le français and visas

unfortunately i don't have any pictures for this update, but i also don't have too much to update. my week has been taken up by a lot of visits to random offices around tana to get the right paperwork i need to get my visa extended. i'm starting to understand the system, it's just...slow. the process is quite extensive and frustrating, and any foreigner i run into has the same opinions about it. everything has to be stamped by the right office in the right order, it's an exercise in patience. but on a good note, my french has progressed a lot and i use it to talk to people i previously talked to in english. i've still got a ways to go, but it is a lot more fun to be able to communicate. i started malagasy classes too, i don't know much, but i have made some malagasy people happy introducing myself and saying thank you. the woman who cleans at the hotel loves when i speak malagasy, she always is trying to teach me some new phrase. the other day i was walking with narindra up to the palace on top of the hill from the picture i posted earlier, and there were some malagasy men up on the scaffolding who were watching me so i yelled up to them "manao ahona!" and then we continued to have a conversation in malagasy yelling at the top of our lungs. the malagasy people on the street just stared at me and i was laughing. narindra said that if i learn more malagasy, i'll make a lot of people happy here. the malagasy speak french here, but i think there's a little bit of bad blood so any white person speaking malagasy tends to make a good impression. just today walking back from the grocery store there were some malagasy kids yelling 'faza' to me (the word for foreigner) and i turned to them and i said "tsy faza aho" which means 'i'm not a faza', it definitely shut them up and they stared at me blankly as i walked away. it was fun. today i'm going to ralphine's house, the former president of coph, the disability organization i'm going to work with. that and i need to finish my french homework!