December 30, 2010

Have I ever told you of my love for foreign cities in the morning? The way the light comes softly out of the east, the purposeful but reluctant movement of people fulfilling their morning obligations: going to work, buying bread, walking their pups. The hush and silence of people bracing for a new day, so full of promise! Ladies heel lifts on the sidewalks, the hydraulic sighs of garbage trucks, the sweet melody of a tiny spoon stirring a tiny coffee.

I was out on the balcony tonight thinking about Brussels and I realized that 6:30pm bears a striking resemblance to 6:30 am. It feels like its always morning in Brussels! Quiet, foggy and semi-deserted. Now that I've realized it, I'm getting this eerie feeling, like people just sort of forgot to wake up here and they're always getting ready for their day but never actually starting it. I think this feeling is amplified by the fact that I just woke up from a nap.

I had class again this morning, but first I went to the pharmacy to pick up some Dukoral (that's a cholera vaccine my dad finally convinced me to take). I wandered around a bit before school and found a fois gras phenomenon, three shops specializing in delicious meat in one city block! It was too early for meat, so I bought some chewing gum instead.

Class was a little silly. We have another teacher, Manu, who was more than a little puzzled by the difference in our language skills. After an hour of talking about countries and cities  (Is the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen?) and listening to the ladies, Janice and Po Suan, try to pronounce Norvege, I suggested we learn some restaurant related vocabulary. Manu and the ladies were enthusiastic. So we learned about eating and hunger and asking for a table. Then it came to light that Janice and Po Suan didn't know how to say 'a table for four' because they did not know their French numbers. Then Manu, who was by this point a little exhausted, handed me the white board marker and I taught the numbers 1-10. What fun! During the break Manu told me the condensed story of his career move into teaching in basic French, which as far as I could understand was that he used to work for Caterpillar and had had a nice girlfriend and on the day he turned 40 his girlfriend dumped him and he got fired from his job. He kept saying 'ground zero, ground zero..."

I arrived home to a very fragrant house; my aunt had just taken a freshly baked loaf of bread out of the oven. We ate it up like starving pidgins. After lunch I tried to do a little homework, but I spaced out right away. I partially blame the 2 glasses of wine I had with lunch. I suddenly became so unbearably tired that I excused myself from the afternoon's social activities and lay down for a nap.

Alors, hère I am now, with a warm computer on my lap listening to the fridge purr sweetly.

I listened to an interview Marco gave on 'As it Happens' earlier talking about the situation for journalist in CI, which is quite grave. Here’s the link: http://www.cbc.ca/asithappens/episode/2010/12/22/wednesday-december-22-2010/

I’ve also been listening Nancy Sinatra http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5Xl0Qry-hA