cuckoo for...coconuts?

hi all...not much time for an update because i need to go take a hot shower (never have i appreciated hot showers like i do upon arriving in tana after a long taxi-brousse ride on a dusty road in the dry season) and then go eat a bagel sandwich and ice cream for lunch, YES. such is life in tana...i arrived back from the west coast this morning, after an 18- or 19-hour ride, and tomorrow morning will leave for the comparably short (8-ish-hour) ride back up to lac alaotra. morondava was good...way hotter than it is here, way sandier too. we actually spent most of our time at this big festival called fitampoha on a beach near a town called belo, 100 km or so north of morondava. it was on the banks of the tsiribihinia river...or something spelled similarly to that. ten of us stayed in this grass hut on the beach, bathed in the river, relieved ourselves in the...area of the beach designated as a public bathroom, and ate some rice and a lot of fried street food that people were selling. i was only there for four days or so, but we had time to do a lot of teaching about HIV/AIDS, so that was cool, and it was interesting to see a totally different part of the country. i got some pretty good pictures of baobab trees on the road from morondava to belo, so look forward to those in november. i also bought about 15 or 20 coconuts, mostly to bring back to friends in vohitsara, although i'll keep one or two for myself as well...if i manage to get the bag of them all the way there. when you leave town to go, well, anywhere, people except you to bring what's called a "voandalana," like a gift from wherever you went. the idea is to bring something that is hard to get or more expensive in your town/area, but when i go to my banking town people always ask for a voandalana even though the fruit/vegetables/etc. are just about the same there as in my town. so, since i was over on the coast in an area very agriculturally different from my area, i went ahead and bought all those coconuts, for pretty cheap, and i think people will be overjoyed to get a real voandalana this time around.

ok, time for that hot shower and bagel and ice cream lunch...also i promised somebody else i would be off this computer soon, as the line to use it is forever existent. so my reasons for leaving are manyfold. but i will update again soon, and if you read this let me know what's up with YOU, via comment, email, or LETTER! talk to you all soon!