10/23/2004

I think that this may be the happiest I've been since we arrived in Chad a month ago tonight, and it has nothing to do with the food or the people. We're still in Darda, heading off on a day trip to N'Djamena tomorrow, and I've just watched the Red Sox clinch the American League pennant over the Yankees in Game 7. There are several baseball fans in our group, and we were all miserable over the prospect of missing the playoffs, until we discovered Vinnie. Vinnie is the consular officer at the American Embassy, and a diehard Yankees fan (hey, nobody's perfect). He (very generously) agreed to tape the games for us when they're broadcast on the Armed Forces Network via satellite, and the past several nights have often seen seven of the eight guys (Josh isn't a baseball fan) and several of the girls gathered around a portable TV/VCR combination in the dining room.

As if it wasn't strange enough to be watching baseball in Darda, Chad, AFN is very clearly aimed at a specific audience, and the commercials are all aimed at the military market. We see ads for boots and uniforms, public service announcements about the war on terrorism, and half-hourly news updates from the Pentagon Channel, each of which seems to feature another fresh-faced person in a uniform reading headlines.

It's been a challenge to suddenly find myself so out of touch with the world; as a Journalism student, I was taught that it's essential I always know what's happening in the world– you can't be successful in the field otherwise. Lately I've been lucky to catch a BBC news bulletin every few days, which is especially frustrating when I know that so much is going on. I mean, we're about to have an election in less than two weeks, the war in Iraq is continuing unabated (I think- like I said, I'm a little out of touch), and I have no idea who the other team is in the World Series.

Aside from that though, things are going really well. This past week I taught my first practice class; even though it was only in front of a group of nine village kids, it was a big moment. We set up blackboards under the trees, and the kids sat at small tables facing me. This was a sixieme (equivalent to 7th grade) class, the first time any of these kids had had English instruction, so we began with the utter basics, 'Good Morning,' and 'What is your name?' The great thing is that I felt almost completely comfortable almost immediately; the kids seemed eager and interested, and I'd like to think that I was able to be their first opportunity to start speaking a new language.

Other than that, the week was uneventful- tomorrow we're heading to N'Djamena to check email and eat Chinese food via taxi-brousse, which I'm sure will be a memorable experience, to put it mildly. I'll write about it tomorrow evening...

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