Madagascar

Have patience for the Malagasy people, I guess. One thing that, when you're walking down the street, they'll always call you Vaza, which means foreigner in Malagasy. Some, I guess a lot of Malagasy people aren't used to seeing white people, Caucasian people, on the streets, and so they'll call you Vaza a lot, and sometimes they'll make fun of you. And also, for me, I'm really tall, so I would walk down the street and they would call me La Vabe, which means like really tall guy. So just be patient with them, take time with them, and just love them because they're, you know, they're really great people.

No stepping over people's stuff. I once, like, you know, tried to climb over a lady's bag, and she's like and I was like, oh, and she like got up and put her face up. It's a huge taboo to do that. And then just asking people what are the taboos socially in new areas you go to. In the capital it's a lot less serious, but there is kind of an underlying culture of respect, and that might be just the Indo-Indonesian or Asian influence. And I'd recommend, when it comes to culture, is really do your best to think. What is the Malagasy thought process? How do Malagasy's think rather than thinking in a Western mindset all the time? And then asking them their views very often, and if you're somebody who asks questions to try to get their view, you'll do great.

Malagasy culture is a very forward, indirect one. And so they'll kind of just call things the way they see them. They'll be called Vaza, which means like white foreigner, or lots of other names like that. The average height is 5' 6", and I'm 6' 6", so I was called Lava all the time, which just means tall. And so it would be frustrating for lots of people because they would just get all these labels thrown at them, or people would tell you, like, you know, you're not very good at Malagasy. But they don't mean any offense. They're just saying it how it is, and you just kind of have to calm down, humble yourself a little bit, and recognize, I'm not as good at Malagasy as them, or I am a lot taller than them, or I am whiter than they are. And they can easily tell I don't belong here. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. That means they don't want to talk to you. It just means they're seeing that you're different, and their first instinct is to comment on that instead of just keep it inside, like American culture would say.

I think my biggest culture tip that I learned was while you're out shopping at the markets, markets are a place where everybody takes their stuff to sell and that's a big form of livelihood for the natives. Like they survive off of what they sell, lots of times it's vegetables or it's clothing or it's whatever they have that they can make by hand. And they set it out in strips, you know, kind of like a flea market or a street market and if you step over their items or if you like kind of try to walk over what they're selling, that is like a major, major, major, major disrespect to them and what they have and what is theirs. So you definitely want to make sure you never step over or even necessarily close to someone's stuff without asking or without expressing that, okay, I need to get over there. Because if you step over their stuff, especially as a foreigner, they're going to just rip into you and call you all kinds of things that you don't want to hear.

One cool thing about the Malayese people is that they're really hospitable to strangers, and they always offer food to you, and they're always inviting you to dinner, so that's a really good opportunity to get to know people, to make better friends. Just remember that when you're being offered food, it's part of a sacrifice that they've made, so a lot of times it shows them respect if you're willing to sit down with them and eat with them.

I mean, the people are fantastic. They're such loving, kind people. But one thing that they do a lot is they'll call you a foreigner when you're out. Like, you will hear the word and know what that is very soon when you get there. But the people are just brutally honest and they don't do it to be mean. It's just kind of the way they are. But my advice would just be to love the people.