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Ní hăo!
So Lucie and I have survived our first week here in Yihuang! And we can't believe we have been in China for 3 weeks! Time is already flying by, and it feels like we've been here ages, and no time at all simultaneously.
We arrived in Yihuang last Sunday afternoon and were taken straight to the school where we were met by the headteacher, Mr Luo (he speaks nearly no English at all), his four deputies, the secretary, a cameraman and 2 girls who presented us with the most beautiful bouquets of flowers (above). Loads of photos were taken and then we were put back in the car (which was chauffered!) and driven to our apartment. We were shown around our apartment, followed by the cameraman (which was just a little odd) and finally given 20 minutes to change and freshen up (as we had been traveling for almost 14 hours prior to this).
Back to the school we went where a banquet had been organised in Lucie and my honour - we sat in the 'most important guest seat' which were either side of the host, Mr Luo, and we were treated to some lovely (duck, vegetable and rice) dishes, and some not so lovely (pigs ears, chicken's head, a funny fish soup) dishes. It was also at this banquet that we really discovered just how much the Chinese love to drink. Beer comes in 600ml bottles, but you drink it from these tiny glasses, as when you are toasted - and this happens an awful lot - you have to down the glass. We were also relayed the story of previous volunteer drinking 12 bottles of beer at this banquet they had last year. I have absolutely no idea how he managed that. it was fortunate we were only drinking beer, and nothing stronger, as throughout the hour of lunch we managed to drink 2 bottles each, and after 15 hours travelling, it didn't make us feel great. We struggled with the conversation, as everybody else was speaking in Mandarin, and we only had our waibans - Sophia and Ivy - to translate occasionally. Exhausted, we were eventually taken back to our flats, where, instead of sleeping, we spent 3 hours cleaning the bathroom and kitchen! Once this was done, we felt better, and after food at the school, we collapsed into bed.
We are now beginning to settle in to a routine, and the apartment is beginning to feel a bit more like home. Spending Saturday afternoon cleaning the living room, kitchen and bathroom, we feel more compfortable now that we know everthing is clean. We have decided we are going to do one of these big cleans once a month, and just keep on top of the every day dirt, every day. The 2 rooms with air conditioning are our bedrooms - which is a relief - as it is still really hot here, and isnt due to get much cooler for another couple of weeks, though we have already noticed a change from the beginning of last week. We enjoying spending our evenings together - cooking and eating our meal, then retreating to one of the cool bedrooms, to plan or amend lessons, and to watch a film together.
Though we are beginning to settle, there are a few things which we still have to get used to, one of which is going to take both of us quite a while to come to terms with. It was revealed to us that we are the first white female volunteers in Yihuang, this means we are extremely unique and so we get stared at. A lot. We understand the people of Yihuang probably do not travel like British people do, and so are not used to a diversity of people, but when cars actually slow down to an almost stop, and the drivers wind down there windows to get a better look at us...well...you can see why it makes us a little uneasy. I'm sure as time goes on, either the staring will get less as more of the townspeople have seen us, or we will just learn to ignore it - most likely both.
The school itself looks very grand from the outside, but on venturing inside, Lucie and I discovered that the Chinese are more interested in how they are viewed than what is needed, as inside all the classrooms are pretty basic - wooden desks and stools, a blackboard and chalk. All the rooms do have built in computer and projector, but not all of these work, and those that do aren't the easiest to use. I'm sure we will get used to the lack of resources.
Our apartment is a 10 minute walk from the school, but the school kindly bought us bikes, and so it now takes us around 5 minutes to cycle there. I enjoy cycling to and from work, especially at lunch time (we get a 2 and a half hour lunch break!) because all the pupils are cycling or riding their e-bikes (more on these in a future blog) back into town to go home for lunch, so I get to speak to some of the pupils more informally as I cycle with them.
School is becoming less stressful, and more enjoyable. Our timetables have finally been finalised - Lucie is teaching Senior 2 and has 16 different classes a week, and I am teaching Senior 1 and have 17 different classes a week. Our average class size is 60, so between us we teach around 2000 pupils! (This approximately 2/3 of the school pupils!!)
My busiest day is a Thursday - I teach 5 classes - and my quietest day is a Wed - I only teach 2 classes in the afternoon. (So skyping me is best on a Tue as I don't mind sitting up later because I can lie in on the Wed morning).
Today, Lucie and I were stopped by a Senior 3 pupil inviting us to joing the Senior 3 English Club - his argument for our joining is that the students in the club want to learn English and that they are much more willing to learn than the average Senior 1 or 2 class (after Senior 3 students go to uni, so Lucie and I theorized that the students in the club must either want to study something language related, or business related.)
Most of our days this week have just been spent in the school, or amending our lessons, as the first plans we did barely filled half of the 45 minute lessons, so we kept adding to them each night.
However on Thursday, Sophia and the chauffer took us back to Nanchang for our medical examinations. This included an x-ray, blood tests, an ecg, eye tests and more. I am glad to say that we both passed! So with our passports registered at the local police station, the school can now go on and get our work visas. We were given the afternoon off, as 5 hours in the car and the tests had left us quite tired.
One day back at school and then a 3 day weekend! On the Saturday we had some problems with our wifi, and so Ivy sent around another teacher to have a look. Spending half an hour trying to sort he eventually left saying he would be back in the afternoon. Before he left though, he showed me a 'fast food' place which is just around the corner from our apartment and has free wifi, so we could go there and use that if we wanted whilst waiting on ours to be fixed. In the afternoon he returned with a new hub, and since installation our wifi has been constant and pretty fast. Yay! :D
We decided to venture to this 'fast food' restaurant for dinner, and were pleasantly surprised to find it pretty similar to KFC, though it did sell rice dishes too. But the highlight of this visit was that they sold chips! And they had Heinz Tomato Ketchup! This was our weekend made :P
On the Sunday we decided to make use of our bikes, and we went exploring in Yihuang. Just randomly picking left, right or forward at every junction, we found ourselves on the edge of Yihuang and by a river (see pic above). Cycling first one way and then back the other along the river (in the midday heat I might add) we saw a couple of contrasts. The greenery on the hills in the backgrounds were quite a sharp contrast to the orange, dusty construction sites on the edge of the town.
And Monday was Mid-Autumn Day (or the Moon Festival or the Lantern Festival). We were invited to have lunch with Sophia's family (pic above) - which turned out to be 15 other members of ther family as well! With 15 of us crammed around a small table piled with food, keeping your elbows to yourself was a challenge! We got to try a homebrewed alcohol, which was similar to rice wine, but was a milky pinkish white colour. One mouthful was quite nice, but when poured a glass of it, drinking it when toasted was difficult. I'm glad we only had one glass, as I had a slight headache that afternoon! We really enjoyed the lunch, some of the dishes were so nice - including 2 potato dishes!!
We didn't think we got potato down here, but on investigation into the supermarkets we were delighted to find some - this gives us three staples to rotate in our meals - rice, rice noodles and potatoes. We were given pork, apples, mooncakes and a strange fruit (which was really nice) which is sort of related to oranges and grapefruits, but apparently we don't get it in the UK so there isn't an Enlish name for it.
That evening we went for a walk to another part of Yihuang, and once again came across the river and some of the most beautiful views (a pic above).
Now we are back to teaching again this week, and we are looking forward to the weekend as we plan to visit Jiujiang, where the other 3 Jiangxi volunteers are.
So, until next time,
Zàijiàn x
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