Help needed.

Here is part of an email I sent to my mom. It's all about things we need to read down here. If you have any of these things and can donate them give them to my mom. terrip@carmelbaptist.org . It would be a tremendous help. Since I'm teaching 7th, 8th, and 9th grade there needs to be independent reading. It's really important to find things the kids want to read, so variety is good. I'd like to have some stuff in my room and in the end expand the library of the school which at this point is a few shelves in a room. It's difficult though since I"m not in the States.

Magazines: For independent reading time. It doesn't really matter what they're about (i.e. Time, Sports Illustrated, Popular Science, whatever). The point is for the kids to be reading. So if people have old magazines sitting around we could use them.

Random Books: Books between a 5th and 9th grade reading level. These are also for independent reading time. I'm going to keep these and the magazines in my room for independent reading time and then at the end of the year give them to the library here. So if people have old children's books that would be awesome.

Three more copies of The Great Gilly Hopkins. I'm starting out the year in 8th grade with this and I'm 3 copies short of a full class set.

Four copies of The Giver. I don't have any copies of this but I'd really like to try and start out the year in 9th grade with this book.

If anyone has a book about Central American History or something, that would be awesome. This obviously is a long shot but I'd really like to be able to tie all this stuff to something they can relate to as much as I possibly can. For example, with Sounder, try and talk about how the slave trade related to them, etc. It's also important for me to have a better undestanding of their culture so I can present material with a culturally sensitive perspective as well as one with an intent to challenge critical thinking.

These books can all be used, that's not really important. Just let people know that I'm not asking for money, i'm asking for used books that once the year is finished will be donated to the school's library.


Thanks!

Viernes

We've been here about a week and things are going well (how do you summarize a week of living in a new culture?). It turns out one of the members backed out yesterday so BECA is scrambling to figure out how they will replace her. She, Nora, was scheduled to teach 3rd grade. Tim may end up teaching 3rd grade or we may have to bring in someone new (so if you read this and you're interested don't be afraid to apply). All this week we've been doing training with two teachers who are trained in ESL teaching. We split into upper (5-9) and lower (kinder-4) school in the afternoon and talk about different things such as theory and direct lesson planning ideas and activities. It's been really helpful for all of us and I think we're all feeling more adequately prepared to take on the task. This is the first year BECA has done this I believe. In the morning I have private spanish tutoring sessions with Ms. Sandra for 2 hrs. The time really flies by and I'm starting to pick up on the language. Ms. Sandra doesn't speak a lot of english, but this is good for me. The only time we really speak english is when we're going over vocab and she can't communicate what the word is. Yesterday we went to the supermarket and walked around and she'd point to stuff and hold it up and say it's name in spanish. The hands on learning is really helpful. We had a party the other night at Don Will's house. Don Will is part of the administracion/ the board of people who help make decisions for the school. He's a really nice guy who does a lot for the school. The administracion is throwing a party for us tonight at school that should be fun. Hopefully i'll be able to puut pictures up of the school at some point, cause describing it would be difficult.

Well hola hola.

Well we're here in Cofradia. The two flights were a mere 2 hours each. The seat I was on the second flight seemed to have been constructed for someone whose height was 5'5". We were picked up from the airport and were driven with two other girls, Allison and Tyler. There are currently two houses. A main one and a lower one. I'm in the lower one for now but that's temporary as many of the members of the team will be heading out to stay in homestays for the next little while (not sure how long that is). A chorus of roosters awaited me last night as I lay my head down on my pillow. Today we went into san pedro, a nearby city. It was like a 30 minute bus ride for 18 L. The people here are real nice, you can just tell with the ones arriving that they're a little more tentative than Chrissy and I are. I think you can attribute it to the fact that while Chrissy and I are coming down here, there is that sense of comfort since we know each other, these others are coming down here knowing nothing. They're all really nice though. More people are going to be arriving through the rest of the night.

Brian Rogers' Birthday.

Well, this will probably be the last post before we peace out of this hizzouse as my flight leave tomorrow morning and everyone else leaves the day after. Nathan and I are sitting in the lounge enjoying espresso compliments of the J.W. Marriott. We haven't really done much the last few days as compared to the rest of the trip. It's been a lot of sitting around, going for short walks, doing a little shopping, watching some DVD's... we're all pretty beat and enjoying our newfound ability to not feel like we're constantly on the move. I'm sure we'll make a visit will be made to the hot tub this evening as well.

Oh yeah, we had meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green beans for supper... the countdown to cajun filet biscuits begins

Well it's been a few days since the last update but I'll catch you up. After we got back from the Tiger Leaping Gorge we were hanging out in Lijiang, the town kinda slows down at 11:30 when all the dance music cuts off. There were some guys in one of the discos setting up a guitar, microphone, and djembe; we asked them if we could play and they gave Layne the guitar and we (Glitter and Gold with drum accompanists) played "Where the Streets Have No Name" in front of a bunch of people. The DJ of the club and I had been chilling earlier in the night (he had let me mix a little while people were dancing), he loved the sounds of Glitter and Gold. While we were in Lijiang, Brian fell in love with the inn keeper. He spent the afternoon working on Chinese characters to ask her to go dancing with him and later gave her a rose (that a businessman had given Nathan). We took a bus from Lijiang to Kunming overnight. Much to my disappointment, the movie was once again not "Cool Runnings." This bus ride was a different than the last. We left at around 6 in the afternoon and were able to see the country side due to the day light. We sped around the edges. There apparently wasn't a "no-smoking" sign and our co-passengers took full advantage. Now back in Shanghai Mr. Madden commented that 1/3 of the world's tobacco is smoked here and 1/2 the population smokes, these numbers seem completely reasonable after being in the country. Anywho, everyone around us smoked the entire ride, and being in a bus there was nowhere for the smoke to go. I woke up at around 3 as we sat stagnant in a line to get gas. Graham was talking to Brian, unable to sleep. Layne pleaded, " Don't wake them up, they'll start smoking!" Graham got quiet immediately. We pulled into Kunming at around 4 in the morning. It was still dark outside but I'm sure our bus was bright to the outside as 30 lighters were lit in an instant, then settling to a dull glow. We caught a mini-bus for 40 yuans intending to go to a hostel. We wanted to try a different hostle than the one we had stayed in previously. We drove around for a while when finally our driver pulled into an alley, he was extremely diligent in looking for this exact alleyway. Still dark outside, we unloaded our stuff outside a gate. Our driver looked at us confused but we waved cheerfully as he drove off (how I wish I could have been in his head as he drove away, wondering what we were doing). We turned and rang the doorbell to the hostel for someone to come let us in. Nothing happened. We peered into the building, but it stood black. We surmised the hostel to be closed. The buses started running at around 6 am and we headed to the other hostel. We spent some time there, went and ate some meals through the day and retired last night. This morning we woke up to catch our plane at around 6:30. We flew to Wuhan and then on to Shanghai. To get back to the Marriott we caught the Maglev into the city. I've read about them before but I had never ridden one. Top speed was about 430 km/h. We got to the Marriott where Mr. Madden was waiting for us with Tuna salad, fritos and lay's. We're going to eat supper here in a bit. We're all in pretty cheery moods and we plan on heading to the hot tub later. We're home in a few days.

"Why did the butterfly go to the counter? He wanted some butter." -Brian

Well it's been a while since the last update but needless to say we've been busy. We've spent the last couple days at Tiger Leaping Gorge. It was the 3 of the top 5 days we've had in China thus far. I'll recount the trip to the best of my ability. We left Lijiang around 10 am on sunday and took a mini bus 2 hrs through the mountains. The bus seated 6 plus the driver so we were crammed in with our luggage but the trip was fun. We wound through the mountains dodging the cars in the opposite lane while we played The Bends (Radiohead) through the speakers (nathan purchased a copy here for something like 15 yuans). We arrived at one end of the gorge and at lunch and left a lot of our things (for a small fee) at Jane's Guest House. To be quite honest, Jane's true gender was in great debate over the course of Sunday. Most of us agreed that she was in fact a he, dressing and acting like a woman. So we headed out from Jane's and headed up the trail. The trip was a lot more than we expected in many ways. 1) It was far more beautiful than we expected. 2) It was far more difficult than we expected. I will touch on the latter first. The first day involved us climbing something like 1000 m (this is me guessing at this point). To make the trip more difficult at the top of the mountain we climbed we came to realize that we were something like 12,000 feet above sea level (different maps were saying different things, different websites have said different things so we're just putting it together as best as we can). It was difficult to catch your breath at points. The beginning of the trail was highlighted by heavy rain and lightning (thunder which fantastically echoed through the gorge) and a section called "The 28 Bends." When we reached the top we looked across the river to the other side and gazed at humongous snow capped mountains. It wasn't like anything we have on the east coast and I don't know if there's anything (that I've seen) on the west coast that stand as tall. We descended down the other side and spent the night at a place called Tea-Horse Trade Guest House. Layne got sick on Sunday night (he suspects something Jane(Jon) cooked at lunch). The next day Graham, Brian, Nathan and I decided to hike down to the road and then we made our way down to the river that carved the gorge. To the river we're guessing we climbed 800 m. This is another example of where words can't do the image justice. The gorge is monstrous in size. You would look down at the water and believe yourself to be almost there and then be astounded at how much further you had left to descend. In all it took us about 4 or so hours on Monday. Tuesday (today) Layne was feeling better but not up for finishing the hike so he and Katie descended down to the road to catch a cab where they would meet us back at Jane's (Jon's). The rest of us hiked on to the end of the gorge which ended up taking between 3.5 and 4 hrs. It was another amazing day of hiking. We passed through huge waterfalls, breezed by goats feeding on the side of cliffs, all the while with the gorge to our right. We caught a mini bus from Tina's back to Jane's (Jon's) where we met up with Katie and Layne. The ride back to Lijiang was fun as Jane (Jon) offered us 2 buses for the price of one because she had too many drivers at her house and they needed to go back. So we split up (Brian and Nathan with me) and we headed back Lijiang. It was a great trip. We got the same driver with whom we had driven up. I rode shotgun and we played Beatles and then a little Dylan (which he seemed to enjoy). We picked up a woman with fruit along the way and we suspect it to have been his wife. She gave us plums, which we peeled before we ate. We're back in Lijiang now at a Youth Hostel. We have our overnight bus tickets from here to Kunming for Thursday night. We arrive in Kunming Friday at 4:30 am so as you're gettin off work think of us as we're getting up the next day after an 8 hour drive. Saturday morning we're flying from Kunming to Shanghai. Then back to the U.S.A. And oh yes, Layne is doing better now and is pretty much back at 100% as it appears to have been a combination of quick altitude change and perhaps something Jane (Jon) cooked him.

Happy Birthday Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen from the Chinese Colonial Williamsburg

The guys on the trip agree that today might have been the best day of the journey thus far (it's only rival being the day we saw the Great Wall). Katie stayed back for a relaxing day around the city while the guys rented bikes and headed out past the city. Once we got out into the country the landscape was beautiful. Fields in every direction, set against the backdrop of a mountain that would tower anything we have in the Appalachians (called Windy Mountain, we do believe). I write this blog now because the day was so exhausting that we don't have the energy for much else. While we were biking (possibly a little under an hour into our bike) we ran into a Chinese couple. The proceeded to show us to Windy Mountain Lake. The water was extremely tranquil. We separated ways with our friends and kept biking. We found our way to a village. At first we just stopped for a bit of water. To our right was a full basketball court and the guy at the store threw us a basketball. We were shooting around when people started walking up. We started out playing 3 on 3 with a gentleman (perhaps in his 40's or 50's). Quickly word spread in the village of the westerners who were there playing basketball. People started to show up (probably 25- 30 in all). A bunch of men in the village came out wearing matching jerseys (the man we were playing with would eventually go back to get his). Before we knew it we were playing a 5 on 5 full court game against the village team. We were kinda just playing around but one of the guys went and got a whistle and started reffing. We ended up playing something like 4 20-30 minute quarters and played for something like 2-3 hrs in total. It was absolutely amazing. We loved that their team came out in uniform to play us. Sadly we didn't demolish them or even beat them. We left the village in the afternoon and began to make our way back Lijiang. We were worn out from the basketball and we struggled a good bit (cutting through open fields). When we were finally back in the city most of us were pretty dehydrated (most of us were dizzy with headaches). Nathan and I hadn't really eaten all day and it had been something like 8 hrs since the others had eaten. Nathan made his way back to the hostel to lay down while the rest of us grabbed some KFC. We all agreed that it's been a while since we were this tired and the trip to the gorge tomorrow will probably be moved back. Still, one of the best days here so far. We took pictures with the villagers and we're going to print off copies of them to take as gifts for their hospitality and friendliness.