Travels – friends – teaching - fish

Oh, the last few days have been busy but very great!

Last week Thursday and Friday I went to a city about 5 hours away to get a health exam done for my work visa. I did not like the city (capital city of the province I am in)…SO many people, SOOOO much exhaust, bad smells, dirty, busy etc. I am thankful for the fact that I get to live somewhere in the boonies where the air is much cleaner (still dirty). Time in the city was ok though. I went with a friend who can only speak a bit of English and so we had lots of fun trying to communicate! We got to go to KFC and even though I have no idea what I ordered…it tasted like greasy fast food and it was wonderful! I got to sleep in my own bed Friday night.

On Saturday a bunch of us left in the morning to go to a village. We visited a family in the village who was having a big celebration because their son got into university. This ‘big celebration’ consisted of pretty much the entire village gathering together to prepare and eat a meal; it was really neat to be a part of it all. I LOVE going to villages even though they are very primitive…life just seems so much simpler (and harder) in so many ways!

After coming back from the village on Saturday I left for another city about 2 hours away where I was going to spend the night with Canadian friends I had never met before. It ended up being a great family with 2 young kids and I loved it! It was SO nice to be surrounded by other white people (not because I don’t like Chinese people but just because then people weren’t just staring at me but also at 4 other white people)!!! On Sunday I met with a whole bunch of other (white) people which was a good time. It was also good to come back to my ‘home town’ Sunday evening (Sunday-Monday night was my very first night as the only foreigner in town as Suz was away).

It is a miracle I am still alive after the miles I have traveled on these insane roads (wait…I think often it is the drivers that are insane). There were about 2 times when I seriously though I would not survive…I either thought I would die in a head-on collision or fall off the road (on either side) into a deep ravine. I’m not sure I can describe what it is like to travel around here…

Sunday evening I had a Chinese friend (English name is Karen) call me and ask me if she could come over and teach me how to make Chinese hotpot…it was SUCH a fun time! She invited me on behalf of her family to come to her sister’s wedding on the 1^st of October…could be a super interesting cultural experience!

On Monday afternoon I got a call saying that I would be teaching a class in about an hour…hahaha, funny how I predicted this a long time ago (that I wouldn’t know I would be teaching a class until a few hours before I actually had to teach). Anyway, I was prepared and it was SUCH a fun time. I taught again on Tuesday and this morning and I am starting to think that I could really love the in-class part of being a teacher! The students are lots of fun and we laugh lots! It’s interesting to see how excited the students are to have a foreign teacher…some of them have never seen a foreigner before and they are just in awe… Today I went to the classroom a few minutes early to prepare some things for my lesson and the students all ran into the classroom as soon as they saw me coming and I ended up starting to teach before the ‘class starting’ bell even rang because the kids were just watching me in amazement.

Last night (Tuesday), Karen called me again to ask if she could come hang out. I was super happy because I didn’t have anything else very interesting planned. About 5 minutes after she called she showed up at my door with 2 fish in a fish bowl for me. She said “if you ever miss your mom you can just talk to the fish” haha. AAAAAAH…I am SO excited though, I think it was a very thoughtful gift! Just a few days ago I had walked past the place on the street where they sold the fish and I walked back because I really wanted to buy one but didn’t know how to ask about food/maintenance etc. so I just stared at the fish with hopeful eyes…maybe one day I would know enough of the language to buy one. And here I am…without even mentioning a word about it I have 2 beautiful fish. I am content.