Madagascar Travelogue: The most difficult trip you’ll ever love

Detailing our trip to Madagascar in the summer of 2008 to visit Gabe, our Peace Corps Volunteer son.

The most difficult trip you’ll ever love. That’s the headline Gabe gave to the itinerary he sent us a couple weeks before we departed. We didn’t know what was in store for us on our trip to Madagascar, but we were pretty sure it would be an adventure. Wow, were we right about that.

Gabe Krieshok is our son, and he is a Peace Corps Volunteer, or PCV, serving in Madagascar. After the first year of his two year tour of duty he invited us to go over and visit him. Actually, he never really had to invite us. As soon as we knew he was going to Madagascar, Peggy, my wife and Gabe’s step-mom, announced we were going to head over to visit him. I never raised an objection, and publicly I always was on board with the trip, though in my own mind I was always a bit dubious. I would argue with myself, “Are you kidding? Are you REALLY planning to go to Madagascar, that’s totally on the other side of the world?” Another part of me knew better than to even let my rational brain consider NOT going. And still another part of my rational brain knew not to question Peggy’s judgment. The smart part.

So we started making plans for the trip, many many months ahead of time. We bought our tickets about 6 months out, and were dismayed that the best price we could get was about $2,500 per person. Ouch. But we love Gabe, so we paid it and went to step 2, shots. In order to go to Madagascar, you need shots for pretty much everything on earth. Several trips to the travel clinic and over $1,000 per person later, we are good until the year 2257 for every disease that exists or will exist on earth. Pretty comforting, just hope I don't over estimate my invulnerability and step in front of a bullet or a fast moving car.

We invited my sister Ginger to go on the trip with us. Ginger is the real world traveler in my family, having made several trips to Africa, Europe, Alaska, places pretty far apart, decades before I ever got my passport. But she spent the last many years closer to home, helping to take care of our aging parents and keeping the home fires burning. For awhile it looked like Brett, one of Gabe’s step-brothers, might join us as well, but his work schedule had him flying to many places during the summer.

Benj, one of Gabe’s brothers, committed to going, as did Gabe’s mom Sue, and his step-dad Carroll. We might have considered all traveling together (we’re like that), but Gabe said the biggest group he could accommodate would be three, having to do with the many trips we would be making by car, taxi to be specific, a point that ended up being bigger than we could have imagined. So Peggy, Ginger, and I planned our 16 day adventure for late July and early August, while Sue, Carroll, and Benj would head out about two weeks after we got back, to go on their own 10-day leg.

Gabe had instructed us to pack very lightly, no suitcases with wheels, as we would be going lots of places where the little wheels on suitcases would not work. We worried, and I attacked the problem by doing lots of online research and making several trips to travel stores and camping stores. In the end I bought too many things for the trip, including a suitcase I suspect I will never use again, but which my grandchildren (I will have them some day I trust) will fight over about 25 years from now. I also bought a hat that I still think is pretty cool, good for keeping the sun out of my face, off my balding head, and off my neck, and pretty sexy looking too, or so the ad implies. There’s even a little water proof pouch in it into which you can hide a secret $20 bill. I am hiding a secret $5 bill because that’s who I am, though I guess now it’s not much of a secret.

We (okay, maybe it was just me) spent the first couple weeks of July laying things out for the trip. By the time it was time to pack, I was pretty sure I was going to need all three of those big trunks Tom Hanks used in Joe vs. the Volcano. Much to my surprise, when the moment came, I was actually able to squeeze most of the stuff into my allotted carry on and one bag (the one my grandchildren are fighting over). Ginger had taken the train in a couple days before we left, just to be on the safe side, so we enjoyed hanging out with her, catching up and sharing our anxieties. She managed to get all her stuff into two smallish bags. Show off.

Day 1 of actual travel. We thought it would never get here. Rise early, finish packing, weigh the bags to make sure we are legal. The girls are, I am pushing the limit, so we move stuff around and are now all legal. Drive to Kansas City airport, catch plane to Detroit, no trouble at all.

Detroit is a very nice airport, though a 7 hour stopover seems excessive. Not sure why we were not able to sit at home in Kansas City for a few of those hours. We could have been just as anxious there, but no, Detroit it was. At least we had gotten off the ground. A few pictures of the cool fountain in the Detroit airport, kind of like those at Disney. How do they get the water to stay neatly in place while it travels across the sky like that?

With that much time to spare, we were sitting ducks for impulse spending. I bought myself a 10 minute massage right there in the airport, in part a nod to Aaron, one of our other kids who is a massage therapist in Boulder, Colorado. About the time I was getting nice and relaxed, the fire alarm went off for the whole terminal. I was sitting face down (it was a chair massage) just off the large noisy hallway, but now the noise was inside, blaring, loud, I imagined the lights were also flashing, but I never looked up. My massage therapist didn’t flinch. “This happens all the time.” That didn’t exactly fill me with confidence, but I had already paid for it, so I was not about to break the spell. Later I talked Peggy into getting a massage too, Ginger wouldn’t bite.

In Detroit we ate at Chili’s, then got ice cream, then got chocolate. Hey, it was 7 hours.

Finally we were off to Paris. A few years ago we went to see Gabe in Paris at the end of his Study Abroad experience. That flight seemed like forever. This time we had to pace ourselves, as Paris was the short leg of the trip (not counting Detroit). Madagascar was 10 hours right after we landed in Paris. Fortunately, we had good advising from Brett, who travels a lot for his job these days. We invested in two sets of noise-canceling headphones, the ones that magically create sound waves that cancel out the sound coming toward them. The place they work best is in a situation where you have a constant sound, like the very loud noise that jet engines make. When you put the headphones on and turn them on, even without any music, they eliminate much of the racket. With music, it’s pretty miraculous. That made the very long trip a bit more tolerable. But only a bit.

We had 1 hour and 15 minutes in the Paris airport, and we had to change terminals. Folks who know CDG (Charles de Gaulle) winced when we said that, and we learned why. CDG is always under lots of construction, and getting from one terminal to another requires a bus ride. They run shuttles pretty regularly from one terminal to the next. After landing a few minutes ahead of schedule, we taxied for about 15 minutes, eating away at that 75 minute window we had to get to the other flight. As we came out of the terminal, the shuttle bus was getting ready to leave. We actually pushed past the guard who was telling the couple in front of us that we would all have to wait for the next shuttle (not yet in sight). She just shrugged as we bolted past her, carry-on in hand. The shuttle really WAS full, so we re-enacted a scene from a news story I had seen once of commuters in downtown Tokyo, where they apparently have somebody whose job is to actually shove commuters onto the crowded trains during rush hour. That was me. I used my carry-on to shove my wife and sister onto the anonymous crowd on that shuttle, and had to push extra hard to get my own butt inside the door so it would close.

Ginger misunderstood the time thing, and thought we had just 15 minutes to make our next flight (we actually had an hour and 15 minutes). She was yelling at the guard in English that we HAD to make that shuttle, as we only had 15 minute. The later re-telling of that story (by me) had her yelling to the guard, “WE’RE AMERICANS. We MUST be allowed on that bus!!!” She didn’t really say that, but we always got a good laugh out of the re-telling. Sometimes we needed a good laugh. In the end, we waited at the gate for over an hour after we were supposed to board. It was CDG after all.

The flight to Antananarivo (Tana) took 11 hours, the food was surprisingly good, lots of bread, wine, French food I think (we were on Air France). The plane was pretty crowded, though not completely full. You could watch the takeoff on the screen attached to the seat in front of you. I don’t recommend it. Actually I recommend you find a way to get unconscious for the first 10 hours or so. The takeoff thing made me nauseous, a harbinger of things to come. Lots of “Are we there yet” from all three of us. Amazed at how much garbage can be left behind on a plane that big in the air that long.

We arrived in Tana late on the second day of our trip. They are about 8-9 hours ahead of us, so we had been traveling about 36 hours, including layovers. We had to wade through customs, long lines, very tired people, not sure what we were supposed to put on the forms, but muddled through, and once through customs, we got to have our bags checked for anything we might be bringing in. They showed mercy on us and just passed us on through to the awaiting Gabe. What a sight for sore eyes. Lots of tired hugs, so good to see him after more than a year, with him on the other side of the world.

We met a couple of Gabe’s PCV friends in the airport, picking up their family for a similar trip, and we (Gabe) worked to negotiate a shared taxi into the city (about a 40-minute ride to our hotel). In the end, we got a ride in our own taxi, a driver who apparently worked for our hotel, or our travel agent or something. Anyway, it was an old white Toyota, pretty beat up I thought to myself. It was the best taxi we would ride in our whole trip.

Having landed late at night, the city was pretty quiet, nothing open at midnight. We drove past lots of poverty, as witnessed in the construction, the upkeep, lots of things. I thought maybe it was just that way close to the airport, but it was that way all the way into the heart of the city where our hotel was located. We came to a checkpoint, where the gendarmes pulled us over, checked the driver’s paperwork, checked our passports. AK-47s I think. First time I’ve seen one in person. Routine silliness says Gabe. I act non-plussed. I really am plussed.

We stayed at Saka Manga the first two nights. I think it means blue cat. Not a bad hotel, though the room Gabe and Ginger shared was quite a bit bigger than the one Peggy and I were in. Ours didn’t have ants though, and theirs did, in the towels. We have some pictures of construction going on outside our window, all by hand, with shovels and picks, no power tools.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Breakfast at the restaurant downstairs. Zebu (their version of beef) steak and fries (it was actually closer to lunch by the time we got up). Nice to be here, not on a plane, eating real food. The coffee was terrific, the best we had the whole trip. Outside the restaurant window there are dozens of locals, selling their blankets, homemade toys, cigarettes, lots of things. They see us up in the window and know we are Vazaha (foreigners), and keep trying to get our attention. They are laying in wait for us when we exit the hotel, a recurring theme, kind of like paparazzi without the flash.

We head into the Tana marketplace on foot, just a few minutes away. The streets and sidewalks are hard to walk on, lots of potholes, curbs don’t always meet the sidewalk easily. Lots of locals following us, trying to sell us things. Gabe says be careful as some might be pick-pockets. Ginger and I had a hard time with it, though Peggy seemed to really get into it. We spent a lot of energy just navigating the streets, trying not to step in a hole, to not get pick pocketed. But lots of color and energy. This is where life is happening.

It was fun watching Gabe interact with the locals in Malagasy, the local language. At one point a group of 3 or 4 young boys follow us for several blocks, ignoring our attempts to tell them we were not going to give them anything or buy anything from them. They do this trick where they hold out their hat as if to beg, but are really using it to conceal their hand reaching into your pocket. Clever boys. At one point Gabe crouches down to eye level and says something and they leave. Later he tells us they were trying to pick his pocket and he confronted them about it so they went looking for another mark.

We went to the bank and used the ATM to get cash. This was the first time we did that, so we felt pretty proud of ourselves. 10,000 ariary equals about $6 US, so lots of bills. Peggy and Ginger admired a tapestry being offered by a local woman, came close to buying it, probably would have if we had run into her again. Gabe bought a book in a local bookstore, something about Malagasy translated next to Arabic I think. Who IS this kid?

Gabe also bought a pair of jeans in the marketplace. No dressing rooms to try on clothes, but a neat trick they teach you in the Peace Corps is to buckle the jeans with the waist buckle, then wrap the waist around your neck. If the waist is the right size, you will have only a little extra room when you wrap the buckled waist band around your neck. Neat trick, try it at home. Gabe bought the jeans, which DID fit, and I don’t think he took them off the rest of our visit.

Lots of wild dogs running around in Madagascar. Don't pet them, and don’t get attached to them. They are not like our dogs, though during the day they sure LOOK like our dogs. Ginger and Peggy are dog lovers. More than that, our family has long believed that one day the dog-mother-ship will land in the backyard of Ginger’s house in Granite City, and pick her up to return her to the throne on the dog planet. Actually, only my brother Joe believes that, but we love the story, and it sure fits Ginger. So seeing wild dogs in Madagascar is difficult, knowing that people don’t think twice about kicking them out of the way. At night, the dogs live a different life, and you really don’t want to be interacting with them at night. Wild, man, wild.

We take our first taxi to the meva, sort of the safe house for PCVs in bigger cities. Taxi rides are always negotiable, so Gabe engages a driver and they quibble over the price to get us to where we want to go. Within a minute, they agree, and we pile in and head away. Gabe is pretty good at this process, the rest of us would be bankrupt in two days.

The meva is in a neighborhood that has walls around the homes for security purposes. We get dropped off at the gate and Gabe signs us in at the guard station. Inside the gate are a couple of large houses, one the meva, the other houses the medical staff. The meva looks like a fraternity house, with a few PCVs watching videos in the living room. Gabe gives us a tour, starting with the bathroom. One thing about Madagascar, pretty much every bathroom we saw had the same toilet seat. Paper thin, with the two bolts that used to hold it to the stool hanging on for dear life. Somebody has the contract in that country, somebody who is selling them really cheap seats and cheaper bolts. I know, I am spoiled. In lots of places in Madagascar there are no seats, no toilets. I’m just saying.

At the meva we meet up with Mary Beth, one of Gabe’s PCV friends. We ended up getting together with her later that night for dinner at a Mexican restaurant (they’re everywhere). But before that, we leave the meva and walk a half mile or so to the Peace Corps office. Along the way we took a lot of pictures of beautiful flowers, many hanging from those walls. We also passed a small herd of zebu, right at home in the walled neighborhood. The Peace Corps office was closed by the time we got there, but we did manage to meet the country director, Steve, and got a nice photo op with him.

Took another taxi to the restaurant area, met Mary Beth, and visited a couple local shops before dining. Peggy bought some zebu earrings, very nice. Dinner was quite tasty. Walked the few blocks to Saka Manga and headed to bed. Tired after our first real day in-country.

Friday, July 25

Up VERY early (5:30 I think) to get to the airport for an early flight. On our way out of town (on the only real road), we get detoured, some kind of an accident closed the road, so we had to drive through the local road (more like a foot path) with the rest of the rush hour traffic, bumper to bumper, all going the same way (barely room for one lane in many places). It was still before sunrise (it was winter while we were there), so folks were just rising to get their day going. Not a street that we would have ordinarily been on, got to see the inner-city of Tana. Lots of poverty, many pieces of corrugated steel stacked against shacks, providing shelter for the night. Little fires to cook by, some warmth, though they are not big on keeping warm by fireplaces or furnaces. Speaking of that, those first few nights in Tana were particularly cold, and with no heat, we depended on lots of blankets, which were in abundance and were usually quite heavy. Nonetheless, those first couple nights we slept with a lot of layers of clothes on.

The smell of the fires, the exhaust, the diesel and gas, along with sitting in the back seat on the bumpy, winding road, and even Ginger got an upset stomach. As a kid, I was the canary in the coal mine of upset stomach conditions. I got sick just looking at a school bus or a county fair ride. But Ginger, no way.

We got to the Tana airport and stood in a long line of folks going to the same place we were going. In front of us was a sports team or a very large family, we never were sure which, and each had luggage and of course carry-ons that had to be inspected this time around. We thought sure we would miss the flight, but Gabe assured us they would not leave without us.

The flight was packed, but taking Air Madagascar was kind of cool. It was like what I imagine flying was like in the U.S. when it was new. The flight attendants (there must have been a dozen of them) were all very courteous, and as you enter the plane they take your ticket, read the seat assignment, and point out where your seat is located. We were seated all over the plane, and I was next to a six-year old who didn’t speak English. Very cute and quiet. The flight attendant came by and asked me (in French) if I spoke French. I replied in French that I did not (hey, I can speak THAT much French). Then he asked me in another language what I figure was the same question. I looked ignorant, and finally I said “English?” and he broke into perfect English after that. Sheesh.

He explained to me that the little girl was meeting someone on the other end, and would I be so kind as to keep an eye on her in case she needed anything. I agreed, though I was never sure she agreed to that arrangement.

The food was eh, the flight fine, and at one point toward the end I hung my hat on the little girl’s tray and she got a kick out of that. She showed me the artwork she had been working on and spoke to me in…who can say. When we got to our destination the fight attendant took her to the front of the plane and we waved goodbye. She returns in a later episode that could have landed me in a Madagascar jail.

The Antsiranana airport is small, even by Madagascar standards. It’s a beautiful sunny morning, and because of all the luggage, we pile into two taxis, after Gabe has negotiated a 20,000 ariary price per vehicle. Our driver makes me nervous. He is driving fast (not the only time we saw that), and he is talking incessantly to his co-pilot (the only time we saw a co-pilot). But he is wearing a tuxedo. Quite a nice tuxedo I might add, like something he rented for prom, and he just had to pick up a few fares before taking it back to the shop. Kind of like something you might see in New York, only you probably wouldn’t.

We get to Le Colbert Hotel, located on Rue Colbert, ahead of the taxi that Gabe was riding in, so we waited patiently for them to arrive about 5 minutes later. Gabe had paid the drivers before we left the airport, but when they pulled up, our driver confronted him that he had only paid him 10,000 of the 20,000 ariary agreed on. They argued for a few uncomfortable moments before the tuxedoed man pulled the folded bills from his pocket to reveal to himself and everyone else that in fact there were TWO 10,000 notes, not just the ONE he had imagined. International incident averted, all best friends now, the other driver (who had arranged for both the taxis in the first place) gave Gabe his business card and said be sure to call him if we needed a ride anywhere during our stay in Diego Suarez. Antsiranana used be called Diego Suarez before the revolution. Now its official name is Antsiranana, but folks mostly call it Diego for short. Go figure.

We checked into Le Colbert and Gabe and I shared a room with a view of the oil tank located in a vacant lot of weeds and gravel. The girls ended up with a nicer room, lots of sun, very pleasant. When traveling abroad there is always the water thing, especially so in underdeveloped countries. We always drank bottled water, which meant we had to be paying attention to how much we had with us, did we have enough left at the end of the day to brush our teeth, and so on. Not a big deal, but one we noticed a lot when we landed back in Paris on our way home, and could stop thinking about it.

We walked down the block for lunch to a place called Rock Café that had a Betty Boop theme. We sat outside and watched the world go by, pretty pleasant, and we ate pizza of all things. Turns out pizza is pretty popular in Madagascar, at least at the places we frequented. The big attraction at The Rock is the bathroom, which has a black light and funky paintings on the wall. I haven’t seen a black light since the 60’s, which is how much of Madagascar seems. I’ve never been to Cuba, but pictures I’ve seen of it, with its infrastructure in need of repair, that’s how Madagascar struck me. It’s almost like after the French left in the early 60’s a lot of the building efforts stopped too.

After lunch we continued walking into the market, got lots of pictures of the very lively marketplace, lots of life there. At one place the shopkeeper was chewing on khat, actually a fairly common drug in Madagascar, and one that Peggy has heard about in her work at the V.A. He offered us some. We declined.

While there is pretty extreme poverty, there is certainly a sense of community around the markets. We strayed off the main roads, actually getting lost in surrounding neighborhoods. Away from the markets the poverty is pretty daunting, and we were struck by how sad we were feeling as we walked through it. At one point we realized we were pretty lost, and we stopped at a little shop and asked for directions. A very helpful guy walked us back to within a few blocks of our hotel, and we made out fine from there. During the 10-minutes he walked with us, he and Gabe chatted away, interspersing their dialogue with lots of easy laughter. We were always impressed by how charming Gabe is, and how easily the locals speak with him. Once our guide left we asked Gabe what they had been talking about so joyously. “Mostly about women.” Okay.

When we got back to Le Colbert, we headed to the hotel restaurant/bar and ordered beer and peanuts. Peanuts are everywhere, and they are good. Beer is also everywhere, just one brand, THB (in French, three horse beer). Not bad, especially if it’s all you get to choose from. Other local crops include cocoa for chocolate, vanilla, coffee, and tea. Peggy taught Ginger and Gabe how to play cribbage, a favorite of hers, which she has taught me on several occasions. Sitting in that bar, eating peanuts, drinking THB, and playing cribbage, is surprisingly one of my best memories of the trip. Hard to beat family.

That night we had dinner at the hotel with Leslie and Guy, two of Gabe’s counterparts in the Peace Corps. We also met Molly, another Peace Corps volunteer, and her family who had been traveling with her for three weeks at that point. It was at that dinner that I realized how important our presence was not only to Gabe, but to all of the Peace Corps volunteers that we met. We were sort of parents-by-proxy and many of the volunteers we met seemed very appreciative that they were able to connect with the parents of one of their friends. That night Ginger, Peggy, and I went to bed at a reasonable hour, but Gabe stayed out very late with his friends, an understandably common occurrence as we traversed the countryside.

Saturday, July 26

Today was the trip to the first of two different rain forests that we would visit in Madagascar. Leslie had not been to this particular rain forest, so she joined us for an early breakfast and traveled with us for the day. Because there were four of us we required two taxis to get to Joffreyville. This was to be a trip we would never forget. Under normal circumstances all it took to hail a taxi was to walk anywhere near the street and taxi drivers would pull over and ask if we wanted a ride. This time they pulled over, but as Gabe tried to negotiate the trip to the rain forest, driver after driver would pull away refusing to engage us for the trip. My first thought was that Gabe was asking for too low a price. I learned later that the trip to this particular rainforest was over roads that were not dangerous, but in extreme disrepair and thus dangerous for the taxi’s well-being.

We finally found two drivers and as we started out we got less than two blocks from the hotel before our taxi broke down for the first time. The other taxi went ahead of us and didn’t break down for several blocks. Our driver was apparently the better of the two mechanics, and we later referred to him as MacGyver. An interesting practice for the taxi drivers was to stop at a gas station and buy a liter of gasoline in a plastic liter water bottle. They then placed the liter of gasoline into the glove box of the car, and saved it for the first opportunity when they ran out of gas. The taxi ahead of us broke down at least three times on the way to the rain forest. Each time our driver and that driver would huddle under the hood and work some machinations to get the engine running again and get us back on the road. This usually involved siphoning gasoline. But the last time they were unable to get the engine started again. the land we were covering was pretty barren, just small villages every so often, so we felt bad about abandoning the other driver and his cab, but he and the cab were both gone when we returned later, so they must have done alright.

So we crammed four people into the back seat (I got to sit in the front seat because I was the most prone to travel sickness). We have several neat photos of Ginger, Peggy, Gabe, and Leslie crammed in the backseat of a vehicle that is smaller than a Volkswagen bug. We must have ridden about 20 more minutes like that, before we arrived at the rain forest. In addition to the normally ridiculously bumpy and potholed roads, there was one noteworthy small town that we drove through. When I say small town, I mean really small. I don’t believe there were more than a dozen houses scattered around the two intersections that made up this town. But the amazing part was that for a two block stretch, the road through the town was a boulevard. A boulevard complete with an island in the middle that had grass and bushes growing on. Those two blocks of road were probably the worst two blocks of road that we drove on during the entire trip. I’m guessing it took us five minutes to drive two blocks because the road was so badly pockmarked. I commented that it seemed like something out of a Fellini film, as surrealistic as it was, and from then on we referred to that as Fellini Blvd., and to situations like that as Fellini moments.

Once at the rainforest, we met Laurent, who was to be our guide. He was an ex-military, well educated, very charming man who had formerly been involved with information technology. In the rain forest we saw geckos, chameleons, very small chameleons, and rain, though it only rained for a short period during our stay. We also saw a half dozen lemurs, visited a sacred lake, saw a phenomenal waterfall, and crossed a small dam on foot. At the end of our five hours in the rain forest our guide met up with some of his friends who had a jeep and he excused himself so he could go with them to play in a football game. We walked the rest of the way out of the rain forest without him, which ended up being close to a half-hour. Our concerns included the fact that it was getting dark and our fear that our taxi driver, MacGyver, might not have waited for five hours for us to return to the entrance to the rain forest.

Fortunately our driver was there, and we began our eventful ride back to the hotel. At one point the car began to shudder and I could smell something burning. As smoke started to billow into the cab, our driver pulled off the side of the road and stopped and opened the hood and motioned for me to come around and … do what I’m not sure. He figured out that the brakes had locked up and it would require him to jack up the front end of the car and remove the front wheel. Somehow this process unfroze the front brakes, and he reattached the wheel and we were on our way. But not without the taxi lurching forward onto the wheel that was under the jack as a safety precaution.

It wasn’t too many miles further down the road before he made his most memorable save. The car was sputtering as we approached a very small hut, apparently something of a 7-11 on the side of the road. The driver got out of the car and approached the woman who was sitting outside the hut and negotiated from her a cigarette. While we were dismayed that he would choose to smoke at this moment given all of the gasoline fumes, we also recognized that he deserved to take a break given all that he’d been through so far that day. But we were surprised to learn that the cigarette was not for him, as he tore the filter off and threw the cigarette away. He then disassembled the fuel system and inserted the cigarette filter into the line to serve as a fuel filter. He reattached the line, more siphoning, started the engine, and from then on the car ran more smoothly than ever.

We only had one more major incident to live through before we got back to the hotel. About a half a mile before we arrived at the gendarme station, the driver pulled off to the side of the road and informed us that he was carrying too many passengers. Clearly we knew that, given that we had four people trapped in the back seat. Gabe and Leslie knew the drill, so they scampered out of the car and began walking. Now with just four of us in the taxi we successfully drove through the checkpoint and drove on for another half mile before the driver pulled off to the side of the road, ostensibly to check various parts of the vehicle. Eventually, Gabe and Leslie caught up with us, piled back into the taxi, and we were on our way, incident averted. That night we had dinner at the hotel. Some kind of fish with vanilla, a specialty of Madagascar. We toasted MacGyver and Laurent.

Sunday, July 27

After two days at Le Colbert, we decided to go for luxury, and took a taxi to a hotel called Note Bleue. The hotel is one of those places that you see on postcards, with a beautiful pool overlooking the beautiful ocean. It was indeed quite luxurious. That night we took a taxi back into town and had dinner with Leslie and Guy and Molly’s family. Pizza again, but good.

Monday, July 28

A very laid back day spent at Note Bleue. Took lots of naps, played lots of cribbage, ate an extravagant zebu dinner. We took one very long walk along the waters edge and encountered lots of local animals and vegetation, zebu, goats, chicken, a lady balancing a large basket on her head.

Tuesday, July 29

Today we traveled back to Antananarivo. While our trip earlier was on a jet, this trip was on a turbo prop plane. We had pathetic chicken salad sandwiches in flight, and when we got to the airport I saw who I thought was a little girl I had ridden over with a few days earlier. I tried to make eye contact with her, but she ignored me. As she walked past me I patted her on the head with my hand and she continued to ignore me. A few minutes later, as we were all waiting for luggage, I saw the girl again, and realized that in fact she was not the girl I had encountered on the plane a few days earlier, as that little girl was standing just a few feet away. We grabbed our luggage and scurried away.

At the airport we met Ellie, who was to be our driver for the next week. We loaded up the SUV and drove to Antsirabe, a very nice town. That night we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant in town. This particular town had few taxis, but many pus-pus carts. Those are the carts that hold one or two riders and are driven by a human on foot. The drivers tend to be rather aggressive in trying to acquire your business.

Wednesday, July 30

Our hotel served breakfast in its own restaurant. Apparently there was a convention of travel agent ladies staying at the hotel, and we had breakfast at the same time they did. There was a noticeable Hindu influence in this particular hotel. After we toured the town for a while in our SUV, we went gem shopping at the market. Antsirabe is well-known for its gems. As a part of our tour we drove around a large hotel which has a very nice view of the city and its man-made lake of…methane gas. Actually the lake sits on top of the methane, as a way of trying to control the smell.

Madagascar has lots of semi-precious gems, and Antsirabe is something of the gem capitol. We toured one particular place that takes the stones and grinds them into things more beautiful and useful for jewelry. It was a fascinating tour, at the end of which they let us have some free rocks that were cool, which of course encouraged us to spend more money than we should on some of the prettier already cut and polished gems. Still, it was worth it to see the small business that was operating there, employing several folks.

Today our destination was a town called Fianarantsoa and it would take us five hours through wildly winding roads. All of us got travel sick. Most of our time in the SUV was…difficult. While it was a fine SUV, and Ellie was a good driver, the roads were all very snaky, and we all struggled with motion sickness. Some more than others. It made it hard to appreciate the incredible scenery we were driving through. Deep valleys, green hills, bare above the tree-line, rice paddies, brick homes of yellowish home-made brick. You could see the power lines running to some of the homes and could tell who had electricity (not everyone). Our car slowed down to go through villages...people sitting around, or farming, or walking cattle, or walking with baskets on their heads, or pulling wagonloads of stuff...especially on market day, when the town would teem with people. At one point we passed a very colorful wedding party? We were surprised by how nice people dressed, especially considering they had to dry their clothing on bushes or rocks near the water where they washed their clothes.

Ellie joined us for lunch at a chalet that featured two Malagasy folksingers. I got a few pictures of them, and that was pretty nifty. In Fianar, we were able to see the house Gabe is living in this year, as well as the Peace Corps Meva, something of a safe house. That night we walked through the town, and up a very steep hill for what seemed like a couple miles, to have tea at a very cute place that Gabe frequents. After we had tea we walked back down the hill about half way where we caught a taxi, and the driver turned off the engine for most of the downhill trip and just coasted to save gas, a fairly common practice throughout the trip. Once back at our hotel Gabe get into an argument with the taxi driver about the fare, though it was resolved without incident. This was not our favorite hotel. We came to refer to it as the rooster hotel, as there was a rooster who lived nearby who crowed from about three o’clock in the morning on…incessantly.

Thursday, July 31

Peggy awoke VERY early, remember the rooster? And the rain hitting the tin roof? And the 5:15 call to prayer over the loudspeaker a few blocks away? Problem is, when you don’t speak the language, and aren’t used to the call to prayer, voices coming over a loudspeaker from a few blocks away at 5:15 in the morning sounds ominous. So Peggy got up to investigate…Tom slept through it all, including the rooster…and the rain on the tin roof.

Just outside the hotel, Peggy was surrounded by a group of adolescent males who were begging, and that, accompanied by the rooster, the rain on the tin roof, and the call to prayer, had her pretty freaked out. We ate breakfast at the hotel restaurant, which had about a dozen tables. We were the first party to be seated for breakfast, and the only other party to be seated decided to sit right next to us and speak rather loudly. Go figure.

Gabe and I decided to go to the pharmacy a few blocks away to purchase medications for traditional travel illnesses. Peggy was unable to locate us, and when we failed to return in a timely fashion, she got worried about us. It was not turning out to be a good day for Peggy.

After we checked out of the hotel we drove one hour south to a town called Ranamafana, where we saw a beautiful waterfall. We checked into our hotel called Domain Nature, a series of A-frame cabins on a hillside along a running stream. Each of the cabins had doors that opened to a deck overlooking the valley, a most beautiful setting. The rooms were like tree houses and the waterfall provided an incredible view and soundscape.

The boys took the cabin that had no toilet seat. Ginger and Peggy both continued to struggle with traditional intestinal difficulties, and much of our discussion of an evening revolved around bodily functions. That afternoon we had lunch at the restaurant associated with the hotel, including a delicious soup.

In the afternoon we toured our second rain forest, although Ginger stayed home to be close to the toilet that did have a seat. We saw lemurs and bamboo and, unlike our first rain forest which had a primitive road throughout, this rain forest proved a much more difficult traverse.

That evening we had dinner at the same restaurant, including tilapia (it still had its eyes), and leek soup. Four musicians entertained us during and after dinner in the restaurant, and as we walked back to our bungalows we enjoyed the sound of the water rushing down the stream alongside the cabins.

Friday, August 1

This morning we drove three hours to Mananjary. Along the way we stopped in a small town and met Haddi, another of Gabe’s Peace Corps friends. While there, we toured the hospital clinic where she worked, which was a rather dramatic setting. A couple of us also got two pee in her cabinet, an outhouse with just a hole in the ground with some boards over at. She had to show us where to put our feet so we wouldn’t fall through, and she provided a magazine to be used as toilet paper. After we toured the village, Haddi sang a song for Gabe and accompanied herself on the guitar.

Our destination for this day was my Mananjary, the town that Gabe lived in for his first year as a Peace Corps Volunteer. The first thing we had to do when we arrived in town was to go to the bank, and withdraw 1 ½ million ariary, Madagascar cash. We ate lunch at a favorite roadside restaurant frequented by Gabe, where the owners knew Gabe, and came out and visited with us briefly. This was the place where an old woman came up carrying two huge fish she had caught, and was able to sell the smaller one to the shop owner. After lunch we drove to the place where Gabe had lived his first year. The road to his place was perhaps the worst road I have ever been on (rivaled only by Fellini Blvd.).

Our hotel was quite Fellini-esque as well, in that it was very luxurious in the midst of great poverty. It is located only a mile outside of town, along a canal that runs parallel to the beach of the Indian Ocean. We were greeted by the French couple that runs the place, along with their very large aggressive dogs. The stucco bungalows were to be our home for a couple of nights. The couple welcomed us and offered us a tasty fruit juice with rum mixture. We sipped our drinks at a large outdoor lobby with vaulted ceilings and a view of the pool and cabanas and all the palm trees. After we unloaded our bags we pulled out the cribbage board and set ourselves up on the porch with a view of the pool and settled in for some cribbage and snacks.

Meals at the hotel were French through and through and prepared under the direction of the wife in the couple. For our first dinner we had hors d’oeuvres, stuffed clams and mussels, and crab legs. After dinner we walked to the other side of the pool where they had an outdoor bar. We had shots of pineapple and peach rum, and marveled at how clear the Milky Way presented itself to us. As on many nights, we slept protected by mosquito nets.

Saturday, August 2

Le petite dejeuner, that’s French for breakfast, traditionally jam and bread and jellies. Today one of Gabe’s Peace Corps friends, Jane, joined us for lunch, which consisted of very large prawns, some other fish, and wonderful veggies. Jane had to walk several hours to get to our location, but she confided that she had been looking forward to that lunch for months. Jane and Gabe swam for a bit and then we drove into town, to see where Gabe had lived and worked his first year.

Once in town we got to see the school at which Gabe had taught, and the house in which he had lived. In the neighborhood we ran into several small children, at least one of whom had been learning English, and she and Gabe carried on a conversation in English. Both of them were very proud.

Going from the school and into the center of town, we had to cross a foot bridge that was actually a toll bridge. The bridge was made of bamboo shoots, and was described as a floating bridge. The toll went toward replacing the bamboo every several weeks. We were told that we were lucky, in that the bridge was actually relatively new, so it still floated fairly well. The toll was 20 Ariary for each of us, just a few cents. The town had a vibrant marketplace and we enjoyed walking through the market and seeing all the different things that the townspeople had to sell. We did not enjoy the rather aggressive man who accosted us and refused to leave us alone until Gabe was stern with him. We suspect he might have had schizophrenia. Gabe ran into a woman he had dated when living in that town, and they exchanged pleasantries. We got to walk along the beach and see the ocean and pick up a few shells. We met Gabe’s good friend Mark, and got to tour the eel plant that he was constructing. Mark is an entrepreneur from South Africa, and Gabe counted him among his closest friends during that year in Mananjary. That night we had dinner at a place called Chauvin do the math with Ellie. After dinner Ellie drove us to Jane’s doctor, who she was staying with. Then it was back to our hotel.

Sunday, August 3

Today we left Vehini Lodge and drove to Fianarantsoa (Fianar for short), but this time we stayed in a new hotel, not the rooster hotel. We were glad to leave the dogs behind, as they tended to freak us out. By now we were dosing our Dramamine better, and nobody got sick today. We arrived in Fianar in time for lunch, and had pizza at an outdoor restaurant next to a bocce ball court. We stayed at the Zomatel Hotel in Fianar where we drank beer and played cribbage…again. That night for dinner we ate at the restaurant in the hotel which provided a talented piano player. The hotel had a nice interior, lots of mirrors, good profiteroles. Gabe did not stay with us at the hotel, but in his apartment just a few blocks away. That night he caught a mouse and considered drowning it in a bucket of water, but once he saw the mouse trying to swim he had a change of heart and pulled the mouse to safety. He left the mouse under a colander with some water to drink and some bread to eat, and he figured if the mouse survived Gabe’s absence over the next week that he would become Gabe’s pet. (When Gabe returned later, the mouse had moved out).

Monday, August 4

Outside in the streets there was a woman who likely had schizophrenia, yelling loudly and angrily, but not being made a big deal by the passersby. We had breakfast at the hotel, good omelets. After we packed, we went to the Peace Corps Meva to drop off Gabe’s suitcases, and we hit the road. Beautiful scenery today. Stopped for lunch (pizza) in Antsirabe. Begging children. Outdoor bathroom. At one point we drove by the presidential palace, but it was off in the distance.

When we got to Tana, we gassed up but we didn’t have enough money to pay for the gas and had to borrow some from Ellie. Just a bit embarrassing. After we got gas we went immediately to the bank. This was our last night in Madagascar, and we stayed at the Hotel de Louvre, which was very nice and had a great view of the layers of hills into which the city is nestled. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant and at night we watched CNN in English. Peggy broke her front tooth.

Tuesday, August 5

On this our last day we started with the breakfast buffet at the hotel. After we ate we figured up all the money we had spent. We left our bags at the hotel and took a taxi to the Peace Corps Meva where Gabe dropped off his stuff. We walked to the Peace Corps office which was several blocks away along a route that had many beautiful flowers (among them Bougainvillea), along with several Zebu being walked by their owners. At the Peace Corps office Gabe saw a lot of friends, bought Peace Corps shirt, and used their ATM machine.

We took an interesting taxi ride to the American Cookie Shop where we ate sandwiches and sat next to a group of Mormon missionaries (Gabe said admiringly that they are the only other outside group that learns Malagasy). We walked through the marketplace and bought several trinkets. This particular market had hundreds of little shops, much like a flea market here in America, wooden floors, all connected with narrow walkways. For sale were everything from very inexpensive trinkets and souvenirs to very expensive rugs and clothing.

We spent some time at the Hotel de France where we drank big beers and Gabe called the travel agent that he had met on the second day of our trip. After dinner we took a taxi to the hotel so we could pick up our bags. It seemed like there were beggars on every corner, and they often approached the taxi and knocked on the windows. From the hotel we headed off to the airport for the flight home

Wednesday, August 6

We left Tana very late on Tuesday, actually right around midnight, and flew into Paris. This time we had enough time between flights to get between gates without causing an international incident. Then Paris to Detroit. Then wait. Then Detroit to Kansas City, very late, drive home, very tired. The trip home seemed like forever, lots of sitting, lots of trying to sleep, but not so much actual sleeping. The magic headphones could only help so much.

It was the most difficult trip we’ll ever love.

Upon our return, Gabe wrote to us:

Dear Madagascar Returnees -

Well, I'm thinking that you will have (hopefully) recovered by now, both in sleep as well as detoxing your system from diesel fumes and the like. As for myself, I recovered as well, but it wasn't easy going. After I dropped you guys off at the airport, I made my way back to Tana, where I spent the rest of the week in meetings with fellow volunteers and staff as well. It wasn't fun, and I felt like I needed a vacation after all of that. Finally though, I've been able to get back on a more sane schedule, and I have now spent 8 days in the same bed, so I'm pretty stoked about that. Well, stoked until I leave in 5 days to go on my next vacation, but I digress...

I just wanted to reiterate how much I appreciated your guys effort, patience, and sense of adventure in coming here. I know that it was no easy task for all of you, but you really put your best feet forward and made a show of it. I was probably too pre-exhausted when you guys arrived, and for that, I give you my apologies. It's tough, as in any job, to fit in everything you need to do before and after vacations, and when your vacation is anything more strenuous than sipping on Coronas and reading trash lit, well, it makes for a quest rather than a fest. Although, in truth, much festing did happen (to fest=to party).

I really enjoyed your company, not only to remind me of the anchor (in the good sense), that keeps me sane and connected to the greatest people on Earth (you), but also so that I could share a taste with you of what I've been doing with myself. In the lonely nights and dark moments that inevitably happen, it has been difficult going when you know that the people closest to you have no concept of what your life is now like, and it is that much harder to call on them for support. Now, that's not the case. You've seen the trees, talked to the people, smelled the odors, and walked the broken streets that I have. Of course, I couldn't show you everything, and even if I could, I wouldn't. But I feel very satisfied with what I did show you, that together we were able to experience what this Island has come to mean for me.

I hope that you walk away from this experience not bewildered by the vastness of it, nor belittling of the triteness of it. Madagascar is both of those things, and more (and less?). You've come to the other side of the world, and you survived. Not only did you survive, but you learned from it, and I think, it had a chance to learn from you all as well. We are not so different, these people and our people. These places are not so different. Even our languages are not so different. I guess that's what I like about it here, and I hope you got your own versions of that interpretation yourselves.

To wrap up, I wouldn't have appreciated any other group coming in and tiring the crap out of me during two weeks of strenuous and strenuously luxurious travel (except the next group coming in, they are cool too.) You guys are just as awesome as I remember (take that how you want to), and I was really glad to have all of the goodies and the news from home that guys brought me. So, in telling your stories to family, friends, and colleagues, just remember that like me now, you will never be able to fully contextualize what you've seen. You'll never be able to relate exactly how this place sounded. You'll never be able to really explain how it made you feel, and how it didn't make you feel. That stuff is for you, and it's a treasure. Perhaps that is the best gift of this place, and your time here. At least, it has been for me!

Love, Gabe

Peggy’s reply:

Hi Gabe, I have on my list of things to do this weekend to write you and give you an update about the processing of the trip, but I guess you beat me to it. I am quite glad you did as you used words and articulated some issues that I was feeling, but hadn't quite been able to name yet. Your message made me cry in a number of places (good job, Gabe!). Part of the reason I haven't written yet is because a kid sat behind me from Paris to the US and about blew his nose off his face. I mentioned this to Tom on the plane at the time. Sure enough, within about a day after arriving home, I got very sick with a cold (as did Ginger). Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of last week, I laid around and did next to nothing. Your Dad appropriately described me as "flaccid". I dragged myself to work and caught up from being gone three weeks. Actually, knock on wood, the work was not piled as high as I feared. I have been sleeping a lot this weekend, so I think tomorrow I will be my normal perky self again. Your Dad (as I am sure he will tell you) survived the cold until Wednesday when he boarded the plane to go to APA in Boston. He's been struggling there with it. It was probably somewhat of a good thing that my body refused to function, as it allowed me time to recuperate from the trip.

Ok, first to the business issues: ----------------------- Cribbage rules: The Shuffle and Cut--The Dealer has the right to shuffle last. The player to the right cuts. The cut must leave not less than four cards in each packet.

Loser of the game deals first for the next game.

This is a big part I have had wrong since I started playing again with Tom. "The Starter"-After the crib is laid away, non-dealer cuts the pack and dealer turns up the top card of the lower packet. This card, placed face up on the pact, is the starter. If the starter is a jack (called his heels) dealer pegs 2 points at once. What this means is that you have to throw cards in the crib BEFORE you know what the starter is going to be. That would really change the nature of the game.

"Right Jack" Jack of same suit as starter counts as 1. It is called his nobs.

Did we have other unanswered cribbage questions? -------------------- Your Dad had taken 800 pictures on the trip. He was able to cut them down to 400. I thought sending 400 pictures to friends and family was a bit overwhelming, so I spent quite a bit of time yesterday getting them down to 236. I think the pictures do a really good job of capturing the different phases of the trip and the country. Once Tom gets back from Boston, he is going to try to put some captions on the pictures, and we will be sending them out more widely. I have been trying to tell the stories of our trip (without the pictures) to co-workers and friends. Your Mom probably told you that we met with Carroll, Benj, Jinae, Ryan, and her to talk about the trip and give them some pointers. What I experience each time that I talked about the trip is a mini-version of what you said in your message about not being able to completely convey your experience in Madagascar this last year when the people haven't been there and seen the country. I think about the trip many times a day. I keep thinking about all the things I experienced, learned, and saw and know that no matter how much I want to tell my people here about it, I can't give them that part of my experience. I really appreciated you saying that this is our "treasure", just for us. Nice way to put it. I think it helps to calm me down about my inability to make that happen here. It was truly a very RICH experience!

And for that we have YOU to thank!! No denying, it was an incredibly challenging experience; but we knew that going into it. I know that I ran out of resources a couple of times during the trip and didn't behave my best. (I apologize to all of you for those moments!!) But, after coming back and reflecting upon all parts of the trip, I wouldn't have had you change any of the itinerary. All parts of the trip were very meaningful. I can't think of what part I would have cut out if we would have known ahead of time what the trip was going to be. It was especially meaningful to have met your Peace Corps Volunteer friends. They all have such great spirits, and I learned so much from each of them. I can see how you really appreciate all of them. Even though we have seen and experienced a thumbnail of Madagascar, only they can really understand your experiences there. What a unique and special bond. It was also so great to see your places in Fianar and Mananjary as well as the Peace Corps mevas. Seeing where you live, work, shop, walk, etc was invaluable in terms of understanding a part of your experience.

Most of all (as your Dad said while we were there) it was so wonderful to see you! I can't tell you how proud we are that you are doing this. The way you can cope with all the situations that come your way with all the different people who are there to interact with. I especially appreciated your "talk" about how you know when it is a time to be afraid and to rely upon your judgment regarding this. That helped me to calm down quite a bit. Having you to make the decisions and plans, to take care of the more difficult situations (e.g., the taxi drivers, the people asking for money such as the man in Mananjary), and to manage the money was such a comfort. Well, Gabe, you are all grown up!! And we couldn't be more proud of the man you have become. (Spoken like a parental figure, I know.)

On a different note, how are the travel plans for your Mom, Carroll, and Benj's trip coming with the travel agent??? ;-)

My heartiest thanks to you for all the hard work you did before and during our trip there. I know it was exhausting for you, but you hung in there with us. This was indeed a trip of a lifetime.

Misotra and much love, Peggy

And Ginger’s comments:

Jeez, I wish I had some meaningful comments or deep thoughts to add to these wonderful e-mails. When people at work ask about my trip, I usually quote Gabe's line about not being on vacation, but on an adventure. With several weeks' perspective, I still have the same impressions I did on arrival...Madagascar is an extremely beautiful country with such poverty in the big cities, and so many miles of empty road that I felt overwhelmed. Gabe, I feel that you and all of your PC friends are heroic. No matter how you brush it off, your day to day living can't be all that easy. The best part of the trip for me was seeing how you cope/interact with the Malagasy and in meeting all of your friends. And while you may not feel we saw 'your Madagascar', I think we did get a taste of it and sort of a feel for how you have been living the past year. Trying to describe any of our travels, or the people we met, or the places we went sounds so trite when compared to reality.

Oddly enough, one of the best parts of the trip for me was playing cribbage...... That's something we could do anywhere, I know, but somehow it added to the experience. Just having the chance to laze around, relax and laugh with all of you was a plus. (I don't know why six hours sitting in a car, then ten in a plane, two in an airport, nine more in another plane, more airport sitting, more plane is not relaxing. Sitting is sitting, right?) Another thing....when I returned to the US I had a new, sincere appreciation for our infrastructure. That has stayed with me.

I want to thank all of you for allowing me to tag along on the trip. Gabe, you did a wonderful job in herding us around the country. (We probably did seem like frightened sheep some of the time.) I would not trade any of our travels (except all of the dogs, and fighting the dragon). Misotra.

Alana S. (Ginger) Krieshok

And a few weeks later, one last missive from Gabe, giving his version of the mouse story:

Sent: Fri, 5 Sep 2008 Subject: Gabe Krieshok Peace Corps Newsletter

Esteemed Readers - Well, here we are again. I come to you from the lovely but chilly city of Fianarantsoa, in the southern half of Madagascar. I have moved into my new apartment here, and I'm starting to feel tamana (settled-in, a very important Malagasy concept). As I write this, the Call to Prayer is being sung on a loudspeaker near my house, and if I listen carefully, I can hear some men on the other side of my wall facing the street throw down dominoes. My vacations are finally over, and I was happy to see my family, and sad to see them go, (especially since they were funding the whole thing). We saw many adventures together including beaches, snorkeling, broken-down taxis equipped with MacGyver drivers, expensive hotels, 4:30 AM wake up calls by roosters (who crow not just in the morning, but all day long-common misconception), and enough windy, curvy, bumpy bad roads to have any stomach running for the nearest outhouse. But, my family, being the troopers that they are, laughed the whole way and took it in stride, and any crying that was done was done well outside earshot of spectators.

We have hit the one year mark in Madagascar, and now I'm on the slope down, with only really 10 months left here (9 months and 25 days, but who's counting?) I also just recently celebrated my second birthday in country, and I must say, the second one was much more enjoyable than the first (desert, alone, surrounded by hot flies vs. expensive but cozy tex-mex ((in Madagascar??)) with great friends and big beers). In fact, I've gotten so comfortable with my daily life here, that I'm well aware of how quickly life is moving, and I'll be saying my goodbyes before I'm ready. Or...maybe I'll be ready.

As he just made a shuffle in the kitchen, I should let you know about my pet. His name is Micro, and he is a full grown (but still tiny) adult brown mouse. He did not begin life as a pet, but as a pest. In my house last year, in Mananjary, rats were not an uncommon site. I don't like rats. They are big, gross looking, and they carry the plague (endemic in Madagascar). So when I saw my furry little friend scurry across my cement floor, well, the hunt was on. I found some rat traps, but after a wasted (but stale) Peanut Butter cup had been consumed no problem, I realized that my friend's small stature and weight were not enough to trigger the mechanism for my man-eating rat traps. A new technique was required. You remember the velociraptor hunter from Jurassic Park? Turns out I'm like that guy, but with mice. I stalked my prey pretty well one night, cornering him near my trash can, and when I faked left, he shot right, and I covered him with my pasta strainer (actually the second mouse I've caught this way). I'm too much of a democrat to actually curmudgeon the little guy, so I half-filled a bucket of water and threw him in, going back to my reading.

Well, after about 5 minutes, the guilt set in. At the same time, Micro could sense my resolve weakening, and he started "meeping" for mercy. It was just too damn adorable. I pulled him out with the steak tongs and put him back under the strainer. Trouble was, I had to leave the next morning. I decided to give the guy a sporting chance, so I put a piece of bread and a mug of water under the table. I would return in a 8 days. If he survived the ordeal, I had agreed to build him a cage and tame him. If not, well, that's that. Fast forward 8 days. I come back. It's a thick strainer, hard to see through, and after a few nudges on the plastic, I don't sense any movement, and I assume my friend has passed on. I lift the strainer slowly, searching for a little brown body, rigor mortis set in. Not 2 seconds later, a flash of fur whizzes by my leg, making a beeline for the mouse hole in my kitchen. He had been possoming me, and he won. So, Micro earned his place in my house, and taught me a valuable lesson about the circle of life. He will not be caged, and I just try not to leave food out, although we do run into each other now and then. Mostly like two old foes reuniting at a veterans ceremony. Well done lad, well done. However, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that kitten when she arrives...