I woke up this morning looking forward to another bowl of porridge. To my delight, it was accompanied by a piece of rice bread. As I looked around, I noticed that some of the children had similar rolls, but with meat and vegetable filling. I was a little bitter, but shrugged it off and dipped mine into the porridge. I tried to get some of the kids to play basketball, but it warmed up early and most of them just went into their rooms where the fans were. Many of them had their end of year exams today, and it will be interesting to see if any of them leave. To be honest, I wouldn’t notice if a few left, unless it’s one of my two lackeys.
This morning I had the chance to Skype with my parents for a while. My dog Madison is looking adorable as ever. They were just getting ready for bed and it reminded me that I will be in rough shape for the first few days after I get back to the states with the time change.
After finishing with them I just hung out in my room for a while and worked on a paper for my internship. Around noon we had lunch and I got a pretty big portion of rice, so that was exciting! A little while later one of the coordinators asked if I wanted to go on a hike with some of the kids. I had no idea what I was in store for. The purpose of this hike was to get firewood for what I am guessing would be a bonfire later??? The kids kept climbing into the trees like monkey and I was a little scared for them. By the end I was climbing in them too. I guess I really am a child at heart. The goal was to climb up the tree and swing until the others could grab it higher up, then everyone pulls it down and tries to break it. Dangerous? Probably. Fun? Absolutely! For the last, and tallest tree, they needed the assistance of a tall slightly under average weight man. I climbed up about 7 feet and started swinging my legs back and forth. I got it to lean down and some others grabbed the top. I was still a few feet of the ground and started bouncing a little. Finally that bad boy snapped and I hit the ground on my knees. The coordinator was pretty concerned that I hurt myself, but after growing up on the hard streets of Centralia, WA, that was nothing.
*Side note- Centralia is not hard at all…
Anyway, we got our bounty and headed back to the dorms. I took a shower and watched Invictus. Good movie… I’m also trying to figure HDR pictures, so that should add to my photo collection nicely.
Dinner was good. It was rice, tofu and potatoes with some sort of stock. After, we played an actual game of basketball. My team won. I pretty much just got rebounds, didn’t let the other team score, and fed the ball to my teammates. It’s nice being the best player on the team. I’m now back in my room and I’m hoping the AC will stop the sweating.
I’m feeling better today. The kids are just so happy and smile all of the time. Maybe it’s just being around me, but it’s nice to make kids smile. We’ll see what tomorrow holds… Oh and apparently no bonfire : (
Chris- Adviser Abroad China
Cultural Embrace @ www.culturalembrace.com
www.flickr.com/photos/cschave
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