Julong

We recently visited a city about an hour away from our school.  We had a blast as we got to do so many things! We met a friend by the name of Mr. Li and he showed us around Julong and around the school he works at. Julong is beautiful! There were flowers everywhere and man made lakes and mountains in the background. It was nice to take a break, get out of the city, and enjoy some fresh air. We walked around a beautiful park and saw lots of lilies! I have always wanted to see lilies as big as they were in the park, so it was breathtaking. It also rained quite a bit, which made me miss and think of home. 

 

 

We had a meal with a friend that we made while traveling and I got quite daring! I had Pig intestine that day! It was not super yummy, but not as bad as I thought it would be. I tried some of their native dishes and enjoyed the sweet ice cream afterwards. Chinese people love to put random things on top of ice cream. Sometimes you get tomatoes on top of your ice cream, beans, or in this case, watermelon. Always interesting to try something new!

 

Chinese Chess

 Typical sidewalks--the Chinese believe that walking on these stones is good for your feet.

I saw this sweet scene in Hulong. :)

 While on this journey there have been times when I would feel as though I was not making a difference in any of my student’s lives while teaching them. I would ask myself-are they really learning any English from me? Have I inspired them at all? Just what was I thinking signing up for a trip to China?? I put pictures of North Carolina on my wall in my classroom so that whenever I would feel a moment of weakness, I would look up to those pictures and just think, I’ll be home soon!  There were days when I would just take a deep breath, look at those pictures, and simply do what I could to get through the day. 

 

Always, always when I would feel a moment of weakness I would be given a tender moment with a child that would put a smile on my face and give me the strength to keep going. I look forward to those moments. I understand what it means to be a teacher now. Everyday will not be a success story, but in between the horrible “I’m going to strangle you” days with the kids, there are moments when you have tears in your eyes due to their kindness and love towards you. I would like to share one of those many precious moments with you.

 It was a free day with the kids, and I decided to have them make cards for the other teachers to carry back to America with them. I had them sign their English and Chinese name and write that they loved their teacher. As you can imagine, you have to watch the kids like a hawk to make sure no one draws something inappropriate or doesn’t do as they are told. I gave the other kids play dough to play with while I was doing this. One of my students, Sam, was playing with his play dough in the corner and I was not paying attention to him, as I was trying to get everyone to sign the card in the short amount of time that we had. At the very end of class, I hear his little voice call out my name. “Teacha Ambah, look!” I walked over to his corner and was brought to tears as he wrote I love you on his desk out of play dough for me.  I quickly grabbed my camera and took a picture of him as he had worked on it the entire class period. 

Small, precious moments like that with the children make me realize that I am making a difference. Even if I am doing nothing more than simply loving them, I know I am making a difference. I will never regret my decision to come to China, it has been the best decision I have ever made.  These children are etched across my heart forever, I will miss them so much when I say goodbye to them. I thank God for these small precious moments,  where would we be in life without  them?

-Amber Toy