Big Booms and Sirens

Home:
First, I think I have finally out-smarted my ayi! She washes my sweatpants EVERY TIME and not having a drier means that 4 out of 7 days of the week, I have no sweatpants. I've tried hiding them from her, but she always finds them. I've tried putting them in my closet, folded so precariously that they HAVE to be clean. But no, she washes them anyway. So this morning, I have a new strategy. I'm leaving them on the drying rack in that hopes that she will find them right where she left them, just out of the washer. OOOooooOOO. Maybe, we'll see!!!

Back to the big booms and sirens.
I've said it many times, but it's just so true: If China were to ever go to war, no one would ever know it. The constant fireworks and echoing booms go unnoticed by all. And I gotta admit, sometimes I have to focus on the sound to realize what I'm hearing. But last weekend, in the middle of our International Game Day, a loud wailing siren went off, and just didn't stop; the type of siren that suggests you should be ducking for cover for an earthquake or a tsunami. Once again NO REACTION from anyone in the crowd. After a good 15 seconds, I figured if it was an earthquake, it probably would've happened by then, and just let it go. But if there is ever a real emergency here, I think it would take a lot of convincing the public for there to be any safety measures taken. Oh and that siren was actually to commemorate a past earthquake in China. But it was no different than the normal earthquake siren. I guess you have to be sure of your history around here.

Last weekend we also had a big craw fish cook out at Cup of Joe's. There was a huge turn out, and some guy with a white cowboy hat cooking up all the fixins. There were several guitars, a fire, and a good time had by all. My favorite part was when the Li Ren guards did their nightly march by. It's the most pointless display I've ever seen. They get together about 12 of our community guards-who-do-nothing-but-smile-and-wave, and make them march the whole perimeter of Li Ren at 7 am and 7 pm. When they past our hearty group, several of the older European gentlemen started to sing "Hi ho! Hi ho! It's off to work we go!" We all started giggling :) Even the guards!


School:
I was really proud of one elf who put together almost a whole sentence as she encouraged our class fish to eat a piece of food that was eluding him. We just need to work on word order:
"I want eat fish!!! I want eat fish!!!"

One elf wanted me to help him make a spider in the Art Center. This is code for helping him to trace and cut out his hand print. I'm not sure why they've decided to call that little project a spider, but when they ask for a spider, I know exactly what they want. One of my new elves, (who has very limited English but I've taught her a few animals names) flipped out when she heard the word "spider". Her eyes got really big and welled up and she was about to run and hug me. The best part is, she can't pronounce the /s/ sound yet, and I guess /d/ must be a little difficult too, because with her horrified look she yelled, "piter???!!!" and frantically looked around, her eyes asking "Where?!?!"

Butterfly is actually another animal name that my new Korean elves have mastered. The butterflies they see are actually white winged moths, but I'm not one to judge. It used to be a death sentence whenever I could hear "Butterfly!!!!" yelled on the playground, because there were about 20 Early Years students in hot pursuit. The kindergarten however just planted a garden outside my window, and they've been looking for the suspected insect that has been nibbling on their plants. This week, one of the kindergartners watched as a giant moth landed right on his plant and took a big bite. Since then, the whole Early Years department has been very disenchanted with the so called good-for-nothing 'butterflies'.

2 year olds, and a lot of times 3 year olds, really enjoy the word 'no'. That drives me bonkers. Especially to little elves whose often only way of communicating is through showing emotion. Their English just isn't good enough to explain why they're upset. So I've been working on the phrase, "no thank you". They know that when they hear, "no thank you", they have to stop and think about what they might be doing that could be causing a problem. I usually gravitate towards the "no thank yous" to make sure the problem is solved without physical-ness. I realized the elves may be misinterpreting this phrase when they started to say to the tape dispenser, "no thank you" with gusto, each time the tape stuck to itself.


Mandarin Class
This week, I had Mandarin class with just Shelley. I practiced reading to her, answering written questions, and quizzed her on some soccer vocab. I'm typically the idiot still driving down the field while everyone else is screaming "hand ball!" or "penalty" in Mandarin and I just have no idea.

Tuesdays with June was also fun. One of the other students asked about this restaurant down the street. There's always a cage outside with a chicken, or pheasant or quail ...and sometimes to our horror, a dog. The student wanted to know if that was a way of advertising tonight's special since those animals are usually gone by the next day. One of the other students had dawning comprehension on his face as he sighed, "Ohhhh, so that explains the goat!!!" ...........