connecting the dots

Here are more pictures of vacation. Kinsey tried to upload them but won't work. Sometimes it does sometimes it doesn't. So she e-mail them to us to put on her blog. So here they are. (Becky/ Kinsey's Mom)

hotel in tana: This is a little hole-in-the-wall hotel in the capital. Still doesn't convey the feeling of the whole situation, but it's a start.

me on Emerald Isle.....

the hotel grand and the pool/swim-up bar. This is the fancy hotel we went to twice while staying in Diego. You can pay 10,000 Ariary($5.23 U.S.) to swim in the pool for the afternoon (which we did) it has a swim-up bar and everything. To stay in the hotel it costs around 150,00 Ar per night. ($78.43 U.S.). Not exactly a place I thought I'd find myself during Peace Corps, but it was nice to pretend for a few afternoons.

glass protection: This was in Diego, but can be seen all over the country in larger cities. People cement pieces of glass along the tops of the cement walls that surround their houses. Looks prettier than barbed wire, but probably doesn't feel much better.

lady of the north with face powder: This was one of the ladies on Emerald Isle who was giving masssages and/or braiding hair. The women in the northern parts of the country often wear this yellow powder on their faces to protect themselves from the sun.

diego fruit ladies: These ladies walk around selling fruit to everyone they see, especially foreigners.

floweres: more for Quinn and everyone else who asks what kind of flowers madagascar has.

view of hideout from boat: This is a picture of the abandonded building from the water. We passed by it on the boat we took to Emerald Isle. Funny enoug, you can buy postcards with this building on it as it is now. Why? Not sure. It was a fancy hotel or military building back in the day.

in hide-out: Lucy, me, Dorothy. It's a pretty sketchy building, so we were acting out the situation. It's safe during the day, but I don't recommend going there after dark.

view of bay from the hideout: This is an old abandoned building that sits right on the bay in Diego. The view is beautiful and it's quite peaceful up there since few people go up there.

corn on cob in brousse:We were passing through one of several larger towns on our way up to Diego. It must have been markey day because there were so many people in town, the vehicles were having a hard time going sown the road. But is did make it easier for the people on the streets to run up to our brousse and try to sell us random food and items: maybe bananas, dried fish, sunglasses. We opted for the corn on the cob; nice and hot, but lacking butter and salt. Hey, we'll take what we can get.