Welcoming

I'm sitting in my hammock looking out over a tree-lined street and the posh courtyard of the gated compound I call home. I have a nice little bedroom with five houseplants that live in a bumped out window- the hammock swings in front of that window. How I found my way in here was kind of funny, and set a nice tone for the semester. 

I was able to get a partial address that Sophie (the Kunming program assistant) sent me which I read from the boosted internet provider "miss pablo" that I picked up from Amie's couch. 26 hours after leaving Amie's couch (my plane arrived an hour early to Kunming) I gave that address to a cab driver outside of the Kunming airport and 20 minutes after that he dropped me off in front of a large gate entering into and apartment complex. Sophie told me she would wait for me inside the house, but her phone number was trapped inside another email she sent after my departure. There was no guard booth at the gate so I sat down on my backpack and thought. 

Thinking did no good, so I put my backpack on and started to wander the midnight streets. I wandered up to an internet cafe, but this particular place only served member card-holders. So I wandered on again and came across a police officer reading a book on a bench next to his scooter- which he had parked with it's lights flashing. I showed the address to the police officer and asked him if he recognized the place. He pointed with his chin towards the direction I had come from and told me to head back down that way and holler for the guard to come let me in. So I did. There was no guard. I hollered again and then heard the sirens of a police scooter pull in behind me. It was the same police officer. He told me I was hollering at the wrong gate. Somewhere in the process a second police officer, this one on foot, had joined the first and I showed him the address and he thought he knew where the building was. He helped me with one of my bags and the three of us headed down the street, two on foot and one on scooter. 

Blocks later we ran into a third police officer who looked at the address and said that he would show us the way. The four of us wound through an alley and around a corner until we found another big gate leading into another apartment complex, but this one had a guard. The guard looked at the address and said that we were at the right place, but the address didn't indicate which of the sixteen buildings in the complex contained my apartment, nor did my address contain an apartment number. The five of us sighed. It was now close to one o'clock in the morning. The guard asked if I had a phone number I could call. I told him I had a telephone number in my email and about the members only internet cafe I had been to. "I'm a member there," said police officer number two, "I'll take you." We thanked and said goodbye to the guard and to police officers one and three and police officer number two and I headed back up the street to the internet cafe. 

We drank cups of tea (a perk of membership) as I wrote down the complete address and the phone numbers Sophie and Lear (my co-instructor) had emailed me. Out on the street police officer number two, who told me his name was Da Xiao Shen, let me use his cell phone to call Lear... who was at the Kunming airport waiting for my plane to arrive. More sighs. With Lear on his way to the apartment in a cab, and Da Xiao Shen and I on our way back to the building on foot, I realized that I was nearing exhaustion. We arrived at the same guard booth and handed the same guard the complete address and he told us we were in the right place and that he would call somebody down to let me in. I thanked Da Xiao Shen and he headed back up the street towards the internet cafe. 

Guard number two came down to the gate to let me in and showed me the way through the courtyard to my building and up to the third floor, number 302. He rang the doorbell. An old, sleepy woman in her bathrobe told us we had the wrong apartment. She shut the door and I told guard number two that Lear was on his way and that if he could just take me to some place where I could sit down and wait for him, that I would really appreciate it. He took me to the security office and guard number three showed me to a big leather couch and brought me a cup of tea. Moments later Lear arrived and all was well. He took me up to 301 and after more tea and some fruit that Sophie had left for me, I went to bed. So within my first hour in the city I, however inadvertently, arranged for myself multiple police escorts, entrance to a VIP internet lounge, and a tour of the security station of my building. 

And I noticed some things about Kunming during my adventure: The city still smells of night blooming jasmine, as I remember it did. When I was sitting on my backpack on an unlit street in the middle of the night, I didn't feel afraid. The balconies above me dripped with ivy and pothos vines ornamented with pots of brilliant pink bougainvillea bushes. In the middle of the night old women were out sweeping the sidewalks and old men in tank tops and slippers gathered on stoops in groups to smoke and play dice. Big iron pots bubbled up noodle-scented steam. The sights and smells were welcoming, and already I'm feeling at home.