Watch the Walk

  Let me ask you a question: if you heard of a new couple getting married, where would you expect them to live? Would the man move in with the woman's family? The woman move in with the man's family? Or perhaps you'd expect them to move into their own place.  What about the town they live in? Would they live in the same town as her family? The same town as his family? A new town, based on their work? The other day my English class was discussing living situations, and who each of them lives with. Traditionally on Clove Island, the woman's family is responsible for providing the new couple with a home. If possible, they provide a piece of land and build a new house, but sometimes the home that's provided is a new story on the family residence, or even simply a private room in a shared house.  Of course, there are exceptions. There are men who build a house, or families who live in a residence that the man's family owns and allows the new couple to live in. But t...

English students Imagine you want to learn French. What's your first step? Maybe Google. Google, "how to learn French" and you can find an endless wealth of resources. But what if Google doesn't have much, if any information for the language you want to learn? There are a few items online, but the information is inconsistent, a mixture of 4 languages, and you don't know how to make sense of the grammar, even if you can learn some vocabulary. This was the situation that another foreigner found herself in here. And when she asked her local contacts about how to learn the language, they directed her towards my NGO, because we're known for learning the language and having resources in the local language. And that was how I found myself sitting across the table from her, showing her dictionaries and grammars, giving language learning tips and encouraging her beginner attempts at figuring out how to communicate. So, how do we learn the language? It's been a few ...