My Life in Kunming

I realize I haven't really written anything about life in Kunming - about my job or if I've made friends or if I cry myself to sleep every night.

I've been working in Kunming for about 3 weeks. I think I've already talked about the organization, CWES, but in case anyone is wondering... http://www.cwes.org.hk/index.htm. They alleviate poverty in villages in two of China's poorest provinces through education projects (school supplies, scholarships, etc), health projects (doctor seminars, building clinics, medical supplies) and microfinance projects. They do an unbelievable amount of projects every year considering how tiny the organization is. Michelle is the boss and works from Hong Kong, Jennifer, James, and I work in the Kunming office, this new girl works down in Shuang Jiang (a city near a lot of our villages in Yunnan Province), and a handful of others who come and go. Michelle and I are the only two westerners in the organization. Jennifer and James speak some English, but get all giggly and embarrassed when they do, so it is just easier to speak Chinese with them. Jennifer (Li Zher Qing) and I have started going to lunch together regularly to practice Chinese and English. I'm starting to find that I really have off days and on days. If I have anything else on my mind or am at all tired or not 100% focused, I won't understand a word of what she says, where as during my on days I can have full conversations without speaking a word of English. Pretty cool, huh?

What I do for the organization: Well first of all, I am the intern, so a number of odd jobs. We just moved into our office in Kunming and the walls are still pretty bare, so I'm helping Michelle to find decorations and organize and hang their hundreds of photos from various projects. I get to sit on the floor with scissors and tape and do art projects. It's a nice break. I also get to do computer programming. They have a number of databases they use to keep track of their micro credit projects and scholarship projects - an unbelievable amount of data, most of it in Chinese. I taught myself SQL, a computer language for manipulating databases, and now I'm cleaning up and reorganizing their scholarship and micro credit databases and writing queries that help them to extract information. It's a lot of fun, a lot of fiddling with the features of Microsoft Access (the program they use), writing programs, looking up new functions online and trying them out. I am back in my element. Except for the whole being in Chinese bit. For the most part it's great, but once in a while my program will blow up in my face and unlike studying a computer language at school, I have no one to ask why it isn't working.

I am also taking a distance-learning course on Microfinance that I'm really enjoying. The more I learn about it, the more excited I am to be involved in the field. It is considered to be one of the world's most effective tools for promoting development in impoverished areas. I'm learning about successful projects in India, Vietnam, and China. Microfinance tends to focus on things like women empowerment, children's health, and children's education (keeping children in school, mostly). The NGO I am with does agricultural micro credit, which is a bit different from the industrial micro credit that most people have heard of, but the cause is still worthy. I feel like I have a lot to say on the topic (don't I always?) but I am going to hold back until I've learned more.

Finally, I get to travel to the villages and run evaluations on previous or ongoing projects. Not entirely sure what this entails, but I do know that I'm spending two weeks in April in Shuang Jiang with Jennifer meeting with village heads and government officials. We'll see...should be exciting.

Work is very relaxed. I can come and go as I please, so long as I'm getting enough work done. I can take time off whenever I want to travel, so I usually end up taking a day or so off every other week to make weekend trips. Two weekends ago I went to Hong Kong, this weekend I'm in Jishou visiting Lisa (I studied with her in Beijing) and two weekends from now I will go to Dali or Lijiang or Sichuanbana to get a visa extension. Usually I wind up showing up around 9:30 and staying until 6:30 (though I could leave as early as 4:00 or 4:30). Depends on how into my programming I am :). I make myself breakfast every morning and sometimes I pack myself a lunch, sometimes I go out with Jennifer, and sometimes I go find a small Chinese restaurant on my own. I love carrying a book with me everywhere I go. Waiting for a bus, on the bus, during lunch, and various other times I find myself with nothing else to do. At night I usually cook for myself. I like having a fully stocked fridge and planning my meals. I usually end up eating each dish over the stove, as it is ready. I like having my evenings to myself. I like walking home from work because all the street markets selling produce and what not come out. I like running errands, cooking dinner, and having time in the evenings for myself. I can clean the apartment, do my laundry, play music, read for hours. I have solitude in Kunming like I've never had before and I'm really enjoying it. At home, I'm always running around getting things done and meeting my friends. Even in Beijing, I put such an emphasis on making friends and keeping myself busy. I had a somewhat frenzied social schedule and not a moment to myself. It was great fun, but I'm enjoying the change of pace. I'm organized, relaxed, my apartment is clean. And for the first time, I'm not afraid of not having friends. (Doesn't it feel like that is the sole motivating factor the first few months of college?? Befriend, befriend, befriend!) In fact, quite the opposite. There is a very small tight-nit foreigner community in Kunming that is very easy to get sucked into. I have a couple of friends in it already who are always calling me and telling me to come out with them and their friends, but I don't want to become one of them, the people who spend all their time in western cafes and bars with other westerners. I can do that in California. I've made friends with a handful of locals. Last weekend they came over and taught me how to cook Chinese dishes. We all cooked together and had a feast of a dinner party and sat around listening to American pop music (because that's the American music they knew). It was well worth the mess I had to clean up afterwards.

That's really about it - my life in Kunming.