This blog has no apparent purpose, but I haven’t updated friends in a while so I thought I would post what I have been up to.

Given the perfect timing of my health, it should be no shock to anyone I was sick on Halloween and sick for VAC (Volunteer Advisory Committee, and a reason for all volunteers in a region to get together have a short meeting about PC policies, but mainly to just enjoy each others company). We timed VAC so we could have a Halloween Party…I was going to be Taylor Swift. Never happened :(. Doctors say I had food poisoning, but I call BS. Still feeling off my game even to today.

After VAC I received business days to travel down to Anja and talk to the President about possibly selling my painter’s paintings in their boutique. He paints some pretty awesome ringtail lemurs, the lemurs that inhabit Anja Park. And tourists are suckers for souvineers of lemurs they see in Madagascar.

Tara and I were able to catch a private car down to Ambalavao, a large city a little bit away from Anja. But we had to catch a bruisse the rest of the way. Anja is an extremelyyyy small town, maybe population 2000, so maybe four brousses leave from Ambalavao a day. And you don’t leave until it fills up. I’m used to long waits for taxi brousses to leave, this wasn’t going to be much different.

About two hours after we arrived, the brousse finally started up to leave. However, with small towns, everyone knows eachother, and relationships form between passengers and taxi brousse drivers. One of the passengers decided she was going to have to brousse stop four times at different stops in Ambalavao for charcoal. And then we had to get gas. But when the driver tried to start the brousse again, and with our luck, no go. This isn’t unheard of; most put the car in neutral, have some men push the car until it starts rolling down a slope and then the driver tries to start the engine again. A little unnerving when I first got into country, but now, don’t even batt my eyes. This trick didn’t work but after enlisting a random passerby, and little bit of tapping there and clanging here, the car finally started and we were on our way.

Anja is an amazing site. The park is beautiful (well what I saw from the boundaries), the guides are reaally sweet, and I saw lemurs and their babies hopping around even before the entrance to the park. I am very excited to bring my sister to the Park when she visits in December.

And USA visit countdown officially started, 5 months!!!!