Dear Family and Friends,
This week, and the last three days in particular have been a crazy roller coaster of emotions. Anxiety and relief. Stress and relaxation. Fear and boldness. Sadness and Joy. Depression and elation.
This leg of the trip began last Friday (7/21) with a train ride from B to H. Though the journey here was much longer than originally anticipated (13 hours if I recall), the train ride was fine. It was even air conditioned. I was astounded when we arrived at the hotel via a private shuttle sent by the school. It was definitely better than I had anticipated. Much like American Hotels, perhaps a little dirtier, but very good nonetheless. We even had a western toilet PTL!
The first three days of class went pretty well. We are teaching high school students. Carol, a Masters student in Education at USC, is my teaching partner. We get along very well. She's also from Taiwan, so she's fluent in Mandarin. That's a good thing because the classes were supposedly organized by English ability and we supposedly got the lowest group. I'm not sure that they were really organized in this manner because there is actually great variation in their English abilities. Some of them could probably get along fine in America, and others basically don't speak English. My vocabulary with them is greatly simplified, and I must speak very very slowly. Nevertheless, we're having a lot of fun with them. the ones who have better English have been teaching me Mandarin, and they are very patient, graceful teachers. (It's a good reminder for me to be patient with them as well.) The good thing is that I'm learning Chinese. The bad thing is that I will end up with an accent from countryside H. But the first three days of instruction were great!
Our troubles started on Thursday in the morning. 10 minutes into my lesson, Carol told me that we were to pack up our stuff and head for the hotel. Apparently, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was curious about our presence in H. They didn't make a decision on Thursday, but they said half of us could go back to school that day. So Friday morning, we figured we were fine. But we were wrong.
Friday morning, we woke up and went downstairs to find the principal waiting there for us. He announced that we were to pack up and leave H immediately. We were to be on a train at noon out of town. I was heartbroken because that meant I would never see my students again. Amazingly, though I had only been with them for three days and 10 minutes, I had grown to love them deeply.
Due to time constraints, here's the abbreviated version of what happened. We ended up leaving via bus to a nearby town. Then we returned to the city a few hours later. (It is not illegal for us to be here, it was only illegal for us to be teaching because we did not have the proper credentials. We are currently here as tourists, but we will continue to teach our students English from our hotel.) I was greatly disheartened to hear that all of the students had been sent home from school. Most of them live at the school in the dormitories. Some of them live hours away from school by bus. So to know that they would not be coming made me very sad.
Saturday was the first day of class in the Hotel. I was overjoyed to see most of my students, and even two of the ones who live 3 hours away. That was definitely a blessing to me. So we will be teaching until August 8, then we will go to G for more travelling min. Then off to HK.
Sorry, there are so many more details I'd love to give, but I've got to go. You'll just have to wait til I get back to the states to hear them. Rap for our relationships with students, and that our team has energy and enthusiasm. The days are long and tiring.
Love,
Brian
