Alright, so, you know the deal before we go into it

This is usually the part where I either like add stuff that we didn't talk about in the episode or I kind of fix up

The small mistakes we made one thing I wanted to talk about, but we just didn't have time

Was the fact that the country has these kind of like taboos called Fadi they exist either nationally or regionally

some of them might include

See what I have here in my notes don't wear red at a Funeral or point a finger at a grave

Don't bring pork to certain sites like the 12 sacred Hills of Antananarivo

According to some of the people groups giving birth to twins is considered bad luck in some areas

It's customary to wash your hands and your mouth before getting into a boat for certain lakes in certain areas

You cannot pass an egg from one hand to the other and according to many of the people groups

You must bring a white male chicken with you if you climb modern moco

Throw summit the tallest peak in Madagascar on another thing Madagascar is very famous for their Lombok cloths

another thing that I kind of wish I could have talked a little bit more about was the fact that in the 70s they were

Kind of like under the influence of Soviet political ideologies and those were kind of like the weird years

But anyway, yeah, it's just too much look into if you're interested, but we got to move on. So without further ado

Madagascar it's like a black and Asian country. It's a blasian country. So unique. What else can we cover?

Oh, yeah

The flag the flag of Madagascar has two horizontal bars of red and green

adjacent to a vertical white band on the left waist side the red and white stands for the kingdom of Marina which previously ruled the

Land prior to the French taking over in the 19th century

Some say the colors may also stand for the ethnic origins of the Malagasy people being from Southeast Asia

Which is why Indonesia's flag also contains red and white. However, this claim is not completely confirmed

But hey

the green gives honour to the Hova the largest class of commoners in

Madagascar that played an important role in the independence movement against the French prior to this, of course

They're under the French flag under French colonialism prior to that

It was the Malagasy Protectorate under the French which has this flag

And it had like a little crescent on the hoist side and prior to that

It was the marina Kingdom yours which they had this swag, which was basically indistinguishable from the modern flag of Poland

Yeah that Kingdom was important in their history

I mean looking up lots of stories on just a little side note. You might see this flag every so often in Madagascar

It's the flag of the ethnic morena people the largest people group in Madagascar

But anyway, yeah moving on the coat of arms, which is not a coat of arms. It is a national seal

The seal is a yellow disc which contains a red outline map of the country in the center in a white circle with the disputed

Glorioso and tromelin islands included

Yep Conflict claim statements and symbolism is great, isn't it from the center radiates green and red rays?

Positioned in a way to emulate the Ravana LaPlante endemic to the country

All of this is placed above the head of a zebu cattle with the words above on the top of the seal Republic honey, II

Madagascar Kara meaning the Republic of Madagascar and I'm a base the words. Oh, geez. Let me try this tanning trot

Sauna, ha ha ha Hana and fawned Rosa Juana which means home and liberty and development

Keep in mind though throughout the years. They've had quite a few steel changes

The last one was white instead of yellow during those years. They dabbled in socialism. They used this emblem

Which kind of used a lot of Soviet influence imagery right after independence?

They use these under the French they used this during the marina Kingdom years

They actually did have a coat of arms and the Queen actually had her own

But yeah, basically when it comes to Madagascar symbolism

They are very intent on making sure that you know that they are a unique people group descended from austronesians

all right now with that all being done and said

You know what time it is geography fan mail time over the past few weeks. It's been kind of piling up

Let's just get it over with alright, so, you know the deal we always start off with postcards. We got a lot of them

Let's just cover it Jakub who is checked, but sent this from the Netherlands Holland Alex sent this from San Marino Ian from Denver, Colorado

Mitch sent this from Bonn Germany Garrett from Orange County my fellow, California

We got two postcards from Japan Timothy who is Filipino but was visiting Osaka Osaka Castle and Spencer. Who is from, North Carolina

But is studying at BYU and Utah and he went to Japan for his two-year missionary trip and take a wild guess and say that

You're Mormon because that is like the most Mormon thing to say policy

Chris sent this from Belgrade Serbia, Emma whom I believe is German, but she was visiting Latvia. I think her name is Jonathon

He visited India specifically the town of link or and I believe there's a Tibetan Buddhist

Building Stephan from Germany visited Stein tail from Seattle Alex who is a seminary student in Montreal visited the Vatican

Sammy sent this from Scotland. I was really cool

This is like a holographic postcard and it was sent from Alexey and Alexandra from Germany is really cool

Fred sends this from Kenya Nairobi on this great Katya and Matteo

They sent this from Italy and they outlined the letter in the handprint of their daughter

If you guys don't remember, these are the people that hosted me and my mom when we visited the Tuscany region of Italy

Thank you guys so much by the way, how you doing?

Hope your daughter's doing great. And you have a son coming along the way Congrats

Okay. Now we have a lot of letters to open up Josh from the UK. Thank you for sending these are British candies lollies

I guess you call them a circa from Ireland. It would be really super happy mega

Awesome, if you could open this one on episode closest to May 30th, because that's my birthday. Well, happy birthday

Circa, but it is cool. I actually got something from China

it's not very often that I get something from China because you know

The the internet rules over there unless you have a VPN proxy server. You can't watch YouTube

So usually I get stuff from like Taiwan or Hong Kong. But yeah, Kevin from Beijing Wow

He sends its really cool postcard of the Forbidden City says I'm a viewer from Beijing and you have a community from Beijing

I've been watching since the Germany episode. That's really cool. It's like even though YouTube is restricted out there

You still find a way to watch it. And that's crazy. You guys are I appreciate that. Alright Prashant from India. Ooh

Flag hey Paul, Noah, ken Keith and Caleb, by the way, guys, you can send fan mail to those guys too. Not just me

I am sending you an authentic flag made of cloth specifically khadi cloth from the

Karnataka kadhi gram mood yoga Samyukta song area they are the only

producers authorised by the Government of India to produce flags Oh

Andre from Poland beautiful postcards of Warsaw the capital big old book on Poland

Well, I hope I do the Poland episode of justice and I hope you like it man. It is really cool

We got something from Belarus. I think I've only gotten a few things from Belarus before so you're in the minority little fridge magnets

Hey Barb's and the team. I'm Yulia from the beautiful country Belarus, by the way

We have a 5 day free visa for tourists applied in 2017. I heard of that. It's really tempting me now

I really wish I could go sometime then from, Missouri

I'm sending you some local honey that my dad and his old work pal Karthus. Ah, this is really cool

We got something from curse out

Yeah, look at these postcards and of course the coração flag on top I Barb's how are you? My name is Kevin?

I'm 24 from coração, here are a few sentences

You can say in papiamentu heavily resembles a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese one. Beanie means welcome quanta by means

How are you, Bon? Dia Tati? No Qi means. Good morning afternoon evening

Nolan from Illinois, he is a Russian American. He's proud of it Ava from

Kosovo

Serbians I know I know. Hey, I'm Ava I'm from Kosovo. I was born and raised in Pristina

I learned from your videos and found out some information on countries. I didn't even know existed good for you sometimes

I wonder if you're gonna do an episode on Kosovo. Yes

So Ava as you know

I'm following the UN and so

I'm gonna do all the fully recognized States first and then the observer States Kosovo is an observer state so you will have to wait

I'm sorry, but yes, that's the rule. I follow I go by what the UN does

Yeah, I think that's very ancient

I've gotten postcards from Kosovo

But I've never gotten like an actual close of our person send me something. So I think you're the first one. Thank you

Okay. Now this is the best thing ever Mateus from the Czech Republic. He wrote like the funniest letter ever

First of all, I'm guessing he drew a picture of him and his friends on the letter

He says hey Barb's after two days. We have finally finished watching all the geography now episodes in a marathon

We started at 4 p.m. On Friday

We went to sleep after the Republic of Congo we continued to get on Saturday from Costa Rica at the Iceland episode

We took a bottle of wine and played the drinking game due to your horrible pronunciations

We ran out of wine before the episode ended we started to go crazy around the Ireland episode

But we made it at 2 a.m. We finally finished the Luxembourg episode

We'd like to ask you a small favor

Please use Comic Sans in your video at least once also try to say this Czech tongues twister. Oh, geez stole

teacher yet

Awesome, and he also sent this picture of the GN crew me Noah Ken and Keith and over there on the side at the Bob

Saget

You go check people. I get you check people are party animals, you know that and now we got some packages

Let's open them up first one Tyler from Pennsylvania. This is a ship happy

Shippensburg University I've sent you a t-shirt from my school shit finn's burg University PS. I hope I got your shirt size, correct

Let me check. Is it a men's size medium? Ah

Yeah, you didn't get a large. Sorry, man. You got it wrong

I'm a men's size medium medium just uh, just a little heads up. Okay next up

We got a package from Ireland. Okay. Look at that. This is the most Irish thing I've ever seen in my life

Leprechaun on top of the box what is inside? Oh

They love these chips so much. They literally made a theme park based off of them

What is this a shamrock thing and a leprechaun hat? I guess a leprechaun glasses

Leprechaun bowtie. Hey Paul, my name is pronounced Ian with an R before it rien, I guess rien rien

Okay Your name is Ryan and I am a teacher here in Ireland while watching a flag Friday episode the children asked if they could send

You any something and we put together this little box for you

If you could show this in one of your videos, it would make them so very happy. Well, not only am I showing it

I'm wearing it. There is also a letter here for you written in going to get the Irish language. Yeah, that's so cool

I honestly think that's one of the coolest things about Ireland just the fact that you're trying to keep the language alive

Keep on speaking your language and finally one more package from Denmark

Hey Barb's that right - from Aarhus Denmark as a historian

It's very interesting to learn about new information and often inspires me to research more

I send you some Danish stuff nice little postcard, of course Legoland Danish flag

Danish schnapps, by the way, as we always say kids if you're underage do not drink we do not condone underage drinking

I am of age though so I can enjoy this but if you are not of age do not drink and even if you are

Of age drink responsibly. Yeah, I can't wait to try this. All right, so that's just about it

But before we go, you know what time it is it's time for a return address contest

I put all of your return addresses in this bag right here

I pick one out and whoever wins I send a little gift - and that gift is a scratch-off map

We are collaborating with geography Frederico. He has his own online store where he sells these things

It's at this link right here, or you can go to the one in the description

So if you win you get one for free if you don't win you can buy one if you want

But yeah, let's do this. All right, so I'm just gonna pick

See

Aziz from

Kazakhstan, ooh, we never got a Kazakhstan equator before you just want to yeah guys. That's the episode

Thank you so much for putting all your hometowns and places and countries on display. Really appreciate it. Thanks for watching

You guys have just been flagged stay tuned for the next episode stay cool. Stay tuned. I kind of just said that but whatever