Tucked away in an old folder

 To celebrate the would be clocking year of my departure for university abroad, I have decided to write the story of what got me in and out of China in a couple of months 😂 and a few tales for a glimpse in.

IN

When the going gets tough, the tough gets going....

From February 2019 until I departed in September, I had had my fair share of failed attempts in entering university. The Zambian board of loans and scholarships, surfing the net and trying to apply to Turkey,  Australia, China,..anywhere I could get a scholarship to study architecture but to no avail.

Through my newly founded family I had an agent who helped me apply. Initially it really wasn't promising with a long silence but at a camp in April I received an email from the school, I got IN.

SNIPPET TALES OF IN - non chronological 

The danger of a single story and the beauty of different....

Probably you'd expect that this is the time where the racist stories come to life which I did have one or two, like the time I was not allowed into an elevator and had its door shut in my face by the school leader, but I aswell had light bulb moments and plenty I should add....

I'll start here; No, they don't look alike. 

Oddly they do have foods I'm used to eating at home; grounduts, sweet potatoes, mealie meal, pumpkin leaves, brown beans,.......                        

I'd find a way to squeeze a trip to the market to get some shelled but pre cooked groundnuts from a vendor who would tape us as we 'tasted' the groundnuts in hand fulls and smiled to the questions we didn't understand. 

Besides the common food they did aswell have the 'others' 🥴😂 and the 'definite try agains'.

In this time I did appreciate church that I'd sometimes take for granted while being home. I missed it so much. The weekly youth meetings, singing off key in church and everything in between. I learnt there are Chinese Christians aswell and a church audio wasn't fellowship enough.

Savings! savings! emergency savings! If I'm honest I struggled with saving which I now accredit to never ending wants aswell as not having a saving goal. The one time I did try to save though the toilet clogged and needed vacuuming. The mop also broke, that all cost money, wiping my savings dry.

With freedom and a one man's menu I outdid myself in the kitchen or rather on a one plate induction cooker set on the floor as I refused to cook in the public kitchen. On other occasions I failed miserably. I must say some bomb receipes were born and I can now make  fritters/vitumbuwa/magwinya.

On my first day alone in my room, after leaving my landing nest, for probably a week I ate a loaf of bread, yes the same plain loaf. With no Chinese speaking abilities, no one familiar and my sometimes social anxiety that is what I settled for. The wrongest interpretation of fending for one's self. 'Wana open up', I still get told and tell myself.

 I learnt the value of brakes as I fell after ages while heading down a slope on a borrowed bike and I outstretched my leg to stop the bike rather than reach for the brakes. Jolted the life into me. I must add I'm still scared of riding when a vehicle is behind me. For clarity when I fell there was no vehicle behind me.

This should probably have been the second snippet because their work ethic is out of the park. Construction and maintenance works are a daily sight but what caught me by surprise is who was doing those works. 70, 80, 90 year olds maybe beyond lifting bricks, working the machinery, sweeping roads from dawn till dusk. If I'd get a chance to address their nation I'd simply say, 'sometimes a little fun won't hurt'.

I had a class where someone was on their phone during the class and our teacher was furious. She told us about how she wanted to be a journalist but couldn't because of her height not reaching the qualifications and the hardships of even getting into college because of stiff competition for limited spots, Google gaokao. Coming from hardships and making due. It diverted to Jack Ma's story and circled back to wasting golden opportunities before our eyes. Could we have more opportunities than we acknowledge?

I was in the same class as a mutswana lady (from Bostwana). She was just not having it there from not enjoying the food to feeling out of place because of few others from her home country at her then school. Irony is others fought to stay. Someone's grass, someone's gold.

Health, wellness, drinking water, jogging, eating healthy. Just do it. Snacks are not your friend 😂. The tale of one box of biscuits turning the scale around. And expensive medicals horror stories, thankfully not me.

April, June ,July 2020. Oh me oh my.          Expiring Visa, scarce flights, exploration desire locked down and plenty of travel restrictions for flights from China. After months wanting to be indoors, lockdown happened and well I suddenly wanted to have my first and last explorations. 

There is nothing like a good group of people playing board games, watching movies and playing hide and seek blindfolded. Nothing.

I am not the best at packing luggage especially last minute. Put the socks in the shoes better still place it in your hand luggage.

The Visa is placed in the passport, I don't want to say anything more😂.

There is nothing like meeting a stranger close to you be it in complexion, origin,.. and they make you feel like family in a strange place. In whatever form: making you feel included, inviting you for supper, helping smuggle my luggage into their school, financial support or even helping you tap the English icon on an ATM machine speaking Chinese. Sometimes they look nothing like you or don't speak the same language as you. Twice in a row I went to a shop and whenever a certain lady was there she gave me an item for free, sometimes even one abit pricey, and heartily smiled.

You're not that smart. One of the last tests I wrote was open book. It was Chinese come on so I left my books to challenge myself. Very few of what we learnt was on the test. Just carry the book😂.

Don't sign anything if you aren't sure you'll pull through with the deal. I signed I'd be out of their country by end of July in the middle of the pandemic with hopes it would die down. Simply put, the pandemic is ongoing, flights are still scarce and I still had to leave.

ANOTHER IN

Every now and then I get asked what certain English words, phrases or sentences are translated to in Chinese and luckily I've never lied...yet but soon it will all be tucked away in an old folder of I used to.

A fresh page, open mind, willing heart and hope for tomorrow.

There is a big world out there not dictated by a single story.

Thank you for your time.                                     And for the post's painting... 

Until next time✌