Update on my life

Craziness will ensue when a group of awesome people get together!  We had a potluck so each of us brought a dish or dessert.  Another foreigner teacher (not with Peace Corps) enlisted a large group of students to help him make about 20 pizzas and over 100 little berry tarts, among other things.  We had a wonderful feast which was followed by a dance party with the students and some of the school leaders.  -Thanksgiving celebration in Nejiang, Sichuan Province, 2014 (hosted by Felicia and Luis).

For English Corner at Thanksgiving, Kayla and I taught the students to make turkey headbands.

Student performances in early December

It was very cold... thank goodness for the bonfire!

With Sophia and Taylor after their performances

For 3 days, Kayla and I hosted a cyclist from England named Jon.  He biked all through Europe, and then flew to Xinjiang and biked down to Gansu.  In Zhangye he met Yiannis and from then on he was hopping from one Peace Corps Volunteer's site to another!  In Jiangyou, we attended a student dance competition, baked, ate hot pot, and because some of the female teachers were impressed with Jon, went to a bar (which was the first time Kayla and I had been to a bar in Jiangyou!)

Goodbye Jon! Enjoy your next adventures.

For our Women's Group Christmas Party, we had each girl bring a wrapped gift and we did a gift exchange game.  Vivian and Yvonne were excited to receive the goldfish!

Students enjoying the cookies they decorated.  After the crazy Halloween Party, Kayla and I learned our lesson.  We did not leave any food out, and when we were ready for the cookie decorating, Kayla stayed with the box of cookies the whole time and I helped keep the students in line.  At this first party there was still some pushing, but nonetheless the students really enjoyed the cookies.

Before the party, K and I prepared this fun fireplace decoration.  During the two parties, students made paper stockings and placed them on the wall.  Here are Lacey (L) and Vimy showing off the adorable stockings.

The students were very creative in their stockings!

This was taken at our second Christmas party, for which we selected hardworking students and invited them personally.  The students at this party were actually much more well-behaved than the students at the first party, and when Kayla brought out the box of cookies, they kept a distance until we invited students to come over and decorate, a few people at a time.

Skyping with my family on Christmas morning! Thank goodness for technology that makes it feel like we're all together in the same room for the special holiday, even though in reality we're on opposite sides of the world. 

The weekend after Christmas, Kayla and I went to Chengdu to pick up her boyfriend, Steven, at the airport.  She was so excited to be reunited with him!

I made stockings for our Christmas celebration

Kayla wanted to give Steven a special Christmas celebration, since he'd been traveling in Nepal and India and wouldn't be with his family either.

After Steven made us a delicious breakfast of banana-walnut pancakes, we made gingerbread houses!

Steven came to visit Kayla's class on Monday.  The students were VERY excited to meet him!

In January after finishing my classes, I went down to southern Sichuan to visit a student, Christina, and stay with her family.

We visited some beautiful caves with colorful lights and amazing karst rock formations.

I'd thought I'd find warmer weather down south, but actually one night it was so cold that it snowed!

Lamb hotpot!!  Later they added thistle.  It was so delicious.

After visiting Christina, I came back up to Chengdu for the Peace Corps In-Service Training (IST).  Here are a few of my buddies, in one of the 5 pictures I took that whole week (oops).

Dancing with Peace Corps volunteers at a bar in Chengdu.  It's always a party when we're together!!

After IST, I spent a week with a student named Sunflower who lives near the city of Yibin, about 6 hours east of Chengdu (by train).  This is me and her aunt's family.  That's her sister on the far right, in the blue sweatshirt.

Sunflower's mom preparing food in the kitchen.  In the top left you can see hunks of meat drying out.  The stove is a cement block with holes where they stoke the fire.  There is no refrigerator and so they store food in a closed cabinet.  They also don't have running water but water from an underground well is pumped up to fill two large cement tub-like basins.

This is the bathroom. Yes, that's a pig sleeping in a pen!  That little trough on the right is where you squat and do your business, while a pig grunts behind your back.  In case you're wondering, he doesn't eat the human waste- that empties out under the floor, and then Sunflower's parents fish it out to use as fertilizer in their farm.  Apparently having a pig in your bathroom is the norm in the countryside- I saw the same thing in her aunt's house, and in her uncles' house.

Sunflower and I!  During my time there, we visited her relatives, bathed in the hot springs, went for walks in her hometown, went fishing at a local pond, and enjoyed the delicious meals prepared by her family!!

One day we went to a funeral for Sunflower's grandma's brother, and after we played with her young cousins.

Thriller with students

Halloween Party 2013

Last night’s Halloween Party was a chaotic jumble where things didn’t always go as planned but everyone had a great time (and took a bazillion pictures).

            A group of students helped Kayla and I bring all the party materials to the English Library around 6, for the party which would start at 7.  They were a great help, even though most of them were new students and didn’t speak English well.  We laid out the food (bread bones, chocolate caramel apples, pumpkin bread, oranges with jack-o-lantern faces drawn on, and banana ghosts).  We had apples for bobbing and we put them in a bowl with water to show that they were off-limits.  We attached the photo props to chopsticks and set them by the Halloween decorations to serve as a backdrop.  Paper, glue sticks, pencils, and stencils were set out on the table for mask-making.  I had hoped to have the students carve pomelo skins for jack-o-lanterns like last year, but unfortunately after sitting in my apartment for a few days the skins were moldy and soggy.  Only one was still dry and almost mold-free.  I cut a face in it, intending to light a candle underneath and encourage students to try the idea at home. By 6:30 students were already arriving, and next thing you know I’m swept into a flurry of photo-taking with students that lasts for the next thirty minutes. 

            <I should tell the students not to eat the apples because they’re for a game…>

            Mira, come take a photo with me! 

            Now me!

            <Two steps forward, elbow is grabbed>

            Here wear this mask!  Take a photo, ok?

            <Students keep walking off with the photo props and not putting them back, I should collect them.>

            Mira, this is my friend! She wants to have a photo with you.

            I love you!

            <Ok we just met, but I love you too!>

            Kayla, Mira, come take a photo!

            <Ugh that girl is wearing the semi-moldy pomelo jack-o-lantern on her head, I should probably tell her not to.>

            Mira, look at our masks!

            <Oh those are great! Let me take some pictures.>

            The students must not have eaten in weeks, because they devoured EVERYthing edible on that table.  They must have wondered why the heck the apples were floating in water.  Well, so much for bobbing for apples.  Needless to say, my intentions weren’t completely fulfilled.  The apples were eaten, the photo props wandered off and a few were incorporated into students’ masks, and the pomelo skin bounced from head to head.  I guess I can’t be everywhere at once, especially when there are 50 students crowded into a small library!

            We had a contest for the students who’d made masks, but because I could never move more than two feet across the room, I wasn’t able to tell them how to make them more interesting.  Many students just cut out the mask shape and tied on a string, without decorating it all.  I had all the students who’d made masks stand on one side of the room, and then chose 10 students to each choose their favorites.  From there, we whittled it down to about 6 winners.

            Apart from vanished apples and plain masks, the other activities were a huge success.  I’d brought 4 toilet paper rolls and it was riot to watch the teams compete to wrap their friends as mummies.  Pin-the-nose-on-the-pumpkin was hilarious, although Chinese students really need to loosen up and have a little fun.  They were giving correct instructions to the blind-folded person! Where is the fun in that?!  It amuses me greatly to offer cheers when they’re about to place the nose in the wrong place, and see the surprise on their faces when they lift the scarf. 

            One of the highlights of the night was teaching students part of the Thriller dance.  Kayla and I had started learning it this past weekend.  I didn’t realize how many parts there were to the dance!  Videos on YouTube were only moderately helpful, but they went too fast and didn’t review enough.  To keep things simple, Kayla and I only taught 4 eight-counts.  The students loved it and it was really easy for them.

            We were surprised and rather overwhelmed at the number of students who came to the party.  We’d expected no more than 30, but about 50 came.  The noise and having to yell over everyone to get their attention left me with a headache by the end and I was happy when it was over, but the party went really well overall and I could see the excitement on my students’ faces and the gratitude when they said goodbye.  And in the end, that’s what always makes it worth all the headaches and frustrations.

The infamous pomelo skin jack-o-lantern

A busy morning

I turned to wash my hands in the sink when suddenly I saw a giant gray fur ball leap from behind the toilet and through the hole under the bathtub (don’t ask me why there’s a hole there- China seems to have an affinity for random, inexplicable holes in walls).

I let out a shriek and ran out, slamming the door behind me.

No, no, no. I can’t have rats.  Not in my apartment.

For the next hour, I sat on the couch, far away from the bathroom, debating what to do.  I briefly considered surrendering my bathroom to the vermin, but then a second later I realized I had to pee.  It would also be nice to brush my teeth and brush my hair before class!  Plus at some point I would need to shower again.  So that wasn’t an option. 

As horrified and disgusted as I was to see the bugger, it did solve a mystery that had been bothering me for some time.  There was one day a few weeks ago when I returned from class to find that the toilet paper in my bathroom trashcan had sunk down, as if someone had pushed it down.  I was struck by that because I’d distinctly remembered noticing it was getting pretty full only a few hours earlier when I’d left that morning.  I was baffled, but it quickly left my mind, until two days ago something happened that was harder to ignore.  I was at my apartment Sunday morning, and a few hours after using the bathroom I went in again, only to find that the entire bag from the trashcan was gone, and the can was knocked over!  It really freaked me out to know that something was in my apartment.  I definitely hadn’t taken it out and forgotten because I’d hadn’t yet left my apartment, so if I’d tied up the bag it would still be inside.  After I saw Stupid McRat-Face, I knew he’d taken the paper for his nest and mostly had been snacking on used toilet paper. Ick.

So I had to do something but I didn’t want to do it alone.  I would get Kerry or Kayla to help me!  I didn’t want to use poison or traps because then I’d have to deal with the smell and the dead body. Ughh.  No thanks. Plus, I don’t think I could kill something like a rat.  Cockroaches and spiders, yes.  But a rat isn’t so far from a hamster or even a cat.  So I’d have to cover up the hole.  Cardboard and tape! That should work.

After about an hour, I really had to pee, so I suited up by putting on sneakers (no fool is going to bite my toes!) and armed myself with a broom.  I prepared a cardboard square, packing tape, and scissors.  I realized from having seen the rat leap so quickly into the hole that it was probably just as scared of me as I was of it.  So before entering, I turned on the light and banged on the door to announce my presence.  I opened the door slowly, peering left and right before coming in and closing it behind me.  I peered behind the toilet and under the plastic shelving to make sure he was actually in his sub-tub home.  The tape screeched as I made a border around the cardboard, then before I could chicken out I quickly slapped the square over the porcelain hole and flattened down the tape.  The hardest part was over!  I reinforced it all around with more and more tape, and shook the broom in the air in victory!

  To be honest, I’m still a little nervous that little mister fuzz will appear out of some other hole or drain, but I’m proud that I dealt with the problem on my own.

It turns out a full bladder is a very strong motivating force.

Sorry Ratigan, Splinter, and Templeton. You guys are cool, but I don't want you or your friends in my apartment!!

Leaving class

Chalk powder cakes my hands and clothes
As I leave the classroom
Skirt billows in a rare breeze
Heel to calf to scratch a bug bite
ToespressagainstleatherasIdescendthehill
P a c e  s l o w s  a s  I  r e a c h  f l a t  g r o u n d
Voices shout "good morning" from behind
Whispers...
"Good afternoon!!" they correct, followed by a burst of giggles
Sidelong glance as I briefly return the greeting
1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th floor
Dig under chalk, phone, pen, and small papers for keys
Door opens, bag and keys fall to the table, and I drop into a blue leather chair.
Today's teaching is finished!

My 2nd China Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday, and in honor of the occasion, I chose birthdays to be the theme for my Listening and Video classes in the morning.  I had the students fill in the missing lyrics on a worksheet for “Birthday” by The Beatles, did a dictation about Pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and played the game, had the students line up in order of their birthdays without talking, and a few other games.  After class, I did nothing, just watched Antz and an episode of Mad Men.  Kayla made a surprise treat for me: blondies with coconut, banana, and chocolate!  So delicious.

Later I met Kayla and a student Vimy for dinner.  Vimy’s roommates were supposed to come but Vimy told me they had other plans.  I was also expecting two other students but they were late. About 15 minutes later, they showed up with hamburgers from Dico’s (a fast food place here), and a cake shaped liked a bear face!  We ate some delicious Sichuan dishes before going up to the library for the party I’d scheduled.  Little did I expect that all my guests would be there waiting to jump out with balloons when I appeared!  I turned the corner and suddenly they all yelled happy birthday, and everyone was giving me hugs and handing me gifts.  It was so sweet, and I was really touched.  The great thing was that I’d just been thinking earlier in the day that I’d never had a surprise party, and now I have!!  I loved it.  And I realized that Vimy’s roommates’ “other plans” had been to prepare and wait for my surprise!  I had no idea.

At the party, we played freeze dance, Indian chief, charades, and Kayla and I taught them the electric slide.  Which was awesome because I’d been wanting to teach line dances for a while but never got to it.  I’d dreamed of it though, and it finally came true.  They learned it pretty quickly, and it was cool to look around and see my Chinese students dancing in time with us!  Some of them gave up after a short time, but a few kept up for the whole song. 

Our bookshelves weren’t brought down yet, but I still got my birthday wish of being able to use our new library.  I’m glad that was only a temporary setback.  Overall, it was a really great birthday.  Simple, but meaningful, which is all I ever ask for.

During Pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey in class, I flipped the paper to mess with this student, but some fool in the class told her it was upside down!! Gah, China and your fear of losing face. It's just a game, people! It's supposed to be silly.

The crazy delicious dessert the Kayla made for me! OM NOM NOM

Balloons, presents, and sweet people!

My goodies: thermos, lamp shaped like an ice cream with a face (my second favorite gift), nail polish, candy, earrings, and a stack of cards written by Vimy and each of her roommates (my favorite gift).

New library

Our new library, after I cleared out most of the trash.

After we had brought down all the books and posters

Two weeks after walking into the shock of our previous English library having lost its wall, I was handed the key to a new and slightly smaller room just one floor below.  I arrived to find a mess of books, crumpled papers, and bits of plastic and junk on the floor.  After pulling out unused notebooks and saving the clean pieces of paper for future art projects, I piled all the junk and moved it to the trash bins outside.  After dinner, a crew of about 9 loyal English Cornerians joined Kayla and I to clean the new room and also empty out the old room.  In an hour, we had swept and wiped the new room, and removed all the posters and wall decorations from the old.  We also removed all the books from the shelves, and brought them along with the games and DVDs down to the third floor.  All that remains is bringing down the bookshelves, which were too heavy for us girls to move.  It's such a relief to have so many willing and, for the most part, uncomplaining helpers for this otherwise frustrating situation!  To me, it's pretty dumb that our space was taken without our consultation, especially when the school keeps talking of moving to the nearby metropolis, Mianyang.  We now have to move with the possibility that in the not-too-distant future, someone will have to move the library again.  Then again, they've been saying for years that they're going to move and not much progress has been made.  It's too bad that our new room is smaller (about half the size).

But, consistent with my determination to see the positive aspects, I have noticed a few improvements.  The door to our new library is a lot easier to lock and unlock.  We have working light switches in the room, instead of inside another room with different key (remember how I said it had shared a wall with the art room? They also shared the lights, and unfortunately for us the switches were in the art room half).  Being on the 3rd floor instead of the 4th means one less flight of stairs to climb.  Plus, having bare walls and an empty room means a fresh start and a chance to go through the shelves and get rid of unnecessary things.  We can make this our space, however we want it to be!

I hope that soon the book shelves will be moved.  Tomorrow is my birthday and the only gift I want is to be able to celebrate in our new library.  And even if the shelves aren't yet relocated, we will still celebrate.  For as slow and frustrating things can be in China, it is great that after only two weeks we were able to at least partially settle in a new space.

Rice

The community is a-buzz tonight

Gather the rice! It’s time to harvest.

Driveways and sidewalks covered in grains,

Raked out into squares

A Zen garden of tiny gold pieces

Reed mats with frayed, curled edges

Hold thousands.

A long stretch of road,

A series of edible pyramids.

An old man bends to gather the last few handfuls.

Wide dust bins gulp up small mounds,

Then pour like rain into canvas bags

Bags of blue, green, red

Some with pictures of smiling pigs

Rows of bags standing like sentinels.

A woman cranks a machine

That separates the grain from its armor.

Reframing

Living in China is a very difficult thing to do.  I’m pretty certain that any foreigner who’s come to live in China would agree with that.  A lot of little things happen on an almost daily basis that can really drive you crazy!  Why are roads left full of pot holes?  Why does the repairman leave all kind of junk on my floor when he leaves?  Why are people at my school still staring at me after I’ve been here for a year?  Why do we have to teach on weekends to make up the days we have holidays??

I could go on and on.  If I let all these little things get to me, they would become huge things and I would always be angry.  However, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about living in China, it’s how to reframe things so they are more positive. 

Just this morning I was glancing through the journal entries I last year, and I was struck by some pretty negative ideas from one day in December:

“I’m starting to get really bored here.”

“The honeymoon phase is definitely over.”

“I’m tired of all the stupid questions that students always ask me: ‘Can you use chopsticks?’ ‘Can you speak Chinese?’ ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’

Of course there are still some days when I feel bored or lonely or that the days are all the same.  But last week I did an activity with some of my classes to break up the monotony of repeated questions.  Usually on the first day of class, I reserve some time for students to ask any question about me, and those three are just some examples of the inane questions I often receive.  So this year I decided to do something different.  I made posters with questions and they had to guess the answers about me.  I made it a competition by dividing the class into groups.  If they got a question right, their group would get one point, and if not I would go to the next group until someone gave the correct answer.  I included some of the most commonly asked questions (how many people are in your family, when did you come to China, how old are you, etc) as well as other questions that I think are interesting that they might not think to ask (what was your major, how many countries have you been to, where did you study abroad).  The result was a really fun competition.  I got some interesting answers: some thought I was 26; I was from Russia; I majored in Chemistry.  I have no siblings.  My trick question was, Does Mira have a boyfriend? How old is he?  Most groups would just jump to telling me the age, but I kept repeating the first part of the question until someone responded that I don’t have a boyfriend, which is the correct answer.

Something rather frustrating about my schedule this semester is that every day except Thursday, I have a split period: I teach a class 1.5 hours but it’s split up by the lunch break in between.  Monday and Tuesday I only have one class each day, but because it’s the split class, I can’t relax or feel done after lunch.  I think this is rather silly but I understand that they had to do that.  And the good thing is that if, like today, I realize the lesson I’d planned is too hard, I have time before the second half of the class to revise it!  I was teaching about syllables today, and I’d wanted to talk about stressed vs unstressed syllables, but I realized after the first half that they seemed a little lost.  So then I modified the lesson to focus on counting syllables.

Plus, I can’t really complain about my schedule this year because this year I have 250 students… last year I taught about 700.  Life is good!

The last example of my endeavors to reframe negative things as positive things is in regards to the English library.  Last year, we shared a space with an art classroom, but there was a wall in between so there were two clearly separated rooms.  We could be doing English Corner while an art class was in session and we’d each have privacy.  Imagine my surprise when I took the new foreign teacher, Kayla, up to see the English library, only to find that the wall had been taken out completely, leaving one giant room!  My jaw definitely dropped.  Our books and shelves were all still there, but what was to become of our precious library??  Apparently the school didn’t realize the effect that would have, but that space was so valuable to us foreign teachers.  We did a lot of activities there, including our weekly English Corner and holiday parties.  It was a big space with desks and chairs but also an open space for dancing and games.  I made a big fuss to the waiban (school official who helps the foreign teachers) and I think he realized how upset I was.  I’m usually pretty indirect when dealing with Chinese people because that is the cultural norm, but this time I was very honest with him.  I said, “I know it’s not your fault, but I want you to know that this makes me really mad.”  Since then, he has talked to the school president and they are currently clearing out a room for us.  I have no idea where it will be, so for now all I can hope is that it will be better in some way: bigger, on the ground floor instead of the 4^th where it had been, or it will have a monitor for showing movies.

Our library last year (enclosed, with walls all around!)

GASP!! Where's the wall???  (Can you see that column in the first picture?  And the WALL with windows on either side of it? GONE!!!)

What the heck is Mira up to??

            My apologies to all readers! I’ve definitely been slacking on posting to this blog.  I didn’t even finish posting about my Yunnan trip! But at this point it feels kind of silly to post on it. So I’ll just give you a brief summary.

         After Xishuangbanna, we went to Dali where we rented bikes.  That brought a whole day of adventure. Before lunch, 2 bikes got flat tires, so half our group returned, while 3 others and I kept going. We rode for about 2 hours… then MY tire popped. It took us three hours to walk our bikes back, in the hot sun, and we got a little lost. So when we finally met up with the others, we were pretty frustrated, not to mention hot and hungry.  Due to having to change our bus time in Xishuangbanna, we only had that one crazy day in Dali. 

A beautiful day for biking!!  ... and walking about 7 miles...

           Next we went to Lijiang as a starting point for getting to Tiger Leaping Gorge, which according to Chinese legend is where a tiger leapt across a canyon to escape hunters.  We hiked there two days and a night.  We went down to the gorge and climbed on the giant boulders, then hiked back up.  I wish I had that magical tiger there with me to get me back up!  We hiked on to a hostel and enjoyed a much-needed meal and a restful night.  The next day, we walked for maybe five hours and then waited at a guesthouse for a bus. Back in Lijiang, we shopped for souvenirs and enjoyed the delicious street food. My favorite was crepes with fruit, chocolate, and ice cream!

Down in the gorge

Wow best crepe ever!!

                 Since March I’ve been teaching again.  In April, I attended a Peace Corps training session called Project Design Management workshop, which was created to help us plan our secondary projects.  It was very helpful to sit with other volunteers interested in doing the same thing as me, which is starting a Women’s Group to bring girl students together to have discussions about important topics and train them to be leaders.  There were many different topics being brainstormed that weekend, including theater club, environmental projects, starting and improving English libraries, and a peer leadership group.  It was great to re-connect with volunteers and listen to all the great ideas. It’s been a little difficult to get my women’s group started because everyone has such different schedules, and there have been a few holidays recently.  Plus some of the students I had hoped would join my group will actually be away from campus doing their internships next fall (teaching practice at kindergartens or elementary schools in their home towns).  The school had said they would do it next spring, but then they changed it to the fall.  I created a flyer and had my tutor help me translate it, so I will get copies made and give them to all my first year classes, and also try to get some female Chinese teachers on board so they can tell their classes.  I hope that by the end of the semester I can at least have identified a group of committed girls and we can meet once or twice.  Then next year it will just be a matter of scheduling.

              In the meantime, I’m also trying to improve our English library. I have a three-pronged strategy: 1) improve the physical space, 2) get students aware of and excited about the resources we have, and 3) get other teachers involved.  To improve the space, I have made some posters and some coloring pages that students can color and that promote reading.  I’ve also asked my parents to bring some posters this summer when they come to visit.  I want posters about books and reading, as well as travel posters and maps.  We have a lot of wonderful books but I would like to get more children’s books.  To get my students excited, I will bring my classes there more often to do activities, role plays, and a scavenger hunt.  To get teachers involved, I will get more keys made, invite teachers to activities there, and hopefully visit their classes to make a pitch about how awesome our library is!  There’s a small group of volunteers that already go there pretty often on their own to read and study, and they’re there if other students want to come and check out books.  I believe that the library has so much more potential and I really want to get more students to go there and use the books!

A poster I made for the English Library