2007 June 5--Traditions

Well hi,

This week was nuts. Thanks for the letters and the picture.The beard looks good Dad! Everyone's looking good! I'll be sure to tell you as soon as I get the new card.

Ok, where do I start? Yesterday. We started the day off playing soccer. The night before, My companion and I invited our "former-New-Caledonia-Professional-Soccer-player" Mission President Gaya to come play with us. He was happy to come. At 64, he's older than the majority of mission presidents, but I feel pretty confident in saying that he's probably in better shape than most of them. He can still play better than a lot of missionaries. I only knocked him over once ( very unintentionally mind you, and he got right back up). I think he had a lot of fun, and afterwards thanked me and my companion for inviting him. Oh yeah, and before President got there, we were challenged to a game of soccer by a bunch of cocky Malagasy college students, who thought they'd have an easy win. Yeah, we kicked their trash. 3 - 0. The game was fun though. Then at the last game against President, we dominated again 3 - 1 my companion scoring 2 goals and me scoring the other one. Later that day, we went and had lunch at the Talatamaty house ( my first Area almost exactly a year since I first was there). Then somehow I was persuaded to play "Settlers of Catan" even though I wasn't really interested, but it ended up being a lot of fun. That, and for some reason I won again. So now, thus far I am undefeated in games I have reluctantly decided to participate in. Weird.

As for the rest of the week, it was crazy, or adala be mihitsy, as they say. I don't know how much you know on the subject, probably very little if any, about two of the weirdest cultural phenomenons of Madagascar; the Fahamadian'ny Maty and the Didipoatra. The Fahamadian' ny Maty, or Turning of the Dead, is something Malagasys do every 5 to 7 years depending on how wealthy they are. In the Turning of the Dead, a family and all of their extended relatives they can find, go and visit the tombs of their ancestors ( the tombs here are everywhere, often right next to someone's house). But here's the difference between our Memorial day observance and the Fahamadiana - instead of simply gathering around the grave ( or tomb in this case), they go right in and pick up the wrapped-remains of their uncle Rakotomalala who may have died as recently as 7 years ago, and put him on their shoulders and parade and dance around with him. I'm not kidding. There is also the fragile remains of relatives dead for more than 100 years, these they simply carry in some kind of container. Before they return the body to the tomb, they re wrap it in a special kind of fabric, and then go and party. So far, I haven't been to one of these personally, but I have seen pictures, and had members and investigators describe it to me. I intend to see one for myself before the end of the mission.

Now for the other one, the Didipoatra, or Circumcision. After this week I can say that I have personally attended a Malagasy circumcision celebration. The Didipoatra is a huge tradition in Madagascar. The poor kids here don't get circumcised right when they're born, no, they have to wait a few years. Most kids are about 2 or 3 years old when they do it to them, however some kids are 7 or 8 when it happens ( but not very often, thank goodness). There's actually a pretty elaborate ritual involved in the whole process. Again, as many relatives as possible are invited, and basically they throw a big party. Apparently back in the day, the father of the son to be circumcised would have to leave the village in the middle of the night and get a bucket of cold water for the circumcision ( this was back before anesthesia,,,,ouch) to come back, he would need to get past a group Malagasy men trying to prevent him from entering the village with the water. So basically, the water carrier has to play rugby and get back into the village without spilling the water, if he does spill the water, he has to go back and do it again. At the end of the circumcision, the boy is now considered ( more or less)" a man". Also for some reason, the Father, or another relative has to eat the foreskin, usually with a banana. Again, I'm not kidding.

Anyway, it's a pretty big deal here, and they more or less try to duplicate the old tradition ( except now they hire a doctor to perform the circumcision). Afterwards, depending on how wealthy the family is, they give the kid a bike or something, it's kind of like a very traumatizing birthday party.

So, I think I mentioned last week that we have become good friends with some of our investigators. And as a result of that, we were invited as honored guests to the didipoatra of their little 2year old. Unfortunately, this kid's dad is kind of a bumb who lives pretty far away,so we were further honored as being the ones they wanted to hold the kid down while he was circumcised. This is kind of a long story which I don't have time to tell. So, long story short, we went, and Wangsgard, my companion held on to the kid while the whole thing happened, I opted out because I happened to see it happen to the kid before and Wangsgard didn't, so I took pictures instead. It happened in a very loud and very crowded room, and it was absolutely crazy. After the ordeal, everyone insisted that my companion eat the foreskin, so he got out of the room pretty quick as you can imagine. So somebody else ate it.

It was probably the weirdest party I've ever been to, and not just because I was one of two white people surrounded by lots black people ( that happens all the time here). But it was amazing how much respect everyone gave us, and how happy everyone was to have us there. Afterwards we went up stairs and presented the screaming child with a bike. I don't know how much he appreciated it just then to be completely honest. I may or may not send you those pictures. Probably not.

In other news this week, we taught about 600 kids at a school about how to brush their teeth, and how to brush their teeth with a stick and charcoal if they couldn't afford a tooth brush. We used puppets and everything. Now whenever we walk down the street, half the kids shout, "Vazaha!" at us, and the other half shout " hey! look at my Teeth!". ( some shout both). cool.

I almost positive there's more, but I'm out of time. So, I love you all, I hope this E-mail doesn't weird you guys out too bad, because I don't even know what's normal anymore. Until next week, Veloma!

Elder Draper