and ministry i’ve been sensing also, which is quite helpful. ).

So, I’m very thankful for spring, for missionary family and friends, for my garden, my husband, for my workers, my boys and our health. For the relative stability of the country although they really need to get it together. I’m thankful that i’ve got close friends and that Judah does too. I’m praying for boy friends for Asher and some clarity/direction/wisdom into what we should do with Judah’s schooling next year (a huge concern for me right now).

hope yours was great also. Looking forward to hearing about it and seeing photos (ahem).

More biker gang stuff here, as mentioned in previous post.

This video below was actually an attempt to take a timed shot of us reading a story on the picnic table (like the photo posted in the previous post), but i had forgotten to move the camera function to ‘auto’ rather than the filming/movie function. It makes me giggle every time, but most likely it isnt as funny to anyone else. heehee.

The other day i declared at the dinner table that the best part of my day was being the “motor” to Asher’s motorbike while the boys played “Biker Buds”. I explained to Judah what a Biker Gang was, that a bunch of guys all drive their motorbikes around together on trips, like to Tsiramandidy or somewhere, and then stop at a restaurant and park their bikes all in a long row and go in to order milkshakes. Judah was the leader of the Gang in this instance, so he was the one who went in/up to the litchi tree and ordered “200 milkshakes and 2 cookies please!” So cute. He handed them out to the rest of us hanging out by the bikes in the parking lot. Haha.

Ok, sorry, i know these all look a lot alike, but i couldnt decide which was the best one and thought they were all way cute, so i posted them all. These are the “Biker Buds” on their “motorbikes”.

Asher is finally toddling about on his own these days, a month after he took his first steps. The Ladies have been ‘working’ him hard these past few days (heehee) and he’s come a long way in a few days. He’s become so much more confident of his walking… which means also more gashes on his head. I hadnt forgotten about that part of this stage. The ladies are always so mortified and apologetic if he happens to fall and gash his head on their watch. I merely shrug and say, he’s a ‘ankizylahy’.

Speaking of language learning, i’m still (mostly) enjoying mine. Josh continues to say how much he envies my lessons… except when i’m studying out loud at the lunch table, then he doesnt envy me as much. I do confess that i feel sometimes like i’m taking piano lessons again… and have nightmares about not having practiced enough before my lesson. ACK! For anyone thinking of moving to Madagascar (ahem!) you might want to consider skipping French lessons in Canada, say, and coming here to to intensive language study for a few months before you start your ‘real’ job. (This has been done before, fyi) Some pretty good incentives for that argument include:
1. househelp/childcare for a lot less than you’d have in Canada (not to mention cheaper tutor fees),
2. you’d already be in your field posting,
3. we’d have someone to hang out with when you werent studying (we could even speak french with you if you want),
4. you’d be able to live in the house next door instead of in that ‘Tradebois’ compound. (haha, no disrespect Heather).

We’ve been having BEEEUUteeful! weather recently (just under 30C) during the day. Waiting expectantly for the rains to start. I thought it looked like thunderstorms this afternoon… but it still hasnt followed through (blast!). Occassionally through the day i’ll declare outloud to Judah, “It’s a beautiful day!” and, as an afterthought, “we’re not scared!” Yesterday he thought it was a good time to read that book outside on the picnic table. So we did.

Videos (maybe) to come. Stay tuned.