Planetary Health Education: ASRI Kids Learn How to Keep Their Whole Earth Healthy

I clutch a butcher knife and a sack of apples as I speed past goats and banana trees on the back of Amad's motorcycle. Today, I will be observing an ASRI Kids program and supplying a vital service: apple chopping.

In the one-room school building, Amad gives a lively PowerPoint about washing hands with soap and water. He explains nutrition and the importance of healthy foods. I steadily slice apple after apple into juicy quarters. Amad expected 24 kids, but apparently word has spread. Today, the classroom bulges with 33 rapt elementary-schoolers. I have to cut the larger apple slices in half to make sure everyone will get one.

Here I am helping rinse soap off a student's hands with her water bottle.

Look at those clean hands! (Human soap dispenser in background.)

The kids line up for lemon-scented hand soap and splashes of water. They scrub their fingers meticulously, embodying the essence of hygiene. I pass out an apple slice and a tart green orange to each student, then sit back to relish my own. Fresh fruit has never tasted so good.

ASRI Kids looking cool with their apples.

"Quiz time!" Amad announces in Bahasa Indonesia. "Who can name three healthy foods?"

The room erupts with eager kids, straining their hands to the sky, halfway off their chairs. Amad selects a serious girl who's sitting in the back corner. She stands to deliver her answer.

"Milk, rice," she begins confidently, then stalls out. The room hollers ideas at her, but I think they only add confusion. She looks to Amad for support. He gives her an encouraging smile. "Vegetables!" she finally gasps, doubling over in relief. She walks to the front of the room to claim her prize. Without looking, she dips her hand into a canvas bag of goodies and pulls out a magnifying glass. Maybe she'll use it to examine bugs in the schoolyard tomorrow.

The school where Amad and I served chopped apples as a healthy snack. The old school-building is on the right.

Education is one of the five prongs of Alam Sehat Lestari, better known as ASRI, the conservation-healthcare initiative in Indonesian Borneo where I'm a volunteer. (Check out my post, Spirit: from Balinese Frisbee to a Bornean Hospital, for background.)

The five prongs of ASRI are:

1. Monitor
2. Provide healthcare
3. Find alternative livelihoods
4. Educate
5. Restore

Each of these prongs is supported by multiple projects on the ground. To learn about prong five, restoration, you can read Rainforest's Rebirth, my recent post about the Laman Satong reforestation nursery.

Over the past three weeks, I've been directly involved with prong four, education, through ASRI Kids. This program teaches fifth graders about Planetary Health topics ranging from nutritious eating and hand washing, to wildlife and ecosystems, to sustainable living. It's led by the wonder-woman educator, Etty Rahmawati, and her talented co-worker, "Amad" M. Zulkarnaen.

Etty poses with our resident Selfie Orangutan.

Amad straps a blender to his backpack and motorcycles to school, so he can make recycled paper with ASRI Kids.

Below is a three-minute video about ASRI Kids produced by Jane Huff, an ASRI volunteer and then-student of Northwestern University. It was filmed in 2013, one year after the program was created. ASRI Kids has come a long way since then.

The magic of ASRI lies in its combination of accurate knowledge with hands-on activity. One of the kids' favorite projects is making recycled paper. They learn to be creative with trash, appreciate forest resources, and reduce waste.

Two students carry a tub to the spigot for water.

Amad blends water and shredded scratch-paper into a violet pulp.

The kids watch as Amad strains out a rectangle of paper pulp.

Selvi, an ASRI Teen volunteer, demonstrates how to press the wet paper onto a drying board.

After paper-making, I brought out my frisbee. Tossing here are Oka Nurlaila of marketing and communications, Amad of education, and me.
Photo credit: Selvi.

Two of our students got the hang of it right away. This girl soon mastered the backhand. Here she is attempting a forehand.
Photo credit: Selvi.

The most important lesson in frisbee: mistakes are free lessons. When you drop the disc, pick it up again!
Photo credit: Selvi.

Behind the scenes, I've spent much of my time crafting new curriculum for Etty to use in her ASRI Kids classes. So far, I've made PowerPoints about mangrove swamps, coral reefs, climate change, plastics, microbes, zoonotic disease, and the lemurs of Madagascar. Climate change was a big hit with ASRI Teens. For the first time, the teens understood the connection between deforestation and sea level rise -- and why there is a giant poster of an iceberg in the ASRI clinic! They took a group photo with the iceberg and brainstormed ways to reduce emissions in Sukadana, like putting up signs at warungs (cafes) asking customers to think twice before requesting a plastic bag or straw. (Plastic trash is burned here because there is no landfill system. Plastic is made from carbon, and burning it releases carbon dioxide.) Long story short, teens are awesome.

ASRI Teens pose with the iceberg.
Photo credit: Etty Rahmawati.

Madagascar and lemurs might seem far removed from Borneo, but the links are strong. Two thousand years ago, Madagascar was originally colonized by seafaring traders from Sulawesi, an island next to Borneo. Malagasy shows more linguistic connections to Indonesian than to any other language. Borneo and Madagascar, two of the largest islands in the world, are both covered with fast-disappearing tropical rainforest. Both islands are home to endangered endemic primates: Bornean orangutans and proboscis monkeys here, and all species of lemur on Madagascar.

This year, Etty has finished her usual curriculum on Bornean wildlife, but her students keep coming back for more. Time to expand! And why not lemurs? After all, I grew up learning about African giraffes and Amazonian anacondas and Asian elephants. The strange creatures of another part of the world can be a reminder of how spectacular our own native organisms are.

Here are a few of my slides comparing Madagascar's lemurs to the primates of Borneo.

As much as possible, I show my own photos from the field.

I use lemurs as a tool to teach about scientific observation and animal behaviors. A popular new word was "biting."

Slash-and-burn agriculture is one pertinent similarity between Madagascar and Borneo. The term in Malagasy is tavy, while the Bahasa Indonesia word is ladang berpindah, literally meaning "shifting cultivation."

Making PowerPoints is fine, but it's nowhere near as fun as teaching. Last week, Etty gave me the wonderful opportunity to present my lemur slides to the Sungai Mengkuang ASRI Kids, a local group that meets behind the hospital after school. Etty acted as translator, repeating all my sentences in Bahasa Indonesia with the wide smile and clear enunciation of a seasoned educator. I couldn't have asked for a better teaching partner.

We love group photos!

The kids learned incredibly fast. It must be their combination of their young brains, their lack of inhibition about participating, their willingness to make mistakes, and their supportive environment cultivated by Etty. Near the end of class, I taught the kids about "nocturnal" and "diurnal" animals. Then I showed a photo of a tarsier, a tiny prosimian primate related lemurs, climbing a branch at night.

"Is this animal nocturnal or diurnal?" I asked.

Before Etty could translate, the children called out in a chorus, "NOCTURNAL!"

The next photo showed me in my signature broad-brimmed hat. "And what about this animal?" I asked. "Nocturnal or diurnal?"

The kids didn't miss a beat. "DIURNAL!" they shouted.

Etty and I looked at each other and laughed. In half an hour, the kids had outgrown their translator.

Etty hands back last week's ecosystem-drawing assignment.

For the comprehension quiz, I asked the group, "What are three behaviors of lemurs?"

One boy, smartly dressed in a button-up shirt and khaki shorts, stood to answer.

"Eating, moving, and preening," he answered in English. I was amazed. How many English-speaking fifth-graders know the word preening?

An underwater ecosystem drawn by an ASRI Kid, with Etty's encouragement written in red pen.

A forest of interactions among organisms. What could be better?

It's clear why education is one of ASRI's five prongs. As the Senegalese environmentalist Baba Dioum said in one of my favorite quotes, "In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught."

Since its inception in 2012, the ASRI Kids program has reached 800 children across 23 schools. Alumni of the program can pass on the learning as ASRI Teens. Etty has watched with pride as several of her kids moved on to college, including one young woman who is now studying forestry in the West Kalimantan city of Pontianak.

As I watched the kids follow Etty down a jungle trail after my lemur class, I thought about how lucky ASRI is to have dedicated educators like Etty and Amad passing on their love and understanding of the world to the next generation.

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After-School School and Night Plogging in Kuala Lumpur

Wednesday night found me at Beacon of Hope Community Tuition Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's megacity of seven million humans.

The students admirably attempt to pay attention after a long day at regular school.

This center serves kids who don't get enough love at school. Whether they're labeled as needing extra discipline, or they're underperforming academically, these kids aren't being heard or valued in the standard school system.

My wise friend Annie Want once told me (after I couldn't absorb one word of the verbal instructions at frisbee practice), "Remember, it's not that you don't fit the system, it's that the system doesn't fit you." I think that's true. The school system doesn't fit these kids perfectly, so the Community Tuition Centre steps in with additional classes (math on Mondays, English on Wednesdays), field trips, and an awards ceremony run by volunteers.

The group got more animated when I showed photos of lemurs and ticks.

This Wednesday, I was the English class volunteer. I was told that the students enjoy hearing from foreigners about their home countries, so I made a PowerPoint about Seattle, Walla Walla, and all the places I've visited so far on the Watson.

Before I got into the details, I explained the general concept of a Watson Fellowship and asked the students to do a little imagining. "What would you do if you got a fellowship?" I asked the crowd of attentive faces. "What topic would you study for one year? Which countries would you travel to?"

I gave the class a few minutes, then asked the boy on my right to give his answer. As we went around the circle, many students struggled to speak up. As in American schools, these kids haven't been trained in imagination. Creativity is squashed under demands to take tests and memorize. But with enough cajoling, they were willing to give it a try.

Who's that taking our picture?!

One middle-school boy said he would take his whole family to Bali. I told him that wasn't quite the spirit of a Watson, but when I learned that he seldom gets to see his family because both parents work away from home for months at a time, I figured he had the right idea.

Another said he would use the money for pilot training in New York. Upon prodding, he said he would be happy with flying either planes or helicopters. A bit practical for a Watson, but I liked the focus.

One student said he wanted to visit Madagascar for photography. (This was before I'd mentioned my own itinerary!) He said he would both take photos and meet photographers. "What would you ask them?" I wanted to know. "How they decide what looks good to take a picture of," he answered. Sounds good to me.

A young woman with a stern expression and eruptive laugh had announced earlier that she wanted to become a police officer. Her Watson dream: travelling to India, where she would learn how to denature a bomb and figure out why young people go into terrorism.

One student, determined to become a football player (that's soccer to you Americans), would travel to Paris and learn about, you guessed it, football. I later summarized his plan as learning about football in France, to which he heartily objected, "Not France! Paris!" Maybe we need to add an after-school geography class.

One girl had her answer ready as soon as she was called on: "I want to go to Switzerland to learn English." An unorthodox choice for that language, I told her. Upon further questioning, she admitted she just wanted to go there because she loves the cold. As we sat in the sweltering Malaysian night, I couldn't fault her for that.

My favorite proposal of the bunch came from a student who said she would go to the neighboring country of Indonesia to learn about peat fires and how to put them out. She'd ask Indonesians about the haze caused by the fires. I told her that was not only a great idea, but very close to my friend Sam's real-life Watson, "The Language of Wildfire: Collisions of Nature, Society and Uncertainty."

Someone had the brilliant idea that we should all dab in our group photo.

As you can tell, these students were very good at English. They understood and spoke it like a first language, with a heavy Indian-Malaysian accent. I found out that most of these kids are trilingual. They grow up speaking Tamil at home and Malay in the community, and they pick up English at school. Some of them attend Chinese school, so they also speak Mandarin. Can you imagine how desirable a trilingual or quadrilingual employee would be in America?

Unfortunately for these students, their linguistic talent is underappreciated in Malaysia, a country of polyglots. As Tamil-Malaysians, they face prejudice throughout the political and judicial systems of their country. This group is more likely to drop out of school than any other.

A super-quick primer on Malaysia's racial makeup: 50% of Malaysians are Malay, 23% are Chinese, 12% are non-Malay indigenous (Dayak, Iban, Biyaduhs, Kadazan, to name a few), and 7% are Indian. The other 8% are "non-citizens." (Where this leaves multiracial Malaysians is unclear. In a country where race and religion are listed on government ID cards as defining, immutable features, there doesn't seem to be a lot of space for bi- or multiracial identities.)

Of the Indian-Malaysians, the majority are Tamil, and this group tends to be marginalized in Malaysian society. For example, Indian-Malaysians:

•  experience a poverty rate of 70%, while the national average is 3%
• are more likely to be pulled over by the police and required to do a breathalizer test
• receive less than 1% of the country's education budget at Indian schools
• comprise only 2% of civil servants
• comprise 60% of urban squatters and 41% of all beggars
• make up 95% of deaths by police gunfire and 90% of deaths in prisons

Reading these statistics, it's not surprising that the school system is failing these Tamil students, and it's even more obvious why a center like Beacon of Hope is a vital resource.

We got a traditional group photo, too.

I was brought here by EeLynn Wong, a woman I met online through the Malaysian Nature Society Facebook page. She's one of those superhumans you wouldn't believe exists until you see her in person. Before meeting me, she offered me a ride and lodging (by sharing a bed) for the annual Raptor Watch festival. Soon after, she invited me to couch-surf in her extra bedroom for as long as I needed a place to stay in Kuala Lumpur. And that generosity never stops flowing. EeLynn cares for six rescue cats and volunteers just about every day of the week. She bathes dogs at the SPCA, teaches English, runs a Green Living group, collects food and clothes for Kuala Lumpur's homeless, and advocates for refugees.

After the Community Tuition Centre class, EeLynn and I grabbed a late dinner of roti canai and carrot-milk (that's carrot juice mixed with condensed milk and ice) at a 24-hour Indian restaurant.

When she doesn't have an official volunteering commitment, EeLynn doesn't take the night off. She goes plogging! Yes, that Swedish fitness craze where you jog while picking up litter! Except in Malaysia, it's not much of a fitness activity, because you can barely take five steps before bending over to scoop another pile of trash into your bag. EeLynn took me night-plogging at Taman Mayang Jaya, a park near her favorite recycling center. I was eyed suspiciously by two street cats, who eventually warmed up to me enough to sit on my trash bag. Helpful.

Plogging in botanically correct pants.

Stuck to EeLynn's fridge is a list of 24 new year's resolutions, printed in rainbow ink. Number two on the list says, "Get at least five hours of sleep a night." While that may be EeLynn's goal, I would surely perish of such sleep deprivation! Here I am aiming for eight hours a night --- nine if I'm lucky. Given these basic differences in our human constitution, I don't expect to reach EeLynn's superhuman volunteer status. After a couple late nights, I'm already wiped out.

I know I am not addressing global systems of oppression with one classroom exercise or ten pounds of litter, but gosh, I am reminded of how satisfying these simple actions can be. Next time I'm bored at a party or wondering which Netflix movie to watch, I might just grab a pair of tongs and go night-plogging instead. And if you're sitting nearby, watch out... I might pull an EeLynn and wrangle you to come with me!

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Madaworks Update: A Christmas Story from Tana

It's time for an update on my campaign to send two Malagasy girls to high school! For those of you just joining this story, check out:

• original post: The Power of Pencils: Will You Help Me Send Two Malagasy Girls to School?
• first update: Misaotra Betsaka: Fantastic News from Madagascar

I am continually amazed by the moments this project of mine has produced. Here's a Christmas story for you.

I was sitting on the floor of the Madagascar Underground Hostel in Antananarivo on Christmas Eve Eve (the day before the day before Christmas), scribbling thank-you notes on kids' drawings from the rainforest. I was rather conspicuous: in my pajamas because I was just getting over a nasty illness (have you ever had a fever that made your hands and feet go numb? I don't recommend it), surrounded by stacks of papers and stamps and ibuprofen, muttering addresses under my breath.

My fever-survival supplies: iPhone charger, electrolytes, antibiotics, suspiciously-pink Malagasy ibuprofen, two bottles of water, and the piece of plain toast I nibbled for a day.

Naturally, the other guests asked what I was up to. When I told them, one guest asked me to show him the Madaworks website, and I watched as he donated $600 on the spot. WOW. Another guest told me she couldn't donate online because she's Iranian and there's some weird embargo stuff... so she asked if she could just hand me some cash instead. (She didn't end up donating, but still, it's the thought that counts!) I couldn't believe the trust from these strangers, but after travelling in Madagascar, they were eager for a chance to help address this most obvious problem, the lack of education for young women.

Here's a breakdown by the numbers:

• total donations so far: 30
• from people I've never met: 7
• from people I met playing frisbee: 7
• from people I'm related to: 4
• via PayPal: 6
• via Venmo: 11
• directly to Madaworks: 13
• number of people who downloaded an app just to be able to donate: 1 (that I know of)
• total money raised so far: $3,280
• our goal: $3,600
• percentage of goal raised so far: 91%

Because a lot of these donations flowed in around the holidays, I'll end with a story of my Christmas in Madagascar. I didn't have any family or old friends, but I was lucky to have the company of two new friends, Haja and Mahery. They came over to my hostel and helped me cook a Christmas Brunch that would've made the Lester Finleys proud.

It started on Christmas Eve. I spent the morning with Mahery, Haja, Haja's sister, and a trio of adorable nieces and nephews at a holiday gift market selling the incredible silver jewelry that Haja's family has been crafting for generations.

Selling silver is a family affair.

Then I walked to the enormous Antananarivo market, just before it closed, to buy groceries. That was an excellent adventure! I purchased potatoes and onions in the vegetable quarter, then wove through the dry goods stalls, a maze unlike any I've seen. Each stall stocks an unwieldy assortment of products. I managed to find the items on my list, but each from a different stall: ketchup, black tea, butter, a tiny bottle of oil, and dark chocolate. Then I held my nose and headed for the meat market, where I asked for hena kisoa, pork, the closest thing I could find to bacon. It was the end of the day, so I had to buy out the last hunks of meat hanging from the hooks of two different vendors. Mangoes, lychees, and bananas were easy (it's harder to avoid buying fresh fruit on these streets than to just give in and buy it, the vendors are so persistent), but the eggs were nowhere to be found. I asked everyone, "Aiza ny atody azafady?" Please, where are the eggs? Everyone had an answer: down that alley, around that corner, oh sure, eggs! But nobody had the eggs. Finally I found a girl cracking eggs into a cauldron of boiling soup, and I asked where she got her supply. A woman overheard and, eager to make a few cents, offered to find the eggs and bring them to me. Good luck, I thought, but I agreed. Five minutes later, she appeared holding a small plastic bag filled with straw and a dozen perfectly clean brown chicken-eggs. Christmas brunch was on!

The market is a sea of colorful umbrellas taking over the streets and sidewalks for miles of downtown Tana.

Christmas Eve was a breakthrough. If I'm being blunt, this city intimidates me. The traffic is aggressive, the streets take dizzying turns up cliffs, the air smells like diesel exhaust, and when I counted the number of times I was verbally bothered on the sidewalk, it was once every twenty seconds. Children beg for money, gripping your shirt and following you for blocks while whimpering, "Madame, madame." Men say hello in French whether or not you make eye contact. Taxi drivers block your path to ask if you might need a ride. Plus, I seem to get seriously ill whenever I enter this city. So, given all that, I was proud of myself for learning how to navigate the gritty streets confidently and finding a way to enjoy Tana for my last day here.

Mahery shows off our tropical fruit salad of mango, lychee, and tiny banana.

Haja scolded me for buying three normal mangoes and three squishy papaya-mangoes (woops!) but she quickly solved the problem by turning the squishy ones into juice.

Scrambled eggs and salty pork strips.

My babies: vegetarian and decidedly not-vegetarian home fries.

It wouldn't be Christmas without potatoes!

We cooked enough for a dozen people, and we served Christmas brunch to everyone who, for one reason or another, found themselves stuck in a backpackers' hostel on Christmas morning. Our happy family consisted of businessmen and hippie travellers, a young family in the process of moving houses, the cleaning and cooking staff, Haja, Mahery, and me.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone reading this! If you're feeling inspired, perhaps you'd like to donate to my Madaworks campaign and get that final 9% of our goal reached, to send two Malagasy girls to a fully-funded, three-year, high-school education.

Here are three ways to donate:

PayPal: ninafinley176@gmail.com

Venmo: @Nina-Finley

Madaworks website: https://www.madaworks.org/donate/

And hey, let's also take a moment to be grateful for being 91% of the way there. Every supportive thought, message, and dollar has been a gift in this unconventional holiday season.

Now that I'm in Bali (what?! I know, I'm a little behind on the blog posts), writing thank-you notes has a very different vibe. I loved writing postcards from this low table in the back of a Balinese restaurant. Just look at that rice-paddy view, complete with a sitting-cushion and the sweetest ginger-lemon tea I've ever tasted.

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Misaotra Betsaka: Fantastic News from Madagascar

In my last post three weeks ago, The Power of Pencils, I told you about my spontaneous, scientific drawing classes in the rainforest, and I asked for your help. My goal was to raise $1,200 for Madaworks, enough to fund one year of high school for two Malagasy girls.

This week in Torotosy, I brought scientifically accurate coloring sheets of local lemur species to a new group of kids and teenagers. Several of the adolescent girls brought their babies with them, deftly switching off between the tasks of learning, coloring, and soothing crying infants.

The coloration of the lemurs was... less than scientifically accurate, but highly creative!

Once the lemurs were colored, we got to the good part: designing an ecosystem in the background. This boy included trees, leaves, fruits, and even an endemic Vasa Parrot, or kevaka in the local parlance.

 

Team, I have fantastic news: we've done it, and we've done better! Here's the breakdown.

Donations through PayPal: 1

Donations through Venmo: 3

Donations directly to Madaworks: 7

Total donations (for those of you who aren't into math): 11

Total amount raised: $1805!!! (Enough for three years of school!)

Amazingly, the donors include two women I've never met, but who found my blog though mutual friends and were moved to help. Thank you to everyone---friends, family, strangers---who invested in this small dream of mine, whether by donating money or simply reading along and feeling a connection to this story.

This girl's blooming background steals the show from her purple-and-red lemur family.

Our local guide, "Miandry" Ramiandrisoa, joined in happily on the coloring. The next day, he took me for a botanical tour of the area, naming every single leaf we encountered. He hopes to put his local plant knowledge to use for my researchers in the future, and I hope so, too.

This artist added a second lemur baby to his drawing. Twins of this species are uncommon but not unheard-of.

If you zoom in, you'll see the artist's caption, written in pencil and totally unprompted: "Tiako Madagaskara Hasoaviko Tanindrazako." It translates roughly to, "I love Madagascar. I want to do good for the home of my ancestors." When I read this, I laughed and told him I love Madagascar too, so he added the word "Nina" for good measure.

Diane Powers, president and founder of Madaworks, has been in touch with me many times to express her gratitude. She has extended a challenge to all of us:

"It's so wonderful that you were able to raise the first year costs to add 2 more girls. Thank you again! Having said that, we still need to raise an additional $1200 per girl to complete the three years of high school - it's $600 per year per girl." (High school is only three years in Madagascar.)

So here it is, my new goal: to raise $3,600 to fund two Malagasy girls through an entire high-school education. 

It sounds like an ambitious goal, but we're more than halfway there already. A month ago, I wouldn't have thought it possible. Now, after being shocked and inspired by the generosity of all you Natural Selections readers, I think it just might be.

The big kids (around my age) had a great time drawing habitats for lemurs colored by the younger artists.

Here's the Torotosy bunch from one of our afternoon sessions.

The next day, we moved on to a more difficult task: collecting spiders, crickets, flies and pillbugs into a wide yellow bucket and sketching them from life. It was a success, and I was delighted to see that these kids, who are terrified of non-venomous snakes, were not the least bit squeamish about picking up spiders in their bare hands (a feat I am leery of myself.)

If you are moved and able, please consider helping get these girls to school. Here's how:

PayPal: ninafinley176@gmail.com

Venmo: @Nina-Finley

Madaworks website: https://www.madaworks.org/donate/

This Christmas, I'll be on a plane from Madagascar to Indonesia. I won't be asking for any gifts. Instead, I'm suggesting that my family consider making a donation to Madaworks. If you're looking for a way to celebrate the holidays while consuming a little less, feel free to steal this idea and ask your community of gift-givers to do the same. :)

The following week, I met Josia, a young woman just a few years older than me in the village of Ambodiaviavy. She found me on the path one day, asked for my notebook through gestures, and stopped right there to sketch me the legume tree we were standing next to. "Rapitso, sivy!" she said through her beaming smile. "Tomorrow, nine!" Sure enough, there she was at camp the next morning, ready to draw. She became our camp cook, and she passionately hopes to work for Centre ValBio as a guide. Here we are holding the drawings we made for each other. She drew the ubiquitous secondary-growth plant, longoza, and a passion-fruit vine with a diagram of how to make it into medicine against sand-fleas. (A zoonotic disease, she already knows what gets me excited!) I drew her favorite bird, the blue coua.

Here's the Torotosy bunch taking a break from coloring to inhale a few bowls of vary sy tsaramaso, rice and beans. I had to get my camera out fast because those beans didn't last thirty seconds! 

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