Destination!

It's official: I am never sitting down again.  In fact, I'm even standing to type this blog.  We left my house at 8am on Wednesday, July 20 and finally arrived at our hotel in Beijing at 1am on Friday, July 22 (all times local).  At 7:30am we left to board a 9am bus to Changzhi where we arrived at 6pm.  We were in bed by 9pm that night.

Apparently at the bus station in Beijing Amber and I were signing.  A little boy approached us with a laminated card all in Chinese.  We didn't understand it but we did understand the sign DEAF and point at Amber that accompanied it.  Communication was a game of charades but it was more successful than playing with the hearing Chinese people.  We wish we would have had more than a few seconds to talk with him.

Saturday we got to see our school and classrooms.  I think it's one of the nicer, cleaner international schools I've seen but the desks could use some Pledge wipes.  We spent the morning arranging and rearranging our classroom, putting up posters, and getting accustomed to our surroundings.  Amber got roped into helping to draw and paint a watercolor poster that will go with the movie (Beyond the Blackboard) that we're watching next week.  After lunch, Jori and I worked on lesson plans while Amber read and the rest of our team napped.

The Chinese take a three-hour break every afternoon for nap time, so after that our school contact Heather (that's her English name, obviously... I don't know her Chinese name) took us to the underground market.  Think Wal-mart but literally underground.  We found some weighed, huge circles.  After some debate we learned they are indeed hula hoops which meant, of course, that I had to try it out. 

Yes, I got in trouble... but not for hula hooping in the market.  Instead, for having Jori photograph this moment.

After dinner, Amber, Vernon (the other college student), and I walked around Changzhi.  Basically this meant we got stared at.  One woman called her gradeschool son out of the building and made him watch the Americans walk down the street.  Another woman with a very young son stopped us and chatted with her son (in Chinese) while trying to get him to wave at us.  He wouldn't, but I did take their picture.

Another boy, maybe three or four, was jumping and dancing through the hotel, so I copied him.  Embarrassed, he stopped, but I kept jumping and dancing.  His family loved it.  They still laugh when they see me around the hotel.

Hippo's pouting because he saw a bear 1,000 times bigger than he is.  But we are celebrating the fact that he has learned how to successfully use a squatty potty.

This afternoon we're headed to a baptismal service at a local church.  We'd love for you to pray for the believers and seekers there.

Your comments encourage us, and we'd love to hear from you.  (Just make sure to leave your name... Melissa...).  Is there anything in particular you want to know?  (Besides photographs...we're working on that.)

Love,

Katie, Amber, and Nameless Hippo