Summer of Service

(From Leslie)

Just a quick note to say that we are entering our final day here in Jishou and the teachers are incredibly busy. With both kitchens totally cleaned and the doors locked so that at least one job is done the teachers are settling into a long night of what they are starting to hope are not "lasts":
-The Monkey teachers of Andrew, Francine and Michael and wading through hundreds of essays and replacing all of the inappropriate commas with "ands".
-The Dragon teachers of Rory and Betty are moping because 9 of their best students left early to start high school.
-The Horse teachers of Daniel, Jean and James are lesson planning and James is trying to figure out who to gift his Super Soaker squirt gun and Slip and Slide to. Thus far he is just using the squirt gun to clean the apartment.
-The Tiger teachers of Lisa, Ashley and Chris are way ahead of schedule and are either packing or talking about starting to pack and the trip home.

48 Hours:
In the next 24 hours they are also teaching a full day, finishing all of the program and student evaluations, planning a closing ceremony and proofing their students final speeches, planning a small photo exhibit, racing around trying to snap all of the photos that were missed with only a few hours of good sunlight left, buying those last minute gifts, trying to squeeze in one last hike and one last basketball game, and of course prepare themselves mentally for our final banquet with the administration and with their students. This is all happening one day after they put on a huge talent show with performances by students in the School of Rock group, Rap 101 (complete with rapper names like Tizzle and Toy Story), Theatre Group, and many others. They have all been rehearsing for nearly 3 weeks or more and the performances both displayed some incredible talent but were also really funny with a student from our lowest skill level group, the Dragons, doing an amazing job as MC. His name is Ralph and we put him in one of Mike's suits for the evening, spiked his hair, and gave him some aviators and apparently the next day he didn't go anywhere without a swarm of girls chasing him. Francine did a great song with Lisa on the guitar; Chris and James sang and played guitar; Chris, Ashley and Francine directed scenes from American movies; Jean sang beautifully in a Scottish song that they rehearsed in 3-part harmony and helped much with rehearsal; Mike, Andrew, and Rory wrote and performed a rap (remind them to share the lyrics sometime); Daniel organized the whole show, was in a ton of musical pieces, and he also did a solo on the cello; James played along to most of the songs as well; and Betty went to incredibly lengths to write a very detailed program and to support a very nervous Ralph backstage. No worries, Andrew snapped a bunch of photos so we will share those with you soon.

Preparing to Depart:
On Friday morning we will bring our luggage to the school building, have a class party and an all program party, sign 100+ journals and take a million photos all in about 2 hours before the bus takes us to the train station. Unfortunately, we leave Francine and Ashley behind for one more day so they can catch the Beijing train on Saturday. The trip to Hong Kong just won't be the same at all.

We have already received a few goodbye gifts but one in particular stands out. This evening our Auntie Tao, cook and 68 year old Chinese grandma to us all, stopped by with six homemade sticky rice caked wrapped in banana leaves for every single one of us, 78 in total. She had to start at 6am and only finished in the evening around 6pm with all of the preparations. She prepared six because the word for six is very similar to the word for road in Chinese, and she wished us safe travels all the way home. It is one of those moments where you wonder if you would or even could ever show the same hospitality back if they came to the US. The next day will be filled with these moments and my prediction is that it is going to pretty tough emotionally.

Future Plans:
I wish I could really let you know just how much these teachers have bonded with each other and with their students. They often talk about what it would be like if they roomed together at Princeton and are already planning their parties and meetings once we are all back. (And for you moms and dads they also constantly talk about wanting to meet each others parents, which of course we would love to arrange when we get back.) I keep quiet always hoping for that invitation, which of course they extend, but it is going to be so hard to see them on the train to New York or in Frist and be out of context and not really be able to have the time to just sit around and talk and laugh at our lessons or something funny or incredible that happened in class. Time has been a precious commodity around here.

We also had our final meeting with the administrators today. President Jia asked if I personally would be coming back next year. I mentioned that it could only happen if he could find me a Chinese boyfriend who was bigger than me, which would be tough to do. This joke is always funny! And Vice President Long asked me if it was possible to bring back another group of teachers who were the same age (because they think it is easier for the students to bond with them), who were as beautiful, and who were as talented as this group. I could only guarantee him the first one, but I know it will be extremely difficult to find the last two.

Always,
Leslie