Manahoana daholo (hi everyone),

This could be my last post from Madagascar so I will try and make it a good one.  The official program has come to an end and now I have two weeks of vacation that I am going to spend with my friend Dan from the program.  After my three week stay with a rural farming family in Betafo for my independent study project, I spent a week in the nearby town of Antsirabe writing up my project paper, running through the streets of Antsirabe at night (nearly collided with an oncoming pose-pose), and playing soccer in the streets during the day with Dan and local Malagasy boys and men.  Dan and I were accosted every morning by poor pose-pose drivers wanting to give us a ride when we walked out through the archway of Hotel Hasina, which reinforced ideas in my paper about the disparities in wealth that exist between people from so-called developed countries (like me) and people from so-called Third World countries (like the pose-pose drivers).  I could afford to sleep every night in a hotel with running water, toilets, and internet access, while the pose-pose drivers spent the night curled up under a blanket in their pose-pose parked on the streets.  Spending a week in Antsirabe was a great way to finish up my independent study project on sustainable lifestyles and systems of power in Madagascar and the world.  Dan and I met up with some other SIT students in Antsirabe and together we all traveled back to Antananarivo, arriving there on May 1st.  Back in Tana, we had about three days of individual presentations of our ISPs and then the program had a four day excursion to the east coast, on the Indian Ocean in the small town of Foulpointe, a time for reflection and discussing the past semester as a group, sharing what we had learned and experienced.  We returned to Tana after a great time on the coast and the program ended on May 9.  I now have two weeks of traveling with my friend Dan.  We are both planning on returning to Betafo to spend some more time with our host families there but we also will be bumming around Tana some as well.  It feels really good to have some vacation time after what was an amazing but at times stressful semester as part of a study abroad program.  I feel much more a part of Madagascar now, instead of just a student looking at the country with an outsiders perspective.  I have had some intriguing conversations with very interesting characters now that I know more French and Malagasy.  One of them was with a guy named Jean Leu, who got his bachelors in Philosophy, art, and contemporary practice, is half-French and half-Malagasy, grew up in America, traveled around Europe, now lives in Scotland, and is currently here in Madagascar working on his Ph.D.  I can't wait to get home and tell more about it in detail.  I may try and do one more post before I leave on the 24th so keep your eyes peeled.

All my loving

Anders