Met another foreigner today

As I mentioned in my last post, this Sunday was Easter and I ended up attending a Christian church here in town. It was my first time going here, and it was very packed for this weekend. It began with some singing, and I recognized some of the tunes and the word "Hallelujah." The sermon got kind of boring but at the end there was a variety show with a choir performance, children's choir, and some women dancing with percussion and saying things. All in all it was pretty interesting.

Inside the church


Leaving church


Today we only taught 2 classes instead of 3, since we do not teach grade 1 this week. This means no classes tomorrow and 2 again Wednesday. For the lesson today and this week we wanted to get the students to talk and creatively produce language on their own, so we did an activity splitting the classes into 9-10 groups of 6 students or so. We gave each group a slip of paper with a list of people and we had the students create a sort of scene with the characters and come up with questions and answers each person might say. For instance, on slip had "Doctor, Nurse, Patient" for a scene at the doctors office, or "Restaurant manager, waiter, customer" for a restaurant scene. Near the end of class we tried to get the students to volunteer to act theirs out, and we actually had some success with this - in the first class a group of girls acted out their restaurant skit and they seemed to have fun with it. Not all of the students were as into it, but I'm glad some were and I consider it mostly a successful lesson.

With my short day, I decided to walk my bike down to the shop I bought it from to have it repaired. It has cottered cranks (ancient bike technology) so they are a bit shabby and come loose sometimes, so I had to get that fixed. I got my cranks fixed and my saddle level and tightened again so I was ready to go. I brought my camera along because I figured after getting it repaired I would ride out to the mountain and climb to the top. The bike is very classy with the upright posture and classic single speed look, but it's not without its problems - it's falling apart slowly and its heavy and inefficient. I miss my Long Haul Trucker touring bike at home, and returning to it will be so much sweeter after riding this heavy clunker around.

Someone told us that we are now in the rainy/wet season here, and apparently it stormed last night, but early on today it was really nice and sunny. Without my usual afternoon class, I figured it was a good opportunity to go to the mountain. At the foot of the mountain, I hear some distant thunder and figure it may rain. Oh well. I finally make it to the top and am greeted by 3 mean dogs at the main plaza place. The place is totally empty except for a young girl and boy hanging out at the top in the little Chinese gazebo thingy. I go there to read and it starts to rain, then pour heavily with some wicked lightning. I could see the town below when I first got there, but now it was completely covered by the storm passing through. Luckily the gazebo thing gave me shelter from the heavy rains, so I just waited it out with the two other kids until it finally calmed down. I knew I was stuck on a mountain in a rain storm, but I didn't worry since I figured it would pass, and it did.

Back down in the city I was riding back home on the main street on the sidewalk I see a white person walking by. I stopped and went up to him to say hi and we talked for a few minutes. He was Spanish and said that he was in town because his girlfriend lives here, and that he runs an import/export business. I'm not sure if he was an American citizen, but he did say he was living in America for a little while and he showed me his Florida ID/driver's license. I told him I was teaching English here and he said something like "good, because no one here can speak it!"

I'm still playing lots of Ping Pong, and am definitely improving my skills at the game, so hopefully I can find people to play with back home.

I don't think I've mentioned it here yet, but China ended up blocking Youtube on its internet, so if I try to access it I get that oh-so-familiar "Page load error" message. It happened a few weeks ago during my stay here, so I was able to access it before but no longer. The Huffington Post is also blocked, which is kind of a bummer, but having Youtube blocked is a much bigger deal. Oh well, I can live without it, but it gets annoying because about EVERYONE uses Youtube to show video on the internet nowadays. But it doesn't matter when I can buy cheap, nice suits.

My bike with a dog at the foot of the mountain. Someone was kind enough to get it out of the rain while I was away.