Accents, Arts And Egg Fried Rice| 4 min read
I assisted in the first class of the morning again today with another volunteer and the children greeted me with a huge “hello” before they settled down for their English lesson. The first part of the class was spent reviewing introductions before moving on to big and small. There was a small stampede as the volunteer teacher asked the students to go and find an object and bring it back to the table. Cindy, an little girl with beautiful almond shaped eyes presented me with a pumpkin, her object of choice, when I took it from her she quickly grabbed it back and said “noooo!” with a very mischievous smile! The children were learning how to form sentences, which used “bigger than” and “smaller than”. It was a really creative lesson and they certainly seemed to enjoy it!
It was also arts and crafts day today and at 10:30am I went to the second floor of the school where tables overflowed with colourful plastercine, glitter, cut out shapes and masks. I really like the fact that the students are constantly engaged in such different activities, whereby they can express themselves and their individual personalities. It was fun to see the kids all enjoying themselves, making their masterpieces and I must say they are a talented little bunch!
It was then back downstairs for lunch of bao zi (steamed breads filled with meat and vegetables) before I was set my next project to work on. Having already shared with the volunteer head coordinator my passion for photography and designing, I was asked to produce an invitation for the upcoming Christmas fundraising event. Already feeling a little artsy from this mornings craft activities I excitedly accepted the challenge and got to work on my mac designing.
At 1:30 pm it was time for my class! Today I was working with an older student on conversational English and pronunciation. I already knew that her English was really good but I was surprised at how well she was absorbing what I was teaching her. We spoke about how there are so many accents it sometimes gets confusing and what her hobbies were. I really felt an instant bond with her and the time just seemed to fly by! I’m looking forward to having class with her again tomorrow.
It really was an action packed day here at the orphanage as in the afternoon an auction was held. Visitors from a company in Beijing stopped by to join in on an arts and crafts auction and it was really fun to watch! Two of the children’s paintings were sold that had been done on canvass as well as some cards and drawings.
I have just returned from a fun evening out with some of the foreigners that work here and another volunteer. We rode tandem bikes into the nearest village of Dou Dian to a place they call “grandma’s restaurant”. It was a tiny and extremely local restaurant where we were to have a cooking class!
We each chose a dish to make from menu and the old lady (or grandma) showed us how to make it. I chose ‘Chao fan’ (egg fried rice) as every time I had try to make it at home it had always gone wrong! (or catches on fire) I found the trick was to use sugar (in fact she seemed to use sugar in everything!) and hey presto within minutes I was dishing up my specialty egg fried rice! We sat down to eat our Chinese creations together and feasted on a banquet of eggplant and potatoes, kung pao chicken and vegetables before hopping back on the tandem bikes for the ride back to the farm.
