Saturday, August 4

·        5:00 – Wake up early to run but forget that winter = dark until 6:00 am.

·        5:15 – Shower, sweep house, fill water filter (coming back to Betsiaka with no water in the filter is always a huge disappointment), and cook. Breakfast today is my last two eggs scrambled with the leftover eggplant sauté. Eat and drink coffee.

·        6:00 – Put gas tank and backpack out on porch.

·        6:15 – Riche arrives, loads my stuff into the car, and I leave on my bike.

·        8:00 – Meet Riche at the parkage in Ambilobe and leave my bike with him while I go sell back my empty gas tank.

·        8:45 – Return for my bike and backpack and head to the station to catch a brousse for Ambanja. Find a brousse pretty quickly. One of my Panera (brousse “assistant” who helps find people to ride, takes care of baggage, and drives the brousse around the city to pick people up before leaving) tells me not to go with this driver because he is mora mora (very slow). I go anyway and immediately regret not listening to him.

·        1:00 – Finally arrive in Ambanja after seething through an extra two hours of deafening Gasy radio and swerving around potholes.

·        1:15 – Meet Jason and Katie at Gringotts (our name for our favorite neighborhood gargotte – actually every frequently visited bar or restaurant has its own special name), where we order a beer and eat grilled calamari.

Ambanja Crew at the Good Life

·        2:30 – Go back to Josh’s house and watch an episode of Homeland, a (new?) show Katie wants to introduce me to. I am instantly hooked. I also am able to check my email and find out I have been matched with a elementary-school classroom in Michigan for a WorldWise Correspondence program, meaning I will basically be “pen pals” with this classroom for the remainder of my service and I can’t wait to get started.

·        4:00 – Walk over to Bat Bar (again, not it’s real name but a nod to the fact that it serves fried bat… I should do a whole post about the world of Ambanja bars and restaurants). Bat Bar is one of our favorite hangouts because of a small upstairs porch with only one table. We are the only ones who ever use it and we often hang out there all afternoon reading, playing our own music, and working.

·        5:00 – Walk over to the Sambirano bridge, which is an excellent place to watch the sunset over the river at Bridge Bar (name self-explanatory).

·        6:00 – Eat a dinner of beans, crab sauce, and rice at the Southern Parkage.

·        7:00 – Meet the Italians at Good Life (named for a previous volunteer’s slight mistranslation of the real name, Bellevie).

·        10:30 – Katie and I walk home with the Italians to go to sleep. On the way home, I see the constellation the Southern Cross for the first time and am excited to finally see the subject of one of my favorite songs.