A Day in China

This is a rundown of a day in the life of Tessa in China...

6:00 am- sleeping

6:46 am -should be awake, but still sleeping

7:10 am -wake up suddenly, Wendy asks me while looking at her watch, "Tessa, is it 7:10?" Me: "Yes."  We frantically get ready which entails brushing teeth, putting on a skirt and that is all. 

7:20 am- leave the apartment to meet the other girls and go to the bus stop. 

7:45 am- Sparky arrives in the school bus.  No Michael Jackson today, but Wendy and I definitely sang 'El Scorcho' and 'Hey Ya' for all to hear. It turns out that my head phones came out of my ipod a bit so it was broadcasting for the whole bus. I did not know this until we arrived at the school of course. Also along the way we pick up two kids named Kevin and Justin. Today Wendy and Kevin played hide and seek for part of the ride.

8:00 am- arrive at school. We go directly to the cafeteria where Michael, the chef, brings out breakfast. Today it consisted of noodles and vegetables and meat... oh wait... that is what we eat for every meal! (I am definitely not complaining.  I really really love it.) 

8:20 am- I get ready for classes by putting dirt and leaves in bags, blowing up a beach ball and cutting paper into pieces. Sometimes my lessons are pretty creative. It's just whatev. 

8:45 am- Opening with all 45 Asian children begins. Wendy and I are in charge this week. We just talk about the weather and sing songs and such. We learn today that singing "Once There Was a Snowman" is a bad idea because all the kids end up sprawled on the ground and then the Chinese teachers freak out because the kids are on the ground and much mayhem ensues. Mental notes are taken not to sing that one again. It should also be mentioned that these little Asians know primary songs better than I do. 

8:55-10:30 am - We break into classes.  All classes are as bonkers as usual... nothing out of the ordinary besides that fact that Haniel, Sam and Shine are not there :( They are all of our favorites. 

10:30 am- I realize that 4 year old Eddie's yellow polo shirt is not just a normal polo shirt. It has English words all over it.  This wouldn't be a problem normally, but phrases such as "You Stole my Lesbian Lover", "Bedroom Addict" and "David Bowie Confessions" were definitely present and accounted for. Here is the thing: Asians like anything American. Oft times, they don't really know what words mean, but they are English so its cool. Should we have told a Chinese teacher about the meaning of Eddie's shirt? Maybe. Did we tell me? No Did we take pictures? Yes. You can see some of those pictures above. I am so glad we carry around our camera's everywhere.

10:40-11:30 am- back to normal-ish classes

11:30 am- LUNCH TIME! Michael served us meat, veggies (including these delicious potatoes we love), and rice.  ALSO, at the last minute he surprised us all with MASHED potatoes with corn and peas in them.  I LOVE whenever he makes us stuff like that because he is just so proud of his American dish and he tries so hard to please us. He just smiles so big and brings us food especially to our table. We love Michael a great deal. 

12:15 pm- Sparky is waiting for us in the school bus and we are waiting for Michael to give us food for dinner.  A lot of odd things happened all within seconds of each other at this point in the day. First of all, Wendy was practicing her Mandarin with Heidi to tell Michael that his food is extremely good, but when he came to the door, she just managed to say "fei chang lei!" (very good!) really loud and in not the right tones. Next, Jess was spinning her water bottle around and let go and it semi hit me in the face. Then, Michael came to the kitchen door and threw something out into our group which just so happened to be a bird! Here is the question plaguing our minds "Why was that diseased bird in the kitchen with Michael and our food?" When we saw that it was a bird, most of us screamed, Wendy ran up to the next floor, Alex was rooting for the bird to go into the boys bathroom and Alyssa was trying to catch the bird to take it outside. Confusion central. 

12:20 pm- We all get on the bus and we all say "Ni hao Sparky!" Even though we just saw him five minutes before. I also have noticed that none of us ever just say hello to Sparky. We always say his name. I do not think we can be blamed. His name is Sparky after all Sparky takes us to the bus stop where we get onto our Kaiyin bus. He is a ninja and gets us there right in time. 

12:30 pm- Three of the girls and I get off at the One-Plus-One Super Market to grab some useful items and the other girls go home.

12:32.5 pm- We walk into One-Plus-One. Few things in the world smell as disgusting as this place.  Rotting fruit is what we believe to be the source of the smell. However, the eels that you can get for one US dollar probably do not help a great deal. 

12:32.5- 12:50.7 pm- We purchase all things that are necessary such as Pockys (delicious pretzel things dipped in chocolate), juice, and items for store (store is when the kids use the tokens they have earned throughout the day to buy sweet things). We also found some sweet Mandarin-English translation mishap notebooks that we quickly bought a bunch of. 

12:51 pm- We get onto our regular bus to go home.  Sometimes buses do not go their regular route.  For example, Sparky takes us a different way to school every day. This time, the bus definitely took us a different way than it has ever taken us and we were scared for point two seconds. 

1:00 pm- home sweet home-ish... we still have to walk from the bus stop to our apartment. It is so humid outside, we might die at any moment. 

1:10 pm- we are NOW home.  Our apartment smells weird and Heidi and Alyssa's AC is literally leaking buckets full of water. That is nice.  We turn on the AC (We have to turn it off every time we leave.) and change out of our sicky clothes. 

1:30 pm- Time for Wendy and me to eat pockies, lesson plan for the next two weeks, and check email

2:00 pm- Wendy and I play the longest game of California Speed to ever exist. Wendy had to pee so SO so bad. I kept telling her that we could pause the game but she would not have it. After the game is finally done, Wendy raced to go to the bathroom and tripped out of her mosquito net princess bed resulting in a huge welt on her forehead. It was hilarious and a bit sad.  

4:30 pm- Wendy and I make some pasta and use Michael's left over spaghetti sauce for some Spaghetti Chinese style. 

6:30 pm- Wendy and the other girls go to the other girls apartment for second dinner. The other girls apartment does not have a 4th floor. That is what the picture is of.  The number 4 means death in China so many apartment buildings skip it and use 3A and 3B. I think that is really funny. You better believe we took out all the 4's on our calender. It is not the 24th of August it is 23'rd B. I stay to catch up on my blog, emails, and journaling. It is a good thing I did because two Chinese men come to fix the air conditioning. They did fix the AC and left all the tools and left over parts in the other girls shower for us to take to the garbage. 

7 ish pm- Bad Minton with Wendy (We got two rackets and 12 birdies for five dollars! Amazing.)

9:00 pm- Finish the lesson plan that I never ended up getting too earlier and chill. 

10:30 pm- turn off the lights and open the curtains because it is raining the beautiful chinese rain that I love!!! What a beautiful end to a beautiful day. I must also add that Wendy and I ended up singing God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and Joy to the World a few times before sleeping. 

There you have it. That is a typical day for me in China. There are variations to this schedule but it is basically similar to this everyday. Next week school starts so we will go to eat dinner at the Kaiyin school that is close to our apartment every evening. I am excited for the day when we do not have to hall pots full of food home everyday and then use our apartment as a cafeteria. I love my days here. I love the simplicity of my life here. I had no idea how much I would love not having a cell phone. Looking forward to another great day tomorrow!