in Texas, meeting the world

I love the internationalness of the base here. I guess even my base in Mali is pretty international - quite a few countries are represented by our staff. So maybe I especially notice it here because I am meeting people from other countries that I'm not as familiar with.
The photo above shows the big world map in the prayer chapel, it is covered with post-it note prayers for different places. And below you can see the feast that I got to eat some of last weekend when there was a party in the dorm/house that I am staying in. The family that manages the house is from Brazil. Their mother and brother have been here visiting for a few months, but they will leave this week, so there was a going away party for them - I think around 30 people packed into the house. There was music and talking in Portugese, and more food than anyone could eat. It was so fun. But most enjoyable to me was to notice the way that people from so many corners of the globe could be friends and have a good time together. I hung out with new friends from South Korea and Japan as well as these lovely Brazilians. 

Two times since I have been here I have had the chance to meet French-speaking Africans. Both times were after the Sunday night service that is held on base. There are some staff that work and live off the base and so I don't see them on a daily basis. The first one was a man from Burkina Faso, and he had done a training school many years ago at my base. Talking with him (in French of course) was like a magic salve to take the edge off of my homesickness for Mali. I had the biggest silly smile on my face for quite awhile after talking with him. Then a few days ago I met a woman from Cameroon. She also said she had done a training school in Mali many years ago. (its really a small world after all within our group sometimes) After speaking with both of these people I was thinking about how far my French has come in the past 3 years. I try to encourage myself that one day I could be at a proficient level with my Bambara too.