What Mr. Lebo did During Your Summer Vacation...in 500 Words or Less

The tremendous and towering baobab trees of Madagascar.

Welcome back! Tonga soa!

I hope you had a marvelous summer in Princeton and elsewhere. I myself just had a wonderful winter here in Madagascar. Don't forget, I'm on the upside down part of the world, the southern hemisphere. While you had a hot and sometimes rainy summer, I had a cool and very dry winter. There was even a tiny bit of snow one day on our lovely tropical island, but I didn't get a chance to see it (it's quite a big island too).

Now that you all have started hitting the books again, the blog will be up and running too. I will put up a new post each weekend, so you will have all week to check it out and leave some lovely comments. Don't forget to vote on the What is It? poll on the sidebar too.

Enough words. Let's see some pretty pictures of what I've been up to.

My wife's sister and father came over for a fantastic visit this summer and we went to some great places together. This is from a hike and climb through the crazy rock formations of the tsingy limestone.

My wife and I are dressed up and dancing, but we are not at a wedding. We are at a Malagasy funeral and we're doing the conga around 5 dead bodies that were just dug up from an underground tomb. Don't worry, you'll learn more about this later.

I got to go on a trip and picnic to the zoo with the fabulous kids from the children's home, Akany Avoko. I volunteer there 4-5 days a week as a carpenter, furniture maker and science teacher.

Of course, I got to see some more cool animals like this beefy chameleon here.

And this big-eyed nocturnal lemur.

And this big-eyed-nocturnal-lemur-eater also known as a fosa.

I also volunteer as a medic and English teacher with the Malagasy Red Cross. On this day, I was lucky enough to be a stretcher carrier at an international soccer game, Madagascar vs. Brazil. The fighting bulls of Madagascar actually won 3-1. And I had a better-than-front-row seat right on the sideline.

Some great friends and family members donated money for me to fix up the wood shop at the children's home and now I teach woodworking to the kids once a week too. Valentine made this crafty wooden plane.

Every time we travelled, we and our white skin seemed to always attract all the kids' attention.

We found this adorable stray puppy and adopted her into our home and hearts. Sadly, she became sick and passed away just a few weeks ago. Her name was Kibo and we miss her very, very much.

I ate lots of delicious Malagasy food like this plate of green papaya salad that cost a whopping 7 cents.

Cindy and her sister enjoyed playing with kids when we travelled.

I saw some beautiful natural sights like this glorious sunset.

And there aren't any ice cream stands or hot dog vendors like the Jersey shore, but we did get to the beach too. Quite pretty at least.

If you want to see and hear more, just keep coming back. I will be putting up whole posts about several of the great trips I had this summer. And of course all the adventures yet to come as well.

I miss you all very much.

(For the picky ones among you, I actually used 591 words not the 500 words or less I promised. Sorry.)