Weekend of July 9 and 10

Saturday, July 9
I had a day long training for the Anhui Roots and Shoots Project. The entire training session was in Chinese. Awesome. Good thing there were materials printed in English. I even had to introduce myself in Chinese-which was actually kind of fun. I also found out that there is a research component to the project, we will be going around the village to the families conducting research by having them fill out surveys about health and hygiene.

After a morning full of sitting and listening to the project leaders go through the information, we had lunch. Everyone in the project has a teaching partner. Mine is 18 years old and just finished her Junior year of high school. She is super nice and her English is great. Excellent for me! She translated some of the important parts of the presentation that I couldn’t understand. My partner and I will teach three lessons in English and about holidays. I don’t really feel like it’s necessary to share about American culture. They live in a rural village, do they need English or clean water?

Anyway. After we had time to plan our lessons with our partners, we worked on making garden pots for some environmental garden thing. We cut 2 liter pop bottles in half and then they will plant veggies and such in them. I know that’s a horrible explanation, but maybe I can take a picture of it while I’m there. After that we helped box up all the goods we will be taking to the village. This part made me super happy, helping to get all the goods ready to be delivered. There were boxes of shampoo, conditioner, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, cooking supplies, non perishable food, toys, clothes, shoes, coats, bags. woohooo.

Saturday night I had sushi for dinner. My second time having sushi. It was pretty good. I tried caviar (I’m not sure how to spell that) for the first time. It just tasted like salt!

Sunday, July 10
Sunday morning I went to church with one of the girls who lives on my floor. She is from HongKong and her mom and brother were visiting for the weekend so they came as well. That was fun to meet her family. In the afternoon, I went shopping at a huge bargain center with my roommate. Huge=like 5 buildings with 8 stories each. Who happens to be a beast at bargaining/bartering. I got a dress, a shirt, two purses ($5 USD EACH! WOOHOO!), a mirror and a belt. All the clothes are super small, so it was really hard to find something in my size. We had xiao long bao for dinner with one of the guys in the program whom she tutors.

I feel like the huge bargaining center thing would not work in the US. I feel like most Americans like to know where their clothes are coming, they like to buy clothes from stores and brands that they know and trust, not from some random person with clothes from who knows where spread out on the ground or in a stall.

Also when I was bargaining with the dress we were debating on the size. There were two sizes that looked like they might fit me. They lady said that I could pay for the dress and then try it on in the bathroom and if it didn’t fit I could get the other size. Uhmm no way would that fly in merica. I hardly ever buy a piece of clothing without trying it on at home. And the idea of buying it and then trying it on, what if the style doesn’t fit me or look good on me? Anyway I liked it and knew that one of the sizes would fit, so I paid for it ($20 USD for the dress and the shirt, kinda pricey) and then the lady showed me the bathroom.

The bathroom was the kind where there are two troughs on each side. There are no doors. Huge room, like 20-30 stalls. Awesome. And yes, of course I whipped my shirt off and tried on the dress right there. And walked out to the mirror and then showed my roommate. Luckily it fit. And then went back and changed into my shirt, in front of like 5 girls doing the same exact thing, and 15 Chinese women urinating.