Salama from Tananarive, Madagasikara!
(Hello from Antananarivo/Tana, Madagascar)
First off - i want to apologise for it taking me so long to post the promised blog. My time in Madagascar so far has been pretty busy and so much more overwhelming than i anticipated, so it has been quite the challenge to put all my experiences, thoughts, feelings & emotions down in words.
So far this trip has been the most confronting, grounding & life-changing experience of my 25 years. Every single day presents something new. Another blessing for some, another struggle for others. There is poverty EVERYWHERE you look. Doesn't matter which way you turn, there are children chasing cars down the busy street begging for money, mothers sorting through garbage looking for food scraps or empty bottles (they can exchange these for a small amount of money), severely disabled men sitting on street corners begging for money as their disability enables them to work, sick children slowly and painfully deterioating as they are unable to get medical care, the list goes on. Yet these people are some of the most joy filled, FULLfilled people i have ever laid eyes on! These people fight to stay alive every single moment of every single day, they don't have material pleasures like we do, and yet they [seem to] embrace and appreciate life considerably more than we do. Makes you think twice about who's really facing a daily struggle huh?! Them, or us....? These people may not be rich as far as money goes, but wow are they rich where it counts.. in the heart! Its hard to try and fathom how one could prosper in the heart so much when faced with so many continual hardships, but these people encompass admirable qualities - strength, perserverence, FAITH & unconditional LOVE for God - that not only get them through each and every day, but allow their hearts to swell! Have definitely learned a lot from these amazing people!
Besides being blown away by the hearts & souls of the Malagasy people, i have been keeping pretty busy. For the first two and a half weeks i was blessed to have my vuzza (that's what the Malagasy people call foreigners) wing-woman, Lauren Farleigh, here with me. Lauren is the mastermind behind all the CSM films, so there was a lot of filming done in the first 2 weeks. We filmed around Tana for the first week. Also did a lot of looking/walking around to all the poor communities, stone & bead sourcing, met with the gemologist, visited all the kids and handed out toys and photos taken from last year, and gave some money to the poor.
Then we travelled 3 hours south-east to Soavinandriana for a few days to film the progress of the orphanage, film the stories of the village peoples lives, and to work on a special up-and-coming csm film project.
We were back for a day or two then crammed into a tiny bus for 12 hours which took us north-west to Mahajanga. The trip to Mahajanga was a blessed one! While there Brendan met with two mayors - one the mayor of a town just outside Mahajanga, and the other the mayor of Mahajanga! These two mayors were so excited by Brendan's vision that they donated 5 square kilometres of land to CSM for up-and-coming projects. How good is that! We also got to visit the family Brendan has supported for the last few years. CSM just finished the construction of their new house (the family of 8 used to live more or less under a few pieces of tin) and water well, so it was awesome to finally meet and spend time with them, and their new baby, Brendan (yes, named after CSM Brendan). We also got a whole heap of new footage while there, visited poor communities and gave out health and hygeine packages with toothbrushes, soaps and vitamins, and got to check out the new carpentry business CSM are operating, which is very new, but already generating some good income for the org. Managed to squeeze a little beach time in while there too - soo good!! I got pretty sick on our last day there with flu-like symptoms, fever and all, which was no fun (especially with that gruelling 12 hour trip ahead of us), but besides that, our trip to Mahajanga was extremely successful and i had an amazing time!
Once back in Tana we went and bought a whole bunch of stones and leather to get the jewellery project started. We bought some fossilised wood, jasper, quartz, ruby, agate, amethyst, black tourmaline and white opal - excitement!! I'm inspired by my materials so this shop got the inspiration ball well and truly rolling! Got a couple of designs ready to be sent to the silversmith and gemologist. Was also now time for Lauren to head back to Australia (sad goodbye), and to prepare for the arrival of the 3 Aussie farm boys (Adam, Ben & Brad Grills from Toowoomba) coming the next day.
Adam, Ben & Brad came specifically to help with the Soavinandriana project, so we spent one day in Tana showing them the sites and visiting the poor communities and then we were back in Soavinandriana to start on the orphanage. When we arrived Orcel (CSM staff) and some volunteers had come as far as, laying some foundations, segmenting the area into rooms and erecting a 1m wall around the perimetre of the orphanage. The boys pulled out their tape-measures and got to work as soon as they got there. As Ben is a plumber Brendan wanted to take full advantage of his trade and build a proper bathroom & toilet there (all other bathrooms there consist of a bucket for a shower and a whole in the ground and two bricks to stand on for a toilet), so that was the priority job while they were here. This toilet will actually flush, and not smell (hhuuggee thing for these people) and the shower will even have hot water, produced by special heat generating coil thingys (noo idea what the proper name is ha) on top of the building. Brad built them a worm farm so they could produce worm juice for fertilising, and Adam designed and layed down the foundations for a revolutionary (for Soav) pig pen! The 3 boys also taught a large gathering of people there about Australian farming on 2 occasions. This helped the people there so much as, as much as their way works, it is a very old way of doing things and they could be doing things much better. While i was there i did a little bit of work on the orphanage with everyone else, dug a little & laid a few bricks. Even got a blister on my hand from shoveling so hard (yeah i was proud of it haha). Oh yeah, i wrote stuff in the concrete too ha. I hurt my knee from digging too much though (ha) and then even got kicked in my sore knee by a cow (ha!) so that stopped me from doing anything too strenuous. I did teach two english lessons at the small Christian school there though. Just taught them some basics that they use everyday; greetings, directions, basic phrases, colours, animals, days etc. Taught them and had them singing along to a song too - so cool! Such beautiful people! Towards the end of our stay in Soav i got sick AGAIN with a throat infection, which again had me feeling feverish. That knocked me about for the last couple of days. All better now though P.T.L.
We got back to Tana on Tuesday afternoon then went out for a nice pizza dinner and a couple of drinks. Then the boys left for South Africa on Wednesday morning. Another sad goodbye! It's so weird to be here and see people come and go. It's beginning to feel like i'm never going home! Today (Thursday) i worked on a photo/video thing i'm putting together for my trip, and then went stone and jewellery tool shopping with Brendan, Lova & Fidelice. Bought some beautiful amethyst and fossilised wood - so excited to see what comes of all these stones!
So that's my trip so far - i'm sure i've left loads out as i've left it so long to write this blog, but they will come back to me and you will hear lots of stories and see tonnes of photos when i get home. I will try and get better at this whole blog posting thing ha.
Hope everyone and everything back home is amazing, missing my near & dears and Encounter Life! Pray for us and all the people and projects over here.
Heaps of love, Sare xxxxx
PS. i tried to add a clip i made onto the end of this but it won't let me :( will post more photos on fb very soon! xo
