Shoot! Maybe I like Madagascar?

With 6 weeks left in the program, I find myself back in Tana for 1 day, trying to get a few things done before heading off to Fort Dauphin for a month. I'm currently sitting in my beloved Taxi-Be 117 and stuck in one of Tana's infamous embouteillages. But instead of feeling stressed or annyoed that the messy street system and lack of organized driving road rules have caused this, well... I just don't feel that way.

Without putting that much mental effort toward it, I left my house 1 1/2 hours early, because that's what you have to do here... And there's no way around the embouteillages, so it's silly to check your watch and stress. If you're late here, you're just late. Or better yet, the idea of late doesn't really occur to most people. For example, last night, my bus into Tana was 2 hours later than expected. did my family eat dinner without me? Nope. Did they call a bunch of times wondering where I was? Nah. It just wasn't time for dinner until I got home. That's Malagasy time, and I think I'm on it.

Aside from that, I feel like I've become weirdly acclimated to this place in a way I didn't expect. Maybe that's because now I feel like I have a home base and somewhere that feels comfortable to visit. It reminds me of freshman year of college when all the sudden you make that transition where you accidentally call school home and your parents are like WHAT?!?

Maybe this post isn't surprising because this could be the normal cycle of adjustment, or maybe you haven't realized that I didn't really like Madagascar until now... but for me it feels like a really big turn around.

I think having made connections with 3 Madagascar families, 2 of whom I really loved, I'm more likely to give random people the benefit of the doubt rather than asume theyre going to slice my bag and steal all of my possessions, but this doesn't mean I'm totally letting my guard down either, don't worry.

I wonder if some people feel this way when first arriving to a place? Why did it have to take 2 months? Maybe it's because I walked around the largest Baobab tree in Madagascar 7 times while whistling (poorly) which means that one will return to Madagascar. Damn that Madagascar Grigri!

Here's the giant baobab (it takes a while to go around it 7 times)