11-17 - the voyage home

I have been going to bed before ten for most of the past month, and
this flight leaves at one am, so I'm exhausted in the airport, and
once I'm finally on the plane I go to sleep before we take off.  It's
a fitful sleep, and in my waking and sleeping and waking weirdness, I
can't tell if we're taxiing, taking off or already in the air.  I'm
ultimately awake and almost lucid for take off, but asleep soon after.

I'm awake for the snack, though.  Thank goodness!  I was afraid I'd
have to go to sleep without my usual 2am snack of cabbage and spam
with bread and cheese on the side.  No need to have worried.  Air
France is illogical, bu yummy.

In the morning, all the shades are down, and everyone on the plane
conspires to sleep in.  Lights don't go on until about 10am and
breakfast.

My seat-mate is as nice a person as you could possibly hope for.
She's Sister Siong, from Switzerland, by way of Indonesia, then Dutch
Guiana, and then the Netherlands.  She's genetically Chinese.  We talk
about the ideographs in the characters of her name, but mostly we talk
about Madagascar.  I mention that there are too many deaf people in
Madagascar.  She agrees, and points out there are a large number of
children with learning disorders, too.  She's read about it, as well as seen it.
It's developmental damage due to poor nutrition for the mother AND the
child.  Better food would reduce the number of deaf in Madagascar.

And so her order feeds children, amongst other things.  We commiserate
about the government in Madagascar.  It's the government of the
country itself, with help from the French, who make things so difficult
there.

Her order was raising pigs.  But there was a pig bug of some sort and
they had to kill all the pigs.  Then it turned out there wasn't a bug.
It was concocted by the government.  They get a kickback on imported
pigs, so they killed domestic ones.  That'd be the competition, you
see.

Sorry sisters, you lose.  And so does 99.99% of Madagascar.