September 7, 2007
Here is your abridged glossary of useful Madagascar words and phrases:
ariary - local currency; the exchange is 1780 Ariary to 1 dollar. Well, actually, the old currency, the Franc, is still in circulation and valued at 5 Francs to 1 Ariary. For example, if you want to buy some bread products: (1) walk up to the vendor; (2) ask the price; (3) you will be told a number in Gasy; (4) look helpless; (5) the number will be translated into French; (6) try to translate the number into English in your mind; (7) assume the number must be in Francs; (8) in your head, divide the number by 5 to convert to Ariary, take some bread products and hand the vendor some bills; (9) divide the Ariary by 1780 to convert to dollars to realized that you paid 25 cents for breakfast; (10) eat your bread products, which are now cold.
malaki - quickly; what is yelled when lemurs are found the forest and you are trapped in foliage.
malama - slippery; what is said after you fall in the mud.
mura mura - slowly; what you say when mobbed by touts.
secondary road - a vast expanse of desert.
straw hat - locally made and of every color, type and brim size (including brimless).
taxi-brousse - bush taxi; french word for a jungle taxi; a metal enclosure faintly resembling a minibus, which, for long distances, 14 people must be pressed into; 20+ people for any time less than 4 hours. If you are comfortable in a taxi-brousse, it will not move, but wait until people have filled that comfortable space. There is no time schedule; only buses that are over full depart.
vary - plain boiled rice, served at every Gasy meal.
vazaha - foreigner; white person; usually yelled by happy, pants-less children, to the snickering of their older siblings.
zavatra mapitokiky - in the Majunga dialect, the phrase 'something funny' (which ironically, happens to be how I say the phrase.)
zebu - a ubiquitous type of humped cow originally from India; the french word for cow.
