Staying contact with friends in this country is tough. There are three service providers: Airtel, Telma, and Orange. Each has a text plan, which allows you to text people, but within the same carrier only, for a reduced price. 100 or 120 ariary per text message is the rate without the plan, 300 to 400 ariary if you send a message abroad.

On occasion, volunteers will spend the 700 ariary to get 70 text messages to text their friends in country. But some friends don’t have your service. One of my best friends in country has Orange and another has Airtel. My main provider is Telma. So keeping in contact is hard, and expensive to say the least.

The other day, I spent money on a text plan, but was promptly informed by my phone (you know those Nokia phones you had BEFORE flip phones) that I needed to make room because tsy ampy toerana (not enough room) to receive messages. So I started flipping through messages to see what I could delete. I realized fairly quickly that I didn’t want to delete any of them.

When my friends and I use some of our coveted credit to text each other, it tends to be really funny messages. Ones that will make you roll on the floor laughing. So enjoy what you read below and I hope you get a mental look into the mind of us Peace Corps Volunteers. And please keep in mind, we have been in country for nearly a year or more, we have gotten awkward, weird, just not normal. If you see one
of your texts here, feel privileged, you made the list of best texts ever!

All is good! Haha so this morning I woke up myself by saying “misy
miala” out loud while I was dreaming.
(Misy miala is what you say in a
taxi brousse when you have reached your destination. It essentially
means, I need to get out)

Rockin out to one direction on my brousse right now.

Stop stressin. Take a shower. Eat more yogurt. U must do one of the 3
(this person was sitting 5 feet from me)

Ok I think part of the reason I don’t find Malagasy men attractive is because they all have really high cheek bones, right? Not western version of masculine. Yeah?

Fell4 oldest trick in book omaly. Was on brousse frm ambanivohitra n
guy askd me 2beep his phone bc he couldn’t find it. I did. It was in
his pocket, now he has my#. (omaly=yesterday,
ambanivohitra=countryside, beep=call, wait a ring, and hang up)

The yogurt place is out of big bottles. Im devastated, I ho entana 2
glasses n will prb come back for another 2 later(ho entana=take to
go)

Ok so im watching the x factor us & demi lovato is talkin about her
and niall from one direction (my fave blonde one!!) kinda dating…I
really want to punch her & got crazy jealous. I think this means I
have an honest problem to god problem. I JUST LOVE NIALL SO MUCH!

He carried his puppy lik a celeb n bought it bottled water. (unheard
of in Mada; I get laughed at when I pick Parasy up)

Hey Christina, just checkin on ur ass. Hope ur adoptive son is well. Lol jk.

Um…my neighbors just gave me a live small lobster…how do I cook it??
>(response to text) maybe I’ll keep it as a pet. Its kinda cute.

And I stole stuff from tits who stole stuff from tara who I assume stole stuff from you, so thank you in advance for this upcoming horribly unproductive week :p

Hope you smiled at least once during that blog post. And updated countdown, 35 days until Katherine comes to visit and 122 days until
I’m Stateside.