The number one middle school

Sunday adventures on the farm

Today we spent with Stacy and John who host agricultural and education workshops at their 35 acre farm outside the city of Lingcang. They have lived here for 10 years and homeschool 3 kids. We were able to learn tons about the challenges of living abroad and the fulfillment of bringing valuable skills to empower local people. It was an inspiring and refreshing time. Their kids are selling golden retriever puppies for a business venture, so we got to play in the yard with them and try to catch frogs with a fishnet in the pond.

We all enjoyed a meaningful meeting with other likeminded families followed by PB and J sandwiches, which was a taste of home. This trip is quickly broadening my horizons about my future possibilities of working overseas.

Excerpt from Daniel's journal:
"Its 6:55 am on a Sunday morning, and life around the school campus appears to be business as usual. Weekends dont really exist around here. The wakeup alarm goes off (which is a pretty tune blaring over staticky loudspeakers that sound like happy birthday) and the sound of feet coming down the stairs in our dorm building fills the air. As i look outside, i can count 60 rooms in each dorm building. At 7-8 boys per room, i figure about 480 students. There are 4 buildings for boys and 5 for girls, so i estimate total capacity to be about 4320 students.

At 7 am i follow uniformed students jogging towards the smell of burning coal into the cafeteria for another breakfast consisting of rice noodle soup with white steamed buns filled with some kind of spicy vegetable or red bean relish. I watch as the kids slurp their noodles with chopsticks in silence and run off to class before Beethoven's Fifth is played over the loudspeakers (apparently serving as a tardy bell).

In the distance you can hear the sound of perpetual construction in the Lingcang valley. Cranes, bulldozers, quarries, and hundreds of diesel trucks work to haul rocks, rebar, and cement around to build the next apartment highrise. With a sliht breeze, the air is fairly clean today, but the mountains can quickly trap the smog."

Life in China. Students get phone calls on weekends from parents, and many wait for their biennial vacation to see family.

We miss you all and we welcome comments on this entry below! Any messages from home? We are too busy to get homesick, but Robert definitely looks forward to a hamburger!