Last Day in Guzhen and on to Kaiyin and Shiqi!

               My last night in Guzhen was a little sad. I really grew to love the group there, but they had a head teacher now so i was moving to another school to help them. The morning I was to leave it ended up being really rainy which made traveling a little more interesting. Sweet Ann helped me get my stuff loaded in the car and told the driver where to take me. It took even longer getting there because of the rain and the driver spoke no English. Also, Asian drivers are crazy! You add rain to that and it makes for one exciting drive. I made it to Kaiyin and found their head teacher who then helped me carry my suitcases up four flights of stairs to the room where i was going to stay. Next we went to see the classes. It was their first day of teaching but they were short eight teachers due to the visa problems so it was a little crazy. After school I got to hang out with the teachers that are actually coming to my school once we get to go. That evening i asked if it would be more beneficial for me to go over to the Shiqi school because they were running without a head teacher. Without much hesitation they decided that would be great. Once again on the move! :P So after a quick breakfast at Kaiyin i set off for Shiqi.

Kaiyin Breakfast (Surprisingly good!)

             This time i just went for the day to see how things were going. I got there right as they were starting to teach their first class ever. You could tell they didn't have a lot of guidance, but it wasn't complete chaos. After class and a delicious lunch i met with each of the teachers to ask them some questions and see how I could best help in my short time there. I decided it would be good if I came over and stayed for a couple days to help get things organized or at least ease their worries a bit. It was a fun couple days! I had some early morning run ins with cockroaches and did a lot of traveling between classrooms. I like to believe I helped a lot while being there, but I'm a little bias.

           Friday they celebrated teacher appreciation day. It was the best thing ever! They had a little ceremony before school to recognize all the teachers and give them flowers. Then in every class they gave us more flowers or a flower cookie. It was adorable.

Cute Shiqi Teachers

Cute Kindy Kids

All the Teacher Appreciation Day gifts

Guzhen

Guzhen is the school i was temporarily assigned to be head teacher at. After our rest the lovely coordinator, Ann, took us around the city. We went to the bank, the store, and we even got to see the school a little! The full school tour came later, but it is such a cute school. I stayed there for a few days and trained the teachers and helped them get everything organized, before their head teacher got there. They started teaching while i was there too. It was drastically different from my first day of teaching in the Dominican Republic. The teachers were all laughing and smiling at the end of the day, even though some of the time it was chaos, they made the most of it and had a good day. I was amazed at how well they did. After teaching we had a meeting with the principal and some of the staff. They pretty much just wanted to let us know they were here for us if we needed anything and that the school was like a big family. They are so happy to have us there.
            The next day we were on our own to find food and do what we wanted. We went on an adventure around town and found some amazing little restaurants.  The girls all wanted to try and find a place to get a foot bath with the fish that nibble on your feet. We found a place that said foot bath so we went in. Google translate in hand, we tried our best to communicate with the people at the desk. After a few minutes of charades and poorly translated sentences they took us back to these rooms. The rooms were very luxurious looking and the chairs were large comfortable reclining type chairs. We all had a seat not knowing what was really going on. The only information we knew for sure was one hour foot bath and it would cost about $15. Next thing we know there are two women in the room with us. They tried to talk to us but we couldn't understand anything. They then took a bucket from under our foot rests and filled it with scalding hot water and insisted we put our feet in it. Then they leaned our chair back and got behind us and gave us an almost full body massage. I'm not gonna lie, it was well worth the $15 even though most of the girls were sore the next day.
          The next day we went out around town again after spending the morning inside relaxing. We debated where to go to eat when this guy told us we need to come to his restaurant. Turns out he spoke English and when we decided to eat there he called his boss to come down and talk to us. We spent the next two hours eating while the boss gave us advice on life and interrogated our being there. Since we were paying to come teach kids English he felt indebted to us and as if he needed to give back. He said free food wasn't enough. He then gave us his WeChat and phone number and said that anytime we needed anything to let him know and he would help us. It was really sweet of him. They also told us to come back right before they closed and they would have some more food made for us to take. We did indeed go back, but it happened to be pouring rain when we went. They thought we were crazy when we got there, half of us soaking wet and the other half with a drenched umbrella. They immediately gave us little towels and cups of hot water. It was wonderful. He then insisted on giving us a ride home so we didn't have to walk in the rain. It was an adventure trying to direct him while he drove in the rain toward our house. We were happy to be home!

CHINA From assignment to first days

A few months into the summer i got an email from the ILP office telling me that they had a head teacher spot open up and i was next in line to fill it. I jumped on the opportunity and accepted. I had a crazy couple weeks trying to get all my paper work in at such short notice. I attended a training and found out my group had the opportunity to open a new school! I was both nervous and excited. The weeks flew by before it came time to depart. Three days before we were scheduled to leave the Chinese government decided they wanted to reevaluate some of the volunteer's visas and the pulled them. Suddenly 39 of the volunteers couldn't travel with us and had to wait for the government to decide if they could come. It was a bit of a disaster... The director called me and told me i was still going, but out of the visas pulled five were head teachers so I might have to travel around and help other schools get started. I told him i would go wherever they needed me (and I have).
            So we set off! the airport was 100x less stressful having traveled out of the country once before. I am very grateful for that, seeing how i was also responsible for the girls traveling with me. We had a few adventures trying to find the right gate and having gates change on us right before the flight, but it all worked out. Once we arrived at our first stop in China we realized we had less then one hour to get our luggage, get through customs, and navigate a foreign airport to catch our last flight. It was a little stressful getting all six of us where we needed to be. Once we found our airline desk it was way past the time we were supposed to take off, but luckily our flight was delayed due to weather. Thank goodness! Once at our gate they delayed the flight another two hours.. but they gave us free food! Since we were waiting so long they gave us food to eat. It was the first Chinese snacks we received. We finally made it to or last destination and found all of our luggage. It was there i got the text saying I was going with one group to Guzhen while my volunteers were heading to another school for the first week or so. I loaded up my things and got in a bus full of people i didn't know going to a school of which I had no information on. Not to mention the fact that it was now 4 in the morning. We made it to our apartment, well temporary apartment for me, and got settled in a bit. After a few hours to nap we set out to get to know our surroundings.

Recap on a Year...

I'm back! It has been a while since I posted anything (almost 8 months).. Call me a slacker, or an always busy butterfly. ;) Anyways, where did we leave off?

I stopped posting updates in the Dominican republic because I finished a week earlier then expected and wanted to surprise everyone by coming home in time for the musical. It was unbelievably hard to say goodbye to the people down there and I miss them everyday. One of my favorite memories from my last days down there: We were walking down the road and I heard from down the street a little girl yell at the top of her lungs "TEACHA! I turned around and saw her running full speed to catch me. She gave me the biggest hug i think i have ever received and said she loved me. I was nearly in tears knowing I would probably never get to see her again, but it was the sweetest parting gift.

The next four months or so I had the amazing opportunity to volunteer with Canyon country outdoor education. Going on field trips and being a part of the CCOE crew helped me in so many ways. I gained more confidence in teaching and helping children, while I got to know more about the surrounding and the fun people I worked with. Also during these months I decided to continue my education by taking a semester of classes through USU-Moab. I really loved taking classes at a small campus. You get to know people on a personal level and it is the best! I decided during these four months that I missed the kids and I really missed teaching, so I applied to be a head teacher with ILP. After some interviews and paperwork they accepted me as a head teacher and put me on the list to get the next spot to open up.

I'm going to jump over a lot, but now we are to the summer! There are so many things I could write about this summer. It was one busy, yet amazing, summer. I figured I was a part of somewhere between 16-18 girls camp trips. I love being a river guide and having the chance to work with these amazing youth. I feel like i'm still recovering from a nonstop summer, but I wouldn't trade my life for anything.
 Now we are sorta kinda caught up with the events of the last little bit of my life.