The only people who are left from when I first arrived are Alyssa from Detroit, Andrew from Pittsburgh (my roommate at the hotel), and Felix from Montreal. All three of them are getting ready to leave this upcoming weekend (June 15-17).
There are quite a few Chinese students who arrived. Peter is from Dali in northern China but goes to high school in New York. Lance, who is 15 and singlehandedly organized our fantastic trip to Huashan which I will write about soon, is from Shanghai but goes to high school in North Carolina. They are the youngest volunteers here. Helen is a Chinese student from Shanghai who just finished her first year at the University of Toronto. Ziyu (from Wuhan, she flew out the day after I got there) and Jingfei (from Wuxi, near Shanghai) are friends from Brandeis University in Boston and also just finished their first year. Their friends Lulu and her boyfriend Jing, who also goes by George are from China (not sure where) but also attend Brandeis.
There are also several international volunteers. Hiskia is a woman from the Netherlands who has been traveling in China for a little bit before coming to Xi'an and who also did an IVHQ project in Cambodia. Helene is a graduate economics student studying international economic development, focusing on China, and who has already studied extensively in Hong Kong. She is from Denmark, but is only here for a week because she was accepted to a five day program allowing foreign students access to North Korea to tour. Jess is a law student like Felix and is also from Montreal who is here until June and who also did some touring in China with some left to do when she leaves. She was in Beijing with a school group for four weeks studying Chinese law and politics before coming here. Kirsten is an American who is about to be finished with her six years of service in the Air Force and is using this time to vacation since she had accumulated quite a bit of leave. Previously, she was stationed in Afghanistan for some time. There are three girls here from the United Kingdom who don't really hang out with everyone and whose names I do not know. Carlos is a second-year university student from Florida using this time for part of his summer vacation. Myra is from the United States but was raised in Mexico for most of her life and is also using this time as a working vacation. Ten-Zen is originally from Taiwan but has grown up mostly in New York I think and also wanted to come to China for the summer to see what it was like and to do some volunteer work. Rita, who is from Connecticut also just finished her first year of college at a school in California is staying at a home stay here but still comes to do things with the larger group from time to time.
When we were at the noodle bar, I was able to meet Helen, Ziyu and Jingfei who are the three girls who now work with me at the special needs center. They said that they were really glad to see that I was back from Wuhan because for the past two days they were having a lot of trouble remembering the directions on how to get to the special needs center. In fact, the teachers had come to show them the way on Monday. However, they had not paid much attention because they thought that I would be there to show them on Tuesday. When I was not there, because I was flying in that afternoon, they did not know what to do and frantically called the teacher to come and show them the way. This says a lot about them. They are very animated and funny and often just group together talking to each other in Chinese and very loud. Because of them, however, I have gotten to try a lot more local food. They do not like the food at the school that much and so go out to local places on the street outside the school and I go with them. They are fun to talk to and they also have a good relationship with the kids and know how to command authority.
Since I have been back, we pretty much have spent most days at the school. I see the kids at the apartment some but that is only usually when we go there to pick up and drop off the school kids. On the first day I was back (Wednesday, June 6), we took the kids back to the university (apparently the teachers thought it was such a great idea when we planned it with Lisa and Sherry) and we watched them play some soccer and badminton again. During nap time, I showed them the coffee shop I had started going to with Lisa and Sherry and we went to try some lamb meat and dumplings at a local cafeteria. In the afternoon we helped the kids drawing pictures. Ding Hui has gotten into this thing where she draws animals and fruits and different objects and she tells me the Chinese word and she wants to know the English word and wants me to write it down. She now has quite a collection tucked away in this little folder she carries around. We separated the kids into two groups: the ones who were pretty serious about drawing and the ones who were not. Apparently there is an art competition for special needs children happening soon and so we helped the kids to pick out things to draw and guided them in drawing some things that would be suitable for the competition.
It was interesting to see that the staff had given Helen, Ziyu and Jingfei sheets which had the names of each student in the program, what their situation was, whether or not they lived with the program and how old they were. It was interesting to finally see everyone's official ages. Wang Zi Hao and "Jackie" had both told us that they were fifteen and nineteen respectively, but we did not believe them, but it was true. There were several, including Zhou Ming and a new student Ma Jing who were over twenty and a few that were even over 25. The oldest was this one woman who is always around the kids and who has some sort of mental disability and definitely lives with the program, but who doesn't really participate in the classes and is more of just a caretaker and a helper. Her name is Gao Xiang. I found out that she is 38 years old. I hope that it is not offensive to anyone that I talk about working with the "kids," considering this. For one, even though there are some who are in their 20's, there are many who are younger and on the whole it is pretty much a group of kids. Even though they come from a wide variety of backgrounds and have many different disabilities and there are huge age gaps, they all act as one big family most of the time and are excited to see each other. They tease each other and laugh with each other and fight just like a family would. They take care of each other. So, even though some of them are a lot older, I still think of all of them as "the kids" and try to help each one where they are coming from. Some are obviously way more advanced and others are very far behind. I want to make the best difference I can for all of them.
On Thursday, we continued the drawing and I helped the kids draw different types of animals from a book of animals. During nap time, I went back to the lower level classroom where the morning classes and there found Chen Laoshi, one of the older teachers (laoshi means teacher in Chinese). He was sitting there reading newspapers with Wang Zi Hao. He started to have sort of a conversation in Chinese. He asked me some questions, not all of which I understood and we tried to communicate a little bit. He got me to try to read some characters out of the newspaper. Some of it made sense and some of it did not. It was really interesting when he finally communicated, all in Chinese, that the characters he was pointing to on the newspaper were the characters of the name of China's president, Hu Jintao. It was a rough conversation and I wish my Chinese were better, but I thought it was interesting to talk to him and to communicate at all. Maybe, during some of these afternoons I have left, I can go down to the classroom and have him teach me a little bit more Chinese or try to talk to him with the limited vocabulary I have. In the afternoon, we played games with the kids outside, more basketball and badminton. That night, Andrew and I went out with the Chinese students while the rest of the foreign volunteers went out together to a local Korean restaurant. We went to this little avenue that the Chinese students called "food street." There were quite a few different restaurants which sold food both inside the restaurant but also on the street to passers-by. We stopped and ate at a barbecue restaurant and also at a chain restaurant which apparently exists all over China but which has different varieties of noodles depending on where you are. The noodles were made from rice and were pretty thick, mixed with some vegetables and came either very spicy or not too spicy. I tried both and really liked it.
On Friday, Andrew came along instead of going to his normal position teaching English at a nearby primary school. We walked the kids from the dorms to the school and watched as they prepared for another performance. Eventually, I was surprised to see Sherry walk up to the school much to the delight of all the kids. She had been in Xi'an for the last few days sightseeing with her family who had come to see her from Shenzhen. They were leaving on Saturday, but had decided to come back to the school to say goodbye to the kids. She handed out candy and of course Wang Zi Hao and Ya Qi got way more than their fair share. She introduced me to her mom and her dad, who spoke some English. Sherry's dad and I played keep it up and monkey in the middle with the kids. Eventually, it was time to tell her goodbye for the last time, so we all waved goodbye to her and her parents and then began practicing again for the performance.
Later, we learned that more donors were bringing food and supplies before lunch and that the kids would sing some for them. Sure enough, after a little while, quite a few men and women arrived. We learned later that at least some of them worked for the Chinese tax collecting agency. They brought jugs of oil and bags of flour and also treats for the kids. After a few songs, we were asked to come to the second floor to the kitchen. When we got there we saw that the table had been wrapped in ceran wrap. There were people all around the table. Some of the kids, some staff and some of the donors. The table was already covered with over a hundred white, raw dumplings, newly made. There were bowls of the pork and vegetable filling scattered across the table. We washed our hands and the lady next to me taught me how to carefully stuff the circular little pad of dough with just enough filling and then to fold the wrap around the filling, pinching at the sides in order to make a good-looking, tight dumpling, ready to be boiled. In between making dumplings, we would dip our hands in cups of flour which were also placed around the table. In China, making dumplings is a very big deal. Families do it together to celebrate the Chinese New Year and it is considered friendly for everyone to pitch in and make all of the dumplings together. All of my dumplings looked bad compared to the lady next to me, but she complimented me anyway and then we took a picture together. When we were finished, dumplings covered the entire table. Slowly, batch by batch, we boiled them, trays at a time. We served the kids first and then we ate with the staff and the donors, taking pictures together periodically. Once they were boiled, we poured a little bit of soy sauce on top. They were really, really good.
When we were finished, we helped the kids clean up and prepare for nap time. We had asked to get off early because Andrew and I had to be back at the hotel in order to be ready to take the train to hike Huashan or Hua Mountain, which I will talk about later. However, one of the donors asked us if he could take us to the Big Goose Pagoda. He could get us a tour and right up close to it for free since he had connections, being a member of the revenue service and all. We gladly accepted and got ready to leave.
Class in the morning
Sherry's last visit to the special needs center. Liu De Xia ("Jackie") and Sherry.
Sherry, her parents, some of the kids and I.
Some of the kids playing one of their favorite games, Majiang, also played on blankets and tables on street corners on the afternoons by retired people all around the city. Helen told me that majiang is one of the most popular games in China.
On Friday (June 8), some donors decided to bring lunch in the form of dumplings, which all the volunteers and staff learned how to make and cook together.
So many dumplings.
Helen with a dumpling she made.
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