Austin Tp1

So on Thursday I finally met my first (and possibly only) tutoring partner Mikael Edouku from the Ivory Coast of West Africa. Mikael is pronounced "michelle" so at first I thought it was a girl. All that changed when I met him. If he is a girl, he's the biggest one I've ever seen. I went over to his house at Seminole grand and we hung out for about an hour just chilling and getting to know one another. He has been here in Tallahassee for a little less than a year, but he is in group 3 as a speaker. I am relieved that our tutoring sessions will only be for minor gramatical mistakes. Althought not perfect in his speaking, once again, there was no problem with communication between us, and we understood each other perfectly. For that I am relieved.

Mikael speaks French as well, as the Ivory Coast was a French colony at one point. Mikael has a test on the 25th so, I'm hoping I can help him with that. He says his strengths lie in his reading and writing, but listening is a little lacking. We'll soon fix that.

He wants to get his degree here at an American school, because American degrees go a long way back home, where he plans to return eventually. Mikael likes soccer (no surprise there) and told me of how Didier Drogba is their best player but Sven Goran Erikson (the manager) is just a temp coach whose only there for the money. With that, I agree. When he asked me where I'm from, and I told him New York, he looked at me in surprise: "What are you doing here then"? He was incredulous as to why I would leave the supposed paradise that is NYC for Tallahassee, which all my partners have found to be less than they'd hoped. I wasn't sure how to answer. "When I first came to America," Mikael explained, "I thought the whole country was like New York City. But then I see Tallahasee, and I see this is not true." Yea, Tallahassee isn't what you see in the movies and television. In that regard, it can be a little disappointing.

This meeting was a short one, but the very next morning, I picked him up at 7 A.M. to take him to CIES for the St. Georges beach trip. How many tutoring partners would do that? It's never lost on me how difficult it can be to live here without a car, as I'm sure its difficult for Mikael to get around. He takes the bus and walks everywhere. He's like the freshman version of me :)