settled

We have finally settled. Eight people are part of the mission. Alex and I are the only ones coming from North America. Marie is a French biologist (and Professeur Malud’s partner too), Konstantin is German and in charge of telecommunications and logistics, Will is a French ethnologist and Francisco is an Italian naturalist. He came with his wife Francesca who is supposed to cook for all of us. I’ll look after the children of the village with Pierre, the French pediatrician of the team and finally, Alex will be working with François. This melting pot is really a stimulating environment and it does feel so good to have a new opportunity to speak French again. What we could call our house is modest to say the least: we’re going to share a room with two other people. It’s not going to be easy! The biggest building has easily been cut in half: one side is hospital, the other side is the lab. The village inhabitants are wondering who we are and what we do… It’s quite understandable. I can’t go out walking in the village without having a growing bunch of kids running around me like buzzing little bees. They follow me everywhere I go and they seem fascinated by my blond hair. François told me that till today they had never seen a white woman with blond hair...