Still Alive

Yesterday was a full day. I had to wake up super early to be at the 7:30am opening ceremony for the school's sports meet held at the stadium near the school. I brought my camera, but the batteries were dead! I was so bummed, cause it was quite a sight. On the field were all of the students, of all the grades. Seventy-Eight classes in all. Multiply that by an average of 60 students per class! I wish I could've taken a picture so you could see how unreal this sea of people is. And to think, each is an individual uniquely and lovingly created. Another cool thing that I wish I could have captured was the fan dance. The students have been practicing for weeks. There were at least two hundred students in formation doing this dance. It was actually fast-paced TaiChi where each student has a red fan which they open and close in sync. It was beautiful. Dang batteries! Here's a picture of later in the day when I got some new batteries.

I have to tell you, it was SO cold this morning too! I was freezing! And they say it will get even colder. Surprising! I was so tired and hungry and cold that I decided to not stick around for the sports, so I headed back home. But on the way, I got stopped of course by several people wanting to chat. Dream made me promise to come see her run in the afternoon. Then I got invited by the geography teacher to check out some new jewelry shops at that moment. And then Maggie found me and told me that the church service started in 15 minutes. We have been planning to go together for so long now, but something has always come up. So we brought the geography teacher with us too. It was a Catholic church, very nice typical Western style cathedral-type building. Beautiful garden outside. Inside was very ... catholic. Large statue of the crucified JC in the front, other icons of saints around. The room was super quiet. There were a handful of people there, including a priest and a nun. Maggie and I sat down and chatted a bit. She told me she had gone there with a friend of hers a couple weeks ago to just check it out and find out the times. It was really uncomfortable, though. We only stayed for a couple minutes. The geography teacher told us that there was another church nearby. It was a Protestant one. The service had started earlier, so we were late. And it was packed with people, so we couldn't go inside! So we didn't really stick around for that either. Plus the service was in Cantonese, so it's even difficult for Maggie to understand, since she is from the North and speaks Mandarin. Most teachers here come from the north actually. All classes are taught in Mandarin.

I didn't quite know how to feel after visiting these places. And I didn't know what to say. I still don't.

We then went to the new marketplace where vendors had their different shops of jewelry, books, and some fish. Turns out these are the same shops that I saw when I bought my bonsia tree, but they had to relocate. Many of these shops were littering up the small lake there, so they had to move, but all of the plant shops were able to stay. I found a book about bonsai trees in English, so I bought that.

When I got home I finally was able to take a nice nap and have some breakfast. I had a dream then, that we went to another chrch and Maggie was worshipping the Father.

After my nap, I went down to make good on my promise to watch Dream run her race. My students were with me at the time. Afterwards we went to the school to play some games. It's always a little awkward when I'm with anyone and Dream wants my attention. Her English is so good, and her presence is so demanding, that it makes it difficult for me to handle. I taught a group of my students and Dream how to play Uno. It was pretty fun; but Dream requires so much attention that it steals from the moments with my own students. I think she is really starving for love. But I can't ignore my own students on account of her. I must be wise about it.

After Uno, I met up with Lilla and one of my students, Nora (she is adorable). They brought me to Sasa's house (another student of mine). It was a lot of fun. She had a really nice apartment, with this HUGE big screen tv, 3 bedroom, piano, etc. I met her parents, didn't speak English, but very nice, and very excited to welcome me to their home. They wanted me to play a little piano for them, which I did. Yikes. I'm way out of practice. Sasa showed me a traditional Chinese instrument that she played for me. It was stinking awesome. I don't know what's its called, but it's similar to a harp. A couple more girls showed up, and they taught me how to make dumplings. It was so great. It reminded me of cooking with my Hmong friends. We made a ton of dumplings, and had this great dinner including with soup, cabbage, cucumbers, clams, and chicken. I'm always nervous eating any kind of bird these days with that flu going around! Surprisingly the clams were my favorite. They were awesome! Sasa's mom even pulled out their 10 yr old wine. I was so honored that she thought of me as such a worthy guest. So of course I had some.

I still had the Uno game on me from earlier in the day, so after the meal I taught this group of girls how to play. What fun they are! Had a great time. During the game the tv was on, and I was kinda watching out of the corner of my eye. There were subtitles in English, so I could read what was going on. Bush was visiting China, meeting all kinds of important people. But the thing that was most interesting to me was that he was asking the leaders to lighten up on religious freedoms. I forget all that was said, but he made some very bold exhortations to them about religion. Very interesting!

I attatched a couple pics to this post, but i don't see them. do they show up for you?