Saturday

First, some news: after a meeting with both Ravalomanana and Rajoelina (Andry), and the leaders of the church, military etc, Rajoelina left the meeting when Ravalomanana declared that he would resign and give the power to some of the high military leaders. When these news spread to the soldiers standing out side the chaos begun. They support Rajoelina and did not agree with the new decision. They kidnapped three generals and two other members of the meeting and these three generals gave the power to Rajoelina later that evening. So now there’s a new president here who really shouldn’t be. France is now the only country still supporting Madagascar financially, except from private organizations, and also the only country who has agreed to Rajoelina as the new president. So now we’ll just have to see what’ll happen.

And then, to the headline - Saturday. It was a strange day. First, Friday night actually, Jens and I were invited to join the declaration of Rajoelina as the new president. I really wanted to go to see what would happen, but as it then would seem like we support him and we probably would have been filmed by the TV stations we decided that it would be better not to go. Bonde and Daniel however went there and were going to buy the ingredients for the Malagasy food we were going to have in the evening. We always cook Malagasy food on Saturday.
After kids’ English Club Luc, our good friend from English Club, joined us after playing volleyball. We invited him to join us for dinner in the afternoon. That he stayed for many hours didn’t really surprise us much but when I came home after going to the cyber café and the marked and was told that two of my students from CEG had been looking for me, wanting to take a picture, I was a bit amazed. They should come back at 14.00. I was also a bit sick, I still am, so the resting I needed didn’t really happen. When it was close to 14.00 I went out to look for the girls but I only saw a boy standing in the gate. 15 min later I went out again. Still only the boy there. As Jens had washed his clothes and it started to rain he went out to take them in. and when he came back he was not alone. The boy from the gate was with him, it was one of his students from Aka.Ma - the deaf school! Now it was not only Luc, and Thomas who also showed up, who were visiting, but a deaf guy as well. At least Jens was there and I could take a rest. Now I saw that my students had arrived - no time for rest. I went out and was not surprised to see “number 16”, Fabiola, who might be the student who likes me he most, was one of them. Unfortunately they don’t speak English very well and I of course don’t speak Malagasy very well. We took some pictures and I was tired and wanted them to go, even though it was really sweet of them to come visit. They asked it they could see the house and on our way in we met Jens and the deaf guy on their way to the marked. Luc had gone home and Thomas was on his way to the choir. I showed them to the living room where I played the guitar for them and taught Fabiola some chords. Luckily Jens came back, this time with a girl as well - the friend of the deaf guy, also deaf! Nor Bonde and Daniel were at home and we had to handle this on our own: four visitors who would stay for who knew how long. We started playing card game and this worked out really well and then Daniel and Bonde came back. My students fortunately had to go home right after and I finally got the tome to rest a bit. Jens’s party stayed for a while longer but eventually they went home as well.

For you international students this might sound quite ordinary and normal bur for us it was strange. We did not expect it. But was nice! The day really didn’t go as planned but hey, we’re in a new culture, isn’t this what we’re supposed to experience? It indeed was a strange day but a good one as well. Especially for Jens who got the good news that he and Øyvin, and Brigitte (ettåring), are going to Mahajanga to join the Shalom boat. Next week Arnhild and I will go to Antsirabe on Thursday/Friday and then we’ll go to Vohipeno to visit Preben (ettåring)! Some great least weeks lies ahead!