Mark in China

Today was my turn to visit the Da Jin primary school in Da Tian village. I got up early in the morning, walked to the bus station and rode to the village and got dropped off at the school. I taught two classes today, and the kids seemed to be a tad less rambunctious than last time. I taught what I was supposed to from they book they provided me, and I had to improvise the rest. I took advantage of their energy and did a couple of simple Total Physical Response exercises, like having the kids "JUMP!" or "Sit quietly..."

I had a nice lunch at the school with the headmaster and a couple of teachers. After that I had about an hour and a half until the bus came, so I used most of my time walking down the road a little ways from the school. I spotted a tempting foot path off the side of the road, so I took it and it led me up to the top of a moderately big hill. At the top there was a big grave, like many of the ones seen in this countryside. I also had a decent view of some of the village homes and farms below and the mountains in the distance.

This weekend Rebecca and I are going to visit Martin at his home in Huizhou. Martin used to work at our high school in Shuizhai and was the main liaison for the past interns, but ended up moving to another city fairly recently. He recently stopped by the school a couple weekends ago and we chatted with him briefly, and he invited us to visit him at him home sometime soon. I'm trying to look up the population for the city, and I found one site that says it has about 2.7 million people. Pretty big city...

I went to the Bank of China today to exchange some more of my American dollars for Chinese Yuan. The exchange rate is pretty amazing, and I come out of the bank feeling a lot richer than when I entered. It's about 700 Yuan to every 100 American. While they were dealing with my paperwork to exchange, a woman behind me brought in an old US 20 dollar bill, so I showed her a $1, a $5, and a new $20 I had with me.

So we finally got permission to take a trip to Hong Kong, which will likely happen in early May as we're planning. We need to take this trip in order to renew our visas, since our visas are valid for 90 days per entry and we are here for about 100 days. Hong Kong should be fun to visit again.

Also, I've neglected to mention it yet, but I have to talk about my awesome mosquito killing device. It's basically a handheld bug zapper that looks like a tennis racket. You plug it into the wall to charge it and then you go around and zap mosquitoes with it. It has an on and off switch, and to activate the electricity you press a little button on the handle with your thumb and swat away. When you hit one, you get the satisfaction of a loud POP with a little blue spark. Sometimes it will sit and electrocute for a second before popping with a spark, and sometimes it will sit there and sizzle if you keep holding down the button and you'll get a fried mosquito smell. It's a whole lot easier and satisfying than trying to squash them.