Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Waking up to a new life – the first day in ‘Tana

Good morning middle-eastsiders…Tana Girl here, your one and only source into the adventurous lifes of Malagasy’n expats. And what a nice morning it was – bright and shiny with this wonderfully blue colored sky and a grinning sun :D Way to start a new life, I though, took a shower, bounced down the stairs and magically metamorphosed into a lemur! Ok, probably it wasn’t quite like that..it was a wonderful morning though, only that I turned around in bed again after a quick telephonic exchange with by boss – “yes, I had a good flight, the hotel is great…and the bed in my room unmatched in perfection…whether I could enjoy it some more” – to fall asleep again for another 2-3 hours.

Ok, after the second, and eventually successful try to get up I proceeded as told – no lemurs though – and met with Elza, one of the 2 (now 3) Germans in AccesBanque MG to get a tour of local headquarter. Any comments? NICE! Seriously! It’s a wonderful building with 3 stories and a maze-like interior structure, very need – and stuffed with amazingly nice co-workers whose names I still have a hard time remembering. “Why” you might ask yourself..well, they are truly beautiful (the names – remarks about the local phenotype might follow in a bit), but sooooooo long and yet somewhat unfamiliar. But I’m getting there. People who know me certainly remember my passion for languages J Certainly those of you who do will find it no big surprise that in that sense I’m having a blast.

…to be continued

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Second entry – another week later.

After the preliminary comments on “how to travel” I shall now proceed to a more detailed description of the “how to be upon arrival”. First of all, you are supposed to be sleepy – check, august 2, 11:45pm, ‘Tana airport: after a total traveling time of over 18 hours little Leo was more than ready to change into a horizontal position and welcome Morpheus’s lasting embrace for the next couple of hours minimum. Then again, what would the world be without airport security? – exactly, such a dull place..that’s why we – and with “we” I mean the absolutely amazing number of fellow passengers (who would have guessed a flight to Mada could get so crowded?) – spent another good hour swinging back and forth between the immigration office and the baggage claim.

What a surprise to find the number of travelers easily exceeded by the masses of people waiting outside the airport to “embosom” their loved ones. At 1am in the morning the size of the welcome committee left me kind a speechless – aaaand…a tiny bit worried I wouldn’t find whoever was waiting for me. Eventually, I spotted a sign with my name on and now that all major uncertainties were covered, I felt a wave of fatigue wash through me almost instantaneously.

The ride from the airport to the hotel took probably another half an hour…quite mostly as the lack of significant street lighting prevented much of the potential comments that could be made during daylight.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

first impressions

Though there are a million little things that are worth a detailed description - mostly including adjectives like fascinating, impressive and mindboggling - i will only give a very introductory report from my first two weeks on the island.

First, whoever wants to travel to Madagascar better brings a good cushion..you know, one of those you can buy in every airport terminal but you'd usually refrain from since it makes you look like a dog or cat after surgery. The thing is that despite all the potential beauty-related hesitation you might experience pre-buying this useful addition to your travel equipment, that's the way to survive the 9 to 11 hour plane ride.

Secondly?

Secondly comes another time when there's more time to write.