Today was the second day of my mandarin class. It was an interesting day to say the least. So I walk into this large class that I have to do for supplementary education. Supplementary hours are required to bring my in class time up to 15 hours a week. But anyways, as I walk in I see something amazing, another black guy! He looked at me, nodded his head, I nodded back, then he said nĭ hòa (Hello in mandarin), so of course I said it back. After I sat down he turned around and said “are the tones giving you trouble?” and I said “Yes” and that started off a very interesting conversation.  The guy’s name is Okendo Lewis-Gayle. He is the President of the Harambe Endeavor. The goal of this organization is to create an initiative similar to the Marshall Plan but geared towards Africa. The cornerstone of his plan is to use the intellectual capital of all the African’s who leave Africa by giving them ways to give back to their home countries. After looking over their website and seeing pictures of Ken with President Obama and Mo Ibrahim I think his plan just might have what is needed to become a reality. I am very interested in his ideas and plans so I am going to try to meet with him and discuss things with him further. Or maybe I will just talk with him at the next Mandarin Phonetics class.

Oh, for those of you that do not know the Marshall Plan was an agreement between the United States and all other countries of Europe that were basically destroyed by Germany during the second world war, except for Russia of course. This agreement allowed the European countries to borrow large sums of money from the USA in order to rebuild their countries. The United States profited from this agreement and so did the Europeans. I am not sure how this can be crafted to fit the countries of Africa since for most of history they have been exploited by western powers for their resources, but I am interested to find out. Africa is a beautiful continent and I hate seeing being destroyed by oil companies creating natural gas flares, terrorism, rampant spread of HIV and AIDS, continual political struggles that destroy the lives of so many of their citizens, etc, etc, etc.

Anyways back to lighter subjects! After the phonetics class I went to my Beginners Chinese class. We continued practicing the buh puh muh fuh alphabet and practicing pronunciation. Buh Puh Muh Fuh is the pronunciation of the first group of the Chinese alphabet and also the name of the alphabet. During today’s break I got a chance to find out where everyone in my class was from.  Four are Japanese (Rìbĕnrén), one is Korean (Hánguórén), one is Panamanian (bānámăren), and the last is yours truly (Mĕiguórén). I am the only person in the class who is a native English speaker. I am very embarrassed to say that everyone in the class knows English very well except for one of the native Japanese speakers. I really feel left behind due to the fact that I am the only person in the room that is not already at least bi-lingual. But hopefully that situation will be rectified in the near future(and by near future I mean by 2011).

Finally after classs today I was able to stretch my legs and go for a short run on the track. Oh boy it was HOT! And Jesus it was fun fun fun. I can’t believe I went so long with out it. It’s like coming back to a long lost friend and picking up right where you left off. It was tiring but it felt good, I am glad that I get to use the Nation Taiwan Normal Universities track. I am also glad that it was not raining. Jesus yesterday it was raining like crazy. I might have actually seen a cat and a dog falling from the sky. And when I say it rained yesterday I mean the noise of the rain woke me up and it was pouring until after I went to sleep. The rain can be intense here.

Oh one travelling tip before I go! If you are coming to Taiwan you CANNOT bring a rain coat. When it rains here it is still friggin 85 degrees or hotter. When I got to class yesterday I was sweating bullets because I wore a raincoat. So don’t be like me, get an umbrella.

Peace out ya’ll, I’ll catch you on the flip side! (whatever that means)