Chapter Two

If my year in Tchad was a book, the events of this past month would definitely warrant a page turn. The biggest transition has been my move from living full-time with the director of Village Altonodji to spending the majority of my nights on campus. It is an opportunity that I had been excited about since before I flew to Tchad, and this month all of the details were ironed out and cleared, so life at school is my new reality!

 My first evening here, I was scheduled to begin leading some English clubs. I came in time to arrange my bedroom and familiarize myself with my surroundings. I sat in my big living room in the guesthouse, of which I am the first guest in a long while, hearing the sounds of screaming, laughing children coming from all directions and I thought to myself, like a new kid in school, "Will I fit in here?" Up until now, I'd always loved being at work, and I'd spent quite a bit of afternoon time hanging around with the students, but now that I was here for good I wondered what there really was for a teacher to do among one-hundred rowdy children all the time. I wondered if I should anticipate overwhelming company at all times or, rather, isolation at being the one foreigner bolted up in this big guest house while all the others were living as a family on their side of campus.

 I knew answers would come sooner or later, but the questions and slight jitters lingered as I grabbed my ukulele and some chalk and wandered over to the academic side of campus to begin my first English club. Consistent with the way I have seen a lot of things organized over my past few months here, English club was officially announced after I'd set up camp in an open classroom. Some older boys took the responsibility of combing the campus to inform the primary school students that there was a club. Within 15 minutes, the classroom was packed with boys and girls blinking and giggling at me anxiously. We introduced ourselves, sang songs together, and persevered through the chaos of being so numerous. One of the aforementioned older boys did his part by marching up and down the aisles with a tree branch, waving it in the faces of the noisier kids. This is something I want to have qualms with, but truthfully I was thankful to have a willing assistant to help me keep the order.

After my hour with the primary students, and then another with those in the older grades, I was met at the blackboard by half a dozen students who hadn't gotten enough. One girl, who knows Selena Gomez songs by heart and wants to marry Justin Bieber, proudly joined me in singing an encore performance of Lean On Me. Another boy named Caleb asked me to translate the words that he scrawled on the board: "God, I am sorry for your love." As is so often the case with requests such as this, I translated it for him but was unable to discern the source of this unusual phrase. Other students had requests for dialogues and discussions we could pursue in our club. The Activities Coordinator eventually had to shoo everyone out of the classroom and personally shut me in my house to ensure that I was left alone to eat dinner.

Shortly after eating, I heard a knock on the door. There were three or four girls from my English class who plopped themselves down on my couches and started chatting as teenaged girls do. Before too long, I heard another knock at the door and in came three Mamans- big gregarious women who greeted me with giant, tip-you-over bear hugs as if I was a long-lost daughter. And just like that, my fears about being an outsider here were dissipated. The mission of Village Altonodji is to provide educational and humanitarian support for orphans and widows. Not only are the students who live here children who have lost one or two parents, but all of the dozen women who live and serve as "Mamans" are women who have been widowed. Therefor, the community here is one that has been forged of individuals who have lost the people most important in their lives and have come to this place to be another kind of family. Through different and much less tragic circumstances I have also found myself in this space and I have been greeted with as much hospitality and care and instant status of "family" as I could dream of.

So, these three women strode into my abode, wrapped me in hugs, and then proceeded to raise their eyebrows challengingly at me and pump their shoulders in the beginning throes of what I've identified as the "Chicken Dance." It is a physical feat truly remarkable to witness and a fairly impossible to imitate after 22 years of non-exposure, but that doesn't stop people from inviting me to try on a daily basis. It involves shrugging one's shoulders up and down in a way that makes them appear detached from one's body, while subtly flapping one's elbows, popping the chest in and out, and taking little steps to the side and then back again that make one appear to be on a tiny broken escalator that moves you up one step and down another just as soon.

So that happened, there in my living room, but it was just the beginning. Then we progressed to the next stage of the evening. We stood up and I followed the group outside. I was taken by the hand and led across the dark campus to the children's lodging, to the growing sounds of drums and shouts. We came upon an open space in front of the buildings where children and mamans alike were dancing like their lives depended on it. A line of little children perched on the porch, banging at buckets and pans with the finesse of professionals. In the dark, I found myself being tapped and yanked from all angles as children and mamans alike gave me dances to imitate. As soon as I would try anything, it was met with screams of delight and often hugs. Then they would take pity on me and tell me to sit down for a while. During one break, as I dangled my feet off the porch, sandwiched between two tiny pupils who were flapping their arms at me, I took a little inventory of all the things around me. There were the stars above me, winking happily. There was the welcome cool air that arrives after the sun departs, and the lovely smells of nighttime. There were people young and old dancing and ululating and laughing and clapping. There was a huge, beautiful makeshift family with people who lived with and looked after each other. Not one of them, no matter how young, had been spared significant hardship in their lives, but here they were delighting in the evening and in the company of others. I got a little choked up as I realized without a doubt that this is why I flew halfway around the world into the unknown. This is what I had been hoping to find.

 Eventually I realized my presence was keeping the kids from going to bed, so I left with a little posse showing me the way. Flushed, I asked the girl next to me if this was something I should expect every night and she laughed and said, "No. We are just happy that you're here with us!" Again that night, my heart skipped a beat for my new home.

That was just the first day. There have been weeks' worth of delightful days since, and my enthusiasm has not diminished. As I've become wrapped up in countless activities and blossoming friendships with people young and old here at Altonodji and around Moundou, I've experienced a kind of satiation that I can't attribute to only one thing. It's a cocktail of things that are filling me in so many ways. I am busy with meaningful work that offers constant challenges and rewards. I am met every single day with hundreds of warm smiles and people who greet me by name. A day doesn't go by that I don't meet someone new, go somewhere new, try something new, or learn something new. And as much as I am resisting being cliché, I can't deny that there is something magical about being with so many children. I'm so easily and deeply charmed by their uninhibited enthusiasm, curiosity, and affection. Indeed, Village Altonodji is a special place, and a wonderful setting for a new chapter!