Thoughts From A Ministry Building

Ok, so I have now been to the Ministry of Foreign affairs building so often that I am known by all the security and reception staff who keep saying “Again? Again?” every time I go in. I STILL only have a one month tourist VISA and think that is the way it is going to have to stay that way until we are a but further along work-wise.

My beloved Ministry of Foreign Affairs building. Ahhh how I will NOT miss you.

I have been to several different offices and spoken with countless people, all of whom are more than friendly and less than helpful. Today, Tuesday, the language barrier really became a bit too much and having tried to make myself understood for about half an hour in this one office with no luck I really began to feel very frustrated and upset and was in danger of bursting into tears. That is when I decided that for the rest of the day I was going to be on holiday properly and not even think about VISAs, or orphanages or paperwork and that I would pay for the rest of the day myself and not think about being sensible for expenses. So that is exactly what I did.

After going back to Sakamanga to dump my bag I headed off to a restaurant I had heard of that specialises in fusion Malagasy and creole cuisine called Chez Suchett. It was delicious and I had a wonderful lunch, but I have to say that eating on my own in getting old pretty quick. I had my book, and it isn’t that I get bored, it’s more that the meal passes so fast and I feel like both staff and patrons alike are watching me pretty unashamedly. It’s a little disconcerting; especially when you are trying to disguise the drips of juice running down your chin or recover a forkful you’ve dropped on the floor.

But nevertheless the food was a delight. I was offered complementary dips and bread to start and was delighted to find a fresh and varies assortment of flavours on offer; there was a green chilli killer, which I delicately avoided, a tomato salsa, a tart grated mango and shallot mixture, a peanut mixture with a warm afterglow, a smoky aubergine dip and a little bowl of missed crispy veg strands. Having navigated the 6 dips with crusty French bread without a plate I settled into myself a bit so by the time my garlic zebu steak and ‘aromatic rice’ arrived I was much more relaxed and the lump in my throat which had formed gradually over the hours spent in the Ministry had largely dissipated. The smells coming off my plate were totally indescribable and the zebu marinade tasted so much like the BBQ beef you got on the roadside in Phnom Penh that the lump threatened to return. For afters I had flambé bananas, done at my table attracting even more attention to the lone eccentric with the chef at her table with flaming bananas everywhere. Between the alcohol on my bananas and my glass of wine with lunch I was by this time feeling very merry and on my way back to the hotel I stopped at a small hideaway I had been recommended for a massage. Bliss.

My massage room at La Medina... mmmmmm

That concludes my day and now you will find me lying prostrate on the bed watching the first series of friends and Skyping family. I am enjoying my last evening alone because tomorrow (SO EXCITING) I will have company. But more on that later. For now the process of writing this blog is somewhat detracting from my post massage glow. So bye for now.

Scabby cat outside bedroom window. It looks like Mr July...

OH PS- Here are some scabby cats for Kate Wittering to add to our 2013 calendar (an international one this year Kate with cats from Egypt, Malta and now Madagascar!)

Scabby cat outside bathroom window, maybe a halloween Ms October?

Thoughts From A Hotel Bedroom

I have been mugged.

It wasn’t that bad, I am fine and all they took was my phone, but it has made me reflect on the way I have been feeling the last few days. The only way I can describe it is vulnerable and visible. Cue feminists around the globe rolling their eyes and shaking their heads at me for perpetuating the image of a woman as a quivering, helpless, mess. But, before anyone becomes too indignant, hear me out- that isn’t what I mean.

I have lived away from my parents since I was 16 and have always held a strong ‘you could fall down the stairs in your own house tomorrow, so don’t use fear as an excuse not to do things’ sort of philosophy. Throughout my time living in London, my wonderful adventures through South East Asia, my work with refugees in Malta and my time at university I have always been a ‘dust yourself off’ kind of gal, trying to take experiences in my stride and not have them frighten me off doing something I want in the future.

That is not to say I am naïve and since arriving in Antananarivo I have made a conscious effort to balance my desire to go everywhere and do everything with the reality that I am here alone, I do not speak the language and that I have enough time that those experiences will come later when I am less green. To that end I have not gone out after dark AT ALL since I arrived, with the exception of yesterday when some lovely new friends I met at the hotel who live and work in the city took me out dancing. I have not taken anything of great value outside the confines of my hotel room, I do not get my camera or tourist information out in the street, I wear my backpack on my front and I dress so modestly I might be mistaken for a sister of the holy orders.

However a new sensation has been following me round, one that goes against my philosophies and does not sit well with me. I have been afraid. Even just typing it out makes me feel like a melodramatic, prejudiced child and I have been making efforts to shake it since I arrived by venturing out of the hotel to nearby shops and restaurants during the day and speaking to as many people as possible in and around the hotel so as to add to my list of ‘familiar faces’.

I feel like one of those deer on the African savannah, the ones that are born with their shaky spindly legs and have to go from foetus to fully functioning, running, jumping member of the herd in minutes. And shaky I have been; while in the phone shop buying my SIM card I was shaking so badly I had to have help putting my SIM in my phone. While waiting in a queue outside the bank for an hour I felt feint, clutching my bag and hoping to get to the front before people's stares bore holes in my back. Then last night, while waiting for these new friends to pick me up, I debated whether I should just put my pyjamas back on and curl up under the duvet instead of leaving the hotel.

But while I have felt this way, I have also accomplished a series of goals, such as obtaining a Malagasy phone number, making an effort to meet people, going for walks around the city and I felt like I was becoming steadier on my wobbly legs. So this morning when I left the hotel to go to a nearby café for a tea and a spot of people watching I hadn’t really thought much of it. And then when those boys pushed me and pulled me and took my phone while everyone else stood by and watched I was suddenly that teary, wobbly, vulnerable animal again with all my hard work undone.

I have no doubt that those men were not some criminal gang, rather a couple of young opportunists who saw me and made a spur of the moment decision to make themselves some extra cash this morning, I am also well aware it was not personal and by tomorrow lunch time I will have bought myself a new, cheaper phone and SIM card. But that isn’t the point is it? I could just as easily have dropped my phone in a gutter and waved it goodbye without blinking, but had that been the case I would not be sitting locked in my own hotel room, unsure whether to finish the errands I had on my to do list today, wishing, just this once, that I looked like my boyfriend Brian, or his friend Tom, or any of my uncles instead of looking like little, frightened, easily overcome me.

And make no mistake; the tears that I cried on my way back to the hotel were not ones of sadness, homesickness or grief. They were tears of anger, frustration and shame at my own weakness that one non-incident like this morning can have me heading straight back into my room feeling like just a helpless child. Is it really that just by walking out into the street as a young, foreign woman alone I am pasting a target on my own chest and putting myself in the firing line? And even if that's true, does it matter? Should it change the way I behave and my attitude toward the people around me? I think not.

So no. I will not be staying in the hotel all day. I will be gathering myself together, putting on my shoes and modesty shirt and going to that bloody café for an ice-cream treat. Not because I want to, but because I will be damned if I allow this feeling to entrench itself deeper and undo all the good work I have done trying to shift it in the first place.

But I can’t help wondering if Brian or Tom, my father, uncles or male friends will even understand this blog entry, or if it is just an innate female struggle to reconcile your ambition and determination to function freely as you should, with the knowledge that you are visibly and knowingly an easy target for those one-in-a-million who would do you harm.

                                                                             

"Thoughts From A Foreign Land" The Original

Malta as the rains come. Photo by Neil Howard

In my last entry I mentioned a sort of poem, reflection thing I had published in the Malta Independent a while back which is where this blog got its name from. Since then I have realised that really very few people knew what I was talking about there. So here it is "Thoughts From A Foreign Land." the original- nothing to do with Madagascar, its about Malta:

There is a particular smell in England when it rains. It is the smell of big clouds raining onto fresh grass and the smell of lakes and rivers merging with the waters of the sky. The smell is new and clean and promises new life. Back home the rain has no grass to fall on and no space to fill. Our parched land soaks up the meagre offerings from the sky and the first rains disappear beneath the soil. The smell of rain in my homeland is that of an ancient earth being woken by the drumming of droplets on a baked surface. It smells heavy and dark, like a starless night or a dusty day.

The rains of England are bright and blue, where the water brings only clean landscapes. At home the rains are sometimes red with the sandy offerings from African winds. These rains explode onto the horizon and then disappear as fast as they came, leaving behind their foreign soils to remind us of distant lands. Sometimes our rains are deep and grey filled with the weight of our endless seas. These rains come rolling over the waves to batter and bruise the small island we call home, ripping chunks from its ragged edges, returning our land to the deep that possesses it.

The rains of England come from up high, from blank skies indifferent to the life below. The people of these skies look up, straining at some unknown horizon and sigh in the knowledge that somewhere, beyond the grey, the rain is slowing and their land is being returned to the light. In my land the rain is sent ton the people, to saturate the parched land and awaken the sleeping rocks. The skies that bring the rains are low and menacing as they surround the island in an ancient siege. Deep clouds of darkness unleash their fury on an island that has forgotten their purpose, reminding them that summer must end.

The rain in England is polite and quiet, seeping through streets and pattering on skylights. The voice of the people who ceaselessly predict, quantify and criticise the offerings of the oblivious blue, drown out the sound of its arrival. But at home the rains are preceded by the thundering of the gods with their brutal forks which divide the heavens. The undulating light cleaves our world in two as it heralds the unapologetic arrival of the rains. At home the rain thunders onto the scorched landscape and the houses shake beneath their flat roofs.

Yet the people of England resent the polite waters which grace their homeland, berating and cursing it for inconveniencing their busy lives. But the people of my land turn their sun-sore faces to the sky and smile at the passion of their horizons. As the atmosphere descends onto villages and fields the locals turn their thoughts to the Alla who is providing them with this explosion of vitality.

As a little girl I remember my mother holding her trembling child as rolling thunder shook my bones, explaining that it was only God moving the furniture to be ready for winter work. As I trace the droplets of foreign English rain to the bottom of my window pane, I see my father, eyes bright, laughing at how the island houses welcome the rain to drip and splutter through their limestone roofs and under their wooden doors, as though seeking shelter within our honest homes.

Thoughts From A Foreign Capital

Disclaimer: There are not many original photos in this edition because I haven't wanted to attract too much attention to myself by whipping out my camera on ever street corner. SORRY. Maybe when Antoine gets here or if I visit something touristy which calls for a camera.

Hello all,

I have been in Antananarivo now for two days and I am slowly getting my bearings. I have been tired, a little dazed, and very awe-struck since I arrived so you will all have to forgive me if this comes out a little muddled as I try to put this once-in-a-lifetime experience down on paper.

When we landed it was 23:00 and already dark. I have a thing about the way a place smells (as those of you who have read the newspaper article about rain, from which this blog actually got it's name, will already know) and so, despite being tired, nervous and cramped, as I stepped off the plane I was desperately excited to really experience my first moment of Madagascar as fully as I could.

The air way heavy and it felt thick, like Malta on those humid nights in September. That feeling seeped into the sound too- it was like everything was muffled, there but not there, kind of trapped in the stagnant air. The air tasted dusty and also a little ashy, I have since been told that Antananarivo has very high levels of pollution from cars which gets a little trapped in the city's basins. The tarmac was faded by the sun and a little cracked and the airport staff had open faces, I have thought since actually that many Malagasy seem to have an air of amused acceptance tabour them as they go about their daily business. All this gave me my first wave of the island but it was the smell- the dusky, sweet, charcoal smell, which really set it apart from anywhere else I have ever been. The smell was deep, like barbecue bricks and flames and then above it was a smell which made me smile and feel like a child. It took me a while to place it, but then it hit me like a wave- it smelled like those little doughnuts you get at funfairs, the ones they make in front of you and then dunk in sugar. Well Antananarivo at night smells like barbecue and doughnuts. At least it does to me.

The romanticising over my first shot of Madagascar was cut very short by several intensely stressful events ("What's this?" I hear you say "You? Christina Margaret Andrea Lejman stressed? Don't be ridiculous! I've never heard the like!"). I will not go into them because I am happy here and do not want to make it sound otherwise but picture this: You are a 24 year old Malteser who speaks what can only be describes as pigeon French, you are alone in a new country, you have no-one you know anywhere to be seen, no visa, no local currency and no idea what lies ahead. Then picture you (as me) proceeding through the following stages- you join a que (if it can be called that) to obtain your VISA and are given very funny looks by everyone until a senior person comes out and tries to explain (you think) that no they do not issue one-year VISAs at the airport and why didn't you go to your local Madagascan embassy before you arrived (with no-one seeming to understand that neither the UK not the mediterranean rock have a Madagascan embassy and neither does Madagascar have a UK or Malta embassy either). Having finally procured a one month VISA and instructions to go to the Ministry to sort it out the next day you then go to the luggage carrousel, which has been turning since you joined the VISA que, and stand there for nearly 40 minutes, convinced that your luggage is in Paris, or somewhere between there and here, or on someone else's trolley being wheeled out the door. Having FINALLY spotted my giant pink suitcase AND 65 litre backpack and grabbed my daypack hand luggage I think about all the journeys between here and my final destination I am going to have to struggle through with this load. Having spotted the taxi driver the hotel sent with my name on a paper (BEST IDEA EVER) he takes me to a weird dark building with shadowy figures prowling nearby at which point I begin to choke on my own heart beat. This turns out to be a lovely little Beureu-de-change... silly me.

Artwork from the airport

The drive to the hotel was terrifying. I am sure if I repeated it I would be charmed and delighted, but at 1am after 10 hours of travelling it was just horrid. The driving is bad. Like Malta bad. There are NO street lights and far too many big stray dogs who run out of the darkness. There is the glow of the cooking fires (the source of the BBQ smell) where the shadows of people are crouched on the side of the road cooking or talking and the road seemed to disappear ahead in the dark. The huge imposing American embassy on the outskirts of town looks like a prison (which is what I thought it was) and when we turned off the road into what looked to be a shanty town I clutched at my St Christopher and thought about pronoia.

Ofcourse when we arrived at the hotel (Sakamanga for those of you who are dedicated enough to google it) it was wonderful and a Skype with the family, a good nights sleep and a little sunshine can change your outlook on anything. Especially when that anything is a vibrant, colourful, diverse capital city like the one I am fortunate enough to find myself in.

The hotel logo is a blue cat. I think because 'sake' means blue in Malagasy and 'manga' means cat but my French cannot be relied on to any degree so that could be a huge lie.

On Wednesday I woke up late and spent some time sorting myself out in the room and had lunch downstairs in the courtyard. Following this I took a taxi to the Ministries which was totally fruitless because a) Most people had taken the fact that Thursday was a public holiday to skive off Wed afternoon and Friday too and b) none really seemed to know how to help me and even if they did I probably wouldn't have understood them anyway. Although my lovely taxi driver from the night before did come in with me to try and help me translate and make progress. However the excursion was worth it because the drive gave me my first real sight of Antananarivo in the daytime which came with my first speechless in the face of beauty moment when we crested one of Tana's many steep hills and came upon Lake Anosy. Like a mirage in the desert of urban poverty and pollution the lake is bordered all along its edge by giant Jacaranda trees which are not green, yellow, orange or brown as you might expect but BRIGHT LAVENDER PURPLE. Seriously. Google it. And against Tana's red brick and orange dusty background they jump out at you like cartoon drawings. In the centre of the lake rises a monument with a golden statue on top and beyond it a steep incline draws your eye up to the huge colonial columns of the palace, which sits upon the hill, towering over the corrugated iron roofs which flank it, like a queen looking over her queendom.

Jacaranda tree (not my photo)

That was it for me. I might still be nervous and a little jumpy, I might still be lonely and a little tired but at that sight it was love. It was like when you first see Mdina in the distance, revealing itself through a summer haze, or the Independence monument in Phnom Penh, regal against a background of neon kites. It was like my first view of the Vang Vieng mountains in Laos which rise, impossibly steep and inaccessible and covered in that vibrant green shrubbery which makes them look like a painting. It might take me a while to settle in, and I might not be comfortable going out after dark alone, I might not be sure whether I am up to the work challenges ahead but after seeing that I know- I can live here. And now I do.

Lake Anosy (picture from google)

Thoughts From 30,000 Feet

3:30am Tuesday 30th October 2012

I am not a particularly religious person as those among you who know me can affirm. But I sometimes find prayers, psalms or scripture has the right sort of sentiment and says what you want a lot better than you ever could. It is comforting somehow. Perhaps because of the presence religion played in my childhood I don't find it intimidating or infuriating just because my philosophy is not totally compatible with any one part of it. This is why my grandmother’s gift of a pendant of St Christopher, protector of travellers, now lies under my clothes, suspended on a pearly white piece of that plastic wrapping ribbon which curls up when you pull it along a blade.

My Pendant from nanna

 Perhaps this is also why, as I embark on this epic journey I whisper this mantra under my breath:

O God, You called Abraham Your servant out of Ur and kept him safe and sound in all his wanderings. If it is Your will, protect Your servants. Be for us a support when setting out, friendship along the way, a little shade from the sun, a mantle against cold and rain, a crutch on slippery paths, and a haven in shipwreck. Bear us up in fatigue, and defend us under attack. Under Your protection, let us fulfil the purpose for our trip and return safe and sound to our home. Amen

Soooooo if anyone fancies doing all those things for me that would be great. Let me know in the comments section :D

13:00pm (or 15:00- more on that later)

The plane is rammed. I think it is because they have amalgamated the flight from yesterday and this morning's into one. I have been on this plane for a couple of hours and it's now just coming up to 1pm. But my day started far earlier than that.

I woke up at 3:30am and, having debated its merit for a few days, Brian decided he would join Joseph and I on the ride to the airport. I had been worried that if he came I would loose my bottle and make a scene, but actually the morning passed relatively serenely.

I had a little panic when at the check-in desk the woman at the counter said that since I was traveling to Madagascar for longer than 90 days I was supposed to have acquired a visa in advance. After extended deliberations between various members of staff they decided this was not the case after all and let me on the flight. I am still a little nervous though that I will encounter such issues when we land, but I guess we shall have to see. When I told me dad about this concern on the phone before takeoff he gave me my final goodbye prezzie: a new word. He says it was made up by Susan Sarandon and refers to the feeling when the world is on your side and you feel like everything will work out fine. The word is  'pronoia', like the opposite of paranoia, and my dad says I should swap my predilection with the latter for an effort toward the former which is much more appropriate to my own experiences.

  

Do not think it is an accident that I have skimmed over recounting my goodbyes this time. Brian and Jojo came to wave me off, and for that I am so gratefull, but I will not risk making a scene on the plane by hashing over this memory now and getting all morose. Instead I will fill you in on more pragmatic aspects to my journey thus far.

The flight to Paris was relatively uneventful, although I did sit next to an adorable 6 year old girl on her way to Disneyland who was quite entertaining. At Paris CDG my flight transfer went smoothly and I arrived at my gate just in time for boarding. I wanted to break big money into small so I bough a bottle of water, a packet of gum and a small tower of macaroons... all in different shops... all with 50 Euro notes. Not the most popular girl in the airport after that but hey ho.

My snacks made me unpopular at the airport

 The plane is one of those big ones with three rows of seats and I am in the middle row in the left hand isle. I happen to have sat in a seat where the headphones won't plug in so I have no access to the Air France in-flight entertainment, but I have plenty of my own so I won't complain.

The overhead lockers caught my attention before takeoff- the handles sort of pull the compartments down out of the ceiling of the plane, rather than opening a kind of cupboard like in the ones I am used to. I am sure this is to save space but it seems to be wildly impractical to me. The nature of the system means that when the flight attendants (air hostesses? cabin crew? I am sure I am being frowned at for political incorrectness here as I can't remember which is right) have to close the overhead compartments they are pushing all the weight held therein back up into the ceiling. Needless to say this was more than a struggle and they kept having to ask strong looking gents in the adjacent seats to help them push. It would have been funny if it weren’t so bizarre. It also means that when you undo the catch the weight of the baggage within propels the compartment down toward you threatening to slide its contents on top of you. Weird. Anyway I am trying to avoid having to open one of these monsters mid-flight to save from decapitating anyone or having to suffer the embarrassment of not being able to shut the bloody thing, but with VISA application forms on their way and my passport and vital info in my bag I know this time is fast approaching.

I have finished my lunch which I have to say was delicious. I am aware you are not meant to admit that about airplane food but nevertheless is was lovely. There were also 4 courses of it, including a pasta salad, followed by chicken in a sort of sweet and savory marinade with mixed grains and pulses, then there were two perfect French bread buns with posh butter and camembert cheese and an apple custard pastry with coffee. This came with a bottle of French Merlot, which I had a taste of but largely avoided. I felt strangely as though the meal was medicinal and that I should eat it all up like a good girl to avoid getting fatigued, dehydrated or grumpy on the plane.

Yummy plane lunch

  

Lunch was served at 11:50am, which got me thinking about the strange nature of time on these flights. Although I immediately thought that ten to twelve was quite early for lunch, it could just have easily have been ten to two in the afternoon (as it was in Madagascar). I wonder how they work these things out on these long flights.

This all got me musing a little too much about how my watch dictates my behaviors nowadays, drowning out any small protests from my body. It is the hands of the clock which dictate when I wake, eat, venture out, or attempt sleep. These thoughts remind me of all those research experiments we studied in psychology where scientists locked participants, and sometimes themselves, in sensory deprivation chambers or caves and such like to explore the return of the endogenous pacemaker when exogenous zeitgeibers have been abandoned (correct me if I am wrong colleagues- I seem to have these phrases imprinted on my memory but they could equally easily be referring to some kind of medical implant or German pastry).

Anyway. After a few of those musings I decided to give up and read my book for a bit to distract myself from my own head. What I really want to do is watch Men In Black 3 or Snow White and The Huntsman like everyone else but I don't want to complain about my media center not working. The next best thing would be to get my laptop out and watch something of mine but that would entail an encounter with the deadly overhead baggage compartments and I haven't quite steeled myself to that yet... Sooooo another chapter of my book it is... or maybe a nap... 3 hours 15 minutes down, another 7 1/2 hours to go.

The book I am reading- not loving it, got to be honest.

15:15 (or 17:15)

How, but how is it only just quarter past whatever bloody time it is. Surely watch is not working?!? Surely I am dreaming and we are nearly there!?! Surely... oh bugger. Wish my media center worked now. Though still not desperate enough to forage for laptop.

Ps. Every now and again they come round with these tiny cups and pour you some water, then return a couple of minute later with a tray and you drop your cup back in it. Feels even more like refreshments are strange medicinal preventatives... keep imagining them breaking into 'A Spoon Full of Sugar' as they smile at you over the Evian bottles. Hmmmm... I must be getting tired.

17:44 (or 19:44)

My Bluetooth isn't working to connect my keyboard to my tablet. It has really frustrated me and I'm not entirely sure why. Perhaps its due to the fact that I don’t understand technology and therefore have no idea what to do if things go wrong so I frustrate myself by repeating what SHOULD work but I am already aware des not, leaving me infuriated at both the machine for not working and myself for personifying stupidity by perpetually repeating the same action and expecting a different outcome. Plus now I m truly bored and really sad my TV doesn't work. Too much time in my own head is both tiring and disconcerting. It's why I leave the TV or radio on when I'm alone, even when studying which people never understood. If there is nothing to distract me from myself I'll never get anything done. Better when I'm busy that’s me. A ruminator. Hmph.

There is an article in the Air France magazine written by our very recently replaced French Ambassador to Malta, Daniel Rondeau, who wrote a book in French about Malta as he approached his departure. I bought the book but it'll be a while before my French is good enough for that. Anyway, there are photos of the island plastered all over the cover as well as across 15 or so inside, accompanied by gushings about how wondrous my homeland is. Is this there to comfort or taunt me? Back to daddy's paranoia vs pronoia question again I guess...

I'm hungry. I really hope the feed me again soon. I've seen people with sandwiches but I think you have to go to the back of the plan to get them... people seem to be milling.

Have suddenly come to the realization that this is why I am angry- I'm hungry. I'm like an infant still; hungry, tired, cold or over-excited and I soon feel the gloom. Hmmm... Might venture to the back of the plane after all...