Two months of normal(ish)

Lisa came up with (or stole) the wonderful idea of putting together our thoughts on the first two months of her time here. I warn you that the following may be disjointed, rambling, and at sometimes mushy, revealing, or totally insensitive. With that disclaimer out of the way, here goes the bullet points (i like bullet points).

• It's pretty great
• Having your wife around is awesome (if it isn't - maybe it's time for you to reconsider your priorities) so it's pretty obvious that it's a great. It took a few days to get adjusted to normal again but beyond that I'd say it's better than it's ever been as you're forced to communicate, work together, and enjoy time with each other more since we're fairly isolated. As a couple that's pretty awesome as it grants us the opportunity to grow closer and be more awesomer(yea, it's a word) than we would had we had all the convenient distractions of home.
• It's pretty stressful
• For both of us! Lisa has to worry about remote school stuff, staying sane in a closed camp, meeting all of the new people that I already for the most part know, doing a bunch of home making things that I'm sure initially seem enjoyable but probably turn into a chore, be 15000KM from the dogs, family, regularly scheduled activities, job, home, etc and on top of which put up with my shit, and I have a lot of shit!!
• But it's still pretty great.
• Weekends off and hour changes are nifty (but rare)
• Now that I'm residential I'm supposed to only work 40 hours and 5 days a week. The reality is there is much more to do than that and you're stuck trying to ensure your pace matches and/or exceeds that of your rotational colleagues. I certainly have a new appreciation for "those lazy residentials" that I thought had it great. Don't get me wrong, it is better (especially with Lisa around) but it's also not easy to get time not-work time. That said, so far I've managed to take three Saturdays off and they've made for some excellent breaks.
• 3.5 months is a long time but 6 months is longer
• So far I've been away from home since June and it's starting to wear on me that I've yet to have my previously regularly scheduled 2 weeks off out of every 8. My brain understands this but my subconscious still seems to operate on the assumption that at any moment I will be jet setting home. The home sickness is a wee bit stronger than it has been in the past and I am definitely consciously aware that there is a long slog until we get to see everyone at Christmas. Don't get me wrong - it's character building, it makes you better appreciate what you have (and are missing), and all-in-all I wouldn't change the choice we made but it being away does wear on you more than perhaps I gave credit.
• Seeing / doing / experiencing more
• Since Lisa has been here I think we've done more in country than I ever did (other than ride dirtbikes into the hills). Lemur parks, beaches, restaurants, impromptu baking sessions and upcoming exploring are all totally excellent things that we have and are planning on doing. It's been awesome and I am thankful for what's passed and excited for whats to come.
• Hard choices are good choices
• Being here requires that you be confronted by the results of your decision to be here daily. Every day I think about where we would be had we not made the decision to do what we've done over the last two years. I'm sure we would be happy but I'm not so sure we'd have grown as much as we have as a result of the experience. It's made me realize that those difficult choices that previously I was a bigger fan of approaching bullishly and oftentimes ignorantly were not things to be afraid of or shy away from but opportunities to seized. So yes, the decision was hard and the stress has been great but all in all it's pushed us to grow, change, and adapt to situations and surroundings that we would've avoided previously. Whether that avoidance motivator be fear, apathy, or otherwise, thinking through and making the call has forever changed us as people and a couple and it's awesome. There will be more hard choices in the future, as there always is, but we will be ready to approach them as opportunities to grow rather than things to shy away from.

My bullet points have unintentionally turned into "Matt's Chicken Soup for the Expat Soul" rather than "Matt's coherent thoughts on what's been going on the last two months" but hopefully you get the point. :)

Two Month Update

On the day that marked one month of me living here, I thought to myself, "Self, you should do an update type of blog post", and I continued to think that, until all of a sudden I have been here for two months. TWO MONTHS! How in the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks did that happen?! The two months have been drastically different from each other, as the experience morphed from feeling like I was on vacation to feeling like I better get my butt in gear and start trying to make it home, to feeling like I am getting a routine and making it home. I have also had many experiences, some good and some bad, that have taught me things. Those are the things I will share with you now. Be warned, I may babble on for quite some time.

1. No matter how good you think you are doing, it probably doesn't hurt to keep trying....
          - I have been working quite diligently on losing weight and getting in shape. This was one of my main goals in being here. In the management village, there is a gym and a very nice pool, and tennis courts. You can take gym sessions three times per week, zumba and yoga twice per week, and tennis lessons once per week All of these are free, or very close to free. I have started with yoga, and am seriously considering venturing into the world of tennis as I have always been pretty interested in it. I have been going for "runs" three mornings a week using the Couch to 5k app I have on my phone, and doing squat, push up and crunch challenges. Matt has been a huge inspiration to me in all of this - he plays hockey three times per week, and has started running again, finally achieving a goal of being able to run 5k. I'm very proud of him and it motivates me to do more. I have started noticing differences and am feeling really good about my progress. About 2 weeks ago I was going in to town for groceries and we drove down a street I had never seen during the day, when the shops are actually open. It was several neat places where I can go shopping. Touristy places with nice clothes, home décor, jewellery, purses, etc... I was quite excited that I might be able to get some neat items and headed in to the first shop, quickly finding a Madagascar shirt that I really liked. It seems that the way clothing is sold here is that one sample of each item is on display, with no sizes or prices listed so you have to ask. I found a saleswoman and asked her about the shirt, what colors it came in, and how much. She said I should try it on, and said "So, double extra large?" I hrmphed my way to the change room, and was quite happy when I came out and in fact did not need a XXL. Unfortunately, the only color I liked and was even remotely reasonable here was only available in a XXL (Dammit!). I bought it anyway, and continued on my way. We found a Maki Clothing Company shop that looked neat so I headed in there and again found a lovely flowing dress that I really wanted. I asked the saleswoman what sizes they had and she looked me over from top to bottom, shook her head and said "For you?...No." Sigh......


2. Don't judge, no matter how odd you think things are......
      About a week ago, on a Saturday afternoon, Matt and I were heading in to town for a quick grocery shop. Ahead of us on the road, I saw a largish group of people, who were carrying something over their heads and they seemed to be dancing. Once we got closer I saw that they were indeed dancing and singing, and that two of the were carrying something over their heads that resembled a toy chest, but it was made of cloth and bamboo. I asked our driver, Bien, what was going on. He said "The old man, in the box, came to the family in a dream and said that he was cold, so they are getting him new clothes." I immediately assumed there had been some sort of miscommunication and looked to Matt for clarification. He was looking at me with a grin on his face and told me not to judge, it's cultural. Further explanation was required, and it turns out that the family believes that the man who had been deceased for quite some time was in fact cold where he had been buried. They gather together and go and dig up whatever remains there are, put them in a box and parade them through town, clean the remains and redress them, then bury them again. The older and more respected the person, the bigger the party...... interesting.  It is also customary for a person to be buried in the place they were born. This costs money, and often families don't have it. The family member will be buried where they died, until such a time that the family can save enough money to move them to their birth place. This can take time, sometimes years. During the Day of the Dead, which is basically during the week of November 1st, many families use this time to actually exhume the bodies of the deceased and carry them on their backs to the final resting place. While I understand that this is cultural and very meaningful, I will not be going to town during the week of November 1st.

4. Don't complain about your job, at least you have one, and it could ALWAYS be worse......
     The roads here are terrible. Potholes, if you could even call them that, the size of your car are very common. Very few roads are paved, and there is an astounding amount of traffic. Matt had told me that a lot of items are made by and here, such as gravel, but I had yet to really see it until recently. We were on our way to the lemur park and one whole section of the road had different piles of gravel along it, and beside these piles were children, banging big rocks onto slightly smaller rocks, making gravel by hand. I don't think that I would enjoy that job. Then one day we were heading out to lunch and the road there is quite terrible. Up ahead we could see a couple of local guys standing around what appeared to be an extremely large pile of rocks in one of the holes in the road. Turns out it was actually cinder blocks piled high on one another, that these men were banging together to make the gravel that would fill in the holes. Talk about manual labor!

5. If you think that it might be nice to do something for someone, do it! You may end up getting even more out of it than they do.....
    This is something that I learned every single day while at work. But I am learning it in a different way here.
     Our driver is a very nice man. He doesn't ask for much, he works hard, and is very protective of me when I venture in to town on my own. He doesn't believe in ladies carrying groceries, and despite how many times we've told him he can call us Matt and Lisa, he calls us Mr. Boss Matt, and Miss Lady Boss. When in the car we put our iphones on and listen to music, and he seem to appreciate the oldies the best, so we listen to a lot of Buddy Holly and the like. Him and I are teaching each other our native languages. He will point to something, and I will say the word in English and he then tells me the French and/or the Malagas word for the same object. He has taught me to say "Magna ne'Lanitra", which means "sky is blue", and which I am reasonably certain I have absolutely butchered the spelling of. He also taught me that "Ow" means "Ok" in Malagas, and looked at me funny when I laughed and told him that in English, "Ow" most definitely does not mean "Ok". He asked me to teach him the word for sprinkler, and the best we've gotten so far is "Squinkwler", and when the Bay City Rollers came on the ipod and he asked who it was he could only say Bay City. He tried and tried to say Rollers and then just looked at me and said "No, too hard!" It's fun. One day we were out shopping and it was a particularly hot day. Bien essentially waits around until Matt or I have to go somewhere and then he drives us there. We often buy him a cold drink and snack when we make a run to the store, but on this day I decided that I wanted some ice cream. I asked him if he liked ice cream, and would he like to go get some. He got all excited and said yes, so he took me to an ice cream shop and told me to enjoy my ice cream. I told him to get out of the car and come with me. Another funny look, and I reminded him that he was also getting ice cream and he needed to pick what kind he wanted. He hopped out of the car like a little kid and I swear I was half done my cone before he picked what flavor he wanted. It made my day seeing him so happy, and it was obvious that it is not something that he gets very often, if at all. Today is his 50th birthday. He told me this a month and a half ago when he asked how old Matt and I are. It hasn't come up since, but yesterday when he was done work for the day, I gave him a large homemade chocolate cake for him and his family, plus a small gift. He was absolutely shocked, and said thank you so many times I almost stopped answering. We also told him to take today off so that he could be at home with his family. Again, it made him happy, but I think I got more out of it than he did. I found at home there was a lot of times I would think of all these nice things I wanted to do for people that I never got around to doing. Here, I get the chance to do them, and I look forward to being able to do more things like that. I love bringing joy to people, and if all it takes is an ice cream cone or a chocolate cake, how can I possibly say I don't have time for that.

6.  Say Yes!...or life is going to be really boring.......
          - A lot of living here involves me getting drastically out of my safe little bubble of comfort that I created at home. I am not an adventurous person really, and the idea of meeting new people every single day makes me nauseous with nerves. This is partly because I am not very confident in the fact that people will like me, partly because I worry that Matt already knows all these people and I don't want to do something stupid and embarrass him, and partly because again, I like my little bubble. I was very lucky in that Matt has made a group of very wonderful friends, who welcomed me warmly and who I am very comfortable with. These are the people that Matt goes on his dirt bike adventures with, and where the idea of me getting a quad to join in the fun came from. In the past couple years, though I appear to have become afraid of just about everything, I have decided that even if it scares me, I am going to try to do it. I refuse to miss out on a fun adventure if I can help it, because I don't want to be the one that has to come back and say I didn't do it because I was scared....cage diving with great white sharks in South Africa is the biggest example of this that comes to mind. Getting on a quad in itself was scary as I am not used to it, and it's been a long time since I have been on one...I think the last time I was quite a bit younger and was riding with my dad or my aunt around a family friend's farm. Couple that with the fact that I am in a country where I am unsure of my surroundings and there are dangers that aren't the same as at home, and I turn into a chicken. However, I refuse to miss seeing the landscape and the places that I won't get to by car. The few adventures we have done, though they have left me covered in human fecal matter, or have been slow and tedious down the beach, have been great fun. Matt and his friends are very understanding and have no problem coaching me through something I am scared of or helping me out if I chicken out and get the quad stuck. All of those are things I would have missed if I had said no. The same goes for meeting people. It is difficult to be here all day by myself with really not a lot to do, and without the ability to just get up and go. Some people here do not interact with others, but some really like to and I have to find a happy medium, but not without getting out of that bubble. Having someone you just met on the sidewalk coming back from yoga introduce themselves and invite you over for coffee the next day....sure! Want to go exploring tomorrow, person I don't know all that well....sure! Want to go for dinner where the only person I will know in a group of 20 is my husband....sounds great! Let's take 4 days and drive several hundred kilometres on the quads and bikes and explore bits of Madagascar.....absolutely!  I have been lucky in that there are three women here around my age (a rarity here), and we seem to have clicked. There have been coffee and tea dates at each others houses, shopping for plants, or going to visit and tan by the pool. Myself and one of these women, Alex, have planned a "Meet the Neighbors" potluck at the hall here in the village and invited the entire village. There is going to be the potluck, and hopefully a game of soccer on a Sunday afternoon in a couple of weeks. I found this absolutely terrifying, and the day my email invitation went out to everyone I thought I was going to be sick! The response so far has been extremely positive, and most people are coming, and have thanked us for setting it up - and it hasn't even happened yet! Now I get to panic about what to make :) Alex and I are starting plans for a trade fair of sorts here in the village as well. Alex teaches yoga and practices acupuncture, I am going to offer photography services, and there are a lot of other people here that have services they can offer or skills they can teach, and we want to get the word out. Making friends and keeping busy and trying new things has helped me to open up, gain confidence, and find new people that will add to our lives. All things I would have missed had I said no. It's been a fantastic thing...and Matt will often get a phone call from a giggly Lisa saying "I think I made a friend today!",  and that is something that I have needed for a long time.

7. I am unemployed, and that's okay!
       I am still trying to convince myself of that, but it's getting easier. The past two weeks I have felt useless and homesick. I enjoy working, bringing home a paycheck (no matter how meager) and contributing to the growth and stability of my little family. I enjoy having a career that is my own, and a way that I felt I was contributing and making a difference in someone else's life. Let's be realistic, you don't get in to my field of choice for the money. I keep in touch with past coworkers and talk weekly to those that used to be my clients, who I can now proudly call my friends, but I hear the struggles of a busy work life and want to jump in and help. I've told Matt that I feel useless and that I feel I have nothing to contribute by being here. Luckily, he does not agree, and reminds me that my job in being here is to finish my school, and that is an investment in our future. I will go back home with a degree and have my pick of jobs. I am also going to get involved with volunteering and community organizations, and Matt and I are going to take French classes. I have been cooking and baking up a storm, getting really inventive with substitutions when half of the ingredients aren't available. Who knows, I might even write a book while I'm here. The possibilities for self discovery are endless and I can't wait! It is also giving me the time to put some serious thought into where I want to go with my life. As much as I loved the work I was doing, I felt I was stagnating and was no longer sure of my purpose where I was. Thus is the nature of an ever changing field I suppose, but frustrating none the less.  Matt of course works very hard to make this a worthwhile opportunity and it makes me very proud to see how hard he works, and how much he loves what he is currently doing (despite being so far away from home.) He often comes home and we talk about our days, and even on rough days when he is stressed and annoyed, the story always ends with "But I learnt So Much!", and that's pretty fantastic.

8. Ties to family are strong, and remain so regardless of distance.
      It is fall. Fall means FOOTBALL!!!! (and pumpkin spice lattes from Starbucks). This is the first year in all the years that my brothers have been playing that I have missed a season, let alone missed a game other than those that were in other provinces, or while I was on my honeymoon. I knew this would bother me, but I had no idea how much. I brought my Edmonton Wildcats Jersey, which proudly states "Brett, #64" on the back, and my other Wildcats gear. I wear these on game day. I have even worn my jersey out to dinner :) When the internet works, I get up every weekend regardless of the time to watch the game.....typically they are night games, so I am getting up at 3:30 or 4:00 a.m. to attempt to watch a live streamed game just so I can scream at the lap top and keep Matt up when he has to work Monday morning. I am able to talk to family through the whole game usually, but I have yet to decide if this makes it better or worse. Football season is one of my favorite times of year for many reasons. I get to go and support my little brother(s), I get to spend at least a couple hours per week with family and friends, I get to be outside enjoying the fall weather, and I get a Pumpkin Spiced Latte and a stadium hotdog. Not being there and missing all the time with family, not being able to scream and cheer along with the crowd, not being able to yell "KICK HIS ASS, JAKE!!!", when I feel someone is being silly on the field, is all very hard to deal with. Top that off with missing my dogs terribly and you've got a rather glum Lisa. I always knew we were a close family, on both sides, but this experience has cemented that idea for me. We have been very lucky that we can talk to people on a relatively frequent basis(including the dogs), through the wonders of email, Facebook, What's App and FaceTime. I even surprised my Grandma one day with a phone call, and she spent much of our short conversation stating how amazing it was that I was calling her FROM MADAGASCAR! It was awesome.  Lots of emails as well, so we feel in touch, though we also feel very out of touch. It's nice to be able to see what's going on, but very hard to see what's going on without you. Matt's mom said it best in one of her emails....."I think we might actually end up talking more now that you are away than we did when you were here!" Life is funny.

9. This was the right decision
    This was a hard decision. This was not a spur of the moment decision. This was a decision that took two years to make, and a decision that still gets questioned at least weekly. Leaving the dogs, the house, the family and my career were not easy things to leave. The almost two years apart allowed Matt and I to grow together, and separately, in ways that likely would not have been possible to the same extent had we stuck with the status quo. Just today Matt came home for lunch. It's something small, but it's a luxury we haven't had in so long, and I love every minute of it.  For a long time I struggled with Matt being here, because I felt like he had a whole chunk of his life that I wasn't able to see or be a part of. That was alleviated a little when I was here earlier this year to visit and realized that he in fact was not alone, but it also made me want to experience this with him even more. That does not mean that I wasn't sobbing on the phone when he signed his contract for 2 years residential. It does not mean I didn't ugly cry after my farewell dinners with family, or that Jacob didn't have to let me sob all over his shoulder the morning they drove me to the airport and he watched me say goodbye to my dogs. We are also very aware that this wouldn't have happened without help from some fantastic people...most notably my sister who is living in our house and watching our dogs for two years. Even factoring all of that in, I feel like this was right. Matt and I needed to be together now. I needed the time away from work to regroup and figure out what I want to do when I grow up. I needed to meet new people and make new friends, with Matt and on my own. It's only been two months and I already feel like a different person. This was the right decision.

I told Matt that he should also write an update from his perspective, and while I have been drafting my post for 3 days, I see that he has gone and written his post within an hour of me mentioning that he should do so. I must go read it now.
We have lots of fun things planned over the next little while, so the blog will be quite active.

We miss you all very much! See you at Christmas!

Bonfires and Whale Watching - September Long Weekend, Madagascar Style

Just as I suspected when I wrote the last blog, this past weekend was fantastic.

Unfortunately, Matt had to get up and go to work Saturday morning, but that allowed me time to get up and ready and clean house at a leisurely pace. Our driver Bien and I went and picked him up at the office at noon and it was off to lunch with some friends to a place on the beach called Clare de Lune (sp?). It took about 1.5 hours to get our food, but you can't really complain too much when all of your pizza, including the dough, is hand made and then cooked in an authentic pizza oven. So tasty! It also helps when you are sitting on a "balcony" watching the ocean and drinking beer while waiting for your pizza.

After lunch Matt and I ventured off to get some groceries - we had the brilliant (?) idea to have a bunch of people over for dinner on Sunday being that Whale Watching was going to be done so early, then it was time to head back home and prep for the bonfire. Our friend Kent had brought back some bags of marshmallows the last time he was in Canada and as requested we made a batch of Rice Krispie squares with Mars bars melted on top. Omnomnom...they were delicious. We loaded up the cooler, hopped on the bike and the quad and were on our way to the Ops Camp where there is a large bonfire pit and some wooden benches. There is also a large cookout structure but it doesn't seem to function.

Starting the fire proved to be a little bit tricky, even though Kent had bought 40 bundles of what looked to be really dry wood. Turns out it wasn't all that dry. Three basketball magazines, one cardboard box, five fire starters and a bag of coal later and we finally had a fire. The weather was beautiful, the company great, and the music and snacks perfect. I have never had a "sit under the stars" experience like I've had here. There is almost no ambient light, unless you are in camp where they have put some street lights, and the sky is amazing and clear. We ended up playing charades for well over an hour, Matt and Ian acting things out, and me being the shocking ringer getting the most obscure clues correct. We roasted marshmallows and chatted, and it was an absolutely fantastic evening. Unfortunately it had to come to a relatively early end because we needed to be up and on the road by 7 am on Sunday morning to get to our Whale Watching Adventure.

Fire!

Once we got it going, the flames were beautiful!

Roasting Marshmallows



Can't ever just get a nice photo

Playing Charades - "First Word..."

Sunday morning came bright and early. No pancakes today! Matt had suggested having our pancake breakfast at 6:00 a.m., which was very quickly veto'd by most of us, though I was likely the loudest protester. Matt and I had our driver so we picked up Nolan and everyone else took a bus into town. We were to meet at Club Nautique, a private club right near the port, and find a guy named Bernard. He was right there waiting for us and we were on our way in short order to his little vessel.

Club Nautique

The "Norsk"

 

As we headed out of port, I snapped some shots of local activities. This is the only port on the entire island! It is very busy, both with big container ships, and with much smaller vessels.

 

Once we hit open water, the whale action started pretty quickly. These were humpback whales, similar to what we saw while on Maui. The action was relatively consistent, which was great for a 4 hour excursion. The two coolest things we saw was a double breach quite close to the boat, which of course none of us got on camera, and a mating routine, in which the male whale was continuously slapping his tail and doing all sorts of thins to show off to the females. We saw more breaches than I could count, though most of them were off in the distance, and so many babies. We even saw a baby that was sleeping riding on the back of it's mama. This is the third time I have gone whale watching, twice in Hawaii and once here. All three times have been different experiences, and they take different approaches to whale watching, but these beautiful creatures never cease to amaze me.
Below are a few shots from the day:

After the whale watching was over we started on our way back to the car, and we came across scooter races! Right on the streets of the city! We of course stopped and watched the action for a little while. I don't have the pictures ready, or the video, but it was quite a sight to see. Then we went on our way to a place called Calypso for lunch, where, naturally, a cow walked by. Then it was time to go home and prepare a rather large roast dinner for our friends, while Matt and Nolan took the quad out to see what it was made of. Matt came home covered in mud (and Zebu poop) with a big smile on his face, so I guess it turned out alright :)