Dear friends and supporters,

A topic that always adds to the amusement of life in Madagascar is the Malagasy names.

They are very, very long and often they tell a story.

Names are also not gender specific; "Mamy" can be a boy or a girl, a adult or a child. There are hardly any names that are out of fashion.

There are funny moments when European names are used, like when a boy was born with us and given the name "Jessica". The mother could not be convinced that this is a girl's name, as this concept does not exist in the Malagasy language. After long talks, we gave up trying to convince her and are now calling the little boy Jess.

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