Hi all,

Sorry to not have updated this in a while, I just always need to set a lot of internet time aside to put one of these up. Most of you probably received my email about going to Diego Suarez. We leave early tomorrow at 6 and it's only a 2 hour flight so we should be there by 10. The city is right on the coast, but because it used to be a military base much of the ocean is inaccesible from the main city. I still don't really understand why but that's what I remember Roland, my academic director, saying. We'll be there for 10 days followed by a 4 day camping excursion on the peninsula across Nosy Be. We'll then spend one night in Nosy Be, which seems like way too little time considering it's the nicest island of Madagascar. We'll be snorkeling and spear fishing and riding pirogues and avoiding prostitutes...

I'm super excited to get out of Tana. I like it here a lot, but I've been looking forward to seeing the ocean and also to going to a less polluted place. The cold I caught 2 weeks ago is sill having an effect on me and I feel like it has a lot to do with how polluted it is in the city. Any pollution is a lot of pollution compared to Boulder! Also, Diego is significantly warmer, but sill relatively dry which is good for my residual cold. However, there are a whole other set of worries with going to a new place. I'll be living with a new host family so that'll be somewhat uncomfortable to get accoustomed to. Not to mention a whole other city to navigate...but what am I talking about, that's fun and exciting. Silly.

I feel kind of feverish and I have some diarrea, what does that mean? Maybe I have malaria.

This last week was our Music and Dance module. Basically every morning we would have a lecture on music and cultural identity etc, a language class (either French or Malagasy) and then after lunch a famous group of musicians, each representing a different region of MDG, would come and play for us and make us dance. Then last night we had a party because the other SIT group based in Fort Dauphin (aka the Ecology group) were up in Tana. There were like 8+ different bands playing for us and we were dancing the afternoon away, it was a lot of fun. For some reason I'm considered a good dancer because I can keep a beat. Haha.

So, I guess I'm not going to complete my village stay blog. It'll take way too much time. I just CAN'T do it...

I learned how to play a very typical Malagasy song on the guitar, but I can't remember what it's called. I'm planning on purchasing a Valiha and a Kabosy to take back with me to Colorado. I'm also considering a Djembe because they're so cheap here. I don't know how the heck I'll carry all of that to the US though...

Anyway, I should get going. I have a paper to write before the trip tomorrow and I don't know what to do it on. I've attached some random pics:

This is a view of Tana from the first hotel we stayed at, the Raphia

An angry Zebu that chased us all over the place until we climbed against a wall of mud. It as hilarious but slightly scary too, they're big ol' animals! Fact of the Day: the word for cow/zebu in Malgache is Omby, which comes from Swahili.

I saw mom at the airport in Paris! Doesn't that look like mom?!

OK, big kiss!