Hello everyone!
We are finally teaching!!! After a lot of waiting and patience we are finally doing it! We were worried we wouldn’t get to at all because of rumors that were coming from outside schools, but after a last minute late night meeting we started teaching the next day.
We literally have the cutest class. All the kids have such different personalities and silly quirks.
Total there are about 30 kids. We have three stations and each of us are in charge of an activity. This session I was in charge of crafts. We made (well tried to make) pipe cleaner flowers. I teach the 3-4 year olds and I learned very quickly that all they can do is color really. The Chinese teachers that help us informed me that the only things they can use are crayons and paper for arts and crafts so that makes it harder to come up with crafts for them to do. I feel like now I am picking up the style of teaching here pretty well. The craziest time is in between classes.
This is when we get to joke around with the kids and get to know them better. I know it has only been a couple days but I already have my favorites. There is this girl named Elma and she is the sweetest girl. She carries a stuffed penguin around everywhere with her and always wants to be in my group and holding my hand. She is quiet but when other kids start acting out of line she will get mad at them and they actually listen to her which is the funniest part because she is one of the smallest kids in the class.
I have a lot of favorite kids but Elma is definitely my favorite. The other little babies in my group are rowdy and fun. They all smack our butts, poke us, and climb all over us like a jungle gym. It’s quite the show. These little nuggets bring me so much joy. I’ve learned that going to a foreign country is not the easiest. There’s a lot of physical and emotional changes that occur personally. The most important thing to do when that happens (not only in a new country but always) is to reach outwards positively to others. It’s easy to get wrapped up in selfish routines, but the best moments in life are always the ones that are shared
So we went on our first vacation and we got in kinda late and to our surprise we went off roading in the bus from the train station. It was exhilarating. It’s hard to explain the idiotic situations here but to cut it short… It was pitch black and we were laughing the whole way there as we bumped around with a bus full of asians.We got to our hostel thanks to the help of locals and we were very pleased with it. Can’t complain with 10 bucks a night.
When we woke up we saw this little peep through our hostel window. We were so stoked to be in such an awesome hostel and such an awesome place. At 8:30 our tour guide Lilly Lou picked us up and took us to some local restaurants. The food was literally heaven. Dumplings are life.
Next she drove us up the mountain where we were supposed to hike up to the peak and overlook the beautiful valley… It was pouring and hard.. Lily explained that it hadn’t rained in forever and that it probably wouldn’t stop for a couple days. I haven’t seen it pour that hard since forever. Apparently the mountains are only visible 60 days out of the whole year so that didn’t help, and The weather app gave similar sadness and let’s just say we were extremely frustrated.
We all prayed so hard and were so worried. Even Lilly was upset. We just waited and waited. It was when we finally accepted our fate and started the slow desent down the mountain that the clouds started to part and the rain began to stop. We all cheered. It was seriously a miracle. We drove back up to the top, hiked to the peak, took pictures, and headed back down as the clouds closed back behind us and rain began falling again.
Having the struggle before the reward made it all the more worth it. Sometimes that just how life works. The best things in life are definitely the hardest to get, but they are by far the greatest.
Sometimes the simple things are pretty great too. Lilly was telling us that Yangshuo doesn’t have any particular history and she likes it that way. She said that all you really need are mountains and the river. I’m right on board with that one. Lilly also told us about the herbs that heal the body that come from the mountains, but I feel like we received healing today without the herbs. There is such solitude in these mountains. It’s so quiet and mysterious but yet it says so much. The mountains really speak or at least give you the opportunity to hear your own soul. There is no other place like it. She says that there isn’t anywhere else in the world she would rather be; I can see why. It really is heaven here and Lilly is definitely one of its Angels. She’s the type of woman that would give you the clothes off her back having nothing and still see what else she can give you.
Oh and the bamboo rafts are pretty rad too. The driver on the raft let me use the long bamboo stick he was using to steer to try and steer I actually got the hang of it pretty quickly. It was gorgeous and so serene on the rafts, we'll all the times we weren't going down the mini waterfalls they had on the river which was super sketch on a bamboo raft but a total blast.
We went to a cooking class in Yangshuo on the last day and the entire class walked to their local market to pick up our ingredients. The market we went to is nothing like the markets you will see in the US. Everything they eat here is super fresh ... everything. All the vegetables are brought in from local farms and all the meat is brought in from butchers. The animals though are all still alive. You pick which one you want then they will butcher them right then and there. I decided I would only be here once and so I would go to the butcher section it was all good and normal. At first it was geese, chicken, and other birds then things started to get more odd there were mountain goats, bunnies, kittens and worst of all dogs. I legitimately started crying when I saw them slaughter a dog and add it to their pile of ones they already had drying out. One of the saddest things I have ever seen, but for them that is their culture they don't wast anything. Once we left the market and got over the shock the cooking class was really cool. We learned how to make a bunch of different Chinese dishes and we got aprons and cooking hats so we looked legit. They also gave us the recipes so we can make them again on our own.
We had some interesting adventures on our way back to Xiaolan , where we live, from Yangshuo. Long story short let just say that we didn't book one of the legs of our train ride that we needed, we had a police escort at one point and took a taxi ride for 2.5 hours all so we could make in back to teach before Monday morning.
All in all, coming here was the best decision ever. What we thought was going to be a disaster has become one of my newest fondest memories.
I love you all!
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