This is just a very quick update regarding post. As of last night I had only received one letter from Mum (it had been intercepted coincidentally by a PE teacher while the post man was admiring the rarity of a foreign letter who brought it straight to me). Any other letters and parcels had not arrived because the address was wrong. Only slightly wrong don't worry - it was for the old school building on the other side of town.

Anyway, it made sense in my mind that letters should arrive at this address in good time and then be sent to me (obviously because everyone knows about Rob and I and who else is going to be receiving English letters). Of course this is far too simple and so all of my post has been floating around China; some of it for nearly 5 weeks. After three days of regular trips to the school, the old school and the post office and generally annoying everyone I was informed that a shedload of mail had arrived for me... but no-one knew where it had gone. I wasn't too impressed but last night I got two carriers bags full of mail!

I'm not sure how stuff posted weeks apart ended up arriving all at the same time - I'm assuming a confused person at a post office just hoarded it all before deciding to send it on. But, considering the organisation I've seen while being here it could just as easily have travelled the Arctic Circle twice and arrived in a heron's beak.

If you've posted stuff with the old address - don't worry it will arrive! It just might take a more scenic route. For future mail please post to...

Dan Schofield, Project Trust Volunteer,

No. 1 Yihuang Middle School,

Yihuang County,

Jiangxi Province,

CHINA

Postcode 344400

江西省宜黄县一中 邮编 344400
You may notice it is the Mandarin characters that have changed and it appears it is very important they're included! Most people have printed out the address and stuck it on which seems a safer bet than trying to write the characters and writing something about a dog instead of an address. I'm now in the midst of replying to various letters but please keep them coming because they're lovely to read! I know some more are due that haven't yet arrived but thank you to everyone that's written to me. Dan