madagaskar en route to Mahambo

As the story begins i find myself on a tiny plane bound for Antananarivo from South Africa.  I Met a very good man named Paul who originally comes from Florida yet resides in Madagascar with his wife and family.  As you travel from country to country you watch how the people change shape and form and in a small number of hours you can see the world from an entirely different perspective.

I am writing this from a small poorly lit cafe alongside a new and very true friend called Alex who is from France yet lives in Mayotte.  My travels have taken me to a dirty and crowded capital where i met a raggae musician who recieved a very generous gift of a new guitar from Paul. 

I slithered around the city and surrounding villages for a few days yet found my heart in a village called Mahambo which peacefully rests on the east coast touching the indian ocean.  Here i will stay and find myself for a few days before entering the jungle.  I came here just because i thought the name was cool but later found out it is a haven for surfers and laid back lifestyle.  It is easy to slip away here for a little while and shake off that beast of stress from the last ten days.

First a few stories so I dont forget

I saw a smuggler from South Africa getting arrested in the airport for sneaking seven fossilized dinosaur eggs out of the country.  It was a nice mood breaker for the chaos that comes with first setting food on a new land.

I also rode in a taxi brusse for quite a few hours and stopped frequently so the driver could buy live chickens.  That was pretty cool.

In the village i was at first uncomfortable with my level of french so i kept my cellphone in my pocket playing bob marley loudly.  Wherever i walked people started singing along and it made great conversation starter.  

Im getting better at french and i really enjoy the madagaskar version of the language.

And i heard before that the father or uncle of a young boy who is being circumcized must eat the foreskin of the child.. i also heard later they put it in a shotgun and fired it into the sky a it is the fastest way to heaven..  cool..

I can feel that this is the beginning of a great journey.  I feel like i am truly very far away from home and i understand that none of this would be possible without my experience from previous travels.  In a week or so I will surely be deep in the jungle and the story will begin for certain.  Here are some photos (hopefully) so far.  

further down the river

 

 

you cannot unsee things

In the last few days I have made a conscious effort to spend a lot of time alone.  Each time I try to answer the questions of why I am doing this i come up with a different reason so perhaps rather I'll just leave that to wonder.  As my last few contractual days of work come to a close I find myself caring less and less about what time it is and whether it is day or night or the weekend.  I'm not sad at all just alone and listening to the voices in my head, the same voices that brought me to this place and the same voices that guide every journey I've ever taken.

When I'm alone for long enough I find myself retelling the stories of my past and asking myself the same questions.. questions like:  where is home?  and why does the summer sun feel so strange when I am there?  Do I belong anywhere?  maybe I have come too far to ever call a place my home or perhaps I've been at home here all along.  Sometimes I think my friends have forgotten about me but really I cannot blame them.  Every time I come back to the states it is as if I never left and we continue our stories as if we are part of a really good book that we put down long ago and pick up once again to blow the dust off.

I think about you often (and it doesn't matter who YOU are in this sense.. it is only a rhetorical YOU perhaps) but I know I have left a mark on your thoughts.  I hope I make you proud even though you haven't seen me for a long long time.  these stories are ours to write and I truly wonder how these pages will conclude.  My life has been an interesting and blessed one and I am absolutely so thrilled to be here on this planet.  I never blinked an eye at an opportunity to explore it to its fullest and here my soul and my heart and the loud voices in my head are invading my dreams and carrying me to the fourth largest island in the world and I'll be back one day to share my words with you again.

It is true that I am alone in this moment but I am not lonely.  I've found more love in this world than I could ever deserve and I will continue to share it with open arms for as long as I live.  I have chosen the lonelier path and I will travel it completely and wholeheartedly as I've been taught to do in the past.

I'm only human.  I'm sorry if I've ever wronged anybody or been false to you with my words but I'm learning to be a better person and when I come back from this crazy adventure I'll be a simpler man with an innocent mind and pure heart and inshallah a voice more recognizable to the human condition.. you cannot unsee what I am about to see.

Super Sexy Picnic in Moda

through the eyes of Anas Alnajjar

if i

many years ago people just like you and i walked this earth because we had no other choice.  our food our curiosity and our livelihood depended on our bravery to cross the hills guided only by the wisdom passed down to us from those who came before.

we share many things with these people who came before although we belong to a new time of industrialization and global communication.  this way of living is still new to us.  we are unsure of our own futures and curiosities in the same way that wanderers once did not know if they would survive to see the other side of the hills surrounding them.  we are faced with new problems which create a new hunger inside of us that fuels the very question of human being: where do we fit into this world and how to we come out of it with the promise that future generations will be able to prosper?

if i stayed home i would stay hungry.  i've tasted the fruits of question and i've seen the view from beyond the hills which proverbially embody our curiosity of the world.  i know now that i have a job to do and i know that there is a temporariness in my wanderings as one day this same world will eat me up as it has all of my ancestors before me.  having said that i also realize that i am to find meaning and reason in my travels and to pass on the knowledge i've gained so that the people of the world might too feed that hunger to know what exists on the other side of the hills.

now i know too that i have been at times asking the wrong questions and sought only to better myself in my travels however i seek not forgiveness for my indulgences of the world; i know that every step i've taken in my path around the earth has been a step i desired greatly at one time and every step has taken me to where i now reside today.

today my eyes are wide open in my preparations to again walk the strange corners of the earth which harbor great amounts of knowledge and understanding to be gathered and i know how to survive the calamity which stands between man's curiosity and man's wisdom.  i'd be lying if i said i wasn't nervous about my ensuing travels but with nervousness comes extra attention to safety and if i weren't nervous i would be foolishly ambitious; an ambition which claims the souls of many who have walked before me.  i speak both physically and of course metaphorically as there are many ways to be harmed not only to the body but to the mind which is equally as fragile.

i'll be home again and i'll carve another line into the side of my eyes, a trait which i've learned displays the experiences we've written in our lives and i wear them wisely and proud.  i'll tie another string around this earth and before long i'll begin the process of knitting a thread of curiosity in the same manner as the wanderers who came before me and those who have yet to walk.

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