The Family Ramanantenasoa

In three different occasions since our arrival, we met some members of the Ramanantenasoa family: the family of Adeline, the woman who took care of the Veum family when they were here in the 80’s.

The first day was the turn of Ida and Luc. As we had no phones, they just showed up at our hotel, and waited 2 hours for our return. We chatted in front of a drink, about school and job market. Luc is the oldest and had some struggle with his diploma, so was in search of advices. While Ida, was just updating us on her studies. They are very alive kids with a lot of interests, and when we said goodbye we where left with deep curiosity on how they spend their normal days…

Few days later Luc came back with his mum Adeline and his little sister, Ami. We had an appointment this time, so we were ready to welcome them. Birger was happy to see that Adeline looked very good, as the years never passed. We spent sometime chatting on our daily life, until someone mentioned that the kids are scout, and were going to a scout meeting the day after. What a great occasion for me to see how scouting works, here! How good occasion for us both, to see a bit more of the normal daily life of a normal family!

So, the Sunday we went to the Ramanantenasoa family’s house. We sat in the 2CV taxi for about 20min. (in total absence of traffic, while the day before it took almost two ours for them to go home!) and we paid less than 3 euro for the ride (about 25nok). Arrived, we walked within narrow streets until a cute 2floors house appeared. Unfortunately, the scout meeting was called off (but we’re invited to go another time).

Instead, we spent a couple of hours with Adeline, Ami, Luc and God (yes, God), the 3dh kid in the family, in their house. They showed us photos of their friends, work events, school trip, scout camps, vacation days, weddings, etc.: a photo trip through their family life.

Our visit was quite public, as the kids from the neighbored where watching and laughing through the windows. And we felt honored to spend our Sunday afternoon with this friendly Malagasy family.