Latin is so much easier than Chinese! A few weeks ago, I might not have said that time flies, but it does seem to be accelerating!
Every day seems to be full of new experiences, and when we do have some repetition, it feels good – it’s not boring!
The 2 return bus trips (an hour each way) are becoming ho hum, and sometimes we even doze, except for about the last 20 minutes, when it’s incredibly bumpy, and all my internal organs seem to get rearranged! Having said that, we are grateful for good health, and all the walking and stairs we do every day should be good for the exterior parts of us as well, although I fear that instead of those shapely calves I’m longing for, I might just be stuck with sturdy (read big) ankles. Sigh.

Last weekend began on an interesting note Friday night when we were invited out for a Tibetan dinner. The food was quite good, except for the salty, warm yaks milk. Yuck to yaks, I say. The decor and “singing/dancing show” was colorful and entertaining. On Sunday good friends came to visit for just a few short days, and it was absolutely wonderful to see friendly, familiar faces again! I do get homesick occasionally!

Teaching English, or not so much teaching as trying to converse in my mother tongue with dozens of eager students is both exhilarating and exhausting.One of the students last week asked for my phone number – he wants to invite us for a simple dinner and talk about “art” He says he is hungry for talking about it. (Did I mention that his English is very poor?) Could be interesting.

This last week I had all the students write about their hometown, just a short paragraph , and then read it to the class. You do get some very interesting expressions!
What surprised me, is that they write much better than they read! One of the students spent a lot of time on the following:

“Hello my dear teacher. My name is Emma, and I come from HeNan province. It is middle of China. It is plane. It is south of Yellow River .Kung Fu comes from my town. You can see the Song Shan Shaolin Temple disciples practice kung fu. In the lunch you can eat together with them in free. Henan’s noodles are famous in all China. If you come, you must taste it. And many special food I can (not )explain in English. Just call me when you come, I’ll guide you to have a great trip My phone no. is………. You can call me any time.”

Very sweet, isn’t it? Hard to believe that these are post graduate students, but then I wouldn’t sound so good in Chinese either!

This weekend we do our Tuesday teaching on Sunday. There’s a 3 day holiday, Monday through Wednesday. One of the days is “Tomb Sweeping Day” when you go to your ancestors graves, and sweep them (clean them). You also bury money for them. I asked why, and one of the girls said,” to make them happy and so they can go shopping and get what they want”!

Because of the extra time off next week, Howard and I have rented a car and a driver – driving here is crazy. We will go on an excursion to the Stone Forest about 100 kms south of Kunming, It features a very famous, large exposed bed of limestone spires. There are paths, some quite steep between the weathered and split rocks. It’s very touristy, but certainly photogenic. We invited Olivia to come with us, and she is delighted. As she put it in her charming, unique English, “I’d love to go to death. I’m really looking forward to it.” What she meant was she was dying to go!!

Tonight I’ll be cooking again – found some interesting looking vegetables and lots of mushrooms (this area is famous for all kinds of weird looking mushrooms) at the market this morning And the fresh strawberries are amazing!.
A glass of Chilean wine should help me be creative!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Maggie