MAMY

Mamy and Nrado
My neighbors Mamy (pronounced mommie) and her husband Nrado have 4 children. A daughter at the university in Tana and 3 boys between 12-14. Nrado is a high school history teacher and Mamy runs the little restaurant next to their house. They have been great neighbors. They sent the boys over to help me clean and haul water when I arrived and invited me to their home for dinner on Malagasy Mother’s Day. I start my day with breakfast at her restaurant, coffee and two mofo bols (fried bread) which cost me all of 0.10 cents. I always take my Malagasy book and Mamy helps me with my lessons. She is great at telling me when I am not using the right grammar or words and says “ Your Malagasy is mixed up.”
Mamy is just slightly larger than most slim Malagasy women, but not “fat” by any American standards. She is the perfect owner of a place where people gather to share a meal and spread the local news. Warm, friendly, with a loud gregarious laugh that can easily be heard from my house. She is one of those people who knows everyone in town and everyone confides in her – she has all the latest gossip.
One day Mamy asked me if I wanted to go fishing. The local markets are full of small fish, crawdads and a little eel like fish. They catch them in small creeks and streams that flood the rice paddies. They always taste a little muddy to me, but it is protein.
I arrive after lunch and she hands me a bucket, then we set off crossing several rice paddies. Skipping along the narrow, dry land between the rice paddies is not as easy as she makes it look. I watch people all day run, skip and jump around those narrow walls outlining the fields. I feel awkward, trying to look and act like a local, almost falling several times before Mamy grabs my arm or shoulder.
When we arrive at our designated spot we roll our pant legs up and jump into a muddy field where we immediately sink in up to our knees. Walking through the field to a small stream is another dangerous task for me. The mud makes a sucking vacuum sounds each time I raise a leg to move forward and I slip several times.
Our efforts are not rewarded, after an hour we catch a few crawdads and a few fish. We climb onto the bank of the muddy rice paddies, caked in mud, resting and looking at the surrounding mountains. Mamy apologizes for all the mud and few fish. I say no problem it was fun and besides the mud is a beauty treatment. I tell her in Malagasy that in the United States women are willing to pay a lot of money to go to a place called a spa for mud treatments. They rest in beautiful surroundings, covered in mud, which is supposed to make them beautiful.
Mamy looks at me with those large confused eyes and says, ”Your Malagasy is all mixed up again, you are not saying it right, it makes no sense.” I smile and say nothing, thinking how odd all this must sound to someone in a developing country. I am thinking, no it is not my Malagasy that is mixed, it is our strange American customs that are sometimes mixed up.

Windows to our Souls
I am one of the first people to board the little taxi brousse to my banking town and am put in the last row. But as usual the bus fills up fast and 25 of us are soon crushed into a small bus with a comfortable capacity for 18-20. I try to think positive. I could be on the bike we just passed where I counted 5 – on one bike!
The young man sitting next to me has a live chicken whose head is laying gently on my right knee. The chicken is looking at me with her beady little eye as if to say” “Help me, please!” Although I am somewhat bothered by her desperate situation I am also glad that it is her head and not the other end on my knee.
Everyone truly lives farm to table in my village. I am surrounded by rice, potatoes, onion, carrots and “greens” that grow right here in town, picked daily and I can buy on the street.
Every day as I walk through the village I consider the faces of the pigs, cows, chickens, ducks, geese, and fish I pass and that later sit on the table to eat. The pigs and steer are slaughtered out of sight and large pieces hung on huge hooks for sale. The chickens, ducks and fish are sold squirming and talking to you as you take them home to slaughter and cook. I have not been able to take the life of any of these animals yet, not even with the fish.
Cows and steers have the most beautiful, big, brown eyes. They always look so wistful like they want to be your bff (best friend forever). The pigs come running over, snouts in the air, so happy to see you, especially if you have some food. I especially like the ducks, how they waddled and quack and always walk in groups together, never leaving anyone behind. Chickens and chicks are everywhere, now I know why there are so many “Why did the chicken cross the road jokes”.
All of them have eyes that seem to look right at me and pierce my soul and it is getting harder and harder to eat any of them. Well, there is that and the fact that I am accustomed to caged, over fed, hormone treated meat that is tender and flavorful. The meat here is so tough and tasteless that it seems hardly worth cooking, much less eating. I have been invited several times for chicken dinner. I am trying to chew the tough cardboard breast and my hostess will ask “ Is the chicken good?” Then I lie between my teeth and say it is delicious. I think God understands and I never confess this bold lie in the confessional.
I bought pork one time in my village. It was hanging in a shack and the butcher is shooing flies from it. God only knows how long all of it has been hanging there, with no refrigeration. But everyone in town eats it and I take a chance. Despite cooking it for hours, I get sick and have what they call “The Double Dragon”.
The double dragon happens when whatever horrible poison has entered your body is trying to escape as quickly as possible through any and all available open ports. I think it was even coming out my ears. It is not fun and I won’t make that mistake again. Now I buy a small amount of meat in my banking town at a “real” supermarket where it is refrigerated behind a meat counter. “Real” supermarket is a stretch. More like the stores at our gas stations, minus the soda and coffee machines. I buy this on Thursday evenings on my way home to my village and cook it immediately, eat it that night and the next morning for breakfast. The rest of the week is beans, rice, lentils or pasta.
I begin to understand why some people become vegetarians. It sounds ridiculous, but I think those little animals have souls, families, and the way the pigs holler and scream when they are slaughtered, they perhaps even have feelings.
I am reminded of an excerpt from a Mary Oliver poem:
“I don’t know what a prayer is, but I know how to pay attention and love nature”.
When you slow down enough to watch nature it certainly stirs something new in your soul.
Cooking is a bit tedious with the same food every day. There are homemade signs throughout town “Misy Vary “which translates to “We have rice” – I sarcastically think – OHHHH REEEEALLY!!! I am living in rice country and surrounded by rice paddies, all you have in this village is RICE. I would love to see a sign that says “Misy Pizza” or “Misy Tacos” The menu only changes somewhat with seasonal fruits – right now avocados are available so I eat a lot. In Madagascar, they spilt them in half, remove the large seed and fill the hollow with sugar. When I tell them, we eat avocados with salt and lime juice in the states they look at me the same way I look at them, watching them pour so much sugar in the avocado hollow -that “YECK” look!
I have not had a good piece of fruit in a few months. When fruit is in season they tend to pick it so early that it does not have much flavor. It is winter here, May through the first of August, so there is not much in season. Although there is no snow or temperatures below 30 it is cold enough to sleep under a sleeping bag. People buddle up as if it is freezing, winter coats, hats, gloves, scarves and “flip flops”. I wear leggings and jackets all day. Cold during the day but I sleep great at night.

Circumcision
I knew this would catch your attention! Last Saturday my Malagasy tutor could not come for my lesson because his nephew was to be circumcised. His nephew is 4 years old. He explained that boys are circumcised after the age of 3 or 4, and only in the winter months. He mentioned that there are tribes in the south that circumcise the males as late as a month before they are married. I know of one young man circumcised at age 11.
It is a big event, the entire family gathers on the night before and they eat, drink and are merry. The local “circumciser” is called upon and paid to come to the party and spend the night. The man performing the circumcision has not taken a course or has any certification – the trade has been passed on from his father and will be passed on to one of his sons. They believe that these people have been given special powers by the spirits.
Everyone sleeps at the home of the male child to be circumcised and at dawn, when the sun just hits the sky, the circumciser and two uncles go into the house, everyone else leaves, the uncles hold the child down and the skin is cut. Upon the very first cry of the child, pots and drums are banged and loud singing takes place. This is to distract the mother from what I imagine are blood curdling screams from the house. I cannot imagine how mortified the child is at this point.

A special powder is applied to the wound. Then they ceremoniously take the fore skin outside and the grandfather or oldest uncle eats it with a banana. I have no idea why a banana, except they seem to always be available and plentiful. I am told eating it keeps the spirits in the family.
The child is then wrapped tightly in a lamba (long, wide piece of colorful fabric the women wear and carry babies in) and put on the mothers back until the bleeding stops.
If there is no one with a cell phone with a camera, they hire someone to come and take photos of this event, which of course will be brought out to embarrass him at some point in his adult life.

Most effective sleeping pill- peace of mind
Most destructive habit – worrying
Greatest Joy – giving
Deadliest weapon- the tongue
Most beautiful attire – a smile

Buying Chicken

Buying meat –

Walking home

Fishing basket

This is how you carry a baby

 

I don’t know why this guy turned out so big but I could not eat him – so cute

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TO1]y Malagsy tutor could not come on Saturday