September 7th, I learned how to do my laundry the Malagasy way. This involved two large buckets, a bar of soap, a brush, and my hands. I went on this adventure with two other Mada sisters. We really had no idea what we were doing, but jumped right in. The Malagasy women in the wash room would occasionally grab a clothing item from us, and show us how to really scrub it clean, or how to use our hands to better scrub it that way. I felt pretty lost in the beginning, but knew I needed some clean clothes! Eventually I got a "tsara be" from one of the women, which means very good. So I continued to scrub my clothes clean as best I could with the soap, brush, and my two hands. Then you put the soapy clothes into the rinse bucket and just keep swishing them around, dumping the water and then refilling the bucket with clean water, and repeating these steps until you thought your water had no more soap in it. Then it was time to line dry. This was a very long process, but I felt so accomplished afterwards.  |
| Rachel & I scrubbing away |
Culture Night
One of my favorite nights at Lovasoa was Culture Night! This was soo much fun, and full of you guessed it, culture! In the audience alone were people from at least 4 different cultures: Norwegian, Malagasy, Canadian, and American. What a wonderful show we all got! It started off with an African drum, or Djembe performance by a group of young boys and their teacher. What talent!! After their performance, they invited people in the audience to come up and try a traditional Malagasy tune. Of course I went up right away. It was SO much fun!! After the drumming we saw a group of talented dancers perform a few traditional dances. During one performance (pictured below), they dressed up in the customary outfits for 6 different tribes. In the picture, my region is represented by the girl second in from the right, in pink. After their performance, pretty much everyone in the room got up and danced the traditional Malagasy dance of "Afindrafindrao" around the room. What a spectacular night!
One of my favorite nights at Lovasoa was Culture Night! This was soo much fun, and full of you guessed it, culture! In the audience alone were people from at least 4 different cultures: Norwegian, Malagasy, Canadian, and American. What a wonderful show we all got! It started off with an African drum, or Djembe performance by a group of young boys and their teacher. What talent!! After their performance, they invited people in the audience to come up and try a traditional Malagasy tune. Of course I went up right away. It was SO much fun!! After the drumming we saw a group of talented dancers perform a few traditional dances. During one performance (pictured below), they dressed up in the customary outfits for 6 different tribes. In the picture, my region is represented by the girl second in from the right, in pink. After their performance, pretty much everyone in the room got up and danced the traditional Malagasy dance of "Afindrafindrao" around the room. What a spectacular night!
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| Amy, myself, Serena, Katie |
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| Traditional Dances and dress from 6 different tribes. |
Love the tradional dress! You look great!
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