My City

My city is a metropolitan area of a population of about 325,000. It is a tightly compact built city where you can walk anywhere important in 10-20 minutes; although, the best hot pot restaurant is on the outskirts and takes maybe 5 minutes by taxi. It is only a 20 minute bike ride to the edge of town where you will see the vast amount of tan, mud-barren, winter farmland that is sprouting its first greenery of spring. The streets are never empty except in the mornings. The city is not an early riser, yet it goes to bed early. At 9 pm the streets feel empty. On Sundays, you can barely move due to the crowds that take to the streets to shop in its many stores. Also, you do not want to do errands when school lets out for lunch. The streets become a critical mass of bikes. There are five bus routes (1 RMB, $0.16) and a ton of green taxis that charge 4 RMB ($0.66). It is a walkable city yet everyone loves to take a taxi. There is a church, a mosque, and a Buddhist temple. There are three fast food chicken places and several western restaurants where the pizzas are terrible.

It is a miniature Chinese city, a shrunken version of the bigger ones. It has all of the same stores, restaurants, and even has the same look. Maybe the uniqueness of my region comes with the homes built within the clay walls of the plateau, but that is the countryside. My city reminds me of all other Chinese cities except it is smaller, yet the number of people doesn't feel any less.

What if I get sick in China?

Today I had a tour of the local hospital.

The inpatient wing is totally new with lots of fancy machines and with a floor full of labs that test for many things even HIV; although, that particular lab was locked and empty of technicians. There is even an MRI; although, that fancy machine is in a half torn down building. The outpatient wing is an old run down building, but right beside it is a new building being built. As soon as the new building is finished, the hospital will ask to be inspected again and hopefully will get the highest ranking that a Chinese hospital can receive.

So I am not nervous about the facilities.

What makes me the most nervous about getting health care in a foreign country are communication, cultural differences, and the psychological effects of not knowing what is going on while in pain.

At least, I am not in Africa anymore where health care was a day or two car trip to the capital.

Spring the Season of Life

Walking home with chocolate covered sponge cake, I heard the chirping of a chick looking for its mother. Around the corner I met its adopted mother, a little girl in a bright pink jacket. Squeezed between both hands she had a bright orange chick and a bright pink one was poking its head out of her left hand pocket. This little girl had gathered a crowd of little boys who all wanted to see her new babies.

I wonder how long the chicks will survive.

Last week I saw a yellow baby chick sprawled dead upon the sidewalk at the bottom of the trash chute. Maybe these freshly born and freshly dyed ones are its replacement.

Wear Pants

The sun has warmed up the city and I wore a long skirt, ankle length to teach in today. It was a maroon skirt that I often would wear in Africa, similar to the khaki skirts that my African female students would wear. In my mind it is a very modest skirt.

Today my Chinese language tutor commented that often in middle and high schools, female teachers are not allowed to wear skirts and dresses. If a teacher wore a skirt to class, the students would love the teacher but the headmaster would scold the teacher. I was shocked.

My African side feels like skirts are the best way to be modest, but then my sitemate pointed out, "ummm... Jennifer have you seen the types of skirts and dresses women in China wear with their knee high boots?"

Teaching ONLY 4 hours a week

This semester I was assigned to teach 12 hours:

American Literature 3 hours Seniors
British Literature 3 hours Seniors
Movie Class 2 hours Seniors
English Speaking Culture 4 hours Freshmen.

Well now I am down to 4 hours a week.

My seniors are doing student teaching and are looking for jobs for like 1-2 months which means that I don't have to teach 8 hours of class.

What am I going to do?

Well I have started looking for Chinese tutors. I hope to have maybe 6 hours a week of Chinese. I am knitting a tank top, my first piece of knitted clothing. I will probably watch movies and TV shows. Do you have any suggestions? I should start biking and doing kung fu again. I heard about a TaeKwonDo class that is given downtown. I might look into that. I have also started reading every book in the Treehouse starting with the author's name beginning with letter A. I start a book, but if I don't like it I put it down. I am not forcing myself to read books I don't like. I am just dipping in them to see if I like them or not.

I lived in Africa. I am good at keeping myself occupied.

Chinese Female Athletes

Last night I went to the PE students' basketball championship.

At my college you can major in physical education. If you do you will study sports and have to play different sports. Each grade in the PE department forms a team, is coached by the their head teacher and plays in a tournament. Last night the girls' championship was between the seniors and juniors.

The girls were quick and strong. They hustled and were very aggressive. There was a lot of physical contact on the floor and a lot of fouls that took girls to the floor. I was shocked.

Their basketball skills though were not that great, a lot of passes going to nobody, a lot of panicked decision making, and a lot of open players who never got the ball. After 3 quarters the score was 24 to 26. The juniors were winning because they were able to score off of fast breaks. Offense was a bit all over the place. On the team of seniors it seemed like there was only one girl who actually ever was able to hit her shots.

Watching the Chinese students play, reminded me of myself, the quickness and hustle, giving it your all even if you lack the skills.

Next week is a teacher's basketball tournament. I wonder how the English department's female team will be. If I play and if Caitlin plays, we might have a chance. Caitlin is like super tall compared to everyone else. The problem is, if the other players aren't good, it will be hard for Caitlin and I to play well.

When I have played with the boys, having a point guard who looks at the court helps me score a lot. I do backdoors all day. But not having such an experienced player who looks makes it harder, coz then I will be the one having to look, passing it to an open player who probably can't shoot.

Oh well, it is about having fun, not about winning.

Tired of Chinese Food

Chinese food is so delicious and I am TIRED of it. My vocabulary is not big enough to get a good variety of food.

The campus is surrounded by the same types of food: various types of noodles, dumplings, and vegetable sandwiches. If I go to a restaurant that serves dishes, my vocabulary is limited to a variety of vegetables, the green ones, potatoes, and eggplant.

Thank goodness I am learning how to speak more Chinese or else I would never eat again. Can you believe that someone who had a 2 year diet of spaghetti and cans of tomato paste along with the bland local food in Africa would complain about Chinese food?

I have recently learned how to order
cucumber pork soup
sweet and sour pork
pork that comes with pancakes to make "burritos"
a crepe like tortilla fried with eggs and filled with lettuce and carrots.

I am eating again.

Plus I got my gas tank refilled and made a pork and green vegetable soup. Yum.

From the US to Home Sweet Home

It took 15 hours to fly from Atlanta to Shanghai.

It is incredible that we could be in the air for that long. Thank goodness the airplane was empty and I had a whole row to myself, a perfect bed for the surrealness of being on a dark airplane for 15 hours, watching personal movies on the screen in the headrest of the seat in front of me, knitting, and in a grogginess waking up for a drink or food.

The trip back to my city of Xifeng took forever.

Plane Huntsville to Atlanta 1 hr
Plane Atlanta to Shanghai 15 hours
Plane Shanghai to Xian 2.5 hours
Bus Xian to Xifeng 6 hrs

And that doesn't include all of the waiting time. I had to spend a night in Xian since I arrived at 8 pm.

Xian to Xifeng can be quick, 3 hours, if you spend $20 or can be slow, 6 hours, if you spend $10.

The cheap way is terrible! My site mate and I got to the bus station at like 9 am. When we asked for tickets, the ticket lady said no tickets and then a long flutter of incomprehensible Chinese.

Caitin and I were like ummm what are we going to do?

She went out the guarded gate where there were security people checking for tickets but because she is white she was able to go through without a ticket. I would have had a lot harder time sneaking through the security check.

When she got to the bus they said no more tickets just like the ticket lady. Then a guy approached her and said he can take her to Xifeng for 100 RMB. She agreed and returned to get me taking me to an empty van. I was like uh oh. We are going to have to wait forever till this 20 passenger van fills up.

At noon after waiting for 3 hours, the van finally got 10 passengers but as we were leaving the police stopped the van and started video taping. The driver gave us back our money and directed us to the previous bus that supposedly had no more tickets. There was plenty of room. It must have been some type of scam where scammers would buy all of the tickets and then try to get you to take the van. A bus ticket is only 65 RMB compared to the van price of 100 RMB.

So we left Xian at noon and got into COLD Xifeng at 4 pm.

I went to sleep which was probably a bad idea. I slept solid till 8 pm and then tried to keep sleeping but around 2 am couldn't sleep anymore. I read one of my books and started another book and then read all of the trashy magazines I brought for my sitemate. Around 5 am I washed all of the floors coz everything was covered with dust.

And now I am back into the swing of things, no longer jet lagged with already two weeks of teaching under my belt: English and American Literature and English Speaking Culture which is basically a history course.

It feels good to be back to China. I just want to learn how to speak more Chinese so I can order a variety of food rather than the boring noodles and dumplings that I eat almost everday.

What kind of knitter am I?

Well when I first started learning how to knit about 3 months ago in China, I knitted 5 ribbed hats and all of them didn't fit.

I gave up on hats and moved onto socks. I guess knitting all of those hats was actually useful since my first pair of socks was perfect, knee highs beautiful and perfect fitting. My second pair of ribbed mid-calf socks were a bit ill-fitting. My third and fourth pair of ribbed socks were perfect, perfect enough to give as a gift.

Next I moved onto felted bags. I knitted 2 in China and tried to felt them but failed. Was it the yarn, the Chinese washing machine? On the Chinese yarn labels it had 100% Chinese words + 5% Chinese words. How can a yarn mix be 100% of wool and 5% of something else? And what was that something else? All I know is there was something that kept my bags from being felted. Instead they were just stretched-out, stupid, useless bags.

On the way back to the US, I started another bag, uncomfortable bringing double pointed metal needles onto a plane to make socks. I was hoping that maybe a US washer would do the trick. Nope. Then I started another bag with the Chinese wool and ran out of yarn so I bought some American wool and used it. Wow. The American wool felted up just fine while the Chinese wool just stretched and was ugly.

So here in the states, I have knitted 5 bags in 3 weeks. Only one of them has turned out somewhat to my liking. I gave the practice bags to little girls who filled them with plastic peas, spoons, plates, bowls, and hamburgers. Now I am working on another one, modifying it to perfection.

So what kind of knitter am I?

In my opinion, I am an industrial knitter who just knits and knits and who doesn't really care about finishing a perfect product. I just want to finish it even if it doesn't turn out well. Then onto the next one. Eventually something turns out beautiful.

Patience Dies in the Land of Boredom

I have been abroad for about 2.5 years now and here I am back in the states for a month home leave.

What have I discovered?

I have absolutely no patience for interstate driving.
It is boring.
It is flat and smooth.

In Africa and China, taking a 6-10 hour bus trip in terrible hot and cramped conditions is fun compared to American interstate driving. Why?

Well because interstate driving is BORING! There is nothing to look at except except nothing: trees whizzing by, ground, cars, another exit full of the same ol same ol.

The only interesting thing I saw on my road trip from Cleveland to DC were the farmhouses and these circle like buildings with tall roofs and no windows.

At least in Africa and China there is always something exciting happening: from a bag of oranges being thrown into the window and then a foot hopping up onto the window and then a hand reaching in to pull the bag of oranges up top to the landscapes and the people. It is like being on an amusmant park ride full of bumps and turns and things to look at.

Misery is made interesting in Africa and China.
Misery is made boring in America.

Beat Down for $5

A Chinese massage is like having the shit beat out of you. It feels like when you wipe out on a surf board and get thrashed about by the waves and currents. It is like being put into a tumbler or placed in a bed with magic fingers except the fingers are going 100 miles per hour. It is like riding in an uncomfortable hard seat car going over a 1000 bumps at full speed.

And then a small pause in the earthquake to find the small pressure point of pain.

I must remember to breathe.

The strange warm glow must mean something right?
good or bad?
Beats me.

The Holidays

Christmas came and went.
New Year's Eve did too.

Having been an expat for 3 years now, the big American holidays have faded. Christmas in Africa felt like the Fourth of July, barbecuing chicken and fish on the outdoor grill and Christmas in China felt like an educational program.

Ever been to one of those talks given by someone who just got back from some exotic foreign country. You sit in the audience learning about another country by listening and looking at a slideshow of pictures and foreign artifacts that are probably just cheap tourist trinkets. At such talks you learn but the heart is far away. The words and pictures have little meaning to one's soul. It is purely curiosity.

Christmas this year was an educational program teaching students about caroling, Santa Claus, decorations, trees, elves, presents, the Christmas spirit. We showed movies, Home Alone and Elf.

We participated in cultural re-enactments by going Christmas caroling unable to sing over the hooting and hollering of the boys' dorms. Apparently in China to show appreciation, cheer while people perform rather than after. Thank goodness someone explained that to me as glass bottles were flying out of the windows. My brain was like, oh no we are going to get into TONS of trouble, organizing a march of students whose presence created such a commotion.

A caroler did say, "Tonight is the most memorable night of my life."

Maybe there was a bit of Christmas spirit, yet it has faded. I spent Christmas day in 4 hours of oral English final exams.

New Year's Eve, I went dancing. Midnight came and went without even a whisper.

It is strange how such important emotional traditions can just fade. I wonder what else will fade, the longer I stay away.

7 am Jams

I went to a Chinese funeral several months ago and now a Chinese funeral is happening right outside my second floor window.

The family mourners are dressed in white hats, sacks, and shoes.

It is a colorful occasion. People bring paper mache animals, towers, houses, cars, DVD players, TV's, clothes, shoes and big round paper floral arrangements that remind me of the flowers they give horses at horse races. They must burn enough goods so that the one in heaven will have a nice comfortable afterlife.

It isn't the gifts that make this particular funeral memorable.

No it is the music. There is a live band of traditional Chinese instruments right outside of my window including a singer with a microphone. Plus every instrument is hooked up to an amp.

At least this morning, the music started out relatively peaceful, a pretty funeral song with lots of somber horns. Umm... but just now the cymbals and the blasting toy like horn just started.

I wonder if this is going to last ALL day.
Today is my day off.

Teaching in China

In Chengdu during summer training, experienced volunteers and staff would tell us scenarios to prepare us to teach Chinese students. I got the impression that students were shy, would not volunteer answers, would not raise their hands, would not understand our American teaching methods of student centered learning rather than the Chinese way of teacher centered lectures.

What did I find?

Well students will not ask questions when I am standing in front of them on the stage at the blackboard. They will ask if I am walking around the classroom.

Students will not volunteer information individually unless I call on them directly and then most of them will answer in low voices. They will answer as a chorus, shouting out their answers when I ask a question. It is impossible to understand the 20 voices all answering the same question in a sporadic manner.

Students love to draw posters! We drew characters from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, from TS Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", and made posters about slavery while studying Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Students have done wonderfully presenting poems to the class explaining the literary terms and the difficult meanings of poetry written in difficult language.

They love role plays and acting!

They had a blast making a board game about Oliver Twist, having a Pride and Prejudice cocktail party where they had to find a suitable fictional husband or wife, learning how to do dance moves from the Jazz age of The Great Gastby, learning poetry by singing the ballads of "Auld Lang Syne", and writing their own stories about why they are in the snowy woods of Robert Frost.

After the Chengdu training, I would have thought teaching Chinese students would be like pulling teeth; however, they are so creative. It is what makes 10 hours of being with them per week bearable. I would have gone crazy if I had to lecture for 10 hours a week.

A Few Days Late

Caitlin created a feast.
I was the errand girl/bus boy.

She cooked a pumpkin pie with a vegan pie crust, stuffing, a chicken, green bean casserole with homemade french onions, gravy, mashed potatoes and coffee. I went shopping for the drinks, the deep fried chickens, and made a cucumber salad. Plus I washed the dishes.

I am stuffed.

It was fun having a very American meal with six Chinese friends. It was the first time for some of them to use a fork. I didn't realize how different we Americans eat a meal. We pass dishes so that each person can serve themselves using a serving spoon instead of eating directly out of the dishes with chopsticks. We fill our plates instead of having a bowl full of rice and a bite size portion of food. We have salt and pepper on the table. We eat bread with our meals. We drink coffee and eat dessert instead of eating a piece of fruit.

The food was very American but it wouldn't have been Thanksgiving if it was just me and Caitlin eating the Western food. What made it like a holiday were the friends. Conversational music is what a holiday is all about. Now don't get me wrong the food also helped.

Turkey Day in China

Today I got a text from my students, "Hello Jen. Is today Thanksgiving Day?"

I knew Thanksgiving was coming up, but I had forgotten that it was today. Caitlin and I are going to cook a traditional Thanksgiving meal on Saturday for a couple of our Chinese friends. Living in another country, it is easy to forget the specific day of a holiday. Since we don't actually get any of our holidays off, holidays turn into weekend celebrations.

Tonight, we decided to go out to eat to celebrate. We went to the all you can eat buffet that is 30 RMB ($5). They have plenty of dishes to choose from, cold vegetable salads, hot dishes, soups, hot pot, plus appetizers like popcorn, dried kiwi, cake with sprinkles. Also, you can drink all the beer you want.

It was a disappointing meal.

My favorite tastes of the evening were the lime juice, the hot coffee, and the 5 different types of green vegetables that I could cook in my hot pot of boiling broth.

Other volunteers are celebrating Thanksgiving together; however, we are FAR from other Peace Corps volunteers (PCVs). The closest volunteer is 8 hours on a grueling bus ride and the PCVs in Gansu aren't even celebrating Thanksgiving there which means we would have to travel even further. It isn't worth it to have two days of hard travel for one day of eating celebration.

It is all right. I don't mind. I have celebrated Thanksgiving in different ways depending on the country. In Guinea I rode 5 hours by bike to Labe to celebrate a feast with the Fouta PCVs in the Peace Corps regional house. It felt more like the Fourth of July than a winter holiday as we barbecued meat on the outside grill. In Burkina Faso, I rode 2 hours by bike to the neighboring city of Kaya to celebrate with some PCVs. We cooked in three different houses and even had a HUGE turkey. Now in China, with Caitlin's microwave sized oven and her two gas burners, we will cook a feast of delicious treats.

It does feel like the holiday season here though. It is cold.

Food

Because of a recent gift, I have realized that I miss cheese and peanut butter. I didn't know I missed American peanut butter with its extra sugar . I knew I missed cheese. Every time I would go into Ouaga or Conakry, I would buy some cheese and my mouth would die from the flavor. Here in China at the nearby big cities that I can travel to, you can only find soft spreadable cheese.

At the end of January I am coming home to the tastes of the USA. I think I will live cheaply on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches along with ham and cheese. I only get like $12 per diem.

Living in China, I get a huge variety of food and don't miss food as much as I did in Africa. Here I can buy like 70 apples for $2. In Africa, one apple cost $1 and you could only buy them in the big city. The apples were imported from South Africa. Here students go out into the country and steal them off the trees.

At home, I hope to make dumplings for everyone. Dumplings are tastier than toe, an African staple.

Weeks without

Internet in my flat has been down.
I don't know when it will be back up.

My Flat

Sit, watch, listen, type
Cold impersonality
Human turned robot

Sleeping in till 8

I am a morning person and feel something is wrong. I am not waking up at 6 am these days.

In Africa I would wake up at the crack of dawn with the sun as it peered through my straw mat walls and mosquito net hung outside. School started at 7 am, so I had to be up. Even on the weekends I was up before 6 am. Sometimes I even had my hand-washed laundry up on the line and a pot of beans cooking on the stove by 7 am.

Here in China though, I am having trouble getting up. There is no sunlight and it is cold. I sleep inside with the morning light shut out by the curtains and anyways the sun doesn't rise very early here. It is only going to get worse. I doubt it will be as bad as Seattle though. And thank goodness the sun does come out everyday.

Tell a Story

If you were to play the game where one person starts a story and then the next person continues the story and so on, where would you begin? Where is the setting? Who is the story about? What conflicts would happen?

Tonight I played this game in the Treehouse, an English resource center, with Chinese freshmen and sophomores. They loved it. They hung onto each other's words, quiet until the next part of the story was told, bursting into laughter with each funny turn, sighing with compassion when things took a turn for the worse.

I started the first story with, there once was an American. I was hoping the story would continue into China with the American coming to visit. Instead the American turned into a fat president who was chased by a fat dog that was owned by a beautiful women ending with the police capturing the dog.

The next storyline was started by a student. A long long time ago, there was a monk in a temple. Whenever he hit the gong a tiger would appear. Then the tiger turned into a beautiful women who fell in love with him; however, it is forbidden for a monk to marry, to drink alcohol or to eat meat. Even with the pressure of his mother who was very angry at him for not marrying the woman, he did not give into temptation. It turns out this woman was a princess from heaven who rewarded him with a job in heaven where he lived happily ever after.

I would have never started a story with a monk or a temple. It is fascinating to me how different our stories are because of the different cultures we grew up in.

Homecoming Week

The college I am teaching at has about 10,000 students with an old campus and a new campus.

I am on the old campus and am happy that I don't have to commute the 30 minute bus ride to the new campus that is isolated on the outskirts of town. The old campus is right in the middle of "downtown" Qingyang. Everything I need and want is in walking distance, even the yarn store and the big outdoor market. Right outside the back gate there are a line of street vendors selling candied fruit on a stick and fried sandwiches filled with potatoes, eggs and whatever else you may choose from a smorgasbord of choices.

This week I haven't had to teach two days because there has been an old campus Sports Meet and Chorus Competition. On the old campus there are five departments: P.E., Chemistry, Physics, Music, and English. Each department recruited a team for the Sports Meet and students competed in Track and Field events hoping to bring glory to their department, competition in the name of friendship. And what do Caitlin and I do? We teach the English students a cheer:

u-g-l-y, you aint got no alibi, you ugly, yeah yeah, you ugly
m-a-m-a, we know how you got that way, your mama, yeah yeah, your mama
d-a-d-d-y, you dont even know that guy, your daddy, yeah, yeah, your daddy
c-u-t-e-, that’s the way you wanna be, like me, yeah, yeah, like me
c-o-u-s-i-n, thats the only place you’ve been, yeah, yeah, your cousin
n-a-s-t-y, thats why go home and cry, you nasty, yeah, yeah, you nasty
b-u-t-t, thats the way you look to me, butt ugly, yeah, yeah, butt ugly

Yep. It's a fun cheer maybe not so appropriate for a Sports Meet in the name of friendship. We rationalized though that most of the students wouldn't understand it anyways even though all students have been learning English since primary school.

Last night I went to the Chorus Competition. The auditorium was filled with students. Attendance was mandatory for Freshmen and Sophomores. Each department had a choir of about 100 students singing two songs from Chairmen Mao's era. In between each department's performance while students left and filled the stage, there were solo performances of singers and electric traditional instruments played to the background of that cheesy New age like electronic music that is created with a keyboard.

This week has been like homecoming week where any student who wants to gets to participate in singing and sports. It isn't just the elite athletes or the best singers who get to participate. No. It is anyone and everyone. Instead of a spirit of individualistic elitism, it is a spirit of community coming together to create well-rounded students. The college provides opportunities for students to study and learn academic subjects as well as opportunities for the spirit.

I live here.

I live on the second floor of teacher flats.

My living room is full of conveniences.

I would rather live in a terrace where this is my view.

A modern flat or something more simple?

I live in an on-campus teacher flat. It is roomy with many modern conveniences; although, these days I sit in my flat feeling cold. The heat won't be turned on till November. I need to buy more layers, a couple pairs of pants to wear under my pants and a couple pairs of shirts and vests to wear under my big sweaters. I really need to buy a jacket that stops the wind. I am busy knitting and crocheting hats, scarves and gloves. My next project will be socks.

I like this modern flat, but honestly I would rather live in the country, in a farming community with a well and no electricity. I would rather live in this home that is carved into the wall. Maybe I can buy one for my retirement.

Culture Shock

I didn't get much of a chance to be in the states after living in Africa for two years. Two weeks stateside isn't long enough to feel the culture shock between West Africa and Alabama.

One of the biggest culture shocks I have had living in China these past few months is men and women talk to each other. In Africa, men gathered in gossip groups with men. Women gathered with women. In China I find it weird seeing men and women having dinner together, find it weird to see young people going out in mixed gender groups. I find it strange to see men taking care of babies, taking little children out for walks, holding children as they pee into the street.

Actually though I don't talk to many men here in China. In Africa, I talked more to men than women because men spoke French while women only spoke local language. Here though I talk mostly with female students. The English department is saturated with females. There is like a 5:30 ratio of men:women in the English classes.

Other than this, there hasn't really been a big culture shock. I do find that I am really disconnected to US culture. It seems like a culture from long long ago.

I love sports

The skies were blue.
The wind was strong.
I went to the tan track.
Lanes had been carved into the hardened mud.

Groups of students had gathered for PE lessons in Kung Fu, volleyball, Tai Chi, gymnastics, and track and field. I found the English major sophomores who were going to learn Tai Chi. I moved energy along and against the wind. I was soft and slow.

Next week I am going to be the wind.
I will join the Kung Fu students.

American?

I am Chinese.

The Chinese say, "You look like Chinese."
Foreigners say, "Wow you speak English really well."

I just have to face the music that I am Chinese.

Verb tenses?

Written in chalk upon the ground, at the busiest intersection of the city, written both in Chinese and English, a young woman was asking for money to pay for school tuition. With her head bowed, she was kneeling on a cushion in front of her beautiful handwriting holding a pile of cash. A curious crowd had gathered to read. It felt old and traditional. It felt honorable.

Ball Hogs

I have been playing basketball with people from the English department. It has been years since I have touched a basketball. I am surprised that my body remembers how to dribble and how to shoot. It is like riding a bike. I just need to fine tune some of my skills.

I really like playing with the Chinese students, teachers, staff, and workers.

They are not ball hogs.

I was afraid that being the only girl out there I would never get to touch the ball. But they are NOT ball hogs. Even the worse player on the team gets to touch the ball. It makes basketball super fun!

Of course I haven't played with a group of seriously competitive players; however, my three point shot is coming back. I might soon be able to compete against the best. I definitely have the experience of looking at the court. I tend to be really good at assists since the players are not the best defensive players.

Tomorrow I will be up at 6 am to play basketball until 8 am. Basketball has become my new addiction.

First Week Observations at Site

Students wake up by 6:30 am and fill the sports terrain. Imagine thousands of students doing morning exercises for five minutes.

Students then go fetch hot drinking water from pipes that run along the buildings. Imagine them carrying brightly colored thermoses.

Students recite their lessons to trees before class. Imagine our trees being the smartest ones.

Students pay about $1 to use a public shower that is in a separate building from their dormitories. Imagine that on a cold winter day.

Students were surprisingly enthusiastic when I asked them to draw one of the Chaucer Canterbury pilgrims. Imagine a classroom of 37 students filled with oohs and aahs when I pulled out the colorful markers.

Students share a computer screen with one other student in the technological learning lab for the audio visual class. Imagine students wearing bright colored booties to keep the lab clean.

Chinese American in China

Throughout my life I have been a minority.

In high school, my brother and I were the only Asian Americans. In college, I was the only Asian American living on campus. In graduate school, there were a lot of Asian Americans, yet I still felt like an outsider. Even if I look like other Asian Americans, I am not in touch with my ethnic heritage, my ethnically labeled culture. I was raised in a white American family, as an adopted Chinese daughter.

In Africa, I was the foreigner who got many stares and an occasional, "Hee haw." It was a greeting that became popular due to a West African comedian and a song that says hello in like 100 different languages. "Ni hao" had become "Hee Haw;" although, in Dakar, because of the many Chinese merchants, "Ni hao" was correctly said.

It is a confusing conundrum for me. I look Asian but I am not Asian. I have lived in many environments where I am the only Asian, where my uniqueness comes from the color of my skin and the blackness of my hair. But that physical label doesn't really say anything about me.

Now I am in China. I am Chinese in China. I look like everyone else. I am Chinese until I open my mouth. Even when people especially the older people hear my terrible Chinese, they hold fast to their idea that I am Chinese. Younger people nod in understanding when I say I am American Chinese. They are more aware of the huge population of Chinese in the USA.

Here in China, walking around silent, I am not unique unless I wear an African outfit, then I get stares like back in America when I shaved my head and dyed it pink. Walking around anonymous, part of the crowd I feel a sense of belonging, a sense of community rather than being an outsider. But as soon as I open my mouth, I become a curiosity and a center of attention. I become the outsider.

So who am I? To Chinese, I am Chinese because of my physical features. To Americans, I am Chinese American because of my cultural upbringing. To myself? I am an American who cannot run away from her skin color and it is my physical features that confuse me the most.

I was hoping to find answers in China.
Instead, I only find more questions.

How do I connect to my ethnic heritage? If I start acting Chinese, copying the customs and mannerisms of the population, will I become Chinese? Where do I belong? I often struggle with the idea of wanting to belong yet also wanting to be different, to be that outsider who is unique but who also has a community. Yet in my search for community, I instead find the solitude of an outsider.

Maybe the answer is as simple as, I belong with my own personal community of friends who don't think about my skin color or my cultural background. They just see me, their friend.

As a roamer from country to country, from culture to culture, I am a chameleon who can change to fit into my surroundings. Even if it may appear on the outside that I fit in, that I am the green of a tree or the brown of a wall, I am a lizard on the inside. The question is who is that lizard?

2nd Day in My New Hometown

After a two day car trip about 17 hours of driving through beautiful China on its new expressways that cost like $20 at various tollbooths throughout the three provinces Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu, I finally arrived at my new home.

Instead of a dead campus, it has come alive with students, vegetable and fruit ladies, plus thermos bottle and plastic goods merchants and all of the street food noodles and stuffed thick pita bread sellers. All of it is right outside the back gate of my campus which is about a 5 minute walk from my 2nd floor apartment.

My PC site mate fixed a lentil soup for dinner and then we went for a walk, the busyness of the campus street died pretty quickly as we marched past the gate welders and the carpenters. Walking in what we thought was a square block, we learned it was a triangle as we surprisingly ended back where we started. The street had become filled with bright costumes, girls in white tutus and big green feathered headbands or big sunflowers attached to their fronts. We followed the parade of girls into a stadium filled with dance troupes, a huge outdoor stage setup along with stage lights and a huge TV screen. My site mate attracted many of those cute girls who speak more English than we speak Chinese. They asked, "Will we play hide and go seek with them?" We learned that they were practicing for a big show that will be happening the day after tomorrow.

My new city is a crowded place with a small town feel. Community is right outside our gate and people are curious about us wanting to get to know who we are, wanting to help us with whatever we may need.

I am also excited because I have been seeing little boys running around in TaeKwonDo uniforms and at the stadium that is right across the street from our campus' back gate, I saw big posters advertising TaeKwonDo. I sure hope they have classes for women who are my age. The biggest challenge will be to communicate how much lessons cost and how many lessons there are per week.

I am only teaching 10 hours a week of American and English Literature. I have a lot of free time and will be able to participate in many fun activities. I am hoping to take up piano again. The music department is on our campus as well as the chemistry department. I have been invited to give a few lectures on chemistry.

From Simplicity to Modern Living

I imagined dark boxcars, the wall made of wood, the windows little slits at the top of the car, the toilets open holes where you can see the ground speeding by. Instead I found myself inside of an enjoyable air conditioned, big windowed train car that reminded me of a hostel. There were three bunk beds stacked on top of each other, 6 total beds in one cubicle. There were sinks, squat toilets, and all you can drink hot water. The views from the bay windows were breathtaking. The 15 hour train ride passed peacefully. I fell asleep for 8 hours. Thank goodness I am used to hard beds, and the Dramamine probably helped.

Arriving in Xian, we were instantly met by two people from the university, one from the foreign affairs office and the driver. It took us 6-7 hours to get to my new home in Gansu as we stopped for lunch, watermelon, and the traffic jams of two lane narrow highways where cars pass across solid yellow lines. The roads between my city and Xian are quite bad with bad drivers too. The combination doesn't make for timely travel. A new expressway is rumored to open in October possibly making the trip only 3 hours. We drove up and down plateaus into valleys admiring the beautiful views of farmland, corn and wheat, seeing the goats and sheep, the stacks of hay, and the rosy cheeked farmers.

My new home is absolutely decked out, fully furnished each room full of furniture including all of the electronics: computer, printer, TV, DVD player, stereo, Internet, scanner plus a fridge, microwave, and washing machine. There are two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, and a dining area. It is absolutely luxurious!

The campus is small about 10,000 students split between two campuses. The English department has about 1,000 students. I will be teaching English and American literature about 10 hours a week. I am excited about using the extra time to play piano, to play basketball, to start a knitting group, and to learn a martial art. At the back gate of the campus is a block long market full of gorgeous fruits and vegetables plus stores and restaurants galore. The town is small (population 200,000) but feels like a big city because it isn't spread out.

Thursday I will be heading back to Chengdu, the two day trip. I do have a site mate who is also from Peace Corps, but we are pretty isolated from other volunteers. During winter it gets cold and may get lonely. I am not worried though. I survived the isolation of Africa.

Community

Every weekend morning since arriving in China, as I wash my laundry, I have listened to the beat of drums and the crash of cymbals. When I peer over the wall of the outdoor patio of the 6th floor roof, I see a group of women marching, drumming, and shouting at the next door government building.

One of my friends Renee has a goal of wanting to have a meaningful conversation with older people. I thought to myself, the drumming group of women would be a perfect place to practice. I invited Renee and we went yesterday.

We were a bit worried because we didn't hear any drums but when we arrived a group of older women had gathered. One big red drum was on wheels. Hanging from the tree were bright colorful silk bags that the round snare drum shaped drums were pulled from. Other women were holding bright red velvet bags that carried golden cymbals tied with bright yellow cloth.

The women welcomed us with bright smiles and handshakes. There was such a warm feeling as women laughed, played, sung and danced, teasing each other and showing off, and we hadn't even started yet. Slowly women gathered their drums strapping them to their bodies with bright red silk straps, helping each other untwist and arrange the silk pulling out thick wooden drum sticks with bright yellow strips of long cloth tied to them.

Women lined up and I was feeling, "hmm... can we actually join in? We don't have any drums or cymbals." But then I noticed two women didn't have them either. One only had fans which she used as drum sticks upon an air drum, and the other used her hands imitating the cymbals. Renee and I would be cymbal players.

I thought it would be easy, and the first action was. One line of drums and cymbals rushed another line of drums and cymbals like two armies meeting on a battle field. But from there it got more elaborate as drums circled cymbals, as cymbals circled drums, as drums and cymbals looped and ran around in organized patterns, arranging themselves into set formations just like marching band. But with a smile, I just ran along.

After the first set, we rested and yes I was sweating. We were surrounded by smiling women all very interested in why I couldn't speak Chinese and where I was from. Everyone tells me that I am Chinese and there is no way I can convince them that I am American. I just nod and say "I am Chinese and I live in America." My limited language is not strong enough to explain the diversity of America especially to women who speak a Sichuan dialect while I am learning Mandarin. They asked if Renee was from France. They asked her age and when she told them they smiled happy to welcome her rejoicing her age and their ages, a joy of being older.

The leader of the group was gorgeous with a glow to her and a smile that showed an unforgettable spirit of joy. Her inner beauty shined through the glow of her face. The way she moved and danced while directing the band of similar glowing women is the type of essence I seek.

In my older years, I want to live in such a community where women get together every weekend to drum, a community where you can walk to the local farmer's market where the possibility of running into your friends is easy.

I want to find the love and touch of people rather than the TV babysitter and the walls of cars.

Individual Responsibility Toward the Environment

Many individuals in China do their part in helping the environment.

The apartments have squat toilets which use less water.
Many reuse water, saving it for other uses.
Many don't use disposable diapers.
Many recycle anything that is recyclable.
Many use electric motor bikes.

Life in China Tidbits

Model school ended on Friday. It was a three week model school but I only taught for 7 days. My teaching partner taught for the other 7 days. On the last day of school, our students did presentations and since our theme was Summer, we had a summer picnic and played Frisbee. We had started out with 32 but on the last day only had about 10. I think summer is a busy time for students and they want to go home to visit their parents.

What were the highlights of model school?

The biggest highlight for me was all of the laughter and noise. Noise meant that the students were speaking English which was one of our teaching objectives. My students did interviews for a summer job, did speed dating, and played taboo like games. It was a good learning experience.

My computer crashed which made it slightly inconvenient to prepare lesson plans. The nice thing though is that one of my students is going to help me fix it.

I had to take two buses to where my student lives. The first bus was easy. The second bus was a bit more difficult.

Where do I get off? Which direction do I go?

My limited Chinese was understood by the bus driver and he told me where to get off. My limited Chinese was mispronounced and confused the 5 people I asked at the new bus stop. I didn't know which direction to take the new bus. I had to cross the busy 8 lane street 5 times as each person told me something different. Finally one man corrected my Chinese, not shi da, but shi fan. Since he finally got what I was saying, I trusted his directions and ended safely at my destination.

Now I have 3 hours to spare, waiting to meet my student. Cyber cafes are everywhere. Plus I can go window shopping; although, I don't have a lot of money. We get $5 a day. Food is cheap only $1 a meal, but clothes are more expensive maybe $10 for a really nice skirt. I like the skirt. Shall I splurge?

The other day I got a haircut, boy short (very few young women here have boy short hair). It only cost $2 and it took like an hour. The hair washing and head massage lasted like 20 minutes.

Life is China is wonderful.

In a couple of days I will learn where I am going to be living for the next two years and then will all by myself go visit either taking a train or a long distance bus. Hopefully my Chinese will be correctly pronounced and understood.

Living in Luxury

Living in campus university apartments for staff and teachers, is a step up from living outside with the frogs, stars, mosquitoes, and scorpions of Africa. My host family is pretty well-off. The father is a retired Chinese language teacher. He was the vice-president of a university.

Our apartment is on the fifth floor, the top floor and is a huge living space. There are two floors with the top floor having an outdoor patio with a lot of plants and where the washing machine is kept. There are 4 bedrooms, 2 sitting rooms, a small kitchen, and 3 small rooms plus two bathrooms. I still have a squat toilet though. It is a nice one. It flushes.

The living room probably will indicate to you just how luxurious my life is at the moment. Notice the pears on the table. My family always has fruit sitting out for me. We never use the tall air conditioner.

My bedroom is lovely. I have a hard bed which reminds me of sleeping on the rope cot in Africa, a taste of home. Back in the states I didn’t have time to get used to the soft beds. I have a nice desk where I spend most of my evenings learning Chinese or working on lesson plans. During practice school, I will be teaching English for 7 days on the theme of Summer. My teaching partner and I came up with the theme.

My bedroom has a clothes rack and I have the bottom cabinets of a bookshelf to put my clothes. There is a lovely big window which brings in a cooling breeze. The one bad thing about my room are the mosquitoes. I thought by moving to China I would escape from those tiny insects. I do have water though, so I don’t have to worry about staph which basically ruined my skin. My room has a guess what, air conditioner. I don’t find China to be too hot so I never use it. My host family noticed and gave me a fan which is nice. The fan is all that I need.

Life is good. I have no complaints. My biggest challenge is learning Chinese.

Daily Life in China

What is my school week in China like?

I wake up at 4 am and study Chinese.

6 am I go for a 30 minute run then eat a breakfast of yogurt sucked through a straw, a piece of bread and fruit.

7:30 I head to school, a 7 minute walk. (I am living on Chengdu University's campus in teacher's housing.)

8:30-10:15 Chinese language class

10:30-12:00 General session on cross culture, teaching English, safety security, or health

12-1:30 Lunch on your own

1:30-3:15 Chinese language class

3:30-5:00 Another general session

6:30 Dinner with host family

9:00 Bedtime

Food

As a young girl, my favorite food was Chinese dumplings called jiaozi.

Here in China, it is one of the first words Americans learn, an easy dish to order at a restaurant. We only soon realize that restaurants don't serve jiaozi. You have to find the special hole in the wall places that sell dumplings and noodles.

Today, my family left the house early to go to the market to find the freshest vegetables on the day when veggies disappear quick, a Sunday full of thousands of shoppers. The market is such an interesting lively place full of wriggling eels, huge frogs, plucked geese being blow torched, peaches, and watermelon and hundreds of other food goods. We bought bak choy, dried tofu, green onions, eggs, thousand year old duck eggs, ground pork, cucumbers, and jiaozi wraps.

Freshly made jiaozi wraps! Yay! Dumplings for lunch.

It was super fun watching my Chinese host mother make dumplings and helping her stuff and squeeze them shut. I did a good job coz none of mine broke open when placed in the boiling water. I was proud and was rewarded with a tummy full of the most delicious things ever.

For dinner the ingredients we bought became a cucumber and thousand year old duck egg soup, a bak choy stir fry, a dried tofu and green onions stir fry, and jiaozi leftover from today's lunch that was rewarmed by deep frying. Yum yum!!!

I am excited about learning how to cook Chinese food.
I shall invite you to Chinese meal when I get back to the states.

Things Seen

The veggie market is gorgeous! It reminds me of West Africa's food markets except there are a lot more greens and other veggies.

Girls are very feminine here, not sure how I will adapt to that. Will I change into a femme who wears high heels and cute little dresses? My host family has already commented that I don't wear lipstick and I shouldn't eat too much. They don't want me to get fat.

The food is simple and delicious. The flavor is the vegetable itself. My host mother cooks about 5 veggie dishes each evening. It takes her two hours. We don't eat much meat, maybe a bite or too. The meals suit me just fine.

The family is very close. The first Sunday I was here, the father, the mother, the daughter and me all went to a clothing store and helped her pick out the best dress that everyone liked. She changed 4 times allowing us to see the two different dresses several times to help her make a decision. It took us about an hour to make the decision.

Men here walk around with their bellies showing. They hike up their shirts coz it is so hot.

I do not find Chengdu hot. Africa was A LOT hotter. I have no complaints about the weather. The other day we had a rain storm, lightening bolts from ground to infinite sky, tremendously powerful strikes seen from the glass wall of our language class.

When a little kid who hasn't been totally potty trained yet, has to go, his parents hold him out in the street and make sounds, "Shh, shhh, sway.. shhh..." I guess to help the child go. Children who are not potty trained yet wear clothes that have a slit in the crotch.

Gender roles are different here than in Africa. I see both men and women going shopping for veggies. In this household the mother cooks and the father and daughter clean up. There seems to be more equality. In West Africa most of the Peace Corps staff were men. In China, most of the Peace Corps staff are women.

My most difficult challenge so far is learning Chinese. It is hard.

Don't let Jennifer order if you are a picky eater

China is very different than Africa and is an exciting new place.

One of the main reasons I wanted to live in China though was to experience my ethnic heritage as an adult; however, being Taiwanese American in China has its challenges. I have heard about these challenges and yes they did scare me a bit, but I know that I am strong and can overcome difficulties proven by my two years of living in West Africa.

One major challenge is looking like I should be able to speak Chinese and not really knowing a word.

Tonight I went out to eat with three other Peace Corps trainees and felt the attention right away.

We walked through the alleyways between tall concrete polluted black coated buildings. We passed people sitting at hole in the wall quick eats looking for the noodle dumpling place we had gone to at lunch. Lunch was easy because our host country national trainers ordered for us. Instead of an opened restaurant, we saw the doors were drawn with the mom and pop preparing the dough for the next day. We continued down the alleyway that was just big enough for one car and walked into a noisy restaurant.

As soon as we sat down I was the person who all Mandarin was directed toward. All I could do was say, "I don't understand. I don't understand," in Chinese.

A crowd of 10 waiters surrounded our table. It was like being in a full bar with the music blaring except this place was only half full with no music. People know how to have a good time when going out to eat. There was so much noise and everyone was shouting at us. I was the only one smart enough to bring the menu that Peace Corps provided us that had Chinese dishes written in characters and explained in English. Since all of the shouting was directed at me, I had to make the decisions.

I got up and went to a table full of good food and pointed at the green vegetable dish that looked inviting. Then a waiter who spoke a little English pointed at various items on my Peace Corps provided menu and we picked two items: a pork vermicelli dish and a hot spicy tofu dish. Then the main waiter said something which I understood to mean that we had four dishes coming our way. We thought we had only ordered three.

So our three dishes came and then a HUGE pot filled with hundred of dried peppers and licorice like peppercorns filled with red oil and big chunks of fish arrived, our mystery dish finally making an appearance. But then another dish arrived, a HUGE bowl of clear broth with cabbage and a HUGE fish head. Lucky for me Africa taught me all about fish heads.

It was a meal to remember, savory, tasty, and cheap only $14 for the whole meal.

Plus I survived my first challenge, the challenge of being in a confusing atmosphere of language barriers where the locals can't understand why I can't speak Chinese and where I feel the stress of having to communicate somehow. It was intimidating but I survived. Lucky for me my dinner partners were not picky eaters.

China Bound 2008

Letters from Burkina Faso will soon become Letters from China

I have been medically cleared to go to China as a Peace Corps volunteer. I will be serving another two years along with 3 months of training. I will be teaching English at a university living most likely in a city with an apartment.

I leave Burkina Faso June 13th and on June 28th will leave Alabama for Washington D.C. where the Peace Corps volunteers will meet up before heading for China.

I am super excited!

April 19

The Peace Corps hostel in Ouaga has about 20 beds in the form of metal bunk beds; however, it is too hot to sleep indoors.

Still it is luxurious sleeping in Ouaga. I pull a good firm mattress off of the bunk beds and take it to the screen enclosed porch and place it right under the ceiling fan. It is a step up from village where I sleep under a mosquito net hanging from the rafters of my straw covered porch, sleeping on a rough, firm nylon strung cot.

Yet last night I was unable to sleep.

Why? Was it the lack of the braying donkeys, dogs, and guinea fowl? Was it that I was too cold from the cooling fan?

No.

Ants

Not your ordinary ants, like the little black ones that will quickly cover a chocolate chip cookie.
No, these were those big ones where you don't need a magnifying glass to see the different balloon parts of the scurrying creature.
Scurry here, scurry there, scurry all over my bed, and all over me.

It was like a dream, but not.

April 14

The UN is calling for international support for the World Food Bank. A food shortage is foreseen for the future. The rising cost of food will create famine.

The people of Burkina Faso are protesting the rising cost of goods demanding the government to do something. Little did I know that this is a global problem, one that is complicated. I am a chemist not an economist.

April 13

Last summer a group of us dug up dirt, mud, clay-like earth and moved it by the bucketful to raise the front porch in front of my door. We had a tapping fest packing the earth into a hardened floor, no need for cement.

This is the floor I live on. It is the floor of my living room, my kitchen, and my bedroom. Each day it fills with trash onion skins, mango skins, the stems of the wild eggplant plants from which we tore the leaves, peanut shells, candy wrappers, and bones from a goat stew. Trash is thrown onto my living space ground. Each evening before dark, I sweep the dirt using brooms made out of dried grass. Amazing how clean dirt can become and how dirty I become in the dust cloud.

Today one of my 2 year old visitors announced, "I have to pee."

But before she could get her underwear down and off to the latrine she peed right on the spot where I lay my head each night to sleep. Dirt is easier to clean than carpet. Is potty training easier in a life lived outside?

December 18

I love giving candy to my kids. They love receiving it too! It is a rare treat. 3 pieces cost 25 FCFA (4 cents), rarely does a kid have 25 FCFA. Plus they'd rather buy a boiled sweet potato or a gateau, something a little more filling than sweets.

On Monday, a day of no classes except calculating student averages some of my kids were all about working for candy.

We had a fraction fest with parentheses and brackets galore. It was fun and I liked it coz I could individualize the problem depending on the student's skill level as well as show each student what was wrong.

Sometimes the kids make me frown when they work on other homework from other classes or start gabbing when I'm talking.

And sometimes they make me smile at their enthusiasm to learn, hands stretched as high as they can go hoping to be the hand that catches my eye to be called upon.

December 16

Computers are nice.

Calculating the first trimester's grades for 260 students, weighting each subject differently, math and French valued more than the other subjects, plus having to have each student verify their averages by hand is time consuming. Time consuming! At least I have a calculator. I am thankful for my portable solar powered piece of technology.

December 15

Coming from the supermarket culture of the states, it feels weird being given raw peanuts and then boiling them in salted water.

Homegrown tomatoes and cucumbers are nothing new.

But peanuts, homegrown peanuts are new to me. Peanuts come on shelves in cans with a seal of freshness.

Washing off the dirt that provided the nutrients for my peanuts and then boiling them, or shelling them, or grilling them, or pounding them into peanut butter really puts you into the ground level of processing, a processing by the human hand instead of by an idea out of the human head that mass processes peanuts.

I don't know what I really want to say about this. All I know is that it feels different than picking a tomato, washing it, and eating it.

December 14

Nothing seems special anymore.
I have adapted and my world has equilibrated into normal:

the latrine
the bucket baths
the stars

I remember my first days learning how to squat. My muscles complained and my aim was a bit off.

My first bucket bath wasn't very cleansing or conserving. Most of the water missed me washing the floor quite well, taking twice as much water as was necessary.

Star gazing used to be a favorite pastime, now I just fall asleep.

December 13

I can tell the morning time by the color of the sky.

Instead of looking over at an alarm clock with big read numbers sitting on a nightstand, I peer out into the morning sky:

gray = not yet 6 am
orange = 6 am
back to gray = time to get up and get ready for school (6:10)

December 12

I never though in my life that I would have ever said the following:

I wish I had been a cheerleader.

It is the last week of classes at the middle school and the kids have organized a football tournament between the different grades.

The kids would love to cheer their team on with cheers. I don't know any cheers. They never stuck in my head while playing basketball or going to football games and pep rallies.

Man, I wish I had been a cheerleader.

December 11

My village in Burkina has a lot more than my village in Guinea: rice ladies, a daily taxi to Ouaga, many people who'll take your portrait for a fee, a catholic and protestant church, stores stacked high of goods, an ambulance, a cell tower, a dance club, fridges and freezers run on a bottle of gas, a movie shack.

My village in Guinea had oranges and avocados galore, a water faucet right outside my door, freshly baked French bread, and two kids who sold a table full of goods for their parents.

My Burkina village has a lot more amenities. It is a bigger village. Just like how a city has a certain coldness due to the number of strangers, my Burkina village has a certain coldness. Just like how it is harder to make friends, to find community in a big city, I also find this difficulty in my Burkina village.

My Guinea village was small and I was quickly absorbed into the community becoming an active participant, trekking 5 km by foot to attend funerals and fetes.

Sunday my Burkina village left for a big fete in a neighboring village. No one told me.

December 9

Today I went on a 4 hour bike ride.

Half of the trip was on a good dirt road used by all vehicles. The other half was on a lonely dirt path in the wilderness. I'm amazed that even being in new territory on a new path, hills have a sense of familiarity. During a feeling of being lost, a small part of me felt not lost. I recognize that hill. I'm getting close to my destination.

One can never really be lost in the wilderness because all paths lead to people and water. And people will get you back on the right path that will lead to your destination.

It gets scary when a path turns into nothing. And voila you're in the wilderness, lost.

Bling bling

December 8

I have a stack of pens on my desk, nice gel pens from the US that have run out of ink.

As I was about to throw them out, my students said, "No, we want them."

I replied, "They don't work."

"They're pretty. We can attach it to our shirts and people will say that's a pretty pen from the U.S."

I gave them the pens. I guess they are more useful as a piece of jewellery than down the latrine.

A dining experience

December 7

It is a bit unappetizing being served a whole, hot, freshly, deep fried froggy in a clear plastic baggy.

Do I actually bite the head off and start chewing? the webbed feet? It kind of makes me feel a bit queasy.

I've had frog legs before. They were fried up and yummingly reminiscent of chicken. But a whole green frog that looks like it could jump off my plate?

Just close your eyes and start tearing apart!

Well it does taste like chicken a rare taste au village. Chickens are expensive. I miss chicken. Have I found the replacement? Frogs for a quarter each?

Hmm.... I'm not feeling too good.

The legs are tasty.

But I think I'll leave the back, a fried piece of green skin and the head for the dogs and cats. I'm not putting the head in my mouth at least not yet.

I don't know. Maybe I'll leave the frogs for the locals. I waste too much of it. A kid would love the parts I'm throwing out, but its dark and there are no kids around.

I hope my stomach can hold the fine rubbery delicacy.

I think I'll brush my teeth, not sure if my stomach likes the thought or feel of frog gristle between my teeth.

December 5

Watermelons are still in season,
still red,
still dirt cheap,
50 cents for a huge ol'melon,
but a new delicacy has appeared on the food buffet
frogs
not just frog legs mind you
whole frogs that have been gutted
and deep fried.

December 4

A lone chick's unending cry pierced the air.
Would it live or die?
Could I catch and protect it till its mother came back?
I decided to wait and see how nature handled it.

Making her rounds with her 20 chick brood, she returned in search for my watermelon rinds.

Unnoticed to be missing, it ran to its family and stopped crying.

Life won today.

December 3

Our volleyball had an unfortunate accident with a thorn tree, thorns longer than your pinkie, thorns like miniature spears, strong not flimsy. The volleyball received two puncture wounds. But don't worry hopefully the patient is recovering with its treatment of super glue.

The Weather

December 2

The wind has picked up blowing my mosquito net held by clothes pins down. Has winter arrived with its billowing, blustery, chilling winds?

Girls' Volleyball

December 1

It is so much fun!

For the past two practices 20 girls showed up, showed up in skirts and flip flops, but what can you do it's all that they have.

We warmed up, clapping after each stretch. We ran and did pushups. We practiced bumping making our forearms sore. We laughed and enjoyed the friendship between us. And at the end of practice, we gave a rousing cheer, Gooooooo Girls!

Ultimate Frisbee in West Africa: Burkina Faso

November 11

Thursday was a circus.
I wonder if the kids learned anything.
In my 9th grade class I handed out personal photos with captions trying to provide examples of indefinite and definite who clauses. Because the 10th grade teacher wasn't at school, the roar of 80 students looking at pictures didn't matter. Then we listened to Lean on Me on a cassette player provided by one of the students. It was a noisy 2 hour class.

Then after class we went outside. I wanted to show them a chemistry experiment on the combustion of a candle by setting a spoonful of gas from melted wax on fire, but the crowding and pushing of a ton of interested students was unproductive.

Then the school had student body elections where 400 kids voted for their representatives by standing in a line behind their choice. The longest line of students wins. It was a literal support, "We're behind you."

Then in my 8th grade English class we listened to a song from Beauty and the Beast. It was a competition to see how many English words they could catch and write down.

And during the 15 minute morning break we played frisbee. They are all very excited to play both boys and girls. Now I just need to find more frisbees. If you're interested, send me a frisbee or a volleyball. We have one of each, but with the tons of kids a few more would be helpful. I'm going to start a girl's volleyball team and introduce ultimate frisbee.

I am Tired

November 5

Monday I gave a 2 hour math test to my 120 students.

And for the past 2 days I've been living at school grading.

I teach for 4 hours and then in the evenings help other teachers by proctoring exams for them. They split their 110 student classes in two to help prevent cheating, but it means they need another teacher to help administer the test.

When I'm not in the classroom, I'm grading except for the 20 minute break I take to eat beans and rice and watermelon from the market ladies. I stay at school all day leaving as the sun is setting, the darkness telling me to stop. You can start again tomorrow.

Tonight though by candlelight I spent an hour preparing to teach my English class.

I'm learning how to be an English teacher by just getting in there and doing it. At the moment I'm doing a pretty bad job. The 90 kids hate it, their frustration audibly heard throughout the class which makes me hate it.

Why am I having a hard time?

1) It is my first time teaching English.
2) I don't have any experience with the teaching methods the kids are use to. My methods are new and probably confusing to them.
3) I don't really have a good idea of how much English they really know.

Their book which has absolutely no French in it, is basically full of texts and comprehension questions. It might just be way to advance for them which makes it hard coz then I'll need to write my own lesson plans with no guidance.

I am tired. Will Friday ever arrive?

November 4

There is a cloud of dust right behind my wall.
There is continuous drumming,
the accompaniment to endless dust-filled dancing.

Today the village is celebrating one of its own.
He left the village 15 years ago
right after primary school to enter seminary school.

He has recently become a Catholic priest.

Tea Conversations

Each evening I drink green tea with a couple of male neighbors who are unmarried in their 30's, men who worked in the cocoa and coffee fields of Cote D'Ivoire.

What do we talk about?

One asked, "Is it true that the US government pays you if you don't have a job?"

We discussed what is the minimum a family of 4 needs to live on if no emergencies arise? We calculated $120/month and that is still living pretty poorly.

Who makes the most money in the village? People who sell alcohol and gas. Women who sell fried fish and doughnuts to school kids make some money compared to other market women who sell dolo, the local millet beer, or who sell rice and sauce.

I rarely see men and women sitting talking to each other for long periods of time. How do husbands get to know their wives? I learned marriage is more of a functional union. Your same-sex friends are who you socialize with, get emotional support from, gossip with and have intellectual debates with.

And love?
The pains of the heart of rejected love yes, do keep those so inflicted tossing and turning throughout the night.

And dating?
When market day comes people see a variety of new faces, some they find interesting, having a passing conversation here and there. And if a serious interest is felt, the man will send a representative to the woman's family. Gotta makes sure there aren't any conflicts between the two families before pursuing marriage. Think Romeo and Juliet.

One asked if I had heard about the Californian fires. I only listen to the BBC when I feel lonely or a sleepless night seems long. It's been a weeks since I turned on the radio.

We discussed China. Is it the next super power? What will the US do? Will Taiwan be the spark of WW III?

Can we go to mars?

We argued about whether it is possible to lose bone mass and argued about why muscles get sore. We each have our own ideas based on info we have heard and read. Are my ideas more valid just coz I come from a developed country with internet? Or are both of our ideas false and are only true because we believe them to be?

The October Rhythm of Village Life

6 am

Get ready for work and bike to school
7 am

Teach 4 hours
11 am

Cook a huge pot of beans, eat guavas, and watermelon,

read, write, draw, lesson plan, wash dishes
16 h

Go for a run, meditate, and shower
17 h

Have tea with neighbors
Dark

Write, listen to music, and go to bed

Images that Remind me of Home

October 24

• a toddler walking around in his father's flip flops, 4 sizes too big
• a little girl picking out the onions and the green parts and the macaroni she's never seen before to eat only the familiar beans, a little pile of the unwanted beside her on the ground
• the older sister making the younger laugh in glee playing horsey and airplane, the youngster upon the older's shins
• the younger girl using her best defense biting down during a wrestling match against her 3 year old rival

Oh Boy!

They say the season has only begun.
They say it'll be so good, chilled just like out of a fridge.
They say 50 wagons full will come to market instead of the current 10.

They say watermelon is here till Christmas.

Maybe I should grow some.

My Daily Visitor

Brigitte is a girl of 15 who has been hired to bring me 2 bidons of water from the well daily.

She is smart, one of the top in her 8th grade class. She loves telling funny stories including all of the sound effects. She is a skinny youngster with a closely buzzed head who loves clothes and would rather buy a tailored made outfit than buy a compass for math, but she'll sacrifice her wants and buy medicine for her brother who has a growing infected sore on his leg.

She has all of the answers. I cut onions and garlic wrong. I dig worms out of sweet potatoes wrong. She takes my potatoes and does it for me. She is an excellent cook who knows how to do a lot of tasty dishes with so little. She loves to contradict me, but given a logical explanation she'll accept my reasoning.

She is a devout Catholic who loves to sing and dance and knows how to balance a cup of water on her head while shaking her hips to music.

I wonder what her future will bring:

a home in the village with a husband and children
a high school education
a college education
a paying job that is not farmer or market lady?

Night Visitors

Wap Wap
its curved threatening tail
spread upon the ground
tasty guts for the ants

It's actually quite entertaining watching the life that light attracts as long as it all stays on the other side of the net. I especially like watching the lizards line up for the insect buffet.

School is Funny

October 16

Last Monday my first day of class, the student's second week of school, I went not knowing what I was going to teach. The teachers' schedules hadn't been done yet. The principal worked hard over the weekend and that Monday I learned that I would be teaching 18 hours: 10 hours of math to two 8th grades (60 students per class), 5 hours of English to one of the 8th grades, and 3 hours of English to the 9th grade (90 students).

I threw all of my 8th graders into one classroom, 3 to 4 to a table and gave a review lesson on plotting points, flying by the seat of my pants.

There was very little teaching my first week of school for several reasons:

1) There were only two teachers for the whole school, both of us math and science teachers. Two teachers cannot keep a school with 6 classes and over 400 students running. We sent the students home early after teaching for a couple of hours.

2) The second day of class I could not erase my previous day's math review lesson because there were no erasers to be found in the village. I left that class went into the other 8th grade classroom which had a clean blackboard, gave a lesson, threw those students out, and brought in the other 8th graders for the same lesson.

3) On Friday, the students and I all came to school and were told to go home. It was a holiday, Ramadan.

4) On Monday, we all came to school and were told to go home. It was a holiday, the 20th anniversary of the president being in power.

Today I finally gave my first real lesson teaching 4 hours of symmetry to 8th graders.

Finally maybe school has started. Or maybe tomorrow I'll be sent home again. I am glad unlike some of the students I don't have to bike in 10 km to go to school.

October 10

You have a tasty sweet potato yellow curry that has been simmering for hours. It's too spicy to eat alone, but when you open your rice container bugs galore.

What do you do?

October 9

I've been away from the village for about 2 weeks. It has changed.

My garden is brown.
The rains have stopped to the dismay of the farmers of unharvested dying millet.
The flies have disappeared.
It's turned hot.
Watermelon has appeared.
School has started.

Last night in Dakar

Walking back to the hotel, I was full of raw fish and raw garlic. The Korean food was served with a red sauce, leaves of lettuce, and halved raw garlic cloves. I made wraps with the surprising ingredients that mixed well with each other. I was super happy with my last meal in Dakar, a $20 splurge well worth the taste of melting fish.

The 15 block walk to my 6th floor hotel room was surreal.

I walked down the middle of the street instead of the earlier weaving through the moving masses of car jams, carts, people, motorcycles, trucks. I walked unobstructed compared to the earlier feelings of being part of a video game hugging parked vehicles watching my feet and the protruding side mirrors of taxis as they beeped their way through narrow passageways.

It was a moment of silence.

The heavens were darkening with the setting sun. The sky was full of dark birds circling above. The air was full of prayers sung from loud speakers.

It was a moment of religious silence.
Everything seemed to be praying.

The narrow alley like streets below 2 story buildings were lined by non-moving huge trucks stacked high with bags of onions, by resting metal carts, lined by rows of men facing Mecca bowing in prayer, full of wooden benches of men breaking fast with coffee and sandwiches a feeling of a quiet rush to fill empty stomachs and wet dry throats.

I felt a sense of deep reverence, a sense of deep solidarity as a city prayed and broke fast.

Culture Shock in Dakar

At the free hotel breakfast buffet, I sat in the restaurant surrounded by French tourists who were part of a bus tour group. They wore shorts and tank tops so much more skin revealed than the skin covering fashion of Senegal. Cloth protects you from the sun. How long will it take me to feel comfortable revealing skin again once I'm back in the states?

I walked into a HUGE supermarket, Wal-Mart and Target-like and was overwhelmed! So many choices food, housewares, so many products. I walked each aisle like it was a museum, an enjoyable way to spend out of the sun in air condition.

I bought cheese, ham, chocolate chip cookies, bread, and chips. It was so expensive, $12, but then I realized I had forgotten what supermarket prices are are like. I get $200 a month. Shopping in a supermarket is a luxury for special occasions. At least I didn't go on a shopping spree buying ALL of the temptations I could.

Maybe I won't binge when I get back to the states.

This small vacation away from village has given me a taste of the Western world: supermarkets, an all you can eat Korean buffet with raw fish, current movies, air conditioned hotel room, lots of merchandise to browse, lots of people watching, a favorite pastime of mine. Yet I am already tiring of it and am ready for the simple life au village.

Sticking out like a Sore Thumb

Customer service at restaurants, tailors, and cloth vendors has been exceptional. Having a friendly attitude rather than presenting a cold wall of don't talk to me facilitates a friendly exchange. Instead of thinking just sell me the merchandise, just serve me the food, I make small talk making the experience pleasant.

In contrast though out on the streets among the street vendors:

Don't make eye contact
Keep a poker face
Keep walking
Don't say anything
Don't open the door to be harassed and followed.

I feel like I don't get harassed that much maybe a total of 5 times per outing: hisses, Madame Chinoise, Japonese, Ni hao (at least they say it right here compared to in Guinea where it came out as hee haw).

Do I get harassed less because I'm Asian? There is a somewhat large population of Asians living here in Dakar, maybe the locals are use to Asians. Maybe it is because I wear African cloth and am conservatively clothed compared to those in shorts or tank tops. I don't have the air of a tourist. At one restaurant, the waiter correctly labeled me as Peace Corps. Maybe the lack of harassment is because I stay away from touristy spots or maybe I'm just really good at looking mean and unfriendly.

I'm just glad I've met friendly people and have not been harassed into an attitude of I hate this city. Downtown Ouaga in Burkina has that affect on me. I stay away from downtown, from the vendors who won't leave you alone. Take a bike so you can escape their clutches.

Here in Dakar, I'm happy exploring in peace.

Pests

How do they bite me on my clothed butt?
I've got 20 mosquito bites on my ass.
There is no room for repellent anymore.
My ass would just burn from the chemicals coating infected sores.
Who puts insect repellent on their butts anyways?

Irritating bang, bang, bang
a ceaseless banging drives me from
my netted cot
to open the
aluminum door
to let the knocking frog free
from its quest to bang itself out of my latrine.

A Visit by the Big Whigs

September 19

The National Peace Corps Director is flying into Burkina bringing an entourage of 4 from Washington D.C.

I got a call from Peace Corps Burkina. He's coming to your village. Organize something.

I've been in country only 6 months, 2 of those basically on vacation. The village is empty. My farming community has gone to the fields. How the hell was I going to organize anything? Guinea taught me the difficulty of organizing anything. No one ever shows up for meetings or maybe I never waited long enough. The philosophy of time is totally opposite of our American idea that time is money.

Here time is leisure, is visits with friends, is waiting for the rain to stop, a lack of watches, time told by the sun. Time is waiting for people to show up. Time is patience.

The Burkina philosophy is Ca va allez. Things will work out.

You will only worry yourself sick if you are a control freak.

As the day approaches things are slowly coming together.

My house is coming together, a leaking window fixed. My straw covered porch is finally back up after falling down for 3rd time a month ago.

A 11 h meeting was postponed till 15 h so that the girls could do their laundry. I think they are ready to sing. The organizational meeting took a lot of patience from me. It wasn't crisp and clean. It was a caos of girls who were happy to be together socializing. Everything was in Moore until I tried to force decisions about what songs they wanted to sing. Leadership was lacking. I didn't want to be the leader. I can't speak Moore. Even though they speak French they are more comfortable in their mother tongue. Eventually after what seemed like hours of giggling and endless chatter, I hope we have something organized.

Speeches have been written, but one of the girls pulled out for a trip with her church. Surprisingly another speaker quickly replaced her.

A skit in English on girls' education has slowly come together even with the rains that cancel practices and the inevitable buisness that pulls people away from scheduled practices.

What I've learned during this frenzy of planning is that I've got friends who know how to work in the leisure time scale of Burkina who are willing to make the event happen, who know how to gather people who will participate, even if it means walking kilometers to everyone's house to spread meeting times. It is my friends who are really making this even happen.

It isn't about being on time, or being efficient, or productive in a short amount of time. It is about having fun even if it takes more time to get a final product.

I'm planning an event where nothing is definite. Anything and everything changes. It's kind of exciting not knowing what is going to happen but believing Ca va allez that it'll all work out in the end.

September 21

The visit to my village was an enormous success! Students showed up. Songs were sung. Speeches were given and my high energy speech about Peace Corps and its work in the village was received with high praise. I am just super glad that it is over.

Fish

September 19

They scale the fresh water fish and then dip it in a wok of oil heated by burning wood. Then we eat . I've started learning how to crunch on the heads, a favored part of the fried fish. The kids are sad coz they use to always get my uneaten fish heads. Frying the fish is a way of conserving the meat for a few days. How long does it take for flies to lay eggs that become larvae? I hate having almost finished a whole fish only to find wiggling white larvae in the meat.

Glorious Food

I am going to grow super fat when I get back to the states. One thing Africa has not taught me is self-control with respect to food. Africa forces self-control by depriving, by offering limited food choices: flour, rice, meat, okra, eggplant, onions, cabbage, pasta and beans.

I could try binging on bread or pancakes, but I get awfully tired of eating them.

Amongst cheese, cookies, candy, ice cream, chips, fast food, restaurants, and piles of fruit and vegetables, I am afraid I'm going to binge.

Choose your own Adventure

September 14

Today was a day in African hell where one keeps running into difficulties and roadblocks yet you never get upset having learned to just go with the flow. In the end everything tends to work out. My proof? a bacon and cheese quiche sitting beside me.

My troubles began at 6 am. The month of fasting has started and I could not find breakfast an essential for a 30 km bike ride. I had planned to taxi into Kaya to withdraw money from the bank and then bike back not wanting to wait around till 3 pm for the taxi to return home.

The ride to Kaya was fun sitting in a big cab of a truck slightly afraid of going through a windshield that was well cracked. We stopped at one village for a long time.

Do you?

A) Start worrying and panicking that the day is progressively getting hotter, each minute ticking to make a late arrival in Kaya resulting in a tortuously hot bike ride home or
B) enjoy the sights?

I enjoyed watching 3-6 women young, old, pregnant, some with babies tied to their backs, pull water from a well and lift heavy water-filled plastic bidons and locally made mud canisters above their heads to be balanced there as they walked off. The old women have lost a lot of their muscle yet they still pull, organizing their rope efficiently for repeat drops. I could tell that their strength was disappearing. Water was carried with a wobble instead of the centered stillness of the younger women.

I watched 5 young men lift a huge bull from a donkey cart onto the back of a big truck. It was to be sold for meat, a useless bull with a broken leg. We sat at that village a long time. The next thing I watched was a long argument about money. Fists were raised but we were soon on our way and I watched village tops roll by, their walls hidden by fields of corn.

I biked to the bank looking forward to later buying watermelon from the growing stacks of market day to send home with the truck. Instead I found the post closed. I needed money. I was down to my last $10 and I was flying to Dakar soon.

Do you?

A) Wait till 15h when it was rumored that the post would re-open thus missing the 15h transport back home then A1) bike back arriving at nightfall or A2) spend the night in Kaya or
B) Take a bus down to Ouaga, withdraw money and catch the 13h taxi back home?

It was only 8:30 am giving me plenty of time to take the 9 am bus down to Ouaga a 100 km ride on paved roads (about 2 hours). I bought my ticket when the sky suddenly turned red and a rainstorm hit us. We sat at the bus station forever waiting way past the scheduled departure time for the rain to stop. Would I make it to the bank before it closed for lunch?

Do you?

A) Ask for a refund and stay in Kaya hoping to withdraw money and if the bank never opened not having enough for a hotel. or
B) Continue to Ouaga where if the bank closed before you arrived you'd have to wait till it reopened at 15 h thus missing your taxi back home and thus having to stay in an expensive hotel?

I had the idea that the post closed at 11:45. We got into Ouaga at 11:30. They took forever to get my bike down from the top of the bus. At 11:50 I got my money and stamps with 10 minutes to spare. *whew* I got my money and even got to do some expensive shopping at a pastry shop and a grocery store full of Western food: raisins, powdered milk, cookies, baking powder, and a Mars bar. I caught my 13h taxi back home not getting any watermelon, yet still happy with my rare treat of a bacon and cheese quiche.

No matter how you choose your adventure in Africa, everything eventually works out.

September 14

I spent $16 on stamps today. 16 letters? No 10. It is hard to imagine spending $16 on stamps when I can live in village for a dollar a day.

September 12

One reason I decided to go to Africa was to escape from the stress of responsibility and deadlines.

My weight is directly proportional to my stress levels. Lately I'm feeling the pull to eat. Lucky for me there are no snacks here au village.

Not only am I teaching 18 hours a week, summer science and math classes, but now I'm helping put together a ceremony for a visit by the National Peace Corps director who is flying in from Washington: speeches, skits, and singing. As an American organizing a visit by an American to Burkina Faso is stressful. Working in a different culture with a different time scale is challenging.

When nothing is at stake, I'm stress free. Here in Burkina, I have learned to put aside my American need to have things start on time, to be overly prepared, and to feel in control. Bush taxis that break down have taught me a lesson that things work out in the end. I can relax for hours, waiting for repairs.

Why is it so hard to apply that philosophy to this visit?

I am stressed instead of relaxed! I am in an organizing, meetings galore frenzy. I'm tired. I just want to cook pancakes and to weed my garden. Instead I eat on the go, never at home. I'm bringing an American attitude to Burkina *sigh* Relax I keep telling myself. The visit will arrive and it will pass.

September 2

This morning as I was aggressively weeding the tedious vines of bean plants I heard something that scared me, a loud buzzing that seemed to get closer and closer. As it got louder, I finally stopped weeding and moved toward the house keeping my eye toward the sound ready to run inside if need be. From a distance I watched a swarm of bees take over a neighboring tree.

Tonight as the sun was setting filling the sky with pinks and oranges amongst the scattered grayness, I walked in my garden. The garden is beautiful at dusk. I felt proud finally understanding why dad would sweat so much for his garden. I never understood thinking he was a workaholic who couldn't take a break and retire. Still having a third of the bean patch to weed, I leisurely pulled up some. It was just an after thought as I was walking, not the goal oriented let's get this weeding done of earlier this morning. Through this relaxed state I found a secret. Don't pull and tug at the vines trying to find the weeds. Squat down, gently lift the vine patch, peer underneath and let your hand find the mauvais herbes, a much better strategy than this morning's frustrating tedious garden work.

September 1

Corn stalks hide people's homes. Mine are puny. I'm taller than them, yet amazingly they are growing corn. Crazy!

The problem with enjoying cooking is water. Washing dishes uses a lot of water, a lot of water that is because each drop is pumped, biked and carried to the kitchen doorstep.

I should really stop eating the frozen fish flown in from Senegal that is deep fried, unless it is freshly fried. I am done with eating day old fish full of near invisible fly larvae.

Mosquitoes are so beautiful. They are so delicate, with such a beautiful pose. I could observe it forever, against the backdrop of my skin a desire to capture its figure in my sketchbook.

But my tattooed body that so obviously bears the beauty's mark- almost every Burkinabe comments on my blemished skin- swings and misses. Who knew such a delicate thing could fly so fast, just like those monstrosities called flies.