(cute) kids and obama

today was a very positive day in terms of getting my visa!! domoina and i spent nearly the entire day between three different offices (in the right order), but it was very productive. apparently one of my papers is supposed to stay at the one office for 2 weeks, but thankfully domoina (who credits herself to speaking politely, and me being american and not french) was able to convince them to finish it for me tomorrow so i don't have to worry about my visa expiring. a huge relief for me. i'm by no means done yet, and i'm not going to celebrate til my visa is in my hand, but i'm happy to report something positive for once relating to my visa. and i thought i'd upload a picture of these cute kids i ran into when i went to the zoo the other weekend. they loved my camera and were a lot of fun and laughed at my broken malagasy. they were way cuter than the kids who tried to pick-pocket me yesterday... (they were unsuccessful)

i had a nice weekend, unfortunately my english class was canceled on saturday (narindra's neighbor's house was robbed), and there was some potential political drama (long story short the president of madagascar and the mayor of tana do not get along...) but everything was fine. sunday though, i went to ralphine's house. she's in the picture below and is the former president of coph, the organization i'm planning on working with. i had a really nice afternoon, she lives up in the high city with a beautiful view and i got to sample some real malagasy snacks like manioc (its what they use for tapioca i think) and some great bread. we also had some good conversations about disabilities (she's been disabled since birth) and talked about ideas for me to go and see more of the country. i met her husband and daughters too, all of whom were extremely welcoming.

apart from that, it's all about obama today. i just saw a commercial of people all saying 'yes we can' and the news is all about the inauguration and washington, dc. ralphine was even telling me 'yes we can' yesterday, it seems like its a statement known around the world. i can only imagine what it's like in the US though. i'm going to an inauguration party tonight at the president of the peace corps' house with my friend haddy (a peace corps volunteer i met last week) so hopefully i'll get to see some coverage of the event. but that's all for now, hope you enjoy!