gratitude

I've been in Bambili for a week and let me tell you, it's beautiful. Incredible. I really can't do the place justice with adjectives so I'll have to describe it. On the walk to school I see a waterfall. Around the campus there are rolling green hills and taller mountains here and there. On the road I see bright yellow birds, blue birds and gray birds with a twinge of red flitting back and forth among hibiscus flowers, mango trees and palms.

The next village up the road called Sabga has herders leading their cows to graze along the hills and 3 more waterfalls along the way. Women were washing clothes in the brook which flow from the waterfalls and I spotted houses, fields of crops and horses along the higher rims of the hills.

I walk uphill for 10 minutes from my house to ENS campus (Ecole Normale Superior) on a red earth road that has taxis and motos waiting at the intersection to take people upwards and inwards, leaving behind a black puffs of exhaust. (Breathing that, not so enjoyable but it all fades into the clear blue sky and cool mountain air.) People say here in Bambili, there will be "no problem" and that has been true. I am well taken care of, I feel accepted and people greet newcomers with a, " You're welcome."

It rains almost daily so people tend to carry umbrellas with them whever they go but dry season is approaching, which means the grasshoppers will also be arriving. It is very chilly in the morning and at night. I enjoy the rumble of thunder and the pounding of rain on tin roofs, so I like to sit outside a lot on the terrace. That's where I chill with my housemate, Jacqueline, who is a Peace Corps volunteer, 50+, a grandmother, and has an adventurous spirit yet pratical and down to earth. She's half French, half Cherokee Indian, and lives in Sweden. Truly, America is a melting pot shown by the mix of people here... and I have to explain sometimes that yes, "I am American and Chinese. I am both." Jacqueline teaches Chemistry at ENS and for her, and the million other ways she has made my transition here much eaiser, I am so grateful.

I am getting the hang of pidgin, actually more like learning the rhythms of it, trying to catch the English words I can understand and piecing conversations together. It is the language of the street, the market, of the home. It is not allowed at the university for obvious reasons and a big sign reminds students of it. The extent of my comprehension include: "Afternoon. How?" (Good afternoon, how are you?) "This expensive na." "Cheap-o." "Chop." (food) "Man hand side (right side) "woman hand side" (left side) and "plenty, plenty." I've a long way to go to learn the lingo but this is an Anglophone region, so people generally speak and understand English.

The rhythm of life here starts at the break of dawn (5:30am) when children get ready for school and people get ready for work. So my night ends early around 10:30pm and I go to bed. The rhythm of the university is a bit more uncertain. Some professors arrive an hour early to find no students, and some students arrive an hour early to find their professor has not come for the day. There are no assigned classrooms, which makes the first few weeks of school more difficult and definitely frustrating for first year students and new professors. Today I shadowed a 400-level English class and 4 students showed up out of 40. 10%! But this is how things roll at the start of the semester.

My first English discussion will be this Thursday, and students I've spoken to seem very interested. I hope it goes well! I can't believed things have turned out smoothly thus far and I feel incredibly blessed. Jacqueline said that there are some people you are bound to meet in an exact place that is just too perfect to be coincidence. Some people are just meant to cross your path. I say this because Jacqueline's friend Allison, another Peace Corps volunteer visited this past weekend. Turns out, she graduated from University of Illinois in 2009 and worked at the Career Center as well. I didn't knew her from before, but what a small world, to encounter someone in the middle of Bambili who went to the same school, worked for the same place and knew the same people. I knew she looked familiar... haha.

'Tis all for now. As they say here, "Shortly!"