so. we had a lovely time at the orphanage and around nanchang. this guy didn't enjoy audiology so much.
this guy really enjoyed it.
then, off to chengdu. not by 40 hour bus ride (whew!). i met dani, an old friend of oliver's, who studies at a university/hospital in chengdu, which has a very nice audiology set up. here we are galavanting around a riverside park.
dufu lived in chengdu.
anyone know who dufu is?
it's this guy.
then i had the amazing, amazing, amazing opportunity to visit a local village outside of chengdu along with a few english teachers i met.
THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE HERE HAD NEVER SEEN A FOREIGNER BEFORE. **********
some of the children thought we were japanese.
first thing we did was teach a few english classes at the school in the village.
the kids were so excited. we signed autographs all afternoon.
this is a noodle factory in the village. see the noodles hanging to dry with the laundry? it was pretty awesome. you can see a video of the noodle-making on my youtube site.
possibly one of the best videos ever.
the second-to-last character says "born".
that's all i know.
more gratuitous shots of kidlets.
note the fashion of the village, a red sparkly bindi.
this is kind of cool. the lunch table.
the character on the wall is the character for "luck". but it's upside down. the word for "upside down" sounds similar to the word for "arrival", so they put the luck character upside down and it has this fancy "good luck on your arrival" meaning.
food. good.
do you have a tissue handy?
part of our lesson was that the kids would draw a picture of their dreams for the future. there were several drawings like:
i want to be a doctor
i want to be a police man
i want to be a soldier
i want to be a japanese cartoon character
i want to live in a big house
i want to be an astronaut
this little boy wants to be a man who digs wells so that the people in his village can have enough water. this village is downstream from chengdu and for the past few years has been suffering from serious droughts. so he wants to grow up to dig wells.
another little boy wanted to own a swimming pool that was clean where anyone who wanted to swim could always swim for free.
they were all so fun.they thought we were fabulous, only because we showed up. i felt a bit sheepish, because i didn't really do anything all that fabulous.
the students who took us to this village were high school students who wanted to do something good for the people of this village who were suffering so badly from the drought. i'm told that this is almost unheard of in china, where high school students work so so so hard on their school work and have very little free time.
i'm a big fan of these kids.
last but not least, and i don't have a photo, was a 100-year-old woman we met. her feet had been bound when she was younger. she was alive during the last dynasty of china. her legs were broken, and had been for a while, but she didn't have enough money to go to the doctor, so she rarely left her bed. she got up to meet us. her voice was tiny and dry and soft and she had really long grey hair pulled she pulled back into a bun to meet with us.
she cried as we left and said that we were very special to have come so far to meet her, she had, of course, never met a foreigner before.
she said that we were good people and for that she blessed us to live to be 100 years old, like her. i wish we could have stayed longer to talk with her more. this woman blew my mind.
so i ate good food, slept on a grass mat, learned to play chinese cards, sat around a terra cotta deck sharing stories by moonlight in chinese and english, met unique folks, was treated like an absolute rock star, and even played a game or two of simon says.
it was so, so good. so good. so good. so good.
just a few blogger housekeeping notes before i sign off:
1. i can't view my blog, i can only post. if you're leaving comments, and i still really hope that you do, i won't be able to read them or respond until august.
1.5 there a few emails i know have been sent to me that i haven't received. if you think i should have responded to you, and i haven't, please email me again.
2. i'm about to leave chengdu for an itty-bitty town, where i just bet i won't be able to get on blogger at all.
3. that's okay because, hooray!, i've got a picture site now!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eeking/collections/
and there's a strong possibility of more frequent posts on flickr than on blogger in the coming weeks.
it's been a wonderful but exhausting week.
i'm off to bed.
i need my sleep before the farm.
and last night i stayed up late watching starship troopers.
also a beautiful, life-changing experience.
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