we could even see the moon
On the way to class, I took pictures of all the things I realized I hadn't taken pictures of yet...
the hotel courtyard where they had a water bladder
the hotel guard asked if I would take his picture :)
the restaurant where we ate all our meals
the PSA "billboard" next to our back hotel gate (one of them is a "don't sell your baby" picture)
the end of the road
the horse that was there every morning
the shop down the street
the road to the school
the salon (notice the huge buckets of water they needed for washing hair)
the charcoal burners
the police station
the shops
the market square where we ate BBQ
the copper door next to the school gate
Jessica had told us that her cousin had a shop near the school and we stopped to look at some Yi things that we could bring home. But we didn't have time to buy before class started...
I guess we weren't too late...
The days seemed so long but our week went by so fast! We learned so much about our students: their families, their culture, their values (health, family, money, success), what defined them. But we also learned about their struggles...
the apartments outside the classroom window where one of our teachers lives
Group pics before class
I
think the students enjoyed our classes for the most part but it was really hard
for me to not really be able to help them with what they were actually
struggling with. These teachers have 65+ middle school students who are trying
to learn their third language that they will probably never us e and don’t care
about. They only have 40 minute periods and have to finish the entire textbook
lesson, teach them 30 vocabulary words and get them ready for the final exam.
You could just hear the frustration in their voices when they talked about
teaching.
Some of the teachers shared or sang or read poetry for our last class. Joy brought her traditional Yi wedding clothes...
The children's camp had a closing program, but we finished our things too late to watch... :(
The collective closing ceremony involved a lot of speeches by some of our teachers (Wade, Juicy & Mary), Joel, Florence, Sue, Christina and Shawn. Shawn did a fantastic job translating into English but much of the meaning and feeling of the speeches was lost in translation.
Wade
Juicy
Mary
Christina
Sue
Following the ceremony, we posed for group pictures...
Took a few more pictures with our students...
Juicy
Joy
this was the government's official translator
Jack
Florence and Rebecca
Then we played celebrity one last time and signed tons of certificates for the kids...
After it was all over, Sue and I stopped back at Jessica's cousin's shop to buy some Yi things to take home. Before we even had a chance to buy them, two of the officials stopped to hurry us along. They kept telling us that the items we were purchasing were for babies and we didn't have babies. We tried to explain that we were buying them just the same to hang on our wall. Eventually they sent Shawn to tell us that we had to hurry to lunch. It was an "emergency"! The mayor was waiting...
Sue and I had mentioned wanting to buy a Yi wedding bag before we left.
When we stopped by the stand that had some that
morning, there was only one left and she wanted nearly 400 kuai for it. So we
just decided to go without.
Lunch with the mayor was in our normal restaurant but all the way up on the 6th floor!
Whew! We made it...
It was quite the banquet! There was plenty of wine for all of the MANY toasts, lots of food on an automatic lazy Susan (you had to be fast with those chopsticks) and a pig head for the special occasion...
I was so disappointed that in the hub bub of the closing ceremony and lunch with the mayor, I hadn’t gotten to say goodbye to her. When I headed down to the lobby to get on the bus back to Xichang, Jessica was in the lobby waiting to see us off. She had also brought us each a gift: one of the wedding bags from the shop. I was so touched and it is my favorite and most cherished memento from the trip.
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