Wilshi brand basketballs

Cool week, not a ton new, not feeling creative so im just going to commentate on the pics uploaded

part of learning malagasy is learning the indechipherable way malagasies write numbers

no joke i cut the palm of my hand on a nail and the crown of my head on thorns within an hour of each other. it taking all of my self restraint to not (sacriligeously) comment further on this

we found two chameleons on the path and caught them and are keeping them at our house now

a must have for every missionary with an adequate understanding of malagasy, the malagasy dictionary (the kind the defines malagasy words in malagasy, a malagasy dictionary by malagasies, for malagasies. malagasy)

i thought it was way cool but a picture of a boook is pretty boring but thankfully i quickly found a page with an entry describing the word for a person with no fingers. the dictionary is ripe with quality information like this, and entries such as "white people rice: a kind of grain grown by white people in cold places like europe. its ground and baked to make baguettes." (this is the entry for wheat, if you cant tell) Trying to explain this dictionary to malagasies is insane cause they cant understand the value of describing gasy in teny gasy and they usually think its in french and for vazahas to learn malagasy. so many more white people own this then real malagasies....

took a selfie with Mamy (means "sweet") a delighful member of ambohipo while waiting for a haircut from his relative, Hanta. They are both of the Bara tribe, who are traditionally cattle rustlers and have a large presence in toliara. Mamy is frm toliara and so naturally i love speaking to him. He has one arm. (NOTE: neither mamy nor hanta are cattle rustlers, but are in fact well to do hair dressers

oops i took some selfies displaying my radically pointier new haircut. i ve mixed feelings about it.

we had a pool tournament and i was in charge of designing team names for each companionship. its just the companionships names mashed togethr. i like "Taintuleka"

(note theres a missionary here named elder tainter, no joke)

radical shots of the pool and baseball action that went down

2280 - Rinah

2298 - Christian and Frederic

assortted shots of many amazing church members and investigators. Rinah, the girl in pic 2280 was tracted into by me and te'e and taught for a while 7 months ago before i left for toliara. Now shes a fully baptized member, has read the whole book of mormon, is doing her family history and preparing to go to the temple. Shes amazing. and who was that stellar missionary that found her again...

2298 is Christian and Frederic, who you may remeber all the way back from Betongolo days. i call them lionel ritchie and michael jackson, which is exactly hitting the nail on the head, but they think its funny

the rest of the pictures are pictures of ivandry, the center of tana, and the first ward and stake in the country. this place is incredibly progressive compared to even the parts of tana right next to it, and bears a remarkable resemblance to america at some points. i went into office buildings, shopped at a walmart like shoprite, and entered into a real life strip mall and almost cried. i had been preparing to reenter that kind of stuff in 6 to 7 months, not in the middle of my missionary. thoroughly bizarre, and it made me feel weirdly guilty. its hard to concieve of toliara nadn ivandry existing in the same country. but i did see a pig get lifted up by its ears and tail in bboth places though (by the way the sound a pig makes when this happens is bloodcurdling and i think the worst ive ever heard) Notice the BNI Madagascar is open 24 hours a day, 24 days a week

in other news, today is the year and six month and one day mark of my mission, making me a dead sister missionary. Extremely weird to think that if president finds out abot my extra x chromosome ill have to get sent home, and even weirder to be treated as "that old guy" by my fellow missionaries, who are largely 18 and 19. im proud also to be the weird guy at the ambohipo house, because im known now for loudly having malagasy conversations in my sleep, one of which was interuppted by a fart and chuckle (i was conscious for none of this). I dont know how to say this in a non braggy way, but im just extremely happy with the fluency level ive reached in malagasy and the people are constantly complimenting e on it and it just makes me feel all good and inflated ego-y. im currently learning Atondroy, Antaimoro, and Antainosy dialects, and i watched a movie in tandroy at our ward mission leaders house in tandroy the other day and understood all of it! feeling super accomplished. also im way more proud than i should be of sleep malagasy talking.

anyhoo, ill turn off the hot ego air now.

I love you all! have great week! please keep in your prayers the wounded missionaries and all those wounded and killed in the belgium bombings recently