a week of calm

it's been a while since i have updated, but things have been remarkably calm this week-- businesses reopened for the most part, people went to work, ministries were open. if there weren't photos for evidence i could have thought that last week was just a rumor. i had a nice week, got a bit more progress on my visa (no visa yet but atleast im covered now even though my visa is technically expired), and started getting more involved at COPH. ive started tutoring my friend hasini in english everyday, she picks an article in english and we go through it together. and ive done some other translation stuff. i think they really appreciate having someone who speaks english and hanging out at the office gives me great french practice and ive started to throw in a bit of broken malagasy. usually they just laugh. i had lunch with people in the office twice- the first meal there was a spider cooked into the pasta and the second day there was a knot of a plastic bag in my soup. both were still eaten! and i have to admit i bit into the plastic bag at first because i thought it was some kind of lettuce. one restaurant we ate at was run by a really nice chinese guy and i got to practice some chinese, even though most of my responses tended to come out in french or with a french accent. it was still fun though. i'm still staying with the 3 brits downtown (although i have to clarify 2 are brits and one is lebanese but its easier to say 3 brits) and we're planning to get out of town this weekend and go rafting so im excited, especially to get outside the city limits. in terms of politics, the situation is still unpredictable here, but i'm staying as safe and informed as i can. no one wants a crisis here so im hoping everything falls into place nicely. i had time to upload a picture from last sunday- we stopped at the king's palace on the outskirts of tana on our way back to downtown after things had calmed down. from left to right is maia (brit #1), catherine (brit #2/lebanese), me, holitiana (i was at her house last week while we waited for things to settle down), badria (friend of holitiana who stayed at the house too) and tom (brit #3) is in the front. it was a nice afternoon after being cooped up in the house for the majority of the week before.

that's all for now!