home

My first week here has gone by in a blur. A lake-swimming, grocery-shopping, cellphone-procuring, bank-account-opening, friend-making, home-Skyping, crazy blur.

Yesterday, we began our Orientation programme, which involved introductions and the like from 9am until about noon, when we headed off to Highland Lake for a potluck lunch (mostly organic, whole-food, and delicious - in true midwifey style) and a long swim, followed by an afternoon of discussion about what it is that we are embarking on together as midwives.

And today, after a shared breakfast of fruit salad and scones, and a tour of our wonderful library (in which I could see myself living), we started our first class -- History of Midwifery. We covered 3000 years of history in the space of a glorious afternoon, huddled together in the cozy classroom, drinking hazelnut/vanilla tea and enthusiastically interacting with each other, getting to grips with all the main historical and political themes, all the while excitedly referring to books we've read or experiences we've had with birth. Then, a fellow student (she is also a naturopathic physician) took me outside to the garden after class to find some plantain for a poultice to soothe my many mosquito bites from yesterday afternoon in the woods.

Tomorrow I'm going on a road-trip to Bangor, 2 hours north of here, with a new friend and fellow student midwife, to take a look at a sweet car I'm keen to buy. In the evening, there's a New England contradance, complete with folk band, which I've been sternly instructed NOT to miss.

Right now, fresh from a 'goodnight' Skype chat with P, curled up in an armchair with my notebook on my lap and my ever-present cup of ginger tea to the side (can you tell that tea is a theme of this post?), I'm feeling that things are more familiar to me, that I have friends here, that Bridgton is becoming home.