Thank you, Madagascar
Thank you for making a million rice paddies in a million different shapes and not a single one of them a square.
Thank you for the bicycle bells and the cobble-stone roads.
Thanks for fixing everything a hundred times over.
Thanks for sewing my flip-flops back together and for saving the left over parts of sparklers.
Thanks for the terraces and the the tiny patios and the way you hang corn to dry.
Thanks for painting the tiny attic windows the color of a crisp and clear morning sky.
Thanks for not killing all of the birds.
Thanks for making your own toys and for what I imagine to be transistor radios hanging off of the handlebars of your bikes.
Thanks for making mofo everything.
Thanks for the rhythmic clacking of old coins on metal trays of peanuts in the early morning markets.
Thanks for everyone selling rice for the same price.
Thanks for the tiny displays of carrot salad and whatever that pile of yellow stuff is that I’ve always been too afraid to eat.
Thanks for planting flowers and saying hello and smiling through missing teeth and thanks for the hats.
Thanks for the backward working locks and the false sense of security.
Thanks for locking me inside at night.
Thanks for always wearing your nicest clothes and for keeping up appearances and squishing in next to me on a brusse.
Thanks for not thinking I understand what you are saying.
Thanks for the charades and the gentle prodding and all of the French that I pretended that I understood.
Thanks for stealing my money but looking like you were sorry for doing it.
Thanks for hiding your treasure in an old drainpipe.
Thanks for the bad roads and the long drives and the days when I watch the sunrise and set from the same window and remember nothing from in between.
Thanks for not cutting down the baobabs.
Thanks for painting all of the star wars characters on the side of an old ox cart.
Thanks for the passing greetings and for telling me that it’s cold. Speaking of cold, thanks for saying Mangatsika, because you’re right, if we stay out here any longer we will all turn blue. Thanks for ‘kintana’ and ‘mondroso’ and all the rest of your poetry.
Thanks for giving me a home when I needed one.
Thanks for feeding me when I was hungry and sheltering me when I was cold and caring for me when I was sick.
Thanks for the dirt roads and the red dust that settles in the wrinkles around my eyes that you have watched grow.
Thanks for the burnt rice tea and the second helping of rice (but not the third).
Thanks for the mystery and the beauty and the struggle and the heartache and the frustration and thanks for letting me leave angry and not holding it against me.
But most of all, thank you for always saying “welcome” and “come in” and “please join us” before you even say hello.