Friday evening, I arrived in Mianyang with the other volunteers. Two teachers from the Children's Palace (I'm not kidding - that's really the name of our school) came to meet us and they brought us over to the Palace. We are all living on one of the top floors of the school, and are perpetually serenaded by the concerts taking place in the auditorium next door (by perpetually I mean from 8:00 AM to about 5:00 PM every day). Our bathrooms are composed of four holes in the ground separated by three foot high walls (and without doors, so entirely visible from the entrance to the bathroom) and a very large communal shower with about eight shower heads. There's really cold water or just cold water, but it's so hot here that I don't mind it at all. My bunk is basically a comforter on top of a wooden board, but I find it strangely comfortable.
According to our schedules, we're supposed to teach four classes a day, at 9:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 3:00 PM and 5:00 PM (each lasts an hour). The kids are usually either 6 - 8 or 9 - 11 years old. And we have to teach every day except for Mondays, which, honestly, is a little much. I don't know how the English teachers here manage to teach 6 days a week for eight hours a day. I think it's a little crazy. We're asking for weekends off (well, Sunday at least) because, when we signed up, they said we'd have the weekends free. After all, I do want to be able to make a trip or two to Chengdu!
Although I've loved teaching so far and the kids are a lot a fun, I have been a little frustrated with how patronizing the school is sometimes. We were told not to leave the school when we arrived, which I found a bit much. That and a few other things have just been hard for me to stand. I've explained to a few teachers that I've been in China for a year now and am pretty good at situating myself and getting around in unfamiliar places. They look at me in strange disbelief sometimes and don't seem very interested in what I've seen of China but there's not much I can do about that. I certainly don't assume I "know" China or anything else like that, but it's a little irritating that a long year of experience is just tossed aside so easily.
Anyways, other than that, I'm having a great time. The food is great, people are interesting, and the students are fun.
So glad to see this series of posts, Margaux! Net connections in Dubrovnik were either highly unreliable, nonexistent, or very expensive, so I kept it to a minimum. Had a really great time there, and now glad to be home.
ReplyDeleteSounds like you're having quite a different experience this time, eh? I hope you can adapt to the rigid schedule as well as you can to the plywood board. They'd never get away with advertising a six day work week, so then they spring it on you when you get there. I'm looking forward to hearing more about your reflections on life post-graduation. Hang in there!
Love,
Dad