The first attempt was total chaos. I explained the basic concept of making pairs of matching numbers, but that is where all resemblance to Go Fish as I knew it ended. For several minutes after I first dealt the cards, kids were frantically yelling out numbers in Malagasy and mangled French, showing the other players their hands, snatching cards from their neighbors, and relieving the more reserved children of whatever cards they held to help things go faster. Before I could get a word in edgewise about the finer points of the game, the room hushed. Pairs of bent cards were strewn haphazardly around the circle and ten faces looked up at me with triumphant smiles. They had all, from their perspective, won.

We played again. I insisted that we use only Malagasy numbers and that we take turns. Kids were still slipping cards to each other when they thought I was not looking, but what most caught my attention was that they continued to use the French rather than the Malagasy for the numbers, making me wonder if they truly did not know the difference. Furthermore, two of my favorite boys—brothers Costa and Tode, aged nine and eight—seemed unable to recognize any of the numbers in any language. At first I thought they just misunderstood the concept of making pairs with the cards already in their hands. After all, these two are the oldest sons of a couple who make no secret of believing themselves to be superior to everyone else in the village. But could it be possible that their children were still basically innumerate?

The next day when Costa and Tode came over to hang out and chat with me, I ambushed them with flashcards of the numbers one through nine. They were stumped. They considered six and nine interchangeable and could not reliably name the number one. A few other kids dropped by while we were working with the flashcards but left in bored disgust. Even Costa and Tode’s parents came over, scoffed, and yelled at them that they didn’t know what they were doing. But the boys kept at it. That day. And the next. And the next.

Five months later, I could hardly believe the evolution. They had learned to read any number up to ten million in Malagasy and had begun working on the same in French. When it became clear they did not know the alphabet either, I made a second set of cards. Via an improvised game of Memory, Costa and Tode learned each letter, upper and lower case. From there, it progressed into sounding out multi-syllabic words as well as writing numbers and words dictated to them. Even after we finished our “playing” for the day, they would come over to try to read the posters on my walls. Eventually, when the kids who used to mock Costa and Tode’s ignorance tried to join in a game of Go Fish or Memory, the two boys who used to greet the number two with confusion were looking at me with impatient frustration as the others failed to read the number 23,548. Over and over I urged the others to play more often and to learn what they had missed. But only Costa and Tode came knocking every single day.

By the time I left the village, the brothers were among its most literate and numerate residents. It did not matter that they started out at a disadvantage. When an opportunity to learn was presented, they showed up to take it. And the next day when it was offered again, they showed up again. It did not matter that their parents were, at best, quietly tolerant of the routine. What mattered was that as soon as Costa and Tode finished their chores, they sprinted over to see if I was free for Go Fish. They came over even if they had stomachaches, and they came over even if they were mad at each other that day. If I was away from the village, they would appear at my door within minutes of my return. And if I was busy with something else, they would get the cards and sit on the floor next to me, playing quietly and interrupting me only to ask questions when they got confused.

Around the time that Costa and Tode began their daily lessons, it was time for my monthly trip to Fort Dauphin, the regional capitol, in a bush taxi. As I huddled with about twenty Malagasy passengers on the covered flatbed of an old pickup truck and endured the focused staring that is completely socially acceptable in most of Africa, I noticed one man in particular eyeing me intently. Before long, he struck up a conversation. After preliminary questions about where I lived and what I was doing in Madagascar, he began complaining, seemingly out of nowhere, that the Malagasy are too poor to afford medicine for HIV/AIDS but that he and his friends do not like to use condoms. No doubt he was processing some of the information distributed by various foreign-run health agencies focused on HIV education and awareness. We all braced ourselves against the lurching of the rickety truck bouncing over potholes as he worked his way up to shouting at me that Americans must buy HIV/AIDS treatment drug regimens for the Malagasy who do not like condoms. Several people nodded their agreement and everyone turned to see what my reaction to this demand would be.