Meeting My Host Family
So much to learn and so little time.
Monday, July 15th 2013 – 5:19pm
Bedroom of Homestay – Mantasoa, Madagascar
We met up with our homestay families Saturday afternoon after a day and a half of “survival Malagasy” and other primers. After the third language class, I realized that my entire knowledge of the language was contained in the pages of the reporter-style notebook I’d been carrying around as a comfort object—and not in my brain where it needed to be. I realized I had to get off-book, but there wasn’t enough time. It was starting to dawn on us just how lost we were all about to become. All I could do was laugh at the fact that our worlds were on the verge of turning upside down. As we left the training center to meet up with our families, we were in a downright maniacal mood.
The best bit of reassurance came from a skit that had been performed by Malagasy staff the previous night. In it, volunteer Ben spends his first night at homestay and makes a complete ass of himself. We cackled, imagining ourselves in his situation and realizing that a) we were all in the same boat, and that b) making asses of ourselves might just be unavoidable.
When h-hour rolled around, three Peace Corps vehicles stuffed with volunteers pulled into the village commune where a throng of Malagasy families waited. We got out of the vehicles and began pulling our luggage off the cars, and for a moment the two groups remained hesitantly parted. Then our group mixed with theirs and the crowd became boisterous. I stood in the middle of it, dazed and smiling at strangers.
An excited woman came up to me and asked, “Iaan? Iaan Stroose?” I grinned and nodded, and she threw her arms around me. This was surprising because we’d been told to expect handshakes only—Malagasy don’t usually hug. But of course, I was thrilled to be receiving such a welcome. She introduced herself as Noro, and led me over to the rest of the family. First I met Charles, the father. Then there were Charline and Jose—pronounced Zosee—both in their early twenties, Charline being the eldest. And last was Jimmy, the junior of his siblings by about ten years.
On the way home, they responded to the Malagasy phrases I read out of my notebook with “Mahay Malagasy!”—“you know Malagasy!” But when the rehearsed prompts ran out, it became quickly apparent to all that I was going down a waterfall—with no paddle. They remained very supportive, feeding me vocabulary like water out of a fire hose, but it was impossible to keep up. My brain could barely contain a glimmer of what it was taking in. For the rest of Saturday night and Sunday—we had the day off—I felt like an utter imbecile.
But I became very determined, very quickly. There is no shortage of motivation now—if there ever was any—to put in the hours needed to learn Gasy. Ideally I’d like to be spending every waking moment immersing myself in the language. Class, conversations with volunteers, and this writing are the only exceptions.
Oh, and one other. The first day of homestay I started speaking English with Charline. When we met she told me that she’d already found and friended me on Facebook. I noticed then that her English was exceptional and later I told her so. That’s when we broke the act of forced muteness and decided to go for a walk with Jimmy in tow. She revealed that she was majoring in American Studies at the University of Antananarivo, which explained why her English was so good, and I got to share some details of my life—beyond what little I’d been able to produce in Malagasy. But when we got back to the house I regretfully said that I would have to stop speaking my native tongue. I didn’t want to fall into the habit of taking the easy way out.
So now I should stop writing in it as well, and go back to “mianatra”—“studying.” It’s a word that I remember because my name is embedded in it, which is fitting, because...well...that’s what I do these days.