Always follow your dreams: My Diaspora Tantara

My Malagasy Diaspora Tantara: Diaspora Stories Told Around the World

Today, an estimated 300,000 Malagasy people live outside of Madagascar and live all around the globe. No diaspora story is alike but what we share is that love and connection to Madagascar that we carry in our hearts, new hometowns, and life. Here are our stories.

Today: Laëtitia recounts her triumphant story of following her dreams to study and work abroad and how she now finds herself working in Florida, United States. From a young age, she found a way to study the courses she loves while charting her future to live and work abroad like in France while also enjoying the beauties and treasures of life, new places, and wonderful people.

Hello,

My name is Valisoa Laëtitia RAKOTONDRALAMBO and I'm 19. I was born and raised in Madagascar, in Antsirabe. I finished school early so at the age of 16 I finished high school. I always wanted to study abroad but my mother thought I was too young to go abroad at this age so that’s why I decided to go study at Vatel Madagascar.

My school gives the opportunity for every student during the second year of university to do an internship abroad and so I went to Menton in the French Riviera. I studied Hospitality management so one of the things that my school taught us was to be open to the world and take all the opportunities to travel.

I lived for 5 months in Menton and then 6 months in Cannes for an internship where I enjoyed the summer at the same time. It was like work and holidays at the same time haha.

And then I came back to Madagascar for my graduation in October and graduated. And just after that, I decided to participate in the J-1 program to be an intern here in the USA. Now it has been a few weeks since I am here in Boca Raton, Florida. I’m an intern at Broken Sound Club. I really like it, everything and everyone makes me feel at home here and we have a great community of Malagasy here and people from Vatel Madagascar. We live and work together so that’s good, as I said it’s like home but just in another country.

But at the same time it gave me the opportunity to visit another country, to practice English, to discover a new culture and then to get more experience in the world of hospitality. Those experiences that will be very necessary to me when I’ll be realizing my project in our motherland Madagascar.

But for the moment, I’m just trying to live the best of my life, work well, always have contact with my family especially my mum, and to live a happy and healthy life.

Thank you for letting me tell my story here and I encourage everyone to follow their dream, always do what you really want and never give up because if you keep believing the dream that you wish will come true. ❤️

‍

Let’s continue the conversation! Comment your thoughts on our social media platforms Instagram and Facebook or email us at madaliving@outlook.com!

‍