August 10th

We thought it might be interesting to you to see some of the things we see around us. We have selected a number of photographs and will comment about them.
1.

This first picture shows how many Magalacy people live. These are apartment like places that are typically owned by someone other than the people who live there. Often these apartments are single room or two rooms with a W.C. outside and a place where the food is cooked outside as well. The Malagacy diet consists primarily of rice and vegetables to go with the rice. Sometimes they may have a few pieces of meat with the vegetables. The food is cooked on flower pot like baked clay stoves like a camp stove. The fuel is charcoal - green wood that is prepared by burning it in a sealed-off dirt oven. The clothing you see is hand washed in plastic pans and buckets- in cold water of course. The soap is a bar of wash soap that is brushed across the clothes. The clothes are rinsed and then hung up to dry. Fortunately the sun shines enough to dry the cloth. It will be interesting to see what happens in the rainy season.
There are no stoves or heaters inside the apartments, nor is there running water. Most of the time there is no electricity. The Malagacy people get up at dawn and go to bed at night-fall.

2.


The next picture is a public water station. These water station are found in neighborhoods. People bring their water containers - most of the time open buckets and wait their turn in line for water. The buckets are quite heavy when full. Many times you see women carry these containers on their head. One women carried one bucket on her head and carried another one in her hand. Sometimes you see men - usually older men get water for people for a small fee. More women and teenage girls get the water than men do.

3.


One morning about 7:00 a.m. we could smell smoke. We looked out the window and saw that the kids in the neighborhood had started this fire. It produced very black smoke which went right up to our apartment. You can see our windows at the top of the picture. I went downstairs and out through our gate and started taking pictures. There were two or three adult men in the group. When they saw me taking pictures they turned their faces away. There is a woman who started selling food right outside the gate by the side of our driveway. I said loudly "tsy" which in Malagacy means "stop this" and motioned to the fire and the smoke going up to our windows. She said something to the group and one of the older boys got some water and started putting out the fire. Of course, this is winter time and in the mornings and in the evenings you see small fires outside the doors of living places where people warm themselves a little. So the kids just do the same thing.

4.


The fire is now out. You see our apartment house in full splendor. The high wall topped by a fence is intended to keep the people from the neighborhood out. We have 24-hour guards whose only job is to keep the gate closed and to open the gate when we drive in or out and close it after we drive through. We are gone all day long and so the gates are opened in the morning and in the evening when we come home. There are three apartments. The windows of the second floor apartment - where the Assistants to the Mission President live - are just above the wall. We are on the third floor. Above our floor is an open area - partially roofed. This is where the water heaters and the washing machine and the dryer are located. The other senior couple, the husband of which is the Humanitarian Aid director for Malagascar - lives on the ground floor. When they look out their windows they see the wall. The two little dogs you can see are two of a six dog litter a female dog had in some bushes along the eastern side of this open area. The kids play with them and sometimes feed them. Most of the time the dogs have to find their own food. Their mother can often be seen jumping into the nearby garbage bin searching for something to eat.

5.


The garbage bins are the center of much activity. The garbage bins are located on the side of streets. The one pictured is not far from our gate. The kids put the small dogs in the bin. When they sniff something out, the kids quickly take it away from them to see if it is something edible. We have found remnants of our wet garbage strewn all over the open area by our apartment - onion, orange and banana peels, empty cans, egg shells, etc. The children and the dogs are not the only ones looking for food in the garbage bin. You can always see older men and women rummaging through the garbage bins looking for food and other useful things. The garbage bins once upon a time were picked-up by garbage trucks, emptied and put back in place. Now the garbage trucks come every two to three weeks and the garbage collectors go through the garbage again - carefully raking it, looking for valuable things. Finally, they stuff what is left into bags, throw the bags on the truck were the bags are emptied and thrown out to be filled again until most of the garbage from the bin is in the truck. The garbage all around the bin is left on the ground and the truck takes off to the next bin. As you can see, the children play in and around the garbage bins. Not much sense for hygiene.

6.


This is the food stand just outside our gate. This food stand has doubled the garbage on the ground. Near the food stand some women have also started to wash their clothing. They have moved from washing near the garbage bin to a better area - near the wall of an expensive apartment building - ours.

7.


On Sunday afternoons we usually go with the branch president to visit members in Sabotsy Namehana. Seila took this picture near the home of a sister we visited. These fields have new rice seedlings growing in them. Soon the nearby rice fields will be filled with water where the rice seedlings will be re-planted. The new growing season - Spring - begins next month in September.