The highlands of Madagascar.  Here it really feels like you are on the African continent.

To bring things up to date, I just got back from a five-day rural village stay where I stayed with a rice farming family near the village of Betafo, which is 75 kilometers south of Antananarivo.  It was a really great learning experience.  I milked a very dirty cow, cut rice in the rice paddies, caught carp with my bare hands in the shallow rice paddy water, planted cucumbers and tomatoes on the terraced farm fields, and butchered a chicken with my bare hands (to the great amusement of my host parents).  I also slept on a straw mattress and was chewed on by fleas every night.  The best comparison I can make of the experience is that it was like staying on my cousins' island back in rural Minnesota during the summer months but that my host family does it year round.  There was no running water or electricity and of course no indoor plumbing, just a spider invested, brick latrine.  Water was carried from a spring that flowed out of the ground near the rice paddies about 300 yards downhill from my house.  My host family was super generous and fed me plenty of rice.  Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera with me and so didn't get any pictures.  Fortunately, I may be going back for my independent study project and will take some pictures then.  Veloma from Madagascar.