Things always work out...

Well it has been quite the week. Started out with a trip to visit a fellow PCV - Jennie- whose mother had flown in from the US. The original plan was to kill a chicken and have a little Thanksgiving feast, but as the day went on the heat level rose and our motivation dropped proportionally, until we ended up with a (delicious) meal of rice and sardines. On Friday we all went to Mahajanga for the day, ate some ice cream and wandered for a while, had time to play some rummy by the pool and got to bed to get a early start on the next day...

That's when my luck ran out. I got to the dock early to catch a motor boat home, as the PC doctor was coming to my site and I wanted to make sure that I didn't have anoything to blatently unhealthy or unsafe lurking in my house.. after a quick cleaning, and a bucket bath for myself, I recieved the following text: Ferry too crowded, will come to [my town] in afternoon.

Of course the ferry (baka) was crowded... it's always crowded. Usually when it's too crowded, that's when someone decided to throw a cow onboard, just for kicks. Long story short, I still had to buy paints so I returned to Mhja. Nice trip home for no reason. The good part was that I am buying paints for the parents to paint the school with, and they all kept stopping me to tell me how excited they were to start on Monday. My town rocks.

So, back to Mhja, bought paint, sent it off to the baka on a pous-pous (rickshaw-cart) and off to lunch with jennie and her mom, then went to check to make sure my paint made it okay. First problem: the small baka wasn't going, just the big one. I told the pouspous to send it on the little one. No paint in site, and none of the dock workers have a very comprehensive explination of what happened to the paint; they all saw it, but that's it. Great. Back to the store to see if the driver returned with it. No paint. Then the pous-pous returns, and informed me that the paint was sent on the big baka. Made a few phone calls; the baka arrived but no one saw the paint. Great. Happy Thanksgiving. Bright and early Sunday I headed home to look into the problem- and of course by this point everyone at the dock was asking me about the paint and what happened, and telling me thatmalagasy people steal stuff. Again, great.

Home at last, can't get any leads on Sunday although again everyone told me that it was stolen, that people steal stuff here (a very common statement by a malagasy. There isn't a lof of trust between people here). Went to bed bummed and planning to go to Mhja AGAIN to buy paint AGAIN. Up early, did a quick look through Katsepy, still no paint. On the little baka, talked with a few of the workers, one saw the paint puton the big baka, so I know it at least made it that far. At the dock in Mhja, ran into the guy that I have been working with at the schools, mention to him that Simon saw that paint on the big baka, they go look around the little baka, and of course, there is my paint, hanging out in the captain's room up above. At this point I would love to write that I learned a valuable lesson about good communication and how to transport things more efficiently, but really I just reinforced my theory that "everything always works out". Oh and I love malagasy people even more because no one stole my paint. They just stuck it in a corner and didn't tell me about it. Life in the Peace Corps. Painting bright and early tomorrow, come join in the fun!

Hope that everyone had a lovely turkey day! Love from mangoland, chan