Becky Nichols and the Thankful Spoon
by Becky Nichols
June 17, 2005

About two months before the trip, I checked out a “Teach Yourself French” CD set to listen to in the car. Unfortunately, I read somewhere that the main language was Malagasy, so I stopped learning French. I armed myself with both French and Malagasy phrase books, and considered myself prepared. Boy was I wrong! Instead, I wound up in a country where I didn’t speak either language! So I’m having to start out from square one – hello, good-bye, thank you, yes/no, etc. Pierrot has been an excellent teacher so far, and I’m proud to say that I know ten Malagasy words. Not enough to hold much of a conversation, but it’s a start at least.

For me, one of the hardest words is “thanks”: in Malagasy, it’s misaotra, pronounced “mis-oh-tra.” I keep forgetting which vowels go where – is it supposed to be an “oh” or an “oo”? How does it end? We went to visit Pierrot’s house yesterday, and sat down to have some coffee. I was so proud of my newly acquired vocabulary, so I tried it out and thanked Pierrot – or so I thought, until Luke burst out laughing. Apparently I said “mi-soo-troo” (my own, unofficial phonetic spelling); “soo-troo” means “spoon.” It’s nice when your mistakes teach you a new word!

I’m one of those people who tends to laugh at myself a lot, which is turning out to be quite a good thing over here. In fact, being able to laugh at yourself seems to be more of a survival mechanism than anything! It’s either laugh or feel incredibly self-conscious, and there’s really no fun in that. I’m also learning that it’s easier to concentrate on the small victories every day, like figuring out how to flush the toilet, using a Malagasy word correctly, and ordering and eating supper on your own. I’m already able to look back at isolated events with pride, and it’s exciting to think of all that I’ll learn as the summer progresses.