May 11, 2008 at 10:28 pm (Blogging, Canada, Cats, Life, Madagascar, Travel)
My husband and I are planning on going to Australia to visit my brother. I have not seen him in nearly 4 years and I am really excited about it. We sent out an application form for a visa for my husband but it’s taking for ever. When I called, they said it takes maximum 1 week and it’s been more than that and still no answer. Unfortunately, we will have to postpone the trip one week and my brother is not happy about that, which is understandable. As long as we make it there, that’s what counts.
Just as we will get back from Australia, some really good friends of ours are getting married. This is one wedding I am really looking forward to. And after that, I am finally going back home! I have waited for this moment for a long time and it’s coming really soon. I have to get my cat ready for the trip and pack my bags and I’m off. I’m actually worried about my cat. I don’t know how she will cope with the long flights? Anyhow, I have faith that things will go smoothly and I will be able to go on with my life.
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March 2, 2008 at 9:34 am (Life, Madagascar, Paris, Shopping)
It has been a long time since I have posted anything. Unfortunately, nothing interesting has been happening in my life lately. That is up until last week when I went to Paris again. For shopping again! This time it was winter and it has been at least 4 years since I have not experienced winter in the northern hemisphere. The first day I got there was 0 degrees C. I could not stop shaking. I was also tired, that’s why I was as cold as that. The next day, after a good night sleep, everything was back to normal. I have to admit tough that French winters are a joke compared to Canadian ones! There is no snow, I still long to see it, and the temperature keeps between 5 and 10. While I was in France, Madagascar was under a huge cyclone. One that was covering the whole country and would not budge for a few days. My husband did not have electricity for two and a half days. Poor him, there really is nothing to do all alone at night with no power! Besides that, the cyclone ravaged a whole town; Sainte-Marie. That was one of the places we went for our honeymoon and I can just imagine the disaster over there. The houses are all raised on pilotis to avoid floods, but in my opinion, it was not high enough.
Next time, I’ll try to end on a more positive note! 
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January 18, 2008 at 5:01 pm (Blogging, Canada, Life, Madagascar, Travel)
After Christmas, we went on vacation with a bunch of friends. One of our friends has a beach house, he goes there a few times a year and this time, we tagged along with him. It was amazing. First of all, it was great to get a breath of fresh air. Second of all, we were plenty of friends swimming, jet-skiing, playing volleyball. I have to say that I had the honour of riding a Bombardier See-Doo. The friend in question has a few of them and all of them from Bombardier! Besides the fact they are from home, they go really fast. We were going more than 100km/h at some points. I also fell from one at about 80km/h. A friend of ours was in front making waves, my husband was driving taking the waves and I was behind trying to hold on! At one point, I couldn’t hold anymore and I fell. We were in a small canal that looked really out of this world. It’s a kind of landscape you only see on tv. I thought I heard that there were crocodiles in that canal so besides being bruised, I was freaked out. I quickly got back on the jet and was told later that it was another canal that had crocs in it! I also learned how to play poker on vacation and won the tournament.
Back home, a dog decided he wanted to adopt us last week. He slept on our porch for the whole night and during the day, when we were outside, he sat right in front of our door, so we couldn’t go back in. We were “locked out” of our house for 1/2 an hour! The dog is pretty but we don’t have the time nor energy to take care of it. Besides, I’m convinced it’s not a homeless dog. He looks quite good and one morning, he came into our home. Normally homeless dogs are afraid of humans, unless there is food involved and again, they are always suspicious. Not this one, he is comfortable our us. In any case, he understood that he can’t be our dog, so now he just comes one in a while to see if we changed our mind and leaves. And Kiwi attacked him this morning so I don’t think we will be seeing much of him anymore.
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December 17, 2007 at 2:17 pm (Blogging, Life, Love, Madagascar, Travel)
It’s been quite a while since I posted anything on my blog but the reason for that are the holidays. With X-mas around the corner, I’m quite busy with my foie gras since people usually eat that during this season. A good friend of ours is also in Madagascar for the holidays so we are always out.
I’ve decorated my pine tree right outside our house, it looks weird but my mom suggested I do so and I thought it was a good idea. The tree is young so it doesn’t have many branches but the more I look at it the nicer I find it. In Madagascar the holidays are very different from the ones in Canada. For one, there is no snow, it makes a huge difference. Then, there isn’t as much publicity around it and there are less decorations. In Canada, as soon as you leave your house, you see lights and decorations and people dressing in Christmas colours. Here, nobody decorates their house, on the outside anyway. Some people decorate the inside. The only thing that is the same around this time of year in both countries is the traffic! It’s taking an eternity to go to town and traffic does not move. I also have to do some shopping and I’m dreading it a little because it’s going to be packed everywhere. Over here, if you have a restriced budget, you have to go to markets to buy your things and most of the people do that so it’s even crazier than for example Fairview! Anyway, I hope that I find what I’m looking for quickly and get it over with.
It’s also our first wedding anniversary on the 21st. We don’t have any plans yet and I think that Erky will be flying…
After all that madness, we are going on vacation on the beach, and I’m very much looking forward to that. It’s going to be one week of swimming, water-skiing, volleyball, and relaxing. I can’t wait!
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November 20, 2007 at 1:41 pm (Life, Madagascar)
It was half past noon and I was driving to go to work. At one point, everybody slows down because there is a railway crossing. From far, I saw a lot of people in the middle of the boulevard arguing. As I was getting closer, a woman walked in the middle of my lane. As I was passing her, a man stabbed her in the shoulder, right in front of my eyes. The knife was plunged all the way, only the plastic part was sticking out. I could see the blood dripping from her shoulder. All of that happened within a few seconds but as I was driving by, it felt like it was in slow motion, I had time to see every detail. I kept on driving, as everyone did. It’s the first time I see such a thing. I was quite disturbed by it. It was not a robbery or anything of the sort, just an argument between people.
In my three years in Madagascar, I have never witnessed any violence. In general, Malagasy people are not very violent but things like that do seem to happen.
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November 11, 2007 at 2:49 pm (Blogroll, Madagascar)
Today is the Polish Independence day. Here in Madagascar, the Polish community decided to organize a concert with musicians interpreting Chopin’s symphonies. At least that’s what I understood from the invitation. It should be fun, and I am curious as to who will be playing. To my surprise, this concert is open to the public so anyone interested can go. I’m looking forward in seeing everyone from the Polish community. It has been a long time since I have seen them. Unfortunately my husband can’t come with me because he is working but his sister and husband will be going with me.
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October 23, 2007 at 8:11 pm (Blogging, Gardening, Life, Madagascar)
I was looking at my front yard the other day and it was quite an ugly sight. Since I love flowers, I decided to plant some. So I bought some seeds and got my shovel out of the garage and started to loosen the earth and un-root the weeds and grass that was growing. It was not an easy job! The earth was really packed and some of the roots went very far, I had to use all my strength to dig. When I was done with the earth, I planted the seeds and an hour later, the showers came. I think I planted the flowers just in time since the rain season barely started. I have never done any gardening before and it was fun. But I think the real pleasure is to see that the seeds have germinated. It didn’t say how long it takes for the plants to show but I’m thinking two weeks. By then, I’ll know weather I did a good job or not!
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October 1, 2007 at 2:06 pm (Blogging, Canada, Life, Love, Madagascar)
We were invited to Erky’s cousin’s wedding on Saturday. I was really anticipating that event since I thought I was going to have fun. I wore a nice dress, put on some make up and since I dropped a few kilos, I thought I looked really good.
We get to the wedding reception a little late because Erky was working that morning, and as we get there, people had already started with the entree. In Madagascar, most people have buffets at their wedding. In general, everyone runs to the buffet and people push each other around to get closer to the food. It’s pretty annoying, and especially if you are one of the last people who get there, there isn’t much left to eat. But this time, they made people go table by table to avoid this kind of situation. That was the positive side of the party.
Then the music started playing and to my disappointment, it was always the same music they play at every wedding here. I don’t know why I expected something different. They play 70’s and 80’s music, then some music to dance the Maddison, some Rock’n'Roll and a little bit of Tango and Valse. Then they play a little bit of malagsy music and back to the 70’s and 80’s. I don’t think I heard any recent song over there. So in the end, I was really bored, I didn’t even dance.
People started leaving pretty early. In Madagascar, most people leave after the cake. It’s considered rude to leave before. But even then, at least half of the people left before the cake and everyone else left right after it. At first, when I got here, I didn’t understand why people left right after having the cake, but now, I realize that they don’t really want to be at the weddings they are invited to. When I went to weddings in Canada, at least half of the people were partying until early morning with the bride and groom. But not over here, mostly, it’s the close family and friends that stay after the cake. I think it’s pretty sad. At our wedding, we didn’t have a cake and people left quite late considering it was on a Thursday. When they bring out the cake, they light some sparling lights all around it, have some fast music going on and someone makes a speech. Malagasy people love to make speeches, it lasted about 15 minutes, of course, I didn’t understand anything so another reason for me to be bored.
In any case, the party was boring, the food not that great and the music… well, it really sucked. Then we get home and there was a party in the area, and the music they had was great! I wished that DJ was hired for our party.
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September 24, 2007 at 11:27 am (Blogging, Cats, Life, Love, Madagascar, entrepreneurship)
My kitties left last Thursday. They both went to the same owner and that’s a good thing because they will not be lonely.
My husband finished all of his testings on Sunday and he will start flying on regular flights as of tomorrow. He’ll be working around 4 days a week but each days is around 9 to 10 hours of work. He feels so much better now than before and that makes everyone happy.
When I’m not working, I’m killing time on my new Nintendo DS. Erky got me the Dr. Kawashima brain training game. It’s really cool, you do some math, some word scrambling and you get to test the age of your brain. The game says that if you play everyday you won’t have any more of memory loss or you won’t be looking for your words when you speak. I actually found out that it was true. I use to forget everything all the time because I’m not using my brain much at work so it’s kind of like a bicep that is not being used, but now, I can honestly see a difference! The game is really cool. And I have the Diddy Kong Racing as well, that’s cool too.
For this week, I have a few orders and some hotel in Nosy Be asked for my prices, so I’ll be busy with that. On Saturday, I have a wedding but Erky is working, so I’ll have to go alone. I have to go but it’s ok because I love weddings. It would be much more fun with him around but if he can’t make it, I still have to represent.
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September 11, 2007 at 12:48 pm (Blogging, Canada, Cats, Life, Madagascar, entrepreneurship, work)
My husband came back last week from Belgium and he passed all his tests. On Sunday, he had a flight with an Air Madagascar instructor and that went well also. He’s starting to fly regularly on Thursday and from then on, he’ll be working a lot. He’s really happy about this and so am I. Our situation is starting to look brighter.
On the day that he came back, Orange came by the house. My husband was able to catch him and bring him into the house but Orange didn’t want to stay. He was growling, but he let me pet him. I gave him some food, he ate a little bit and then we let him out. We saw him that same night walking around the house, but since then, nothing. I’m starting to think that he won’t come around anymore. As my husband said, he maybe just came to say goodbye. I hope it’s not the case but it looks like it.
Apart from that, my business is a little slow, but it’s not the good season yet. But the Holidays are coming up fast and it should pick up by then. As usual, I have a lot of time on my hands but I’m not complaining. When we get back to Canada, I’m going to be working a lot so I’m just enjoying this free time right now!
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