le temps

il fait froid!!!!!! Today I woke up and saw it was -6 degrees celcius...thats not very nice!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

       I am in the lovely town of Lille, where the beers are cold and delish and the people are warm and friendly.  Though it has been ages since I’ve felt the sun upon my face, my time here has been incredible so far!  I am living in vieux Lille, which is lined with small hole-in-the-wall bars and little expensive boutiques.  I have two female working roommates and unfortunately I don’t see them as much as I wish I could due to our completely different schedules.  However, after being so involved in the school 24/7 I can't tell you how nice it is to come home to friends who are outside of my EDHEC network!  I definitely value my girl talk time with them!

a rare sunny day in Grand Place, during xmas time : )

        Most of my time during the week is spent on the EDHEC campus.  I live a good hour away from school by metro, so going home in between classes is really not an option!  Yes, I was conscious that I would have this long commute to class when I found my apartment.  Living on campus in the town of Roubaix where a new grocery store is the most exciting thing the town has seen in years was also not an option!!  Classes are fun and exciting for the most part, especially now that my finance and cost accounting classes are over!  

           Socially, EDHEC is a very unique school.  Student associations run the student life, and if you are not in an association you will consequently be very poorly integrated into the school.  The majority of students are french and therefore all of the student association are run in french.  If you do not speak french, you are out of luck meaning that the vast majority of international students are excluded from these student associations.  When I first arrived at EDHEC I was unaware of the importance of the associations.  A french student nearly had a heart attack when I told him I was unsure if I would be applying to enter to an association.  "But you don't want to be a 'nobod' do you!?" The french term "nobod," like "nobody" is a what they call people who aren't part of an association aka social suicide.  So, with his reaction in mind and the desire to get the full EDHEC experience, I was decided to "rush" to join the association Schola Africa.  But it wasn't easy! 160 people originally applied and with a first round of interviews half were eliminated.  I passed a second interview with the remaining 80 people and was finally chosen among 18 other french students to become a part of Schola Africa! Very exciting!!! 

           In my second interview I found myself facing the entire association (15 others).  They asked me some serious questions about humanitarian projects and some questions about Africa and then moved on to some funnier questions.   In french, of course, they asked me what my favorite Disney character is etc.  Then they asked me if I was a drink, what would I be? In french the word drink is "boisson" which sounds dangerously like the word for fish, "poisson."  In my head I heard the word "poisson" so I responded to the question saying I would be a salmon.  I got the strangest looks back from all of them and a few burst out laughing when they figured out my mistake.  Thoroughly embarrassing, but it still gives me a good chuckle today.  Living abroad always keeps you on your toes and has taught me how fun it is to just throw yourself out there sometimes.  Its taught me how to laugh in these kinds of situations and to not take things so seriously. 

         Since being accepted into the association, I have fallen in love with our project and all of the members of the group have become family.  Most of our actions through out the year take place in Lille where we raise money to fund the construction of class rooms for elementary children in Burkina Faso. We work very closely with a burkinabé, Karim Gomina, who gives us great insight to the needs of the people and information about the locations of our future construction sights.v Since the creation of the association in 2000, we have constructed 12 class rooms in the rural areas of Bobo Dioulasso and we have also constructed a couture-center where young women are taught how to sew through a three year program.  At the end of this program, we have started providing them with micro-loans without interest in order for them to help start their career.   Even though the website is in french, I will post it here for you to look at the pictures.  www.schola-africa.com .  

holiday party with the whole association

We received our sweatshirts with our names on them making our initiation process official : )

holiday party with the ladies of the association

in the Alps with a few "scholeux" over new years and winter break