back on the red soil of the red island.....

in the seychelles 'for two hours!'

well we've made it back to Madagascar and firstly we must thank all of those of you who have invested in us to enable this trip to coming into a reality. we do hope that you will feel part of this incredible journey and hope to keep you updated via this blog, our new facebook page and email as and when the intermittent internet allows.

once again all of this was a step of faith. in the middle of august we asked ourselves 'did we believe that we were being called back to now train trainers in the awesome Leadership for Life material'? if we did then we just had to book the flights.....so we did....and here we are!

always an awesome sight

less than a week ago we were sitting at heathrow airport with what is a bit of a round about journey ahead of us, we started with an Etihad flight via Abu Dhabi, if arriving in the midddle of the night isn't bad enough there was a 20 minute dash across the terminal through security to make our connecting flight to the Seychelles, never the best exercise after the already long seven hour flight from london! on to the smaller Air Seychelles flight into and out of that delightful island and onward to the capital of Madagascar, that is the crazy Antananarivo (locally known as Tana), which has become our home for the next month or so.

there's always seems so much to say about our flights but with so little space and the thought that you want to get to the meaty bits of this post so we'll just say that our hearts both jumped and fell as we saw the red soils of the roads leading to the tiny hill top villages that are home to over 85% of those living on this vast and remote land. thoughts of those we have come to serve and the challenges that will bring to our 'western' lives which we had once again slowly drifted back into whilst living in England. 

traditional street view from taxi 

reality truly bit as we were trying to insert our Malagasy mobile phone SIM cards, standing over us were two policemen who had apprehended us at the tiny airport in Tana by a couple of policemen, our bags hadn't even come off the plane so this was a little nervy, however unbeknownst to us these were 'friends' of the pastor who is hosting us and they were there to ensure our smooth passage through customs!

after making the short but somewhat complicated and convoluted route across the small but incredibly hilly and overcrowded city, with our driver trying to avoid the usual fare of cows, hand carts, various french made taxi's not seen in europe since the early 1970's, including the ever faithful Citroen 
2CV and Renault 4's, and numerous police, who seem to adorn every street corner, we arrived at our basic but clean and tidy 'hotel'/appartment which is fitted with a kitchen, bathroom with hot water and hand shower, two bedrooms (his and her's one thinks!) and a large lounge.

the 'hotel' is home to the local 'tourism school' so we are graced with the presence of the young people who are hoping to make a living out of those who might venture to this isle less visited.....it even has a 'restaurant' which unfortunately shuts at 7pm, meaning that we have to have eaten by 6.45pm to allow them to lock up and go home. the food however is great and is even based around a 'western style/french' menu.

anyways just to say we are well and settled and extremely excited by the opportunities that have already opened themselves up to us via the huge network that Pastor Njato from the FJKM Zoara Fanantenana Ambohipo church (yes that's a real name!) has set up for us.

meeting at the Dept of Education (us with pastor njato)

our first few days have been extremely busy with two meetings with members of the national government. firstly we met up the General Secretary of the Department of Education who is very interested in our offer of training teachers in the leadership material therefore changing their mindsets as we then look to invest in the lives of the children they teach.

the day after we had a further meeting with the 'Director of mass education of citizenship' (what a title!), basically she has a wide network of workers across the country who are both responsible to deliver government initiatives into every home of this large island and to promote good citizenship, all of which fits so well with the type of training we are offering. incredibly she invited us to deliver the four modules of the Leadership for Life programme into her 48 head office staff and agreed that any change begins with ourselves. she is keen for her staff to receive this training and implement it into their lives before expecting the rest of the population to take it on!

Maz sharing module one training

on saturday morning we began the four week training with near on 200 members of Pastor Njato's church in Ambohipo, it was wonderful to be back delivering this life and mind changing material to a new and excited group of people, including the General Secretary and the Director we had met during the week who took up our invitation to come and see the training for themselves! 

rice, rice and more rice....

late on saturday afternoon we experienced our first power outage, unfortunately we hadn't taken up the opportunity to eat at midday so we were left literally in the dark without a can opener. our plan of opening a small tin of tuna which Maz was going to add to the rice gently boiling away on the gas (thankfully) stove was going to become a little harder......such is life and after an adventure down the steep stairs via candlelight we found an opener and enjoyed our meal in relative peace.

overflow at church

sunday morning allow for a lay in as we attended the late service, starting at 11am, late as in not the early ones which start at 5am, 7am and 9am, the church has a congregation of around 15,000 (yes fifteen thousand) and our interpreter did a great job in explaining all that was going on as choirs sang all dressed in their white silk gowns and people shared of stories from their recent ministry trips into the wild and remote areas of Madagascar to a church which was overflowing into gazebo tents in the 'car park'.

maz hand washing.....

after the service we were well and truly fed and watered receiving two invites for dinner, one at midday and the second later in the evening, to be welcomed into the Malagasy homes is truly awesome and what with the church providing us with a driver and a guide for our own personal use we are truly blessed and looking forward to all that these next couple of months will bring....

...p.s we have updated our reading list to the right hand side pane and Maz is busy hand washing our clothes as I post this, well done Maz, looks like a great work out!