They couldn’t be stopped.
There was the patter of bare feet and some piercing screams, and before we knew it the alley was a war zone. The children swarmed from every direction and soon we were batting away spindly arms and grasping fingers that had been you-don’t-want-to-know where. Within two minutes the potato chips were gone. The obvious foreigner (Hi Mr. White) was the main target, since these boys and girls had never seen a waiguoren before. Actually it was pretty confusing… they inexplicably concluded that he was from Japan, which resulted in some pretty relentless slapping. I escaped relatively unscathed, although one little guy went after me with a sharpened tree branch and I had to draw on nonexistent mixed martial arts training (what can I say, SoS teaches us a lot about improvisation). Another girl ran after us with arms outstretched Dawn of the Dead style. Anyway, we made the kids’ day and they ran off with all of the food we had bought for our host, the wonderful and idiosyncratic Bingo. Thanks Bingo!
Homestay weekend? Pretty successful.
I was able to briefly revisit the village of Mayang and even more briefly reunite with a 2011 student, Veria, who had hosted my teaching trio last year. This summer she’s babysitting her nephew and biding her time before September, when she steps in front of a classroom (of >70 students?) to begin her career as a teacher at the local middle school.

It’s strange… after a few weeks in the classroom and sharing nearly every waking hour with the students, it’s easy to begin to think that you know them.
Then, somebody makes the jump and invites you to their home. They seem to offer everything. You meet their family (grandparents caring for devious children while the parents are off working in distant cities), you sleep in their beds (or on their bedroom floors, whatever), you sit at their table and accept the food they cook for you. You smile when you have no idea what’s going on.
(We saw Bingo’s school. We met her teachers. We met her students.)
But what you really learn is that you don’t know your students. You catch these glimpses, and then you realize that these are people who can’t be simplified by something you can find in a book or the news or on the web. They’ve opened up so much to us, and maybe we reciprocate, but in the end this is just a hint of the complexity and richness of each person’s life. Each of our students has already done and seen so much, and after this summer they will continue on their way (Affected by the experiences we’ve shared? Maybe. Hopefully.)
For me, that insight is enough to be very, very thankful for.

Monday:

Where would you like to go in China? Why do you want to go there? What would you do or see there? What is the food like? What places are difficult to reach? What makes the trip so difficult? Do you think you’ll ever be able to go?

The premise of somebody who wants to travel but can’t definitely resonates with most of our class. Out of my nearly 40 students, maybe 4 have ever been on an airplane. Meanwhile we’re planning the Jishou 2012 Olympics (Wednesday) and casually discussing states and countries around the world… I have a girl whose entire life goal seems to be to visit Australia. Koalas wander into her writings and example sentences, she shows up to class wearing Australian flag earrings. She gave me a drawing that showed her smiling classmates meeting Miryam and me at the Sydney Opera House.

So we approach the Flat Stanley lesson gradually. Each student has a sheet of paper and they get to design their own Flat Reon, Flat Bom, Flat Yolanda… Then we introduce each other. Hometowns: Jishou, Huaihua, small Hunan farming villages. Where do they want to go in China? How about if they could go anywhere in the world? Laughter. Almost every girl in my class wants her paper doll to be sent to Paris, where they can go clothes shopping (maybe they can share an envelope?). Flat Annabelle hopes she can sit on the slopes of Mount Fuji and look at the cherry blossoms. I hear a few soft “America”s.

Tomorrow we take the paper cutouts out around Jishou.

A lantern at Sofia’s birthday celebration.

Saturday:

Another week packed with prom, Thanksgiving, The Wizard of Oz, clubs, a great English corner (a crowd of 2011 students came back to say hello) and all kinds of culinary discoveries. Recovering from a hectic Friday (Dehang class field trip, imagine coralling 130 plus students to hike to either a mountain or waterfall, then back again. No small feat). Woke up feeling almost rested for the first time in 2 weeks, and then went to an ex-student’s home to visit— with the stipulation that every person had to cook a dish. Vegetables were washed in a courtyard that housed chickens and geese. The kitchen was a single hotplate. Pushing more boundaries. We shopped and I threw together a mixture of flour, cinnamon, brown sugar, and cheap beer that was then semi-sucessfuly fried in a wok with apple slices. This concoction found its way onto some “waffles” found at the supermarket (we opted for the non-cheese flavor) …I could’ve done worse. Cameron’s tofu was ok.
The students spent most of the time arguing and playing guitar/singing, but we also caught a glimpse of the Olympics on CCTV over watermelon and stinky tofu (no thank you. no, really). I imagined everyone at home sitting on their couches in the land of normal flavored potato chips and felt far, far away. Yet I also felt like we were in the right spot.
Things have been pretty solid as we pass the halfway point of our trip. Good stuff.

Sunday, day of rest.

We woke up at 6:30 to go hiking across the city, up the slopes of Jishou’s tallest mountain, past a Buddhist temple staffed by wizened old women and doves, and then up a couple thousand stairs. I didn’t really want to count each rocky step, as sweat gradually spread like rain across on the US map on my back (thanks Princeton Breakout for a useful teaching tool). The students, SoS’11 veterans, stopped occasionally to scrounge for sour wild raspberries. At the summit we stared down the stairs and back towards hazy Jishou. Soon we were running down dirt paths through the brush. Then we were on the other side. We passed by a natural spring, where Cameron and I passed up the opportunity to get stomach infections. Small barefoot men with bamboo sticks over their shoulders balanced baskets of gallon containers as they scrambled back up the mountain. Somehow in this new territory I felt as though I was returning to the Northeast, surrounded by coniferous trees and a familiar calm… yet only ten hours before we had been belting out the best of the 90’s, Peng you, and Elvis (Tony)…

Monday, and already (or only?) the second week of class.

Rain wouldn’t let up. Students still dutifully showed up to class, and Level Unicorn conducted lessons on the Freshman Fifteen among other college must-knows. The steady drip drip of water on the windows was drowned out when the students acted out ridiculously inane scenarios as American students.

Tuesday, rain, rain, rain.

Wednesday, the deluge.

As we teach emoticons and internet acronyms (MLIG spawns: My PiA Life Is Great), the river nearly reaches the main bridge crossing into town. The electricity in our section of the city is shut off by late afternoon, and the bridge is cordoned off. Policewomen in heels (?) hold back the crowds who amble over to gape at the rushing water. Looking across the bank, we can see that some apartments are not in good shape. Waves crash up and into lower floor rooms. Cigarette clamped between his teeth, a man pushes past me hoisting a ten foot long pole and net. Fishing?

Later, we hold a group meeting by candlelight and consider teaching without electricity. But after a short wait, the power comes back on and tomorrow’s contingency plans seem unnecessary. No sweat.

Jishou is as hot, spicy, grimy, and amazing as remembered. SoS ’12 got in on an early morning train yesterday and hit the ground running. Seven Cup, pizza man, baozi woman, clay pots, AJB have already experienced a sudden leap in patronage.

Stay tuned.

Our last night with WildChina at the rice terraces:

I wake up in the morning to the sound of hard rain hitting the tile roof. I roll off the bed and crack the window (and my head, thank you low ceiling). As the window squeaks open, in rush a swarm of mosquitoes and the sticky humidity that’s characterized our stay in Guizhou so far… but the view is amazing. In stark contrast to the bustling streets of Kaili (where some of us became the guest attractions at a Miao dance for the Dragonboat Festival), the view at Wuhao is tranquil and, well, worth the trek. You can describe the mist rolling across the mountains (at times it feels like we’re in the clouds) or the terraced rice  fields surrounding the village’s ramshackle post and beam buildings, or even the old men and women who serenely carry astonishingly heavy baskets of potatoes / baicai / chickens along treacherous paths… but words don’t do the place much justice. Pictures don’t even capture it. You just have to be there.

Fortunately, I’ve got company.

Princeton:

It’s hot.

A sort of sticky stillness permeates everything, and it’s tough to move without breaking a sweat. A combination of the school year and the weather has left me exhausted, and we aren’t even in Jishou yet.

Somehow I can already picture the streets shimmering in the heat… motorbikes zigzag around old women picking through the trash heaps, shopowners hover over steaming woks of spicy tofu and bok choy. The classroom fans whir overhead, squealing pigs outside are drowned out by students’ laughter… Anyway:

Last weekend got my head spinning, as orientation reminded me of PiA’s long history: this will be Summer of Service’s seventh year, and (I hope) its best yet. Cameron and I have been working hard to prepare for our return to China, and we’re both extremely excited and thankful to be heading out soon with another- very enthusiastic- group.

Why go back?

I don’t think I need to answer this now, or here. Beyond affecting me on a personal level, SoS is an experience that has been shared by scores of teachers and students. During orientation I had the luck to spent some time talking with Rory Truex (founder of SoS, awesome) and an SoSer from 2008. For each person and each year the summer brings something unique, but there also are some reassuring consistencies we can count on. Our project assistant Tony, aka Mr. Five, is waiting for us in Jishou, along with the same old classrooms, the same spicy food, and the same sweltering weather.

Get ready, because this is just the start…

-Eliot