Maikutlo Aka - My Views
55 Hollywood
Posted Sunday, August 19, 2007
Where to begin... life in Worcester has been much more entertaining than I expected, and I haven't even started school.
My new housemates are a guy from Peru, a gal from China and a guy from Angola. The Peruvian arrived here first, showed me around when I got here, and we had to share a room in our house until the old tenants moved out. We had been emailing for a few months, so it was no surprise that we got along really well -- our age, world-view and academic interests are all pretty similar. We had a couple days full of talking before being joined by a young Chinese master's finance student.
As kindred as Bernardo and I are, with Sylvia, I never quite got that connection. We had emailed a bit, she wanted to see the house, and then showed up in my kitchen with a dozen other Chinese students. No knocking or doorbell, I just looked up and saw a line from the doorway and out the front door! Of course they couldn't all hear (or understand?) me all at once, so some missed it when I said "my roommate is in the shower"... and you can guess what happened. We figured if she wasn't too embarrassed by that, it would turn out okay. The other day we watched a Chinese movie I had seen it before; it had subtitles in Spanish, so we were all understanding it in very different ways -- it's was pretty surreal.
Then yesterday our last housemate, Luis from Angola, arrived. He's a little older, speaks Portuguese, and so far fulfills the "no fuss" simple and straight-forward African man not used to cooking for himself that I would have expected. And also not uncommonly, he sings to himself a lot, which I enjoy :)
The house I moved into was a total mess. Because I arrived early (to meet my parents who were here for work & holiday), it didn't really get a proper cleaning, so we ended up doing much of it. To be honest it was probably good -- kept us busy and meant we had to work on cooperation & communicating in English from the beginning. It's kind of strange feeling that I'm the only one who's sneezing because of all the dust in the air.
Last night, we all four sat on our couch together (couldn't move furniture as we'd washed the carpets) I couldn't help but think what a funny picture we must have made. Sylvia sat up straight, hands folded in her lap. Luis was comfortably lounging as if he'd been there for years. Bernardo was often leaning forward, engrossed in the movie while I had my feet under me. Different personalities, continents & colours, but we're all about the same size & height and managed to comfortably fit all on the couch!
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