Our First Casualties

Posted by on March 3, 2011 in Blog, Uncategorized | 0 comments

It didn’t take long for our first “casualties” to occur here in Madagascar.  We experienced two casualties in three days a few weeks ago.  The first, Jamie’s soccer cleats.  Jamie and Jonathan went to play soccer late one afternoon and quickly a pick-up game began with several Malagasy guys.  None of the guys were wearing shoes so Jamie and Jonathan took off their cleats and played barefoot also.  The cleats were used then for the goal posts with a backpack on top.  The game was great but as they gathered their things before leaving, Jamie noticed his cleats were gone.  Sure enough, a well-known local thief was hanging around and managed to take off with them.  Just another lesson learned….

The second casualty was more disturbing.  Eliana, our second, dropped her beloved “titi” (a small blanket) out the car window.  A few minutes later when Jamie realized this, he quickly turned around in search of it but without any luck.  Later that afternoon, he returned to the same area of town, asked a ton of people, offered a reward for it’s return but again, came home empty handed.  Eliana was devastated!!  Two days later, on our way out of town, we stopped by the same area and asked a few people if they had seen it yet.  We vaguely heard a man yell from his balcony, “I know who found it!”  Unfortunately, the woman who had it wasn’t home.  So four days later as we passed back through this area, we found the lady.  To make a long story somewhat short…. the beloved “titi” passed through the hands of three people and finally back into the arms of a very happy 2 year old!  The reward… the equivalent to $5.00… a huge reward for the Malagasy and a very small price to pay for a happy little girl and her relieved parents!

 

 

 

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *