biggest thing this week, me and Elder Ahlstrom were caught in what i am deciding to classify as a tropical storm on friday. right in the middle of our prime proselyting time, it starts coming down like normal and we decide to just keep contacting cause if you cant handle a little rain, then get out of the 'gascar. Eventually it starts getting a little more aggressive, and me and Ahlstrom decided to take a hint and wait it out for a few minutes underneath the overhang of an epicerie. Usually the rain will dies down or out after a few minutes. but it just keeps on keepin on and Ahlstrom and i start sharing glances. we start to become fascinated with the rapidly forming whitewhater (brownwater) rapids river rushing down the street we were just contacting on and marveling as its carries a few metric tons of garbage down its wake, along with several pairs of flip flops, a wicker bag, (the kind you use for transporting a half dozen geese on the back of your bike... they have those in america, right?) a whole bunch water bottles and a small child. eventually we realize were gonna lose a ton of work time if we keep waiting it out so we decided to suck it up and get out to work. spoiler alert: everyone cancelled their lessons. For a people that live, in essence, a submarine lifestyle malagasies sure are scared of the rain.
"our meeting was at 12 and its 1 now. where are you?"
"well, its raining Elders!"
yeah there's a lot of nonsense like that. In essence were walking around in this stuff for hours and not accomplishing anything cause no one wants to talk while its raining and the whole time its only picking up and flooding in a more dramatic fashion. By the time we decide to go home weve been as wet as if we had just gone swimming in full proselyting clothes for the last hour and its past the point of misery and has crossed back over to being fun. we'd just wade up and down streets, watching waves and riptides go by and marvel at the openings of the malagasy "sewer system", where the water was coming out so fast it was pressurized and jetting out of grates six feet in the air.
Eventually when we got back to Betsarety (our hood) we were wading up to our mid thighs (or in french, the mid-cuisse, which i know thanks to gasy menus being in teny fransay). it looked like this picture of a missionary in Tomatave
except our water was higher, browner, more generally filled with sewage and we were lacking in the bicycle rain jacket department. A couple malagasies thought it was absolutely hilarious to see vazahas in the drink and made some loud comments, so i went up to each and every one and made some some happy small talk, told them i loved them and then gave them a sopping wet hug before they could get away.
Also, remember those gaping sewer pits im terrified of falling into every night i mentioned before? Well the water was about two feet over the pit on our path home and we would have walked right into it if there wasnt an awesome malagasy right there warning everyone. there was a bunch of people standing around the approximate area who were to scared to progress so me and Ahlstrom had to lead a bunch of people around the pit, very slowly, very cautiously. The tension has never been so high. Ahlstrom even had to lead a couple kids and their mother home "because they didnt have an umbrella." what? All this nonsense left everything in my bag (except, miraculously, my malagasy scriptures) completely ruined. My bag is waterproof, but that only means so much.
And then after all that when we got home we realized we had left our keys at the office so we had to make the trip two more times. It was one of the more awesome experiences of my life. See y'all next week, folks.
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