2007 October 15-In Praise of Tana

Hi,

This week, we went to "The Place of Much Salt" ( "Antsirabe") which is about 3 hours south of "The City of a Thousand" ( "Antananarivo".) This is the farthest away I have ever traveled from Tana. Antsirabe is vaguely reminiscent of a low-income neighborhood in Florida - perhaps a little more shabby. That said, it kicks Antananarivo's trash (and there's a lot of trash to kick there) in almost every way. Modern Antsirabe was planned and built by Norwegians. Modern Antananarivo was.... ignored and neglected by the French. The contrast today is striking. It made me proud to be Scandinavian.

I have to admit though, I love Antananarivo. It's dirty, it smells, it's chaotic, the traffic is terrible, the roads don't make any sense, the housing placements make even less sense, and a whole lotta other stuff I could mention, BUT I love it. This place is beautiful in spite of itself, and I enjoy that. Every so often, I still have to stop my companion so we can step back and enjoy the view for a bit.

I'm suffering from severe writer's block right now, a severe lack of time, and a severe lack of anything interesting to say , so you'll have to forgive me. But I thought I'd try to write something anyway.

Thanks for the letters. Thank you Thomas for all the details. To answer your question about spiders, Thomas: When I lived in Ankadindramamy, on the third floor, outside on the clothes-rack there was a HUGE spider with the biggest web I have ever seen. We caught flies everyday and fed them to it. Once, I caught a small lizard and threw it on the web, and the spider completely destroyed it. It was intense.

I'm really excited for you. You sound very ambitious about doing lots of cool things. You'll have to let me in on some of it when I get back. I can teach you guitar - I'll have to get better at it again, but maybe you can help me with that too.

OK then, I love you all. I'll try to write something good next week. Veloma!

Elder Draper

2007 October 7--Slip of the Tongue

Hi:

Clearing up misconceptions is one of the things we do best (or most.) Well actually, we probably start a few of them. Among the most widely-circulated misconceptions about our church in Madagascar is that "we pray naked." In Malagasy, you do not ask "What church do you go to?" you ask simply "Where do you pray?" So when people say that our church "prays naked," they're actually saying that we go to church and get naked. I have wondered many times over how in the world this particular rumor started but arrived at no satisfactory conclusion. I don't know how many people I've had to reassure that "No, we DON'T pray naked!" in the course of my mission, but it's more than a few. I used to think it was some mean-spirited Protestant church that started the rumor, but now I'm thinking this one's our fault. I will explain. In Malagasy, the word for "naked" and the word for "strong" are very similar - there is only one letter difference. In the course of new missionaries arriving and struggling to put a sentence together with their feeble and sparse vocabulary, mistakes have been made. Here's one I've heard a couple of times from new missionaries struggling to teach; they try to say: "When we pray together, we grow strong (matanjaka) together" they end up saying: " when we pray together, we get naked ( m i tanjaka) together." Sigh. Every language has it's traps for the unwary beginner (IE: apparently in Icelandic, the word for "spirit" and the word for "rabbit" are very similar, which probably makes for hilarious missionary testimonies in sacrament meetings and even funnier Plan of Salvation lessons,) but Malagasy, it seems, has a lot more "traps" than most ( and you usually end up saying something way worse than "rabbit".) Here's another example. If you're walking down the road, a common form of greeting is to ask "Where are you going?" and a usual response is "I'm just walking around" (mitsangatsangana). Unfortunately, the word for "walking around"(mitsangatsangana) and "to fornicate"(mijangajanga) sound very similar to the untrained ear. We've seen a few confused stares at our attempted response to the above greeting ("You're going Fornicating!?")

I had a good week. We did not cast out any devils, nor did we have to convince anyone that they were not possessed. I did have to clear up the "naked misconception" a couple of times, but that was kind of funny. I didn't get the e-mail from Mom yet, but thanks, Dad, for the update. I still haven't seen the conference yet. But I'm looking forward to it. OK then, I'm out of time. So, I love you all. Have a nice day. Veloma!

Elder Draper

2007 Oct 1--Thanks for Noticing...

Hello,

Everyday this week was a test in overcoming inertia. I felt a tremendous lack of will power to go out and work, but somehow, we got out and worked anyway. Usually, I didn't get past the initial inertia of the day until I had been working for at least two hours - then the day started getting better. But during those two hours, everything was telling me to give up and go back to the house. When we left the house, we were greeted by the standard "Bonjour VAHAZA!" repeated obnoxiously and indefinitely (after the literally the 30th time in a row from the same guy walking along with you while shouting it in your ear, your patience wears out and you've gotta stop and say, "HEY! yes, we're white, thanks for noticing, you're very observant. Now, why don't you go play in traffic or something. Either way, LEAVE NOW! before something bad happens to you." - it's everything you can do not to grab him and throw him in the nearest poo ditch * usually about three feet away. I have been sorely tempted at times.) followed by bad weather, worse smells, and appointments falling through.

BUT, we made it through and ended up having a pretty good week. We couldn't work the first two days of it because of the elections, but somehow, we got more appointments this week than in the the previous week, where we had worked the entire week We have several people progressing towards baptism. In one appointment, we introduced the Book of Mormon. At the end of the lesson, we committed them to read it and pray about it. The lady had a funny response, she said disappointingly, "But I don't have a Book of Mormon" then she looked down and frowned. We pushed the book closer to her and said " now you do!" I've never seen anyone so happy to get a book before. It was as if she had turned into a little kid. She said " Thankyou! thankyou! I'm gonna read it tonight!" I think she did. So that was nice.

In other news, Elder W is on a plane going home as I write this. We said good-bye yesterday. He is the 2nd of my companions to "die" on the mission ( Elder Davies left 2 months ago), but he is the first missionary I have really felt leave. I feel weird right now come to think of it. W is gone. He'll get home to Layton UT on Tuesday morning ( by Madagascar time). He left me his nice digital camera to use until the end of my mission ( the camera is technically Elder B's, who lives in Holladay, so I'll just be renting it for now and I'll give it back to him when I get home).

I'm enjoying myself I think. I teach guitar to a kid named L K ( the K's are the American family in our ward here. The dad works for the Embassy.) He's progressing well and the K's invite us to dinner every Fast-Sunday because I'm teaching him. The K's are great. They remind me of Dan and Debbie Peterson, and the Tom Taylor family. Cool people. Jared (the dad) told me that we're related. Apparently he's got some Drapers not too far back in his family tree. So once again, the world is that much smaller, and I remain "connection machine."

OK then. I'm good. I think this week will be better. Maybe I'll get to cast out a devil (or convince yet another person that he is not possessed, but probably just bipolar) or do something else exciting. I'll let you know. Love ya. Veloma!

Elder Draper