Today I taught my first class for the director and teachers of the V commune primary school. A combination of environmental education, teaching material distribution, and English class. Was a huge success! I really enjoy teaching—and nice that I can do it in a combined French and Malagasy for the instructors.

After teaching I was followed home by two CEG students [middle school?] who wanted to look at magazines at my house. Today was another very hot day. When we got inside my kitchen, one of the students (who is learning English at school and loves to practice on me) said, “Excuse me, Miss. May I have rice juice?� It took me a moment to register that he was asking for ranompango [water boiled in the bottom of the rice cooking pot]. I wonder if they were taught to say rice juice at school. Made me laugh!
Spent the rest of the day harvesting remaining makoba, playing games with my kids on the beach, and going chameleon hunting with my camera in the golden end-of-day light. I had a crowd of students in blue smocks, women with baskets of rice on their heads, men shouldering tree trunks for firewood, and all other lane traffic surrounding me as I admired a few chameleons. I picked one up to move it to a branch in better light and there was an immediate gasp from my audience as women and girls grasped their heads in fear and ran away from me.

After I had held a chameleon, Estella, one of my favorite girls who is always at my side when we go for walks, insisted on skulking ten feet behind me as we made our way home. I noticed she wasn’t next to me and motioned to her to catch up. She immediately backed even farther away, panic in her eyes. I told her she was being silly and tried to catch her arm and she looked like she was going to cry if I came any closer. She was absolutely terrified to be near me, all because I had held a chameleon, something fady here.

I told her that in my culture chameleons are good luck—a little white lie—and people even keep them as pets sometimes in their houses. She stared at me like I was crazy and said that if you kill a chameleon, someone you love will die. To avoid all bad luck, she said, you have to keep your distance. You are tempting fate to hold them the way I did. Estella is only eight years old! I was amazed that superstitions run so deep here, even in children. Estella kept her distance for the rest of the day.

I want to be culturally sensitive, but also am trying to discourage fear of animals like chameleons and aye ayes. Poor Estella! I hope she’s over it by tomorrow!
Love to all, Rachel