By Eille Zou & Sara Tang

When you are walking on the campus of Shengda, you may run into a foreign couple with their seven-month-old baby. They are Lester and Glenis, and their baby is Alemayehu.

Lester comes from a South American country, Guyana, while Glenis is from Barbados in the Caribbean. Glenis went to New York in 1996. There, she worked in a company called Green Thumb, whose main business was to maintain public gardens. Before they met, Lester was pursuing his master’s degree in New York and worked as a lawyer afterwards. “We met in the August of 2006,” Glenis said. Their romantic story took place in a garden which they both visited at the same time. Glenis describes it as “love at first sight”. Just a year later, they had their first wedding ceremony in Ethiopia, where they had wanted to visit for a long time. Back in New York, however, they had to get married for “the second ti-me”, because their Ethiopian marriage license was not acknowledged by the U.S. government. At the end of March in 2008, Glenis gave birth to their first baby in Brooklyn, New York. They gave him an Ethiopian name, Alemayehu,meaning “I see my world through you”. What an inte-rnational family!

Lester and Glenis got information about Shengda through the Internet and began to teach here at the beginning of this semester. They enjoy exploring new places, and they also want Alemayehu to be an excellent man with rich experiences. When they are both teaching, it’s natural for them to have a Chinese babysitter taking good care of their lovely son. What’s interesting is the middle-aged babysitter doesn’t speak any English at all! They communicate merely by body language. “It’s very interesting, and she really takes very good care of Alemayehu,” said Glenis. As she told me, they love their jobs very much, and see teaching as a valuable opportunity to help people improve life. However, they have bigger dreams.

Glenis plans to finish her master’s degree in China and continue to get her media art PhD in South Africa. Meanwhile, Lester is preparing to apply for his PhD education in Shanghai or Hong Kong, majoring in international trade law. Deep in his heart, Lester is passionate about being the future president of Guyana in 8 or 10 years. Talking about his ideals, Lester has a lot to say. Patriotism is deeply rooted in his heart. He is not satisfied with the condition in which his fellow countrymen are living. In his eyes, a lot of problems lie in the current government and political system, such as political corruption and monopoly, which are leading his country in the wrong direction. Therefore, he is quite determined to arm himself with better knowledge and go back to put everything right. He is very confident and eloq-uent, too, with good econ-omic foresight.

(Advisor: Mark)