06 June 19--Broken String

Hey,

This week was fun. I had only been in the country 4 days, body's guitar string. Two Malagasy men were playing guitar on the side of the road, and of course I ask, "Afaka mitendry ny gitaranoa?" So the guy happily gave up his guitarand I already managed to break some momentarily to this weird "vazaha" and let me play. It was tuned really weird, so I couldn't really play what I wanted. So, he told me to tune it how I liked. I did so, and started playing. As I was playing, I noticed that this had drawn a crowd, and I was surrounded by Malagasys. I stopped playing, and the people applauded, and said things like, "tena mahay izy!" (he's really good.) My companion said that we had to go, so I gave the guitar back. But now he couldn't play because of the tuning, so he asked me to tune it back. Thankfully, there was another guitar so I actually could tune it back. Every thing was going fine... that is until the Last String, and well... you Know the rest. He didn't seem to mind too much. But we got his address (which is almost completely useless here--nobody actually knows where they live or how to give directions, and they all point in different directions... but we find it eventually...with the help of the spirit,) and I bought him another guitar string in town, and when we find his house, I think it will be a good 1st discussion:)

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I live in a place called Talatamaty (which literally means, "Dead Tuesday") and it's wonderful. I spent my first 7 nights here eating in a grass hut. In fact, I've already eaten Cow Stomach with rice (which my companion neglected to tell me until after the appointment. All I knew was they said it was "hena omby" (meat of cow) and I was thinking the whole time, "This doesn't taste like "hena omby".) But I still haven't gotten sick, so count your many blessings. Speaking of food, my companion is actually a really good cook... we had pot roast on Sunday or Alahady, and it was good (and it tasted like hena omby--fuzz free.)

The people here are wonderful. They never get used to seeing " vazahas" (white guys) walking down the street, so everybody stares, and says, "Bonjour." The kids always stop whatever they're doing and shout, "Bonjour vazaha!" ("good day white guy," because everybody knows that all white people are French.) Our retort is, "Manahoana zaza!"(how ya doin' children!...(it rhymes with vazaha)) and their eyes go wide--it's pretty funny. The kids love to follow us, and always request a "dona kely," which is basically asking for a knuckle handshake. It's cool. It's also fun when it's later in the night and very dark outside and we can't see people until they're about to run into us, and they can see us a mile off in the dark (being the only white people, and in white shirts,) --and somebody sees you and says, "Good Morning!" Funny.

I'm amazed how interested in the gospel people here are. We did a first discussion earlier this week (and I actually was partially, semi-understood! Awesome!) And the people were so receptive, it was unreal. More and more people kept coming into the room to listen. They even turned off the fuzzy television football game to listen! They were answering questions and asking great questions, I almost felt like stopping the lesson to say "Are you serious? You're just eating this up! Are you sure you don't have any problems with what we're saying? Like--I don't know--your church isn't true? Really? OK then." This has happened more than once. It's great\Well gotta go. Veloma!

Elder Draper\Madagashlycrumb