Anchored: Antananarivo

My stay in Antananarivo (Tana) has definitely been an adjustment. After learning the ship will be further delayed, many of us were definitely disheartened (especially those of us serving for a shorter time). Most of us are antsy to get to use our skills and start working on the ward with patients. We are learning quite a bit about waiting, being still and learning to live in a state of “rest”. Definitely much harder for me than I imagined.

We arrived late Saturday night into an extremely small airport where we had to be processed through without visas and then patiently wait for our bag. While standing in the baggage claim area you could turn a full 180 degrees and be able to walk both back to security and out the door to the plane in a matter of a couple feet. Pushing and shoving are also quite common so standing your ground a bit is a must or you’ll never get your bag. Our guest house, Ny Telomiova, is one of the many houses where mercy ships stores its volunteers before the long bus ride to the coast where we meet the ship. Originally, we were only to spend Saturday night in Tana and wake up early morning Sunday to drive to Tamatave. Instead we ended up spending over a week in Tana when all the delays were said and done.

The local tourism in Tana is almost nonexistent. As you can imagine, Sunday morning was our first full day in Madagascar so we were itching to explore the capital. We soon realized that any place mentioned to us as a good spot to go, needed to be spread out over our week here visiting so we could have something small to do every day. If we heard there was a good restaurant to eat at, it would be marked as a full day event on the calendar, even though we could only stretch the activity to a couple hours at the most. Our boredom the first couple days was overwhelming at times. We could only read so many books, take so many naps and learn so many medical French phrases every day. We soon developed a daily routine that seemed to help the days go by faster. Every morning at either 8 or 9 am we would go to breakfast in the main seating area. There, Voula, Preesca and Freebce would have coffee, baguettes, tea and jam set out for us. We’d typically eat slowly, spend an hour sipping coffee, talking and patiently wait for our tired eyes to wake up. Around 10am-1130am would be prayer/devotional time. This would possibly vary depending on the day but we thought it was important to continue to pray for the ship, the patients traveling across the country to receive their free surgeries or medical care and for us volunteers who had to learn to rest and wait in the meantime. Then at 1130 we would have a group exercise class on the top balcony. Melissa, a pediatric ICU nurse from San Diego would teach barre class and strength training. After working out, we’d all shower and then have to decide our plans for lunch. Typically, this consisted of a quick peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a couple pieces of fruit. The shoprite down the street has been our saving grace. Every day we usually fit in a quick visit. There we’ve purchased bread, blackberry jam, peanut butter, some fruit, wafer cookies, playing cards, freeze dried coffee and juice. The guest house provides breakfast and dinner every day so lunch is the only meal we have to provide for ourselves. Dinner has been absolutely delicious almost every night. It ranged from chicken, to pork stew, to fish, to zebu meatballs. Without fail, the power goes out every evening. It gets dark every night around 530 so dinner is typically by candlelight. We got so used to it that any night with electricity we’d miss our nights by candlelight.

We’ve been able to complete most “tourism spots” in the little over a week we’ve been visiting in Tana. The capital of Tana is crowded, busy and very dirty. The central part of the city sits on a large hill surrounded by green rice fields and large expanses of red soil being made into bricks. The prime ministers palace and queen’s palace sit empty at the highest points of the hill. On Sunday we ventured out of the house with Febreece to explore the prime ministers palace and museum. The museum itself was hardly larger than your average bedroom size and contained a large amount of random historical pieces all shoved together. Most of the tour could be completed by making a full 360 degree turn while staying in one place.

The most exciting tourism spot we got to experience in Tana was the lemur park. The amount of different lemur species was fascinating. Ranging from King Julius lemurs to nocturnal lemurs… all were amazing to see. They were absolutely everywhere and were not shy about running alongside you or posing for pictures.

On top of a couple museum tours and the lemur park, we found a couple restaurants with pretty delicious food. We ended up spending a ton of time at these restaurants playing cards, drinking cappuccinos and stealing the VERY limited wifi.