It has been a month since I came to London. I’m here to learn English as I will need it at my mission in Ethiopia. I’m staying in Comboni Missionaries House in Notting Hill in London. Comboni Fathers are very kind and helpful. Every day we spend time together on meals, prayers and a Mass. They are my advisors – correcting my language mistakes and they are very big-hearted if I don’t understand something. Fortunately, there is less and less of situations like this 🙂 .
I try to use the time I spend here, the best I can.
I go to the language school in the morning, so afternoons and evenings are totally at my disposal. I usually spend this time on learning. However, the biggest problem for me is still to talk to people, so I am constantly looking for some opportunities to practice English. I usually spend time with my classmates: on bowling, walking or drinking coffee – once a week at least. They are from different countries and even different continents, so the meetings are very interesting and varied. Recently, I have discovered that there are special meetings in London where people who are learning the language can come and …practice 🙂 . Once a week I go also to the meetings of group ‘Soul Food’. We pray, develop spiritually, listen to conference or testimony and share our faith with each other.
Apart from Comboni Fathers community, there are also Comboni Sisters in London. I had the opportunity to meet some of them. We visited them and I can say they were very hospitable, we had coffee and biscuits and talked a little. They invited me to visit them again, and regretted they could not talk to us longer, due to their other commitments and duties. I really think it is worth to take care of the relationships in our Comboni family.
London is a multicultural, various and vibrant city. I have already visited many places: famous streets, buildings, parks and museums. Street artists show their talents on squares; modern and multimedia museums are full of amazing exhibitions. Palaces, old buildings and monuments revive a history. Restaurants and pubs can’t complain about the lack of customers, as every minute there are hundred of tourists passing the street. All of that it is interesting, it delights and impresses, but on the other hand it is a little exhausting, especially the very center of the city – crowded and noisy. And in the middle of everything, there are homeless people – sitting, sleeping or begging for money. I think that’s the view of bother me the most.
Madzia Fiec CLM in London
