I WISH I WAS A SARDINE!

Seriously, I would have more wiggle room as a sardine in a tin can than I do on the taxi brousse I take to and from town. These old, run down, buses remind me of the old VW Bus from the 60’s– just slightly larger. Most are held together with tape, rope and shoe glue.
There are 4 rows of seats behind the driver.
2 people in a row would be luxurious. Hell will freeze over before that ever happens.
3 people in a row would be comfortable, touching shoulders but a little elbow room. It will snow in hell before that ever happens.
4 people in a row, we are packed tight with thighs and shoulders crammed into the person next to you. This happens on my lucky days.
5 people in a row is so crammed that I start to lose a little circulation in my lower extremities after about 15 minutes. This happens on my unlucky days.
There are always at least 3-4 children riding on a parent’s lap. There is a little ledge right behind the driver’s seat and the front passenger seat and they cram two – three people on those, who sit with their knees in someone’s groin.
Then there is the young boy who always climbs in through a window, doubles over like a contortionist, legs dangling on the inside and his back end out the window.
Today I rode with 11 in the row behind the driver. There was a mother, pushed up against the side, her arm hanging out the broken window, she had twin 2-month olds, one in each arm and her 3-year-old in between her legs. She looked a little exhausted and I offered to hold one of the twins for her. Beside me on the other side were two other women.
There were two boys about 8 and 10, one sitting on the others lap on the little ledge behind the driver’s seat and two other adults on the ledge behind the passenger side.
The lady sitting on the small ledge in front of me had her right knee in my groin and I had my left knee in hers, we were very uncomfortable and whenever the bus would lurch, our knee would jab the others groin, for which we were constantly apologizing.
There were 4 people in front- the driver and two passengers and a 5-year-old on one passengers lap. Behind me 5 people were crammed in the row, in the third row sat 4 people, one child on someone’s lap and the last row had another 5 passengers.
That is a total of 30 people in a bus made for 14-16. This is not a college prank, seeing how many people will fit in a VW Bug – it is how everyone gets too and from town for medical appointments, banking, shopping, or other business they need to attend to in a larger city.
In addition to all the people crammed into the bus, the top of the bus is packed tight with cargo ranging from dead pigs, bikes, large baskets of live chickens, huge bags of potatoes or rice and sometimes furniture. All being taken to the city to sell.
I rode on a brousse last week and was seated by the side door. It did not have a latch. In other words, someone had to hold the door closed for the entire trip. I realized that if we went up hill on a sharp curve with any speed and the door slid open, I would slide out. Fortunately, these brousses never go very fast.
We are headed into the summer months and I have already noted that the brousses have taken on a new smell and feel. All those sweaty bodies squished together in the heat.
St. Christopher is the patron saint of travelers and I say a prayer to him every time I get on a brousse. No, I don’t pray for a safe trip, I pray that he won’t let one more person on the brousse.

I Was Goosed!
Last week as I was walking down a dirt path to the convent where I teach a group of nuns English, I felt someone grab my left buttock, in a rather firm hold. I thought ”Oh please Lord, let it be a single man about my age!” But it was one of the geese that I encounter on my way.
I have been teaching the sisters of Assumption English at the catholic school in town on Monday and Wednesday evenings. As I walk to the school I am bombarded by cows, pigs, chickens, ducks, geese and sometimes goats. Of all those animals the geese are the meanest. They are very aggressive and if I get to close to their babies they run after me, honking loudly.
I was not paying attention on this day and evidently walked a little too close to the babies for the mother gooses comfort. She did not even warn me this time with her loud honking, just ran up and bit me – I have a slight bruise!!! So now I know where the term “to goose someone” came from.

The Plague
I have been receiving messages and warning from both the Peace Corps Director and the medical officer about an outbreak of the Plague throughout Madagascar.
When I read the first long message, explaining where the outbreak was occurring and the symptoms, I ran to my calendar to make sure it was 2017. I was thinking, “the Plague” the disease that wiped out England and several other countries back in the 1600’s. Unless I am in a time machine here in Madagascar, which honestly, I sometimes think I am, then the year, 2017, was correct and the plague is evidently still around. I feel like I am living in a Charles Dickens novel?
There are two types that are spreading here in Madagascar, the bubonic and pneumonic. The first is spread by fleas from mice and rats. The second from droplets of sputum.
Our precautions include avoiding crowded taxi bus rides or sitting next to someone who is coughing a lot or has blood in his/her sputum. We were advised to make sure and check for this and if we saw any blood to report to the medical doctor immediately.
I am still trying to figure out what that might look like, 30 people crammed on a bus, I hear someone cough and try to see or ask if there is blood their sputum.
Another precaution was to avoid rodents- mouse and rats!! The disease is spread through fleas from mice and rats- just the fleas. Oh, really I think, that has been my full time job since I arrived, trying to rid my home of mice. I put up a notice in my home:
                                              ATTENTION ALL MICE!!!
No mouse will be permitted to enter my home or bed unless they provide a hand written note from their veterinary doctor stating they have been treated for fleas.
I hope it helps!!

I have been single for a while and it’s going very well! It is really working out, I think I might be the one!!
Three very important things to remember in life:
#1. Be kind
#2. Be Kind
#3. Be Kind

Sister Augustine with her pre kinder class -they are going to water plants and a little store in my village that I go to and by soap.

These shoes were for sale at the market – someone bought them. They came from Good will and I bet they have a story – or as my nephew Joseph said perhaps a novel!