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.)

Read-Aloud Now a Regular Thing

Sorry for the long absence. We were lucky enough to have some family visit us all the way from the USA, so I was away and traveling with them for a few weeks. But I am back and have post after post worth of cool and marvelous things to share. However, most of you are out on summer break right now, so a lot of the posting will start up again in September when school begins and teachers and students can check back in for another year of the wild and weird in Madagascar.

Don't fret. I will still share a few things, but just not as often. And Every few weeks I will post a new read-a-loud book for teachers to use and kids to enjoy. This installment of Curl Up with Kibo (our newly adopted puppy) features my favorite author and illustrator, Mo Willems. The man's a genius. I dare you to look into Piggie's eyes and not laugh or cry along.

P.S. A special hello and hugs and kisses to my nieces and nephew who are all being tucked into bed tonight with their uncle reading them a story even though their uncle is 9000 miles away. I wish it were much much closer.

A Special Thank you to Mrs. Goldstein's Class at CP

A recent, hasty and quite productive book drive at CP and LB had some wonderful results (more on that in the next post). This movie is a special thank you to Mrs. Goldstein's class at CP who collected about 40 books for the children of Akony Avoko. They sent along a nice letter with some wonderful questions and this is a video response to that letter.

Note: 

Why didn't Victor mention lemurs? 

Well, for the same reason you wouldn't mention polar bears as an animal you see in America. Polar bears don't live in New Jersey, but there are some in America. Lemurs do live in Madagascar, but not where Victor and the other children of Akany Avoko live, so they don't see them unless they go to the zoo.

Madagascar Morning Meeting: Part Deux

Welcome back to the Madagascar Morning Meeting. We have a few hundred new visitors this time, because the wonderful students and teachers at CP are joining in this time too. Glad to have you all here. Follow along and have a good time. 

Greeting and Activity:

Normally, the greeting and the activity are two different things. But we will dare to combine the two and see what happens. Language is a tricky thing here. Very few people speak English. A lot of people speak French. Everyone speaks Malagasy. But they don't all speak the same Malagasy. There are over 20 different versions. Some are only a little different. Some are like a whole new language. All this means there are a heap of ways to say hello. 

Here are five different ways people say hello in Madagascar (not the only five, but five). Click on the movie below for help pronouncing these little mouthfuls:

Salama (sa-lam-a)

Bonjour (bon-jure)

Akory be (a-kor-a bay)

Tonga soa (toon-ga soo-a)

Salut (sa-loo)

And here's the game. Two versions actually.

K-2 Version: 

Play the telephone game using one of the five ways of saying hello. The teacher starts to make sure it pronounced correctly (or close to correctly). Pass it down the line and see what comes out the other end. Try again with a different way.

3-5 Version: 

If you are not in a circle, get yourselves in one and stand up. One person starts and turns to a neighbor and says hello in any of the above five ways. Easy so far. Now that neighbor has to turn to her neighbor and say hello in a different of the five ways. That's it. If you repeat the word the person just said to you. You are out. If you say hello in any way that is not one of the five ways, you are out. Keep playing until there is only one language lover left.

Sharing:

Well, the whole darn blog is about sharing, so scroll on down and have a look see. The last two posts have lots of cute animals, some furry, some not. There is even a little homemade movie of some fascinating lemurs. There's a post about food. One about skeletons. Oh, who am I kidding? You just want to see lemurs, so just go down a bit and enjoy. 

Goodbye:

Last time we learned how to say hello in Malagasy. This time we will learn goodbye. But why learn to speak Malagasy from some vazha (Malagasy for "white guy") when you could learn it from an actual Malagasy. Click on the video to get a short but proper language lesson from my friend Dr. John (just for the record, he is not an actual doctor, but it is a great nickname). 

Have a wonderful summer. I miss you all very much. The blog will be up and running all summer (your summer, our winter), so please check back in for life and lessons from Madagascar.

Take care and veloma.

The Free Lemur (Photos)

"Admit it. You want to pet me don't you?"

I'm a science teacher of my word, so here are your free lemur photos. 

I won't bore you too much with words this post. However, there is a brief but quite informative movie at the end you should most certainly watch. For now, here are some wonderful lemurs and just a few words to go with each. Enjoy.

Lemurs have territories and they don't always like to share those territories. This golden sifaka is wearing a very fashionable radio collar, so scientists can keep track of what territory he and his family are in.

You might like a tasty hamburger, but lemurs are vegetarians. And most of them love fruits most of all. This one is quite literally going out on a limb for some delicious juicy fruit.

And when the fruit is all gone, they simply leap from limb to limb until they find some more.

Look, Mom! That teddy bear's alive! 

This brown wooly lemur is a night owl. Well, not an actual owl, but you get the point.

Like most lemurs, the brown wooly lemurs live in a group. Their groups are small though: just mom, pop and the kids.

These indri lemurs are special for lots of reasons. For one thing, instead of long tails, they have stubby thumb-sized tails. For all the other things, play the movie at the bottom of the post.

"Wait! I think I hear humans." 

"Where are they?"

"Ah, ha! Found them."

"All their cameras and funny-colored button-up fur make me nervous. I'm out of here."

Click the play button to see and hear the indri lemurs in action. And free vanilla beans for life if you correctly pronounce the word that comes before Madagascar. Good luck with that.