Vazaha foibles pt.1

I think the goal of any expat should be to make as much of a positive impact as possible while offending the least number of nationals as possible. In the pursuit of that goal in Madagascar you tend to hear the term Vazaha or "white man" a lot. :) Not entirely in a negative light but in a more "oh dear god what is that idiot doing" sort of fashion. So in order to avoid hearing it in the what-the-hell-is-that-Vazaha doing way I am using this blog to keep track of things not to screw up... again.

First on the list today is "svp". When your team receives an email written in French with a whole bunch of sentences in capital letters and it's sent from the admin assistant of an upper manager and the only thing you recognize is SVP at the end DON'T PANIC! SVP does not mean Senior Vice President so whatever you do don't immediately walk over to your boss and ask about it. They will laugh at you and explain that SVP means s'il vous plaît.... Yea. Don't be that guy.

Second on the list, when a question is answered with "well received" it means "thanks, I'm working on it" not "you should send me a follow up email because you have no idea what well received means".

And the last protip for today is when ordering business cards always remember to capitalize your last name and not your first name or you're doing it wrong. So that would be Stupid VAZAHA not STUPID Vazaha. Though the second spelling would be more suitable at this point. :)

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